Not long ago I picked up the guitar again and am relearning some Baroque era music that I used to play, as well as some new things I never knew. I really like the music of Lodovico Roncalli because the movements in his suites really retain the feel of true dance music. Not that I don’t like Bach, whose suite movements tend to be somewhat more stylized. But since Roncalli is so rarely recorded, it’s hard to get a feel for how fast some of the music should be played. And the music doesn’t carry any instructions as to speed.
Does anyone know anything general about how an Italian allemande movement would have been played ca. 1700? This music was published in 1692.
I think the painting linked here expresses the feel of much of Roncalli’s music–a little hard to see here, but shows a guitarist playing by the road while a group of women seem to be dancing a gigue.