Description
Les Grâces is a graceful G major dance in 6/8, its tune lifting lightly over a rocking two-in-a-bar pulse. It belongs to a mid-nineteenth-century Dublin publication, the second set of Lancers' Quadrilles from Duval. The Lancers was a variety of quadrille in which four couples faced one another in a square, popular in fashionable London ballrooms of the day. No composer is named. Its title, Les Grâces, is French for the Graces, the three goddesses of beauty and charm in Greek mythology; giving each part of the dance a French name is the custom of the quadrille.
It is in G major and 6/8, about 43 seconds long with 228 notes. It has more notes than La Native, also in 6/8, and its range climbs as high as C6. Over a swaying rhythm felt as two broad beats to the bar, the right hand traces a light melody while the left hand supports it. Even in so short a span, its phrases fall clearly into question and answer.
It is rated intermediate, though its small size lets you take in the whole piece quickly. The task is to keep the right-hand melody light without losing the two-beat flow of 6/8. Spanning D2 to C6, it can be played on a 61-key instrument. Slow the playback to check the hand colours, loop any spot where the fingering is unsettled with A-B looping, and then return to the original speed.
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Sheet music provided by Mutopia Project
About the Composer
Anonymous
Pieces that carry no composer's name. The two here, La Native and Les Grâces, both come from The Lancers' Quadrilles, a set published in the mid-nineteenth century as the second set of Duval of Dublin: music for a dance of four couples that was in fashion in London assembly rooms. Ladoiska from the same set names Kreutzer, whose opera supplied its tune, and is filed under his page.
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