Description
Two lean lines, a busy right hand and a walking left, weave together almost without chords in this D minor dance, No. 8 of the first part. The source is Traditioner af Swenska Folk-Dansar, a three-part book of Swedish folk dances from the early 1800s that wrote countryside dance tunes down for the keyboard without naming who made them. It lasts just under a minute.
In D minor and 3/4. The right hand moves busily in eighths and sixteenths and reaches as high as D6. The left hand keeps walking, mostly in eighth notes, and goes down to a low D2. There are hardly any chords in either hand; the piece runs as two lines woven together, a clean and lean texture. Hearing how the two lines meet is also a way into the piece.
It is rated intermediate. With 424 notes in 59 seconds it is denser than the shorter pieces in the collection. The task is to keep the right-hand sixteenths even while never letting the left-hand eighths stall. Slow the playback first and follow the two lines by their hand colours, settle the fingering, and then bring the tempo back up step by step.
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Sheet music provided by Mutopia Project
About the Composer
Traditional
'Traditional' refers not to a single composer but to folk melodies and dances passed down through oral tradition across various regions. This site includes 57 such pieces, including Nordic folk dances, reflecting the distinct character of music rooted in place and community rather than individual composition.
View all works by Traditional →