2.4 (above average)
Saturday 21 August 2010
Tune of the Day: A tempo di Gavotta
from Sonata in C major by George Frideric Handel
The fourth of five movements in Handel's Recorder Sonata in C major, this is the only movement in the sonata which is explicitly dance-related. In fact, its title means “in the time of a gavotte”, with reference to a French folk dance of moderate tempo that was very popular during the Baroque era.
This movement has a quite unusual structure: it's made up of three sections of increasing length (4, 8 and 34 bars), each with repeat markings.