The Right Time for a New Vision: Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers

Posted by Andrew Lawrence-King

Claudio Monteverdi’s most famous work, the 1610 Vespers of the Blessed Virgin Mary, evokes all the glory of the Italian seicento, combining plainchant melodies, exquisite polyphony and the drama of the newly invented operatic style. This Vespers has been linked with the cathedrals of St Peter, Rome and St Mark, Venice, but the inclusion of the Gonzaga family fanfare (also featured in Monteverdi’s 1607 opera, Orfeo) confirms a stronger link to the church of St Barbara, Mantua.

The publication of the Vespers in 1610 places this collection of religious music in the context of the first operas – Cavalieri’s Anima & Corpo, Peri’s and Caccini’s Euridice all in the year 1600 – and Shakespeare’s plays (e.g. Hamlet c1600); of Caccini’s secular songs Le Nuove Musiche and Viadana’s sacred Concerti Ecclesiastici, both 1602); of Monteverdi’s own operas Orfeo (1607) and Arianna (1608); of Agazzari’s continuo treatise Di suonare sopra’l basso (1607); and of the publications of Orfeo (1609) and of Capo Ferro’s famous swordfighting treatise, Gran Simulacro (1610).

The title-page of the collection refers to some Sacred Concertos ‘suitable for the Chapel or a Princely chamber’. Musicologists debate whether these pieces are substitutes for the plainchant Antiphons specified in the liturgy of Vespers, or independent, non-liturgical additions. Either way, they alternate with the Vespers Psalms to create a fascinatingly varied publication, or indeed a modern concert. The size of the ensemble and the complexity of the music increases from one piece to the next. Meanwhile, the term ‘sacred concertos’ recalls Viadana’s publication for voices and continuo, suggesting that Viadana’s technical advice might be applied also to Monteverdi’s music. That advice emphasises the subtlety and delicacy of the ‘sacred concerto’ style, to be performed with solo voices. Viadana also gives detailed instructions for realising the continuo.

The ‘sacred concerti’ most obviously demonstrate Monteverdi’s modern style, his secunda prattica, but even if the psalm settings are more conservative, with plainchant cantus fermus throughout and exquisite polyphony, they too are full of variety. Each Psalm exploits different techniques. Dixit Dominus weaves the plainchant into rich prima prattica polyphony, and also into fashionable soprano or tenor duets. Choral recitation on a single note might be heard as highly conservative and derived from liturgical chant, but it also suggests the most up-to-date styles of operatic recitative and dramatic madrigals, for example the choral recitation in Monteverdi’s Sfogava con le stelle. Instrumental ritornelli add another fashionable touch to this Psalm.

Laudate Pueri explicitly calls for eight solo voices (not a large choir), which Monteverdi combines in many ways: as a single ensemble, as two four-voice choirs, and in pairs of equal voices. Laetatus is unified by its catchy walking-bass, another modern touch. Nisi Dominus and Lauda Jerusalem might appear similar, both for double choir, but are quite different. The block contrasts of Nisi remind us of the first metaphor of the text, God as the heavenly builder, whereas in Lauda the alternations of the two choirs come faster and faster, until the voices overlap.

It is not known if the 1610 Vespers was ever performed in the composer’s lifetime – perhaps its constituent parts were assembled only as an attractive package for publication – but it has become a world-wide baroque hit, a tour-de-force of early baroque vocal, instrumental and ensemble skills, and an icon of seicento style.

The original print has 8 part-books. Additional parts (voices or instruments) are included here and there amongst those books, but the combined parts are carefully layed out, with page-turns synchronised so that the books could well have been used in actual performance. If they were, then the combination of voices, or voice and instrument, in a single book, gives interesting information about the spatial positioning of the performers. It is noticeable that Monteverdi does not write Echos into a different partbook, even when an additional performer and an additional partbook are available: there is no change of performer or partbook when the music changes from a duet of equals to echo effects.

The Bassus Generalis partbook has a short score, since the entire performance would be guided by the continuo (as Agazzari tells us in 1607). But otherwise, no original score exists, only the individual partbooks. And there are significant differences between the Bassus Generalis and the other partbooks.

Deus in adjutorium meum

On 1st June 2014, the Cathedral of St Peter & Paul, Moscow, was filled to capacity for a landmark concert, the first-ever performance in Russia of the Monteverdi Vespers, which I had the honour to direct. Amongst many musicians and early music fans in the audience, distinguished guests included prominent Russian opera directors & international conductors, leading arts journalists, representatives of several Christian confessions, even the great-grandson of Giuseppe Verdi. The concert was the flagship event of the festival La Renaissance (artistic director Ivan Velikanov), produced by the Moscow Conservatoire and supported by the French Cultural Institute. The performance was recorded and broadcast by Russia’s largest classical music station, Radio Orphee.

Vocal and instrumental soloists were brought together from Moscow, St Petersburg, Ukraine, Lithuania, Colombia, France, Germany and UK. Many of the team have worked together with me in previous baroque projects in Russia, including the first baroque opera – Cavalieri’s Anima e Corpo (1600), soon to begin its fourth season in repertoire at the Natalya Satz Theatre Moscow in Georgy Isaakian’s Golden Mask-winning staging; the first staged production in modern times of Stefano Landi’s La Morte d’Orfeo (1619) – with the International Baroque Opera Studio and Il Corago at the St Petersburg Philharmonia last December; and the compilation I made of Shakespeare’s Musicke at Festival La Renaissance 2013.

Even though there are many fine modern performing editions available, I made a new edition for this project. The new edition re-examines some questions, but does not make too many startling new choices. Rather, it presents all the information- including the variants in the Bassus Generalis book – at a glance, so that performers can make their own choices. Continuo players had (my transcription of) the original Bassus Generalis partbook to play from. At first they found this disconcerting, since it is not a complete score, but we gradually discovered the benefits of not having a full score. The original notation encourages continuo-players to play simply, structurally, and to lead in steady rhythm, rather than trying to follow the singers.

Some singers also experimented with singing from facsimile of the original partbooks – they are clearly printed, and have very few mistakes, apart from the usual miscounting of rests. (That is to say, the original printers miscounted the rests, not our singers!).

The Moscow concert reflected state-of-the-art Historically Informed Performance practice. Solo voices (rather than a large choir) offered the listeners direct, personal communication of the text, whilst still creating impressively sonorous tuttis in the clear but generous acoustic of the Cathedral (a large building, but on the scale of St Barbara, Mantua rather than the enormous spaces of St Marks Venice or St Peter’s Rome). The chiavetti notation of the final Psalm and Magnificat was respected, so that these movements were transposed downwards to the standard renaissance vocal line-up, with high tenors (not falsettists) on the Altus parts. Cornetts, sackbuts and strings played only where called for by Monteverdi, creating dramatic contrasts by their appearances, and a more intimate atmosphere when they were silent. As the original part-books require, the famous Echos were sung and played from the same positions as the principal solos, with echo-performers turning away from the listeners to allow the acoustic to create a natural echo effect (rather than trekking off to some remote location).

And of course, we used quarter-comma meantone: there was certainly no thought of introducing the anachronism of the modern early music scene’s “one size fits all” Vallotti temperament (from the year 1779).

Most significant, and immediately visible to the audience, was the absence of a conductor. The entire performance was guided (just as period sources describe) by the instrumentalists of the continuo section (organ, regal, theorbos and harps), with each singer taking individual responsibility for maintaining the steady beat of the baroque “Tactus”.

It is well known that music was not conducted in this period, but nevertheless even specialist Early Music ensembles often introduce the gross anachronism of a modern conductor.

The project also benefitted from the latest research findings of my Text, Rhythm, Action!investigations for the Performance program of the Australian Research Council’s Centre for the History of Emotions. In Monteverdi’s Rhythm, the steady beat of the Tactus represents the perfect clock of the cosmos, the Music of the heavenly Spheres. Just a couple of decades after Galileo’s discovery of the pendulum effect, seicento music itself is still the most precise clock available on earth, with duple and triple metres alternating in regular Proportions. The Tactus is a rhythmic heartbeat, maintained throughout the whole work (except for certain movements where Monteverdi specifically indicates a more relaxed speed). With no anachronistic conductor, there are also no arbitrary changes of tempo. As a result, the composer’s notated contrasts of activity are more effective. (See Rhythm: What Really Counts here and also The Times they are a-changin’ here )

All this ancient philosophy was put to practical use in rehearsals, with a lot of time spent working on Text and Rhythm. With no conductor at the front, all the singers took on the role of “conductor”, beating time in seventeenth-century style, with a slow, constant down-up movement of the hand, like a pendulum moving for one second in each direction. When the music changes into triple metre, the fast Proportion of Tripla is counted down-two-three, up-two-three. But the Proportion of Sesquialtera counts a slow three against the two movements, down-up, of the hand. This slow Proportion is less familiar to today’s baroque musicians, but it occurs much more often in the Vespers than in secular works.

In another rehearsal exercise, we asked the singers to use their hands to show the accented syllable of each Latin word, the so-called Good syllable. Sometimes these word-accents coincide with the Tactus, sometimes they are syncopated against it. This exercise helped bring out the lively rhythms and syncopations of Monteverdi’s writing. Using the hand to show the Tactus kept the ensemble together and made the music safe: showing the Good syllables emphasised contrasts and made the music interesting.

In a development of the Good syllable exercise, we varied the hand-movement to make it long and sustained or quicker, depending on the length of the Good note. This helps to bring out the contrasts in Monteverdi’s notated note-lengths, and the long, sustained accents create a thrilling, emotionally committed sound, especially when one particular voice has long accents where others do not.

But the highest priority in early baroque music is the Text. As a madrigalist and opera composer, Monteverdi responds passionately to the poetic imagery and dramatic Action of the Vespers texts. His music for the Magnificat verse Quia respexit sets the Annunciation scene with high wind instruments (played ‘with as much force as possible’) representing the Spirit of God. Pairs of quiet instruments suggest the dialogue between the Angel Gabriel (sackbut) and Mary (flute), before the whole ensemble plays again for omnes generationes: ‘all generations shall call me blessed’.

In rehearsal, we discussed in detail the meaning of each verse, and what significance the texts would have for seventeenth-century listeners. Although this was not a theatre project, we did explore in rehearsal the baroque gestures that would be used for similar words on stage, as a way to experience the emotional force of particular words. Even in performance, hand gestures were used, but with appropriate decorum, suited to liturgical music in the sacred space of the church. But the most useful rehearsal exercise was to combine a hand-gesture on the Good syllable (this optimises the sound of the text) with simultaneous concentration on the meaning of that particular word (this synchronises the emotions of the text).

Rehearsing the text in this way revealed to us how Monteverdi cast particular voices in certain roles, just as one would find in a baroque opera. A duet for two tenors is a favourite seicento device, and obviously suits a text about two angels, Duo Seraphim. When the second part of the text begins Tres sunt (there are three), the appearance of a third tenor transforms the musical texture into something rich and strange, appropriate not only to the simple number three, but even to the divine mystery of the Trinity which the text continues to expound.

In the Psalm, Laudate Pueri, a tenor duet at the words excelsus super omnes gentes is again a conventional choice. But here the plainchant cantus firmus is given, rather unusually, to high soprano, vividly illustrating the text “in the highest heaven, above all the people”. In that same Psalm, a bass duet is a most unusual choice – there are very few duets for basses in the entire repertoire. But here, and again in the Magnificat, this combination (deep sounds, and the super-human effect of two powerful voices at once) represents God himself: Quis sicut Dominus Deus noster? (Who is like the Lord our God?) and sanctum nomen eius (Holy is his name).

In the verse et de stercore erigens pauperem , low voices paint the picture of the mire out of which God (slow triple metre) lifts up (a rising sequence) the poor man (a solo tenor). Just as in some of his polyphonic madrigals, here Monteverdi seems to cast the solo tenor as if personifying the protagonist’s role. So this singer is featured again,reciting on a single note (is this plainchant or operatic recitative?) amidst the eight-voice tutti at the words ut collocet eum cum principibus populi sui – placing him amidst the princes of God’s people. It is surely the deliberate touch of an opera composer to cast this tenor as the poor man, so that the audience – or liturgically, the congregation – sees this same man literally placed amongst the princes as he sings his solo amidst the choir, clergy, cardinals (princes of the church) and other nobility in the courtly chapel or chamber.

Just as earthly music was considered to be an imitation of the perfect, heavenly Music of the Spheres, so actual dancing was an earthly imitation of the divine dance of the stars in their orbits. This explains why there are so many slow, Sesquialtera Proportions in the Vespers, whereas Monteverdi’s opera Orfeo more often has fast Tripla. Of course, the slower movement of Sesquilatera sounds better in a church acoustic, whereas fast Tripla sounds good in a less resonant theatre. But more significantly, the sacred spheres were thought to rotate more slowly than the sublunary sphere of the earth, so a slow triple Proportion was the ideal musical emblem for the divine Trinity.

Fast, we might even say ‘secular’, Tripla dance-rhythms in the Vespers paint texts that call for divine assistance down here, on earth: Domine ad adjuvandum me festina (O Lord, make haste to help us) and Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis (Holy Mary, pray for us). And another Tripla depicts the speed of arrows in the hand of a giant sicut sagittae in manu potentis.

It is this passion for visual detail, even in a musical setting, that – according to renaissance philosophy and period medical science – conveys the emotions from the text to the listeners, in order to move their passions, muovere gli affetti. This intense, emotional visualisation by composers, performers and audiences is the focus of one of my current research strands: Enargeia: Visions in Performance.

During the project, we explored in great detail questions of Proportions and Frescobaldi’s advice for Driving the Time – guidare il tempo. These discussions helped shaped the arguments in a later blog post on the Frescobaldi Rules here, and I’ll return to the subject in future postings.

For the coming season, further Early Music productions are planned in Moscow, St Petersburg and around the country: the first Russian performance of the earliest Spanish opera, Calderón and Hidalgo’s Celos aun del aire matan (1660); the production team Il Corago with the medieval Ludus Danielis; and another historical production from the International Baroque Opera Studio.

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

Opera, orchestra, vocal & ensemble director and early harpist, Andrew Lawrence-King is director of The Harp Consort and of Il Corago. From 2011-2015 he was Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre for the History of Emotions.

Irish Harp Ornament of the Month #4: Striking Upwards

Posted by Andrew Lawrence-King

The Mountains of Morne lie ahead, it’s high time to Strike Upwards!

The same combination of finger-movements that we learnt for the Long Shake here is just what we need for what Bunting calls Activity of finger ends, striking upwards. He gives the Irish name as Barlluith-beal-an-airdhe.

As with the Triple Shake here the finger-movements are a short segment of a Long Shake. But now the segment is slightly longer, and the sound that results is rather different. Here it is in modern notation (3 = middle finger, 2 = index etc).

Start as for a Long Shake with 3 2 4 2 (fingers 3 and 4 are both on the same string, in this case, F#). Then instead of playing another note, just let finger 3 come to rest on that same (F#) string, damping it. Meanwhile, the finger-2 string (G) rings on. And that’s all there is to it!

WATCH THE VIDEO: Irish Harp Ornament #4 “Striking Upwards”

As with all ornaments, practise the finger-movements slowly, getting them perfectly right, before trying to speed them up. If you’ve followed the sequence of ornaments so far, you should find this one fairly straightforward to play. But its name hints at some subtle details of how and where it might be used.

“Activity of the finger ends” is a strong indication that such quick notes are played with a small movement of the last joint of the finger, not with a large movement and not with the whole finger. Using just the smallest joint of the finger helps the movement be quick and light, and a short finger-stroke helps you get that finger back onto the string again sooner. All this works particularly well on metal strings and with fingernails: a small movement of the fingertip is enough to produce a crisp, clear sounding ornament.

“Striking upwards” characterises this ornament as ‘upward’ – the ornament moves from low to higher. The main note is the last one, which is sustained (in this case, the final G). As for all ornaments of this period, the Striking Upwards should begin on the beat. A good way to be sure of this, is to make sure that the first note of the ornament coincides with the bass note. In this case, that would probably be a bass G, perhaps even a full chord of G major (Bunting’s full hand). This will produce a strong dissonance as the F# of the ornament clashes with the G in the bass. So this upwards ornament will strike firmly.

A good place to use this ornament is where the melody approaches a long note from below. For example, in the first tune of the main part of Bunting’s 1840 collection, Sit down under my protection the first two phrases both end this way. Here I’ve transposed Bunting’s arrangement into G major, simplified the accompaniment and – in the second line – added Striking Upwards:

Probably one would choose to add this ornament only in one of these two Upward locations, but either is possible. And both produce a clash, a Strike of the ornamented melody against the bass.

One last comment. It is just possible that this ornament, played three times in succession, is what Bunting meant by his enigmatic Triple Shake. We don’t know for sure, because Bunting does not show the damping for his Triple Shake, and the one application of it in the whole of his output is problematic. In my interpretation of the Triple Shake here, it begins on the main note, like the other Shakes.

In contrast, Striking Upwards begins on the lower auxiliary, which is what produces the Striking effect. So Striking Upwards does not seem to belong to the category of Bunting’s Shakes. And the threefold dissonances of a triple Strike would be a departure from the harmonies that we see elsewhere in this repertoire. But there is certainly room for debate here: I look forwards to your comments.

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

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

The Triple, or Modern Welsh Harp

Posted by Andrew Lawrence-King

The Welsh Triple Harp is a national symbol, an icon of patriotic pride in the principality’s rich cultural heritage, associated with legends of the ancient druids and bards, and (from 1742 to the present day) with traditional Welsh music. But how Welsh are its origins?

In London, there seems to have been a burst of harp-related activity in the 1730s. Handel’s 1724 opera Giulio Cesare was revived in 1730 and 1732 with a new version of the harp Sinfonia, featuring higher, faster passage-work. The scene is highly dramatic:

S’apre il Parnasso, e vedesi in trono la Virtù, assistita dalle nove Muse

Cesare: Giulio, che miri? e quando
con abisso di luce
scesero i Numi in terra?

Parnassus opens to reveal Virtue enthroned, attended by the nine Muses.

Caesar: Julius, what do you see? And when
with a downpour of light
did the Gods descend to earth?

Handel’s masque Haman and Mordecai, first performed in 1718 and 1720 (probably at the Duke of Chandos’ house, Cannons), was revived in London in 1731 and reworked in the oratorio Esther in 1732; it too has a fast, high harp solo. The Israelites are first encouraged to “Tune your harps to cheerful strains”, and then to

Praise the Lord with cheerful noise,
Wake my glory, wake my lyre!
Praise the Lord each mortal voice,
Praise the Lord, ye heavenly choir!
Zion now her head shall raise:
Tune your harps to songs of praise.

According to Jeremy Barlow here, the 1732 performance was played by a Welsh harpist.

In 1732 and 1733, William Hogarth was painting the series A Rake’s Progress, which was engraved and widely published in print form a couple of years later, in 1735. The second scene shows the protagonist, Tom Rakewell together with masters of all the fashionable 18^th-century arts: a dancing-master, a fencing-master, a quarter-staff instructor, a gardener, a soldier, a huntsman, a jockey and Handel himself at the harpsichord. But in the next image, the location has shifted downmarket to a notorious brothel, the Rose Tavern in Covent Garden. In the shadowy background, a harper is playing; his instrument boasts a spectacular carving, supposedly of King David playing the harp, at the top of the pillar.

[By the way, this is the earliest image of a ‘Welsh Triple Harp’ that I know of. Can anyone suggest an earlier one?]

The earliest surviving instrument of this type is at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. A label inside was ‘recently discovered’ in 1968. From this, we know the harp to be the work of “David Evans Instrument Maker, In Rose Court, near Rose Street, Covent Garden, London 1736”. According to the V&A catalogue entry (1998) for “this unusually splendid triple harp”:

The finial is now missing. The neck is richly carved and gilt. The belly is decorated with gilt scrollwork that is drawn with great freedom and charm… The post is japanned black with gilt chinoiserie subjects, now largely worn away.

Since Evans’ workshop was so close to the Rose Tavern, it’s tempting to speculate that Hogarth’s painting shows an earlier example of his work. And might it even give us a clue to the finial that would originally have adorned the V&A harp?

It has been plausibly suggested that Evans’ ‘unusually splendid’ harp was built for William Powell, appointed harper to the Prince of Wales in 1736. In the same year, Powell played Handel’s Bb Major Concerto for Harp, Lute, Lyrachord and other instruments in the premiere of Alexander’s Feast. The concerto shows the ‘Power of Music’, championed by the character Timotheus, bard to Alexander the Great.

Timotheus placed on high
Amid the tuneful quire
With flying fingers touch’d the lyre:
The trembling notes ascend the sky
And heavenly joys inspire.

Just as the sound of Timotheus’ ‘lyre’ did ‘ascend the sky’, Handel’s writing for harp shows high, fast figuration in the outer movements, and extreme high notes in the slow movement.

Alexander’s Feast was revived in 1739, which year also saw the premiere of Handel’s Saul. In this dramatic and richly orchestrated score, David’s music soothes King Saul’s anger:

Fell rage and black despair possess’d
With horrid sway the monarch’s breast;
When David with celestial fire
Struck the sweet persuasive lyre:
Soft gliding down his ravish’d ears,
The healing sounds dispel his cares;
Despair and rage at once are gone,
And peace and hope resume the throne.

David’s ‘lyre’ is represented by a solo for unaccompanied harp. The music is slow, but once again in the high register.

[John Parry, painted by his son William Parry c1770; harp by John Richards]

Half a century later, Edward Jones’ historical, literary and musical survey of the Relicks of the Welsh Bards (1784) characterises the type of instrument built by Evans and by John Richards (born in 1711, and thought to have studied with Evans) as the triple or modern Welsh harp. Its shape is distinctive: where the instrument rests against the player’s shoulder, it is relatively low (much lower than Italian triple harps of the previous century). This facilitates access to the highest strings, as needed for the virtuoso style of high, fast passage-work. But at the top of the pillar, the neck swoops upwards to the characteristic ‘high head’, providing long strings for a powerful bass. The frame and ribbed back are hardwood, the belly of soft pine or deal.

The strings are arranged in three rows, divided like the black and white keys of a keyboard instrument. The two outside rows have the diatonic (white) notes, duplicated on each side for left and right hands. This duplication allows certain special effects, which became a cliché of Welsh harp variations. In between, the central row has the chromatic (black) notes. The player inserts a finger between two diatonic strings to reach the chromatic string in the central row.

Jones associates medieval literature and historical documents of bardic practices with the late-18^th-century triple harp, although he admits that “some of its present appendages were probably the additions of the latter centuries”. An illustration on page 41 of Relicks and the frontispiece of Jones’ second volume, The Bardic Museum (1802), depict just such ‘modern Welsh’ harps, but the 1784 frontispiece shows quite a different instrument, an older form that is much more plausible as truly Welsh, and as a genuine Relick of previous centuries.

[Welsh Triple, 1802]

[Welsh Triple 1784]

[Old Welsh harp, frontispiece to Relicks of the Welsh Bards]

At the end of the seventeenth century, a Cambridge professor, James Talbot, made extensive manuscript notes about various types of musical instruments, including Triple harps and old Welsh harps. He describes a single-row proper Welch harp with a box carved from a single piece of holly, and an oak back. He states that these old Welsh harps have brays or cogs, wooden pins at the belly, that touch the vibrating strings to make a nasal, buzzing sound. Strings fastened at the Belly by Brays instead of round Buttons which give it a jarry sound. Such bray pins were a typical feature of renaissance harps throughout Europe.

Somewhat confusingly, Talbot calls this Welch or Bray Harp the true English harp. But I suggest that we can understand this in a similar sense to harpist John Parry’s calling his 1742 compilation of Welsh airs Antient British music… retained by the Cambro-Britons (more particularly in North Wales). Talbot’s Bray Harp is a genuine relic, an ‘antient British’ harp retained particularly in Wales. Talbot’s nomenclature also serves to distinguish this old Welsh instrument from the wire-strung Irish harp, which he also describes. He also distinguishes between the jarring Welsh Bray Harp with its single-piece holly sound-box and a lute harp without brays, constructed in the newer English form with a ribbed back and soft-wood belly.

Still today, some writers suggest that the old Welsh Bray Harp ‘cross-bred’ with the 17^th-century Italian triple harp (which certainly came to London) to produce the 18^th-century Welsh triple harp. But there is no trace, no DNA of the old Welsh harp in Jones’ modern triple. No bray pins, no holly sound-box, no oak back, no carved sound-box. Expert opinion therefore accepts that the Triple Harp came to Britain in its Italian form, and was imported into Wales during the eighteenth century, where (thanks in part to Jones’ alluring mix of myth and history) it then became established as the national instrument.

It would indeed be a bitter pill to swallow for anyone with Welsh blood in their veins, if the national instrument were just a foreign import, with no true connection to earlier Welsh culture, let alone to the ancient Britons. But the 18^th-century Welsh triple harp does show significant differences from 17^th-century Italian harps, in particular its high-head shape and soft-wood belly.

These crucial changes are already in place at the end of the 17^th century, and are detailed in Talbot’s descriptions (made with the help of a Mr Lewis) of Triple Harps. Talbot describes the three rows of brass tuning pins, with as many buttons in Belly (the corresponding string pegs at the soundboard). He specifies Air-wood (high-quality maple) for the ribbed back and Cullen cleft (deal) for the sound-board. In one table, he gives precise measurements for both high- and low-headed harps

For high headed Harp

best length of Belly 3 ft 7 inches 4 lignes

Bow with head 6ft 3 inches

Length of Belly low head 3ft 2 inches

Bow with head 5ft 0 inches

This gives ratios of the height of the top of the pillar (bow with head) to the length of the sound-board (Belly) of approximately 1.75 (high-headed) and > 1.5 (low-headed). A higher ratio means that the harp is higher-headed, that the instrument is comparatively lower at the player’s shoulder. A high ratio makes the high notes easier to play.

Note that even Talbot’s ‘low-headed’ harp, is definitely higher ratio than early 17^th-century Italian harps. I estimate the ratio for the harp depicted by Zampieri as approximately 1.25. And the harp shown by Jones in 1802 is very high-headed indeed, with a ratio close to 2.

[Domenico “Domenichino” Zampieri: King David playing the harp]

~ 1.25 Italian early 17th (Zampieri)
>1.5 English circa 1700 ‘low headed’ (Talbot’)
~1.75 English circa 1700 ‘high-headed’ (Talbot)
~1.9 Welsh 1802 ‘modern triple’ (Jones)

On the authority of Lewis, Talbot states that what he calls the English Triple Harp is seldom used in Consort, though capable of Thorough Bass; and (in another paragraph) that the Triple Harp is seldom used in Consort but generally alone. This is consistent with the change of shape: the earlier Italian triple is optimised for continuo-playing, whereas Talbot’s English Triple is lower at the shoulder, making it more suitable for solos with soprano-register melodies. As the repertoire tends more and more towards high, fast passage-work, even higher-headed shapes become more and more preferable.

Does all this spell disaster for the Welsh patriot? Was the instrument imported into Wales during the 18^th century an English Triple Harp?

As we have already seen, it is difficult to disentangle English and Welch in Talbot’s manuscript notes. For him, the genuinely ancient proper Welch bray harp is also the true English harp. But he clearly distinguishes the old, single-strung holly and oak Welch instrument from the single-strung English or lute harp with maple ribs and a softwood soundboard. The three paragraphs on Triple, English Triple and Triple harps do not mention anything ‘Welsh’, or ‘Italian’. The three paragraphs on Welch, Welch or Bray and Welch harps do not mention triple stringing. And according to Rimmer’s commentary on Talbot here, no Welsh source mentions a triple harp in Wales, until the 18^th century.

But both before and after Talbot’s time, many prominent harpists playing in London are Welsh. For the 17^th century, Peter Holman has traced here a line of court harpists, showing a clear change from Irish to Welsh names. Before the Commonwealth, they play Irish harps, but at the Restoration in 1660 Charles Evans (a good Welsh surname) is appointed his Majesty’s harper for the Italian harp. The flurry of harp-related activity in the 1730s is linked to Welsh harpers (in particular, William Powell) and to the Welsh luthier David Evans. Around this time, Welsh nobility are enthusiastic patrons of music, notably the newly- created Duke of Chandos (James Brydges, until 1719 he was styled the Earl of Caernafon), Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn (patron of John Parry from 1734), and Frederick, Prince of Wales (who employed Powell from 1736 onwards).

[Duke of Chandos]

[Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn]

[Frederick, Prince of Wales, at the cello]

To conclude, there was indeed a proper old Welch harp, but it had brays, was constructed in a different form and from other types of wood, and it was not triple. Jones’ (1784) modern Welsh harp had both similarities to, and differences from early 17^th-century Italian triple harps. Crucial design changes were made during the late 17^th century, so that for Talbot, the triple harp had been naturalised as English. Such triple harps made, played and funded by Welshmen came to new prominence in London in the 1730s.

In Britain, the 18^th-century triple harp is certainly associated with 18^th-century Welshmen. But before the mid-18^th century, the triple harp was not particularly associated with older Welsh culture. It is not organologically related to the old Welsh bray harp. Its repertoire was in the fashionable Italian style championed by Handel himself. In his operas and oratorios, the triple harp represents Alexander the Great’s lyre, an Israelite harp, the Psalmist’s lyre or a vision of the Muses, but never anything Welsh.

The first printed publication of Welsh airs for the harp is Parry’s in 1742. Jones’ great flood of enthusiasm for Welsh culture and antiquarianism, attempting to link his modern triple harp to ancient bardic traditions, comes only in 1784.

So much for the instrument itself – more on its players and repertoires in a future posting.

[A painting by William Parry, from the collection of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn. John Parry plays the harp, his other son David holds a copy of Handel’s coronation anthem Zadok the Priest]

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The times they are a-changin’

Posted by Andrew Lawrence-King

We think that water has no taste, because we were born with it in our mouths.

Most performers of art-music, even many Early Music specialists, believe that the subtle manipulation of rhythm for expressive effect – so-called tempo rubato – is an essential element of fundamental musicianship. To play in strict time is derided as mechanical, the work of “a poor block-head who hammers away in strict time without … artistic expression”. Teachers are advised that “a Metronome is apt to kill the finer Time-sense implied by Rubato”. “Variations of Tempo, the ritardando, accelerando, and tempo rubato, are all legitimate aids demanded by Expression. […] use is determined by sound judgment and correct musicianly taste”. Control of Rubato lies with the conductor, or in chamber music, with the soloist. It is expected that the accompaniment will yield to the melody.

But is Rubato really an Absolute, a fundamental quality of good musicianship that has never changed over the years? Scientific scepticism would encourage us to doubt this: after all, historical pitch standards, temperaments, tempi, and musical notation itself all show significant differences from current mainstream practice. Why should we expect Rubato alone not to have changed over the years?

Happily, solid evidence is available, from detailed analysis of historical gramophone recordings by elite performers throughout the 20th century. Much of our present knowledge comes from the wonderfully-named CHARM project in the UK (the Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music, lots of materials available here), and Dorottya Fabian’s investigations into rhythm perception, expressiveness and emotion in music, and the Early Music movement & Bach performance, at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

[By the way, the current assumption that expressiveness is connected with Rubato is so strong, that I have suggested that researchers avoid the word ‘expressive’ in their questionnaires to listeners, since it will probably elicit responses about Rubato. A more searching set of questions might ask if the performance showed ‘signs of emotions’, whether the listener had detected the use of particular techniques (e.g. vibrato, rubato, tonal or dynamic contrasts) and (most tellingly) whether listeners themselves felt they had been touched by those emotions?]

Commenting on some results from the CHARM investigations at a recent conference of the Australian Centre for the History of Emotions, Nicholas Cook, 1684 Professor of Music at Cambridge University, described a significant change in the use of Rubato around the middle of the 20th century. Before the Second World War, performers followed what Prof Cook calls the ‘tent-pole’ model: the tempo slows down as the music approaches the important point, and speeds up again afterwards, just as the canvas of a tent rises to the point where the pole supports it, and then falls away again.

In the post-War period, a different model emerges, which I have christened the ‘tube-train’. Each phrase begins slowly, accelerates to the middle, and then slows again towards the end. The tracks for London’s Underground Railway, the ‘Tube’, descend out of each station, and ascend again to the next, to help trains accelerate away and slow down again.

There are some famous international Early Music ensembles that apply this Tube-Train Rubato to renaissance and baroque music. I speculate that this approach might be particularly favoured by directors whose formative years of high-level music education were in the 1950s.

Early Music ensembles with younger directors show other models of Rubato. The “Go-To” model, much in vogue amongst baroque orchestras in Germany and elsewhere is almost the opposite of the ‘Tent Pole’: the tempo accelerates towards the important point and dwells on this one note somewhat. This approach is associated with directorial comments and group discussion about ‘where does this phrase go to?’.

Another approach, which I’ve seen at work in renaissance polyphony, is what I call the “Smoothie”. Notated contrasts in note-values are reduced: long notes are cut short, short notes are taken more slowly. Or if the composer writes notes of equal length, the music generally slows down (from moderate tempo) or speeds up (from slow tempo, because the long notes are shortened). The Smoothie is sometimes the result of laziness in observing the written rhythms, or of sloppy bowing from string-players. But at higher levels, it is associated with performers who make sound-quality, fine tone-production, a high priority. Such performers elongate short notes, to make sure that even the little notes have the best possible sound quality.

Other genres of music favour different approaches. Most fans would agree that the emotional power of Heavy Rock is not lessened by that music’s strong rhythm in strict tempo. Mainstream jazz allows a degree of rhythmic flexibility (swing) within a steady underlying beat. In this style, soloists may float freely over a regular accompaniment in the rhythm section.

Such ‘cool rhythm’ might remind us of 19th-century descriptions of Chopin’s Rubato as “timeless melody over a timed bass”, which I shorten to TLM/TB. (I avoid terms like Chopinesque, since TLM/TB clearly pre-dates Chopin). In his book Stolen Time: The History of Rubato (Oxford 1996 details here) Richard Hudson “identifies and traces the development of two main types of rubato: an earlier one in which note values in a melody are altered while the accompaniment keeps strict time, and a later, more familiar, one in which the tempo of the entire musical substance fluctuates.”

Hudson’s book very usefully charts the recent history of Rubato, though his terminology of “Early Rubato” and “Late Rubato” has been criticised. I don’t claim that my own terminology is perfect, but to clarify my intentions, I will use the term ‘TLM/TB’ for melodic freedom controlled by a regular bass, keeping ‘Tempo Rubato’ for entirely Stolen Time. Notice Hudson’s characterisation of the ‘fluctuation of the entire musical substance’ in Tempo Rubato as ‘familiar’.

But what are the artistic and emotional results of this ‘fluctuation’ of musical Time? Assuming it is done deliberately and skillfully, what is its purpose?

Tempo rubato softens the sharpness of lines, blunts the structural angles… idealises the rhythm…. It converts energy into languor, crispness into elasticity, steadiness into capriciousness.

Wait a moment! Shouldn’t this ring alarm-bells for Early Music performers? Surely baroque music should have clear lines, strong structures, energy and crispness!! Why should we want to soften, blunt, make rubbery, unsteady and capricious a Bach fugue, a Lully overture or a Palestrina mass??? Perhaps things might have been different, before the year 1800…

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

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

At the very least, the blind assumption that Rubato is an unchanging, fundamental absolute is demonstrably unsound. Since we now know that our ‘familiar’ Tempo Rubato has a history of change across the 19th and 20th centuries, we should begin to enquire what approaches were taken to Tempo and Rhythm before 1800. But I’ll come to this Another Time.

The three quotations in the first paragraph are from Constantin von Sternberg Tempo Rubato and other essays (c. 1920) available here; Tobias Matthay Musical interpretation: its laws and principles, and their application in teaching and performing (c. 1913) details here ; and W.E. Haslam Style in Singig (1911) here. The remarks that Tempo Rubato softens, blunts etc were made by Paderewski c. 1909, published here. All these are cited – together with the general opinions summarised by my first paragraph – in the Wikipedia article on Tempo Rubato here.

I present Wikipedia not as an academic authority, but as a reliable indication of the consensus view amongst its self-selecting editorial group. Wikipedia is also a powerful influence on students seeking basic information.

My claim is that Wikipedia’s presentation of Tempo Rubato, with its bundle of early-20th-century citations (most of them pre-World War I), not only demonstrates the consensus view, but shows that consensus to be lacking in historical perspective (there is no suggestion that use of Rubato may be a changeable element of Period Performance Practice) and somewhat closed-minded (Chopin’s use of TLM/TB, also heard in 20th-century jazz, is rejected, even ridiculed). Yet in ‘the free encyclopedia anyone can edit’ that consensus view remains unchallenged. The article has not changed significantly over the last three years (accessed March 2011 and February 2014). Elsewhere in Wikipedia, debates rage between standard repertoire musicians and Early Music specialists, articles are aggressively edited back and forth between opposing camps, and moderators are kept busy damping down the flame-wars.

But Tempo Rubato circa 1910 is accepted as a universal truth. No-one even cares enough to debate it, even though the arguments are fierce over a few Herz up and down in historical pitch, or even for a few cents this way or that in historical temperaments. Get the flavour from the FaceBook Anti-Vallotti page here.

All this supports my claim that most musicians, even many HIP specialists, consider Rubato to be an essential element of basic musicianship, in spite of clear evidence that it is a historical and cultural variable.

But I urge readers of this Blog NOT to go and edit Wiki’s Tempo Rubato. Let’s leave it there, as a gloriously fossilised dinosaur, and (more seriously) as an indicator of the consensus view, so that we can see if there is any change over the next three years!

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Sparrow-flavoured Soup – or What is Continuo?

Posted by Andrew Lawrence-King

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I give Agostino the last word:

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

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

www.historyofemotions.org.au

Rhythm – what really counts?

Posted by Andrew Lawrence-King

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

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

Caccini Le nuove musiche 1601/2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tactus directs a Song according to Measure.

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

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

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

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

Slow count

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

Proportions

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

Consistent Tactus: a whole “Song according to Measure”

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

“Tactus directs a Song”

In most modern performances, a conductor directs.

Soloists follow the accompaniment

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

Rhythm in Recitative

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

Tactus in Recitative

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

Consistent Tactus for a large-scale work

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

www.historyofemotions.org.au

Music expresses emotions?

Posted by Andrew Lawrence-King

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Andrew Lawrence-King

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

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Music expresses emotions?

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