Piston Passacaglia

[odsum25]

Walter Piston's Passacaglia has always been one of the favorite pieces in my repertoire and I've played it for awhile.  I learned it originally out of some collection of 20th century music, which seemed pretty reliable. I have been looking at the Passacaglia again (for use in one of the programs of my "Perspectives" idea of an earlier post.)  However, the tempo marking seems quite slow. (Eigth note = 72)  I have always played it somewhere between Eigth note= 96-104.  Does anyone have any input on how specific Piston was with metronome markings, or if he used them at all?  72 seemed unbearably slow at first, but now I can certainly see a performance at that tempo having quite a majestic build to it and becoming very powerful when the counterpoint really starts to move. The piece is marked Andantino, by the way.  Thanks for any input on this.

[tariswerewolf]

while I'm not familiar with the Piston work in particular, I can tell you that a Passacaglia is supposed to be slow and majestic. It was a slow dance.