Composer: Peter Hünten (1799-1878)

 

Hünten was a German piano teacher and composer from Koblentz.  There's almost nothing about him online.  He had an older brother Francois who is a little more well documented but also seems like a pretty minor composer.  (He also had another piano teacher brother named Wilhelm).  

 

Per Francois's wikipedia entry "[his] music was wildly popular throughout France, Germany, and England, but critical notices inevitably described it as trifling and later assessments have been much the same. His brothers, Wilhelm Hünten, a piano teacher in Koblenz, and Peter Ernst Hünten, a piano teacher in Duisburg, also composed piano music of a similar character."

 

Date: circa 1827

Original Instrumentation:  violin (or flute), viola, guitar

 

Movements:

 

Waltz No.1-6

Sauteuse No.1-6

 

Why this one:

 

I hadn't done this instrument combination before and I thought it would be funny to record a bunch of waltzes to release on International Waltz Day (3/4, like the waltz time signature.)  Plus I thought it would be a really easy kill after giving the music a cursory glance.  (I was mistaken, but more on that later.)

 

Description:  

 

Movements 1-6 - Waltzes

 

Time: 3/4      BPM=105

Key: Various

 

These are all structured ABA, with the B section being called the "trio" section.  This B section is in a different key than the A section and tends to have a different character.

 

Performance:

 

I was a little fuzzy on what the tempo should be.  Waltzes vary a lot depending on the style and time period.  Apparently waltzes during the regency period, when this was published, were the on the slower side so I just tried to find a tempo that wasn't too fast but still sounded ok and that someone could reasonably do a stately dance to.

 

I did the guitar first; it was trickier than I thought it was going to be on my first look at the score, but it was mostly a preparation issue rather than a performance issue.  (Though I do record the classical guitar very slowly.  I don't have that many hours logged playing it and it's really easy to buzz a string, mute a note by accident, or just whiff on a finger placement.)

 

The viola parts, which I recorded second, were all really easy.  The violin had some challenging stuff in it; there's a lot of up the neck position work that I really had to work out during prep.  Waltz No.6 was easily the hardest to play on the mandolin.

 

 

Movements 7-12 - Sauteuses

 

Time: 2/4      BPM=75

Key: Various

 

A sauteuse is another kind of regency dance that's counted in 2.  I couldn't find very much about them but I did find some videos that seemed to pair them with waltzes.  So the couples would do a waltz in 3 and then transition to a sauteuse in 2.  

 

They're all short and structured AABB with no obvious key modulation.

 

Performance:

 

Again I just tried to find a tempo that didn't sound too fast.

 

The violin parts here were considerably harder than the waltz sections.   No.1 and No.5 were particularly difficult to both prep and record.   

 

Album Art:

 

Me at the gorilla habitat at Disney's Animal Kingdom.  Kind of looked like me and the drawing were about to dance.  Like maybe a waltz.