Quite by chance and trapped in a dentist's chair, I heard the entire Haydn Symphony No. 92, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. I was fascinated, as I always am by Haydn; and particularly by the minuet, which Bernstein got pretty much wrong.
No wonder! He was active when people did not yet know that there was more to a minuet than counting to three. I am happy to report that minuets have come back into style--which means that more and more frequently one hears them rendered as they would have been in the 18th century.
The difference is variation: What seems to be a repetitive rhythm in strict 3/4 time turns out to be successive contrasts when rendered a la minuet. For example:
Long---- short Long---short Long---short Long--- looks like a simple Strong----weak repeated
But in the minuet it would come out like this:
Strong ---Strong weak (Strong on a tie or in a rest!) weak, alternating strong and weak every two beats, whether or not a fresh attack coincides with a strong beat. (Impossible to render plausible in words....)
This incredibly interesting syncopation is difficult to do, delightful to the ear, and would certainly have inspired incredible dancing.
