Fourteen National Dances, op. 24

In these Balli Nazionali Giuliani gives fourteen national dances, most of them with Italian titles, although there are also the fandango which is Spanish, an ecossaise, and La Miledi which is no doubt the English My Lady. La Tirolese is a song or dance of the Tirol in which it seems that we hear yodelling. But the gem of this collection is the tarantella, commonly danced with guitar and tambourine accompaniment. These 14 Balli Nazionali, unlike the others in the book Dances of 1810 (also in nkoda), probably contain not so much dances from the ordinary life of Vienna at that time, but rather Giuliani’s recollection of dances, especially Italian ones, which he knew. The Tarantella (no. 14) alone makes this collection worthwhile. Goethe was enthusiastic about the frenzied energy of this dance, and Emma Hamilton herself danced it. It doesn’t have a written-out ending but seems to go on and on. No. 3: “alla Savojarda” means in the Savoyan style. Bars 9-12: the bass here would probably have been played using the left hand thumb to stop notes in the bass. No. 4: Rena means “sand” in Italian. No. 6: La Galoppato: the galop was a well-known dance. “A due corde” probably means to play all the upper notes of all this section on the second and third strings, that is to say beginning by playing the first note, D, on the third string at the seventh fret. No. 7: bars 2 and 6: one would expect a sharp on the Fs, but the original doesn’t put one (twice). Players should decide for themselves whether or not to play F sharp. No. 13 is the same piece as no. 4 in the 12 Ecossaises op. 33 (also in nkoda). It follows the same pattern as alternate pieces in op. 33, in that the first half is in A, the second half in the relative minor C. No. 14: You might accelerate this tarantella as it goes on! The Ricordi Enciclopedia della Musica of 1964 says that the tarantella is “iniziata lentamente e a Poco a poco accelerata fino al parossismo” (‘is started slowly and then accelerated to the point of paroxysm’). How to end a tarantella? This one seems to be in perpetual motion, moto perpetuo, and has no final bar. Some composers of the 19th century and after did indeed consider the tarantella as an example of perpetual motion. In this piece, every four-bar section begins with an A chord, so when the time comes to end the piece, unless you decide just to fade out (which might be an option), it could be done by playing a simple A chord to end. At bars 4 and 8, the D sharp in the bass against the E in the melody, especially as it comes twice, is no doubt intentional in this wild dance. For more about these and other dances by Giuliani, including more about performance practice, see the book Dances of 1810 by Giuliani which is in nkoda.