25 Practice Days until Christmas Eve . . .

November 28, 2006 at 11:25 AM

Well, Fantasia on Greensleeves is not "just" a little fun Christmas piece. Last night I had a serious pity party of "what have I gotten myself into?" My goal is to be an ensemble player, not a solo performer! I've been spending too much time on violinist.com! Aaargh.

But okay, it's a beautiful piece, and it's doable. Even by me. My church audience is generally a very friendly audience. Our decidedly amateur choir always gets many compliments. This will be fun, right? I even bought a new outfit.

So, what's the difference between Lento, lento moderato, and allegretto? Is it a meaningful difference in this piece? There are no metronome markings in my edition. What about cantabile vs. espressivo? I would naively be approaching both of those markings the same, too. It's not so long I couldn't commit to memory, but probably that's not the best use of my time . . . given that there are 25 practice days left between now and December 24th. It's not shopping days anymore, it's practice days!

From Karin Lin
Posted on November 28, 2006 at 5:57 PM

Hey, I've decided to play that piece for my church service too. :) To some degree all tempo markings are subjective, but if you want suggestions, you could check out some recordings of the orchestral version, which are readily available.

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