"Pavane pour une Infante Défunte" (Pavane for a Dead Princess, Piano Version, 1899) by Maurice Ravel

[DonRocks]

I don't suppose there's anyone here who can help me, but I'll try in case we have a hidden musician among us, or a reader stumbles upon it and joins.

My edition of Maurice Ravel's "Pavane pour une Infante Défunte" (*) is marked in 4/4 tempo at 80 bpm for a quarter note. 

This comes across to me as too fast, but I just don't know enough about Pavanes, or perhaps more importantly, the situation for which this was written, to decide whether it's a dance that a young princess might have danced while she was alive, or a dance commemorating a dead young princess - the context makes all the difference. I've always assumed the latter, mainly because of the character of the music itself.

80 as a tempo is pretty perky, and I've always thought of this piece as being a bit more solemn. Is anybody out there who can help?

Here's an article which also raises the question, but gives no answers:

"At What Tempo Does Ravel's Pavane 'Die?'" by Alexandra Marx on henle.de

(*) If you play the version on Wikipedia, my guess is that it's being played around 68, which sounds more appropriate to me than 80, but could even be played a little slower.

[ol_ironstomach]

The only pavane that's stuck in my head is Fauré's, and tapping my preferred mental version into an online BPM tool measured out between 79 and 81, so 80 seems a reasonable tempo for a pavane, to my ear anyway.  (Fauré apparently had the kooky idea that his pavane would work around 100, which IMHO it doesn't.)  The even slower versions I've heard tend to be plodding.  But I don't know Ravel's pavane, and you're much more knowledgable about these things than I am anyway.

[DonRocks]

I struck gold: Ravel playing it himself on a piano roll, recorded in 1922: