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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!

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.