Dancing masters, music and memory
I’m thoroughly enjoying Eric McKee’s book Decorum of the minuet, delirium of the waltz: a study of dance-music relations in 3/4 time. There are books that you grow up with…
The rarity of truly triple metre
If you’ve been following this blog recently, you know that I’m a little obsessed with time signature and metre in the 18th & 19th centuries (see Compound errors and Counting…
Playing for ballet class tips #9: for ‘waltz’ read ‘mazurka’ for pirouettes
Even though teachers often ask for a ‘waltz’ for pirouettes on a 3, sometimes (in fact, most times) what works much better is a mazurka. Not the character-type mazurka that…
Zorn’s ‘Grammar’ online, for all your polka mazurka needs
I got my copy of Zorn’s ‘Grammar’ via Abe Books a few years ago, but it occurred to me that it must surely be out of copyright, and digitised by…
Johann Strauss the African
Andre Rieu’s album of Strauss Waltzes and other bon-bons, Forever Vienna, is number 1 in the classical album charts this year, and beat Susan Boyle’s album in the top ten…
Musical surprises #23: Vauxhall, Strauss & Tchaikovsky
Although the light and popular dance rhythms of Johann Strauss II seem a sociocultural world away from the ‘classical’ Tchaikovsky, they’re not. It’s our own snobbery that obscures the connections…