The Researcher’s Otherworld: A Dream of the ancient Irish Harp

Posted by Andrew Lawrence-King

It was that liminal time, just before the winter festival. The scribe had been working hard all week, painstakingly transcribing old legends, cherished myths, ancient documents, examining beautiful images and puzzling over antique words, sifting every sentence to winnow out the precious grains of truth from the chaff of idle speculation. As he took his rest, the music of the wind was like the strumming of a mighty lyre, the beat of the rain the pizzicato of a mystical psaltery, and sleep overpowered him with sweet, irresistible force…

I found myself on the side of a mountain, by the entrance of a dark cave. From inside the cave came the sound of everlasting music, and as I entered, I heard two voices calling to me. “Cruit” said one; “Tiompán” said the other. The Dancers of the Centuries had made eight circles.

I followed the more noble voice to the higher path, and as it called again “Cruit“, I saw the tiny figure of a fairy musician, playing a lyre. It was too dark to see if the lyre had six strings or three, but as the musician’s hand strummed the strings, the lyre’s voice said once again “Krrt”.

Now I followed the ruder voice’s cry of “Tiompán” along the lower path, until I saw another magical musician playing a psaltery. In the darkness, I could not see if he plucked the wire strings with his fingers or with a quill, whether he played a melody with tiny hammers or beat out a rhythm like a drum. But I heard the sound of the psaltery’s voice, now as bright as gold “Ting!” now as dull as iron “Bang!”.

The dancers made another three circles, A triangular form appeared before my eyes, but I could not tell what it was. Was this the new instrument the Bishop of Dublin had told me of?

Another circle, and an old man came to me, in the garb of a druid. “My name is Gerald”, he said to me in Latin, “and I come from Wales”.

I asked him to tell me more about the musicians of this lonely mountain. “They are more skilled than any other nation” he replied, “Their music is rapid and lively, although the sound is soft and pleasant”. And he told me more, about their “intricate multiple harmonies”. And he spoke a third time: “Along with the duller sound of the thicker string, they boldly play the tinklings of the thinner ones”.

However, my desire was to know more of their ancient instruments, which Gerald called cithara (I think this was the harp) and tympanum (which I could not see clearly, but seemed to be a lyre or psaltery with metal strings.) Was this tympanum my Lord Bishop’s instrument of six strings?

But Gerald would not tell me which instrument had the metal strings, though I could see for myself, outside the cave, the three-sided form of a cithara, strung with the spun hairs of a horse’s tail, or with the dried entrails of a sheep or wolf.

The darkness of the cave withheld from me the secret knowledge of the ancients. The voices still cried out “cruit” and “tiompán“, but I could not see which instrument cried with which voice, unless they all answered: “cruit”. And the sacred instrument of three sides, with the voice of willow and wire I longed for, this was nowhere to be found amidst the mists of myths.

To the music of time, the dancers made three more circles. And at the end of the fifteenth circle of the hundred years, my Lord, there appeared before my eyes a new harp of clear song, a board with its belly swollen like a woman with child, strung with thick wires of strong brass, of pure silver, even of finest gold! It played a strange music which I cannot describe in writing, that reminded me of the wail of the Scottish pipes, of the buzz of the Welsh telyn, of the mathematical music of bells, of monks chanting the canonical hours and of old women lamenting over their lost their sons. And I heard a new word: “Holy, holy, holy – cláirseach, clàrsach, clarsha” it called to me, in accents of the West, of the Islands, of the Highlands.

But the dance only lasted three circles until the music of the cláirseach died. Fiddlers from Italy, dancers from France, soldiers from England, all played faster, higher, stronger. Wise Men from the East summoned the cláirseach to Belfast, and poked around for it in the musical cave. Like surgeons, they drained its life-blood, transplanted it to the city, exchanged its wiry sinews for the insides of sheep…

And with this the scribe suddenly awoke from his dream-turned-nightmare. His visit to the Otherworld had lasted only a few moments, he was sure, but in the everyday world already the Winter Festival was over. Quickly, he scribbled down his speculations, for they did not contradict the hallowed documents he had studied the week before (his work had already been sent to be published in the codex of a Northern land). Of course, he could not prove that his visions were true, but perhaps some fellow scribes and musicians might recognise them …

On the first day of the new millenium, Music and the Celtic Otherworld by Karen Ralls MacLeod was published by Edinburgh University Press.

The Historical Irish Harp: Myths Demistified by Andrew Lawrence-King, Katerina Antonenko & Natalia O’ Shea will be published in a forthcoming issue of Studia Celto-Slavica.

Please join me on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/andrew.lawrenceking.9 and visit our website www.TheHarpConsort.com .

Opera, orchestra, vocal & ensemble director and early harpist, Andrew Lawrence-King is director of The Harp Consort and of Il Corago, and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre for the History of Emotions.

www.historyofemotions.org.au

Irish Harp Ornament of the Month #2 – The Cadential Shake

Posted by Andrew Lawrence-King

So I hope you’ve all been practising the Long Shake [see Irish Harp Ornament #1 here] and that it’s beginning to feel as if the fingers can do it ‘by themselves’, and starting to sound good. Don’t be discouraged if it takes quite a while to master these ornaments – they are not easy.

The late Mr Seybold, a celebrated performer on the Pedal Harp, being in a gentleman’s house in Belfast, in 1800, when Arthur O’Neill was present, declared his admiration of the old man’s shake on the Irish harp, which was performed apparently with the greatest ease and execution: admitting that he could not do it himself in the same manner on his own instrument, the shake being of the greatest difficulty on every species of harp.

Bunting 1840

Practise little and often. Practise slowly, getting everything absolutely right. And then take a risk, let loose a fast shake, and see if your fingers will fly. Then practise slowly again. Repeat ad shake-it-um.

So now your Shake is all ready to go, but how to use it?

Unfortunately, Bunting’s table of ornaments doesn’t tell us everything we need to know. It’s not complete (there are typical ornaments that he doesn’t list), it doesn’t necessarily cover every technical detail, and – most awkward of all – it doesn’t tell us how to apply the ornaments.

So we have to look at tunes, and see where each ornament might fit. We can look at Bunting’s published versions (to a greater or lesser degree arranged for pianoforte), and see where he writes each ornament. We can look at Bunting’s manuscript note-books for hints of what the old Irish harpers actually played to him, before he adapted their music for publication. We can make comparisons to European music of the same time. And we can make comparisons to traditional Irish playing, today.

When we look for opportunities to use our shiny new Long Shake in Irish music, there seem to be very few, especially in those tunes that have a real Gaelic (rather than European flavour). So although the Long Shake is a very useful exercise, and a typical feature of European 18^th-century music, I don’t see many opportunities for it in Gaelic tunes of the period. Actually, I don’t see any opportunities for it in the tunes Bunting prints, following on from the ornament table in his 1840 book.

Challenge: can you find a Long Shake opportunity that I’ve missed? All three Bunting publications (1796, 1809 and 1840) are available free here, and Wikipedia provides a handy introduction to his work here.

Meanwhile, don’t panic, the last month of practice has not been wasted. Not at all! The Long Shake is the ideal starting point from which to study many ornaments, and here comes one of the most frequently encountered: the Cadential Shake.

A Cadence marks the end of a musical phrase, just as punctuation marks the end of a clause, or the end of a sentence. In period literature, we often see long sentences organised with light punctuation, continuing for many clauses, until terminated by a full stop. Similarly in music of this time: each short phrase will end with an intermediate Cadence, and a longer section, or the whole piece, will end with a Full Close.

Although European music has several melodic options for a Cadence, the most common Full Close in Gaelic tunes is the so-called Tenor Cadence. The melody descends to the final note, with a strong accent on the second degree of the scale just before end of the phrase. So in the Irish harpist’s favourite mode of G, many tunes end with a strong A before the final G.

EXAMPLE 1 Ta me mo chodlach I

(I am asleep and don’t waken me) after the William Forde MS (collected during the 1840s).

That strong A corresponds to the Principal Accent in poetry, typically on the penultimate syllable of a line of verse:

To be or not to be, that’s the QUEST-ion

For more on historical phrasing, see ‘The Good, The Bad and the Early Music Phrase’ here.

Often, this strong note will be longer than neighbouring notes – and when it is long enough, this is our opportunity for a Cadential Shake. Often, Bunting gives us the hint for a Cadential Shake with a Tr marking.

The first example of a Shake in the music of the 1840 collection comes on Page 2: Irish Cry. Bunting publishes this in Eb, so the Cadential Shake is on the strong F just before the end of each of the first three phrases, marked Tr by Bunting.

EXAMPLE 2 Irish Cry

Bunting 1840

In the usual G-tuning for Irish harp, we would play this piece a third higher, of course, and the Cadential Shake would be on A.

EXAMPLE 2A Irish Cry in G

The next example is on Page 4: Scott’s Lamentation. Bunting notates this in F, with a Cadential Shake marked Tr on the strong G just before the end of the first line. And another Cadential Shake Tr, on the strong D of the phrase ending on C in the next line.

EXAMPLE 3 Scott’s Lamentation

Bunting 1840

In the usual G-tuning for Irish harp, we would play this piece a tone higher, with Cadential Shakes on A and later on E.

EXAMPLE 3A Scott’s Lamentation in G

These first few pieces are those that Bunting regards as especially typical of the ancient Gaelic style. Not all of them have suitable cadences for a Cadential Shake (notice there was nothing on pages 1 and 3). But many of them do.

So, since this Cadential Shake is going to be useful, let’s see how to modify Bunting’s Long Shake, to work in the Cadential context.

As could be expected, the first modification is to shorten the Long Shake. Don’t try to make too many iterations of the Shake. Rather, shorten it to the available length of the Cadential note. [See how to shorten the Long Shake, here.]

Bunting gives another ornament, the half-Shake, which is very short, and we’ll examine that another time. For our Cadential Shake, we need bit more than this, but not very much more. Very often, the following (minimal) Shake is sufficient (and anything more would be too difficult).

EXAMPLE 4 Cadential Shake

Notice that the Cadential Shake starts on the main note (the Gaelic way, Bunting tells us) and not on the upper auxiliary (the European way, according to many period sources, for example C.P.E. Bach).

Bunting doesn’t tell us any more, but I recommend that after reaching the last note of the Shake (the main note), you should damp the upper auxiliary note. This cleans up the sound, and steadies your hand ready to continue into the last note of the phrase.

So here is the Cadential Shake to practise:

EXAMPLE 4A Cadential Shake with damping

Damp the crossed-out note, with the finger [2], let the red note ring on.

And here are the first Tr markings in Bunting’s 1840 collection, as above, but now realised with this Cadential Shake:

EXAMPLE 5 Irish Cry with Cadential Shake realised

EXAMPLE 6 Scott’s Lamentation with Cadential Shakes realised

Bunting’s metronome marks support his statement that the character of the Irish harpers’ playing was

spirited, lively and energetic

in contrast to the

languid and tedious manner in which they were, and too often still are, played among fashionable public performers, in whose efforts at realizing a false conception of sentiment, the melody is …. lost.

One last, but very important point. 18^th-century sources emphasise that the Shake should begin louder and end softer. We can be sure that Seybold would not have admired O’Neill’s Shake, if this essential ‘dying fall’ was absent. So practise your Cadential Shake from loud to soft.

And that concludes this month’s posting. Have fun finding Full Closes in your Gaelic melodies, and adding Cadential Shakes to them. Compare the places you want to add a Cadential Shake to Bunting’s Tr markings. Do they mostly correspond?

As you will discover, not all of Bunting’s Tr markings are Cadential. There are some other opportunities for Shakes, and we’ll come to those in a later post.

Good luck, and Good Shaking!

Please join me on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/andrew.lawrenceking.9 and visit our website www.TheHarpConsort.com .

www.historyofemotions.org.au

Sparrow-flavoured Soup – or What is Continuo?

Posted by Andrew Lawrence-King

There are many possible routes towards an understanding of basso continuo. As an academic discipline, it’s often associated with the study of musical grammar, harmony and voice-leading: ‘Harmonise this chorale melody in the style of Johann Sebastian Bach’.

Some performers might – like me – have begun their study with the printed realisations in modern editions: thinning out rich, mid-20^th-century piano parts; enriching minimalist sketches; adding some improvisatory touches and trying to filter out what is stylistically inappropriate.

Often the harpsichord is assumed to be the epitome of historical style, and the combination of cello and harpsichord to be the ideal mix of melodic bass and chordal harmony, perhaps with a double-bass to add gravity.

There is a strong modern tendency to think in terms of an ideal realisation, with the ‘correct’ harmonies. In this view, a perfect (in every way!) cadence should be figured ⁵₃ ⁶₄⁵₄⁷₃over the dominant – other options are seen as variants of this ‘standard’ harmonisation.

But a moment’s reflection will suggest that over some two centuries of the basso continuo age, the ideal of a ‘perfect’ realisation must have changed. Like any other aspect of performance practice, the aesthetics of Continuo must differ according to period and national style. C.P.E. Bach’s admirably detailed instructions do not apply to Peri, Johann Sebastian’s wonderful harmonies are no guide to Caccini, Rameau’s aesthetic is not the same as Monteverdi’s.

And in Continuo studies as in any historical investigation, we must beware of teleology, of the dangers of ‘looking backwards into the past’. It is all too easy to approach the beginnings of Continuo via Bach, and to view both Bach and Monteverdi through the distorting lens of modern assumptions (whether in ‘common practice’ or ‘early music’).

So I suggest that it’s well worthwhile to start at the very beginning, and consider the earliest sources for Continuo. Those first treatises should be our guide for the early 17^th century, and they should also be our starting point from which to follow a chronological path towards Corelli, Lully, Bach and beyond.

One of the most interesting early sources is Agostino’s Agazzari’s 1607 Del Sonare sopra’l basso con tutti li stromenti e dell’ uso loro nel Conserto (About playing from the basso part with all instruments, and about their use in ensemble). See my posting What is Music here for links to a facsimile, translations and commentaries.

The reference to uso shows that Agazzari’s intent is thoroughly practical. His treatise is not lost in the clouds of metaphysical speculation (Science), nor concerned about theoretical principles governing the Art of Music. And he doesn’t waste time expounding lots of rules for playing from unfigured bass, since composers often create surprising harmonies as they imitate the passions of particular words. Agazzari prefers to write in the figures as necessary, though he emphasises that all cadences, intermediate or final, end on a major chord. His focus is consistently on the practicalities of playing from a new notation (the basso, whether figured or not, now regarded as the best guide to the structure of the whole piece, rather than a score or intabulation).

Agazzari discusses in detail what each kind of instrument should do, and categorises his material in various different ways. He distinguishes between wind and string instruments. Other than the organ, winds are excluded from delicate ensembles because they do not blend, though the trombone can serve as a low bass when only a small (4-foot) organ is available. Other wind instruments might be acceptable, if played expertly and dolce.

Amongst string instruments, he mentions those which are capable of perfetta armonia di parti (perfect structure of counterpoint – the word armonia means well-structured organisation, not just ‘harmony’): Organ, gravicembalo (large harpsichord with low basses), Lute and arpa doppia etc.

Other instruments can play harmonies (in the modern sense), but not fully correct counterpoint (not all the armonia, in the period sense): cittern, lirone, guitar. A third group of instruments offers fewer chordal (let alone contrapuntal) possibilities: Viola da gamba, violin, pandora etc.

Players are expected to have three separate but complementary skill-sets: a knowledge of armonia (counterpoint, rhythm and proportions, all the clefs, dissonance and resolution, when to play major/minor thirds or sixths etc); total familiarity with their instrument and with playing from score or intabulation; excellent aural skills and awareness of the movement of individual polyphonic voices.

Agazzari champions the practice of playing from the basso as useful in three ways: for the new style of singing dramatic music, lo stile moderno di cantar recitativo; as easier than reading, especially sight-reading, from a score or intabulation; and as a very concise and compact notational system.

But the most significant binary distinction he makes , one that he repeats several times within this short treatise, is to categorise what is played ‘on the basso’ as either Structure – fondamento ( a word that occurs 9 times) – or Decoration – ornamento (4 times). Meanwhile, we should note that the word continuo does not occur anywhere in this document.

Agazzari frames his entire discussion in these terms – Structure versus Decoration – introducing these two ordini (categories) at the very beginning of his argument. We should therefore be very careful to link each piece of advice to the relevant category. We should think too about how the various bi- and tri-partite categorisations mentioned above intersect with those most significant ordini of Structure and Decoration. And how does the concept of Continuo fit with all this?

Simply to pose this question points us towards the answer. The essential function of Continuo is fondamento: Structure (organ, harpsichord, theorbo, harp).

Meanwhile, the function of Decoration, ornamento, is condire – to spice up the ensemble with delicious tone-colours (lirone, cittern, guitar etc) or clever division-playing, scherzando e contrapontegiando (having fun and playing counterpoint, on lute, violin etc). Agazzari includes division-playing here for highly practical reasons: divisions can now be improvised whilst reading from the basso part, rather than from a score or intabulation.

Looking backwards into the past, we might be tempted to conflate these two functions, to imagine that Agazzari was writing about ‘two ways to play Continuo’. But his book is not called ‘How to play Continuo’, it’s ‘about playing from the basso’.

Moving chronologically forwards with Agazzari from the late 16^th into the early 17^th century, we can see that he is linking the uso moderno, a new use of notation (playing now from a basso, rather than a score or intabulation) to two distinct practices: structural accompaniment and fun decoration – scherzi. And he is very careful to keep the two practices distinct.

The structural foundation – Agazzari’s fondamento -is what we now call Continuo (organ, harpsichord, theorbo, harp).

Some instruments with interesting tone-colours (lirone, cittern, guitar etc) can play a chordal accompaniment (which we might well today call Continuo), but Agazzari does not class these as fondamento because they cannot play the actual basso. Nevertheless, we have clear evidence from other sources that such instruments were sometimes used as the sole accompaniment.

Otherwise, Decoration – ornamento – consists of division-playing. This ‘spice’ should of course be flavoursome and tasteful. And advanced division-playing even includes the invention of additional counterpoint. But it’s not Continuo.

As Bernhard Lang (2003) comments here, Agazzari’s advice on ornamento-playing can be seen in the context of earlier division manuals by Ganassi (1535), Ortiz (1553) and dalla Casa (1584). Agazzari’s contribution is to compare the different division-playing styles of particular instruments, inviting them all, even violinists, to improvise whilst reading from the basso part.

The other job, Continuo-playing, is described in the other part of Del Sonare sopra’l basso, in the paragraphs referring to Structure, fondamento. As Agazzari reminds us, we should not confuse the two roles –

hanno diverso ufficio, e diversamente s’adoperano (they have different jobs, and are managed differently).

But all too often today, we hear Continuo-bands playing divisions, playing divisions simultaneously (but not quite together!) on several instruments, and playing divisions on fondamento instruments. We even hear Continuo competing with the singers or solo instruments in the treble register – precisely the zuppa e confusione, cosa dispiacevole (soup and confusion, a displeasing thing) that Agazzari warns against!

Even in division-playing, whenever several instruments play together, Agazzari tells us that they should take turns to add ornamento, one at a time. They should not compete ‘like sparrows, all at the same time: and let’s see who can shout the loudest’!

Lang also comments on the seicento trend for the fondamento to be less contrapuntal, more chordal, assembled vertically over the basso. And Agazzari leaves us in no doubt that in general, too much polyphonic complexity, too much concentration on contrapuntal imitation, is contrary to the new aesthetic:

By the rules of counterpoint these might be good compositions, but nevertheless by the rules of good and true Music they are vitiose – vicious, faulty, sinful, defective, imperfect, false, corrupted, blemished, full of vice, unsound, crazy, and worm-eaten (according to Florio’s 1611 dictionary).

And that comes from not understanding the purpose and the job, from forever wanting merely to observe counterpoint and imitations of notes, rather than of the affetto (passion) and semblance of the words.

So with that stern warning and the condemnation of sparrow-flavoured soup ringing in your ears, I invite you to compare Agazzari’s point by point instructions for fondamento with what you hear, listening to Continuo in concerts and recordings today. Continuo-players, keyboardists especially, might like to compare Agazzari’s recipes with their own playing in early seicento repertoire.

The Continuo are those which guide and support the whole body of voices and instruments in the ensemble.

They are Organ, gravicembalo etc (and for smaller ensembles) Lute, Theorbo, Harp etc

The job of ‘guiding’ or ‘directing’ – guidare – reminds us of the crucial importance of rhythmic Structure. Rhythm is a significant element of 17^th-century armonia, and Caccini makes it a priority, along with the Text.

Agazzari links ‘support’ to grave resonance and low-octave basses (see below).

When playing Continuo, you have to play very judiciously, watching out for the entire ensemble…

Playing the piece as straight and accurately as possible, not making passages or divisions, but helping with some low-octave bass notes, and avoiding the high register.

Many of the earliest figured-basses show exactly where the harmonies change over a sustained bass, by writing the rhythms of the harmony changes into the basso itself. (The repeated bass notes are then tied together, to show that they are not re-struck). Such precise notation, combined with Agazzari’s instruction not to ‘break’ a bass-note and with the growing seicento tendency to think vertically over the bass (rather than horizontally in counterpoint), suggests that Continuo-players should as far as possible avoid in their realisation any activity (especially harmony changes) that is faster-moving than the basso itself.

So if the basso moves in minims, say, your realisation should also move in minims, not in crotchets and quavers. In general, we expect the entire fondamento to reflect the rhythms of the basso, and typically to be less active than the composed contrapuntal parts.

Don’t double the soprano, don’t play divisions and ornaments in the high register…

But it’s good to play with great restraint (or perhaps, very compactly), and grave (low, weighty, serious: Florio gives ‘grave, solemn, important).

Grave is also used to characterise the violone, which plays ‘as much as possible on the thick strings, often with low-octave basses’. The re-entrant tuning of the theorbo and the triple-stringing of Italian baroque harp allow compact chords, with a lot of supportive resonance all packed into the grave register: both instruments have low-octave basses, as does the gravicembalo (literally, grave-harpsichord).

Note Agazzari’s emphasis that the fondamento should play ‘very judiciously’, ‘with great restraint’. No chirping sparrows!

The Continuo holds the tenor – the underlying harmonic/rhythmic sequence, for example a ground bass (see Ortiz) and the armonia –the complete structure, both harmony and rhythm – ferma – firm, steady, fixed, sure (Florio).

In large ensembles, certain instruments have well-defined roles. When, for example, harpsichord and theorbo play together, it is the theorbo that should make some divisions (on the bass strings), whilst the harpsichord provides a fondamento grave. Agazzari’s advice is confirmed by the allocation of particular instruments to alternative bass-lines in scores by Landi, Veracini etc. The more complex basso is for lute, theorbo, or harp: the simplified part is the fondamento for harpsichord.

The role of the keyboard, whether organ or gravicembalo is entirely Structural. (Small spinetti might provide Decoration). Today, this custom is more honoured in the breach than in the observance !

Nowadays a lot of zuppa e confusione is created by inappropriately applying to Continuo-playing Agazzari’s suggestions for ornamento, whilst ignoring his warnings against chirping like competing sparrows. But his advice on fondamento is repeated in many other period sources, especially for musica recitativa, where it’s generally agreed the accompanist should play grave and not add ornaments.

The frontispiece to Del sonare sopra’l basso illustrates tutti li stromenti, with the organ, Agazzari’s own instrument, enthroned above. In the Academy of the Intronati, Agazzari’s nickname was L’Armonico intronato (well-structured musical organisation, enthroned). Below two shields show the heavenly orbits, with the caption ex motu armonia (cosmic movement produces armonia) and what might be the infernal pit, with the caption nec tamen inficiunt (and, however, they don’t create chaos – literally ‘un-make’).

So I give Agostino the last word:

Just take this as it is, and forgive me for the lack of time to write more.

Please join me on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/andrew.lawrenceking.9 and visit our website www.TheHarpConsort.com . Further details of original sources are on the website, click on “New Priorities in Historically Informed Performance”

www.historyofemotions.org.au

The Good, the Bad & the Early Music Phrase

Posted by Andrew Lawrence-King

We all know what a musical phrase is. It corresponds to a sentence of prose, or a line of verse, and we see phrases marked with long, elegantly curved lines in beautifully engraved 19^th & 20^th-century editions. The phrase is arched, long, sustained, and essentially legato. It curves upwards to the middle, and then descends. We talk of “phrasing towards” a certain note, so that the phrase “moves”, and has a “goal” along the way. And when we come to the last phrase, the final note of a piece often represents a triumphant arrival, perhaps returning emphatically to the tonic, after explorations of other tonalities.

All this is taught in elementary music lessons, so that it becomes part of what we assume to be basic, ‘instinctive’ musicality. But …

The past is a foreign country – they do things differently there.

L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between, (1953)

Although the guiding principle of Early Music is awareness of various different historical aesthetics according to period and country, there are some general trends that distinguish the Rhetorical age (pre-18^th century) from the Romantic and Modernist periods. For example, the relation between Rhythm and Emotion changes particularly sharply in the decades after 1800. Read more about this in Richard Hudson Stolen Time: The history of tempo rubato (1997).

The 19^th/20^th-century aesthetic encourages evenness, homogeneity, continuity during a long phrase. Consistently rich tone, even volume of sound, and continuous vibrato indicate depth of emotion, in the sense of a sustained level of intensity. The most powerful moments are the culmination of a gradual intensification of one particular emotion, to the point of cathartic release.

In that aesthetic, high artistry and nobility of purpose are indicated by bending the rhythm. Lively and steady rhythm is seen as ‘popular’, but inscrutable manipulation of rhythm casts the performer as a ‘Romantic genius’, expressing emotions beyond the understanding of the common herd.

The Early Music phrase is different

The pre-18^th century aesthetic encourages short-term contrasts within short phrases. Quality & volume of sound, vibrato and articulations, the passions themselves change from note to note. Emotion is conveyed by changing (not maintaining) passions (affetti).

High artistry and nobility of purpose are indicated by the ability and determination to frame these passions within reliable rhythm. Musical polyphony and linguistic complexity are the main indicators along the spectrum from ‘popular’ to ‘high art’ music: composers and performers are equally at home anywhere along that spectrum. Reliable rhythm is one of the fundamental skills by which a performer speaks clearly and persuasively to an audience who are at the same, or higher, social level.

In this aesthetic, the musical phrase is an imitation of the human voice, speaking rhetorically in short sense-groups of a few words. Musical phrases are broken up into short ‘mini-phrases’, like an inspiring leader delivering a passionate speech to a large audience in a big hall, without microphone. In music, as in public speaking, the primary duty of the performer is to deliver the text clearly. Clear and varied articulations of vowels and consonants produce short-term contrasts and a mix of legato and staccato.

In rehearsals and lessons, many of today’s Early Musicians talk about phrases (or shorter musical figures) “going towards” a certain note. In performance, this is often associated with a subtle rubato that accelerates towards the phrase-middle, and then slows up. Some Early Music directors deliberately coach this particular rubato technique. (I have christened it ‘Tube-train rubato’ after the London Underground, where the tracks descend away from one station and ascend again to the next, in order to help trains accelerate and slow down as required).

But I see no evidence of the language of ‘going towards’ in period texts that analyse or teach music and poetry. Rather, there are frequent reminders to maintain the tempo without change. And Cambridge University’s recently completed CHARM project has shown by analysis of elite historic recordings that ‘Tube-train rubato’ emerges in the 1950s, replacing what Prof Nicholas Cook calls early-20^th-century ‘Tent-pole rubato’, (slowing towards a meaningful note, then accelerating again, in the way that the canvas of a tent curves up towards the point where the tent–pole supports it, suspends there, and then falls away again).

So if historical sources do not discuss ‘going towards’ significant notes, ‘moving through’ the phrase, and other such indicators of rubato, what do they talk about? If musical time is regular, what else are we encouraged to vary during the phrase, to avoid monotony, and for the sake of expressive subtlety?

Good & Bad

A fundamental period assumption is that music is Rhetorical: it imitates the structures and devices of persuasive speech, in order to muovere gli affetti – to move the passions of the listeners. And if music is like speaking, then the structure of the musical phrase can be compared to contemporary poetry. Accented and unaccented notes correspond to the accented and unaccented syllables of verse: actually, in period sources, notes and syllables are referred to as Good & Bad, or Long & Short.

The regular metre of pre-1800 poetry is the underlying structure that corresponds to the regular Tactus pulse of period music. (See Andrew Lawrence-King Rhythm – what really counts? here). In poetry, Good syllables generally coincide with the underlying metrical structure, for example, in the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare’s (1609) sonnet:

When I do count the clock that tells the time.

But, as Patsy Rodenburg observes in Speaking Shakespeare (2002), ‘the pure regularity of such a line is relatively rare’. From line to line, word-accents and poetic metre sometimes coincide, but sometimes are in tension against each other, and this is what makes the difference between doggerel and fine poetry. Notice the subtle interplay of word-accents (underlined) and metre (bold) in Richard Barnfield’s line from The Passionate Pilgrim (1599)

If Music and sweet Poetry agree.

Similarly in period music: individual word-accents may, or may not coincide with the underlying Tactus measure.

So monotony is avoided, the regularity of rhythm is varied, not with rubato, but with varying placement of Good and Bad notes, within a steady measure of time. Read more about the distinction between metre and accent in George Houle Metre in Music (2000).

Principal Accent

The metre of period poetry typically alternates Good and Bad syllables, with the most significant Good syllable (referred to in metrical analysis as the Principal Accent) at the end of the line, where the rhyme might occur. However, this Principal Accent is usually not the last syllable: typically the line ends with a Bad syllable.

To be or not to be, * that’s the Question.

Shakespeare Hamlet

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra Vita

Dante Inferno

Even in these short examples, we see again that not every metrically ‘strong’ syllable necessarily has a Good word-accent. Metre and accent work together in independent counterpoint.

We also see that each language has its own patterns. English uses many monosyllables, Italian has many two-syllable words Good-Bad: piano, forte, mezzo, nostra, vita etc. [Cammin is a poetic shortening of cammino, which shares a typical tri-syllable pattern Bad-Good-Bad with allegro, adagio, sonata etc]

So now we can assemble the structure of a typical Early-Music phrase:

The Tactus is maintained with a slow, steady pulse
Individual notes contrast with one another in articulation, colour, volume & meaning.
Passions change rapidly – for example with dissonance/resolution.
Individual notes are Good or Bad, typically alternating Good/Bad and joined Good-to-Bad.
The Principal Accent is the last Good note.
Phrases typically end with a Bad note.
Complete phrases are separated into short ‘mini-phrases’.
Unity through the phrase comes from consistent Tactus and sustained thought, not from legato sound.

And in place of that long, elegantly curved phrase-line in thick steady black, we could envisage something more speech-like: fragmentary, multi-coloured, alternating, with its high point on the penultimate note.

The past is a foreign country; there is very little we can say about it until we have learned its language and understood its assumptions.

Michael Howard ‘The lessons of history’ 1991

In my opening paragraph, I blithely assumed that a phrase corresponds to a sentence. But in period literature, a sentence (terminated by a full stop .) is often the length of a modern paragraph, containing a long succession of clauses punctuated by semi-colons ;. In spoken delivery, within each clause, a good orator would make gaps between each sense-group of a few words:

Speak the speech, * I pray you, * as I pronounced it to you, * trippingly on the tongue: * but * if you mouth it, * as many of your players do, * I had as lief * the town-crier spoke my lines.

Shakespeare Hamlet The Advice to the Players

So in Early Music we might expect to find that short ‘phrases’ corresponding not to sentences, but to short sense-groups, linked together by steady rhythm and continuity of thought into medium-length clauses. Clauses are then separated by cadences (which correspond to semicolons, rather than to full stops). Like semi-colons in period texts, cadences occur very frequently in 17^th-century music, but they punctuate, rather than stopping the flow. Steady Tactus drives us over the momentary lull of each cadence, until we reach a full stop, which corresponds to the end of a section.

These are the hierarchical, Rhetorical structures of sentence construction and musical design which are carefully matched to each other in 17^th-century madrigals, mass-settings and recitatives. The link between punctuation and musical construction is made explicit in a 17^th-century poem in praise of composer Henry Lawes:

No pointing Comma, Colon, half so well

Renders the Breath of Sense; they cannot tell

The just Proportion how each word should go

To rise or fall, run swiftly or march slow.

Thou shew’st ‘tis Musick only must do this…

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http://www.historyofemotions.org.au

Single-Action Harp – making Sensibility of the Méthodes

Posted by Andrew Lawrence-King

The late 18^th century tends to be where modern harpists and Early Music first connect. But how did the original players of the single-action harp think and feel about this new instrument and the fashionable music they played on it? Of course, the instrument itself is different from its modern descendant – smaller, more lightly strung, and with different chromatic possibilities – so we can expect differences in technique and interpretation too.

But how appropriate is that modern dialectic of ‘technique’ and ‘interpretation’ anyway? Rather than looking backwards into the past, can we find a way to view the instrument in the context of its own time? Can we share the original players’ contemporary perspective, the musical heritage of the 17^th century, and the new developments of the mid-18^th?

Mike Parker’s Child of Pure Harmony (2006) is a concise, but very useful introduction, looking back over the development of the instrument. His survey of technique covers the playing position, left-hand ‘bracing’ (where non-playing fingers rest on the strings to support the hand), and certain harp-specific special effects: harmonics, sons étouffés and the use of the swell pedal. Mary Oleskiewicz’s Preface to her (2008) edition of the CPE Bach Sonata sets the scene in Berlin in 1762, where the new French pedal harp co-existed alongside the older Italian triple-harp. The present brief essay explores modes of thought during the first golden age of the pedal harp, from the 1760s to the French Revolution, focussing on France itself.

Les goûts réunis

To ensure that our gaze follows the arrow of time in the right direction, let’s approach the 18^th century from the late 17^th, via the music of Corelli, Lully, Purcell and the young Johann Sebastian Bach. The aesthetics of the 17^th century were discussed in terms of differing, even opposing, national styles: Italian and French. Italian violin-playing was dramatic, virtuosic, characterised by slow, sonorous bow-strokes in long notes and rapid passage-work in allegros. French violin-music danced lightly and elegantly, with a lot of ornamentation, but in strict rhythm, vrai mouvement. In this airy style, the very short French bow skips like a dancer’s feet, often lifting of the string, but always landing gently.

The poet John Dryden described Henry Purcell’s music as structured on the Italian model counterpoint, ‘which is its best Master’, but played in the French style, ‘to give it somewhat more of gaiety and fashion’. Bach wrote an Italian Concerto and French Suites, but was most at home in the highly conservative, intensely polyphonic German style. In Hamburg, Georg Philipp Telemann (who described himself as le grand partisan de la musique Française) was at the cutting edge of musical fashion with his music ‘for a mixed taste’, combining elements of French and Italian styles within the same work.

The concept of ‘re-uniting the tastes’ became the cornerstone of the three great mid-18^th-century Essays, each dedicated to the ‘true art of playing’ a particular instrument: Quantz (1752) for the flute, C.P.E Bach (1753) for keyboards and Leopold Mozart’s Violinschule (1756). Violinists are asked to combine the slow, sustained bow-stroke of Italian cantabile with the airy flight of French dances, the virtuosity of Italian sonatas with the graceful ornamentation of French airs. Keyboard-players and flautists receive similar instructions in the idiom of their instruments. All three Essays are remarkably consistent in their characterisation of the German fashion for ‘mixed taste’, and are a vital source for 18^th-century performance practice.

C.P.E Bach at the harpischord accompanies Frederick the Great in a flute concerto at Sanssouci Palace, whilst Quantz (far right) listens.

Empfindsamkeit

The Essays breathe the spirit of Empfindsamkeit – sensitivity, sensibility – a recently-invented term (taken from contemporary literature) that perfectly describes the aesthetic of the period. Quantz shows how sensitively musicians responded to the particular degree of tension and release in each dissonance and resolution. And, as C.P.E. Bach explains, it is the musician’s sensibility that invites in turn the audience’s sensitive response.

Certainly I recommend the three Essays to any harpist interested in the C.P.E.Bach Sonata, the Mozart Concerto for Flute and Harp, or any repertoire of this period. But the very pre-eminence of these three German-language treatises tends to distract attention from the continuing importance of each national style, Italian or French, un-mixed, especially in its own country.

French violins were smaller than Italian instruments, and had lighter strings. But those shorter, more delicate strings were tuned even lower than in Italy, so the string tension was much, much less. Comparing Italian and French orchestras, one writer thought that the French violins were broken, they seemed so quiet; whereas Italian players seemed about to break their instruments with the thunder of their fortissimo! French makers reformed the wind instruments too, making them quieter and more delicate, to suit the French taste for subtlety and elegance.

It is this world of delicacy, elegant subtlety and quiet nobility that the French harp inhabits. Its rich sonority is coaxed from low-tension strings at a very low, French pitch, and these light strings also respond with sparkling brilliance to the many ornaments typical of this style. And within the international aesthetic of Empfindsamkeit, the French style tended particularly towards subtlety, grace and charm, rather than to the drama of Sturm und Drang. Cousineau’s ideal harp-sound is moelleux et franc, ‘gentle and clear’.

Low French Pitch

Harp-maker Beat Wolf’s excellent website here includes – amongst a treasure-trove of fascinating information – a time-line giving various sample pitches in late-18^th century France. There is of course considerable variation amongst them, but they are all low: A379 (1766), A409 (1783), A396 (1789). This contrasts to typical London and Vienna pitch around A420. See Bruce Haynes History of Performing Pitch: The story of “ A” (2002) for lots more pitch information.

For modern use, convenient equivalents would be A415 (London, Vienna etc) for most 18^th-century music, but A392 (a tone below A440) for music from France, including the Mozart Concerto. In private correspondence, Beat Wolf tells me that the string-lengths on most 18^th-century harps are simply too long for today’s so-called “classical pitch” of A430 (derived from early 19th-century information) , let alone modern A440.

Cousineau warns against the ugliness of wide thirds (i.e. against Equal Temperament), which he considers ‘too strong and harsh on the ear’. The remedy is to narrow the fifths, as in one or other variety of Meantone. Although the exquisite clarity of quarter-comma Meantone is ideal for 17^th-century music and Italian or German repertoires, sixth-comma gives a rounder, smoother sound that is in keeping with the 18^th-century French aesthetic. Measurements of original instruments are consistent with the period use of sixth-comma Meantone, although one should perhaps be cautious about the margin of error for such fine measurements on 200-year-old mechanisms.

All the temperaments discussed here (and many more too) are built into the excellent ClearTune app for smart-phones. I recommend A392 and sixth-comma Meantone for French 18th-century harp.

Méthodes de harpe

We are fortunate in having a large selection of late 18^th-century French harp Methods to study, many of them published in facsimile by Fuzeau Productions, here.

Most of these French Methods are directed at beginners, but even so they are remarkably parallel to the sophisticated German-language Essays of the 1750s. Even the title of the earliest example, Meyer (1763), follows C.P.E. Bach’s lead: Essay on the True Manner of Playing the Harp. Whereas today’s musicians often make a distinction between Technique and Interpretation, the Essays and Methods teach a technique that builds-in many elements of ‘good delivery’: period technique goes a long way towards creating a historical ‘interpretation’.

It is taken for granted in this period that music is played in time, with the rhythm organised by a long slow pulse. (See Andrew Lawrence-King Rhythm – what really counts here) Leopold Mozart’s instructs violinists to ‘play the whole piece in one suitable and unchanging tempo’ – Das ganze Stück in einem rechten und gleichen Tempo hinauszubringen. If there is any artistic variation in tempo, it is not the general rubato that we know from the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Rather, the soloist may take some liberties whilst the accompaniment continues in measured rhythm. And even this should not be overdone, as Leopold Mozart and the Contesse de Genlis agree. ‘Why play out of time’, asks Genlis – ‘one might as well play out of tune!’

Since the time is counted steadily, with the slow Tactus beat, we must look elsewhere for the subtle variations and changes of Empfindsamkeit. In place of modern rubato, we must awaken our Sensibility to other performance variables. Here again, the Essays and Methods are in agreement, with a high priority given to the subtle patternings produced by particular fingering-systems.

Fingering for harps and keyboard instruments corresponds to bowing patterns for violin, or tonguing patterns for flute: all these are techniques for creating variations in the attack-characteristics of an individual note, or in the joins and separations between one note and the next. This is what Early Musicians mean by ‘articulation’: the way that notes start and stop, join and separate, just as articulate speech is started and stopped by vowels and consonants, joined and separated into words.

17^th-century fingering, bowing and tonguing systems are characterised by Good and Bad notes, corresponding to the Good and Bad (accented and un-accented) syllables of poetry. For the harp, Good and Bad notes are played respectively by Good and Bad fingers – scale patterns typically alternate Good and Bad. This survives in some 18^th-century Methods, which recommend 123232 etc for descending scales.

The Essays also assume that the principle of Good and Bad notes will still be observed – Leopold Mozart asks for alternating degrees of bow pressure, when several notes are played in one bow stroke. Quantz gives alternating tonguing patterns, creating the sound of ‘diddle diddle dee’. But one of the characteristics of Empfindsamkeit subtlety is a growing interest in more complex, elegantly varied bowing and slurring patterns. A variety of bow-strokes, writes Leopold, ‘brings the notes to life’. This is reflected in the Methods with a new approach to fingering for the 18^th-century harp.

Just as with Leopold Mozart’s instructions for bowing, harpists must still maintain the correct hierarchy of Good and Bad notes, but now by sensitive control of finger-pressure, instead of by alternating fingerings. Meanwhile, Leopold’s varied bowings are paralleled by varied fingerings, linking notes into ‘groups’ not only of two or three notes (as was typical for the alternating fingerings of the 17^th-century) but also of four, five or up to eight notes. The varying note-count in each group corresponds to the varying number of notes within each bow-stroke of Leopold’s violin-style.

The clearest explanation of this concept is in the Method by Cousineau (1784). A pair of notes will be played with 2 fingers: 2 1 ascending, 1 2 descending. Three notes will require three fingers, 3 2 1 or 1 2 3. Four notes require four fingers 4 3 2 1 or 1 2 3 4. So far, so obvious- though these simple groupings should be practised carefully to maintain sensitivity to, and control of the hierarchy of Good and Bad notes within each group of notes.

A group of five notes will be fingered 4 3 2 1 1 ascending, and 1 1 2 3 4 descending. The ‘rule of thumb’ (no pun intended!) for groups of more than four notes is to have the full sequence of four fingers at the bottom end of the group, whether ascending or descending.

For a group of six notes, there are two possibilities, depending on whether the notes go two by two, or three by three. Two by two (for example, quavers in 3/4 time) 4 3 2 1 2 1 ascending and 1 2 1 2 3 4 descending. Three by three (for example, quavers in 6/8 time) 3 2 1 3 2 1 ascending, and 1 2 3 1 2 3 descending. Applying the appropriate fingering produces the required phrasing: in this historical style, ‘technique’ and ‘interpretation’ are completely interdependent.

For a group of seven notes: 4 3 2 1 3 2 1 ascending, and 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 descending. And eight notes (no surprises here): 4 3 2 1 4 3 2 1 ascending and 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 descending. But don’t forget the (more old-fashioned) option of descending with 1 2 3 2 3 2 3 2 alternating.

The Method by that great writer, pedagogue and independent spirit, Stéphanie, Comtesse de Genlis (1811) is worth special attention, for it is aimed not at amateur beginners but at the serious student intent on an international-level career. She advocates systematic and persistent practice of fingering patterns (what we would now understand as the ‘ten-thousand hour rule’ for mastery of elite skills), use of all five fingers, and a virtuosic level of finger-control for both passage-work and trills (indeed, for both at once, in the same hand).

Some modern players dismiss her Method as ‘eccentric’, because of her advocacy of 5-finger technique. But her contemporary reputation as an expert in child pedagogy and her remarkable survival as a highly independent woman throughout all the upheavals of the French Revolution show she was a force to be reckoned with. And the charge of ‘eccentricity’ depends on a spurious and circular argument: don’t trust Genlis’ 5-finger technique because she was mad! How do we know she was mad? Well, she used 5-finger technique!

Taking Genlis therefore not as ‘eccentric’ but rather as an idiosyncratic source of information for elite-level performers, it’s worth considering her advice on how to manage the position change, say within a group of eight notes ascending: 4 3 2 1 – position change – 4 3 2 1. Methods for elementary students advise changing position by crossing the fingers underneath the thumb, placing finger 4 for the fifth note before playing the fourth note with the thumb 1. Genlis recognises this elementary technique, but recommends advanced students rather to jump the hand – the interruption in the flow will disappear with assiduous practice.

Le Grand Principe

Cousineau and other Method-writers emphasise placing in advance all the fingers needed for a group of notes. This corresponds to Leopold Mozart’s emphasis on smooth bowing and Francois Couperin’s subtly delicate French harpsichord fingerings. Cousineau puts this simply and memorably as his Great Principle, La main ne soit jamais obligée de faire de grands mouvements et se trouve toujours placée commodement.

Cousineau also recommends small movements of the fingers, keeping them close to the strings as the finger-stroke ends, as the technical preparation for high-velocity passage-work. This contrasts to the modern tendency to snap the fingers all the way, whenever possible.

My personal experience with low-tension strings is that a full finger-stroke is helpful for slow, sustained notes, but with a very slow finger-movement, keeping the hand still. 18^th-century Methods tell the player not to rest the right hand on the instrument, but wear-marks on surviving instruments show that this particular piece of advice was often ignored: the baroque position with the hands resting on the instrument was common also amongst 18th-century pedal harpists. And note that before you play your long note, Cousineau would have you prepare the next finger on the next string – this also requires the hand to be kept still. All that contrasts with the modern tendency to play long notes by floating the whole hand outwards and upwards like angel wings.

To summarise Cousineau’s Great Principle and other advice:

Keep your hand still until you have to move it, then move it only as much as necessary.

So here is the starting-point for any harpist wishing to acquire late-18^th-century Empfindsamkeit:

Play in time
Develop your Sensitivity to, and control of the hierarchy of Good and Bad notes
Create the sound of Sensibility with the melodic finger-patterns from the Methods.

Subsequent chapters in the Essays and the Methods alike concern Ornamentation, Good Delivery, Preluding and Accompaniment – but all that must wait for further chapters of this essay too.

The young daughter of the Duc of Orleans studies harp with Madame Genlis, whose adopted daughter, la belle Pamela, turns the pages. Read more here.

Please join me on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/andrew.lawrenceking.9 and visit our website http://www.TheHarpConsort.com .

http://www.historyofemotions.org.au

You can study Early Harps with Andrew Lawrence-King at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London; and at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen.

A free History of the Harp poster can be downloaded here.

On the recording Amor ist mein Lied (with Laurence Dean, 18th-century flute), Andrew plays one of Beat Wolf’s modern copies of a Louis XVI harp. Preview here.

Rhythm – what really counts?

Posted by Andrew Lawrence-King

Rhythm is the beating heart of music, from the powerful throb of heavy rock to the sensual swing of jazz and the ‘vacillating rhythm’ of romantic rubato. For many musicians and listeners today, the very word ‘expressive’ suggests rhythmic fluidity. Around the year 1600, John Dowland, William Shakespeare, and Giulio Caccini agree that rhythm is a high priority:

Music is nothing else than Text, and Rhythm, and Sound last of all. And not the other way around!

Caccini Le nuove musiche 1601/2

But what did 17^th-century musicians mean by Rhythm? A rock drummer’s groove? A jazz singer’s swing? 20^th-century rubato? Just as instruments, pitch and temperament, bowing styles and ornamentation all vary between different periods and repertoires, so the aesthetics of rhythm also show historical change.

This is a huge subject. Detailed investigation of attitudes to rhythm around 1600 are a major strand of our six-year Performance research program at the Australian Centre for the History of Emotions. Dance and Swordsmanship sources set the context for musical tempo. Frescobaldi, Caccini and Peri give us insights into Italian subtleties of rhythm. The very concept of Time itself must be studied, in order to understand how musicians were thinking in that pre-Newtonian age.

(Isaac Newton Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica 1687 sets out the concept of Absolute Time)

Nevertheless, the essential practicalities of period Rhythm are already well understood, although only partially applied in today’s Early Music performances. George Houle’s 1987 Meter in Music, 1600-1800 provides a summary of historical sources, setting the context for this period of fundamental change. 17^th-century theorists and performers tried to reconcile incompatible elements: the old system of triple-time proportions and the newly fashionable French dances; the gradual shift from proportional signs to modern time-signatures; the persistent concept of a (more-or-less) fixed tempo ordinario and the proliferation of speed-modifying words, allegro, andante etc; the distinction between measured meter and modern accentual rhythm.

But what simple, practical guide-lines can we draw from all this?

As elementary music students, many of us were taught to manage difficult rhythms by counting the smallest note-values, adding these up to measure longer notes. Before 1800, the contrary held: musicians counted a long note-value, and divided this up to measure shorter notes. Purely mathematically, there should be no difference between the two approaches, but (since musicians are human), the practical results are measurably different. Even more importantly, the slow count feels different.

Around 1600, this slow count is called Tactus. Its slow constancy is an imitation of the perfect motion of the stars, whose circular orbits create the heavenly sounds of the Music of the Spheres. It is felt in the human body as the heart-beat and pulse, or measured as a walking step. In practical music-making, it can be shown by an up-and-down movement of the hand, or by a swinging pendulum.

(Of course, 17^th-century musicians did not have digital watches or metronomes, but Galileo had noted the pendulum effect around 1588, observing a swinging chandelier in Pisa cathedral – see illustration above. In another posting, I’ll report on some recent experiments with pendulum tactus.)

Around 1600, typically the Tactus will be on minims (half-notes), somewhere around MM60. Down for one second, Up for the next second. You create crotchets (quarter notes) by dividing each Down and each Up in two. “Down-and-Up-and.”

The simple, steady movement of the hand, Down-Up, makes it easy to manage changes of Proportion. Keep the hand movement the same, but now divide it into three beats on the Down, and another three on the Up: this gives Tripla. Making the Down long, and the Up short (whilst keeping the duration of the whole Down-Up cycle the same) gives Sesquialtera: two beats on Down, one on Up.

Grouping notes into phrases, and choosing where to place the accents is independent of Tactus. Tactus simply measures time. This is the crucial difference between early and modern attitudes to rhythm: Tactus and Accent are independent, whereas our modern Downbeat implies accentuation.

The independence of Tactus and Accent allowed 17^th-century musicians to notate triple rhythm under what looks to us like a “common time time-signature” of C. Time is being measured by dividing the minim tactus into two crotchets, but the music is phrased in groups of three crotchets. Professional dancers do something similar today, counting everything in blocks of 8, so that a waltz is counted:

123/456/781/234/567/812/345/678

Before 1800, counting (i.e. measuring time) and accent are independent. They can coincide, but they don’t have to.

Tactus and Proportion were central concepts in period music-making.

Tactus directs a Song according to Measure.

John Dowland Micrologus (1609) translated from Ornithoparcus (1517).

Ha, ha, keep time! How sour sweet music is / When Time is broke, and no Proportion kept!

William Shakespeare Richard II Act V Scene v (c 1595)

In today’s Early Music, the acceptance of Tactus principles varies. Stronger principles are supported by academics more than they are applied by performers.

Slow count

This is widely accepted, and many performers work with and teach a slow count.

Proportions

Amongst academics, there is debate about precisely how to interpret Proportional changes, but the central concept of an underlying constant slow count is not contested. Amongst performers, adherence to Proportions is regarded as ‘hard-core’ HIP, and ‘too academic’ for some.

Consistent Tactus: a whole “Song according to Measure”

Though the period evidence supports this, very few performers are prepared to relinquish their romantic rubato.

“Tactus directs a Song”

In most modern performances, a conductor directs.

Soloists follow the accompaniment

Explicitly stated by Leopold Mozart (1756), clearly implied by Jacopo Peri (1600), and the basis of the entire period practice of Divisions, this is almost universally ignored today.

Rhythm in Recitative

Most singers today are astonished at the mere suggestion that Monteverdi might actually have meant something by all those complex rhythms that he forced his printers to set in type.

Tactus in Recitative

Very few performers have tried this. However, conductors in recitative are commonplace…

Consistent Tactus for a large-scale work

I was first introduced to this concept by Holger Eichhorn, director of the Berlin ensemble, Musicalische Compagney. Paradoxically, consistent Tactus often results in more contrast in what the listeners hear, since (without the discipline of Tactus) musicians tend to pick a slower tempo when the notes go fast, ironing out the composed contrasts. It is very rarely tried today.

Consistent Tactus for an entire repertoire, say all Caccini songs, or everything by Monteverdi.

There is considerable evidence for this, and some academics argue for it. I know of only one other musician today who supports it in practice: continuo-guru Jesper Christensen.

At CHE, we are investigating Baroque Time, researching period Philosophy and the aesthetics of Rhythm, testing all our findings and hypotheses in experimental productions. Our six-year mission is to boldly go where 17^th-century musicians have gone before, but few performers today have followed: we are applying all these Tactus principles in teaching, rehearsals and performance. So far, the results are academically and artistically convincing, with performers and (most importantly) audiences responding very positively.

You can see a video report of our Tactus-based production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo here.

But I’ll give the last word to John Dowland:

Above all things keep the equality of measure. For to sing without law and measure is an offence to God himself…

Please join me on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/andrew.lawrenceking.9 and visit our website www.TheHarpConsort.com . Further details of original sources are on the website, click on “New Priorities in Historically Informed Performance”

Opera, orchestra, vocal & ensemble director and early harpist, Andrew Lawrence-King is director of The Harp Consort and of Il Corago, and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre for the History of Emotions.

www.historyofemotions.org.au

The Long Shake (Irish Harp Ornament of the Month #1)

Posted by Andrew Lawrence-King

There is an accompanying video for this posting, here.

Ornaments are like spices in cookery. Even though they are small, they add a lot of flavour. The right ones are essential, for that authentic taste. But the wrong ones, or the right ones used badly, can spoil the whole dish, even when the main ingredients are good. Some you need to add from the start and bake slowly, others you can sprinkle on at the last minute.

The best way to get confident with ornaments is to learn one at a time. So at Scoil na gCláirseach, the summer school of the Historical Harp Society of Ireland, we came up with the idea of an Ornament of the Month. If you practise an ornament 2 or 3 times a week, by the end of a month you’ll be ready to move on to the next one. And by next summer, you will have a good collection of ornaments that you know how to play, and (even more important) that you know where to use.

Warning

The ornaments in this series (and especially their fingerings) are specific to Irish harp. European ornaments are sometimes different. Historical fingerings on other harps (in particular, French single-action harp of the same period) are different.

But these fingerings are suitable for neo-Irish (i.e. modern, ‘Celtic’ or ‘lever’) harps as well as Historical (wire-strung) Irish harps.

I focus on the 18^th century: the music of O’Carolan, the harp-playing of Denis Hempson, the first printed publications of Irish music, the style of the last itinerant players as collected by Bunting and others around 1800.

Sources

Bunting’s table of ornaments with fingerings for Irish harp is the principal source for technical details. His transcriptions, and those by Ford, show how players of the time applied the ornaments to particular tunes.

From the end of the 17th century, we have tables of ornaments (from Playford & Purcell in England, D’Anglebert in France, and many others) which show strong correlations with what Bunting noted down a hundred years later, supporting the hypothesis that Irish 18^th-century playing preserved features of earlier French style. Georg Muffat’s detailed analysis of how to apply French ornaments is also consistent with what we see in Irish sources. There are certain differences of course, and Bunting points these out: where relevant, I will repeat his warnings.

How to practise

As for any other technical skill, practise your ornaments at first very slowly. So slowly, that you get them absolutely correct, with no possibility of error. Once your fingers have learnt what to do, try a fast one: just launch yourself into it, and see how it flies.

Avoid practising at medium tempo, stumbling & correcting: if you repeat a mistake again and again, it will become permanent!

Practise slowly enough to be perfect … and then play fluently, without stopping.

The Long Shake

So, after all that preamble, here is the first Ornament of the Month, the Long Shake. It’s a good one to start with, because it teaches the fine control and finger-substitution that are needed for many other ornaments too. And there are many chances to use it in Irish tunes. Here it is:

If you are checking against your own copy of Bunting (and you should always check against original sources, if you possibly can!), you’ll notice that I have modernised the fingering notation to thumb=1, index=2, middle=3, ring=4, little finger=5.

Rest your treble hand on the harp, as seen in period images. This will steady your hand, so that your fingers can move lightly on the strings. Arrange fingers 3 and 4 to strike the same (main note) string. The index finger 2 strikes the upper note.

Use small finger motions for the fast notes of the Shake. Use a greater range of finger movement, and a slower movement, for a long note.

Once you have the basic action of the long shake going nicely, you can take just a few iterations to make a Shake that will fit into the rhythm of your tune.

Bunting does not specify any damping, but I suggest that at the end of this Shake, you let your index finger stop its (upper note) string, leaving the main note to sound alone. I show this with the small, crossed-out notehead on the upper note, the damping finger [2] in square brackets, and the main note that sounds on in red.

Notice that this Irish Shake (unlike its English and European cousins) begins on the main note, not the upper note. Also, there is no turn through the lower note at the end of the shake, it just stops.

Begin the Shake on the beat, not ahead of time. This is sometimes difficult for modern players, who have been taught to place ornaments ahead of the beat. Synchronise the first note of the ornament with your bass note, or with your tapping foot.

Bunting doesn’t say anything about this, but other 18^th-century sources emphasise the importance of making the ornament start with a strong note, and end softly.

In general, on the beat, and loud-soft are good general guidelines for many ornaments.

That’s it: now it’s up to you to practise. Shake slow and perfect, or Shake speedily, flying fluently. Time spent now practising very slow and very perfect is an investment that will reward you handsomely later.

And in my next post, I’ll show you how you can take a tune and apply your well-practised Shake.

More about Scoil na gCláirseach here

www.historyofemotions.org.au

What is Music?

Posted by Andrew Lawrence-King

A Master of Arms, as the opening words of a discussion on early music, might seem inappropriate…

What is Music? Is it an Art, a Science, a Practice, or just something that comes naturally? How would musicians have thought about this question in earlier periods? And how have the meanings of all these words changed over the years?

Nowadays, we admire a performance that strikes us as ‘natural’, and we shun ‘artificiality’. It’s assumed that a great Artist should not be subject to petty rules. And that the subtleties of Art transcend the limits of Science. In academic circles, Musicology (in German, Musikwissenschaft, music-science) outranks Performance Studies. And those who might wish to call themselves Artists are often looked down upon as mere Practitioners. So how did all this play out around the year 1600?

Agazzari’s treatise Del sonare sopra’l basso is one of the most-studied sources for early seicento performance practice. Many of us got to know it through Gloria Rose’s pioneering 1965 article, Agazarri and the Improvising Orchestra, but now both the original (Siena, 1607) and Bernhard Lang’s most helpful 2003 transcription (with parallel translations into English and German) are now available free online.

Original

Lang’s transcriptions

Rose’s commentary (fee or subscription to access)

Del sonare sopra’l basso is a key text that I shall certainly return to in future postings on the practical details of ensemble direction and continuo-playing. But first let’s look more closely at the preliminary dedication. It’s all too tempting to skip over this, in the rush to get to Agazzari’s main text, but it hints at answers to my question: What is Music? – answers that are significantly different from those most musicians would give today.

Agazzari’s treatise is dedicated to Cosimo Berlingucci, and the printer, Domenico Falcini, begins with the words A Professor d’armi

“A Master of Arms, as the dedicatee for teachings on liberal sciences, might well appear inappropriate – if it were true, that Sciences and Arms do not belong together.”

The myriad connections between early music and historical swordsmanship are a fascinating topic in themselves, but Falcini’s words strike to the heart of my question. He takes it for granted that music is one of the ‘liberal sciences’. His more subtle point is that Arms are also Science. Music and Arms are both scienze liberali, worthy to be studied by every free citizen.

Just a few years later, in the same city of Siena, Ridolfo Capo Ferro published his Gran Simulacro dell’ Arte e dell Uso della Scherma (1610), one of the most famous texts on period swordsmanship. Tom Leoni’s excellent 2011 English translation and commentary is currently out of print, but the original and Swanger & Wilson’s 1999 English translation are free to download:

Original

English

This ‘Great Representation… of Swordfighting’ refers to ‘the Art and Practice’, and although Capo Ferro does refer to the discipline as a Science, he formally defines it as “Art, and not Science”. “The term Science, in its strict definition”, he explains, “treats of eternal and divine things that surpass human judgement.” Capo Ferro’s main purpose is to teach the Art and the Practice, not the Philosophy, of swordsmanship.

In modern terms, renaissance ‘Science’ includes Philosophy, Astro-Physics, Mathematics and Theology: Astrology and Alchemy also are not excluded. Returning to 17^th-century ways of thinking, the Science of Geometry studies Number and Space. The higher Science of Astronomy unites the studies of Number, Space and Movement. Swordsmanship and historical Dance are thus related to Astronomy, the study of the perfect movement of the heavenly spheres. As a Science, Music is only a little lower, combining the two disciplines of Number (pitch ratios and rhythmic subdivisions) and Movement (ie, Time).

Capo Ferro also neatly summarises the period view of Nature, Art and Practice. “Art regulates Nature, and with the more secure guidance directs us by the infallible truth and by the organisation of its precepts to the true Science of our [discipline].” This places Nature, Art and Science in a hierarchy: Art is a means of organising Nature according to rational precepts, in order to approach the ‘eternal and divine’.

Capo Ferro is very clear about the relation between Art and Nature. Nature’s material receives the “ultimate form and perfection of Art”. “Art… in the guise of Architect, takes it [Nature] and makes some beautiful construction, and thus refines and sculpts… bringing it little by little to the summit of perfection.”

And what then is Art? “Art… is a system of perpetually true and well-organised precepts”. A renaissance ‘Art’ is thus a set of rules that bring disorderly nature towards heavenly perfection. But are such rule-sets really ‘perpetually true’?

I suggest that we can accept that they are perpetual, if we understand them not as abstract rules, “you must always do this”, but as precepts that guide Nature and your Practice towards the high perfection of a desired result. Different Arts will desire different results, and have different rules. Thus Capo Ferro’s set of rules still work very well indeed, providing that your intention is to defend yourself in a duel to the death with long, sharp rapiers. If you are trying to score points in a modern fencing competition using lightweight foils, without needing to kill your opponent, you need another set of rules.

Similarly, we can trust Agazzari’s rules if we are playing seicento music on early instruments, with the period intention of ‘moving the passions’ of our audience. But if we are playing say Romantic repertoire, with the 19^th-century intention of expressing the performer’s genius and sublime depth of feeling, we probably need another set of rules.

Historical treatises on Swordsmanship also deal with down and dirty questions of uso, Practice, as opposed to Art. However well you understand the precepts of the Art as an intellectual construct, you still need to practice assiduously to acquire physical skills. Musicians can certainly relate to that.

And some of what one does in Practice falls a little short of the divine perfection that Art would have us aspire to. A swordsman might stab you with his dagger, rather than with his sword, the Queen of Weapons, if it would save his life. Continuo-players might accept less-than-perfect contrapuntal move, if it preserved their concentration on the vital priorities of text and rhythm. Many historical treatises leave space for practical subtleties which cannot be written down, within the limitations (and rules) of period notation.

Now we can understand how the word ‘artificial’, in its 17^th-century sense of ‘full of Art’, is one of the highest compliments awarded to fine music, both in composition and performance. In the original sense, ‘artificial’ music takes something Natural, subjects it to the Precepts of that particular Art (since of course, Monteverdi’s Art is not quite the same as Purcell’s), in order to bring it as close as possible to the summit of heavenly perfection.

In this period view, Nature, Art, Practice and Science all have their place. But those philosophical terms, and their respective places in a hierarchical value-system, differ from our modern understanding. Is this just a quirky detail of historical philosophy, or might it change how we approach the Practice of playing old music today?

Study the Art of Historical Swordsmanship here

www.historyofemotions.org.au

Terms of Expression

Posted by Andrew Lawrence-King

I’m always intrigued by the differences between various languages, words that exist in one language, but not in another. For example, the German word konsequent does not have a direct equivalent in English. Consistent, self-consistent, responsible, reliable, accepting the future consequences of one’s present actions – these are some of the areas of meaning, but there is no single English word that fully conveys the significance konsequent has for German-speakers.

But in English we do have a word – inconsequent – that neatly conveys the opposite: ‘not connected or following logically”. I think the absence of an English word for the positive qualities of konsequent says something about the respective national characters!

Within one language, words also change their meanings with time. A favourite example is the Duke of Wellington’s comment after the battle of Waterloo in 1815: “It has been a damned nice thing”. Of course, he didn’t mean that it was a pleasant occasion, with a good time had by all, as ‘nice’ would suggest today. His next words clarify the period meaning: “the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life”. The earlier meaning of ‘nice’ is preserved in the modern phrase ‘a nice distinction’ – a subtle, fine distinction.

Meanings that change over time and words that are missing from certain cultures warn us to be careful when considering how emotions might be expressed in music of the past. Most of today’s standard terms for musical expression – mezzo piano, legato, rubato etc – are not found in early 17^th-century notation, and are not part of the artistic discourse of the time. We no longer think that this means Monteverdi’s music was performed without expressive subtlety: we’ve moved on from mid-20^th century theories of Terassendynamik. But clearly, in the 17^th-century expression was being notated and discussed in different terms.

One practical consequence of our Text, Rhythm, Action! research is that we try to use appropriate period vocabulary in rehearsal discussion and for coaching notes. Our intention is to match artistic priorities in rehearsal to those of the original performers. But this presents an immediate challenge: the word ‘expression’ itself is conspicuously absent from early texts. This certainly does not mean that Monteverdi’s music was inexpressive: the primary aim of 17^th-century music was muovere gli affetti, to move the passions. But we can draw some nice distinctions between ‘expressing emotion’ and ‘moving the passions’.

In both Italian and English versions, the 17^th-century term for emotion is plural: affetti, passions. Rather than steadily intensifying one emotion, they wanted to move between contrasting passions. So modern-day performers and directors might find it more effective to work on emotional contrasts, rather than simply looking for more intensity.

And the phrase ‘moving the passions’ begs the question: whose passions? The audience’s, of course. This puts a completely different spin on the whole business of emotions in performance. The 17^th-century priority is to move the audience’s passions, whereas the romantic & modern term ‘expression’ focusses on what the performer does. The period term directs our attention away from the process and towards the desired outcome.

At the end of century, the distinction is made explicit in Brady’s 1692 Ode to St Cecilia, set by Henry Purcell, who himself sang the counter-tenor aria. Music is ‘Nature’s voice’, the ‘mighty art … at once the passions to express and move’. Beyond expressing your feelings, music’s primary aim is to move the audience’s passions.

This – as the Duke of Wellington might say – is a damned nice thing. It’s a subtle distinction, but it makes all the difference. Baroque music privileges the audience: it’s about moving their passions with ever-changing contrasts, not about a performer expressing his or her emotion.

Historically informed performance should encourage us to move beyond the selfishness of self-expression. Performers of baroque music, unlike Method actors, do not need to find their personal motivation before they can sing or play a certain phrase. It’s about the audience’s passions, not about your emotion.

And the clear structures of 17^th-century texts and music are not some kind of obstacle threatening to block your personal involvement with the material – they are the elegantly designed framework, the beautifully crafted box in which to deliver passionate persuasion to your audience. In particular, performers should maintain the high priority of structured rhythm alongside the first priority of communicating the text and its passions to the audience.

If we take all this seriously, much of our rehearsal vocabulary and training commentary for early music should change. We should stop asking performers to ‘be more expressive’, and instead empower them to persuade their audience to feel the changing passions structured into the original work.

theatre-palais-cardinal Louis XIII

www.historyofemotions.org.au

Music expresses emotions?

Posted by Andrew Lawrence-King

Probably most musicians and music-lovers would agree that ‘music expresses emotions’, although each of these three words can be problematised: what kind of music? What do you mean by ‘express’? Whose emotions? What is emotion, anyway? And all of these three concepts – music, expression, emotion – change as we trace them back through history.

Early Music tends to concentrate on precise detail: should we play up or down a semitone from modern pitch, or in-between? Precisely how should we tune a harpsichord for Bach? Which violin-bow or oboe-reed should we use for Handel? These small details are significant – each one is a piece of jigsaw-puzzle which constructs your over-view of a particular repertoire and where it fits in history. But here, I want to ask the big questions, questions about ‘music’, ‘expression’ and ’emotions’, questions that are sometimes missed as we grapple with the minutiae of Historically Informed Performance.

For many musicians today, the first and most important means of ‘expression’ is rubato: vacillating rhythm, playing around with musical time. Exchanges of views between ‘modern’ and ‘early’ performers tend to focus on vibrato. A blog-posting on early opera begins bravely by noting that audiences value “imagination, innovation, and musical, sensitive interpretations; not what kind of bow is in use”, but fades out with “everyone’s happy to get back to using vibrato now”. So are these today’s priorities for early music: rubato, vibrato and the performer’s happiness?

We know what the priorities were for music and performance at the beginning of the baroque, around the year 1600. According to Caccini’s Le Nuove Musiche (1601/2)

Music is nothing else than Text, and Rhythm, and Sound last of all. And not the other way around!

On performance, many writers, notably John Bulwer Chironomia (1644), cite Quintilian, Cicero and Demosthenes:

What are the three secrets of great performance: Action! Action! Action!

And summarising the first two strophes of the Prologue to Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607), one of the first ‘operas’:

Music comes to you, noble audience, whose importance is too high to be told, to move your hearts.

The historical priorities are Text, Rhythm, Action – and the audience’s emotions. Text (not vibrato), Rhythm (not rubato), Action for the Audience (not how the performers themselves feel).

I’ll try to keep these historical and inspiring priorities in mind as I continue to write, as well as in my research, performance and teaching.

Meanwhile, please join me on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/andrew.lawrenceking.9 and visit our website www.TheHarpConsort.com . Further details of original sources are on the website, click on “New Priorities in Historically Informed Performance”

Andrew Lawrence-King

Text, Rhythm, Action! (Historically Informed Performance) & The Flow.Zone

Year: 2013

The Researcher’s Otherworld: A Dream of the ancient Irish Harp

Irish Harp Ornament of the Month #2 – The Cadential Shake

Sparrow-flavoured Soup – or What is Continuo?

The Good, the Bad & the Early Music Phrase

Single-Action Harp – making Sensibility of the Méthodes

Rhythm – what really counts?

The Long Shake (Irish Harp Ornament of the Month #1)

What is Music?

Terms of Expression

Music expresses emotions?

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