Chopin and the Tarantella
Classical music lover? Read this article from our guest blogger Nico De Napoli and listen to your favourite composer on Culturethèque.
This is probably Chopin at his most untamed.
None of the sweet, melancholic melodies or refined embellishments that characterise the composer’s music is to be found in this piece.
Robert Schumann described it as “Chopin’s most extravagant manner; we see before us the dancer, whirling as if possessed, until our senses reel”.
In her phenomenal performance of Chopin’s “Tarantelle”, Op 43, Maria Perrotta manages to convey just that: the vertiginous spinning of a crazed, haunted soul.
Tarantella being a traditional southern Italian folk dance, it is perhaps unsurprising that the renowned Calabrian pianist should play the piece so beautifully.
During ancient times, in the province of Taranto (Apulia), the bite of a local spider, the “tarantula”, was popularly believed to be highly poisonous and to cause a hysterical condition known as “tarantism”, which led to an irresistible need for a rapid, whirling motion bringing the victim to the point of exhaustion.
The local peasantry believed that anyone bitten by one of these spiders should be treated by indulging in a wild, relentless dance: the tarantella.
The oldest documents mentioning the relationship between musical exorcism and the tarantula date to around 1100 BC.
As well as several regional variations, there are two main types of tarantella: the courtship and the (supposedly) curative dance.
The former consists of one or several couples (not necessarily of different sexes) mimicking either stately courtship or a sword fight. It is short in duration and rather graceful. Whereas the latter, danced solo by a victim of a tarantula bite, was frenetic in character and it lasted for hours.
To this day, the folkloric tradition is kept alive by numerous artists across the world. The music can have hypnotic effects, especially when one is exposed to it for long periods of time, and it’s used by dance and music therapists to treat certain forms of depression.
Other serious composers who wrote in tarantella form include Schubert, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Debussy and Britten. Want more? Check out Nico's blog: https://eklecticulture.wordpress.com/