Description
Ladoiska is a brisk B-flat major dance in 2/4, borrowing its tune from the opera stage rather than writing one for the ballroom. It appears in the second set of Lancers' Quadrilles published by Duval of Dublin in the mid-nineteenth century, music for the square dance of four couples then in vogue at Almack's and other London assembly rooms. The title Ladoiska comes from Lodoïska, the opera by the violinist and composer Rodolphe Kreutzer (1766-1831) first performed in Paris in 1791, and the sheet music names Kreutzer as composer most likely because the tune is taken from that opera. Whoever arranged it for piano is not named.
It is in B-flat major and 2/4. It lasts about fifty seconds and contains 293 notes, a compact piece. A melody sits over a brisk two-beat stride, and the range runs from B-flat 1 to the B-flat exactly four octaves higher, B-flat 5. It is built from well-balanced phrases that follow the sections of the dance.
It is rated intermediate and moves at about six notes a second. Keeping the lightness of 2/4 means not leaning too hard on the first beat and playing the small notes evenly. Lower the playback speed to check how the notes run, repeat the fast figures with A-B looping, then return to full speed. The lowest note, B-flat 1, falls just below a 61-key keyboard, but an octave shift fits every note on 61 keys.
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Sheet music provided by Mutopia Project
About the Composer
Rodolphe Kreutzer (1766-1831)
Rodolphe Kreutzer was a French violinist and composer, best known as the dedicatee of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata. He taught violin at the Paris Conservatoire and left the 42 Études that violin students still use. He also wrote many operas, and Lodoïska, first performed in 1791, was the work that made his name. This site has Ladoiska, a dance on its tune from the mid-nineteenth-century set The Lancers' Quadrilles.
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