A thoughtful article by Seconda Pratica on The Limits of Literalism, here, identified the need for
making our practice — what we do — coherent with our discourse — what we say we are doing and why we are doing it
In plain language, we historically informed performers (whether we are singers, musicians, dancers, actors or sword-fighters) should practise what we preach.
Going further, our ideal should be to “join the dots” all the way from historical research through private study, training and rehearsal to performance, contact with the audience and post-performance reflective analysis.
Academic musicologists, and even some critics (see Brian Robins’ article Whatever happened to HIP? here) frequently point out what Christopher Brown, writing about Performing 19th-century chamber music, calls
The yawning chasm between contemporary practice and historical evidence
Perhaps an even more insidious gap is the all-too-frequently encountered disconnect between the beautifully artistic words of a director’s program note, and the harsher reality of what is said and done in rehearsal. All too often, the beautiful ideas are simply not discussed in the rehearsal room. When rehearsal time is limited – as it nearly always is – then directors have to make tough choices about how to prioritise between different concerns, all of which may well be valid.
Then there are the inevitable differences between what we would like to “say” in our performance, what we think we manage to say, and what the audience hears us say. Closing those gaps is a life-long search for the crock of artistic gold at the end of the rehearsal rainbow.
Of course, even when we can follow a consistent thread from research through artistic preparations to performance, we need to share the story in different ways, with different vocabularies (for academics, with colleagues in the rehearsal room, for audiences) and in different modes: rigorous articles and thought-provoking blog-posts; efficient and inspiring leadership in rehearsal; diligent persistence in private study; clarity and passion in the act of performance itself; as well as in the many ways we “address” the audience. As theatre-directors and actors know, everything we do is part of how we address the audience: posters and flyers, media interviews and the program-booklet of course; but also how we dress, how we walk onto the stage, the group dynamic that is presented to spectators; as well as speaking directly to the audience between musical items, and informally after the show.
There is no one correct way to go about all this, even within the narrowest parameters of Historically Informed Performance. But I would argue that an effective and principled approach is one that unites the grand artistic vision with the careful realisation of nitty-gritty details, as far as is possible. Historically speaking, this is the principle of rhetorical Decorum, that every element of the work should correspond to its place in the overall design.
Since time and resources are usually limited, directors are rarely able to do everything they might want to, in a particular project. Difficult choices have to be made. But this principle of Decorum also provides a basis for such choices – the way you select priorities should be consistent with the overall aims, as revealed by your research and as proclaimed to your audience. Historical texts (taking the concept of text in the wide sense, as explained well in Seconda Pratica’s article) inform about detail, but can also guide a choice of period priorities from amongst all that historical detail.
This is the approach I took with the five-year Text, Rhythm, Action! program of research, training and performance that I directed for the Australian Centre for the History of Emotions, reported here. Early 17th-century texts determined those priorities of Text, Rhythm and Action; priorities which then guided our research, structured our rehearsals, and characterised our performances.
This might not be the only set of priorities that could be argued for, even within this specific repertoire. But I do commend the methodology, of interrogating historical texts to find the questions to be asked, before going back to those (and other) texts, to look for answers.
In the kind of debate that Robins and Seconda Pratica have opened up, perhaps one of the major stumbling blocks is the attempt to reduce the rich texture of historical information and artistic choice to binaries: EITHER this, OR that. This tendency shaped our thinking in the 1960s, when Donnington’s influential book on The Interpretation of Early Music implied that there were two ways to play, main-stream and ‘early’. That binary persists within many conservatoires, and perhaps in the thinking of some ‘mainstream’ performers. Most HIPsters realise that there are many different historical approaches, and indeed significant differences amongst ‘modern’ schools of thought. And the interchange of influences has been much discussed.
It might be more appropriate to think of a spectrum, from an approach that considers and applies great amounts of historical detail, to one that approaches a work without any historical context whatsoever. But is such a context-less approach even possible? If one decides to ‘ignore the whole early music thing’ and play resolutely in a ‘mainstream’ manner, that ‘mainstream’ style is itself a historically-influenced construct, and that bold decision is also something rooted in the artistic debates of the last few decades. Also, even for very historically-minded performers, there are different views about which elements of historicity are relevant: must we perform in costume? What about gesture? What message do we send the audience if we choose to perform by candlelight?
So even the notion of a spectrum does not sufficiently describe the complexity of choices facing us. I like the analogy of a jigsaw puzzle, in which we hope to assemble enough pieces to produce a coherent picture. Each director is free to choose their own way to assemble the puzzle (start with the edges, start from the middle, try to solve the boring bits of sky, leap straight for easily recognised parts etc), and (since completing the puzzle to create a fully ‘Authentic’ performance is impossible) each set of choices will produce a different view-point.
Of course, you can also force pieces into the ‘wrong’ place, and create a new picture of your own. And this is not bad, it’s just a different way to play the puzzle-game. Daniel Leech-Wilkinson argues strongly for abandoning all ‘rules’ of performance – any rule is just an artistic construct, and another rule, or even total anarchy, will produce a new performance, to be evaluated on its own merits.
But I particularly like the way that the puzzle-analogy fits with the rhetorical idea of Decorum and the scientific concept of empiricism. A well-solved puzzle will present a picture that, whilst inevitably ‘imperfect’, is satisfyingly self-consistent. And we can choose whether to begin with historical data, with individual pieces of the puzzle, and see what big picture emerges; or we can start with a grand artistic scheme, and force the pieces to fit our pre-determined ideas.
And yes, even though I’m trying to be even-handed, I imagine my personal preferences show through quite clearly here!
But what about those pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that we choose to ignore, or even reject? Robins’ criticism, as I read it, is not that today’s HIP performers do not know the difference between a French and an Italian baroque violin, or between 17th- and 18th-century orchestral forces. Rather, he is dismayed that these differences have been (apparently deliberately) ignored, by ensembles who position themselves as ‘historically informed’.
I don’t believe that this concern shows a dinosaur-like mentality, or a return to the bad old days of the 1970s and dusty old debates about “Authenticity”. Certainly, we can quickly agree nowadays that total historical authenticity is impossible, but that some level of historical information can be a valuable aid to almost any performance. The questions then become:
Which elements of historical practice would you like to use in a certain performance?
How will you put them into effect?
How will you present them to your audience?
Each performer, each ensemble, each project is free to determine their own answers to these questions. Most of us develop a set of answers that we apply broadly to many projects, with some variations for specific repertoires.
In this 21st century, it is easy to argue that there are elements of historical practice which we do not wish to revisit.
See also Baroque violinist gets off without vibrator here, for another irreverent spoof of this subject.
For example, many HIP musicians choose not to perform in period costume, unless they are part of a complete stage-production using historical dress. That is a choice I would support, but I can also appreciate the position of ensembles who make a different choice. Whilst not performing regularly in period dress, I do value the learning experience of experiments with historical costume – the physicality of music-making is greatly altered.
Many directors take the decision to conduct performances of music before 1800. For most repertoires, this is a glaring anachronism, even though it is widely accepted in today’s Early Music scene. I believe that this is an important choice, that significantly effects the audience’s experience: my own choice is not to conduct. That one choice leads to many other artistic decisions: this is a single piece of the jigsaw puzzle that will have a large-scale effect on the ‘big picture’.
Like any modern-day HIP performer, I cannot pretend that everything I do is 100% historical. I have to make choices, and I must be ready to defend any decision I make that presents the audience with a significant anachronism. And, if I wish to position myself as a historically informed performer, I should not present my anachronisms to the audience as if they were ‘authentic’: rather, I should admit to them, and be open about why they are necessary and/or desirable.
But – and here, I suggest, is the deep value of Robins’ article and the debate it has provoked – I believe that we HIP musicians should regularly re-visit our deliberately ‘in-authentic’ choices and review our decisions. Perhaps some small piece of the puzzle that we previously considered unimportant might have deep significance in today’s context. Perhaps a stone that most builders rejected might become the chief corner-stone of a new approach to a certain historical repertoire.
Standard operating procedure in the modern Early Music scene need not dictate bad choices for any individual performer. And – ideally – we should all try to become aware of those choices which we have not even noticed ourselves making, those decisions that seem to be “instinctive musicality”.
Opera, orchestra, vocal & ensemble director and early harpist, Andrew Lawrence-King is director of The Harp Consort and of Il Corago. From 2011 to 2015 he was Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre for the History of Emotions. He is now preparing a translation of Bonifacio’s (1616) Art of Gesture and a book on The Theatre of Dreams: The Science of Historical Action.
Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) is justly celebrated as the greatest German composer of the generation before Johann Sebastian Bach. Apart from his first book of madrigals, he left almost no secular music; no score for his (1627) opera, Dafne has survived. Even though he was an outstanding organist, he published no instrumental music. Nearly all his surviving compositions are settings of sacred texts, many of them in the grand style of divided choirs he learnt from Gabrieli, others in the new, dramatic style of Monteverdi.
Schütz was born in Bad Köstritz, near Leipzig, and grew up in nearby Weißenfels. He sang as a choir-boy for the Landgrave of Kassel, before travelling to Venice to study with Giovanni Gabrieli. He then spent most of his life in Dresden, creating an impressive body of work including settings of the Psalms, Historia (story-telling oratorios) of Christmas and the Resurrection, Passions (according to Matthew, Luke & John) and the Seven Last Words. The Italianate splendour of his style is proclaimed in the titles of his publications: Geistliche Concerte (two books) and Symphoniae Sacrae (three books) – spiritual concertos and sacred symphonies! Schütz returned to Venice in 1628 to study with Monteverdi, and travelled twice to work in Denmark.
Schütz was master of a great variety of 17th-century styles, from Flemish polyphony to the block harmonies of Italianate music for two, three or four choirs, from dance rhythms and folk melodies to the dramatic style of oratorios and opera. In all these styles, the music responds directly to the words, to the speech-patterns of language, to the poetry of the psalms, and to the drama of bible-stories. Even the most elaborate instrumental writing (violin double-stops, sound-effects of battle, rhythmic dances, thrilling fanfares and virtuosic passage-work) proceeds from imagery in the sacred texts.
It is sometimes suggested that Schütz reacted to Gabrieli’s teaching by imitating Monteverdi, whereas after studying with Monteverdi, he returned to a Gabrieli-like style with multiple choirs. Though there is a grain of truth in this, it misses the point that much of the later polychoral music is designed for flexible performance; during and after the 30-years war (1618-1648), German establishments could not always provide the full complement of musicians required for four-choir settings. Monteverdi’s influence as madrigalist and opera-composer is seen more subtly in Schütz’s response to Enargeia, the emotional power of detailed visual description. His favourite Psalm-texts display vivid poetic imagery; Bible-stories are represented as dramatic scenes in which voices and instruments take on character roles.
Psalm 150 invites ‘everything that hath breath’ to praise the Lord with songs and instruments. This ‘breath’ is renaissance Pneuma, the divine breath of life, the mind/body energy of human beings, and the mysterious Spirit of Passion that communicates emotions through poetry and music. Accordingly, King David’s musical instruments and dancing are heard in the grand harmonies of the Responsory and the slow Sesquialtera dance-rhythms of this Psalm. Similarly in Psalm 33, the words ‘sing to the Lord a new song’ call forth a fashionable instrumental effect: violin double-stops with tremolo. After this, the ‘string-playing with harp’ is set just as King David describes.
The cetra is the mythical lyre of Orpheus – in Monteverdi’s opera Orfeo a golden cetra played by La Musica not only flatters the ear but, as the lyre of heaven, it can move souls. Schütz sets Psalm 70, Eile mich Gott zu eretten, in the dramatic style of Italianate opera and his own oratorios. In contrast, the simple faith of Von Gott will ich nicht lassen is set to vocal and instrumental variations on a popular folk-melody known in Germany as the Christmas carol Nun helft mir Gottes Güte schon preisen, in France as the dance-song Une jeune fillette and in England and Scandinavia as The Queen’s Alman.
Episodes from the story of Christmas inspired many of Schütz’s compositions. A high tenor represents the Angel Gabriel in the Annunciation scene, leading to Mary’s great song of joy, the Magnificat. Schütz set this text many times; the setting in Symphoniae Sacrae II (1647) casts Mary as a solo soprano and recalls Monteverdi’s Vespers with its elaborate instrumental writing. As the scene changes to the fields where the Shepherds watch over their flocks, Schütz depicts the angel choir’s concerto with the serene harmonies of Andrea Gabrieli’s (1576) motet Angelus ad Pastores ait, brought to the German congregation as Der Engel sprach zu den Hirten. The choral melody Veni, Sancte Spiritus is ornamented in dance-rhythms, with glorious moments of Giovanni Gabrieli-like tutti at the sacred words O lux beatissima (O most blessed light)and sacrum septenarium (the sacred sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit).
Later, the angel appears again to Joseph, warning him to take Mary and the Baby to Egypt, in order to avoid Herod’s wrath. Schütz casts King David as a bass, lamenting the death of his son, Absalon, amidst the solemn sonority of four sackbuts. In Psalm 68, paying homage to Monteverdi’s Combattimento, violins imitate the sounds of battle as God arises to destroy his enemies: but the righteous rejoice with the party-music of ciacona, citing Monteverdi’s Zefiro torna. Pharaoh’s army are drowned in the Red Sea (Psalm 136), but God’s goodness endures forever. Schütz depicts divine eternity with seemingly endless repetitions of the psalmist’s refrain, culminating in a final fanfare. No score is provided for this, since each Prince would have his own fanfare, which his trumpeters would play (from memory, of course) whenever required.
Baroque composers were utterly practical. Schütz explains how his music is scored flexibly, and can be adapted for various combinations of voices and instruments, for larger or smaller ensembles. In that period, the art of contrafactum, the skilful re-arrangement of pre-extant material, was greatly admired, and several of Schütz’s compositions adapt or refer to Italian originals. In general, 17th-century music was not conducted: one of the great ironies of today’s Early Music is to see an ensemble of period instruments or renaissance singers directed in 19th/20th-century manner by a conductor standing in front! However, in polychoral music it was customary to have several conductors simultaneously, one for each choir, relaying the Tactus around the building. Praetorius’ (1620) Theatrum Instrumentorum shows how German ensembles managed this (for us today, unfamiliar) practice.
Large-scale performances would of course have an artistic director, known in early 17th-century Italy as the Corago, who would take directorial decisions and coordinate rehearsals, but who would NOT conduct the performance.
With no conductor to warp time with romantic rubato or rallentando, each musician shares responsibility for maintaining the Tactus, that earthly microcosm of the hand of God directing the perfect rhythm of the heavens. Tactus also represents the human pulse, which should not falter or stop. So, if the time was kept steadily, where is the expression in 17th-century music? Schutz inherited the Flemish polyphonic style, in which individual voices clash in emotionally-laden dissonances, then resolve into gentle consonance. And he studied the Italian seconda prattica, in which Enargeia in the imagery of the text powers dramatic effects in the music, and the force of Pneuma transmits emotions to performers and listeners. Modern audiences, like a baroque congregation, are invited to apply the force of their own imagination to create a Theatre of Instruments, transforming Schütz’s music into dramatic scenes of Angels and Shepherds, King David, holy Mary, and Biblical battles.
Opera, orchestra, vocal & ensemble director and early harpist, Andrew Lawrence-King is director of The Harp Consort and of Il Corago. From 2011 to 2015 he was Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre for the History of Emotions. He is now preparing a translation of Bonifacio’s (1616) Art of Gesture and a book on The Theatre of Dreams: The Science of Historical Action.
We must not break forth at once into speech, but should allow ourselves a few moments for reflection… In this preliminary delay there are certain pauses, as the actors call them, which are not unbecoming. We may stroke our head, look at our hand, wring the fingers, pretend to summon all our energies for the effort.
Homer describes Ulysses as having stood for a while with eyes fixed on the ground and staff held motionless, before he poured forth his whirlwind of eloquence. And these recommendations for how to start a speech (or an aria, or an instrumental solo, or for that matter, a corporate or academic presentation) come from Quintilian Institutio Oratoria (c95 AD) complete text here, in English translation.
So should we start by reading all 12 volumes of Quintilian (in the original Latin, of course)? Well, you could do worse, but there are perhaps quicker ways to get started. Read on…
In 2010, when I began to investigate baroque gesture seriously, in preparation for a production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo (see the documentary film here and below), I started as any academic researcher might do, by reading key primary and secondary sources: Bonifaccio’s L’Arte dei Cenni (The Art of Gesture, 1616) here; John Bulwer’s 1644 Chironomia here; and that magnificent pioneering study, Dene Barnett’s (1987) The Art of Gesture: The Practices and Principles of 18th-century Acting. [Available on-line in 5 parts here, but charges may apply. Thank you to Brian Robins for informing me of this link]
Of course, this was not at all the way to start! Well, yes and no. These three books, along with Quintilian and other such publications are indispensable sources of historical information of what to do with your hands. But those hand-movements depend (physically) on whole-body structure and mental/spiritual connections, and they depend (rhetorically) on the text. And Baroque Gesture is only one element (and perhaps not the most significant) of the discipline of Historical Action.
Baroque Gesture requires holistic study
Physically, gestural practices circa 1600 were enabled by the general embodied habitus of Early Modern performers. In an age before motor-cars and lifts, they walked and took the stairs, they rode horses. They were fit and more connected to their bodies than many of us today. They had better balance, they were more ‘centred’. Courtiers spent many hours every day dancing and practising swordsmanship.
So any modern study of baroque gesture requires a grounding in academic knowledge and practical experience of period posture, early dance and historical swordsmanship. Speaking for myself, an academic appreciation can be more quickly acquired than an embodied understanding. It takes years of daily practice to assimilate ‘new’, healthy and historical ways of standing and moving. Experience with early dance is a great help, and sword-school is enormous fun. Although it is from another culture, I have found Tai Chi very helpful too in improving balance, establishing a sense of “centre” and facilitating mind/body/spirit connections.
Suit the Action to the Word
This is the advice for would-be Players in Shakespeare’s c1600 Hamlet. Baroque Gesture is only one element of Historical Action, which includes positioning on the stage (and even stage design), full-body acting, facial expressions etc.
For a list of possible gestures, see Bonifacio’s chapter headings, which examine the whole body from head to toe, not omitting ‘gestures of the genitals’. I’m currently working on a translation and commentary, to be published in 2016.
For an overview of all the various disciplines pertaining to Historical Action, see the opening chapter of that anonymous c1630 guide for a theatre’s artistic director, Il Corago, edited here.
By far the greatest influence is exercised by the glance. For it is by this that we express supplication, threats, flattery, sorrow, joy, pride or submission. It is on this that our audience hang, on this that they rivet their attention and their gaze, even before we begin to speak. It is this that inspires the hearer with affection or dislike, this that conveys a world of meaning and is often more eloquent than all our words.
Quintilian
And all this Action is dependent on the Text. It is not a modern “production” that has its own values, nor is it some kind of ancient hand-ballet, however visually pleasing that might be when done well. Action flows from the Text. Not only is the choice and timing of each gesture dictated by the play-text or opera-libretto, but the actor’s motivation, the mental and spiritual energy that empowers the physical movement, comes from the meaning and emotional force of the particular word being pronounced in that very moment.
This demands intense concentration on the text, not only in rehearsal, but right in the moment of performance. It should not be necessary to point out that performers (singers and their instrumental colleagues) need to understand the meaning and deeper significance of every word that is spoken or sung. But that understanding needs to be accessed in real time. It is not enough to have the translation written into the score, or buried somewhere in one’s memory. The complete implications of every word need to be fully present, in the exact moment that you pronounce it.
‘Staying with the text’ like this can function as a Mindfulness exercise, keeping the performer ‘in the moment’ and focussed, creating a special state of consciousness that enables relaxed concentration and flow. From this optimised mind-set, a great performance can emerge.
Of the various elements that go to form the expression, the eyes are the most important, since they, more than anything else, reveal the temper of the mind, and without actual movement will twinkle with merriment or be clouded with grief. And further, nature has given them tears to serve as interpreters of our feelings, tears that will break forth sorrow or stream for very joy. But, when the eyes move, they become intent, indifferent, proud, fierce, mild, or angry; and they will assume all these characters according as the [text] may demand.
Quintilian
Most challenging of all, all of these elements – posture, movement, gesture, full-body acting and facial expressions, deep appreciation of the text – have to function simultaneously and in co-ordination. This does not come quickly or easily: one has to acquire the skill-set and musculature over years of study, hone the application to a particular text over hours of rehearsal, then give it that essential lift of spontaneity (for example, by choosing spontaneously from several well-rehearsed options, or by adding little touches of ‘ornamentation’ to the performance). Finally, you have to concentrate all this preparation into the one tiny instant of execution.
So Baroque Gesture is not something that we can master in a 90-minute workshop or condense into a short blog-post. It is a life-long study, that (for any true artist) will never be ‘perfected’. There is always something new to learn, something to understand more deeply, something to execute better in performance.
But there are some first steps that will get you started quickly. More quickly than me! So, whilst you are putting in the time to internalise the collected wisdom of Quintilian, Bulwer & Bonifacio, to memorise the complete works of Shakespeare and/or to translate all the ‘opera’ libretti from Anima e Corpo (1600) to Poppea (1643), to learn all of Negri’s courtly dances, and to become a rapier-master according to Capo Ferro, here are some quick and easy short-cuts, literally from the ground up.
1. Historical Stance
Whenever you stand to sing/speak, practising at home, in the rehearsal room or on stage, adopt a historical stance. You can also practise this whilst waiting for a bus, an airport security check, or to pay for your coffee. Renaissance courtiers had to stand like this all day, so it became second nature to them. The aim is to minimise body tension, whilst still looking cool: ideal for standing around at court, waiting for your opportunity to shine. The technical term for this is contrapposto, an elegantly assymmetrical stance:
Stand diagonally-on to your audience.
With your weight on one leg.
The other (unweighted) leg is your ‘ornamental leg’. It is elegantly bent. Let the audience see how good it looks.
Relax, and let the weight fall through the weighted leg into the floor.
When you need to shift position, just change the weight into the other leg.
There is much more, as you can read in any history of art study of the contrapposto, but this is a good start. Practise it whenever you have half a chance!
2. Hands
Hold your script, or your musical score, in your LEFT hand. Now your right hand is free to gesture. This simple trick allows you to integrate gesture with your artistic preparation right from the beginning and throughout the rehearsal period, even into non-memorised performance. Let your RIGHT hand assume the default historical shape, as illustrated by Barnett.
Imagine your right hand is holding a tennis ball. Relax, so that you are not using any more strength than is needed for that tennis ball’s weight.
Bring your middle and ring fingers together.
Let your index finger open outwards, and bring your little finger inwards a little.
If you turn this hand-shape over, it becomes an elegantly curved pointing gesture.
Try it!
3. Eyes
This is what I call the Ut Pictura (like a picture) technique. As you study your text, create a detailed imaginary vision of precisely what everything looks like, with period iconography as a guide to keep your vision historically focussed. As you deliver the text, look at what you are talking about. Let your eyes and face show how you feel about what you ‘see’.
You will quickly notice how often baroque texts employ detailed visual imagery and such pointing words as “Look”, “Here”, “Now” etc. The more specific, detailed and precise your imagined vision, the more specific and interesting your eye-movements will be for the audience.
Further Study
No, these three first steps will not make you a master of Baroque Gesture. But they will create the conditions in which you can study and practise further. See my upcoming posts on what you might do next. And meanwhile, you have plenty of reading to do, in between those dance and swordsmanship classes!
Part 2 of this series, Modus Agendi, or How to Act is here.
Opera, orchestra, vocal & ensemble director and early harpist, Andrew Lawrence-King is director of The Harp Consort and of Il Corago. From 2011 to 2015 he was Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre for the History of Emotions. He is now preparing a translation of Bonifacio’s (1616) Art of Gesture and a book on The Theatre of Dreams: The Science of Historical Action.
This is a slide-show introduction, based on lecture given to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Theatre Natalya Satz, Moscow (the original home of Peter and the Wolf), following the 45th performance of the theatre’s award-winning production of Anima & Corpo. Nevertheless, this post draws on the latest research findings, and there may be some surprises, even for seasoned baroque fans!
Emilio de Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo (1600) is indeed the ‘first opera’. Jacopo Peri, whose Euridice was performed later the same year, acknowledges Cavalieri’s role as originator of the style. (Earlier music-dramas by these two composers, notably Peri’s Dafne, have not survived.) So why would Cavalieri and his contemporaries seek to develop a new theatrical genre of fully-sung plays?
17th-century writers were still re-telling a story going back via Quintilian and Cicero to Demosthenes (4th cent. BC). The question was posed:
What are the three secrets of great performance?
Demosthenes’ first answer was “Action!”. And his second answer was “Action!”, And his third answer was also “Action”.
Meanwhile, in the decades before the year 1600, philosophers of performance were impressed by the emotional power of the ancient Greek and Roman dramas, which (they believed) had been fully sung. So Cavalieri and his colleagues wanted Action in their music, and Music in their dramas: fully-sung music-drama was the epitome of their beliefs in the power of performance.
The modern label ‘first opera’ encourages us to consider all that came after Cavalieri. But to understand his work, we need to view it in its own historical context. And we should be cautious: even though this is sophisticated, dramatically powerful, fully-sung music-theatre, Cavalieri did not call it ‘opera’. It is a Rappresentatione, a ‘show’. It is not ‘primitive’, but it certainly is different from our modern expectations.
Not ‘primitive’ but DIFFERENT…
… might well be our motto, as we climb into our time-machine in order to explore Planet Earth, circa 1600.
This was an age of impressive architecture: as assistant to Michelangelo, Cavalieri’s father Tommaso was closely involved with the building of St Peter’s Rome. Painting became ever more dramatic, culminating in the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio. Even religious subjects were depicted with theatrical bravura: Tommaso de Cavalieri was the model for Adam in Michelangelo’s frescos for the Sistine Chapel.
The exploration of the Americas continued, charted by sophisticated world maps. Galileo trained his telescope on the moons of Jupiter, and also experimented with gravity at the tower of Pisa.
Italian ladies and gentleman at court would spend much of their time making music in madrigal groups or consorts of viols. Several hours each day would be spent learning and performing new social dances. And a couple more hours daily were devoted to practising swordsmanship, with the fashionable rapier, well over 1 metre long, with a needle point and razor-sharp edges.
There was plenty of new music. Cavalieri’s opera was quickly followed by Caccini’s Le nuove musiche (1601/2), the first collection of songs with continuo-bass accompaniment, which includes the famous Amarilli, mia bella. In 1607, Monteverdi’s ‘story in music’ Orfeo was performed: Aggazzari’s treatise from that year, Del sonare sopra’ l basso explains how many different kinds of instrument could improvise accompaniments from the same continuo-bass notation. In 1610, Monteverdi’s magnificent Vespers mixed old-style polyphony with the new techniques of continuo-song; Capo Ferro’s survey of rapier swordsmanship is from the same year. In England, this was the age of Shakespeare’s plays (full of music, of course) and Dowland’s melancholic lute-music.
In 1609 Dowland also translated into English an influential book on singing, Ornithoparcus’ Micrologus, in which he emphasises the particular importance of rhythm.
Instruments
Violin-family instruments from the late 16th century are still regarded today as the finest ever made. Praetorius’ 1619 diagram shows violin, viola, cello and related instruments, together with a surviving cello by Amati. Nowadays, these wonderful instruments have been altered, by changing the angle of the fingerboard to increase the string tension. But around 1600, violins were held in a relaxed way on the shoulder, were strung more lightly, and were not encumbered by chin-rests, tuning screws and shoulder rests. With its original set-up, the instrument is not as loud as a modern violin, but is more direct and responsive. If a modern violin is like a big, luxurious limousine, then a baroque violin is like a sports-car: lighter, more manoeuvrable, and (I would say), more fun to drive!
The early-17th-century predecessor of the oboe was the Shawm, which was made in various sizes from soprano to bass. The double-reed is surrounded by a wooden ‘pirouette’ to support the player’s lips. The Dulcian is the ancestor of the bassoon, and also came in various sizes from bass to soprano. Whereas nowadays we consider oboes to be the high register and bassoons the low register of a single ‘family’ of instruments, in Cavalieri’s time they were two distinct consorts, each with a complete range from treble to bass.
Baroque trombones, known in English as Sackbuts, have a narrower bore than their modern descendants. Like baroque strings, they are not as loud as modern instruments, but more precise and flexible in their sound. Praetorius shows the trombone family from bass to alto. The upper register of this consort is represented by the Cornetto, made from wood, with leather wrapped around it. It has a wooden mouth-piece similar to a trumpet’s, and finger-holes in the tube similar to a flute. The sound is somewhere in-between a trumpet and a flute, and was considered in this period to be the closest to the sound of the human voice. That gives us a clue to the sound-world of circa-1600 singing: not as loud as modern opera singers, but clear, precise and very flexible.
Trumpets and drums were originally military instruments, and are still today associated with royalty. Baroque trumpets have no valves; the different pitches, including extreme high notes, are created with sophisticated lip-technique.
We can recognise the descendants of these early baroque consorts in the various sections of a modern orchestra. But around 1600, large groups of instruments were not formed into a single ensemble, but were rather distributed around the available space in groups of 4 to 7. Each group was considered to be a ‘choir’, that might mix instruments and voices, or might be homogenous, e.g. contrasting a string ‘choir’ with a wind ‘choir’.
Continuo
You can view and download for free a full-size version of this poster here.
The most important instrumental section in the first operas has no equivalent in a modern orchestra. The Continuo section brings together a variety of instruments with the common purpose of providing harmonic support and rhythmic direction, guiding the entire company of instruments and voices. Like the rhythm section of a jazz-band, Continuo-players define the rhythmic structure, respond to the various soloists and add decorative touches of their own. Agazzari’s 1607 treatise Del Sonare sopra’l basso hereexplains how each type of instrument contributes to the Continuo.
The organo di legno, or chamber Organ, has wooden pipes, and plays sustained harmonies in the low register, to support the voices and melodic instruments.
The Harpsichord has metal strings; when you press a key, a wooden jack rises past the string, so that a small plectrum (shaped from a bird-quill) can pluck the string upwards. As you release the key, the jack descends and a piece of felt is lowered onto the string to stop the sound. The sound is not as loud as a modern piano, but is clear and rhythmically precise. In this style, the Harpsichord also plays simple harmonies in the low register, defining the essential harmonic and rhythmic foundation.
The Regal, or reed-organ, has metal pipes; when air enters the pipe, a metal tongue vibrates against a metal half-tube, and this vibration is amplified by the metal resonator. The sound is strong and rather nasal. If the wooden Organ suits scenes of heaven, or pastoral idylls on earth, then the Regal is ‘the organ from Hell’!
The most essential instrument in an early Italian continuo-section is the Theorbo, also known as Chitarrone. This is the double-bass instrument of the lute family, with two necks. The strings on the first neck run over a fingerboard, and produce a strong melodic bass, with chords in the tenor/alto register. The second neck is much longer, and these strings have no fingerboard; they give another octave of sub-bass notes, that provide a powerful rhythmic impulse and a long sustain that supports the harmonic arpeggio of the upper strings.
Around 1600, the harp doubled in size in order to create a strong sub-bass register comparable to the Theorbo’s. The Italian arpa doppia (double harp) has multiple rows of strings, arranged like the black and white notes of a keyboard, so that all harmonies and chromatic changes are available, just as on the harpsichord or organ.
The harp also has a full soprano register, so that it plays a unique role in the continuo section, defining fundamental structure alongside keyboards and theorbo, and also providing decorative touches in the higher register.
The baroque guitar has a plucking technique for solo repertoire, but in the Continuo section it usually provides rhythmic energy and decorative colour by strumming.
Read more about Agazzari’s categories of fundamental and decorative instruments here.
The combination of harpsichord and cello is typical of 18th-century music. In the early 17th-century, the usual pair is theorbo and organ.
All the different instruments of the Continuo section play from the same bass-line, which may (or may not) have additional information about the harmonies indicated by figures above or below each note. But whilst they read from the same part, each player improvises the harmonies and any decorative touches according to the role and capabilities of each instrument: this is referred to as ‘realising’ the continuo.
No conducting!
One prominent figure in modern opera, the conductor who moulds the rhythm and guides the orchestra with his hand or baton, was not seen in the 17th century. Early Music was not conducted. The role of guiding the rhythm belonged to the Continuo section, as Agazzari tells us.
Of course, there would be someone to coordinate the rehearsals and make whatever decisions were needed. This job was done by Il Corago, who was usually the Artistic Director of the entire production, responsible not only for musical coordination, but also for guiding the actors, dancers, scene-builders, lighting technicians (sophisticated lighting effects were obtained from massed candles), and stuntmen (acrobats and sword-fighters). Cavalieri himself was a Corago, with a working knowledge of all of these disciplines, so that he could co-ordinate the contributions of each specialist.
When there was a large musical ensemble, it would be spatially divided into several groups, each of which would have a time-beater to synchronise the rhythm within the group and between one group and the others. The frontispiece of Praetorius’ Theatre of Instruments shows this practice in action, with a large ensemble divided into three ‘choirs’ of instruments and voices. Each choir has its own time-beater, and the three time-beaters watch each other to synchronise the beat.
Priorities
Today, discussions about Early Music often focus on the question of Vibrato. Period diagrams show the typical shape of long notes: a ‘plain note’ begins softly and then swells out (there is no vibrato); a ‘waved note’ similarly begins softly, and adds vibrato as the sound swells out.
Another topic of modern debate is the question of pitch. Around 1600, in the south of Italy, the pitch was lower than today’s standard of A440; in the north it was higher. In central Italy, it was somewhere in between. Bruce Haynes’ The Story of A here tells the History of Performing Pitch in great detail.
Subtle choices of precisely how to tune each note of a keyboard instrument or harp are studied as Temperament. Whereas on the modern piano, Eb and D# sound the same and are played from the same key, in historical Temperaments these are two subtly different pitches. Some keyboards have double keys for the black notes, baroque harps have extra strings, in order to facilitate this fine distinction. The typical Temperament circa 1600 is known as Quarter-Comma Meantone: it produces beautifully pure major thirds, making consonances sweeter and dissonances sharper.
These are the hot topics amongst many of todays’ Early Music practitioners. But what were the priorities for musicians and singers performing Anima & Corpo in the year 1600? The original print is here, and Caccini’s Le Nuove Musiche tells us how to approach it:
Music is Text + Rhythm, and sound last of all.
“And not the other way around”, Caccini emphasises.
These historical priorities guided my international research program into Text, Rhythm, Action! over the last five years, reported here, and I apply them in all my practical work, training musicians and directing performances for audiences today.
Text
Period sources insist on the importance of communicating the text to the audience, so for the production at Theatre Natalya Satz, we wanted to speak to the audience directly in their own Russian language. Great care was taken to synchronise the translation with the ‘word-painting’ of Cavalieri’s music, in which every single word is individually set to music. Poet Alexey Parin worked together with specialist musicians Ivan Velikanov, Katerina Antonenko and myself, to preserve the close links between text and music.
At the beginning of the drama, the first notes are immediately repeated – not because a series of repeated Fs makes a wonderful melody, but in order to repeat the word for emphasis, just as a fine orator would do: “Time… Time”.
In this period, the term Aria has a different meaning; it signifies any repeated structure in words, rhythm, harmony or melody. The metric patterning of the verses Hoggi vien fore, Doman si more, Hoggi n’appare, Doman dispare [Today Life comes forth, tomorrow it dies; today it appears, tomorrow it disappears] is matched by similar patterns in the melodic contours, rhythms and harmonies of Cavalieri’s music. This, in early-17th-century terms, is another Aria, just like the repetition of the single word Tempo, along with its carefully set music.
If the text refers to Heaven above, ciel soprano, the singer will pitch his voice high. If the text mentions a party, festa, the music swings into fast triple-time. Just as an actor in a spoken play will raise his voice to indicate a question, so Cavalieri sets questions on rising pitches.
Text and music are so closely linked that many musical features are not Cavalieri’s compositorial choices, but rather his sensitive responses to the demands of the poetry. Similarly, many performance practices are not the performers’ artistic inspiration, but rather their sensitive responses to the demands of the text and the historical expectations of this musical style.
Many explanatory texts survive to inform us of those historical expectations, including a Preface with Cavalieri’s own indications how to perform this kind of music-drama, Agazzari’s treatise on Continuo already mentioned, and the anonymous c1630 guide for a music-theatre’s artistic director, Il Corago.
Rhythm
Although there were no conductors in this period, musicians, whether soloists,or in duet, trio and larger ensembles, would beat time with their hand, palm downwards, down for about one second, up for one second. This slow, steady beat was known as the Tactus. Read more about Tactus here.
Music itself was understood to be the Music of the Spheres – mysteriously produced by the perfect motion of the stars and planets; the harmonious nature of the human body; and – last of all – actual sounds sung and played on earth. So musical rhythm represents that perfect heavenly movement, rhythm is life itself.
Just as clockwork produces various speeds of rotation from one fundamental movement, so 17th-century musicians perceived the different orbits of the planets to be meshed together and turned by the hand of God. This philosophy is imitated in musical Proportions, by which the constant slow Tactus beat is divided into 2, 3 or 6, to create duple, tripla and sestupla metres. A Proportion of 3:2 creates Sesquialtera metre.
Time, like Music, was celestial and embodied, measured by the cosmos and the human pulse, better than by clocks. The sun shows the time of day and fixes the moment of noon, the stars show the changes of the seasons. Our pulse measures shorter time-spans, of the order of seconds.
Galileo discovered the pendulum effect in 1582, observing a chandelier in Pisa cathedral, but the first pendulum clock was not built until 1656. So Galileo’s observations were timed against his own pulse – there was no more accurate clock.
For his experiments on gravity in 1607, Galileo had to time a ball rolling down an inclined plane to an accuracy of fractions of a second. This was far beyond the capabilities of any period clock, and required finer gradations than a pulse-beat. The solution was found in the precision of musical rhythm – if a minim is about one second, then semi-quavers define an eighth of a second.
You can try for yourself an on-line simulation of Galileo’s experiment, precision-timed by lute-music, here.
For most of us, our intuitive understanding of Time is based on Newton’s model of Absolute Time: Time itself continues ever-onward, independent of other variables. We we can measure the accuracy of a clock, or the daily changes in the precise time of solar noon, against the fixed scale of Newton’s Time. But Newton published in 1687, and it was many decades before his concepts gained general acceptance. In the year 1600, the accepted model of Time was Aristotle’s:
Time is a number of change/movement, in respect of before and after.
Without an Absolute scale to measure by, without the assurance that Time would march independently onwards, “change/movement” was required to create a “before and after” that would allow Time to be numbered. So musical Time, i.e. rhythm, was not only indicated by the hand-movement of the Tactus, it required such movement (at least as a concept) in order to exist at all. The movement of the cosmos, driven by the hand of God, not only measured time, but created it. Just as the heart-beat sustains life, so the steadiness of the musical Tactus was necessary for human health and indeed, for the preservation of the entire universe.
Read more about the philosophy of Time and musical Rhythm here.
Action!
The first character to appear in the first opera is Old Father Time, and his first words (repeated) are Il Tempo. Time is a crucial topic in this drama, understood within Platonic philosophy. The fleeting present moment is a moving image of Eternity, the point of contact between human life and infinite destiny, between earthly actions and the eternal struggle of Good and Evil.
There are two Greek words that we translate as ‘Time’ or in Italian, tempo. Chronological time, clock time, is Greek kronos, whereas kairos signifies the moment of opportunity. For a swordsman, kairos is the crucial instant of time when you must defend yourself to save your life, or when you might safely attack your opponent.
Monteverdi wrote a one-act opera entitled Combattimento, a music-drama of sword-fighting. Opera-singer Julie d’Aubigny, known as La Maupin, was the best duellist of her age. Many dancing-masters were also fencing instructors, and the anonymous sword-master of Bologna declared that swordsmen needed the same precision timing as singers!
Capo Ferro’s 1610 Gran Simulacrum teaches the Art of the Sword, as applied to the long, needle-point, razor-sharp Italian rapier. If your opponent points his sword at your heart, you turn your (right) sword-hand palm-up and leftwards, so that your sword crosses his and protects you. His likely response is to dip his sword-point underneath your blade, and threaten your right shoulder instead. Now you will have to turn your sword-hand palm down and rightwards, pushing his sword aside so that you can lunge forwards and strike with the point of your sword.
Act with the hand, act with the heart!
As we are told in the first scene of Anima & Corpo, historical acting linked emotional force to expressive hand-gestures. All the Action is founded on the poetic text, of course, as Shakespeare’s Hamlet instructs the Players:
Suit the Action to the Word
John Bulwer’s Chironomia (1644) shows gestures for Attention, for stylish Action, and for Antitheses (opposites): ‘on one hand…. on the other hand…’. Another way to Distinguish Contraries rotates the right hand palm-up and leftwards, then palm-down and out to the right.
We could imagine such gestures being performed in Shakespeare’s most famous line from Hamlet:
To be or not to be, that’s the question
First we Distinguish Contraries (to be, or not to be), and then we direct the audience’s Attention (the question). So To be (right hand palm-up and leftwards), or not to be (palm-down and out to the right), that’s (with index finger raised and the hand sent forwards, step forward to command the audience’s attention) the question.
If you try it for yourself, this sequence of movements might seem familiar to you: it is very similar to the sequence that we studied as a sword-drill, opposing to the left, turning the hand to close the line on the right, and then lunging forwards to strike.
Both Hamlet and Anima & Corpo are full of the language of sword-play. In Cavalieri’s masterpiece, the Guardian Angel would traditionally carry a sword, and the composer provides suitably martial music with G major harmonies and battle rhythms – the same harmonies and rhythms encountered a quarter-century later in Monteverdi’s Combattimento.
Like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Cavalieri’s Anima & Corpo explores timeless questions of life and death by means of a fashionable vocabulary of sword-action. The English Play and the Italian Rappresentatione are each monuments of cultural achievement and artistic innovation: certainly not ‘primitive’, but endlessly fascinating and thought-provokingly different.
In the field of Early Opera, do you think it might be good to integrate academic research with continuing professional development, advanced training and international-level performance?
Read more…
PERFORMANCE PRIORITIES
Amongst all the myriad details of performance that have fascinated actors, musicians and audiences over the ages, in the 17th century, the age of Shakespeare, Dowland & Purcell, of Monteverdi and the first Italian operas, what were the highest priorities?
Caccini (1601) defines Music as:
Text and Rhythm, with Sound last of all. And not the other way around!
Bulwer (1644), via Quintilian and Cicero, cites Demosthenes’ three points of Eloquence:
Action! Action! Action!
These historical priorities guided Andrew Lawrence-King’s 5-year investigation of Text, Rhythm, Action! at the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions and with Il Corago, the production company for historical staging. You can download a full illustrated report from the Il Corago website, here.
In this post, scroll down for Research, Training, Performance, Publications & (lots of) Links.
A UNIQUE INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM OF RESEARCH, TRAINING & PERFORMANCE
With a unique combination of academic rigour, unified focus, practitioner expertise and international scope, this program applied historical research to the development of new training methods for modern performers in some 2 dozen award-winning staged productions of Early Modern music-dramas and Historical Action worldwide.
AWARDS & PUBLICATIONS
Lawrence-King’s musical direction of the ‘first opera’, Cavalieri’s Anima & Corpo, won Russia’s highest theatrical award, the Golden Mask. During the period of this investigation, he also received the U.S. Grammy, Australian Helpmann and two Spanish Premios de la Música for collaborations with Jordi Savall.
Two documentary-films, a mini-documentary and many video clips have already been released. Research insights are debated on the TRA blog here at http://www.AndrewLawrenceKing.com. Now Professor Lawrence-King has begun to write up his findings formally in book chapters, articles for academic journals and in several forthcoming books.
RESEARCH
Our initial Question was almost naïve: how can baroque gesture be convincing for modern audiences? This opened up two paths, which both led back to the dramatic Text via investigations of Rhythm (in poetry, music and movement) and of Embodiment (posture, gesture, mind/body interactions). Whereas the romantic tradition glorifies performers’ genius, 17th-century philosophy respects the poetic text (which, nevertheless, is realised with improvisedcreativity) and privileges the audience.
Musical Rhythm is understood within period concepts of Time itself. As an element of Rhetoric, the Art of Gesture is embedded in the Science of Historical Action. In this ancient, intuitive model of how poetry, music & drama induce psychological and physiological changes amongst performers and audiences, Enargeia (the emotional power of detail) creates imaginary Visions that use the mind-body force of Pneuma to stir up the Four Humours.
Our research Aim is to develop rehearsal methodologies that empower modern-day performers to Use the historical principles of the 17th-century Art of Rhetoric within the framework of period Science. Andrew Lawrence-King’s Method is grounded on close reading of such key historical sources as
Cavalieri & Peri (1600), Bonifacio (1616) & Bulwer (1644), the anonymous Il Corago (c1630). These well-known texts are re-evaluated in the light of period Philosophy, in which Time, Pneuma & Music all exhibit a complex, threefold structure that connects mondana– the heavenly & mysterious, with humana – the human & embodied, and instrumentalis– the practical and interactive.
New understandings were debated in seminars and conferences, applied in workshops and rehearsals, and tested in the real world of live performance with a wide range of modern audiences. Interim Findings – on Pre-Newtonian Time, Musical Tactus, No Conducting!, Medieval music-drama, Commencing Continuo, Redefining Recitative, Pepys’ Shakespeare Speech, Pneuma, Enargeia, Music & Consciousness, 17th-century Hypnosis, Baroque Gesture:
What’s the Point? – have been reported at conferences & public lectures at Cambridge, Oxford, Yale, Vienna, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, Singapore, Moscow, St Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Ghent, Basel, Helsinki, Galway, Kilkenny, Budapest, London etc.
Alessandro Turchi ‘Bacchus & Ariadne’ (c1630). Historical Action is more than just Baroque Gesture.
TRAINING
17th-century writers present Art as a set of principles, a coherent collection of rules which we can study and apply to today’s Historically Informed Performance. The period concept of Use refers to the nitty-gritty of practical experience: a key element of Andrew Lawrence-King’s work is to devise new training methodologies that facilitate modern-day performers’ acquiring the skill-sets needed to apply rules of historical Art. The study of profoundly spiritual, cosmic matters beyond the everyday and mundane, the mysterious power of emotions, the magic of the theatre, is the realm of renaissance Science.
The training focus is historical expertise rather than romantic character analysis or the 20th-century search for motivation: first acquire Thomas Betterton’s (or La Florinda’s) skill-set, then play Hamlet (or Arianna)! Accordingly, we do not rehearse a particular interpretation; rather we teach principles that empower performers to improvise collectively a stylish realisation of text, music & action. Participants do not just memorise a production; we help them develop baroque skills which they can re-apply throughout their careers.
We practice what we preach. The priorities established by historical research are put into effect in professional training: Text – for each hour of rehearsal, 50 minutes are devoted to detailed text-work; Tactus – every performer shares responsibility for maintaining the rhythmic pulse; there is, of course, no conductor; Gesture – supported by period posture and the force of Pneuma; the emotional power of Enargeia – detailed visual description; Visions – mindful attention to the Text creates imagined visions that stir up emotions for performers and spectators; Deictics – the fundamental importance of ‘pointing words’; Ut pictura – how to make historical gesture ‘work’ for modern audiences.
Professional standards – well-structured rehearsals, directorial competence, clarity and consistency of coaching, respect for participants and audiences; state-of-the-art Early Music, Historical Dance and period Swordsmanship; cutting-edge modern understandings of the mind/body interactions of Flow, the Zone, Feldenkrais Method and Neuro-Learning – brain plasticity, myelination, hypnosis; the Structure of Magic – Neuro-linguistic Programming and 17th-century Rhetoric, the modern & historical arts of persuasive language.
PERFORMANCE
Scroll down for Publications & (lots of) Links.
HISTORICALLY INFORMED STAGED PRODUCTIONS OF EARLY MODERN MUSIC-DRAMAS
Monteverdi Orfeo (1607) ALK (stage & music), SP (movement), JD, KA (assistants); Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen Christianskerke: Tactus, Art of Gesture. New edition. Handbook on Baroque Gesture. Conference Ghent Orpheus Centre, Full-length documentary film.
Cavalieri Anima & Corpo (1600) GI (modern staging), ALK (music), KA, IV (assistants); Natalya Satz Theatre, Moscow. Word-painting, Tactus, Continuo. New edition (Russian translation AP, KA, ALK). First staged performance in Russia. Golden Mask Award. 42 performances (continues in repertoire). TV and radio interviews.
Purcell Dido & Aeneas (1689) ALK (stage & music), SP (dance), KA (assistant); Concerto Copenhagen, Copenhagen Town Hall. Dance & Gesture, training methodologies. New edition (dances & incidental music)
Landi La Morte d’Orfeo (1619) ALK (stage & music), XDL (music), KA (stage), DV (designer) EMS (dance) AS (swordsmanship); International Baroque Opera Studio, St Petersburg Philharmonic. First staged performance in modern times. Tactus, Art of Gesture, Enargeia, Visions, Historical scenery/lighting, Ut Pictura. New edition. Article Musicologial Journal of Moscow Conservatoire. Radio & TV interviews.
Ludus Danielis (c1200) ALK (stage & music), KA (assistant, gestures); The Harp Consort & Ars Nova Denmark, Copenhagen Marmorkirke: Medieval gesture, conductus (rhythm & improvised polyphony), pitch. New edition. Conference Budapest University, mini-documentary film.
Orgambide Oratorio del Nacimiento ALK (music & stage), KA (designer, stage) The Harp Consort, Ourense Cathedral, Festival Portico de Paraiso. First performance in Spain in modern times. Spanish recitado, Art of Gesture, Tactus, Enargeia. Public lecture by Dr Maria Teresa Ferrer. TV & radio interviews. New edition.
Monteverdi Combattimento (1624) ALK (music & stage), GW (swordsmanship consultant), DR (fight director), SP (dance), KA (stage)Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London Wallace Collection. New edition. Public lectures, post-performance panel discussion with Prof John Sloboda. Conference Cambridge University with Prof John Sloboda. BBC Radio interview.
Ludus Danielis (c1200) ALK (stage & music), KA (designer & stage); The Harp Consort & St Michaels Schola Cantorum, Galway Early Music Festival. Emotions in Action, Medieval Gestures. Public lecture National University of Ireland, full-length documentary film. Radio interviews.
Orgambide Oratorio del Nacimiento ALK (music & stage), KA (designer) Insula Magica, Novosibirsk Philharmonic. First performance in Russia. Spanish recitado, Art of Gesture, Tactus, Enargeia. Public lecture. TV & radio interviews.
Orgambide Oratorio del Nacimiento ALK (music & stage), KA (designer) Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London. Spanish recitado, Art of Gesture, Tactus, Enargeia. Presentation by Dr Anthony Trippett.
Cavalieri Anima & Corpo (1600) ALK (music & stage); Durham University Opera Society, Durham Great Hall. Tactus, Continuo, Enargeia, Visions. New edition.
Purcell King Arthur (1691) ALK (music & stage), Poznan Academy of Music. New edition. Continuo, French violin bowing, Gesture, Speech/Song/Recitative, Ut Pictura. Radio interviews.
Hidalgo Celos aun del aire matan (1660) ALK (music) GI (stage) KA (translation) Moscow, Theatre Natalya Satz Text, Tactus, Spanish Continuo New edition (Russian translation).New edition. TV & radio interviews.
Medieval Kalevala ALK (music, stage, concept) KK (stage, text) The Harp Consort, Montalbane Festival Medieval storytelling & gesture
Carissimi Jeptha ALK (music, stage), MB (vocal coach), KA (assistant). St Petersburg. New edition. TV & radio interviews. Art of Gesture, Tactus.
Peri Euridice (1600) ALK (stage & music), SP (movement), KA (assistant); Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London Lumen Centre. Continuo, Art of Gesture, Posture, Visions. New edition (version for 5 singers). Conference Cambridge University, mini-documentary film
Nicole Jordan as the Angel in Orgambide’s ‘Oratorio del Nacimiento’
PERFORMANCES WITH TEXT, RHYTHM, ACTION!
Monteverdi Vespers (1610) ALK (music); Alta Capella, Moscow Lutheran Cathedral. Tactus, Continuo, Visions. Radio broadcast, radio & TV interviews. New synoptic edition. Public Lecture. First performance in Russia.
Gibbons, Dowland, Holborne, Morelli Shakespeare’s Music (17th cent) ALK (stage & music), Alta Capella, Moscow Conservatoire of Music. Text, Tactus, Pepys on Shakespeare.Public lecture. Radio & TV interviews.
Gibbons, Dowland, Lawes The Masque of Time (17th cent) ALK (artistic director, script & concept), EB (music), VN (stage) Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Canterbury St Gregory’s Centre and London. Tactus, Gesture, Dance, Philosophy of Music & Time.
Schutz, Schein In Friede (17th cent) ALK (music & gesture), Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen Chapel Royal Tactus, Art of Gesture New editions.
Lully, D’Anglebert Choregraphie (1700) ALK (music), KM (dance), The Harp Consort, Edinburgh International Harp Festival Tactus, Dance New editions.
Monteverdi, Peri, Caccini, Cavalieri Favola in Musica (c1600) ALK (artistic director, concept) MB (voice) XLD (continuo) SP (dance) The Harp Consort, St Petersburg Early Music Festival, Feldkirchen Festival, Hamburg Bucerius Kunst Forum The First Operas, Tactus, Continuo Radio interview & broadcast.
Dowland, Purcell The Dark Side (17th cent) ALK (music, stage, concept) SP (movement) The Harp Consort, Graz List Halle Text, Tactus, Art of Gesture
Vite e Voce (Vasari 500th anniversary )ALK (music, concept) Ensemble L’Homme Armé, Florence, Museo Sarto. Baroque gesture & Fine Art
Ars Musicae (Vasari 500th anniversary) ALK (music, concept) Florence, Museo Sarto Design & perspective in Art ~ form & proportion in Music
Anton Varentsov as the River Hebro with the head of Orpheus in Landi’s ‘La morte d’Orfeo’
WORKSHOP PERFORMANCES, STUDY PROJECTS ETC
Monteverdi Lamento di Arianna (1614) (ensemble version) ALK (stage & music). Study project at Helsinki Metropolia. Conference London GSMD.
Monteverdi Lamento di Arianna (1608) (solo version) ALK (stage & music). Study project at Sibelius Academy, Finland. Conference Perth WA. Seminar Melbourne.
Monteverdi Madrigali Guerrieri & Amorosi (1638) ALK (music), Melbourne Early Music Studio. Tactus, Swordsmanship, Visions.
Dowland, Purcell, Morelli The Dark Side (17th cent) ALK (music): Melbourne Early Music Studio Melancholy, Speech/Song/Recitative Conference Sydney University
Malvezzi, Cavalieri, Gabrieli etc Rappresentationi (excerpts from 1589 Florentine Intermedi, etc) St Petersburg. ALK (stage & music), MB (vocal coach), KA (assistant).
Monteverdi Lettera Amorosa (1619) ALK (stage & music). Study project at Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen. Paper for Letters2 conference, Lisbon; presentation at Books & Music Conference, Newcastle. Enargeia, gendered Gesture
Purcell Dido & Aeneas (1689) ALK & AM (stage & music); Sydney Conservatorium Redefining Recitative, Art of Gesture
Baroque Gesture: What’s the Point?
Workshop for advanced students and professorial staff at ESMUC, Barcelona
Workshop for theatre researchers, Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama & Performance Studies.
Workshop for movement researchers, Dalcroze Conference, Vienna.
Workshop, Edinburgh International Harp Festival
Workshop, Kilkenny
The Theatre of Dreams: La Musica hypnotises the Heroes
Workshop for advanced students and professorial staff at ESMUC, Barcelona.
Workshop for research students at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London.
Seminar on Historical Action ALK with Dionysios Kyropoulos at New College, Oxford
Redefining Recitative Workshop at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London.
Landi La Morte d’Orfeo (1619)
Workshop at Theatre Natalya Satz, Moscow.
Workshop at Rimsky-Korsakov College of Music, St Petersburg
Music & Rhetoric Public Lecture & Workshop, Moscow Conservatoire of Music. Radio/TV.
A Baroque History of Time
Public Lecture, St Petersburg Derzhavin Museum.
Public Lecture, University of Adelaide
Public Lecture, Kilkenny
Landi Sant’ Alessio (1631) ALK (stage, music), Basel Schola Cantorum, workshop performance. Tactus, Continuo
Etc…
MEET THE DIRECTORIAL TEAM
ALK Andrew Lawrence-King, AM Alan Maddox, AS Anton Semenov, DR Dave Rawlings, DV Danil Verdenikov, EB Emily Baines, EMS Ekaterina Mikhailova-Smolnyakova, GI Georgy Isaakian, GW Guy Windsor, JD Jane Davidson, KA Katerina Antonenko, KK Karoliina Kantolinen, KM Karin Modigh, KZ Klim Zhukov, IV Ivan Velikanov, MB Marco Beasley, SP Steven Player, SG Stephen Grant, VN Victoria Newman, XDL Xavier Diaz-Latorre
Marco Scavazza as the Devil in Orgambide’s ‘Oratorio del nacimiento’
PUBLICATIONS & LINKS
Book Chapters by Andrew Lawrence-King:
ALK Il palpitar del core: The Heart-Beat of the “First Opera” in Crispin & Gilmore Artistic Experimentation in Music (2015)
ALK ’Tis Master’s Voice: A Seventeenth-Century Shakespeare Recording? in White Shakespeare and Emotions (2015)
This is the first of a series of articles on this subject, all available on this blog. There is a video to accompany each article, all on the You-Tube channel of The Harp Consort & Il Corago.
Kristin Mulders as the Sorceress (doubling Dido) and Leif Aruhn-Solén as the Tenor (doubling the Spirit of Mercury) with Leif Meyer (continuo) in Purcell’s ‘Dido & Aneas’
Opera, orchestra, vocal & ensemble director and early harpist, Andrew Lawrence-King is director of The Harp Consort and of Il Corago. From 2010 to 2015 he was Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for the History of Emotions.
Frescobaldi’s Preface to his 1615 collection of Toccate & Partite, transcribed at Early Music Sources here, is often cited in discussions of rhythm and tempo in early 17th-century music, but one less often encounters more profound analysis of what he actually wrote. The flowery script of the original isn’t easy to read and it’s been removed from IMSLP, but there is another transcription here (along with many other interesting historical source materials). Since Frescobaldi compares his style to concerted vocal/instrumental music, his Rules are relevant to ensemble situations well beyond solo keyboard-playing. Nevertheless, we should be cautious: precisely where and when can we apply the Frescobaldi Rules? Just how do they work in practice?
Frescobaldi – NOT!
All too frequently, we are told that “Frescobaldi says you can change the Tactus, so you can do anything that you like”. This is not only an over-simplification, but a gross distortion: Frescobaldi specifies very particular genres, situations and ways in which the Tactus might be changed. More insidiously, it implies that we can ignore the context within which Frescobaldi offered his carefully worded advice. If we replace Frescobaldi’s underlying principles with an unexamined assumption of 20th-century rubato, it is highly likely that we will misconstrue his instructions.
Toccatas and Recitative
Some Historically Informed musicians have compared the Frescobaldian toccata to Recitative. This is a thoughtful contribution, that usefully reminds us of the importance of vocal music, and by implication, Text, to this instrumental genre. But sometimes the argument is presented thus: “Frescobaldi’s toccate are like recitatives. Recitative is the most expressive genre of music. Expression demands rhythmic freedom. Therefore both toccate and Recitatives are rhythmically free”.
Every step of that argument is problematic. Frescobaldi does not mention Recitative. Circa 1600, the word Recitative was rarely used to denote the new style that we know from the first ‘operas’. See F. W. Sternfeld, ‘A Note on Stile Recitativo’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 110 (1983-1984) 41-44. [This article is not openly available online, but please contact me if you can’t find it via your library]. And when the word Recitative is used, it means something different.
Recitare means ‘to act’ whether in a spoken play, a sung opera, or in silent pantomime. See Il Corago, here. Musica recitativa thus means ‘acted music’, dramatic music: it can include aria, which in this period means any repeated unit in text, rhythm of music. So the line ‘A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!’ is, in 17th-century terms, an aria within a recitative. (See Il Corago again.)
What we (mistakenly) call ‘recitative’ today, speech-like melodic patterns over a slow-moving bass (as described by Peri in the Preface to Euridice, see my annotated translation here) was called modulatione by Il Corago. Even the solo-plus-accompaniment texture of monody is rarely seen in the ‘expressive’ sections of toccate, where there is usually melodic interest in two upper parts, if not throughout the entire polyphonic texture.
So much for Frescobaldi and Recitative. Meanwhile, the baroque aim is not to ‘express’ the performer’s emotions, but to move the audience‘s passions. A subtle, but vital distinction! And, contrary to received opinion, there is no assumption circa 1600 that recitative is free. See The truth about Caccini’s ‘sprezzatura’here.
Toccata & Continuo
Keyboard players sometimes draw parallels between the toccate and continuo realisation. This is another well-intentioned suggestion, that can be of use, if taken with caution. Frescobaldi’s famous injunction “not to leave the instrument empty”, but rather to fill out the sound with a rich arpeggio, certainly encourages continuo players to make their realisations sonorous and supportive. But other aspects of toccata style are not applicable to continuo realisation. Re-striking sustained notes and dissonances “as often as you like” would be intrusive, and is specifically contradicted by Peri – it would “make the course of speech stumble”. Many of the chord positions in the arpeggio sections are too high for use as continuo (many sources specify low register for continuo with added low octaves in the bass, and the ‘tuning A’ A440, A460 – whatever pitch you are using, the A in this octave – is a good rule-of-thumb upper limit for continuo realisation in this period). And as noted above, there is more polyphonic action in the toccate than would be appropriate for continuo, especially on harpsichord. Agazzari specifies that organ and harpsichord should play a simple, fundamental accompaniment, leaving “fun and counterpoints” for other instruments. See What is continuo? here.
Frescobaldi’s terminology
Frescobaldi repeatedly refers to battuta. This does not mean ‘bar’, as it does today, nor ‘beat’ in the sense of ‘the note on the third beat of bar two is F#’. Rather it refers to the renaissance concept of beating time, with a slow, steady down-and-up movement of the hand. I therefore translate battuta as Tactus. See Rhythm, what really counts here. But this battuta = Tactus was a philosophical principle, as much as a practical technique. Indeed, since the harpsichordist would have both hands occupied playing, no-one actually ‘beats time’ in a Frescobaldi toccata. The practice of beating time with the hand becomes a symbol for an abstract concept of a slow, steady measure that defines Time itself.
In this pre-Newtonian age, the definition of Time is Aristotle’s: Time is a number of movement in respect of before and after. Time is not an Absolute, in the way that we today understand so well from Newton; rather it depends upon movement. The steadiness of the Tactus is therefore essential for the reliability of Time itself. The philosophy of musica mondana (the heavenly Music of the Spheres), musica humana (the harmonious nature of the human body) and musica instrumentalis (practical music-making, whether instrumental or vocal) implies that earthly music is a microcosm of the entire universe, moving in perfect steadiness by divine power, and that music-making is linked to human well-being. If the Tactus fails, the heavens may fall. If your pulse stops, the music also dies. The image of the cosmos being turned by the hand of God gave enormous authority to the concept of the Tactus-hand, beating time for music on earth.
See Roger Mathew Grant’s Beating Time and Measuring Music here, and A Baroque History of Time here.
Changing the Tactus therefore has huge philosophical, even religious, implications. Frescobaldi therefore approaches the subject with extreme caution. So should we!
Frescobaldi frequently mentions passi, referring to the contrasting sections of his toccate. The word passo means a step, e.g. a dance-step, or a metrical ‘foot’ in poetry, so a diversity of passi suggests contrasting rhythmic structures between one section and the next. This is the opposite of the early 17th-century meaning of aria: not a nice tune, but a regular structure, especially a consistent rhythmic structure. So whilst an aria maintains a particular rhythmic footprint, two different passi have two different musical ‘steps’. Combining the meaning of ‘step’ and ‘section’, I translate passo as ‘movement’.
Affetto means ’emotion’, or to use the 17th-century English term, passion. Characteristically, the passions (plural) are moved: there are changes from one affetto to another. In this period, the word was used almost interchangeably with effetto, literally ‘effect’, as in theatrical or film ‘special effects’. An effetto is an ‘effect’, a device that produces an emotional response, an affetto. See Caccini’s use of these interlinked words, here. I translate Frescobaldi’s affetti as ‘passionate effects’
Cantabile here means ‘vocal’, without any of the connotations of continuous legato, bad rhythm, vibrato, or anything else associated with the modern concept of ‘cantabile’.
A passaggio is a run of fast notes – ‘passage-work’ in modern English. A partita is a set of variations – I leave this term, and toccata, itself untranslated.
The Frescobaldi Rules
La maniera di sonare con affetti cantabili e con diversità, di passi
The style of playing with passionate vocal effects and with a diversity of movements.
Si ageuolano per mezzo della battuta
Facilitated by means of the Tactus.
First; that this way of playing should not be subject to the Tactus, as we see applied in modern Madrigals, which (although they are difficult) are facilitated by means of the Tactus, beating it sometimes languidly, sometimes quickly, and even sustaining it in the air, according to their [the Madrigals’] passions, or the sense of the words.
We should read ‘subject to’ in the context of renaissance politics. No democratic citizens here, but rather subjects of an autocratic Prince. Think Machiavelli (read him here). Think of the ‘divine right of Kings’. In 1615, Frescobaldi and his contemporaries consider the Tactus to be the hand of God, that directs human musicians as if they are mere pawns, obedient ‘subjects’.
Even in his toccate and the ‘modern madrigals’ he compares them to, Frescobaldi does not suggest anarchy, a revolution that overthrows the reign of the Tactus. On the contrary, he explains that the difficulties of these compositions are ‘facilitated by means of the Tactus’. This is perhaps the most important point for modern readers to understand: Frescobaldi requires there to be a Tactus at all times, even though he specifies certain ways in which that Tactus might sometimes be changed.
Modern Madrigals refers to the new style of concerted music for voices and instruments, accompanied with a basso continuo, which (like Frescobaldi’s toccate) feature contrasting sections. Like the songs of Caccini’s Nuove Musiche, they include sections for solo voice and continuo, in which a passionate style of singing, full of vocal special effects, is required. Monteverdi’s 5th Book, in 1608, includes both old-fashioned polyphonic partsongs and ‘modern’ concerted settings; his 6th Book in 1619 is entitled Concerto and consists entirely of ‘modern’ compositions. Frescobaldi published in 1615, just as the move to ‘modernism’ was underway.
Notice that Frescobaldi does not use the word Recitative, although one of the features of ‘modern madrigals’ is what we (anachronistically) call ‘recitative’. There is no suggestion from Frescobaldi (or elsewhere) that what we call Recitative should be performed in free rhythm.
Since the Tactus beat is down-up, sustaining it ‘in the air’ implies prolonging an upbeat, or hesitating before a downbeat. This already reduces the opportunities for hesitation by 50%: Frescobaldi does not sanction holding the Tactus-hand down at the bottom of the downbeat!
The affetti in ‘modern madrigals’ can be identified by ‘the sense of the words’. But Frescobaldi’s toccate have no text, of course, so understanding which affetto, which passion, is at play becomes a crucial question. Remember that the idea of ‘moving the Passions’ implies that the affetto changes frequently, often from one extreme to its opposite (as we read in the Preface to Cavalieri’s Anima e Corpo, here).
Different Movements
2. In the toccate I took care not only that they should be full of different movements and passionate effects: but also that each of these movements can be separated one from another, so that the player has no obligation to finish them all, but can stop wherever it seems convenient to him.
The sectional construction of the toccate is a significant topic in Frescobaldi’s advice for performers. The corollary is that other genres of music in the piece, which are not constructed in contrasted sections, should not have the Toccata Rules applied to them. These Rules apply only to the specific genre of Toccata, to the related genre of ‘modern Madrigal’, and (as Frescobaldi mentions later) to other genres that fall into well-defined sections. Otherwise, the default assumption, circa 1615, remains the conservative practice of constant Tactus.
Not to leave the instrument empty
3. The opening sections of the toccate should be performed adagio and arpeggiating; and similarly in the ligature (sections with suspensions ‘tied over’) or durezze (dissonances), also in the middle of the piece. [The tied-over suspended] are struck [again] together [with the new, dissonant harmony], so as noto leave the instrument empty. This restriking can be repeated ad lib by the player.
The opening sections are notated in long notes. If you take a slow Tactus, then they end up feeling very slow indeed. Certainly, you’ll need arpeggios ‘so as not to leave the instrument empty’. I recommend following Frescobaldi’s advice, and using the Tactus to ‘faciliate’ changes of tempo, which can be ‘difficult’. Play the transition between two sections first in constant Tactus; then apply Frescobaldi’s Rules to adjust the Tactus, and play the transition with the required adjustment.
It is not clear if the ad lib restriking of dissonances refers to the suspended note only, or to the entire dissonant chord. It is also not clear whether a bene placito (which I translate as ‘ad lib’) means ‘if you want’ or ‘as many times as you want’. I have been told that Piccinini recommends something similar for the lute, but I do not have a precise reference for this. [Lutenist readers, please comment!]
Transitions between movements
4. On the last note, both of trills and of passage-work that moves by leaps or by step, you have to stop, even if that note is a quaver or semi-quaver, or dissimilar to the following note. This pausing will avoid any confusion between one passage and another.
It’s worth noting again the context, which is the assumption of regular Tactus. Frescobaldi’s readers do NOT expect to stop on a short note, and they recognise the need to maintain the Tactus (under normal circumstances) so that contrasts in notated note-values can be understood. However, in the special case of the transition between contrasting sections of a toccata, those 17th-century assumptions are contradicted.
Adagio (not rallentando)
5. The cadences, although they might be written fast, can appropriately be somewhat sustained; and as you approach the conclusion of passage-work or cadences you go sustaining the tempo more adagio. The separation and conclusion of movements is when you find a consonance in both hands together, written in minims.
A stylistic feature of this repertoire is the use of ever-smaller note values for decorated cadences: Frescobaldi says that you don’t have to take the note-values absolutely literally, but the Tactus can be ‘somewhat sustained’. This suggests the ‘sustaining’ of the Tactus hand ‘in the air’, on the upstroke. Approaching the conclusion of a section, the entire Tactus can be slower than normal. It is not clear whether piu adagio means only ‘slower than normal’ or also ‘getting slower and slower’: we should not assume that Frescobaldi is advocating a modern rallentando. My cautious opinion, based on close reading of other sources in this period, is that rallentando is probably not intended, rather it is a one-time shift in tempo. I advise my students to vary the tempo ‘with the gear-lever, not with the brakes or accelerator’.
The Trill challenge!
6. When you find a trill in the right hand, or the left, and simultaneously the other hand has passage-work, you should not synchronise these note by note, but just try to make the trill fast, and carry the passage-work less fast and passionately: otherwise there will be confusion.
Ideally, the trill should have an elegant, subtle ‘shaping’ from slow to fast (as Caccini recommends and many other sources support), rather than being literal. The moving part in the other hand should then be slower than the fast trill, and should be played ‘passionately’. We should not confuse 17th-century passion with 20th-century rubato: Caccini suggests many ways to vary the rhythm of notated quavers, in order to ‘move the passions’, within a steady minim tactus. The concepts here (steady tactus, shapely and fast trill, passionate presentation of the moving notes, independence of the two hands) are challenging for modern readers: the execution is not easy, either!
Harpists might note that this situation occurs in the final notes of the arpa doppia solo in Monteverdi’s Orfeo (Act III, the Aria Possente Spirto): trill in the right hand (with F#, which is a little inconvenient), passionate moving notes in the left hand (fragments of upward scale, each successive fragment is an octave lower, as we descend into the depths of Hell): it is, of course, the end of a passo. Go ahead and apply Frescobaldi Rule 6 – it’s not easy, but the effetto is certainly worth the effort.
Fun with two hands
7. When you find some movement with quavers and semiquavers together in the two hands, it shouldn’t be taken too fast: and the hand that plays the semiquavers must play them somewhat dotted, that is not the first, but the second [note] should be dotted, and so on all the way through, one no, the next yes.
Good practical advice to take these movements at a steady tempo (some modern performers treat them as a race for an Olympic speed record). So whilst one hand moves in quavers (taken normally, and in steady Tactus), the semiquavers in the other hand are given a gentle ‘reverse swing’ in ‘Lombard’ rhythm (short-long). Fun!
Attack resolutely!
8. Before you play a ‘double movement’ where both hands have semiquavers, you should stop on the previous note, even if it is ‘black’ (i.e. short: crotchet, quaver, semiquaver); then resolutely play the passage-work, so that the agility of the hand will be so much more apparent.
The advice to stop before beginning a new movement fits with what we have already been told in Rule 4, although the situation here might be slightly different. Frescobaldi’s care in spelling out the details of these two, apparently very similar, situations, is a warning to us not to apply his Rules without careful checking that the situation really is appropriate. There is no general licence to ‘change the Tactus whenever you want’!
Some modern players like to start such ‘double movement’ passage-work slowly, and accelerate. Frescobaldi rules this out: he tells you to begin ‘resolutely’. This word occurs also in sword-treatises, where spotting the correct moment (also called tempo in the sense of kairos or opportunity) to attack is a vital skill. But once the opportunity to strike is there, you don’t begin slowly, you attack ‘resolutely’! This is another situation where I advise my students “don’t use the brakes and accelerator, use the gear-shift’.
Driving Time
9. In the Partite (variations), when you find passage-work and passionate effects it will be good to take the tempo largo; you should observe this also in the toccate. The other [variations] without passage-work can be played with a somewhat allegro Tactus, leaving the good taste and fine judgement of the player to ‘drive the tempo‘; in this [driving the tempo] lies the spirit and perfection of this manner and style of playing.
We are reminded here that the Rules are not ‘how to play toccate‘, but ‘how to play with a diversity of movements and passionate vocal effects’. So variation-sets may well have a diversity of movements, and some variations may include passionate vocal effects.
The references to ‘good taste’ and ‘fine judgement’ suggest that the changes in Tactus between adagio, largo and allegro are subtle adjustments to the normal tempo (something around minim = 60 is the ‘default’ setting for this period). Note that Frescobaldi often qualifies words of tempo change with adverbs like ‘somewhat’, ‘slightly’.
To find the correct ‘spirit’ and ‘perfection’ in these small adjustments, we need to make good use of the Tactus to ‘facilitate’ such ‘difficult’ transitions. Especially when the Tactus is going to change somewhat, or even hesitate in the air, we need to have a good understanding of precisely what the Tactus is doing. Often, players change the Tactus in the opposite way from Frescobaldi’s rules, taking the opening arpeggios at a different tempo from, but faster than the succeeding movement. The remedy is to begin by studying the piece in a consistent Tactus, and to manage transitions by focussing on the Tactus, not on the general level of activity in smaller note-values.
The reference to ‘good taste and fine judgement’ does not imply that the player can do ‘whatever they want’. Rather, they are required to be careful in how much, and in which direction, to ‘drive the tempo‘, so that Time’s winged chariot does not crash and burn.
Playing with Time can be dangerous: Phaeton tried to drive Apollo’s Sun-Chariot, but he crashed it.
The Passacaglias can be played separately, whatever best pleases you, with adjustments of the tempo between one variation and another, similarly for Ciacconas.
It is not clear whether ‘separately’ means that you can play an individual set of passacaglia variations as a ‘stand-alone’ piece, or if you can select variations from within a set, in the same way that you can select movements from within a toccata. Probably the latter. But note that the Tactus can be changed between one variation and another, according to the Rules already given.
Other Prefaces
In addition to the famous 9 Rules, Frescobaldi gives other summaries of his approach.
1615a
The beginnings of the toccate should be played adagio, and the block chords should be arpeggiated. As [the toccata] continues, pay attention to the distinction between movements, carrying them more or less rapidly according to the difference in their passionate effects, which will appear as you play. In the ‘double movements’ [semiquavers in both hands], similarly you go adagio, so that they are better articulated; and in descending leaps, the last note before the leap should always be resolute and fast. It’s appropriate to stop on the last note of a trill, or other passionate effects, such as a leap, or step, even if it is a semiquaver or demisemiquaver. And usually you somewhat sustain the cadences. In the partite you set tempo giusto and with Proportions, and because in some [variations] there are fast movements, start with a comfortable Tactus; it’s inappropriate to start presto and then continue languidly. But [partite] should be carried through entirely in the same tempo. And have no doubt, that the perfection of playing is in the understanding of tempi.
This summary also reminds us of the default assumptions of the early 17th century. There is the expectation of a standard Tactus – tempo giusto – around minim = 60, and triple-metre is managed by Proportions. The normal expectation is that pieces will be played entirely with a constant Tactus.
Nevertheless, the final sentence refers to tempi, in the plural. There can be changes in the Tactus, but ‘perfection’ is in understanding precisely where, when and how.
1624 Primo libro di capricci
These works … of various tempi and variations…
In these pieces, which might seem irregular in their use of counterpoint, you should first look for the passion of the movement in question and the intention of the Composer concerning the delight of the listener and the way one should try to play. In those pieces entitled Capricci, I have not kept such an easy style as in my Ricercari. But you shouldn’t judge their difficulty before putting them into practice at the instrument, where you will recognise by study the passion they should have…
You can choose whichever you like of these movements, and finish in any of them which end in the right tonality. The beginnings should start adagio to give greater spirit and beauty to the following movement; and in the cadences sustain somewhat before you start the next movement. And in tripla [fast triple] or sesquilatera [slow triple] metres, if they are maggiori you set off adagio, if they are minori somewhat more allegro; if they are three semi-minims, piu allegro; if they are 6/4 you give their tempo by making the battuta go allegro.
It is good in some dissonances to dwell on them and arpeggiate them, so that the following movement comes out with more spirit. All this is said with every modesty, and depending on the good judgement of studious performers.
This summary also gives us additional information. Genre distinctions (Ricercare or Capriccio) are significant. To understand difficult music, search for the passion of each movement, and consider the Composer’s intentions.
In the discussion of Proportions, I have left certain terms untranslated, because there is academic debate on their meaning. But my take on this is very straightforward: triple metres might be notated under 3/1 or 3/2, but either way, long notes (three semibreves) go slowly; short notes (three minims) go medium fast. Semi-minims are black with a stick – to a modern reader they look like crotchets: they go faster. If you have a 6/4 section, this goes very fast.
This user-friendly approach to Proportions can be applied to famously challenging situations, for example the ballo in Monteverdi’s Orfeo. See Tactus & Proportions in ‘Lasciate i monti’here. The difference between the (consistent) time-duration of particular note-values, and the (diverse) feelings of ‘speed’ in triple metres is explored in Quality Time: how does it feel?here. I set out in detail my take on Tactus and Proportions in Getting back to Monteverdi’s Time here.
Scope
I began by urging caution. We need to understand precisely where, when and how Frescobaldi allows departures from the 17th-century default setting of constant Tactus. But close reading reveals that his Rules can appropriately be applied not only to harpsichord solos but to any repertoires in this period that exhibit sectional construction with different rhythmic structures between movements, and/or passionate vocal effects. Certainly that includes the ‘modern’ style of Madrigals around 1615, but it would also seem relevant to vocal monody and – most intriguingly – to ‘opera’.
Whilst the default assumption is that an entire work (e.g. Monteverdi’s Orfeo) has the same, consistent Tactus, Frescobaldi’s Rules suggest particular circumstances where the Tactus might be somewhat faster or slower, or might even hesitate in the air. However, these Tactus changes are between movements (not within a movement), and (I would argue) of the ‘gear-shift’ type, rather than accelerando or rallentando. And the way to study these ‘difficult’ transitions is to identify the passion, apply the appropriate (subtle) adjustment of Tactus, and facilitate the performance by keeping a grip on the Tactus.
All this is very far from ‘rhythmic freedom’ in ‘recitative’, or any general licence to play around with Time. Rather, even when the Tactus is going to change or hesitate, you facilitate the adjustment by means of the Tactus. Don’t crash the Time-Chariot.
Opera, orchestra, vocal & ensemble director and early harpist, Andrew Lawrence-King is director of The Harp Consort and of Il Corago. From 2010 to 2015 he was Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for the History of Emotions.
Giulio Caccini (1551-1618) would find basic advice for today’s jazz singers rather familiar:
Your jazz singing voice should be a natural extension of your speaking voice.
In Le Nuove Musiche (1601), Caccini asks for una sorte di musica … quasi che in armonia favellare, usando … una certa nobile sprezzatura di canto. [A kind of music, almost like speaking in harmony, using a certain elegantly ‘cool’ vocal production.] Note that, contrary to received opinion, Caccini’s sprezzatura is not to do with rhythm, but with voice-production. See Play it again Sam, the truth about Caccini’s sprezzatura, here. The complete original text of Le Nuove Musiche is here.
Your aim is to move an audience by conveying the lyrics of a song as if it were a poem.
The aim of music, and all the Rhetorical arts of the 17th century is muovere gli affetti [to move the emotions]. Caccini too searches for the forza di muovere l’affetto dell’animo [the force to move the emotions of the mind], noting that non potevano … muovere l’intelletto senza l’intelligenza delle parole [you can’t move feelings unless the words are understood]. Caccini proclaims la musica altro non essere che la favella e’l ritmo, & il suono per ultimo, e non per lo contrario. [Music is nothing other than Text and Rhythm, with sound last of all. And not the other way around!]
Now sing your song … exactly as it was originally written by the songwriter.
That should prevent you copying a particular interpretation off a recording by an admired artist: rather, you should create your own version of the song. This is very good advice for students of 17th-century song, too. It’s surprising how many interpretative touches have been passed through the Early Music movement, even when they are contradicted by well-known period sources. And all too often, Early Music singers begin introducing random rhythmic changes (in the name of ‘expressiveness’) before learning what the composer actually wrote!
Rhythmic displacement
Nevertheless, the subtle rhythmic displacement that is so important for Jazz is mentioned also by Caccini (but remember, this is notsprezzatura).
The freedom to loosen up the rhythm of a song spontaneously to add intensity is one of the joys of singing jazz. To practise rhythmic displacement, it is a good idea to begin by learning … the song. [Then], start subtly “loosening up” the timing of each phrase. The idea here is to sing the words rather like you might say them. Try shortening and lengthening different notes each time you sing a phrase and notice how playing about with the rhythm changes the emphasis on the words and can help you put your own stamp on a song. Your singing will also sound more like jazz if you leave a short space (about the length of a clap) before launching into every phrase.
For a few bars of one of his three example songs, Caccini applies senza misura [unmeasured, i.e. ‘loosened up’ timing], asking for this particular phrase to be quasi favellando in armonia con la suddetta sprezzatura [almost speaking in harmony with the above-mentioned sprezzatura]. The ‘above-mentioned sprezzatura‘ is a ‘cool’ vocal production.
The jazz citations above are from The Guardian’s online Jazz Singing Advice (2009), full text here, and having dealt with words, the anonymous columnist continues with a paragraph on Swing, paralleling Caccini’s priorities of Text and Rhythm.
Pamelia Phillips similarly mentions Rhythmic Displacement in Singing for Dummies 2nd Edition (2010). [You can read more of Phillips’ Training Requirements for Singing Jazz here.]
Jazz singers … usually change the notes and rhythms from the original music. Jazz singers create their style with rhythmic flexibility, and the singer and pianist don’t always have to be together note for note (called back phrasing).
But this rhythmic flexibility is certainly not anarchic or random. Like Caccini and the Guardian’s jazz expert, Phillips emphasises that
The jazz singer needs a great sense of rhythm.
Just as in renaissance Italy. The Anonymous swordmaster of Bologna writes in L’Arte della Spada [The Art of the Sword, MS Ravenna M-345 & M-346. There is a modern edition by Rubboli & Cesari, who date the treatise to the early 16th century, whilst the consensus view places it c1650] that swordsmen need the same sense of precision rhythm as a good singer!
The Hidden Assumption
But the Guardian, Phillips and Caccini all fail to mention (though Phillips hints at it) a vital, hidden assumption. Whilst the singer ‘loosens up the timing’ with rhythmic displacement, rhythmic flexibility or senza misura (whatever you want to call it), the accompaniment maintains a steady swing. We take this for granted in jazz, and the renaissance concept of Tactus similarly requires a steady slow pulse. (For Monteverdi, Caccini etc, evidence suggests a consensus Tactus speed of around minim = 60). The crucial point I’m making is that this concept of Tactus still pertains in the accompaniment, even when the singer is applying Caccini’s senza misura.
Monteverdi notates this practice, for example in the opening phrase of Orpheus’ aria in the underworld, Possente Spirto, from Act III of Orfeo (1607).
Just as Phillips describes for jazz, singer and basso continuo are not always together.
Taking Monteverdi as a model, here is my realisation of Caccini’s example of senza misura from Le Nuove Musiche, showing how the singer might loosen up the timing, whilst the continuo maintain the Tactus.
Such a realisation fundamentally redefines the role of the continuo. Nowadays, continuo-players are asked to follow even the most random, rhythmically anarchic singers. It feels like that fairground game, where you wait, rifle (or theorbo) in hand, until a little yellow duck (the tenor) waddles into your sights, and then you fire off a chord, and hope to hit him in root position.
But jazz singing, and Monteverdi’s notation of Caccini’s senza misura, require the accompaniment to maintain the swing, or Tactus. In jazz, those accompanists are called the Rhythm Section. In Monteverdi’s time, the continuo group are
Those who guide and sustain the whole body of singers and instruments of the ensemble.
quei, che guidano e sostengono tutto il corpo delle voci e stromenti di detto concerto [Agazzari Del suonare sopra ‘l basso (1607)]. There is, of course, no conductor, so the continuo are indeed the Rhythm Section of seicento music.
None of this should be shocking to Early Music readers, except that the familiar role of the continuo as Rhythm Section, maintaining the swing of the Tactus, still pertains, even in what Caccini calls lo nuovo stile [the new style] of what musicologists call early baroque Monody, and most performers (anachronistically) call Recitative.
[See Redefining Recitativehere. Circa 1600, recitare just means ‘to act’, whether in spoken drama, opera, or silent pantomime. Musica recitativa is thus ‘acted music’, i.e. dramatic music. The period term for speech-like declamation over a slow-moving bass is modulazione. 18th-century Recitative is something else. In late 17th-century England, what Samuel Pepys calls ‘Recitative Music’ is rhythmically structured, Caccini-style. See Andrew Lawrence-King, ‘’Tis Master’s Voice: A Seventeenth-Century Shakespeare Recording?’ in R.S. White, Mark Houlahan & Katrina O’Loughlin, eds., Shakespeare and Emotions: Inheritances, Enactments, Legacies (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).]
Heavenly Tactus or Hellish Duckshoot?
At the foot of the title page of Agazzari’s treatise, there are two Latin mottos. One shows a diagram of the cosmos, a model of armonia [which in this period means not only harmony, but music in general, in particular well-ordered or ‘goodly’ music].
Armonia comes from movement.
Specifically, well-ordered music comes from the perfect movement of the stars and planets, imitated on earth by the regular swing of the Tactus-beater’s arm, conceptualised as the authority of the Tactus itself.
All this refers to the idea of the Harmony of the Spheres, the notion that earthly music-making, musica instrumentalis, is an imitation of the perfect music of the heavens, musica mondana; both of these symbolise musica humana, the harmonious nature of the human body. Well-ordered music is related to healthy well-being. Steady rhythm is a reflection of cosmic perfection. Thus Dowland, translating Ornithoparcus’ Micrologus, declares that steady Tactus, “Equality of Measure” is a moral imperative.
Agazzari’s second motto is placed ‘stage left’, rhetorically the ‘bad’ area in contrast to the cosmos diagram placed in the ‘good’ area. It captions an image of the serpent in the pit of hell, and warns ominously:
And they don’t mess up, either!
If we view Caccini’s invitation for singers to apply senza misura and Agazzari’s description of the continuo ‘guiding the voices’ through the lens of these two mottos, we see a practice that today’s jazz-musicians would recognise: a singer is free to sing before or after the beat, whilst (in the Rhythm Section) the continuo-players maintain the Tactus. “And they don’t mess up, either!”.
Conclusion
Modern advice about jazz cannot prove anything, either way, about Early Music. But the parallels I’ve drawn here show the vital significance of underlying assumptions. Today’s performers approach Caccini and Monteverdi with the anachronistic label ‘Recitative’, which encourages them to abandon the period assumption of steady Tactus. Instead, they assume that the way to ‘express emotions’ is to use 20th-century rubato. But jazz and Caccini are not ‘expressing’ what the performer feels, they seek to move the audience‘s passions. Jazz does this by allowing the singer subtle rhythmic flexibility whilst the Rhythm Section maintains the swing; Monteverdi notates precisely this; I suggest this is what Caccini meant by suggesting senza misura for singers.
The underlying assumptions about music in the early 17th century are that Rhythm is a high priority, that there is a steady Tactus, and that this Tactus is maintained by the continuo.
Opera, orchestra, vocal & ensemble director and early harpist, Andrew Lawrence-King is director of The Harp Consort and of Il Corago. From 2010 to 2015 he was Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for the History of Emotions.
Before I offer you, dear Readers, this analysis of mine, I think I ought to bring to your attention what has led me to re-examine this well-known Preface, for in all human operations logic should be the beginning and source…
SUMMARY
Here is a statement of my own, about Jacopo Peri’s Preface to his setting of Euridice (1600), the earliest surviving secular ‘opera’.
I reduced the Preface to its essential point, so that the process of reading should not need (in a kind of way) to ‘plough through’ every sentence. That’s the principle of a summary, whereas the complete Preface naturally requires detailed examination.
I modelled this statement on Peri’s sentence structures, but working logically through the 17th-century formulations, it should be clear that:
I am discussing a summary.
There are differences between a summary and the complete Preface.
I made the summary by reducing the Preface to its essential argument.
The idea is to avoid ‘ploughing’ by means of the reduction of the Preface.
There are two further implications:
Normally, with the complete Preface, the attentive reader will indeed ‘plough through’ every sentence.
Even in a summary, readers will follow me, though they don’t ‘plough through’.
Now here is a summary of Peri’s most famous statement about the composition of dramatic music, explaining how he imitates ‘the course of speech’ in song [his complete text is below]:
I reduced the Bass to its essential pulse, so that the course of speaking should not seem (in a kind of way) to ‘dance’ to the movement of the Bass. That’s the principle for sad or serious material, whereas happier texts naturally require more movement in the Bass.
Working logically through Peri’s 17th-century formulations, it should be clear that:
Peri is discussing music for sad or serious texts.
There are differences between sad or serious material, and happier texts.
Peri made his serious music by reducing the Bass to its essential pulse.
The idea is to remove ‘dancing’ by means of the reduction of the Bass.
There are two further implications:
Normally, in happier texts, stylish singing will indeed ‘dance’ to the movement of the Bass.
Even in sad or serious material, singers will follow the Bass, though they don’t ‘dance’.
Peri’s Preface has often been misunderstood as an appeal for ‘rhythmic liberty’, and its most famous statement mis-interpreted as ‘singers should not follow the Bass’. Those frequently repeated distortions fit comfortably with the 20th-century notion of rubato and free rhythm as the epitome of expressiveness, and with the modern convention that accompanists must follow the soloist. But period sources from Agazzari to CPE Bach and Leopold Mozart insist that the Bass lays down the Tactus, and that soloists follow this essential pulse (just as in today’s jazz). Sometimes the singing ‘dances’, sometimes it is sad or serious, but it always has the essential pulse of Tactus, led by the Bass. Before the year 1800, soloists follow the accompaniment, because accompanists have particular responsibility for maintaining the Tactus.
Meanwhile, the ‘liberties’ Peri asks for are not to do with rhythm, but relate to musical ‘grammar’ – the rules of dissonance, l’uso delle false. When he does talk about rhythm, he draws attention to the great variety of note values he employs, linked to the emotions of the text. Contrasts in note-values would be destroyed, if there was no underlying pulse to structure all that variety: indeed such destruction of notated contrasts is just what happens in many modern ‘free’ performances of early 17th-century monody.
Throughout Peri’s Preface, there is nothing to contradict the general (historical) assumptions for all music of this period:
There is a regular Tactus pulse.
Soloists follow the Bass.
You can read more about Tactus here. And you can read about how Tactus structured early 17th-century music here.
One last observation: Peri never uses the word ‘recitative’. His topic is nuova maniera di canto (a new kind of song, a new way of singing) for Musica su le scene (Theatrical Music). And he refers to even the most poignant speeches of Orpheus, of the lamenting shepherd Arcetro and of Dafne (the Messaggiera) as arie. The word aria in this period does not necessarily mean a ‘tuneful melody’, but rather refers to elements of repeated structure, for example a ground bass, or any repeated rhythmic fragment.
Peri’s complete text with my translation and commentary are below.
And may you live happily!
Annotated translation:
Jacopo Peri Preface to Euridice (Florence, 1600)
The original Italian text is here, along with the music of Euridice (mostly by Peri himself, but with some items contributed by Caccini).
Editorial procedure: I have tried to stay close to Peri’s word-order, and to use English cognates whenever possible, to help the reader follow the Italian text in parallel. Any serious discussion of this key text has to be made using the original Italian text, since translation (and the specific 17th-century meaning) of Peri’s terms is inevitably open to question.
Before I offer you, dear Readers, this Music of mine, I think I ought to bring to your attention to what has led me to invent this new manner of song, for in all human operations, reason should be the beginning and source; And he who cannot show reason easily leads one to believe that he worked by chance.
Peri offers a Scholastic defence for the Humanist project of creating a new kind of music. Ritrovare, which I have translated as ‘invent’, also means ‘to find out again, or to retrieve’ (Florio Dictionarie of the Italian and English tongues. London, 1611). Although Peri’s ‘manner of song; is ‘new’, the artistic endeavour was to re-discover Ancient music. This suggests interesting comparisons to today’s Early Music!
Although by Signor Emilio del Cavaliere, before any other that I know, with marvellous invention our Music was made to be heard on the Stage; nevertheless it pleased Signori Jacopo Corsi and Ottavio Rinuccini (at the end of the year 1594), that I should apply it [our music] in another guise, setting to notes the fable of Dafne, written by Signor Ottavio, to make a simple test of what singing could do in our era.
Peri properly acknowledges Cavalieri’s achievements, and presents his own previous experience. Corsi was a patron of ‘early opera’, Rinuccini one of the greatest libretto poets. Caccini is not mentioned, in spite of his strong claims to have invented the new style himself, but Peri quietly positions his 1594 Dafne well in advance of the rival settings of Euridice and Caccini’s Le Nuove Musiche (1601/2). Peri’s Euridice, which includes some music by Caccini, was the first to be performed, but Caccini rushed his own complete setting into print before Peri’s was published.
From this it is seen that we were dealing with dramatic poetry, but if one should imitate in song how one speaks (and without doubt, no one ever actually spoke by singing), I esteem that the ancient Greeks and Romans (who according to the opinion of many sang entire Tragedies on the Stage) used a musical style, which going beyond that of ordinary speaking, descended so much from the melody of singing, that it took the form of something intermediate; And this is the reason by which we see in this Poetry there is a place for the Iambic, which is not exalted like the Hexameter, but merely is said to advance beyond the confines of everyday discourse.
There was no difficulty in setting to music diegetic songs and dances (theatrical scenes which represented the characters making music) and it was accepted as a convention that Prolouges, Choruses, Gods and similar other-worldly figures might sing. The question Peri grapples with here is the theatrical representation of speech. In the Platonic tradition, imitare implies also ‘artistic expression or representation’. Peri admits that people don’t normally sing when they speak, and looks to Ancient Greece and Rome for an intermediate form, something between speech and song. He compares this to blank verse, which is intermediate between prose and poetry..
Armonia can mean ‘harmony’, but often has a wider meaning as any kind of musical organisation, especially rhythmic, as well as melody: here, I translate it as ‘musical style’, for Periis concerned with the melodic and rhythmic patterns of speech. Peri’s ‘something intermediate’ reminds us of Caccini’s sprezzatura, a nonchalant, ‘cool’ voice-production, something between singing and normal speech.
Contrary to received opinion. Caccini’s sprezzatura is NOT rhythmic freedom. Read what Caccini actually wrote, here.
And so, having rejected any other manner of song heard until now, I devoted myself totally to researching the representation needed for these Poems; and I consider that the sort of tones, which the Ancients assigned to singing, and which they called Diastematica (as if drawn out and suspended) could sometimes be taken faster, and take a moderate course between the movements of song (slow and suspended) and speech (speedy and fast), & be adapted to my proposition (as they [the Ancients] also adapted it [Diastematica] when reading Poetry and Epic verses) to approach that other [sort of tone] of speaking, which they called Continuous; This is what our modern people (although perhaps for another end) have already done in their music.
‘Researching’ translates Peri’s ricercare, which – like ritrovare – carries also the suggestion of rediscovering or searching again. The word reminds us of abstract polyphonic music designated ricercar, recalling the concept – of music being ‘found’ rather than invented – at the root of the word Troubador.
‘Tones’ translates Peri’s voci: his word takes oin the concepts of ‘voice’, ‘note’, ‘syllable’, ‘vowel’. Again, Peri proposes something ‘intermediate’ between slow singing and fast speech: he also suggests that that the syllable speed would vary. He makes a parallel with different ways of reading lyric and epic verse. Around 1600, it was already customary, even in polyphonic music, to set text to varied note-values.
I know similarly that in our speaking some tones are pitched in such a way that there one could lay a musical foundation, and in the course of speech many other [tones] pass by, which are not pitched, until one returns to another [tone] suitable for movement of a new harmony, & having respect for those modes and those accents which are needed in lamenting and rejoicing & in similar matters, I made the Bass move in the time of these, sometimes more, sometimes less, according to the emotions, and kept it unmoving through the dissonances and through the correct consonances, until – running through various notes – the tone of the speaker arrives at that [syllable] which in ordinary speaking would be pitched: [this] opens the way to a new harmony;
Peri takes his inspiration from the sustained syllables of declamatory speech, for which a musical pitch can be assigned, and/or a harmonious accompaniment created. Again, the word ‘tones’ should be read to include also the concepts of ‘the voice’, ‘syllables’ and ‘vowels’. The word accenti carries the meanings of ‘expressive words’ and ‘expressive notes’: in this period it also means a particular expressive ornament. Armonia can mean the pitch of the sung note, or a harmony in the accompaniment.
Peri constructs a bass-line according to the musical requirements of varying emotions .Those emotions dictate the rhythm of the bass, which moves ‘sometimes more, sometimes less’. Sometimes he keeps the bass fixed in spite of some dissonances in the voice-part. After many quick, light, ‘unpitched’ syllables, the bass plays a new harmony with the next sustained, pitched syllable.
And this is not only so that the course of speaking should not wound the ear (as if stumbling as it encounters the repeated strings of more frequent harmonies) or that [the course of speaking] should not seem in a kind of way to dance to the movement of the Bass, principally in matters either sad or serious, other happier [matters] naturally requiring more frequent rhythms:
Peri’s word corde, ‘strings’ implies the notes played by the continuo-bass. The bass should not play too often, because this would disrupt the proper course of speech. Here I think Peri refers to the pitch-level of the ‘course of speaking’ which would ‘stumble’ upon the dissonances created with an unchanging bass-note, if that note were repeated. It is significant that he associates the continuo-bass with the plucked string of a theorbo, harpsichord or harp (bowed strings and organ can sustain, they would not need to repeat their notes). Nevertheless, the word corda can also refer to a note played on the organ. This first sub-clause refers to problems of harmony, rather than rhythm.
In the next sub-clause, Peri turns to the question of rhythm. His famous, and oft-quoted phrase that the course of speech should not ‘dance’ to the movement of the Bass needs to be read very closely. The implication is that the singer doesfollow the bass, and even ‘dances’ in other, happier, music. The singer still follows the bass in ‘sad and serious’ music, but the bass moves less and the singer does not ‘dance’.
It is precisely because the singer expects to follow the bass that Peri has to reduce the amount of activity in that bass for ‘sad or serious’ music. The effect of ‘dancing’ is avoided, if the singer only has to coincide with the bass on those significant syllables that are properly pitched and accompanied with a new harmony, and when the bass only moves in long notes, i.e. at the Tactus level of minims and semibreves. In happy music, the bass is more active, the Tactus pulse is rhythmically sub-divided, leading to the effect of ‘dancing’.
But also, because the [correct] use of dissonances would either reduce or cover up the advantage we gain from the necessity of pitching every note, which perhaps the ancient Music did not need to do.
Peri’s phrase uso delle false carries the meaning of ‘the correct procedures of dissonance’. Peri knows that his proposed infrequent movement of the bass is contrary to the normal rules of counterpoint. Since, in the voice part, he has to set even light & quick syllables to some specific note, there are passing dissonances between voice and bass that are not properly prepared and resolved. He wonders if ‘ancient music’ didn’t actually pitch every single note!
But (although I do not dare to assert this to have been the song used in Greek and Roman fables), so I believe it to be the only [song] that can be given from our Music to accommodate to our speech.
Conclusion
In this famous description of his composing method, Peri presents several fundamental concepts of early 17th-century music, familiar to academics, but contrary to the standard operating procedures of many today’s early music performers:
The voice normally follows the rhythm of the bass
The voice follows the rhythm of the bass even in ‘sad or serious’ music
The emotion is built into the rhythm of the bass, as well as into harmonies and melodic figures
In sad, serious ‘recitative’ the fixed rhythmic points of the bass occur less frequently
In light, happy music the fixed rhythmic points of the bass occur more frequently
Between these fixed rhythmic points, the ‘song’ follows the ‘natural course of speaking’
The ‘course of speech’ refers to the poetic metre of the syllables, & the approximate pitch of the speaking voice
The ‘in-between’ syllables should be passed over quickly and lightly, almost without musical pitch
The ‘freedom Peri asks for in his speech-like music is the freedom to ignore the normal rules of counterpoint.
Peri’s ‘new style for theatrical music’ is ‘intermediate’ in several ways:
The syllabic speed is intermediate between normal speech (which is faster) and normal singing (which is slower).
This is exactly what results, if one performs the ‘new style’ music with a consistent Tactus at approximately minim = 60. Many modern performances are too slow, too ‘sung’.
The voice production is intermediate between normal speech (which is not pitched) and normal singing (which is fully pitched)
Most modern performances are fully sung: it is hard to re-create this voice production, but try lightening up the unaccented syllables, maintaining the Tactus, and not singing too loud! The early operas were sung softly, compared to contemporary church music.
The coordination with the bass is intermediate between normal speech (which has no Tactus) and normal singing (which might even ‘dance’ to the bass-line’s subdivision of the Tactus).
Peri’s ‘reduced’ bass typically moves in semibreves and minims, corresponding to Tactus and semi-Tactus. So in ‘sad or serious’ music the singer fits ‘the course of speech’ within the framework of steady Tactus, in happy music, the singer ‘dances’ to the more active movement of the Bass.
Peri describes a kind of music in which the bass moves infrequently, whilst the voice sustains significant syllables, and then passes lightly and rapidly over several less important syllables. We see this kind of music in his setting of Euridice, which follows this Preface. Today, we call this Recitative, but Peri does not use the words recitativo or musica recitativa. According to the anonymous (c1630) MS, Il Corago, what we nowadays call ‘Recitative’ was known as modulazione, and music with any kind of repeating structure (rhythmic, harmonic or melodic) was called aria. Musica recitativa meant ‘dramatic music’ and it included both modulazione and aria. Recitare meant ‘to act’, whether in spoken drama, music-theatre, or even silent pantomime.
These differences in historical nomenclature remind us that we cannot apply our modern assumptions about ‘Recitative’, nor performance practice for 18th-century recitative, to Peri’s theatrical music. There is nothing to suggest that Peri’s ‘sad or serious’ music was rhythmically free. Rather, it is built on the foundation (Peri’s word is fondare) of a slow-moving bass, whereas happy music ‘dances’ to a fast-moving bass.
Having explained how he composed his modulazione, in the second part of the Preface Peri discusses how it was performed. I’ll translate and comment on that in another post.
Opera, orchestra, vocal & ensemble director and early harpist, Andrew Lawrence-King is director of The Harp Consort and of Il Corago. From 2010 to 2o15 he was Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre for the History of Emotions.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet (1597) Act II Scene ii
The Shakespeare Rose
This is the first in a series of posts reporting on the recent Music & Consciousness 2 Conference at Oxford University. Here I present the first part of my own paper. The second part and discussion of other papers will appear in subsequent posts.
Flow, an optimal state for study, training and creativity, is often linked with the concept of The Zone, an ideal state for elite performance. Are these two states identical, or how might they differ? Does it matter, which name we use? See more at TheFlow.Zone
In this first of two parts, I’m considering the similarities between Flow and The Zone, as two of the many different manifestations of Hypnotic trance. I’m arguing for very careful use of language, but not for the sake of a more rigorous theoretical discussion. The narrow definitions of some terms are highly contentious, so I’m deliberately accepting broad definitions in order to sidestep those theoretical debates. But I suggest that precise choice of terminology is vital, for utterly practical reasons.
As you read this paper, imagine it being presented aloud at a conference, with the words in bold emphasised by subtle changes in vocal tone.
APPROACH
My approach to this subject is Experiential, Phenomenological, individual and practical. I draw on my personal experiences as an international musician, as a professionally qualified sailor (sailing is one of Csikszentmihalyi’s favourite examples of Flow) and as an elementary student of Feldenkrais Method, Tai Chi, modern Epée and historical Rapier. I’m also privileged with many opportunities to compare notes with fellow performers and advanced music students, as well as with highly experienced teachers and some of the world’s most insightful sports trainers and martial artists. The theoretical background to my approach is Joe Griffin’s Expectation Theory of Dreams. Griffin speaks about his theory on video:
I discuss the implications of Griffin’s theory for Flow and for music & drama here.
STATES
For a moment, let’s leave aside the much-debated theoretical question of whether or not Flow can strictly be termed an Altered State of Consciousness, although later I’m going to place great importance on nomenclature for practical reasons. We can agree, can’t we, that sometimes we feel in the mood to work, ready to practise; or we feel the coffee-break coming on, or even “I’m in a right state”; or we experience that je-ne-sais-quoi as we walk out on stage in front of a packed auditorium, or line-up to compete in a major sports event.
Our expectations and habits, our deliberate preparation and conditioned reflexes, Anchors in NLP-speak, set up mind/body responses which can be positive or negative for desired outcomes in specific situations. Those responses can be optimised through mental and physical training: music lessons, practising and rehearsals; sports training and coaching sessions.
LANGUAGE
Those responses are most effectively optimised through combined mind/body training in which physical processes and neural changes are programmed by specific use of language.
It matters – a lot – what you say in a music-lesson, rehearsal or coaching session. It matters – perhaps even more – what you say to yourself, your inner dialogue, whilst practising. My choice of words as director differs depending on whether I’m rehearsing baroque specialists or a modern chamber orchestra. And each individual has their own inner dialogue and primary sensory modality. “I see what you mean.” (Visual). “I hear what you’re saying.” (Auditory) “I’ve got a hold on that idea.” (Kinaesthetic) “That feels right.” (Somatic) “Sweet!” (Gustatory).
ASSUMPTIONS
I began my research with two huge assumptions. I won’t call them hypotheses, because they probably can’t be proved. It may well even be impossible to falsify them. But thus far, they are producing meaningful questions and plausible answers.
My first assumption is that this phenomenon of Flow has some essential common features across a wide range of activities: study, creative work, music-making, sports, martial arts, flying aeroplanes etc. Csikszentmihalyi has observed the outward signs of Flow in many different situations, but it remains an unproven assumption that the inner reality is somehow ‘the same’.
The second assumption is that Flow is an ‘altered state of consciousness’ similar to ‘hypnosis’. Just as there is debate about the notion of ‘altered states of consciousness’, there is no universal agreement about what Hypnosis is. The ‘first and perhaps most important’ theme of ‘dialogue and debate’ in the 2008 Oxford Handbook of Hypnosis is of definition: what is Hypnosis? However, the neural correlates of Hypnosis have been identified:
‘Now, numerous experimentally controlled investigations have produced consistent and converging findings demonstrating physiological responses associated with hypnotic conditions … these markers directly reflect the alterations in consciousness that correspond to participant’s subjective experiences of perceptual alteration’ [Barabasz and Watkins 2005].
What is Flow?
HYPNOSIS
Whilst there are many unanswered questions in Hypnosis Research, linking Flow to Hypnosis invites us to consider all the work that has already been done for Hypnosis for possible relevance to Flow. For example, neurological patterns whilst hallucinating a certain action in Hypnosis closely resemble the patterns for that activity when carried out for real. Similarly, we can expect that the brain activity of a musician playing in Flow will resemble that of another musician not in Flow, more than that of Flowing Kung Fu fighter. Any specific neurological markers for Flow are likely to be subtle, but Hypnosis studies might suggest where to look. [There were tentative suggestions of neural correlates for Flow in other papers at the Oxford Conference].
Researchers tend to adopt a narrow definition of Hypnosis, requiring a formal induction and specified tests. Experimental work begins by testing subjects for hypnotisability, using a Standardised Induction. Most practitioners work with a broad definition, using a great variety of inductions, formal and informal. The guru of modern hypnotism was Milton H Erikson, who viewed trance as a natural phenomenon, a state we all go in and out of several times a day.
What is Hypnosis?
Have you ever made a familiar journey, and found yourself at your destination with no clear memory of how you got there, because your mind was on something else? You were in a travel trance. Have you ever been in a lecture-room and found yourself off in a little daydream, with no idea what the speaker just said? You were in a conference trance!
Erikson’s mantra was to Accept and Utilise his clients’ reactions. So if you have already drifted off, wonderful! I can get my suggestions over so much more effectively, if you are in trance. Erikson’s approach was client-centred, tailored to each individual, whereas Research pre-supposes that the Hypnotist has his own agenda. There are ethical considerations here. In the Eriksonian understanding of Hypnosis, self-hypnosis is quite possible, and most practioners consider it highly beneficial, teach it, and give Suggestions during sessions of guided hypnosis to facilitate self-hypnosis later.
What is NLP?
Neuro-Linguistic Programming largely derives from Eriksonian Hypnosis, analysing precise use of language to maximise the speed and efficacy of Suggestions. NLP is ‘take no prisoners’ Hypnosis: it does not beat about the bush, but cuts straight to the chase. Consequently, before embarking on any therapeutic procedures, NLP practitioners spend some time establishing whether the client really wants and is ready for the requested change.
Practitioners recognise that individuals respond to Hypnotism in different ways, and that an Induction that works for one person may not work for another. In the Eriksonian approach, the Hypnotist does not try to force through against ‘client resistance’. Rather, one accepts that a certain Induction or Suggestion isn’t working, and one tries to utilise that knowledge to indicate a more promising alternative.
In my favourite Erikson story , the famous therapist was struggling with a difficult case: he couldn’t find an effective therapeutic approach. So he hypnotised the client, and brought him (whilst in trance) forwards in time to a date after the successful conclusion of his treatment. He then asked him what the therapy was, that had succeeded, and having obtained the answer directed the still hypnotised client to forget this conversation. He then brought the client back to the present, re-oriented him out of trance, and applied the therapy as described. It worked a treat.
The point is that the unconscious mind is a rich resource, full of knowledge and skills that may not be available to us in normal consciousness. In music teaching and sports coaching, the 19th and 20th-century trend was towards analysis and scientific teaching of step by step processes. But sometimes it can be more effective to reverse-engineer: focus on the end-result, and let the student’s unconscious figure out the required process. Fencers are taught to imagine the target attracting the point of the sword towards it.
HYPNOTISABILITY?
In principle, NLP does not accept the concept of hypnotisability. If your client cannot be hypnotised, you are using the wrong induction. Conversely, many people enter Hypnosis without formal induction. If this is true, as most practitioners believe, then some of the most rigorous Hypnosis Research is called into question. Standard practice compares the responses to Suggestions of hypnotised subjects and of a control group who did not receive an Induction and are therefore taken to be in a normal state of consciousness. But in the NLP view, there is no guarantee that the control group are not also in trance, especially if you start making hypnotic Suggestions to them. Indeed, in NLP, the very concept of ‘normal consciousness’ is questioned.
FAQs
One of the most inspiring applications of Hypnosis is for control of pain during surgery, for example for patients who are are allergic to conventional anaesthetics. I’m acquainted with a Hypnotist who provides hypnotic anaesthesia for major dental surgery – if anyone still thinks of Hypnotism as a party-trick or a new-age fad, this clinical application is undeniably the real thing. Some clinical psychotherapists use Hypnotism alongside other talking therapies.
Then there is a huge Hypnotism industry worldwide, offering Hypnosis in face-to-face sessions, on CDs and DVDs, or for download from the internet. Help with losing weight, giving up smoking, relationship problems, phobias and anxiety is much in demand. Alongside these, and also in sports- and music-guru websites, Flow and other performance-enhancing concepts are marketed similarly. In these circles, it is taken for granted that Flow or ‘being in the Zone’ is the secret of elite performance, and that Hypnotism can help you achieve it. The most frequently asked questions are How can I get into Flow? How can I keep Flowing in difficult circumstances? How can I cope with Performance Anxiety?
Flow FAQs
Griffin’s theory of Dreams offers an explanation for the link, often remarked on, between high creativity and susceptibility to mental illness. Recent studies have highlighted the incidence of mental health problems and alcohol dependency amongst professional musicians; performance anxiety afflicts not only students but many established performers. Beta-blockers and other drugs are frequently needed, to say nothing of dangerous levels of caffeine. Mental illness causes untold suffering not only to the patient, but to their families and to society as a whole: the recent airplane crash in the Alps is tragic example. See Griffin & Tyrell How to lift Depression […fast] here.
Many people find that trance itself – for example, in Meditation – is a beneficial experience, even without any deliberate input of therapeutic Suggestions. Flow for music-making, for study, creativity and for life in general, is highly conducive to mental health.
HOW CAN I GET INTO FLOW?
Csikszentmihalyi associated Flow with a particular personality type, the Autotelic, from auto ~ self & telos ~ purpose. Autotelics are strongly self-motivated, ready to do something for its own sake, ‘because it’s there’. If you feel that the task at hand is interesting and worth doing, you are more likely to be in Flow whilst you are doing it. If you can find this motivation for yourself in many activities, you can live much of your life in Flow.
This is all very well, but it does not answer the most frequently asked question: How can I get into Flow, now? Re-building your entire personality might be a long-term project. Can we find a short-cut, a magic portal, a hidden gateway into Flow?
How can I get into Flow?
The idea I’m putting forward here, that Flow might simply be a phenomenon of Self-Hypnosis, seems to be a new contribution to the field. The implication is that techniques for entering Flow would resemble hypnotic Inductions.
TYPICAL HYPNOSIS SESSION
Hypnosis 1: Pre-talk
So let’s look at a typical experience for a Client who visits a modern Hypnotist. There will be some introductory chat, which the experienced Hypnotist will utilise to build rapport, to find out what’s important to his Client, to explain the procedures of the session and to instill confidence. This phase is called the Pre-Talk, and a fine Hypnotist will be able to do a lot of effective work, before taking the Client into trance. An NLP practitioner might not draw any hard boundary between pre-talk and trance, regarding shifts of state as a natural process that is happening anyway.
Hypnosis 2: Induction
There are many possible approaches to Induction (for example, there’s a list of over 30 different Inductions here), but most of them mimic the results of Hypnosis, slow deep breathing, fluttering eyelids, etc. so that the unconscious mind reverse-engineers trance as a cause. Suggestions for relaxation and concentration, whilst seeking an inner focus, are very often employed, using a gentle tone of voice… drifting easily from one suggestion to the next … smoothly avoiding full stops … timing suggestions with the Client’s outbreath…
Alternatively, one can overload the conscious mind with shock, excessively confusing language, or too many simultaneous demands, so that the unconscious is forced to step into the gap. Fencing coaches deliberately employ such Stack Overload, maintaining the complexity of swordplay just beyond the pupil’s comfort zone, in order to keep the unconscious mind positively engaged whilst under the stress of combat.
Ericksonian Hypnotists use the mnemonic SOLER for techniques that facilitate rapport:
Erikson’s SOLER mnemonic
Sit (be comfortable, and on the same level with your client)
Have an Open posture
Lean forwards (and concentrate closely on the client)
Make Eye contact
Relax
With such rapport, and with the Hypnotist also enjoined to sit comfortably, concentrate and relax, it is hardly surprising that one can all too easily end up hypotising oneself. In the NLP view, mutual trance is inevitable and no bad thing: Hypnotist and Client find themselves in complementary states of consciousness, similar but not identical. So too performers and audiences: see The Theatre of Dreams: La Musica hypnotises the Heroeshere.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming
NLP practitioners use indirect language, so-called Sleight of Mouth, to smuggle suggestions past the conscious mind in order to influence the unconscious. Conjunctions – as, while – can link a truism to a desired response: As you breathe out, you can feel your shoulders relaxing. Whilst you sit in this room, you’re unconscious mind can access new learnings. Clearly, you are sitting in this room and breathing; the implication is that the second half of each sentence is also true. Emphasising certain words allows the Hypnotist to hide an Embedded Command within an apparently innocuous statement: “your Unconscious” sounds like “you’re unconscious”. Deliberately vague language, Nominalisations in NLP-speak, access new learnings rather than learn something new directs the mind inwards in the search for meaning (a Trans-Derivational Search).
Whilst you sit in this room, you’re unconscious mind can access new learnings.
So it’s no wonder that the abstract, nominalisation-rich language of academia puts people to sleep!
There are many, many more NLP techniques, subtle use of language that works directly on your Unconscious mind, to get the results you want. Read more here.
Hypnosis 3: Suggestion
With the Client in trance, there may be a two-way conversation, or the Hypnotist may ask for non-verbal responses – raise your hand when you’re ready to continue . Typically, the Hypnotist gives Suggestions for desired responses to specific situations in the future. As you walk out on stage, and you take a deep breath, you will feel your shoulders relax, and your whole body feels warm and relaxed. with a pleasant sensation of calm confidence. Suggestions work without trance, especially if you use NLP techniques to aim the Suggestion direct at the Unconscious mind. But Suggestions work better with trance, and best of all with a combination of trance and NLP’s clever use of language.
And of course, your own internal dialogue, the way you talk to yourself (perhaps mostly imagined, sometimes out loud) is a powerful form of Suggestion. It’s worth becoming aware of this ‘self-talk’, and learning to direct it the way you choose to. If your internal dialogue is over-critical, negative and in a harsh tone of voice, you are are imparting powerful negative Suggestions at point-blank range. Adjust the tone-settings, and re-record the announcements with a new script, so that you speak to yourself with gentle encouragement, some firm guidance to follow your chosen path, whatever would help you most. Your internal dialogue is like having a personal trainer whispering in your ear 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Make sure this “personal trainer” shares your agenda and speaks to you with warm encouragement.
Most people can take charge of their internal dialogue, and improve its quality, with a bit of work. But if you realise that your self-talk is highly negative, and you are unable to change it yourself, then seek help. An NLP or hypno-therapist can fix this for you, easily and quickly. I would recommend a therapist using the Human Givens approach, see here.
A wily Hypnotist will Suggest that next time, the Client will find it easier and quicker to go into trance.
Hypnosis 4: Re-orientation
Then the Client is gently re-oriented back to normal consciousness: the classic procedure is a 3, 2, 1 countdown, Suggesting a pleasant experience as you emerge from trance.
Learning as a post-hypnotic process
If we now look at a sports coaching session, there are obvious similarities. In the pre-talk, the team are brought together, rapport is established, the program for the session is announced, the vocabulary shifts from everyday to specifics. Warm-up exercises aim for a certain combination of concentration and relaxation, there may even be a formal ritual for achieving the desired state of mind and body (e.g. the New Zealand ruby team’s Haka). With the athletes in the Zone, the coach gives Suggestions to improve performance. The session ends with a warm-down, and a good coach sends everyone home feeling good.
Sports Coaching compared to Hypnosis
Similarly, a typical music lesson begins with a pre-talk which establishes rapport, eases the student from everyday life into a suitable state of mind for high-level music-making. A good teacher will calm an agitated student, energise one who is lethargic, and try to find out how best to fit the lesson to the student’s current needs. Many lessons begin with exercises for relaxation, physical and mental ‘centering’, almost a formal ritual for entering the desired state. During the lesson, the teacher offers Suggestions to improve technical execution, or to help the student engage more fully in musical emotions. Finally, the teacher makes Suggestions for the forthcoming performance, and/or for the next week’s practising, and re-orients the student back into everyday life with some concluding chat.
Music Lesson compared to Hypnosis
The working definition of Hypnosis put forward by Kihlstrom fits Music rather well.
Definition: is this Music, Sports-coaching, or Hypnosis?
A process in which one person … offers Suggestions to another … for imaginative experiences entailing alterations in perception, memory and action. In the classic case, these experiences are associated with a degree of subjective conviction…and an experienced involuntariness…As such, the phenomena … reflect alterations in consciousness that take place in the context of a social interaction.
Of course, a good teacher will offer Suggestions for imaginative experiences, and will try to improve the student’s perception, memory and action. Good musicians develop a ‘feel’ for the music, a strong sense of subjective conviction:
When I played through the whole piece, it just seemed that this passage had to be loud.
And when you are playing especially well, you can ‘let your fingers do the hard work’:
If you just close your eyes, relax, and focus your intention on that octave leap, your fingers will find their way to the right note all by themselves.
Music and sports coaching closely resemble hypnosis sessions, especially if they are done well. If there is good rapport, good concentration and the right kind of relaxation, good coaching takes both participants into a special state, in which there is communication and learning via the unconscious mind, facilitating powerful Suggestions for future action.
Mind/Body Awareness
Many music conservatoires offer classes in Mindfulness, Yoga, Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Method. Tai Chi and other disciplines teaching mind/body awareness. These are highly effective in improving concentration and relaxation, and instilling an effortless way to use the body that gradually becomes ‘second nature’, ‘automatic’. These outcomes help students enter the music-making trance more easily, and the teaching methods are also highly hypnotic.
Mindfulness teaches breathing exercises and control of one’s own attention, for example by intense focus on small movements. Feldenkrais directs the mind inwards with such questions as As you rest your feet on the floor, can you feel more weight on your right foot, or on your left? Or are they the same? Don’t change anything, just notice. This is a well-known technique of hypnotic induction. Feldenkrais also normalises and accepts the student’s experiences, in a similar way to Eriksonian hypnosis: ‘that’s right‘, ‘good‘. Making small changes to habitual actions calls the unconscious mind to attention:
Clasp your hands and interlace your fingers, then re-clasp them with the other hand on top … very good.
Similarly, Tai Chi and other martial arts use breathing, visualisation exercises, unfamiliar postures and exotic names – Nominalisations – to alter the state of consciousness of the student, in order to maximise the mind/body effectiveness of training. Stand in Wuji stance, with the head suspended from above, hollow the chest, relax the waist, open the Bubbling Spring points at the centre of each foot, let your hands rise of their own volition to hold a ball of green energy at eye level, breathe slowly, feel the Chi descend to the Dan-Tien.
This makes a perfect hypnotic induction, and the best teachers use a gentle, slow tone of voice, and linking conjunctions as recommended in NLP. AS you transfer the weight to the front foot … your right hand moves outward … PENG! See Michael Gilman’s Tai Chi videos, here.
But it’s not all gentle meditation. There is also inner power, the strength of spirit that we look for from a great musician or a dedicated athlete. Good martial arts require that same combination of relaxation and concentration that is induced in hypnosis. See Ian Sinclair’s approach to the Wuji Stance, perfectly characterised by his motto “Relax Harder”, here.
As all good teachers do, Sinclair uses humour to get across some of his most serious advice. A corny joke makes the lesson more memorable, of course, but it is also a NLP technique for disarming the conscious mind, so that the Suggestion goes direct to your Unconscious mind, where it is even more effective.
There are further connections here. Moshe Feldenkrais was himself a Judo black belt, and one of the first to bring Judo to the West. He contributed several books on Judo, which emphasise the deeper elements on the art, offering mental and spiritual development as well as physical skills. His first book on his Method for teaching Awareness through Movement links Body and Mature Behavior: A Study of Anxiety, Sex, Gravitation and Learning.
Hypnosis-aided Learning
One of the particular benefits of hypnosis-aided learning is that your Unconscious is given more opportunity to integrate newly acquired skills and knowledge with previous expertise. Relaxation, combined with enhanced access to the unconscious mind, promotes the establishing of new neural connections, and even allows the brain itself to grow, increasing neural capacity for the skill being practised – neural plasticity. Concentration encourages the growth of myelin around those neurones, leading to faster, surer responses.
ETHICS
If the NLP view (shared by many practising Hypnotists and Psychologists in this field) that trance is natural event is accepted, if we even admit the possibility that teaching can be a hypnotic process, then we should consider seriously questions of Ethics. If I’m giving a harp lesson, informed consent to Hypnosis has not been given. Nevertheless, good teaching should change the student’s state and help them access deep levels of the mind-body link. I would argue that good teaching cannot help but be hypnotic. So how can we ethically employ NLP techniques in teaching?
My personal response to this question of ethics could be described as “What does it say on the tin?”. If someone comes for a harp-lesson, I teach them harp-playing. If I’m asked for a lesson on Flow, or on Hypnosis, I’ll work on those topics. If someone comes for a harp-lesson, but it emerges that direct work on finding Flow or managing Performance Anxiety is needed, then I’ll seek agreement before changing the approach of the lesson. I introduce Feldenkrais Method in the same terms of “Awareness through Movement” that are standard vocabulary amongst Feldenkrais practitioners, using pre-recorded lessons prepared by licensed teachers. (I am not myself qualified as a Feldenkrais teacher. More about Feldenkrais Method here)
The Bottles Exercise
But here is an example of a ‘straight’ teaching technique that works by appealing to the student’s unconscious mind. I use this exercise to teach relaxation of the hands for Early Harp playing and also for Baroque Gesture.
1. Hold you hands out, palm upwards, and imagine that you are holding two large, 1-litre, plastic bottles, full of water. As the bottles lie horizontally in your hands, wrap your fingers gently around the bottles. Feel the cool touch of the plastic… are there drops of water on it? Use just enough strength to support the bottles.
2. Now pour out half of the water, and then hold the bottles again. Notice how much less effort is needed, now.
3. Now pour out the rest of the water, and hold just the empty bottles. Notice how your hands feel, now.
[Read more about applications of this Bottles Exercise for Early Harps and Baroque Gesture here]
Whenever I use the bottles exercise in routine teaching, I’ll explain that doing it imaginatively, without the actual bottles, is actually more effective, because it requires more concentration and engages the unconscious mind. I’ll use the vocabulary of concentration, relaxation, conscious attention and unconscious mind; but in a regular lesson, I would avoid the word Hypnosis.
How to Practise
I might explain how to practise an ornament slowly, with conscious attention, and then to relax, let go, and let your fingers fly ‘by themselves’. To help the student get the notion of conscious control and fingers that work ‘by themselves’, I often use the image of a little bird learning to fly, closely watched by its attentive parents. At a certain point, the bird just has to jump out of the nest and fly by itself. I help the student change back and forth between conscious control and ‘flying’, by teaching how to change the head-position and gaze, how to use breathing and posture. Sometimes it can help to distract the student’s conscious mind at the moment of ‘take-off’. See How to Practisehere.
Baby Owl learning to fly
The interlinked themes of artistic intention, strength of purpose, emotional commitment, physical movement and emotional communication often emerge in music lessons. One needs a vocabulary for discussions of that emotional sensation of a dissonance, that is understood in the mind, felt in the body and mysteriously communicated to the listener; or for analysing the communication of musical effects that cannot actually be created on certain instruments. When you pluck a harp string, the sound then decays, you can’t make a crescendo. But I have to teach students how to make an audience believe there was a crescendo. Although there are technical tricks with sound-quality, timing, articulation and the dynamic relationship to preceding and following notes, the most effective strategy is to imagine the desired crescendo, as vividly as you can, and project that idea with all the force of your powers of imagination.
Similarly, in the Prologue to Henry V, Shakespeare asks the audience to work with their imaginary forces and to Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them / Printing their proud hoofs i’ th’ receiving earth. This entire speech, with its famous opening line O, for a Muse of fire, is a hypnotic induction that entrances the audience, encouraging them to suspend their (conscious) disbelief, to allow the actors to Suggest with their words far more than could ever actually appear on stage, and to receive those words into their Unconscious, in order to heighten their emotional response to the drama that follows.
Imaginary Puissance
NLP recognises that each individual has their own way of seeing the world, a preferred mode of representation. Erikson was always ready to change his vocabulary to suit his clients’ needs.
I vary my vocabulary, according to the student’s background. One can be scientific, and talk about intention and imagination; arty, with talk of magic and mystery; historical, with the 17th-century concept of Pneuma. Some students appreciate the computer-analogy; you sit at the keyboard, loading sub-routines into the computer, and then you hit RUN and leave the machine to operate at maximum efficiency without further keyboard input. Hungarian Flow-researcher Lazlo Stacho employs the vocabulary of Magic, recalling ancient connections between music and shamanism; there are still folk practices of hypnotism in Eastern Europe today. I find the Stars Wars idea of The Force helps some students find their own way to an understanding of these unconscious processes, that are hard to describe or measure.
Choice of vocabulary affects not only the processes of building rapport and trance induction but also the post-hypnotic end-result. In experiments on the use of Hypnosis for pain reduction, some Subjects were given the Suggestion You will not feel any pain; others were told You will notice the sensation of pain but it will not trouble you. Both Suggestions were effective, but Subjects described the results differently, and neurological measurements showed corresponding activation of different areas of the brain. The unconscious mind is capable of distinguishing between subtly different means of controlling physiological phenomena that are beyond our conscious control.
For this reason, whilst in theoretical discussion I adopt broad definitions of such technical terms as Hypnosis, Altered States of Conscious, Trance, Flow etc., I believe that in practical sessions one should take enormous care with the choice of particular words. It’s vital that teachers adapt their vocabulary to suit their students. In the spirit of Erikson’s Accept and Utilise, one should acknowledge the student’s viewpoint of these topics, and use the corresponding vocabulary. It may be effective to introduce some mysterious word, such as Oriental Chi or historical Pneuma, which can function as a Nominalisation and facilitate access to the Unconscious. But for teaching purposes, there is nothing to be gained by insisting on your own preferred vocabulary, your model of the whole process, even if (academically or scientifically) it is more correct. In this situation, your aim is to help students find (via the Unconscious mind) their own way into the desired state (whatever they want to call it, however they believe it works), not to engage their conscious minds in a debate over what the best name and most scientific explanation for that state might be.
Choice of Vocabulary matters for practical, not theoretical, reasons.
Chunking and Dissociation
One essential part of the learning process is chunking. For a beginner, playing a single note on baroque harp is a challenge: rest your hand on the harp with the fingers gently curved, relax the elbow, align the structure of your whole body behind and underneath your fingers, place your thumb on (not behind) the string, move your thumb slowly into the hollow of your hand allowing it to slip over the string whilst applying steady firm pressure, keep moving your thumb for the duration of the note. With practice, all of that is chunked-up into “Play a Good note”.
A sequence of Good and Bad notes (Good/Bad is a technical concept in Early Music, derived from accented and unaccented syllables in poetry: read more here) is chunked into a phrase. Phrases are chunked into sections, movements, pieces, entire programs. Effective performance depends on the unconscious mind doing the detailed work inside each chunk, whilst the conscious attention is at a higher-chunked level. You think about the phrase, your fingers play the notes ‘by themselves’.
In Hypnosis studies, this is a phenomenon of Dissociation: the conscious attention is dissociated away from on-going physical processes. Perhaps you’ve had the experience of arriving upstairs, but being unaware of what you came up for….
Dissociation is perhaps the most significant marker of Hypnosis, and can be of two types. With dissociated Control, your conscious mind is unaware of a command given to your fingers, so that they seem to move ‘by themselves’; with dissociated Monitoring, your conscious mind is unaware that your fingers have moved, until you notice that ‘somebody moved them’. With careful use of language, it should be possible to give Suggestions for the particular type of Dissociation required for a certain application.
There are subtleties in precisely how to apply dissociation at different levels of chunking. It can be utterly disruptive to divert the attention suddenly to a lower level of chunking. This is what happens if a tennis player is serving wonderfully, until you ask them “Exactly how do you throw the ball up in preparation for your serve?” The balance between conscious and unconscious processes is upset, and the player’s game may collapse entirely. Paralysis by analysis! But contrariwise, it can be very helpful to suggest to a violinist that they engage their mind more with the sensual grain of the experience of drawing the bow across the string. The wrong kind of focus on technique can be counter-productive, the right kind of focus on detailed perception can be inspiring.
A teacher demonstrating often has to dissociate in order for the conscious mind to direct a running commentary on the actions being demonstrated, whilst the actions themselves remain under unconscious control. One learns a lot, by teaching in this way, and it makes an interesting exercise for students to attempt. A similar dissociation allows advanced performers to analyse their own technique with sharp focus but a certain detachment that keeps one relaxed.
Chunking & Dissociation
Anchors
The NLP concept of an Anchor is rather like the bell Pavlov rang for his dogs. In training, ideally in hypnosis, the student programs himself for success by linking a certain stimulus to a desired response. As you walk out on stage, you take a deep breath, you feel your shoulders relax, and your whole body feels warm and relaxed, with a pleasant sensation of calm, confidence and concentration. Many performers have warm-up routines and pre-show rituals that function as Anchors to confident performance.
If the response is required only when called for in special situations, you can Anchor it to a highly specific trigger – when you clasp your hands that other way and breathe out slowly, you will relax and go into Flow. If the response is required automatically, you can Anchor it to an unavoidable trigger – as you walk out on stage, you enter The Zone.
NLP has methods for de-activating unhelpful triggers, typically by re-Anchoring them to a better response. It’s very difficult to inhibit an Anchored response, once it has been Triggered, so these methods rely on getting the Trigger to fire the new response first, before the old, unhelpful response can kick in.
Memory itself is an Anchored response, which functions best if the environment at the time of memorising matches the conditions at the time of recall. Hypnotists use small signals to Anchor key words: Flow, Relax, Concentrate. Language-teaching programs using hand signals, and baroque gesture (stylised signs linked to the text) work the same way. For musicians, the score itself (being read or performed from memory) provides a series of Anchors, whether deliberately created for positive results, or unconsciously built through anxiety or mistakes in the practice-room, causing negative responses.
Careful choice of vocabulary (in teaching, and in the self-talk of inner dialogue) ensures that the correct Anchor is Triggered, and unhelpful responses are avoided. If there is a command vocabulary that you associate with a bad response, then avoid using those instructions. For example. sometimes the word “Relax” only makes people more tense!
On the positive side, if you find your way into Flow by imagining the Star Wars ‘Force’, then continue to use ‘The Force’. But if the words ‘Magic’ or ‘Altered State of Consciousness’ work better, use them. Whatever works for you! Set the Anchor you can believe in, and reinforce it with constant repetition in easy circumstances: then it will work for you when you need it the most. The best situation for setting an Anchor is trance. Then use that Anchor, deliberately, even when the circumstances are so undemanding that it’s hardly required: then the Anchor will be strong enough to keep you safe in difficult situations.
To be continued…
In the second part of this paper, I’ll discuss in more detail what Flow is, how to get into it, and how to avoid losing it. You can also read more at TheFlow.Zone, here.
And the next time you read one of my blog posts, you’ll find it even easier to enter Flow.
Coming back to normal consciousness now …. 3: becoming more aware of your surroundings … 2: feeling wonderful …. 1: fully alert, now!
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.
Monteverdi fans will recognise this snippet as part of the tenor solo, Nigra sum, from the 1610 Vespers. The text is usually given in English as ‘the time of the singing of birds is come’, translating direct from the original Hebrew of the Song of Solomon. Monteverdi’s setting creates a musical picture of the word tempus (time) with a succession of semibreves.
Cranes in Israel in early spring
Around the year 1600, the semibreve is the note-value where Time as musical notation and Time in the real world meet. That meeting is governed by the Tactus, the physical movement of the hand, down-and-up. Down and up again corresponds to a semibreve, and lasts about 2 seconds. [Read more about how 17th-century notation was calibrated against real time in Quality Time, here]. So Monteverdi’s semibreves for tempus putationis are a musical picture of Time itself.
However, the Latin word putatio actually means ‘pruning’, so Monteverdi’s text actually refers to the early spring pruning of the vines [the Song of Solomon has more to say about the ‘vine with the tender grape’]. That might encourage some pruning of any bird-song ornaments from this phrase! And it inspires me to cut away all the excess foliage to show what I believe to be the essential structure of Time, in Monteverdi’s period.
For this ‘pruned down’ post, instead of arguing from original sources towards my personal conclusions, I’m going to begin by setting out (my take on) the starting assumptions of Monteverdi’s generation. Starting from these period assumptions (very different to those of today’s musicians), we’ll see what kind of music-making might grow, as buds from these particular shoots.
This post is also inspired by Bill Hunt’s comments and challenges to my article on Proportions in Monteverdi’s Ballo, here. Thank you, Bill for your thought-provoking remarks: my replies and ripostes are below!
So let’s start at the very beginning, with the ut re mi of seicento Time. But keep in mind: this is not simply a matter of practical music-making. We are dealing here with renaissance ‘Science’, that is to say the Philosophy of splendid, cosmic, divinely-ordained things, the knowledge of what really counts.
MONTEVERDI’S TIME: PHILOSOPHY
Monteverdi understood Time (as a philosophical concept) in Aristotelian terms, as defined by motus (movement, or change). This is very different from Newton’s concept of Absolute Time (1687) that still today underpins our intuitive grasp of Time.
Time in the real world was defined by the heavenly clock of the cosmos. Each day, the sun reaches its zenith and defines noon.
The best clocks of Monteverdi’s period could indicate the passing seconds, but could not measure seconds accurately. They were only accurate to about 15 minutes a day.
Smaller intervals of time could be measured by the human pulse, the heartbeat. Although the heart-beat varies from person to person, and according to the physical state of the individual, it offered higher precision than the best clocks. But there was no means of calibrating this accurately to clock-time, since clock-time itself was insufficiently precise.
Even smaller intervals of time could be measured by musical rhythm, subdividing to, say, 1/8th of a second. This was the highest precision timing known in this period (renaissance swordfighters wished to emulate singers’ sense of precision timing). Again, there was no means of calibrating this accurately to clock-time, since clocks themselves were inadequate.
There was a strong belief in the existence of a single, divinely ordained, correct Time, defined by the cosmos, e.g. by the noon-day sun.
MONTEVERDI’S TIME: MUSIC
Music itself was cosmic [musica mondana, the Music of the Spheres], and human [musica humana, the harmonious nature of the human body], as well as sound [musica instrumentalis, music sung and played here on earth].
Musical Time was measured by the Aristotelean motus of the perfect movement of the cosmos, of the steady beat of the human heart, by the down-and-up movement of the Tactus hand.
Just as citizens tried to regulate their clocks to run steadily (for practical convenience, and as faithful microcosms of solar time), so musicians tried to keep Time as steadily as humanly possible. This regulation was at the level of about one second of clock-time; in music, it was at the level of the Tactus beat.
Smaller intervals of Musical Time were measured by sub-dividing the Tactus beat.
Just as citizens tried to calibrate their clocks to agree with each other, and with Solar Time, so musicians tried to agree with each other about Musical Time. The various members of a musical ensemble needed to agree on Time, in order to play together, just as citizens had to agree on a time of day, in order to meet each other. From one day to another, from one place to another, citizens and musicians alike tried to keep a consistent sense of Time. However, they had no means of precise calibration: they could only make their best human estimate. Consistent Time was what felt consistent.
There was a strong assumption of a single, heavenly-inspired, correct Musical Time. A musician’s job was to get it right, not to have a personal clock that ran unsteadily, or differently from everyone else’s.
MONTEVERDI’S TIME: TACTUS
All this philosophy was put into practice using the Tactus, the down-up movement of the hand, which calibrated musical notation to real-world Time. The Tactus could be physically enacted, or just kept in mind as an organising concept: either way, it was compared to the heartbeat.
Under mensuration symbol C, the complete Tactus cycle (down-up) corresponds to a semibreve. Down for a minim; up for a minim.
In Tripla Proportion, down corresponds to three minims, up to another three minims. The Tactus-beat is maintained without change.
In Sestupla Proportion, down corresponds to six semi-minims (these look like crotchets in 6/4); up to another six semi-minims. The Tactus-beat is maintained without change.
In Sesquialtera Proportion, down corresponds to two semibreves; up to one semibreve. The duration of the complete Tactus-cycle does not change, but now the down is longer than the up, the beat is ‘unequal’.
MONTEVERDI’S TIME: QUALITY
Like the Cosmos, like a clock (but better!), like the heartbeat (but slower), the Tactus beats steadily and slowly.
A musician’s job is to get it right, to keep it steady, to make it consistent from day to day and with everyone else’s.
Like the stars in heaven, like a clock at the back of the room, the Tactus (as a concept) existed before the music started, will persist after the music stops, and continues across silences within the music. This Tactus-as-concept directs the music. The Tactus itself is the director, not the human who waves the Tactus-hand.
MONTEVERDI’S TIMES: CALIBRATION
Music was calibrated to the Tactus at the level of semibreve (complete cycle) and minim (down alone, or up alone).
The Tactus shared many vital qualities with the heartbeat, but was not calibrated to it (the heartbeat was generally faster).
The Tactus felt slow and steady, as perceived in the human arm. This sets some limits (a finger could wag faster, the entire body might sway slower), but does not offer precise calibration.
There was no means to calibrate the Tactus accurately to clock-time. The best approximation was about 1 beat (down, or up) per second for minims, i.e. about 2 seconds for the complete down-up cycle, for the semibreve. Tactus was calibrated not by clocks, but by a feeling of consistency.
The Tactus felt the same, whatever the circumstances. We can imagine that in a large resonant building, the Tactus might actually proceed a little slower, in order to get the same feeling as in a small rehearsal room. We can imagine that, at moments of great excitement, or deep, genuine emotion, musicians might feel their Tactus to be consistent with the rehearsal, but this subjective impression would be altered by their human emotions.
MONTEVERDI’S TIME: HUMAN INTERVENTION
Like the Cosmos, like the heartbeat, the Tactus has a conceptual existence and an authority that mere humans should not try to mess with. It is better than any clock, not in the sense of being ‘less mechanical’, but in the quality of being more accurate, more steady.
A musician’s job is to maintain the Tactus steadily, consistently and in agreement with all colleagues.
Within these assumptions, as a daring challenge to the stability of the Cosmos, and at the risk of upsetting one’s own heartbeat, performers began to flirt with the notion that the authority of the Tactus might not be wholly Absolute. In certain, strictly limited, situations, a human musician might intervene to alter (momentarily, minutely, infrequently) the way in which Tactus directs music.
Caccini describes (and Monteverdi notates) a senza misura (out of measure) in which the singer temporarily ignores the Tactus. The Tactus continues as a concept, and in the continuo accompaniment. This is like a jazz singer floating elegantly around a steady beat in the rhythm section. This is a special effect, not to be over-used.
Caccini and Frescobaldi describe (and Frescobaldi links to Monteverdi-type madrigals) ways to guidare il tempo (drive Time), in which the Tactus beats sometimes faster, sometimes slower, and even hesitates (momentarily) on the up-stroke. These changes are between sections (passi, movements), at the boundary of contrasting rhythmic structures and emotional content, not within one section. The alteration is a ‘step-change’, rather than a smooth acceleration/deceleration; it’s like changing gears, rather than using the accelerator/brake; it’s like the way a horse changes pace by changing gait (from walk to trot, canter and gallop), not the smooth acceleration of jet-plane. This is a special effect, not to be over-used.
When ‘driving the Time’ any change to the Tactus itself is small. The purpose is that the listener should perceive a change of emotion, not simply to turn the speed-dial up or down. When a noticeable change in the speed of the notes is wanted, the composer can notate this with changes in note-values, or changes in Proportion.
Source references for these period assumptions can be found in many of my previous postings on Tactus, Time and Rhythm (use the Search button and Tags elsewhere on this page) and in Citations and Sources, below. There’ll be more in future posts, too. Tactus and the Philosophy of Time are discussed in great detail in Roger Matthew Grant Beating Time and Measuring Music in the Early Modern Era, hot off the Oxford University Press, and highly recommended, here.
But since this posting is pruned back to the essentials, I’m now going to apply these starting assumptions to Bill Hunt’s excellent list of questions.
Galileo challenged by the Philosophers
In the discussion that follows, the challenges come from the eminent English viola-player, William Hunt, profile here. Three articles about the Ballo in Monteverdi’s Orfeo are under discussion: Roger Bowers on proportions here, Virginia Lamothe on dance here, ALK on tactus, proportions and dance here.
WH: I’d like to propose a contrary view. Part of the problem with Andrew’s fascinating discussion is that he sets up a number of straw men in order to arrive at his conclusions. Principal amongst these, in referring to the articles by Lamothe and Bowers on L’Orfeo, is the assertion “Their suggested metronome mark of approximately 50/60 as the Tactus Aequalis is certainly highly plausible. And Bowers agrees that the notation implies the same Tactus for the whole opera”. Bowers makes no such claim.
ALK: (See ‘Citations and Sources’ below). I should first state clearly that I have great respect for Prof Bowers, and I agree with his points of principle. Indeed, I wish to go even further in the same direction of consistency that he recommends. I set up the assumption of single Tactus for the whole opera, not as a ‘straw man’ to be cast away, but as a strong principle that I thoroughly agree with. Indeed, I believe that a particular notation implies the same Tactus wherever it is encountered in this entire repertoire (to the limits of subjective, human ability to maintain a single Tactus without any clock to confirm it).
For Orfeo, Bowers argues that the original notation conveys precise information that should be respected in performance. I agree. He argues that proportions are mathematically precise, and I agree. I disagree only on the detail of which mathematical ratio applies in certain instances.
In the Ballo, Bowers argues that there is no change in the meaning of note-values between the two triple-metre sections [3/2 and 6/4]. I agree. I go further to argue for equivalence of note-values between all triple-metre sections within the work [3/2 and 6/4 are the only triple-metre ‘time-signatures’ that occur in the whole of Orfeo]. I go further again, and argue for equivalence of note-values between sections in duple-metre too. Therefore, note-values only change, when the Proportion changes between duple and triple.
Bowers notes that all ‘time-signatures’ are governed by C throughout the whole work. He argues for a consistent Tactus from Sinfonia at the end of Act I to the entrance of the Messagiera. I agree, and I go further: I argue for a consistent Tactus throughout the whole work. I see no indication for a great increase of speed at the end of Act I, as the Sinfonia starts (Bowers’ argument requires a three-fold increase in speed at this moment). I see no evidence for doubling the speed (or more) between a “recitative” in C and the ballo also in C.
Bowers seems to be inconsistent about when he applies the principle of constant tactus, and when he does not. He wishes to apply it during the Ballo and through the Act I-Act II sequence, through many changes of ‘time-signature’, coloration etc. I agree. I go futher, I wish to apply it consistently throughout the work. But Bowers rejects the argument for constant tactus in general (see Bowers ‘footnote 33), without careful argument. Does he mean to say “Tactus is constant when I want it to be, and otherwise not”?
I say that Tactus is always constant, with only small and infrequent exceptions. I note Frescobaldi’s and Caccini’s discussions of when and how to change the tactus. They describe very restricted circumstances when tactus may be changed. And those changes should be small – if a composer wants double speed, he writes shorter note-values or switches to C-slash. [Some sources indicate that even C-slash is less than twice as fast as C]. If a composer wants a gear-shift of 3:2 or 3:1, proportional notation is available.
So I conclude that a performer’s personal choice of tempo-change would be within a small speed-range. And this personal choice would be exercised very infrequently. In his example madrigal, Caccini changes the Tactus only once (in response to an obvious cue from the words). Frescobaldi similarly sets specific conditions for change of Tactus: break between sections, change of rhythmic structure, change of affetto. Since they follow the affetto, these changes in tactus exaggerate what the composer has already notated: long note-values (for a sad affetto, say) are played in slower Tactus, short note-values (for a happy affetto) in faster Tactus. The affetto is determined on the short-scale, “line by line, even word by word” [Il Corago, Monteverdi and many other sources], but the Tactus only changes between sections, if at all.
Finally, when one considers the audience – it is after all their ‘affetti‘ we want to ‘muovere‘ – one realises that doubling or halving the speed has no effect. The listener perceives the same pulse, with different levels of activity. But a small increase in speed, in the context of precisely regular Tactus, has a strong emotional effect. It may even entrain the listener’s heartbeat, which was previously aligned with the regular, slow tactus, and increase it. As Renaissance theory of emotions describes, a performer might move the listener’s ‘affetto‘ and even create physiological changes in the body and blood (the doctrine of the Four Humours).
A fine example of this is Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” which accelerates between sections (within the general context, throughout pop music of that period, of steady tactus). There is some fascinating interview material with the performers, where they discuss the general context (“getting faster was absolutely prohibited”) and the emotional effect of a few small, but perceptible changes, in this song. I hear echoes of Caccini and Frescobaldi….
WH: I do firmly believe, as Andrew clearly does, that tactus was an essential structural constant that could unite consecutive and contrasting passages in logically proportionate tempi. On the face of it, the section which Bowers identifies, running from the Sinfonia to Act 2 up to the entrance of Messaggiera, is exactly such an instance, because of the succession of mensural signatures and the absence of intervening double barlines or fermata (the same is not true of the passage from “Lasciate i monti” up to the end of Act 1). Here, if one follows through Bowers’ notational logic, one ends up with a pretty fast tempo for “Vi ricordi boschi ombrosi”, as he says. Personally, I find that persuasive both musically and dramatically, but I have yet to experience it in performance, due to directorial intervention.
ALK: The entire opera (indeed this whole repertoire) offers ‘a succession of mensural signatures’. And I know of no period evidence that a fermata or a double-bar implies a change of Tactus. In Orfeo, Monteverdi sometimes places a fermata in one voice, when simultaneously another voice has no fermata: the fermata sign simply indicates ‘the end of something’, and cannot imply any alteration in the motus of the Tactus. Double-bars are often used to seperate consecutive strains of a single dance-movement, where a change of Tactus would be most implausible.
I don’t accept the argument that the passage from Lasciate i monti up to the end of Act I is somehow ‘different’.. It too has a ‘succession of mensural signatures’. Sure, it has some fermatas and double bar-lines, but so what? If Tactus is ‘an essential structural constant that could unite consecutive and contrasting passages in logically proportionate tempi’ [and it surely is!], then why not for the passage after the Ballo, as well as for the Ballo itself? Why not for the end of Act I, as well as for the bridge from Act I into Act II?
Does WH wish to say that “Tactus is constant when I want it to be, and can be changed when I want”? Or does he know of evidence of a fermata or double-bar as an instruction to change Tactus?
I believe that Tactus is constant, with only small and infrequent changes. Frescobaldi and Caccini list the circumstances in which the Tactus might be changed: neither of them mention fermata or double-bar.
WH: Bowers … analysis of the notation is that … semibreve of the C equates to dotted semibreve of the 3/2. I suggest a tempo of something like semibreve = 52 for the opening (not a minim tactus, for reasons which I am coming to) becoming dotted semibreve = 52 for the 3/2, and finally bar = 52 (i.e. the ‘new’ semibreve = 52) for the 6/4: in other words a constant tactus.
ALK: I agree with the principle of a pulse that is maintained, and I have no objection to approximately MM52 for that pulse. And this interpretation of the proportions works too, in this place, starting from semibreve = 52 at the beginning of the ballo. But how do we find this tempo at the beginning of the ballo? Semibreve = 52 cannot apply to the whole opera – just try it for the beginning of the opera, for the Toccata or the Ritornello to La Musica or for any recitative: it is about twice as fast as possible. Why pick this fast tempo for this place notated in C, and not for another, also notated in C?
According to modern assumptions, directors can choose their own tempo, whenever there is a reasonable excuse (a fermata, a double-bar, personal inspiration, whatever). But according to period assumptions, the Tactus itself directs the tempo, and that Tactus is as constant as we humans can make it. (Caccini and Frescobaldi list limited circumstances where small and infrequent changes of Tactus might occur). My approach is to take that Tactus (somewhere around minim = 60), apply it at the beginning of the work, and maintain it, as best I can, until the end. And I’ll try to establish and maintain the same Tactus tomorrow, to the limits of my subjective perceptions of musical tempo.
The movement of the hand in beating Tactus is specified in period sources: in C, down for a minim, up for a minim. I find semibreve = MM52, i.e. minim = MM104 inconveniently fast for this mode of time-beating. I also find the resultant motus incompatible with the qualities of slow, steadiness that are associated with Tactus. I’m more convinced by the motus of minim around 60.
My approach starts from a broad principle, of a constant tactus. I apply this general principle first, before I look for solutions to particular problems of Proportions. I then apply the same solution to parallel situations. Following the Ballo under discussion, the next Proportional change in Orfeo is between the recitative (C) Ma se il nostro goir and the Ritornello (3/2), which moves in dotted semibreves and minims. My solution to the Ballo is C: minim = 60 leads to 3/2: dotted semibreve = 60. My solution to the following, parallel situation is the same.
Bill’s solution to the Ballo [C: semibreve = 52 leads to 3/2: dotted semibreve = 52] does work there. But it does not work for the parallel situation of Recitative & Ritornello. Either the 52 pulse or the proportional relationship (or both) have to be abandoned. Is it Bill’s argument that although the notation is parallel, the second situation allows a personal choice, whereas the first situation indicates the composer’s tempo intentions? Why?
My belief is that the entire concept of personal choice of tempo is foreign to this period and its repertoire. Mensural notation indicates the composer’s intentions.
WH. … treating the central section of the first “Lasciate” as not being repeated. (No repeat is marked, of course, but a second verse of text is underlayed. I subscribe to Andrew Parrott’s view that this is a printer’s error, and that the second text should have been printed in the second “Lasciate”, instead of the repeated underlay of “Qui miri il sole”. This would result in an ABC form for each chorus, though, as Andrew (LK rather than P) points out, the uninformed listener would hear it as AABCC, because of the written-out repeats in the outer sections. This has a perfectly satisfactory symmetry. What is hard to believe is the format as it is printed).
ALK: I agree that the sequence of movements in the Orfeo Ballo is ambiguous – Lamothe has much to say on this. Andrew Parrot’s suggestion of a printing error in the 1609 edition is plausible, though one might have expected the editor of the 1615 edition to have fixed the problem, since much smaller errors were corrected (albeit at the cost of introducing some new errors too!). Lamothe makes a good point that the opening section (with the associated choreography of reverences and passi gravi, slow steps on the ground) would not be repeated in a court social dance. My point is that a similar opening section (which is not danced) is repeated in Cavalieri’s theatrical ballo for Anima & Corpo. We do not know which sections of the Orfeo ballo were danced, though it is sure that the singers themselves could not have danced a galliard, with all its jumps, whilst singing. Consideration of the repeat scheme for the Orfeo ballo has include all these points, together with scholarship on the total number of singers (between 7 and 9), the possibility that dancing masters might have participated (as is specified by Cavalieri), and the prohibition against women acting on stage, still in force in Mantua in 1607.
Good arguments can be made to support several possible solutions.
WH: Having read many of the linked sites here with great interest, particularly the one on “Text, Rhythm, Action / Rhythm: what really counts?”, I am curious to know what Andrew thinks about the semibreve, which so many theorists describe as the fundamental unit of time. There is so much emphasis throughout all his articles on the minim and the fixing to it of a constant tempo, viz “Around 1600, typically the Tactus will be on minims (half-notes), somewhere around MM60. Down for one second, Up for the next second”
Leaving aside the massive nature of this generalisation (is this really supposed to be typical of all music around 1600?), what about the concepts of Thesis and Arsis? It seems to me that these are essential to an understanding of musical structure in this period, especially the setting of text. Unless the semibreve is the unit on which one is principally focussed, not the minim, a whole vocabulary of subtlety is missed, to my mind. But that is a huge subject for another occasion!
ALK: Bill is absolutely right to draw attention to the fundamental significance of the semibreve. The complete Tactus-cycle (down-up) corresponds to a semibreve. I could equally well, perhaps better, express my view as “The Tactus-cycle will last for a semibreve, approximately two seconds, i.e. somewhere around MM30 for the complete down-up.” In duple time, this results in the same “Down for one second, Up for the next second”.
But an advantage of the focus on the semibreve is that it allows you to negotiate the tricky change into Sesquialtera more easily. The complete Tactus-cycle (down-up) still lasts two seconds, but the Down lasts longer than the Up. This is why triple time is described as ‘unequal’ in this period. I agree with Bill that there are interesting and beautiful subtleties to be found in a heightened focus on the semibreve.
However, period sources specify that the mode of beating time for Tactus is that the semibreve corresponds to the complete down-up cycle. There is no suggestion of beating Down for one semibreve, Up for the next: the Down and Up are on successive minims. Thus a heightened focus on the semibreve implies a heightened focus on the complete cycle, as opposed to the individual down/up movements: it does not imply a different mode of beating time. The concept of Thesis and Arsis (Down and Up) is therefore located in the alternation of minims (under mensural sign C). See my discussion of ‘The Hobbit problem’ in Quality Time, here.
Of course, there are duple (or other) symmetries at semibreve and longer durations too. It’s very good to be aware of these.
THE MASSIVE GENERALISATION
Returning to the fundamental assumptions with which I began, I agree that it is a massive generalisation to state that musical tempo was consistent throughout the whole repertoire in circa-1600 Italy, to the limits of human perception. It is a generalisation that is hard for us post-Romantics to comprehend. But it fits well with the evidence, not only of musical treatises, but of period philosophy in general. And we can observe the gradual change through the later 17th and 18th centuries; the persistence of notions of tempo giusto or tempo ordinario as late as Beethoven; the developing presumption of personal choice that comes to characterise the 19th-century; the glorification of Rubato circa 1910 that is taken by some today as a musical absolute. Those changes in musical practice follow changes in the scientific and philosophical understanding of Time itself, from Aristotle and Plato via Galileo and then Newton to Einstein and then Hawking.
It helps to keep in mind the 17th-century identification of musical tempo with Time itself, alluded to in Monteverdi’s setting of the word tempus at the beginning of this post. The ideal is to keep Time. A musician does not seek to develop a personal opinion about tempo, just as he does not seek to acquire a clock that runs differently from everyone else’s.
The difficulty is that we tend to read historical treatises on Music in the light of our modern assumptions of Science and Philosophy. If we start by assuming period philosophy, musical treatises reveal new, quite surprising details. To do this, we must be ready to abandon some modern assumptions so familiar that we hardly even notice them.
Most modern directors assume they have the right to choose their own tempo, movement by movement, through a baroque opera: most of those directors fail even to notice the anachronism of conducting, as a means of imposing those choices. But period sources tell us that music is directed by Tactus itself: not by the whim of a Tactus-beater!. And Il Corago tells us that operas are not conducted.
CITATIONS & SOURCES
At the opening of my article on the Orfeo Ballo, I tacitly linked up citations of Bowers and Lamothe with my own assumptions. So here are the individual elements:
Lamothe quotes Bowers on MM 50/60 (but identifies this with the semibreve, which would not work for the whole opera. I identify this sort of pulse with the minim). Bowers states that the notation implies the same Tactus for the lengthy excerpt from the end of Act I until the entrance of the Messaggiera halfway through Act II. Bowers remarks that the notation is the same throughout the rest of the opera too. I take the logical step that the same Tactus is implied for the whole opera.
George Houle’s (brief) discussion of constant tactus throughout the repertoire is on pages 3-5 of ‘Metre in Music’, citing Heyden, Mersenne and secondary sources. On page 2, Houle mentions (all too briefly) ‘degrees of change intermediate to those determined by diminution or proportion.’
Constant Tactus for the whole repertoire is supported by Il Corago, page 47 (see future postings on this blog).
Houle cites Dowland’s explanation of Tactus and Semi-Tactus on page 4. This is the ‘Hobbit Question’, aka ‘there and back again’: the semibreve corresponds to the complete down-up cycle. See Quality Time here.
Bowers cites Banchieri’s ‘Conclusioni’ chapter 14 “when there is no numerical sign”, in support of his Sesquialtera interpretation of proportional change. Of course, in Orfeo, there are numerical signs [3/2 and 6/4]. Banchieri addresses this situation in chapter 15, at the end of which he describes the Tripla interpretation that I propose.
I admit that Banchieri describes two interpretations, and does not discuss how to decide between them. But my general point is that we can approach such decisions by requiring consistency, not only of interpretations of Proportional relationships, but also in constancy of the underlying Tactus. If we consistently interpret the same notation the same way, if we apply a consistent tactus (perhaps allowing SMALL changes, but not doubling/halving the speed), we can rule out certain interpretations as impossible. [I try to distinguish carefully between ‘unfamiliar’ and ‘impossible’]. When – as in Orfeo and the Vespers – we have many proportions at work, the accumulated constraints of ‘impossibilities’ gradually reduce the number of possible solutions – ideally to a single answer.
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.
Andrew Lawrence-King 