81: Minuets

Now that we’re pivoting our discussion of form into dances, I needed to look no further than my own Suzuki roots when deciding how to go about this. Paying homage to the early days, we’ll start with the minuet, a French courtly dance. I don’t know why, but these dances were extraordinarily popular in the Baroque periods, then slightly less so in the Classical, and they completely fell off the map in the Romantic. 

These dances were usually at quite moderate tempi, and the strongest beat was always the first. (Believe it or not, there were several forms for which this was not the case—we’ll cover one such case next.) Structurally, they were almost always in rounded binary with repeats. (That last fact, the presence of the repeats, I contend, is the single most contributing factor to my stage fright which arose from a studio recital mishap in 2009 and persists to this day.) 


Let’s now go on a tour of some significant minuets in my life:


1. From the G minor French Suite (which I didn’t know when I was learning it at the time, but this same Suite will show up in my life again years after the fact; this was the first minuet I learned): 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lBnw5KhSoc&list=RD7lBnw5KhSoc&start_radio=1 (this is pretty close to the tempo I learned it at)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9alTNDGaBY&list=RD_9alTNDGaBY&start_radio=1 (here it is for harpsichord, as originally written, slightly faster, at a typical tempo)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO69MCdCzU0&list=RDPO69MCdCzU0&start_radio=1 (and here is a Suzuki teacher playing it, accompanied by the same Suzuki accompaniment track I listened to)

2. From the Notebook for Anna Magdalena (which Bach wrote to teach his second wife—a soprano—and their 13 children, the fundamentals of the keyboard), we have actually a 2-for-1 deal. (That actually makes the binary form recursive: There is an A minuet, a B minuet, and an A minuet, and each of those minuets is itself in ABA form) The first minuet you’ll hear, in major, was one I learned not long after the minuet in the previous bullet point (that one is #13 in the first Suzuki volume, this is #15). The second one, in minor, is an addition that comes when you circle back to it in Suzuki book 3, where now you play major-minor-major:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWfNudrNY1Q&list=RDqWfNudrNY1Q&start_radio=1 

3. This next minuet is surely the latest of all the minuets I’ll leave for you today, written by Beethoven in the Classical period. 


Our first reference recording is from Sesame Street, believe it or not—and I used this recording far more than I did the official Suzuki reference when I was learning it because it’s Itzhak Perlman’s, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve had nothing but the deepest admiration for him—so of course I’m going to use his recording if I’m ever playing something he recorded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOin9N7SYyA&list=RDbOin9N7SYyA&start_radio=1 


This next reference recording is pure piano, of the whole set WoO 10 (which just means it’s the 10th unpublished—i.e., without a formal Opus number designation—work by Beethoven), of which the one I learned is WoO 10 #2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgEPHtOC_r0

4. This next minuet is perhaps the most famous one of all, and to some, is the epitome of the “posh, classical, drinking-tea-with-your-pinkies-up” image of classical music and musicians, from the E major quintet of Boccherini (though the minuet itself is in A): 


Here we have a recording by the Latvian cellist Mischa Maisky

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyDntw32SuY&list=RDkyDntw32SuY&start_radio=1


Here it is in the original quintet form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biwNs6P6bug&list=RDbiwNs6P6bug&start_radio=1


And here it is for organ:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5vfdUhh1uk&list=RDG5vfdUhh1uk&start_radio=1 


5. Finally, here is another minuet by Bach, this time coming from the first cello suite (the suites, BWV 1007-1012, and the related BWV 1001-1006 for violin, are sets of dances for one instrument—violin or cello):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq9qIkTS-O0&list=RDoq9qIkTS-O0&start_radio=1 


Here is Yo-Yo Ma playing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtvKC7Y-rPg&list=RDJtvKC7Y-rPg&start_radio=1 


And Slava Rostropovich: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1iihbqkTRc&list=RDI1iihbqkTRc&start_radio=1 


And Pau Casals (more on him and the Suites soon): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF4pdGnZFME&list=RDjF4pdGnZFME&start_radio=1



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