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From: anderson@uwvax.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.music.classical
Subject: Re: minuet tempi
Message-ID: <234@uwvax.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 30-Apr-84 21:34:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwvax.234
Posted: Mon Apr 30 21:34:48 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 1-May-84 19:22:10 EDT
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 15

Hang on a minute--
minuets are in 3/4 time.  Shouldn't one express the tempo in terms
of the dotted half (not half)?

It's not clear to me that one can talk about a "generic" minuet tempo.
Measure = 80 might be OK for some Bach or Mozart minuets, but if you
played the first movement of Beethoven's op. 54 piano sonata (which is
marked "tempo di minuetto") at that speed it would be insanely fast.

A question: are waltzes and minuets birds of a different feather from
a rhythmic point of view?  I tend to play waltzes (e.g. Chopin) at a
much more consistent tempo, possibly because I know how to waltz (barely)
but I have no idea of how to "minuet".

--  David Anderson (...seismo!uwvax!anderson)