[Magdalen] R.I.P. Dave Brubeck

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

Five - Four was popular in the late nineteenth century.  Tchaikovsky uses
it beautifully in the second movement of his Symphony no. 6, "the
Pathetique."

Here's an arrangement for cello and keyboard:

http://tinyurl.com/nr37f9h

All of these funky time signatures are generally compound -- that is the
5/4 music is actually in regularly repeating 3/4 + 2/4.  7/4 is generally
2/4 + 2/4 + 3/4 or some other constantly repeated pattern.  It is highly
hypnotic, as is the case with the Tchaikovsky. I didn't believe it the
first time someone pointed out, "It's in 5/4 time, you know." Then, as I
mentally stepped through the music, I realized he was right. "One - two -
three  One - two, One - two - three  One - two" etc.  So elegantly crafted
I never saw that it was a compound time signature...

And even though they go much faster -- and generally follow some specific
dance moves -- ethnic music works pretty much the same way. When
you've grown up with it, it's second nature, sort of like pulling those
beats out of line in a certain way while doing the tango.

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

On Mon, Dec 7, 2015 at 11:30 PM, Scott Knitter <scottknitter at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hmm...the mind spins, trying to remember 5/4 movements of sonatas. Paul
> Creston's, maybe? Or Tableaux de Provence? The memories!
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> > On Dec 7, 2015, at 5:50 PM, Grace Cangialosi <gracecan at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I never encountered 5- or 7-beat meters until I got to college, and the
> > first time nearly did me in!  I was accompanist for a saxophonist, and
> one
> > movement of a sonata was in 5/4 time. By the time I was a senior and
> played
> > piano in the Britten "War Requiem," the 7/4 movement (The "Lacrymosa,"
> > maybe?) held few terrors.
>