Dance of the Hours

The Anacrouse collection offers pianists, beginners and advanced alike, a wide choice of classical works from the Renaissance to the present day. It brings together major works of the repertoire as well as rarer pieces, and also offers transcriptions for piano solo or four hands, selected for their musical and educational interest. Each score, available individually or in a songbook, benefits from careful editorial work: a rigorously established musical text, clear and legible engraving, accompanied by a short biography of the composer and a note on the work.

The “Dance of the Hours” (in E major), presented here in a piano four-hands transcription by Jean-François Pailler, is a piece full of fantasy that calls for liveliness and lightness. This title is taken from the reference songbook “8 Famous Classical Themes for Piano 4 Hands”, the first volume of the Anacrouse collection, which offers an interactive approach thanks to its 2 included CDs. For each work, three tracks are available: a reference version (Piano 4 hands), a track for practising the Piano 1 part (Piano 2 accompaniment alone) and a track for Piano 2 (Piano 1 accompaniment alone). This system allows the student to perfect rhythmic placement and synchronisation, even when practising alone.

Taken from the opera La Gioconda (1876) by Amilcare Ponchielli (1834-1886), this dance is one of the most famous opera ballets in the world. It symbolises the passage of time through the hours of dawn, day, dusk and night. For the piano duo, the technical challenge lies in the precision of the articulation (staccato) and the bounding spirit of the theme. Coordination between the two performers is paramount to convey the contrasts of register and the choreographic aspect of this joyful, virtuosic page.