Ein guter neuer Dantz

Ein guter neuer Danz’ edited by Hans Haselbock (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1989)

Dancing Peasants (late 16th Century). Woodcut by unknown German artist. [Source: German History in Documents and Images. http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=3299 ]

During the Christmas and New Year period 2016-17 I found myself playing the organ at a variety of venues here and there across London. As part of my seasonal offering I decided to try out a newly acquired set of nine renaissance-era dances edited for keyboard by Hans Haselböck under the title Ein guter neuer Dantz (Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1989). I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who having heard these little pieces came up to me both to comment how much they enjoyed them and to ask about them. So, without more ado, here below are the basic details and some basic home-made recordings of them.

Keyboards: Andrew Pink's practice organ. — Keyboards: Andrew Pink’s practice organ.

The instrument used here is my own practice organ, which for this project is tuned to a period-appropriate quarter-comma meantime (pure thirds) temperament, set lower than present-day concert pitch at A-427. The pieces, as they are published, are either in G or F and make playful use of of F\F-sharp and C\C-sharp contrasts, which add spice to the already piquant quarter-comma temperament. However, despite such talk of temperament and pitch, I lay no claim to an historically informed style in presenting these brief and unpretentious dance-pieces but hope that you too might find something to enjoy in them.