Erato Allemande

Description

Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer was a German keyboard composer of the generation before Bach. Erato is one of the suites in Musicalischer Parnassus, a collection whose suites are named after the nine Muses of Greek myth; Erato is the Muse of love poetry. This allemande follows the suite's prelude as its first dance.

It is in E minor and 4/4. The allemande, a dance of German origin with a calm duple pulse, normally stands as the first dance of a Baroque suite. Here too, at a settled tempo, the upper and lower voices pass fine figures back and forth. The two hands have almost the same number of notes, and the left hand moves melodically rather than merely accompanying. It lasts about one minute forty and contains around 500 notes.

It is rated intermediate. The range, E2 to F-sharp 5, fits on a 61-key keyboard. Because both hands are equally busy, use the hand colours to follow how the voices hand material to each other, and slow the playback so you can hear each voice as you play. The data uses a harpsichord sound; on a piano, keep the downbeats light and the figuration flowing rather than leaning on the decay of each note.

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