Sarabande Or Waltz?
Both are in triple time, though time is relative. Sarabandes (of the stately 17th century European variety, at any rate) tend to sound like waltzes on heavy tranquilizers.
The sarabande is one of the movements which typically make up the Baroque suite. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of radio announcers solemnly reading the list of those segments. I didn't understand any of it, but like the composers' names - Bach, Couperin, Marais, Telemann, Jean Philippe Rameau - it all sounded like part of the music itself, unfathomably beautiful and rich in deep, mysterious promise: Ouverture, Rondeau, Gigue, Chaconne, Gaillarde, Sarabande...
Meanwhile, the waltz made its first sustained appearances in the 1790s, and began to come into its own a generation or so later. While the sarabande firmly belongs in the courts and palaces of the small, entrenched Baroque elites, the waltz is integrated into the cultural matrix of the 19th century's rapidly expanding European middle class. As part of the soundtrack of change, it becomes the most popular social dance.
So - different tunes for different eras. Yet as I say, formal similarities exist. And today? If you're a modern musician who happens to like both formats but just can't quite decide which expresses your mood better at any given moment - the sarabande's gravitas, or the erotically charged dynamics of the waltz?
No problem, thought French jazz guitarist Jean-Christophe Maillard - I'll simply combine the two, call the result Saravalse, and stick it on Daniel Mille's album Le Funerable (1999, Saravah – SHL 2096). And here it is, played by:
Daniel Mille: accordion, piano Jean-Christophe Maillard: guitar Minimo Garay: percussion Daniel Goyone: piano
