Klarinet Archive - Posting 001038.txt from 2001/02

From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Landler of Mozart
Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2001 21:17:13 -0500

Fred, thanks for the information, but I'm always concerned about using
the practices of today and presuming that they were carried down
unchanged for 200 years. To go to a contemporary Oktoberfest and use
the dance style being done at such a thing gives me very little comfort
that what I am seeing is what was being done ca. 1780. In fact, I'll
take a further step. It is almost a certainty that what is being done
today (even under the same name) is quite different from what was being
done in the past.

Your suggestion that the Landler is not a slow dance contradicts the
variety of books on music history that I (and others on this list) have
been looking at. The standard text suggests that the Landler was slower
than the minuet.

I don't suggest that you are wrong, only that the premise that
contemporary activity is a mirror of the past is questionable.

Dan

fred jacobowitz wrote:
>
> 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).
>

--
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** Dan Leeson **
** leeson0@-----.net **
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