Klarinet Archive - Posting 001029.txt from 2001/02

From: fred jacobowitz <fbjacobo@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Landler of Mozart
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 19:05:11 -0500

Dan,
A Landler is hardly a "SLOW" dance. However, it
is considerably slower than the Waltz. The Landler is
actually similar in both feel and speed to the Minuet.
A standard speed is: Quarter-note = 144-156 on the
metronome. If you want to see a Landler done, go to
any Oktoberfest or find a German Dance Troupe
performance and you'll get an idea of the steps.
Essentially, a Landler is a couple dance in which the
dancers face each other and spin around on the
circumference of an imaginary circle enclompassing
dance floor.
The typical rhythm of a Landler indeed has a
stress on the 3rd beat which is almost as large as
that of the downbeat. The second beat becomes the
weakest one. A classic example of the Landler is 2nd
strain of the 3rd movement of the Brahms Clarinet
Trio. It was common at the time for composers
(including Mozart) to use the Landler in their lighter
music, such as Divertimenti.
How do I know this? I am both a folk dancer (and
have danced Landlers) and a folk musician (so I've
played them for dancers).

--- Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net> wrote:
> It is clear that I am way off base with respect to
> Mozart writing no
> Landler. I am now staring at the music for the six
> dances of K. 606
> (which isn't very far away from K. 581 in time) and
> they are clearly
> labeled as Landler. What is also true, and far more
> important, is the
> fact that Landler 1, 4, 5, and 6 all have a thematic
> character not at
> all dissimilar to that of the 2nd trio of K. 581.
>
> So even if this trio is not marked as a Landler
> (which we will never
> know because the manuscript is lost) it seems to
> have the very character
> shown in 4 of the 6 dances of K. 606.
>
> Now having had that matter stuffed into my head by a
> lot of good people
> on this list, we now have two matters that need
> discussion. The first
> is that all the authorities on the Landler state
> that it is a SLOW dance
> in triple meter, and the second has to do with
> contemporary performance
> practices when playing such a movement.
>
> Tempo first: if the Landler is slow, how does this
> fact affect the
> playing of the minuet and trio 1 of K. 581. Do we
> have a three section
> movement in two different tempi; i.e., one for the
> minuet and the first
> trio, and another for the second trio? What
> precedent exists for such
> an in-movement tempo change. In fact, the tempo
> change would have to
> occur twice; i.e., once going into trio 2 and once
> at the da capo at the
> end of trio 2.
>
> I'm very uncomfortable with such tempo changes. But
> let's see what
> others have to say.
>
> Performance practice second: whenever I hear that
> trio played as if it
> were a landler, it seems to me that the
> characteristic I hear most often
> is that the player stretches the measures out with
> slow pickups leading
> to fast parts. Specifically beat 3 is played slowly
> and beats 1 and 2
> of the following measure played more raplidly.
>
> As a dance form, I am particularly concerned by a
> movement played with
> changes of tempo occurring so frequently within the
> movement. It seems
> to me that it would drive the dancers crazy.
>
> If, as has been suggested, the Landler turned into
> the waltz, how many
> waltzing couples do you see changing the tempo from
> measure to measure?
>
> So, then. What constitutes the things a player must
> do when executing a
> Landler?
> --
> ***************************
> ** Dan Leeson **
> ** leeson0@-----.net **
> ***************************
>
>
>
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