Early Harp

Introduction to French Baroque Dance: Muffat on ‘Vrai Mouvement’

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This article was written for a course on HIP for Harps taught for the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. It offers a very brief introduction based on Muffat (1698) and focussed on the typical movements of baroque suites.

Period discourse about music around the year 1700 was much concerned with contrasts in National Style, specifically Italian and French. Italian style (imitated also outside Italy, of course) favoured drama and virtuoso display in such genres as Opera, Toccata, Sonata & Concerto. French style (also imitated abroad) preferred descriptive character pieces to abstract sonatas and celebrated above all the noble art of Dance.



French theatrical music (especially Ballets), chamber music (in particular, Suites) and social activities were unified by the elegance and energy of dance, and depended for variety on the contrasting characters of distinctive dance-types. As modern-day performers of these repertoires, our understanding of the music is enormously increased if we know something of the dancing that inspired it.

I strongly recommend every student of Historically Informed Performance to go to class and learn some dances from the appropriate period of music. It isn’t necessary to become a great dancer: right from the beginning you will start to notice from the inside what it feels like to dance the music you love. No amount of teaching or demonstration can replace this personal, embodied experience.

At the very least, watch as much baroque dancing as you can, so that you have a clear visual inspiration to guide your playing. Play for dance rehearsals, in order to learn what their art requires of your delivery. The ideal in this period was that the music should appear to be produced by the action of the dancers’ feet striking the floor. Strong moments in the dance move upwards, preparatory energy is gathered by sinking in order to expand and rise again. And watching good baroque dancers, we can imagine that our sustained notes are similarly suspended in the air as if weightless, like a elegantly poised dancer, balanced and seeming to float almost off the ground.

Watch here 1: Introduction

Watch here 2: Suite

Watch here 3: Minuet etc

For a more substantial audio/visual introduction, I warmly recommed Paige Whitley-Baugess’ Introduction to Baroque D ance videos, available here.  

French period sources suggest that many subtleties of le bon gout – Good Taste – can only be acquired by studying with a fine teacher, born into the culture of Louis XIV’s France. As foreigners from the 21st century, we can all be thankful for Georg Muffat’s (1698) systematic analysis of French style, describing le bon gout in terms of a coherent set of principles, just as grammar-books describe the use of language. Indeed, this concept of a collection of rules is precisely how Art itself was defined, in this period. Read more about period philosophy of art here.


Muffat’s First Observations on the French style of playing dance-tunes according to the method of Monsieur Lully are presented in four languages (Latin, German, Italian, French) as the introduction to his second Florilegium collection, available free online here. The four versions are not identical, and it is worth studying fine points of detail across all four texts. David Wilson’s English translation is here. My summary below follows the French text.

For an alternative path through Muffat & French Baroque Dance, see my 2020 article here.

 

“Here you can discover the principal secrets in a few words”

 

“Two functions admirably well linked together:

  • “To charm the ear
  • “Simultaneously, to mark so well the movements of the dance, that one recognises immediately which type each tune represents, and one feels irresistibly inspired to dance.”

This is Muffat’s reworking of the classic Three Aims of Rhetoric: to delight, to explain and to move the passions. The musician’s purpose is literally to move listeners’ feet, and thereby to affect their emotions.

The word mouvement has a wide semantic field that includes the physical movements of dancing, contrasting formal sections (e.g. the movements of a suite), the speed of the music, the emotional Affekt of the music and the dancing, and the rhythmic structure of a particular dance-type. All these elements are interdependent.

“Five requirements:

  1. “To play in tune”
  2. “Bowing”
  3. “To keep constantly/constant the True Movement of each piece”
  4. “To observe certain usages of repeats, notations, style and dancing”
  5. “Ornamentation”

Muffat’s insistence on le vrai Mouvement  – True Movement – goes further than simply keeping the beat and maintaining constant tempo. This mouvement is also what a jazz musician would call the ‘groove’ of the dance, a characteristic rhythmic pattern, not necessarily strictly mathematical (often the first beat of the bar needs to be long), but established from the beginning and maintained until the end, and strongly linked to the particular physical movements and emotional Affekts associated with each dance-type.

For example, the Chaconne is usually a celebratory, festive, theatrical ‘party’ dance often marking the happy ending of a music-drama, or associated with the comedy clown, Harlequin. It is usually constructed in double-units of four-bar phrases featuring a descending bass-line, with hemiola at significant cadences, and a groove running across the bar-lines: 2 3 1, 2 3 1. The first beat is long, giving space either for a breath between mini-phrases, or for an expressive dissonance on the first beat resolved on the second.

The Minuet is a formal social dance, often marking the presentation of a couple to the assembled company. It is usually constructed with a great deal of symmetry: four-bar and eight-bar phrases; eight-bar or sixteen-bar repeated sections etc. The basic unit is two bars, which corresponds to one minuet-step. The groove mixes, often alternately,  rhythmic patterns of crotchet-minim [short-long] and minim-crotchet [long short].

Both these dances are usually notated in 3/4, and could plausibly be played within a similar range of tempi according to circumstances. In this, they might appear very alike. But once you’ve played a few of each type, and (ideally) learnt to dance them too, you will be able to distinguish them from the very first few notes, just as Muffat writes. This is the significance of vrai mouvement, much more than just ‘constant speed’.

“Play in tune”

Muffat singles out the diatonic semitone mi-fa as the usual source of problems for inexperienced players. At an elementary level, violinists have to learn to position their fingers to create a narrower spacing for the semitone than for the tones. Failure here is a serious assault on the listener’s ears.

At a higher level of sophistication, Muffat’s hint to raise the mi may be linked to the ongoing transition from the pure thirds of Quarter-comma Meantone towards the slightly wider thirds of Sixth-comma Meantone, as the accepted practice for ‘being in tune’. Most 18th-century ‘circulating temperaments’ (for keyboard instruments) were derived from Sixth-comma Meantone, so it is highly plausible that slightly wider thirds became generally accepted.

Muffat also mentions that ornaments should not be false. Sometimes ornaments require chromatic alteration to fit within the local harmonies, and whichever notes one chooses to play, they must be in tune, of course. Playing an ornament in the wrong place also offends the ear. Squeaks and noises are also to be avoided.

In contrast to the lengthy debates amongst today’s Early Musicians on the subject of Temperament, Muffat writes that there is only one accepted way of being in tune. He deals with the whole subject in 14 lines.

Bowing

Muffat devotes about 100 lines – more than two pages, plus two pages of musical examples to this crucial topic. Bowing for string instruments corresponds to tonguing syllables for wind-players and fingering for keyboards, harp, lutes and guitars. Strict rules of style create characteristic patterns of articulation: Good and Bad notes, legato or separation between one note and the next, contrasting qualities of onset-attack for individual notes.  

Muffat states that unanimity of bowing is essential. This translates for harpists and others into a requirement for intense scrutiny of note-by-note articulation patterns.

In this French style, the first beat is always given a down-bow, even if the previous note was also down-bow. This creates silences of articulation before some down-beats. But Muffat marvels how, “in spite of so many down-bows and retakes” (lifting the bow up again, to facilitate two successive down-bows with the very short French Baroque bow), “one never hears anything disagreeable or coarse, but rather a wonderful combination of speed and the length of the bow-strokes; of admirable equality of measure and diversity of phrasings; of tender sweetness and vivacity of playing”

What I have translated here as ‘phrasings’ is yet another appearance of the word mouvemens, here suggesting the movement of the bow, as well as of the notes and of the dancers’ feet, and of the emotions that all these work together to produce.

This rule of “first-beat = down-bow” takes precedence. After this, Good and Bad notes get down- and up-bows respectively, as far as possible. In triple metre, three crotchets to the bar (for example), the last note could be taken down-bow (in slow tempo) or up-bow (in fast tempo). Two successive up-bows can be divided – craquer – to articulate the final note clearly. In very fast tempo, a group of notes can be played ‘upside-down’ if necessary.  In a passage of dotted notes alternating with short notes, one should not slur short-long, but might slur long-short.

If you have any skill at all on the violin, it’s worth playing through Muffat’s examples to see how they feel and sound. If not, you can create a similar effect by singing Frank Sinatra style with dooby-doo. Use ‘doo’ for a Good note, down-bow. Use ‘bee’ for a Bad note, up-bow. Advancing in sophistication, you can imitate craquer with the syllables ‘beeper’, making more or less of a seperation between ‘beep’ and ‘per’ as you judge appropriate.

Muffat avoids down-bow on the second beat, so the combination crotchet and two quavers at the beginning of a bar forces you to craquer the two quavers. Thus the famous Minuet from the Anna Magdalena Bach Notenbuch would not go “Doo dooby dooby / doo dooby” but (more elegantly) “Doo beeper dooby / doo beeper”, when played in the French style. 

 

 

Muffat gives a few examples of how Italian violinists played Minuets, often starting with an upbow on the first note. The Anna Magdalena Minuet comes out very nicely with alternate bows, starting up-bow, but sounding very different in that Italian style: “Bee dooby dooby / doo-bee-doo”

Groove

The mesure (a bar, yes, but also the time-span measured by the regular down-up movement of the Tactus hand-beat) can have different mouvements. A jazz-musician might express this by saying “a steady count can have all kinds of different grooves”. 

Muffat gives “three requirements:

  1. “Understand well the vrai mouvement  – the groove – of each piece
  2. “Once you’ve understood it, be able to keep it for as long as you play the same piece, always with the same regularity, without changing, slowing or rushing it.
  3. “Give certain notes some swing, to make it sound more cool.”

“To understand better the groove of each piece… knowing how to dance is a great help. Most of the best violinists in France are very good dancers, so it’s not surprising that they are so well able to find and maintain the groove of the beat.”

“Having understood and started the beat, not everyone is able to keep it precisely constant for the entire duration of the piece.”

Muffat does not accept playing the whole piece slower or faster one time than another [his next paragraph suggests that this refers to playing a dance several times through consecutively, rather than to separate performances on different occasions] He also disapproves of alterations to the groove bar by bar or note by note. 

  1. “Reject the abuse of playing whatever kind of piece the first time very gently, then gradually faster and faster, and the last time very fast and rushing”
  2. “Don’t wait at the cadence more or less than the note-values indicate”
  3. “Don’t rush the ending”
  4. “Don’t panic when you see short note-values”
  5. “Don’t shorten the last note of the bar”

Playing for dancers is an excellent way to learn how to ‘phrase-off’ and ‘breathe’ at cadences, without disturbing the vrai mouvement. Muffat’s 5th rule is equivalent to ‘Don’t crowd the downbeat’. 

Muffat defines precisely – “diminutions of the first order” – which note-values should be ‘swung’, with examples for various metres. A succession of short notes written as equal are performed long-short, approximately as if the first, third, fifth note etc were dotted, and the following notes shortened accordingly. We should keep in mind that a Baroque Dot is itself a variable quality, according to context we might over-dot or under-dot. The appropriate amount of swing varies with the dance-type: more vigorous for a fast dance with popular origins, more subtle for a slow, courtly dance. 

I consider that Muffat’s insistence on conserving the vrai mouvement implies maintaining the same swing for the duration of a particular piece, as jazz-musicians tend to do nowadays. Many of my illustrious colleages disagree with me on this, but it must be said that most of them choose not to maintain vrai mouvement at all. Muffat makes it abundantly clear that vrai mouvement must be maintained: but there is room for legitimate debate as to whether the ‘swing’ of notes inégales comes under this rule or not.

The complete rhythmic identity of a given dance – its characteristic vrai mouvement – is thus constructed on several levels. The slow count of Tactus, the mesure, is steady (as in all Baroque music, with the exception of préludes non mesurées and plainchant). The principal division of the bar (into two or three) also carries the groove. So a Gavotte typically has two minim beats per bar, and the principal division structures the groove as short-short-long (crotchet crotchet minim). If you tap your feet and clap to this groove, you’ll probably find yourself wanting to sing We will, we will rock you! The quavers are swung – waving your banner all over the place. The emotional power comes from the dance-energy, which is stoked by maintaining the count, groove and swing steady from beginning to end. Temps di Gavotte Anglais (1977) here.

Because they experienced Lully’s airs as dance-music, violinists of Muffat’s time were more likely to rush towards the end. Modern-day early musicians regard Lully as art-music, and are more in danger of applying inappropriate 19th-century rallentando. Muffat is crystal-clear: keep the vrai mouvement from beginning to end. And just as I do here, Muffat repeats this point many times (otherwise, he rarely repeats any of his remarks).

 

Good Delivery

  1. “Finish tuning before the audience arrrive.”
  2. “Dont make noise” nor practise your party pieces before the show starts
  3. “French pitch is a tone, or for opera a minor third, lower than German pitch”
  4.  “Balance up the band”, “don’t have everyone play first violin!”
  5. There are usually two viola parts: “viola 1 is better on a small viola than on a violin”. Viola 2 is played by a large viola. Muffat approves adding a double-bass, but the French were not yet using double-basses in dance-music in 1698.
  6. “Observe the repeats” (notice the French habit of a short repeat – petite reprise – at the end of the last section)
  7. “It is very useful for keeping the precision of the mesure to give each [downbeat] with a small movement of the foot, as the Lullists do.”

 

It is interesting to notice how difficult modern-day players find it, to tap their feet on the down-beat (and only on the down-beat). I recommend it to students, and frequently request it from my ensembles, just as Muffat does. 

Ornaments

Instrumental ornaments for dance-music are mostly derived from vocal ornamentation. There are many more than one would imagine, and Muffat gives only a brief introduction. Nevertheless, this is the largest chapter of his essay, occupying three pages of text and another three pages of music examples.

Pincement – lower mordent, starts and ends on the written note, usually descending by a semitone, usually short, usually without additional repercussions.

Tremblement  – short trill from above, starts from the upper auxiliary, can be simple, or turned, may end early or continue into the next written note

Both these are played on the beat.

Muffat describes many more ornaments and how to execute them. He then addresses the question of where each ornament-type can be applied. His ten detailed rules depend on whether the note is Good or Bad, ascending or descending, moving by step or leaping, with exceptions for a mi and special conditions for the first note of a piece, of a significant section, of an ascent or descent. At cadences certain notes require a tremblement, others refuse it.

He gives some examples of diminutions (improvised variations), and warns that two tremblements are generally not used in succession, though he lists specific exceptions to this rule.

Muffat asserts that the whole secret of French ornamentation is codified in his 10 rules. These ornaments bring the “sweetness, vigour and beauty” of the Lullian method. 

“The melody suffers if ornaments are omitted, inappropriate, excessive or badly executed. Omission leaves the melody and harmony naked and undecorated; inappropriate playing is rough and barbaric; excessive ornamentation sounds confused and ridiculous; poor execution sounds heavy and constrained.” 

“The slightest failure in ornamentation betrays the would-be Lullist as inexperienced in this style.”

Muffat’s approximately ten ornament types (it depends how you count the sub-types) and ten rules are an amazingly concise encapsulation of the bon gout of the subtle and elegant French Baroque style. And if you apply his rules to Lully’s (sparsely marked) orchestral scores, the result is strongly consistent with (very detailed) ornament-markings in D’Anglebert’s harpsichord transcriptions of those same scores. 

See also Quantz on ornamentation, here.

The Suite

Many Suites are not intended to be danced. It is acceptable to take a different speed (a complex piece of chamber music may need to be played slower than the corresponding movement would be danced), but whatever the chosen tempo might be, it is maintained throughout. In late 17th-century England, Mace details a practice of making pauses and then an a tempo conclusion to (fast) Sarabandes, but otherwise there is no period evidence to support the application of tempo rubato to Baroque dance-music.

The Allemande that begins many Baroque suites was not danced. I speculate that the title refers to a German way of playing with arpeggios (the modern term is style brisé) dance-music of the type that the French used for Entrées. Characteristic figures include the short upbeat “Ta-dah!” found as a head-motive in many dance-types, alternations of dotted and short notes, and a three-note upbeat figure.

The Courante was an old-fashioned, noble dance – ‘the dance of Kings’. It has the most complex rhythms of all, contrasting, combining and creating ambiguity between 3/2 and 6/4, with a “Ta-Dah” opening; groups of crotchet, dotted crotchet, quaver ambiguously accented on first or second note; and a decisive shift to 6/4 at significant cadences. 

The Italian Corrente is different, with continuous running notes in the melody, and without the complex cross-rhythms of the French type.

The Sarabande was a fast dance that slowed down over the decades. Choreographies are characterised by held balances and sudden spins or leaps into a new pose. Often the music has a similar sharp contrast in note-values and amount of activity. The groove has a strong and/or sustained second beat of three.

Gigues vary in speed and groove – see Quantz and others for details. French Gigues often begin with imitation between treble and bass, and have a strong sense of the upbeat. The Italian Giga tends to flow more continuously, and without marking the upbeats. 

The Loure is a slow-motion Gigue.

The Passpied is a high-speed Minuet.

Bourée and Rigaudon might have had their origins in popular, rural traditions, but had become a highly sophisticated, courtly protrayal of Pastoral. Looking at the musical notation, it is impossible for us to distinguish between the two types, but in the period they were sharply differentiated: we don’t know how. Two quavers on the upbeat, groove (often in the bass) with three crotchets and a rest, final bars with crotchet, two quavers, crotchet (or four quavers & crotchet) over that groove; all of this with strong duple (minim) count and vigorous swing on the quavers.

Period writers disagreed as to whether Passacaille and Chaconne could be distinguished, and if so how. You are in good company if you consider Chaconnes to be major mode, Passacailles minor, but perhaps the most famous Chaconne of all is from Bach’s D minor Partita. 

The Musette is a courtly imitation of a pastoral bagpipe tune, usually in 6/8. The Tambourin imitates a tambourine. 

The Sicilienne is a slow 6/8 with groups of dotted quaver, semiquaver, quaver. The Canarie is a fast 6/8 with the same rhythmic grouping.


Conclusion

If you are studying a dance-movement, I strongly recommend that before starting to “interpret” the particular piece at hand, you first become familiar with the general characteristics of that dance-type. So before going too deeply into Bach’s famous violin Chaconne, first play lots of (simpler) Chaconnes (and Passacailles), watch Chaconnes being danced, learn to dance one yourself, and generally make yourself at home with the identity of the Chaconne as a dance-type. 

Work through Muffat’s 10 ornament rules and apply them to your particular piece. 

You will now have a much clearer idea of how Bach’s composition resembles all Chaconnes, and where its particular individuality lies. Above all remember Muffat’s two essential functions: the listeners have to recognise the dance from the very first notes, and they have to feel inspired to dance themselves. Even in such complex and profound music as Bach’s, this spirit of the dance must live, energised by the constant flow of vrai mouvement.

It’s some 20 years since I recorded dance-music from Feuillet’s (1700) Chorégraphie. CD here. My research for that recording started me on the paths that I have followed since, of Rhythm & Rhetoric; Tactus, Text, Gesture and Ornamentation. And in the intervening years I’ve had the opportunity to play this repertoire with fine orchestras (both modern and early), and see it danced by experts. Nowadays, I would play some of the movements a little faster, and most of them with more dance energy, a little less chamber-music reticence, and with – I hope – a stronger and truer sense of mouvement.  

Writing this article also gave me the opportunity to re-read Muffat, and glean a little more detail of his bowing rules, resulting in ‘Doo beeper dooby’ above and a rewrite of the discussion of the same Minuet in my 2020 article, here. It’s always worth re-reading a source that you think you know already. What you have discovered since the previous reading will have changed your viewpoint, and you may well notice something that you previously overlooked. 

 

 

A jolly Farewell to a bitter Year

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2020 has certainly been a difficult year for many, not least for musicians and music-lovers. This concert of baroque chamber-music was put together after large-scale oratorio performances had to be cancelled, and even so, you – our audience – cannot be here to commiserate and celebrate with us, but must join us online, and – we trust – in spirit!

ENSEMBLE FLORIDANTE

Väärika Aasta Vallatu Ärasaatmine
A Jolly Farewell to a Bitter Year

Watch the video (from Tallinn’s Old Town on 30th December 2020) here.

 

In the mid-17th century, English musicians faced some 11 years of cultural restrictions, during the period of the Civil War and Commonwealth, until the Restoration of King Charles II brought back theatre plays, music, dancing and renewed contact with continental culture. Let us hope that the dark days of Brexit do not last so long for England now!

 

Purcell evokes a ghostly gloom as the Conjurer awakens the Indian Queen’s god of sleep out of his eternal slumber, whilst King Arthur’s Cold Genius freezes to death in his bed of everlasting snow. Over a tortured, chromatic Ground, Purcell’s melody promises that music will ‘beguile’ – charm away – all your cares, whilst onstage, tragic Oedipus sees ghosts passing amongst the trees. More about Music for a While here.

 

So let’s bid 2020 “Farewell!”, and Battle our way into the New Year with the Resolution of Tobias Hume’s soldierly compositions for viola da gamba. Hume (who was perhaps the model for Shakespeare’s viol-playing, Galliard-dancing knight, Sir Andrew Aguecheek in the New Year play Twelfth Night) was both an experienced Soldier and a gamba virtuoso. Our two viol-players compete fiercely, but remain in musical Good Humour, fortified by the Spirit of Gambo.

 

 

Wit and Mirth or Pills to Purge Melancholy was the title of Thomas d’Urfey’s collection of over a thousand songs and poems published around 1700. If Dissembling Love cannot be trusted, perhaps Tobacco or even Hemp can drive the melancholy of a cold winter away. So have a happy Holiday and may your New Year Wish come true!

 

 

Although in 1600 everything in the winter sales is ‘trash’, the Tinker (salesman) swears that his ‘heart is true’. In 17th-century London, when the river Thames froze over, ladies and young lasses crowded onto the ice to buy Fine Knacks, ‘cheap, choice, brave and new’, although Nothing was really new. The Fine Dog has a hole in his head, but everything comes ‘with a ….’ [free gift]!

 

 

The political and cultural disruption of 1649 (the Plague and Fire of London were yet to come!) were mourned in a Sad Pavan. But I would fain Change this note of sadness – I would if I could ­­– into the joyful chorus of a country-dance: ‘We come on, and never go back’. We have indeed all been living through ‘distracted times’, but the Spanish Gypsies wish a Happy New Year for everyone!

 

ENSEMBLE FLORIDANTE

Väärika Aasta Vallatu Ärasaatmine

A Jolly Farewell to a Bitter Year

 

Alvar Tiisler – baritone

Peeter Klaas – treble viol, bass viol

Andrew Lawrence-King – baroque harp, psaltery

Villu Vihermäe – bass viol

Saale Fischer – harpsichord

 

GHOSTS OF OLD YEARS PAST

The Conjurer’s Song             Indian Queen (1695)                       Henry Purcell

A Ground                              Oedipus (1692)

The Cold Genius                  King Arthur (1691)

 

FAREWELL & RESOLUTION

Parson’s Farewell     The English Dancing Master (1651)         John Playford

The Battle Galliard  Lachrimae (1605)                                        John Dowland

A Souldier’s Resolution & The Souldier’s Song                           Tobias Hume

A Souldiers Galliard Musicall Humours (1605)

 

PILLS TO PURGE MELANCHOLY

Dissembling Love                                                                             Playford

Tobacco                                                                                             Hume

The Hemp-Dresser                                                                          Playford

Drive cold winter away – Shepherds Holyday – The Whish

 

CHEAP, CHOICE, BRAVE & NEW

Tom Tinker                                                                                       Playford

Fine knacks for ladies          Second Book of Songs (1600)        John Dowland

New New nothing                                                                            Playford

Will you buy a fine dog?      First Book of Ayres (1600)             Thomas Morley

 

SPIRIT OF CHANGE

A Sad Pavan for these Distracted Times (1649)                          Thomas Tomkins

Fain would I change that note                                                       Hume

Fain I would if I could                                                                     Playford

The Spanish Jeepsies                                                                      after Playford & Purcell

 

Program devised by Andrew Lawrence-King
The Conjurer’s Song

Ye twice ten-hundred Deities

To whom we daily sacrifice;

Ye Powers that dwell with Fates below,

And see what Men are doom’d to do;

Where Elements in discord dwell,

Thou God of sleep arise and tell

Great Zampoalla, what strange Fate

Must on her dismal Vision wait.

 

By the croaking of the Toad

In their caves that make abode;

Earthy Dun that pants for breath,

With her swell’d sides full of death;

By the Crested Adders’ Pride,

That along the Cliffs do glide;

By thy Visage fierce and black;

By thy Death’s Head on thy back;

By thy twisted Serpents placed

For a Girdle round thy Waist;

By the Hearts of Gold that deck thy Breast,

Thy Shoulders and thy Neck;

From thy Sleeping-Mansion rise,

And open thy unwilling Eyes!

 

While bubbling Springs their Music keep,

That used to Lull thee in thy Sleep.

John Dryden

The Cold Genius

What power are thou, who from below

Hast made me rise, unwillingly and slow,

From beds of everlasting snow?

See’st thou not how stiff and wond’rous old,

Far, far unfit to bear the bitter cold,

I can scarcely move or draw my breath.

Let me freeze again to death!

Dryden

 

 

The Souldier’s Song

I sing the praise of honor’d wars,
The glory of well-gotten scars,
The bravery of glitt’ring shields,
Of lusty harts & famous fields:

For that is Music worth the ear of Joue,
A sight for kings, & still the Soldier’s love:

Look, for me thinks I see
The grace of chivalry,
The colours are displayed,
The captains bright arrayed:

See now the battle’s rang’d
Bullets now thick are chang’d:
Hark, hark, shoots and wounds abound
The drums alarum sound:
The Captains cry za! Za!

The Trumpets sound tarra-ra-ra.

O this is music worth the ear of Joue,
A sight for Kings, and still the Soldier’s love.

 

Tobacco

Tobacco, sing sweetly for Tobacco,

Tobacco is like love, O love it,

For you see I wil prove it:

 

Love maketh lean the fat men’s tumour,

So doth Tobacco.

Love still dries up the wanton humour,

So doth Tobacco.

Love makes men sail from shore to shore,

So doth Tobacco.

Tis fond love often makes men poor,

So doth Tobacco.

Love makes men scorn all Coward fears,

So doth Tobacco.

Love often sets men by the ears,

So doth Tobacco.

 

Tobacco, sing sweetly for Tobacco,

Tobacco is like Love, O love it,

For you see I have proved it.

 

 

 

Fine Knacks for Ladies

 

Fine knacks for ladies, cheap, choice, brave and new,

Good pennyworths but money cannot move,

I keep a fair but for the fair to view,

A beggar may be liberal of love.

Though all my wares be trash, the heart is true.

 

Great gifts are guiles and look for gifts again,

My trifles come as treasures from my mind,

It is a precious jewel to be plain,

Sometimes in shell the Orient’s pearls we find.

Of others take a sheaf, of me a grain.

 

Within this pack pins, points, laces and gloves,

And diverse toys fitting a country fair,

But in my heart, where duty serves and loves,

Turtles and twins, Court’s brood, a heav’nly pair.

Happy the heart that thinks of no removes.

 

Will you buy a fine dog?

 

Will you buy a fine dog, with a hole in his head?

With a dildo;

Muffs, cuffs, ribatos, and fine sisters’ thread,

With a dildo;

I stand not on points, pins, periwigs, combs, glasses,

Gloves, garters, girdles, busks, for the brisk lasses;

But I have other dainty tricks,

Sleek stones and potting sticks,

With a dildo, diddle dildo;

And for a need my pretty pods,

Amber, civet, and musk cods,

With a dildo, with a diddle dildo!

 

 

 

Fain would I change that note

 

Fain would I change that note
To which fond love hath charm’d me,
Long, long to sing by rote,
Fancying that that harm’d me.
Yet when this thought doth come:
– Love is the perfect sum

Of all delight –
I have no other choice
Either for pen or voice,
To sing or write:

O Love they wrong thee much,
That say thy sweet is bitter.
When thy ripe fruit is such,
As nothing can be sweeter,
Fair house of joy and bliss,
Where truest pleasure is,
I do adore thee:
I know thee what thou art,
I serve thee with my heart,
And fall before thee.

The Spanish Jeepsies

 

“Come follow all!”

The Spanish Gypsies call.

All you who fear your lives,

Here’s those that Passion drives.

 

We come on and ne’er go back,

None of us shall ever lack!

Isabella Leonarda 400th anniversary

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Isabella Leonarda:

the Soul of Music in Women’s Hands



This article celebrates the 400th anniversary of Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704) – Ursuline nun, singer & composer – in connection with the Earthly Angels performance and recording project.
Listen to her music here.

An extended version of this article will be published on this blog soon.



 

The Soul of Music

 

In 1601, song-composer Caccini proclaimed the Baroque priorities of his ‘New Music’ as ‘Speech and Rhythm’.

Tempo


The first character to sing in the first opera (1600) was Tempo – the personification of Time – commanding: “Act with the hand, act with the heart!” For us today, tempo is the speed of music, but for Isabella Leonarda (1620-1704) it was Time itself, defined by Aristotle as a ‘number of movement’ perceived by the Soul.

The up-and-down hand-beat of Tactus connected musical notation to real-world Time. Period iconography shows singers beating Tactus, even in solo songs.

 

 

Zacconi (1592) characterises Tactus as ‘regular, solid, stable, firm… clear, sure, fearless, and without any perturbation’. Mersenne (1636) calibrates Tactus as 1 second per minim, shown by a 1m pendulum. At the end of the century, Carissimi (1696) defines tempo as subjective ‘quality’, the way time feels.

 

17th-century ‘time-signatures’ are relics of much older Mensural notation. Long notes are divided by 2 or 3 to create short notes. Signs of Proportion recalibrate note-values in triple time. Within these fixed multiples, Leonarda employs modifying words to specify fine gradations of tempo.

 

Amidst ‘passionate vocal effects and contrasting movements’ Frescobaldi (1615) shows how to ‘guide Time’, using Tactus. Transitions between movements are made by keeping steady Tactus (no tempo change, or strict Proportion), or by 

suspending the Tactus-hand in the air momentarily, then starting the new movement with modified Tactus, steady time that now feels adagio (literally ‘easy’) or allegro (happy).

 

For Leonarda’s contemporaries, ‘Time is the Soul of Music.’ Read more here.  Zacconi explains that Time breathes life into dry notation: a minim is a dead symbol, until we animate it with the Divine Hand, symbolised by Tactus. Carissimi’s tempo is perceived as an Aristotelian ‘affection of the Soul’, an emotion. Leonarda’s precise notation contradicts 20th-century assumptions that performers choose their own tempo, or that expressiveness requires rubato.

 

Rhetoric

In Baroque speech and music, Rhetoric aims to ‘move the passions’. Read more about musical rhetoric here. Sensual love-lyrics arouse fervour that Leonarda’s music re-directs towards the Divine. Delightful hand-gestures explain the text and communicate passionate contrasts. Rhetorical Delivery combines Pronunciation of words and music with Action of gestures and facial expressions, to channel Enargeia, the emotional power of detailed description. Read more about Enargeia here

 

 

Poetic imagery brings a scene to life, as if the audience could see it with their own eyes. ‘Here’, ‘Now’, ‘Behold!’: Gesture directs the audience’s attention to significant details of the imagined vision. In baroque Madrigalism (word-painting), the music sounds like what the words mean. Fragments of melody create ‘passionate vocal effects’ corresponding to gestures of the hand.

 

Period Medical Science categorises emotion into Four Humours: warm Sanguine (love, hope), dry Choleric (anger, desire), dark Melancholy and cold, wet Phlegmatic.

 

In Leonarda’s Volo Jesum (1670), ‘you fly’ (volate) up a triple-proportion fast-note scale to ‘love God’ on a long high note. After a tempo change to happy allegro, a contrasting 64 movement cites the love-sick Melancholy harmonies and descending bass-line of an operatic lament: ‘the heart is burning’ amidst Choleric ignis et flamma  (fire and flame) with high notes and flickering vocal effects. A ‘happy mountain’ of Sanguine ‘joys’ rises boldly, Phlegmatic ‘rivers’ flow smoothly down, Paradisi has the highest note of all. Descending notes move Choleric passion to Sanguine Humour – et in flammis es dulcis spes – whilst Leonarda’s hand shows the Holy Spirit coming down to earth as Christ: ‘in flames, You are sweet hope’.

 

 

Poetic detail, moving passions, vocal effects, contrasts of tempo, expressive gestures: Leonarda does ‘act with the hand, act with the heart’. The composer’s hand notates subtle tempo changes, in which the serene movement of the Divine Hand is reflected in the diverse pulse-rates of a lover’s human heart. Violinists’ and continuo-players’ hands give life to instrumental music, a microcosm of heavenly perfection, yet swayed by the human passions of the Four Humours. All this is guided by Tactus and expressed by gestures.

 

 

Invisible music

 

Nevertheless, all Leonarda’s handiwork – composition, Tactus, instrumental-playing and rhetorical gestures – remained unseen. Hidden from the congregation by the grille that closed nuns off from the world, the woman who simultaneously embodied an ardent lover and a religious mystic communicated energia (the baroque spirit of performance), by the aural Enargeia of detailed text and precise tempo. Unlike an opera or court singer, she ‘moved the passions’ and warmed her listeners’ hearts to love by evoking ‘affections of the soul’ in sensual visions that were entirely imagined, not seen.

 

Invisible to her 17th-century listeners, almost unnoticed by musicologists until recently, women’s hands are the heart and soul of Leonarda’s music.


Listen here

 

 

Baroque FAQs for Modern Musicians

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This is the last in a series of articles following up classes on Early Music on Modern Harps that I taught this semester for the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London. Although our case-studies come from harp repertoire, the principles we explored are relevant for any Historically Informed performer. This article could make a useful introduction for any modern instrumentalist or singer.

Previous articles in the series discuss Historical Principles & Online Resources,  Principles & Practice, Ornamentation and Dance Music. Our focus was on the 18th century (specific works by J. S. Bach, Handel, C.P.E. Bach, Mozart) and the principal sources consulted were the three Versuch publications around the middle of the century (Quantz, CPE Bach, Leopold Mozart), the Essai for harp by Meyer, and (back in 1698) Muffat’s remarks on French dance-style in Florilegium Secundum. Links to all of these sources and more, in the previous posts.

The questions below were asked by students in the final class, and/or arose from work-in-progress recordings of their baroque pieces that they sent me for private comments. Whereas in previous articles, the agenda was set by the historical priorities of period sources, in this post the questions were posed by today’s students. This is a significant distinction: what we today think is a high priority may not have been so important back then. It’s always good to assess from historical sources how significant your question was, in the dialetic of the period.

 

What are Good & Bad notes, are they just loud & soft?

The concept of Good/Bad notes is fundamental to renaissance and baroque music, and is given a lot of attention in historical sources. The underlying principle is that instrumental music imitates the human voice, playing as if the music had a text. In vocal music, the sung text is of paramount importance. Caccini (1601) writes that Music is “text & rhythm, with sound last of all. And not the other way around”. The structure of each mid-18th-century Versuch is a short introduction to musical fundamentals, followed by a large section on what Early Musicians call “articulation”: how to start a note, how to join or separate notes into short groups. For flute, this articulation is done with tonguing syllables; string instruments do it with bow-strokes; keyboard and harp do it with fingering patterns. This is a high priority question for period writers. See Principles & Practice.

 

Good & Bad Syllables

Good/Bad notes in music correspond to Good/Bad syllables in speech. In music and in poetics, these syllables are sometimes called Long/Short: Good is Long, Bad is Short. In modern terms, we would say accented and unaccented syllables. In the mediterranean languages, the accented syllable is not hit suddenly on the intial consonant, but gets its accent from a sustained weight on the vowel: this corresponds to Leopold Mozart’s description of a slow start to the bow-stroke, even on a loud note.

Thus, baroque violin teachers will often coach modern string-players to use a slow bow-stroke where an “accent” is needed. Similarly on the low-tension strings of early harps, a Good note can have a slow finger-movement. This is not so easy to apply to modern harp, where the heavy strings need a certain amount of snap in the finger-action. But imagining that the note has a slow bloom, rather than a percussive attack is already very helpful.

Comparing Good/Bad to language gives us the clue that it does not have to be exaggerated: it just has to be the right way around. When we say the word “around”, we do not make a large, or conscious accent on the second syllable. But we would notice immediately if someone accented the first syllable instead. This is what is needed for our Good/Bad notes too.

Good & Bad Beats

During the 18th century, the idea developed of an intrinsic heirarchy of the bar. Today, we learn this in our elementary music education. In common time, beat 1 is strong, beat 2 is weak. Beat 3 is medium-strong, but less than beat 1. Beat 4 is weak, or could be energised as an upbeat. This is the basic shape of Time, although particular pieces will make artistic variations around this underlying structure. The principle extends to sub-divisions of the beats: ONE + two + THREE + four + And to the next level of subdivision:  ONE a + a two a + a THREE a + a four a + a. In 3/4 time: ONE a + a two a + a THREE a + a.

Good/Bad is definitely not forte/piano. But there is something of Long/Short about it, in two inter-related ways: how long is the note, and how long is the time-space it can occupy.

If we think about the repeated quavers in the Left Hand of CPE Bach’s Sonata, we could beat Tactus as quaver-down, quaver-up. These gives a pair-wise groove of Good-Bad. Time itself has this groove, so that ONE is imperceptibly longer than +. This intrinsic hierarchy of the bar gradually becomes the main focus of 18th-century discussions of Good/Bad, for example in Marpurg (1755).

Good & Bad Notes

Meanwhile, the notes we play into this grooved Time have a patterning of their own, the ONE is definitely a long note and the + is a short note. This relationship between notes was the focus of 17th-century discussion of Good/Bad, for example in Muffat  (1698).

These two effects combine so that ONE is a long note fully occupying a long space; whilst + is a short note only partially occupying what is anyway a shorter space.

Quantz gives two ways of counting a slow 3/4, in quavers or in crotchets. If we count in crotchets, the groove is ONE two THREE, or Long Passive Short. So the downbeat quaver is a long note in the longest space; beat two has a long passivity; beat three is a long note in a short, actively upbeat space. All the offbeat quavers are short/bad. We could pronounce as a mantra something like the words “PLAYer, Silence, BEATer” to get the feeling of the combination of pairwise quavers with triple-metre crotchets.

And we need to practise the Left Hand, with any continuo realisation we might add, until this fundamental rhythm is absolutely correct.

Whilst it’s easy to grasp the intellectual idea of Good/Bad, it needs lots of practice to acheive it effortlessly and without exaggeration. That practice is training the ears to listen for Good/Bad and to spot any wrong-way-around relationships; and training the fingers to execute the phrasing as if automatically, and at a very subtle level. Ears and fingers must be trained in partnership.

A particular case of Good/Bad, and similarly linked to the scansion of poetry, is the idea that the last Good note in a phrase has the Principal Accent. Usually, this is not the very last note of the phrase, one or more Bad notes follow. A useful general rule therefore, is that for almost every phrase, the Last note is short and un-accented.

 

How to create ‘mini-phrases’?

In Baroque music, long passages of semiquavers are not ‘moto perpetuo‘, but are built-up from many short phrases. CPE Bach calls these Figuren (figures) the most short-term units (say 3 to 5 notes), and Gedanken (thoughts, ideas), perhaps linking two or three Figuren. One passage of semiquavers may contain several Gedanken, each containing several Figuren. Just as in Rhetorical Speech, we need to join together what belongs together, and separate each group of notes from the next group. These words occur very frequently in the Versuch, this is an important concept in this period.

Typically, this joining and separating creates rhythmic patterns that are maintained until there is a clear change. But from one unit to the next, even whilst the basic pattern is maintained (i.e. the same number of notes starting with the same relation to the Tactus, on-beat, after the beat, or before the beat) the sequence often continues by contrasts. A legato group is followed by an arpeggio group, a staccato group etc. See Principles & Practice.

Useful guide-lines are: “Last note short“, “Breathe after the one“, “Stepwise motion ~ legato, jumps ~ staccato“. A jump can also show the place for a mini-break. The mini-phrases are defined by mini-breaks, often between two successive semiquavers: the Tactus beat in crotchets or minims continues without faltering.

If the notes are not whizzing by too quickly, it may be possible to shorten the last note of a mini-phrase by damping, create an actual silence, and start the next mini-phrase with the appropriate Bad or Good articulation.

In allegro semiquavers, there will not be time for this. But the separation between one mini-phrase and the next can be communicated with an unaccented last note of the old phrase, a sliver of time for a mini-breath (but without disturbing the Tactus), an energised re-start of the new phrase, and a clear sense of repeating a unit, and of any contrast between the previous unit and the new one.

 

What about historical fingering?

This is another crucial concept for this period. After a short introduction, CPE Bach’s Versuch devotes almost a third of the book, pages 15-50, to fingering.

For harps and keyboards, 18th-century fingerings often clarify join/separate: the principle is to move the hand only in the mini-breaks, and keep each mini-phrase ‘in the hand’. This principle is utterly different from the modern concept of fingering, which seeks to make a passage as safe and efficient as possible. On the contrary, historical fingerings introduce deliberate ‘inefficiencies’, in order to discourage smooth joining of what is supposed to be separate.

In the following examples of harp-fingerings, I apply the principles of historical fingerings (from Meyer 1763 – see Online Resources – and  – specially recommended, and now available free online – Cousineau 1784)  to examples from CPE Bach’s harp Sonata and Mozart’s flute & harp Concerto.

[My Cousineau link takes you to the second ‘imperial’ edition, c1803. The Fuzeau facsimile publication states 1784 for the first edition, the US Library of Congress (who have online images of each page) says ‘1786?’ The title pages are undated. At the time of writing, an original second edition was being sold for €1,000]

An efficient modern fingering for CPE Bach second movement facilitates joining the third note D to the next G, with a hand-movement before the B [as shown by the square brackets].

EXAMPLE 1 CPE Bach

 

The guideline “breathe after the one”  would suggest a separation after the D, making three upbeats to the middle of the bar. This is supported by the Figur in the LH, which has three upbeats at the end of the bar. So my historically informed fingering moves the hand “after the one”.

EXAMPLE 2 CPE Bach/Cousineau

 

In red, I show the Abzug (phrase-off, forte/piano, see below) in the Appoggiatura, recommended by many sources. CPE himself says that it is the most important element. Quantz gives detailed dynamic contrasts for each note within ornaments. Leopold Mozart instructs violinists to hineinschleifen (sneak into, slide into) the main note (piano).

After the second appoggiatura, we should also observe the good/bad relationship of F#-G, especially because the ornamented F# is the Principal Accent of the phrase, after which the guideline applies: “last note short, no accent”.

For a scale, Meyer gives two alternative fingerings. If there is nothing else afterwards, the standard fingering jumps the thumb to make the long note different from the run of short notes. Notice that within the scale, the hand jumps “after the one”. This is his default fingering. The alternative, more familiar to modern eyes, can be applied when the notes are very fast, but it lacks the detailed phrasing of the default option.

EXAMPLE 3 after Meyer & Cousineau

 

But the alternative becomes preferable, if the top note is not to be distinguished as ‘different’, but joined into the scale, with a break “after the one”. See Example 4.

In this passage from the first movement of the Mozart, the first note of the scale (treble C) is on the beat, so it is a Good. The next note D is also a good. For flautists (after Quantz): “Di diddle”, for – old fashioned – violinists (after Muffat): Down, down-up. (Leopold Mozart would probably apply some interesting slurred bowing). For harp, perhaps 4 4321321 encouraging a separation after the first note; rather than the ‘more efficient’  4 3214321, which would join irrevocably after the first note.

EXAMPLE 4 Mozart

 

 

 

I have adjusted the beaming. The fingering follows the smallest units of Figuren, and // marks the caesura between one Gedanke and the next.

The pattern of “breathe after the one” continues with a caesura after the high a, facilitated by fingering, and similarly after the g in the third bar. But the music imposes a new pattern, also clarified by my historically informed fingering,  at the beginning of the last bar. Red f_p shows two more examples of Abzug.

Between the 1760s and the 1780s, the standard Good/Bad descending fingering for harp 12323232 (familiar also from 17th-century Spanish harp technique) is gradually superseded by Join/Separate fingerings using all four fingers. You start with the thumb, and the last, lowest four notes get 1234. In between, you use as many fingers as needed for the number of notes you have. So a seven-note descent would be 123 1234.

The adjustment takes place at the upper end of the scale, so that the last, lowest notes use all four fingers 1234. This results in a distinctive fingering for a five-note descent, in which you hop the thumb: 1 1234. [Fully-fingered sources feature a LOT of repeated thumb-strokes in this period.]

 

EXAMPLE 5 Mozart/Cousineau

 

In Example 5, I apply Cousineau’s (1784) fingering principles to Mozart’s (1778) descending scales in parallel tenths: This fingering encourages “breathe after the one” between the two Figuren of the first bar, shown by my changes to the beaming. The octave leap indicates a stronger “breathe after the one” between two Gedanken, shown by my // caesura mark.

It would not be inappropriate to use ‘old-fashioned’ 32 descending fingerings. These would ensure correct Good/Bad relationships, but would leave the player to create Join/Separate between Figuren.

EXAMPLE 6 Mozart/Meyer

Contrariwise, ‘fashionable’ Cousineau-type fingerings (mentioned as an alternative by Meyer 20 years earlier, so certainly not excluded from Mozart’s Concerto) prioritise Join/Separate, and leave the player to take care of Good/Bad. As Leopold Mozart makes clear in his detailed instructions for varying the pressure from note to note, within a single bow-stroke, 18th-century music requires both Good/Bad and Join/Separate.

What about the Bass?

Period sources pay great atttention to the continuo bass. The second edition of CPE Bach’s Versuch has an additional and longer book, 355 pages entirely devoted to Generalbass, including a final chapter which extends realisation of a continuo-bass towards improvisation of a free Fantasia.

Modern harpists tend to focus on the right-hand melody, viewing the music from the top down. Baroque music is constructed from the bottom upwards: the bass is no mere accompaniment, but rather provides the fundamental framework of rhythm and harmony that defines the structure for the ornamental melody. The heritage of Renaissance polyphony is that music is woven from the strands of individual ‘voices’; each strand has its own integrity, character and logic. The typical texture of Baroque music is the polarisation of treble and bass, i.e. 2-voice polyphony with a continuo-realisation filling-in the mid-range.

From the beginning of the Baroque period (Agazzari 1607) to the transition into the Classical (Leopold Mozart 1756), period sources assign to the bass the role of maintaining Tactus.  The continuo does not follow the soloist, rather the bass creates a dependable rhythmic structure – like the rhythm section of a jazz-band. As with a jazz-band, it is acceptable for a baroque soloist not to be together with the bass, for the sake of elegant expressiveness around the steady groove: it is not acceptable for the groove to falter. See Monteverdi & Jazz. This is of course the opposite of today’s standard practice, even amongst most Early Music ensembles.

Harpists, lutenists and keyboard players must combine the roles of soloist and bass-section in one person. Modern players might need reminding to play the bass more strongly (as an equal partner), and to maintain the bass rhythm in Tactus (whatever technical challenges, complex ornaments, or expressive moments the melody might have).

Flow

My research in Consciousness Studies suggests that the optimal strategy could be to place one’s conscious attention on the bass, focussing on tight connection to the steady Tactus. Assuming sufficient advance practice, the melody can be better left to the unconscious mind, letting the fingers ‘do it for themselves’. Trills, for example, go better when you don’t think about them.  Like a hypnotist’s swinging pocket-watch, or a meditation mantra, the constant down-up of Tactus (physically enacted in rehearsal, or imagined in solo performance) entrains the mind into Flow.

The paradoxical instruction to “Listen more than you play” can help the mind find that state of consciousness where mindful Observing facilitates ‘personal best’ performance, without a conscious sense of Doing. In baroque music, you can achieve this by “being the continuo-player”, creating the rhythm whilst listening to the solo (even though, you are actually playing that solo yourself).

Imagining, or even physically beating, a complete Tactus (down-up) to start yourself off (i.e. give yourself “a bar for nothing”) is an excellent way to connect yourself to the power of Tactus, to the Music of the Spheres, as you start to play.

 

What to do with Long Trills?

In a word, practise. Long trills are described in detail in all the mid-18th-century sources under discussion here. Harp sources admit that they are difficult, and they are more difficult still on modern harp.

So practise. Practise trills non-metrically, with a long appoggiatura, and then repercussions accelerating from slow to fast and all the way into the final turn and last note.

Then practise this beautifully shaped trill, whilst playing a simple bass in crotchets. The bass maintains Tactus, the trill is not aligned note-for-note with the bass, but you find the last note simultaneously. If the trill is long enough, combine it with messa di voce. But don’t try to be super-loud whilst trilling, and don’t try for too many reiterations. Shapeliness in the trill, and Tactus in the bass, are the priorities.

 

Frederick the Great plays a flute concerto in Sans Souci Palace. CPE Bach accompanies at the harpsichord, Quantz looks on at his pupil’s performance.

 

 

What is Abzug?

This is another central concept in period discourse about ornamentation. Literally “pulling off”, Abzug is the forte/piano contrast between an appoggiatura and its main note.

Leopold Mozart describes it as sliding into, sneaking into the main note (see the music examples above). Quantz describes a slight swelling of the sound on the ornamental note (so not an aggressive attack, but a slow-blooming sound; for violin a slow bow-stroke), with a smooth, soft transition into the main note.

On lute, one could literally “pull-off” from the fingerboard with a left-hand finger, in order to play the main note without any plucking action of the right hand. On harp, we can imitate this with a slow but firm finger-movement on the ornamental note, and a very passive action on the main (second) note, avoiding any articulate start-noise whatsoever.

Practise it.

The same forte/piano effect is needed every time from dissonance to resolution, as well as for any melodic moment with a pair of notes that function like a written-out appoggiatura. In the first music example above, as well as the Abzüge marked in red for explicit appoggiaturas, a subtle version of the effect is needed in the second bar on the high c-b, a-g, and (especially) f#-e pairs, and on the b-a pair at the end of the previous bar.

You need Abzug again and again. CPE Bach considers this the most important element of ornamentation. Indeed, the entire repertoire of the Empfindsamkeit period is characterised by the sensitive gesture of Abzug: every piece is full of opportunities to apply it. A missed Abzug is like marching into San Souci Palace in your muddy boots – you have just trampled on what should have been an occasion for the most elegant sophistication.

 

Don’t forget to pull them off!

 

Appoggiatura onto a Triplet?

The standard rule is that the appoggiatura takes half of the value of the written note (two-thirds, if the written note is dotted). So the realisation of an appoggiatura onto a triplet divides the first note in half. But the more important element is – all together now: the Abzug. The appoggiatura itself needs a slow bloom, and the written note is soft; the remaining two notes of the triplet should be light, since they are Bad notes.  It should sound like “Play-a Trip-let”, not “Da doo-ron-ron”!

 

EXAMPLE 7 CPE Bach

 

The (appropriate) tendency to lengthen the appoggiatura results in a rhythm that approaches the sound of a quadruplet, though still with the first note louder and slurred to the second. Some sources recommend this quadruplet realisation, others condemn it. Best practice is probably to keep some semblance of a triplet, but with a nice long appoggiatura and plenty of Abzug.

 

How to play a Short Trill?

There are lots of short trills in this repertoire, and longer or turned trills can legimately be simplified into short trills. So it’s a significant element of the style and a most useful skill to acquire.

The historical fingering is 2311, and the Abzug requires a decrescendo from first note to last. CPE Bach recommends you to schnellern (quicken, enliven) the first note, to make the ornament crisp and light. It should sound like “Tickle my toes!” and not “before the beat“.

EXAMPLE 8 Short Trill

 

Short Trills in Mozart

Practise this until you can fire off a whole chain of ‘flying short trills’ as Genlis (1802) teaches and Mozart requires. [The link is to the second edition of 1811].

 

Genlis’ second example (above) is not a realisation of the first example, but a preliminary exercise for those ‘flying trills’, at half speed and with extra time between each Figur.

As Genlis explains: ‘the two slurred notes are done by sliding the thumb on these two strings’. What I deduce from the third thumb stroke that follows each time (where one might have expected finger 2), is that after the two slurred notes, the sliding thumb comes to rest against the next string (continuing the movement onto the next string helps the slide flow nicely). At this point the exercise takes extra time, to teach you to apply a caesura here, before starting the next Figur. When you do restart, your thumb is already placed on the string you are going to need.

For the real thing, the full speed ‘flying trills’, each Figur starts with an upbeat, continuing the pattern of the first two notes. As one would expect from Muffat and others, the trills are on the Good notes – this is confirmed at the end of the sequence.

EXAMPLE 9 Genlis/ALK

 

Mozart introduces his flying trills with a preliminary longer trill, turned so that its Figur ends on the second (crotchet) beat of the bar. The autograph staccato on this d indicates “Last note short”, allowing you to “Breathe after the one”. The staccato on the following c indicates it is an upbeat, and the Gedanke is now Genlis-style flying trills, each Figur having an upbeat to a Good-note trill.

EXAMPLE 10 Mozart/Genlis

This upbeat pattern continues into the next bar, which has rapid Alberti 64 harmonies in the left hand and bold downward leaps in the right (first you must “breathe after the one”), leading to a whole bar Long Trill over the same rapid Alberti pattern, now on the dominant seventh.

All these fireworks signal the end of the movement. After this comes the improvised cadenza (Quantz’s Easy and Fundamental Instructions show how 2 players can improvise together)  and final tutti.

 

Short Trills in Handel

There is a tricky short trill on a dotted note in the Handel Concerto. Although it is difficult to execute this correctly in the time available, it should start with upper auxiliary (not the main note) on the beat (not before), so that the complete Figur has the crisp sound of a demanding publisher: “Prrrint today!”  [the rolled r represents the repercussions of the trill] and not a lazy: “What about next week?”.

 

EXAMPLE 11 Handel

 

How should I damp?

This is a harp-specific question, and is discussed in several period Harp treatises, but with insufficient detail. The suggestions below are based on my personal experience.

For modern harpists, you might first consider threading a strip of felt through the very lowest strings – you don’t actually play these in Baroque pieces, and it might be better to lose the excessive resonance that they add.

Second, learn the Baroque way to damp by having your finger (and/or thumb) return to the string after playing (same finger, same string). This allows you to damp specific notes really quickly, rather than moving both hands to cuddle the strings and damp the whole instrument, which is very slow. You can damp individual notes or entire chords, in either hand.

Sometimes you can add rhythmic energy by damping where a rest is written on the beat. Damp crisply, precisely on the beat, even get some percussive noise from your fingers contacting the sounding strings.

 

EXAMPLE 12 Handel

 

Sometimes you need to damp to control bass resonance. If you damp between each note and the next, you produce a staccato effect: this would not be the optimum phrasing for movement by step.

But if you play, play the next note and then quickly damp the previous one, you produce a strong effect of legato.

You can mix these two ways to damp [legato, staccato] in order to create legato pairs, each pair separated from the next. This long-short sound is appropriate for Good/Bad.

EXAMPLE 13 Handel

The last note of any phrase could be damped, to make it short. If you play it without accent (as you nearly always should), the damping will be less abrupt, and might not even be necessary.

Any upbeat could be damped to create a “silence of articulation”, this throws the accent onto the next note.

Often you will need to damp to clarify a rising melody in the bass. This frequently applies at perfect cadences, if the dominant rises to the tonic; but it can also occur at the beginning of the phrase.

The bass cadence with an octave leap on the dominant implies staccati for that octave leap.

In every instance, you can adjust the damping [legato or staccato, and how much] to produce the most appropriate phrasing.

EXAMPLE 14 Handel

Combining all these techniques results in a LOT of damping, subtly adjusted, for various desired results. Such frequent damping is supported by the (limited) historical information available. The greater resonance of the modern instrument makes damping even more necessary than on baroque harp.

Damping with the left hand can establish the “groove” of a dance, or a dance-like movement. In the third movement of the Handel Concerto, the groove is the reverse triple metre, short-long, quaver-crotchet. You can make this energetic and clear by playing the downbeat strong and damping crisply, to produce a repeating groove effect that sounds like the words “Short Phrases”.

Notice how the semiquavers create a Figur across the bar-line, “breathe after the one”: both hands have a short note in the long space of the downbeat, but for different reasons.

EXAMPLE 15 Handel

All this takes practice. You need to train your ears and hands simultaneously, to hear the need for, and effect of damping, and to create the effects you want.

 

How to simplify Ornaments?

Period sources recognise that it is harder to play trills on harp, than on harpsichord. It’s even harder on modern harp than on baroque instruments. So it can be a great help to simplify ornaments. Certainly, it is better to simplify the composer’s ornament, than to omit it, to play it wrongly, to play the wrong type of ornament, or (heaven forbid!) to play an ornament without Abzug.

In place of a long trill with initial appoggiatura and final turn, you can make things easier for yourself with these three steps (in this order of application):

  1. Reduce the number of reiterations of the trill.
  2. Omit the final turn
  3. Omit the initial appoggiatura

If you needed to apply all three three steps, you will be left with a Short Trill, and you should have practised this sufficiently to be confident in it for any eventuality.

If you are really under pressure, you can convert a turned Trill into a simple Turn (upper auxilary, main-note, lower-auxiliary, main-note). Make the first (upper) note long and remember the Abzug.

It’s not so good to change a Short Trill into a simple Appoggiatura, because the Short Trill is meant to sound lively and brilliant, whereas the Appoggiatura should melt, languishing. A Turn could be a better solution: there are still four notes to play, but the fingers can manage them faster. For a fast Turn, try 1231, which should come out crisper than 1232.

 

How does Continuo-experience help one’s Solo-playing?

The great harpsichordists and composers of the baroque were also expert continuo-players: JS and CPE Bach lead the way!

The best way to progress rapidly as a harpist or keyboard-player studying baroque repertoire is first to acquire basic continuo skills. Playing in ensembles will inform your ears and mind, with the opportunity to hear the same fundamental principles applied in subtly different ways by different instruments and voices. Ensemble-playing also provides an energetic group dynamic and a supportive social group, and gives access to exciting large-scale projects. Don’t miss the chance to play in a baroque opera or orchestra.

As a continuo-player, you can adjust realisation to your (gradually increasing) level of skill, contributing something useful right from the start, without needing to be exposed as a soloist until you are ready.

For harpists, a single-action harp is likely to be accepted by HIP training-ensembles, even in 17th-century repertoire, and for a modern player presents less of a barrier to immediate gratification: double and triple harps are more challenging. It is to be hoped that an open-minded training ensemble would admit a keen student even on modern harp, either as a stepping stone towards baroque harp, or as a way to gather experience for solo-playing on the modern instrument.

The experience of playing continuo will transform your view of the role of your left hand. And the continuo-player’s view of ensemble music, from the bottom upwards, is the best approach to baroque solo-playing.

Familiarity with figured and un-figured basses will consolidate your understanding of baroque harmony, and help you recognise the character of dissonances and sequences: the excitement of rising 5 6, the subtleties 6 5 and 5b dissonances, the sweet melancholy of chains of 7s.

EXAMPLE 16 Handel

 

How can I give my performance more clarity and more character?

See above: Tactus, Good/Bad, Join/Separate.

For harpists: damping. For modern harpists, a basic position somewhat près de la table: for baroque harps, this position is standard.

For anyone: “Long notes long, short notes short”, and “Last note short, no-accent”. Ornaments on the beat. Contrast one Figur with the next.

 

How can I make my performance more expressive?

See above. Sensitise yourself to the flavour of each dissonance, and show the tension-release of each dissonance-resolution.

For harpists, move your fingers down, even more près de la table, for a dissonance, and up (higher than normal) for resolution. A basic position somewhat près de la table results in small changes down or up making a big difference to tone-colour.

Apply Abzug to appoggiaturas. Search for the particular character of each Figur.

 

Should I play marked Repeats?

Yes.

 

Should I add Rallentando?

No.

Muffat and Leopold Mozart clearly state that the same tempo should be maintained from beginning to end. There is historical evidence for rallentando, but not in dance-music, and perhaps only when it is specifically notated. It tends to occur where the note values get smaller and smaller at the end of a section; or where there is a final cadence after a silence (e.g. Hallelujah Chorus). Meanwhile, Leopold says simply, keep exactly the same tempo from beginning to end.

Remember, “what everyone does today” and “my favourite CD” are NOT historical evidence. Leopold Mozart is.

If you are keen to add rallentando, find a source to support your wish. [Student challenge!] But… also beware of the temptation to look into the sources to support a decision you have already taken. A better strategy is to read the sources with an open-mind, and then decide. If you read the whole of Leopold Mozart, you will have plenty to think about and apply, before you need to go looking for another source in order to explore exceptional cases and outlier opinions.

 

Summary

18th-century style calls for a enormous amount of short-term detail, many contrasted Figuren, many presentations of dissonance-resolution, and many, many Abzüge. All the while, you maintain the groove of steady Tactus in the bass.

Harpists: see my article on Empfindsamkeit and Single Action harp.

Historically Informed Performance is not what I say, not what Early Musicians do today, not what you hear on CDs, but performance based on historical information. Use IMSLP to get original scores, and use the mighty Versuch publications as reference books to answer your performance practice questions. Harpists: read Meyer, Cousineau and (for elite soloist-level skills) Genlis.

Try to establish a habit of checking what you are told (including what you have read here!), and checking your own assumptions. The state of knowlege advances when someone has the courage to question the status quo.

Dare to be different!

 

 

 

Congaudentes (Happy Together)

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This post reports on an open, free online multi-track recording project, presented by OPERA OMNIA Moscow, coming out of an online workshop on Medieval Improvisation organised in collaboration with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London. Thank you to everyone who took part: this article is one way of showing appreciation.

Participants from all over the world (see below) sent in their improvised tracks, which were mixed into the sound of a medieval Conductus. The workshop and recording-project are linked to the International Baroque Opera Studio’s training production of LUDUS DANIELIS, planned for the end of August 2020. As always, that production will be Historically Informed not only in the musical approach, but also in the staging. You can follow OPERA OMNIA on Facebook.

Here is a video of the Workshop.

Here is an illustrated video discussion of  Performance Practice questions for Ludus Danielis, with clips from the 2011 production in Copenhagen.

Here is a video summary of  Medieval Improvisation Techniques for Conductus.

And here is the final audio/video multi-track mix of the Gaudentes project.

Additional links to various sectional mixes are below.

 

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Ludus Danielis

The Play of Daniel, Ludus Danielis, was created in the late 12th century at Beavais Cathedral in northern France, and notated in the early 1200s in the Egerton MS 2615, now in the British Library. William Smoldon, who edited it for the Plainsong and Medieval Musical Society in 1960, described it as a ‘medieval opera’: academically, it would be categorised as Liturgical Drama. The work was made famous in the USA in Noah Greenberg’s operatic production, premiered in Washington’s National Cathedral in 1958, which gave many spectators their first experience of Early Music. [In another context, I’m honoured to be a recipient of the Noah Greenberg prize for musicological/performance collaboration.]

Whilst the Play certainly is medieval, and does have all the ingredients we would expect to find in opera – script, music, action, plot, drama, characters, costumes, illusion, pathos, humour, entertainment – it can only be understood in the context of its liturgical setting. As the monks chanted the long night-office of Mattins, suddenly a chorister interrupts the service and sparks off a participatory drama in which clerics and children act out to lively popular melodies the Bible stories of Belshazzar’s Feast, the Writing on the Wall and Daniel in the Lions’ Den.

Daniel is of course saved from the Lions, who devour the Evil Counsellors instead. The prophet foretells the coming of Christ, and an Angel announces the glad tidings of Christmas. The Angel’s music was the finale to earlier dramas too, and it neatly leads into a joyful Te Deum, picking up the thread of the liturgy again.

So ‘this medieval opera’ takes it narrative from the Bible, has clerics and choristers as actors, and the cathedral itself as stage and scenery. Most likely, the Bishop’s seat became the Throne for King Belshazzar.

Certainly, it was tripudium – a party. The rubric (liturgical instructions written in red ink) requires a monk to dress as the Queen, the apparent ‘murder’ of King Belshazzar, a running race between two monks in the role of invading soldiers, and the prophet Habakkuk to be dragged by the hair of his head to bring refreshment to Daniel in the Lions’ Den, as well as the Lions (presumably played by young choristers) eating up the Evil Counsellors (senior clerics). When messengers (probably the teenage Sub-Deacons who managed the whole production) were sent to find Daniel (perhaps the Choirmaster), we can readily imagine an extended game of Hide & Seek in the darkness of the Cathedral. In the long nights of early January, there was plenty of time…

Nevertheless, all this fun was for a sacred purpose, celebrating yet another feastday in the exhausting cycle of Christmas holy days. For this special day, there was lively enaction of colourful Bible episodes, helping to teach youngsters to know their Saints, understand their Latin, and comprehend the complex doctrine of Old Testament prophecy and New Testament gospel, which the Play presents from the divine perspective of a ‘now’ that unites Past and Future in the eternal Present.

Modern-day History of Emotions studies help us understand the psychological function of this (carefully ordered) foolery. The ceaseless round of the Daily Office, singing psalms, reciting scripture and chanting prayers even through the night, intensifies with Advent’s rich music and liturgy, long dark nights of solemn chant with little to eat during the traditional fast. Then comes Christmas, with a blaze of candle-light and even longer services, singing joyfully all day and all night, and continuing with celebrations of saints’ days all week.

The accumulated social tensions of sleep deprivation, intermittent nutrition, and overwork, all within a strictly disciplined and hierarchical single-sex institution could be released, under control, in a party that was not chaos, but ordo: a form of liturgy, literally keeping order, maintaining the social and mental health of a religious Order.

 

 

Producing the Play

I first produced Ludus Danielis in the 1970s, in Guernsey’s Town Church, the Cathedral of St Peter Port, performed by members of the church choir. This production thus had something of the medieval group dynamic of a set of teenage choristers within the small community of a religious institution, and featured the many processions in which the historical action bursts out of the confines of the choirstalls to occupy the whole building.

The Harp Consort’s CD recording in 1998 was inspired by Margot Fassler’s research into popular traditions of the Feast of Fools, in Plainsong in the Age of Polyphony (1992), which showed connections between medieval party-games and Biblical episodes enacted in the Play. The Kalamazoo publication (1996) of Critical Essays on the Play included a monochrome facsimile of the MS and a neutral transcription (which however followed all previous editions in assigning the wrong octaves to the Queen’s speech and to Daniel’s lament, see below.)

 

Our recording project also established the outline of a historical informed pronunciation of c1200 northern French Latin, guided by Harold Copeman. With a superb ensemble of instrumental and vocal soloists, we extended to the whole group the techniques of medieval improvisation I had developed playing harp and psaltery in Paul Hillier’s Trobador and Trouvère recordings.

This concept of ensemble improvisation was taken even further in The Harp Consort’s Edison Award-winning CD (2003) of written and improvised polyphony from the closely related repertoire of Gautier de Coincy’s Les Miracles de Notre Dame.

 

 

In 2007, The Harp Consort’s musical approach and my processions-production combined with director Akemi Horie’s exquisite Japanese minimalist design for performances in Kings College Chapel, Cambridge and Southwark Cathedral, London.

 

 

Many of the same cast performed in a fully HIP production in York Minster for the 2008 York Early Music Festival, broadcast live by BBC Radio Three. A BBC sound engineer followed our processions around the church with an array of microphones mounted cross-wise on a long pole, like some kind of high-tech crucifer. In place of the usual pre-concert talk, we taught audience members the basics of medieval improvisation in the splendid acoustic of the Chapter House.

 

 

By 2011, we had added a lot of detail to the historical action, and developed a new dramatic ‘frame’ for a production in collaboration with Ars Nova, Denmark. To the essential elements of processions and partying were added medieval gesture, including St Benedict’s seven postures of prayer, and better stylised, more sharply defined movement styles for monks, courtiers and soldiers. See Schmitt La Raison des gestes (1991).  Medieval art provided inspiring images of powerful gestures, for example when Darius commands that Daniel be brought out of the Lions’ Den, and the Evil Counsellors thrown in!

 

A possible gesture for “Danielem educite, et emulos immitite!”

 

As the audience entered, the endless chanting of the year-long liturgy was already in progress, and at the end of the play, kings and queen, soldiers and courtiers faded back into their daily lives, under the strict control of monastic discipline. As one of the cast commented: “Game over.”

In a resonant acoustic, we found that just three multi-instrumentalists from The Harp Consort (plus a sinfonye-playing Daniel) could provide all the support and variety of colour needed for the entire choir.  I made a new edition, and thought anew about questions of pitch and pitch relations. This project also marked the first performance in modern times of Daniel’s famous Lament, in the written octave: all previous editions had transposed it down an octave.

In this medieval Psalter, God hands down from heaven musical intervals, perhaps even specific pitches, to bell ringers, to King David and to more lowly instruments. Ladders represent hexachord scales.

In 2014, the production came to the Galway Early Music Festival, with St Nicholas’ Church as the venue and the church choir as the core cast. So once again there was that sense of medieval community and, for the first time, the show involved a large number of youngsters, who brought wonderful energy to the performance. I will never forget one of the junior choristers leaping to grab the scholar’s hat off the head of one of Belshazzar’s none-too-clever Wise Men, played by the Choirmaster, nor the sight of some two dozen young Lions waiting to devour the hapless Evil Counsellors.

 

 

Enargeia – the emotional power of detailed description

 

In that same year of 2014, Max Harris’ book on Sacred Folly re-assessed source materials for Feast of Fools practices, downplaying the extent of louche behaviour and emphasising the religious message behind all the dramatised action. Harris re-interpreted Fassler’s work on medieval games and religious ordo as a response to secular New Year celebrations in the city, rather than as a reaction against depraved behaviour in church.

Harris singles out The Harp Consort’s recording of Ludus Danielis for special praise, and also recommends another version in which the singers are accompanied only by ‘discreet percussion’. Whilst I’m grateful for his kind words about our work, it must be pointed out that there is no logic in allowing drums rather than harps! The rubric specifically calls for harpers, but not for drums.

Drums are mentioned in the sung text that describes King Darius’ entrance Ecce Rex Darius. ‘Look, here comes King Darius with his nobles; and his court resounds with happiness and partying…. Let all celebrate as the drums resound: the harpists strike the strings, and musical instruments resound to herald him!’ The usual assumption in historical drama is that stage action represents, within the limits of practicality, what is spoken/sung in the script/libretto.

Indeed, this is the period principle of Enargeia, by which detailed verbal description (often signalled with Ecce!, Ecco! Siehe! Behold! etc) creates mental images for the audience, the emotionally affective Visions described by Quintilian. To the spectators’ ‘imaginary puissance’ is added the visual detail enacted by the performers and the aural effects of appropriate tone-colours of speech, music and stage noise. All this unites (according to Rhetorical Decorum) and combines to ‘move the passions’ with Energia, the spirit of emotional communication that links mental and physical responses to emotion. Visions and sound-effects produce emotional Affekt; performed details of enargeia produce emotional energia. Following this principle, in Ludus Danielis we would expect to see and hear drums, harps and other musical instruments in Darius’ procession; clapping and dancing at Belshazzar’s Feast.

With an unconvincing argument relying on 20th-century Anglicanism, Harris considered rejecting the principle of Enargeia. But this would rule out the drum, whilst the rubric confirms the presence of harps. And any medieval hierarchy of liturgical and clerical instruments would begin with bells and King David’s harp, and descend to via fiddles and sinfonyes to lowly wind instruments and drums. See Christopher Page Voices and Instruments of the Middle Ages (1987) [sadly, this is out of print, and I could find no online access or purchase options: try academic libraries].

 

Medieval hierarchy of instruments: King David, crowned in gold, sits with his harp on a golden throne; a lowly piper sits on the ground.

 

In short, for Ludus Danielis harps are obligatory, and drum-only makes no sense at all.

 

Controversy

Two crucial questions about Ludus Danielis remain controversial. Did instruments take part at all? And, to put it simply, how much fun did the monks allow themselves?

At a Medieval Events conference in Budapest in 2015, the standard of music-scholarship was woefully low, and I was disappointed that the chairman of the Daniel session gave – as if with authority – simplistic answers, “no” and “not much”, to these deep questions. Perhaps he was still following the musicological mood of the 1990s, or had too hastily skimmed Harris’ conclusions, but it must be said that he offered neither academic arguments nor historical evidence.

And there is evidence. The rubric of the Egerton MS clearly requires harpists. Statim apparebis Darius Rex cum Principibus suis venientque ante eum cythariste et Principes sui psallentes hec. ‘Suddenly King Darius appears with his nobles, and the harpists and nobles come before him ‘psalming’ like this.’ Psallentes (which I translate literally as ‘psalming’) suggests singing and playing instruments associated with King David the Psalmist: harps and psalteries. The real-life Norman tradition of medieval harpists striking the first blow at battles (read Wace on Taillesfer at the Battle of Hastings) supports the identification of cythara specifically with Harp.

The Egerton rubric also gives ‘stage directions’ for many other actions that would be unthinkable within the normal order of the liturgy. So we may well ask: in an enactment that includes pretending to kill King Belshazzar, a monk dressing up as the Queen, and Counsellors being utterly devoured by Lions, would it be utterly out of the question for King Darius’ harpers – we know they are there – actually to play? The notion that the harps are silent stage props seems out of keeping with the straightforward and energetic (one might say, enargetic) story-telling required by the rubric throughout.

Furthermore, it can be argued that psallentes is an instruction for singing to instrumental accompaniment. For King Belshazzar’s procession, the rubric is different: Dum venerit Rex Balthasar, Principes sui cantabant ante eum haec prosam. ‘When King Belshazzar comes, his nobles sing before him this prose’. Prose and singing for one King, psalms and harpistry for another?

Later in 2015, scholars opposed to what has been dubbed the ‘English a cappella heresy’ sent me references to use of instruments in medieval churches, many of them associated with liturgical enactments for particular feasts. Unfortunately I can’t cite these references here, because my notes from these years were lost when my laptop was stolen in 2018. So I’ve started that search again. In the meantime, Daniel Leech Wilkinson The modern invention of medieval music (2002) explains how and why the topic of instrumental participation occasioned such passionate scholarly and artistic disagreements.

 

 

Widening our gaze beyond the narrow question of musical instruments, it is very difficult to define in detail what behaviours, normally proscribed, would have been permitted, even required, for this unique outburst of medieval religious energy. We may never know what actually happened. But the investigative lens of History of Emotions Studies focuses on a different question: how did it feel for those medieval monks to participate in this Play? Fassler’s and Harris’ work shows that there was a social and artistic tension between dramatic shock and religious awe, between tripudium and ordo. There is no doubt that, whatever it was that happened back then, it must have stretched the limits of monastic habitus.

Certainly therefore, a bland or discreetly tasteful performance is inauthentic. As Harris writes: “a little controlled disorder can sometimes enhance rather than diminish devotional effect…. the Play of Daniel was inspired, at least in part, by the same creative impulse [as in other less complex plays] to employ ludic means for devotional ends”. Circa 1200, the novices’ religious duty was to enact immorality and violence, as part of the sacred ritual and of their religious instruction. In medieval dramas, as in any school nativity play today, someone might have to play an evil character, notably Herod. In such a role, you are required to behave badly. So were the actors playing Belshazzar’s courtiers and Darius’ Evil Counsellors.

To appreciate Ludus Danielis, modern-day performers and audiences need to perceive the sanctity of the regular liturgy, the ludic energy of the Play, and the tension between these two elements. It is not enough for them to read a learned article about the Daily Office or Feast of Fools celebrations: they should feel the impact of this collision of values. A HIP production has to search for ways to convey an experience of what was appropriate in the medieval cathedral, and (more challengingly) what might have been appropriately inappropriate!

For the upcoming production with OPERA OMNIA, I hope to explore further another paradox of this ‘medieval opera’. There was no ‘audience’ at Mattins in medieval Beauvais. For a liturgical drama enacted in the middle of the night in early January, there might not even have been any lay congregation. Most probably, Ludus Danielis was a participatory ‘happening’, in which the entire monastic community took part, singing the well-known melodies, joining the processions, taking on the ‘chorus’ roles of courtiers and soldiers, even if they did not play a principal character. In previous productions, I invited audience members to imagine themselves as time-tourists, visiting medieval Beauvais and witnessing the extraordinary events there, one certain night of the year. But perhaps the audience can themselves become medieval monks, and feel the shock of transforming themselves into courtiers and soldiers, and the indescribable emotions of returning to the ceaseless daily round of prayer when the Play is over.

 

 

This video illustrates and expands on some of the performance practice questions discussed in this article.

 

Conductus

Many medieval liturgical dramas feature a procession. The episodes dramatised in Ludus Danielis are punctuated by no less than eight formal processions accompanied by music: for King Belshazzar, the Sacred Vessels, the Queen, Daniel, the Queen’s exit, Daniel’s exit, Darius’ invasion, and Daniel’s re-entrance. In addition the Wise Men have to make an entrance, and the rubric suggests considerable comings and goings of messengers, Habbakuk’s flying visit to the Lions’ Den, and the Evil Counsellor’s repeated spying missions, going to and fro between Darius’ throne and Daniel’s house, wherever these might have been located within the cathedral.

When clergy had to move solemnly around the chancel, for example to the position for reading the Gospel, they would process as a group. Latin conductus is the past participle of conducere, from con = with, and ducere = to lead. Conductus was a way to sing with clear rhythm that would unify everyone’s steps. Conductus poetry was written with short lines and strong, regular metrics, suiting this kind of rhythmic singing.

Once the rhythm was stable, it became easier to improvise additional voices over the written melody, and the words remained clear, since the independent voices moved in the same rhythm. So conductus became a particular type of polyphony, usually in two or three parts.

At major feasts, singers would return to their home town, bringing with them the latest polyphonic ideas from Notre Dame de Paris and the Paris University. And the region around Beauvais was famous for Trouvère lyrics and for Gautier de Coincy’s transformations of popular songs into religious conductus in Les Miracles de Notre Dame. In this atmosphere of experiment and creativity, it is highly plausible that singers introduced unwritten polyphony into the conductus processionals of Ludus Danielis.

As historical models for such improvised polyphony, surviving written sources are almost certainly intended for performance one-to-a-part. We can only speculate whether the singers of Ludus Danielis reserved certain passages for duos or trios (the classic sound of Parisian early polyphony), if one or two soloists provided improvised discants over the massed voices on the written tenor, or if there was a rich heterophony of simultaneous improvisation, unified by the note-against-note syllabic style and strong rhythm of conductus.  The raison d’etre of the event, dramatising Bible history and religious doctrine, keeping sufficient order whilst enacting appropriate inpropriety, suggests that limits might have been stretched in this area of performance, as in others.

 

 

In our May 2020 workshop, we rehearsed the essential period techniques: parallel organum in octaves and fifths and a constant drone. Jerome of Moravia’s fiddle treatise suggests that one can create a harmony for occasional notes, otherwise remaining on the written tune. [Note that this is quite different from an alternating drone, in the fashion of Irish ‘double-tonic’ tunes] We rehearsed typical movement at cadences, with a dissonant third or sixth resolving to a consonant fifth, unison or octave.

Jerome of Moravia also suggests a more demanding option, providing a harmony for every note of the written tune, i.e. a entire new polyphonic voice. We practised ways to do this using ‘fifthing’ – moving from unison towards a drone fifth, or parallel fifths, and back to unison; and by contrary motion, ‘mirroring’ the contours of the written melody.

We discussed the use and abuse of thirds, and attitudes to dissonance/resolution generally. Historical examples show that a lot of passing dissonance seems to have been accepted, sometimes even at the ends of intermediate phrases.

Here is a video summary of medieval improvisation techniques for Conductus.

 

Free, open, online multi-track recording project

For the recording project, I provided as a backing track a neutral harp-solo version of the second Conductus Danielis, which has the appropriate incipit Congaudentes – rejoicing together. Each participant listened to this track on headphones, whilst recording their own performance around it. Some played in duo, some sent in multiple tracks, one singer recorded 7 independent tracks. The project was free and open, and everyone who submitted a track had their work included. The list of participants is below, and I thank them all again!

Here is the same Congaudentes chorus, from The Harp Consort’s 1998 recording.

Here is the backing track for the May 2020 multi-track project, in case you would like to practise with it.

Participants came from many countries. Some are internationally known, one made her first ever recording for this project. This authentically reproduces the situation in c1200 Beavais, where experienced singers of polyphony and senior clerics sang alongside the young choiristers who presented the show.

The standard of all the tracks was remarkably high; all the more so, if one bears in mind that individual performers did not hear each other until the whole thing was mixed and uploaded. In the following report, I attempt to offer some academic analysis and helpful comments, without exposing anyone to personal criticism or undue individual exposure in what was from beginning to end an ensemble project.

Recording yourself and listening critically, and repeating this process intensively, as one does in a professional CD recording, creates a very steep learning curve. I greatly appreciate the work of record producers who have guided me through this process, and I would recommend it to any student or professional who is keen to improve, at whatever level.

For this project, in the course of many, many hours of audio and video editing, I listened to every individual track several times, and also heard how different combinations of soloists fitted together. All of the improvisations were plausible and fitted well with the stylistics we had studied, and there was a delightful variety of individual approaches, all with a lively energy appropriate to the context within the Play. The following comments are therefore from the perspective of a listening editor.

 

 

There were in the end 56 audio tracks (Audacity) and 38 video tracks (Nero video) to be mixed. For anyone else who might be contemplating a similarly large-scale multi-track project, I would recommend the technique that I fell upon only at the end, when I needed a technical fix. Trying to manage more than 30 video tracks simultaneously, my video editing software and/or my laptop had slowed to a crawl, and I could no longer review the results of my edits reliably. So I mixed 7 video tracks into one block, which I rendered as a single track. I should have done this from the outset for both audio and video mixes: group the tracks into  blocks by sections (high voices, low voices, bowed, plucked and percussion instruments) and mix each block first. Then mix just 5 blocks into the final print.

I asked participants to record (audio/video) a clap synchronised with a click on the backing track, but in the end this was not really needed. The quickest way to synchronise audio tracks was by playing them simultaneously, and lining them up by trial and error. And the quickest way to synchronise video to audio was also by ear, using the audio track associated with each video simultaneously with the full audio mix. Once the tracks are synched, you can lock them and silence the individual audio tracks to leave only the proper audio-mix.

Since everything was synched to the original backing track, the major limitation of Audacity for ‘classical’ audio editing, that you cannot easily drop-in patches from alternative takes of slightly different duration, was not a factor. Most of the problems I had to fix were temporary disturbances of rhythmic precision, and Audacity’s sophisticated “change tempo without changing pitch” function allowed me to make the necessary adjustments.  As I often find in live music-making, rhythmic precision is a very high priority, and good rhythm leads to confidence and to improvements in other performance variables. This is especially relevant to Conductus, of course.

For anyone who hasn’t tried it before, it’s surprisingly difficult to keep precisely together with a backing track heard through headphones. So I make no criticism of those who needed a helping hand during audio editing: all of us who ever made a CD are eternally grateful to the skills of professional producers. With the advantage of ‘hindsight’ and repeated listening, I noticed that some performers maintained ensemble by ‘checking in’ with the backing track every so often, for example at phrase-breaks, but sometimes drifted apart for a while in the middle of a phrase. This suggests that the operating strategy was attention-switching between listening and playing, rather than continous monitoring while playing.

I did not find this problem with vocal tracks, which might indicate that the sound of the harp’s backing track was easier for singers to hear, contrasting more with their own sounds, than for instrumentalists.

 

 

I also used Audacity’s ‘change pitch without changing tempo’ and reverb functions to transform Tanja Skok’s small frame drum into a mighty medieval battle drum.

 

 

There were two pairs of performers who sent duo tracks. I’m very happy that they could enjoy the chance to make music in company, during this time of social distancing, and this was an important element of our project, reflecting also the medieval performers’ celebrations of community spirit as they met, some of them perhaps only once a year, in Beauvais. But – obviously – if there is any moment when a duo track is not precisely together, there is no way to re-align the two individuals in post-production! This is a problem regularly faced by editors trying to clean up live performances, where the sound of one instrument spills onto another player’s microphone. As far as possible, editors want to have each instrument/voice isolated on its own track, even though project directors prefer to have happy participants!

 

 

There were few problems of tuning that showed through seriously, once everything was aligned and everyone was playing, though I discreetly faded out a couple of murky moments. Where tuning was off, a common feature seemed to be notes stopped further up the fingerboard of bowed and plucked instruments with necks (with or without frets). Open strings, index and middle stopping fingers were noticeably more reliable than ring fingers and pinkies. There are many factors here: finger position, fret position, string quality, as well as the bowing/plucking action.

In spite of the challenge of – sometimes quite adventurous – improvisation, most of the invented material was delivered accurately. The most difficult moment is between phrases, where, in addition to all the usual demands of solo performance and ensemble music-making, one has to decide what to do next and get fingers/voice to some newly invented note, precisely on time. This is an area I would focus on, in face-to-face rehearsal of live ensemble improvisation.

This connects to another element that can only be practised in real-time ensemble work: overall texture. Ideally, each performer should be assessing the culmulative result of all the improvising, and adjusting their own contribution accordingly. Is there enough basic melody? Too much drone? Enough high, mid-range and low? Is it too bland, or over-complicated? Such monitoring and adjusting requires enough rehearsal time for a group to learn to work together, to communicate and negotiate not by discussing, but by singing/playing and listening.

 

Ms 638 Paris 1244-11254

 

The plethora of multi-track projects that have been created during the current health crisis make an interesting contribution to the study of rhythm in Historically Informed Performance. Suddenly, principles of steady Tactus and reliable rhythm have become practical, even essential. Even though we cannot work together in real time – perhaps, because of this – listening has become more important than watching a conductor. Paradoxically, we are also more aware of the emotional power of making music as a group, since we cannot actually meet.

At the original happenings of the medieval Play (for a liturgical action without audience, I shy away from the word ‘performance’), there would have been no modern conductor, also no renaissance/baroque tactus. The misura technique of early polyphony, where a singer on the slow moving tenor-part, standing at the back, taps on the shoulder of a fast-moving cantus-part singer in front of him, is also impractical during processions and dramatic action.

But in Conductus all the singers pronounce the words simultaneously, even if some improvise polyphony. [And by the way, as a practical point, instrumentalists have to find a way to play on the move, for all these processions around a cathedral-sized building.] Meanwhile, the beat is given by everyone’s feet, shuffling, walking, dancing or marching (according to character roles) in procession.

The other meaning of conduct (pronounced with the accent on the first syllable), as a noun signifying the way one behaves, is also present in the medieval French word conduis. In the context of processions, this recalls psalm verses about ‘walking with God… not in the way of the ungodly’. In the Miracles, Gautier de Coincy endlessly explores connections between similar-sounding words with different meanings, and multiple meanings of the same word, so that continual repetitions of a certain sound become a hypnotic mantra, leading the mind into a semantic maze of meditative suggestion. In Ludus Danielis, the way to behave, the way to walk, the way to ‘do conductus‘ in every sense, varies from one procession to another, as the monks embody Belshazzar’s courtiers, the Queen’s handmaidens, Daniel’s co-religionists, or an invading army.

For a HIP staged production, there is much work to be done in exploring the connections between character, movement, text and music for each procession; as well as in presenting the dramatic action of each scene, once the actors have reached ‘centre stage’.

 

Links

 

Full ensemble final mix with video

High voices

Low voices

Plucked strings

Bowed strings

Tutors

Giulia Amoretti x 7 with video

 

 

 

List of Participants

OPERA OMNIA TUTORS

Anastasia Bondareva [Russia]

Xavier Diaz-Latorre [Catalunya]

Ekaterina Liberova [Russia]

Tanya Skok [Slovenia]

Wolodymyr Smishkewych [Republic of Ireland]

Evgeny Skurat [Russia]

Andrew Lawrence-King – Director [Guernsey]

 

[*track = audio only, no video]

 

WOMEN’S VOICES

Giulia Amoretti – voice x 6, *voice [Russia]

Anastasia Bondareva – voice [Russia]

Lyubov Denisova – voice, *voice [Russia]

Olga Domagatskaya – *voice [Russia]

Alexandra Grebenyukova – voice, *voice [Russia]

Ekaterina Liberova – *voice [Russia]

Daniela Rico – *voice [Mexico]

 

MEN’S VOICES

Aleksandr Grebenyukov – voice [Russia]

Andrew Lawrence-King – *voice x 2 [Guernsey]

Timur Musaev – *voice [Russia]

Evgeny Skurat – voice [Russia]

Wolodymyr Smishkewych – “Daniel”, voice x 3 [Republic of Ireland]

 

BOWED STRINGS

Barbara Ceron – Harp x 3 [Mexico]

Alexandra Maglevanaya – Bass Viol x 2 [Russia]

Daria Maglevanaya – Medieval Fiddle x 3 [Russia]

Patricia Ann Neely – Medieval Fiddle [USA]

Wolodymyr Smishkewych – Sinfonye [Republic of Ireland]

Olga Zhukova – *Treble Viol [Russia]

 

PLUCKED STRINGS

Hannah Brockow – Irish harp, *Irish harp x 5 [Canada]

Barbara Ceron – Harp x 3 [Mexico]

Xavier Diaz-Latorre – Medieval lute [Catalunya]

Julia Grab – Rebec [Russia]

Atsuko Kunishige – *Medieval harp [Japan]

Andrew Lawrence-King – Harp, *Harp [Guernsey]

Ekaterina Pripuskova – Mandolin x 2 [Russia]

Evgeny Skurat – Medieval harp x 2 [Russia]

Boris Steinberg – Ud [Russia]

 

PERCUSSION

Xavier Diaz-Latorre – Tambourine [Catalunya]

Tarkviniy Gramsci – Darabuka [Russia]

Tanya Skok – Frame drum [Slovenia]

 

The OPERA OMNIA training production of Ludus Danielis for the International Baroque Opera Studio is planned for August-September 2020. At the time of writing, we still hope to be able to go ahead.

To beguile, or not to beguile: Purcell’s ‘Music for a while’

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Music for a while is one of Purcell’s best-known and most loved songs, published posthumously in Orpheus Britannicus, Book 2 (1702). Listen here.

The tortured chromaticism of the ground bass and dark references to Alecto, the Fury from Hell with snakes for hair and a whip in her hand. indicate that there is more here than just a pretty melody.  So it comes as no surprise to discover that the song was written for a revival in 1692 of Dryden & Lee’s 1679 Tragedy Oedipus, loosely based on Sophocles.

But what was the function of this music in the play? What is happening on stage ‘for a while’? And what happens next, when Music can no longer ‘beguile’? Whose ‘cares’ and ‘pains were eas’d’?  The clue is that Alecto should indeed ‘free the dead from their eternal bands’.

At the time of writing, the best secondary sources freely available online were a couple of GCSE commentaries, which fail to address these questions and mislead on the placement of the song within the play, as well as by hinting that Alecto might even be a character in the drama. She is not, but the mythological reference to her is utterly appropriate for the dramatic situation.

 

 

A dark Grove

Fortunately, a primary source is only a click away. The library of the University of Michigan has made the full play-script of Oedipus, including the song-text (divided amongst several singers), available free online.

Purcell’s Music was composed for Act III, set in a dark Grove.

 

 

Following an argument and sword-duel between Creon and Adrastus, Haemon sets the scene:

Nor Tree, nor Plant

Grows here, but what is fed with Magick Juice,

All full of humane Souls; that cleave their barks

To dance at Midnight by the Moons pale beams:

At least two hundred years these reverened Shades

Have known no blood, but of black Sheep and Oxen,

Shed by the Priests own hand to Proserpine.

 

The blind prophet Tiresias enters with a group of aged Priests, all clothed in black habits. In rites “full of horrour” Tiresias invokes the ghost of Lajus (Oedipus’ father) to declare who it was who murdered him. A trench is dug near Lajus’ grave and a black, barren heifer is sacrificed. Blood and milk are boiled together.

And now a sudden darkness covers all,

True genuine Night: Night added to the Groves;

The Fogs are blown full in the face of Heav’n.”

Tiresias calls for “such sounds as Hell ne’re heard / Since Orpheus brib’d the Shades” and the Priests’ first song evokes tormenting demons:

 

Taskers of the dead,

You that boiling Cauldrons blow,

You that scum the molten Lead.

You that pinch with Red-hot Tongs;

You that drive the trembling hosts

Of poor, poor Ghosts,

With your Sharpen’d Prongs;

Music for a While itself is addressed to the rising ghosts, who are then ordered to “Come away… obey, while we play”. Sure enough, in a flash of lightning, ‘Ghosts are seen passing betwixt the trees‘.

The Priests and Tiresias call on Lajus to “hear and obey”, and ‘The Ghost of Lajus rises arm’d in his Chariot, as he was slain. And behind his Chariot sit the three who were murdered with him.’ Lajus refers to his “pains” in hell  (recalling the line from the song, ‘wondering how your pains were eas’d”), and accuses Oedipus of parricide.

 

 

The Ghost descends, as Oedipus enters asking “tell me why My hair stands bristling up, why my flesh trembles.”

 

To beguile, or not to beguile

 

 

 

In this play and in this scene, there are many parallels to Shakespeare’s Hamlet (c1600). Dryden’s introduction make it clear that public taste insisted upon a Ghost and a Murder, and Oedipus was a great success.

In The Player’s Passion (1985) published by the same University of Michigan whose library makes Dryden’s play available online, Joseph Roach describes Shakespeare’s ‘most celebrated scene played by the greatest actor of his time, perhaps of all time’:

The name of Perkins, hair-dresser and wig-maker, enters into the history of the eighteenth-century stage on the strength of a technical contribution to David Garrick’s Hamlet… When other spectators marvelled that Hamlet’s hair actually seemed to stand on end as the ghost appeared, they testified to a fact. The ingenious Perkins had engineered a mechanical wig to simulate the precise physiognomy of mortal dread. On the line “Look, my lord, it comes”, the hairs of this remarkable appliance rose up obligingly at the actor’s command.

 

 

In Purcell’s semi-operas and incidental music for plays, incantation scenes are often the excuse for songs, and ‘priests’ with few or no spoken lines are brought on stage to do the singing. The first scene of King Arthur is a good example: “Woden, first to thee a milk-white steed in battle won, we have sacrificed“. And like the Ghost of Lajus, the Cold Genius similarly comes  “from below“, is made to “rise, unwillingly and slow’ in chromatic harmonies, and then allowed to “freeze again to death“.

 

The power of music to ‘beguile’ cares and ‘soothe the savage breast’ is part of the historical Science of the Four Humours. Music is Sanguine: the live-giving flow of warm blood, open-handed and generously offering love, courage and hope. Music frees us from the cold, dry grip of Melancholy cares and pains.

At least, for a while…

 

Listen here.

 

 

 

 

A la recherche du TEMPO perdu: principles and practice in Baroque music

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This article is the mid-term review from a course about Early Music on Modern Harp that I’m teaching for the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London. And as a general introduction, it could be relevant for any student of 18th-century music. Our case-studies are movements by J.S. Bach, Handel, C.P.E. Bach, Pescetti and Mozart.

The previous article in this series looked at online source materials and the significance of tempo as more than just ‘musical speed’. In baroque music, tempo is rather the emotional quality of music, produced by the act of beating Tactus for a particular note-value.

 

Principles

 

 

“Versuch über die wahre Art”

 

Historically Informed Performance is not a matter of personal interpretation. There is a true way, that we attempt to find. That way changes according to period and culture/language.

Before 1800, Art is not the ‘freedom of the artistic genius’, but rather a set of organising principles. Within those principles, there is space for individuals to make personal choices.

We know what is correct, not by imitating CDs or listening to modern-day Early Music gurus, but by finding a broad consensus amongst relevant historical sources.

 

Historically Informed?

Probably, an original source of the music will be accessible and legible. But compared to a modern edition, some information will be “missing”. We supply that information from historical treatises.

Yes, a 19th, 20th or 21st century edition will give more information, but how reliable is that information? Fortunately, we can check for ourselves: usually easily, free and online.

For example: circa 1750, we need an indication of speed. We reframe the question in terms of historical Tactus: “Which note-value goes with the beat in Allegro, and in Adagio?”. And – approximately – how fast is that beat?” The answers are in Quantz, whose ‘pulse’ is around 80 beats per minute. See Tactus, Tempo & Affekt.

“Time is the Soul of Music.”

We count with a Tactus pulse, around 60 (1630s) to 80 (1750s). But during this same period, the feeling was that music had become slower, with some up-tempo markings like 6/8 being played slower, and with more feeling (Empfindsamkeit), according to Mattheson. Quantz gives new information about which note-value goes with the pulse, according to the tempo-words.

The physical feeliing of beating Tactus is linked to the emotional feeling of the quality of the music: if you haven’t studied your music whilst beating Tactus, you have missed a vital insight into its emotional quality.

Read Time: the Soul of Music

The Practice of Tactus 

 

 

Fingering ~ Language

Bowing (for violins, viols etc), tonguing (flutes, oboes etc) and fingering (keyboards, harp, lute etc) mimick Good/Bad syllables, or (later) the joining/separating of syllables into sense groups, say 2-5 notes at a time (perhaps even a few more, if there is continuous fast stepwise movement, i.e. a scale). We could call this the ‘mini-phrase’.

 

Polyphony

Harmony is the result of weaving together the strands of individual polyphonic ‘voices’. In how many ‘voices’ is your piece written? How strictly is this maintained?

 

Practice

 

From a post-modern perspective we can see that whereas mainstream performance looks for consistency and evenness, baroque music is all about contrast. That contrast can be on the short-term level, note-by-note. It’s all held together by stable rhythm at the Tactus level. Inside the regular Tactus, there can be (carefully organised) irregularity in shorter note-values.

 

Good & Bad

 

Good & Bad syllables in the language are set to Good/Bad notes in music, and played with Good/Bad fingers (bowing or tonguing). See Good, Bad & the Early Music Phrase.

We can use Quantz’s flute-tonguing syllables, e.g. didll-di,  to sing the phrases of the piece we are studying. This helps us use our subconscious awareness of language rules to decide questions of fingering.

 

Integrate

We have to integrate each element of contrast with the steady beat of the Tactus.

  1. Find the Tactus/note-value connection for the movement at hand.
  2. Take a few notes and consider Good/Bad (also known as Long/Short)
  3. Play Good/Bad with Tactus

 

The ‘mini-phrase’

In later music, there is the idea of moto perpetuo – remember The Flight of the Bumble Bee? And frequently, mainstream performance looks for the longest possible phrase without breathing in-between.

For Early Music, it’s better to think the opposite way. What is the shortest possible sense-group? This is the ‘mini-phrase’, or in HIP-speak Figure. Try singing, but NOT with da da da. Use Frank Sinatra dooby-doo, or Quantz diddle-dee, so that you apply Good/Bad syllables: not every note the same!.

You may find that notes written in equal note-values become quite dissimilar, in order to stay with the Tactus. In order to maintain the Tactus, the last note needs to be short and light.

Once a pattern is established in the first mini-phrase, preserve that pattern. If something happens to change the pattern, change and try to preserve the new pattern.

 

Mini-phrases in JS Bach “Prelude”

 

Miniphrases in Handel “Concerto”

 

Miniphrases are notated in CPE Bach “Sonata”, and implied (red slur) by instructions for performing ornaments in his “Versuch”.

 

Join/Separate

Notes that move by step tend to be more legato, perhaps joined within the mini-phrase. Notes that jump tend to be more staccato, perhaps indicating the separation between one mini-phrase and the next.

The break or breath between phrases is often ‘after the 1’.

Late 18th-centuring bowing, tonguing and (harp or keyboard) fingering often joins together the notes of a mini-phrase.

Miniphrases, staccato & legato, repeating pattern A & contrast B, in Pescetti “Sonata VI”

 

Breaks & Breaths

The mini-phrase might be very short, so that you don’t necessarily breathe at every break. Imagine yourself speaking, powerfully and slowly, to a large audience in a grand hall with a big acoustic:

“You would… break up…. the words… into short…. sense-groups.  [BREATH]  But you might not…. actually breathe…. at every break.”

For the piece of music at hand, test your ideas about where to breathe, by singing with Good/Bad syllables, Tactus, and real breaths (actually taking in oxygen). You will probably find it’s too much to breathe at every mini-phrase. Experiment… Keep the Tactus! Perhaps 2 or 3 mini-phrases go to a breath.

Remember the goal is contrast, not homogeneity. So we can allow a pattern to develop where there is a consistent irregularity of note-lengths within each mini-phrase, repeated from one mini-phrase to the next for as long as the pattern persists, with breaths every 2 or 3 mini-phrases… and all unified by steady Tactus.

 

Breath /, every 2 miniphrases in JSB

 

Breath / every 4 miniphrases A, then every 2 A, then change of pattern B; legato & staccato in GFH

 

Miniphrases, breaths /, and  patterning A, in CPE

 

Breaths /, in Pescetti

 

Dissonance

Just as we learned in Harmony 1.01, there are three elements: Preparation, Dissonance, Resolution. We need to perform these three elements: understand them, feel them, communicate them.

Preparation: we bring our attention, and we alert the audience, to a certain note, to one particular polyphonic voice.

Dissonance: ouch! Another voice collides with the prepared note, creating a dissonance.

What is the emotional flavour of this particular clash? How intense is it? Sometimes ‘it hurts so good’…

Resolution: relax…. The pain is eased.

Chained dissonances: Sometimes the resolution produces another dissonance. How are the two emotional flavours different? Which is more intense?

 

Quantz categorises dissonances

 

Quantz shows the intensity of dissonances

 

Read Evan Jones’ article on Quantz’ dissonances.

Read David Ledbetter’s article on Quantz’s Adagio.

  1. Play through Quantz’s example.
  2. Find, and taste the dissonances in your piece.

 

Quiz

Here (below) is an unreliable edition of perhaps Mozart’s best-known Piano Sonata. It’s good harp-repertoire too.

 

  1. What is the date of composition?
  2. And of the first edition?
  3. What is the earliest edition available on IMSLP?
  4. What is the best edition available on IMSP?
  5. Why is the autograph MS not on IMSLP?
  6. What is the exact marking for the tempo of the first movement, in Mozart’s own handwriting?
  7. What is the time signature in the first edition?
  8. What is Quantz’s pulse-tempo recipe for this?

Bonus Question

9. How much mis-information can you find in the bad edition above?

All answers are available free online with just couple of clicks. No advanced research techniques are needed for questions 1-7.

Hint for Q1,2

Hint for Q5, 6, 7

Hint for Q8

 

“Deep Thought” from Bulwer’s (1644) gesture-book

 

 

 

 

Tactus, Tempo & Affekt: Historical Principles & Online Resources

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Baroque Tempo is a huge subject, bringing together three of the key concepts of Baroque music: the interplay between the notation and performance of rhythm (Tactus as it relates to note-values, and as it is shown by the hand); the speed of that beat and of the music it regulates; the emotional quality of the beat itself (as a physical movement) and of the music that it produces. Even within a narrowly defined period and culture – German music from the time of Johann Sebastian Bach, for example – a thorough survey would be way beyond the scope of a doctoral thesis. And as soon as we shift even to the following generation – CPE Bach and Quantz – there are significant changes to practices and aesthetics. So a 1-hour class and this short summary can only hope to scratch the surface.

The challenge is not that we lack sufficient historical information, nor that such questions are unanswerable. Rather, we have so much information that it is daunting to start working through it all. And – even amongst some Early Music performers – there is some reluctance to accept certain hard truths: the period dialectic is of the true way, and not of personal interpretations and free choices. Within a given period and culture, there are some minor differences of opinion between different writers, but the consensus on fundamentals is clear. There is a Wahre Art (true way) and we have to make our best attempt (Versuch) to find it!

 

In the 18th century, the (physical & emotional) feeling of Tempo is not just a matter of speed (mathematical quantity) but of character (emotional quality). So we need to avoid a simplistic focus on “what is the right speed” and examine original notation, historical practices of beating time, and the subtle relationship between Tempo and Affekt.

 

Before 1750

 

Early 18th-century notation is intended to indicate which note-value corresponds to the Tactus beat. That beat varies only a little in absolute speed (around one beat per second), but the emotional quality of the beat (as physical movement of the hand) and of the music that is produced, varies greatly. Notation gives detailed information: JS Bach’s D minor Prelude (from Book 1 of Das Wohltemperierte Klavier) is notated in C, with triplet semiquavers: had it been notated with the same note-values, but with a time-signature of 24/16, a different beat-tempo would be implied. If he had added a tempo word, such as Allegro, this would modify the beat-tempo-Affekt from the default setting indicated by the notation. This is the concept of Tempo Ordinario (also known as Tempo Giusto): a default beat and beat-speed indicated by the notation, which can be modified by words.

We must therefore be careful to check what the original note-values, time signature and tempo words are, so that we are not misled by well-intentioned editorial interventions.

This practice is explained, with more detail than most of us can manage, in Mattheson’s Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre (1719) & Der vollkommene Kapellmeister (1739)  and Walther’s Lexicon (1741). But nobody is expected to memorise the complete writings of these authors: these are reference-books. It doesn’t take long to look up 24/16 and read how it is different from C.

 

 

 

The underlying principle is that Compound time-signatures suggest a slower tempo with a “hop” on the last of three short notes; whereas Duple time-signatures suggest a faster tempo, with less (or no) “hop”.

The most important lesson of all is that we don’t need to invent answers: clear answers are available, if we know where to look for them.

 

After 1750

In 1752, Quantz gives details of an emerging practice, in which such tempo-words as allegro or adagio indicate which note-value has the “pulse”, adjusting (but not abandoning) the previous system based on time-signatures. The Adagio un poco of CPE Bach’s Sonata for harp might be counted in steady quavers, with a “slightly relaxed” feel to the quaver-beat, rather than in three very drawn-out crotchets.

Quantz defines his pulse as approximately 80 beats per minute (whereas a century previously, Mersenne’s default was 60 beats per minute).

 

 

Again, we don’t have to make guesses, or memorise an entire book. We can look up specific instructions for the particular notations at hand.

Online Resources – Scores

A mighty modern resource for answering questions about baroque music lies in the easily-accessible power of free online music-libraries, in particular IMSLP. There is no longer any excuse for using some crappy mid-20th-century edition, when original prints and holographs (manuscript in the composer’s own hand) are available free. Faster, cheaper, better! IMSLP is expanding so fast, that its own index struggles to keep pace: the most effective way to search is using Google. As an example, a Google search on “Bach 48 IMSLP” led me instantly to the Book 1 holograph, with the Prelude in question.

Harpists (and guitarists) are very attached to their old-fashioned editions, but the time has come to realise that most of what many editors have added is unhelpful or misleading, if not simply wrong. Cluttered scores (with zillions of additional pencil-markings prompted by teachers) lead to a micro-controlling mindset, which is very different from the two-point focus of baroque practice: Tactus and Text. [In instrumental music, we play in Tactus and as if we were singing some Text, with syllables, sense-groups, and meaning]

 

Some years ago, I stopped accepting the Grandjany arrangement as the basis for a lesson on Handel’s Harp Concerto. It’s a wonderful arrangement, and should still be played, with all the accoutrements of 1940s style. But as a lens through which to study Handel, it has so much of its own character that it utterly distorts the long view. The original Walsh print of the Handel Concerto is free online at TheHarpConsort.com:  Study Early Harps, easy to read, clear and uncluttered. Mozart’s (1778) holograph of the Flute & Harp Concerto is free online at IMSLP, easy to read, clear and uncluttered.  The holograph of CPE Bach’s Sonata is also clear to read, and the library holding it has recently made it available online.

 

 

For any other piece, you should check IMSLP for the best available free edition, before you turn up for a lesson with some crappy edition.

 

Crappy, clunky, expensive or free?

 

How do you know if the edition you are using is crappy? “Arranged for harp” is already a warning sign, and the death-sentence is confirmed by anachronistic  editorial additions [metronome marks; implausible tempo markings; long phrase-lines; such romantic favourites as legato, sostenuto, cantabile etc; other anachronisms e.g. mention of ‘pianoforte’ in a work by JSB] unless acknowleged [by being placed inside brackets].

Good old 19th-century complete editions are often available on IMSLP. These are clunky, but better than crappy mid-20th century arrangements. Recent ­Ur-text editions reflect the latest scholarship, but only if you take the trouble to read the prefaces, and they are so expensive that they mostly languish in institutional libraries. Original prints and manuscripts are not hard to read: in this period the only significant hurdle might be an unfamiliar clef. And on IMSLP, they are free and faster to access than that crappy edition we had to make do with 50 years ago.

Let this be your motto:

“I Must Search [the free, online] Library before Playing [from some crappy edition]”

Online Resources – Treatises

 

Of course, there are many questions to be answered, when one starts from an original source. But those questions are not answered (or worse still, they are answered wrong) if you start from a crappy edition. So…. it’s time to give up that crappy habit! From now on, I’m going to encourage all my students to look up their piece on IMSLP, before they come to a lesson or class.

I recommend EarlyMusicSources.com as a huge resource of free online historical treatises and expert modern commentary (including entertaining videos on hot issues in Historically Informed Perforamnce). The famous mid-18th-century treatises are all freely available online.

 

Links to Mattheson and Walther (first half of the 18th-century) are above. Click from this article, or just Google.

Yeah, the books are long and in foreign languages. So use the index of chapters and Google Translate.  And maybe there is an English translation online, or a text-only version [i.e. searchable with Ctrl-F] from Project Gutenberg or wherever. Several key sources are translated on this blog, and every article here includes links to free-online original sources.

 

And of course, ask for help from your teacher, but after you have tried for yourself, and reached some road-block…

“Historically Informed” does not mean imitating CDs or gleaning guesses from geeky gurus. It means using Historical Information, and that information is freely available. Just Google a historical treatise or an original manuscript!

Rhetorical contrasts in Crisis: charm, communicate, console?

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This article, published in shorter form as the introduction to a concert streamed online, discusses the current relevance of Baroque affetti [emotions] and the Rhetorical aims of delectare, docere, movere [to delight, to teach, to move the Passions]. 

Concert listings, song texts & translations

Online Concert

The link to the concert may become temporarily unavailable, whilst the recording goes through post-production. And new concerts in the series may appear at the top of the broadcaster’s list. I hope to provide a permanent, direct link, soon.

Scherzi Musicali

Italian Baroque Music: Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Corbetta, Handel

“That smile heals me…”

Monteverdi’s musical fun – scherzi musicali – and beautiful arias – ariose vaghezze – are offered to the public in music-books printed by Bartholomeo Magni in Venice almost four hundred years ago. These are not madrigals requiring an ensemble of singers, but solo songs with basso continuo accompaniment which could be realised on any instrument: harpsichord, lute, guitar, baroque harp. Composed during the time of the very first ‘operas’, these minatures appeal to the emotions as theatrical fragments, instantly recognisable dramatic scenes.

 

 

Affetti


But that emotionality is subtly different from the Romantic ideal of an artistic genius, expressing with ever-greater intensity a sublime feeling, that will impress and even overwhelm his audience. Rather, Baroque music contrasts ever-changing emotions and seeks to move your passions, as La Musica proclaims in Monteverdi’s Orfeo:


Accompanied by the golden harp, my singing
can always charm mortal ears for a while.
And in this way, with the sonorous harmony
Of the lyre of the cosmos, I can even move your souls.

Read more: The Philosophy of La Musica

Read more: contrasts of affetti in the ‘first opera’


The ‘lyre of the cosmos’ represents the mysterious power of music. In metaphors of Cupid’s love-arrows and stormy seas of passion, we see poetic images as depicting real emotions. And no doubt, listeners can find in these verses from Shakespeare’s time words that still speak to us today: sanatemi col riso…

Heal me with a smile…

The renaissance Science of emotions models the Senses (in this case, eyes and ears) taking in the energia (energetic spirit) of a performance (delivered by Rhetorical actio) and the coordinated affetti of music and text (delivered by Rhetorical pronuntiatio), to create ever-changing Visions in the mind. These Visions send energia down into the body, producing the physiological changes associated with changing pyschological emotion. Mind, Body and Spirit exchange energia, so that thoughts, (spiritual) emotions and (physical) feelings are interconnected – ideally, in Harmony.

 

 

Rhetoric: structure & contrasts…

For Monteverdi, an aria is not just a nice tune, it is a repeating structure of poetry, rhythm and harmony, on which words and music make elegant rhetorical variations. The dramatic situation is understood: the poet is in love, the beloved is ‘cruel’; the poet is wounded by the arrows of love, but the beloved’s smile can turn his prison into paradise. The rhetorical appeal is to the mind and the heart, as well as to the ears. The emotional power is embedded in contrasts: in Tempro la cetra the poet tunes his lyre to sing of War, but it only resounds with Love.

Tempro la cetra, e per cantar gli onori
di Marte alzo talor lo stil e i carmi.
Ma invan la tento e impossibil parmi
ch’ella già mai risoni altro ch’amore.

Così pur tra l’arene e pur tra’ fiori
note amorose Amor torna a dettarmi,
né vuol ch’io prend’ ancora a cantar d’armi,
se non di quelle, ond’egli impiaga i cori.

Or l’umil plettro e i rozzi accenti indegni,
musa, qual dianzi, accorda, in fin ch’al canto
de la tromba sublime il Ciel ti degni.

Riedi a i teneri scherzi, e dolce intanto
lo Dio guerrier, temprando i feri sdegni,
in grembo a Citerea dorma al tuo canto.

I tune the lyre, and to sing the honour
Of Mars, now I raise my style and my song.
But in vain I try, and it seems impossible
That it will ever resound except with love.

Thus in the arena itself and just amongst flowers
Amorous notes Love returns to dictate to me.
And does not want me to start to sing of arms again,
Unless of those, with which Cupid wounds hearts.

Now, the humble plectrum and the unworthy, broken accents
Muse, as before, tune them, so that to the song
Of the sublime trumpet Heaven honours you.

Come back to tender games, and sweetly for a while
The warrior God, tempering his fierce anger,
In the lap of Venus will be lulled to sleep by your song.

 

 

Contrasts of affetti were categorised by the renaissance concept of the Four Humours: Sanguine (love, courage, hope), Choleric (anger, desire), Melancholy (careful thought), Phlegmatic (unemotional). Throughout this poem, Sanguine love is contrasted with Choleric war. Ideally one’s humours would be balanced, tempered. Poetic and musical composition are usually characterised as works of the careful (and care-full) concentrated inward thought processes of Melancholy, whereas performance, directed outward, is often Sanguine. In this poem the Melancholy art conceals itself – ars celare artem – and in the lap of Sanguine Venus, Choleric Mars surrends to the power of music and is lost in Phlegmatic sleep.

This piece, and renaissance Philosophy in general, links period medical science (the Four Humours) with metaphysics (the Music of the Spheres), and to the artistic principle of contrasting affetti. The Science of the Music of the Spheres (musica mondana) connected that perfect movement of the heavens with the harmonious nature of the human being (musica humana) , and with actual music (musica instrumentalis) played or sung. The contrasts of the third stanza are of Earth and Heaven: the humble, unworthy accents of musica instrumentalis will finally find accord with the sublime song of the Last Trumpet – musica mondana.

Supported by this philosophy, classical mythology is made to work as a metaphor for Christian doctrine. The implication is that the poet/singer himself will also be redeemed, as his own nature (musica humana) ‘resounds’ to the music of the Spheres. 
  

 

…for mind (docere)

Ohimè, ch’io cado begins with a firmly constructed ‘walking bass’, but the singer crashes in with a downward plunge: the poet has fallen head-over-heels in love, just when everything seemed to be safe. Images and emotions are presented in clever contrasts: ‘the withered flower of fallen hope’ and ‘the water of fresh tears’; the ‘would-be warrior’ is ‘now a coward’ who cannot withstand ‘the gentle impact of a single glance’. The poet’s attempt at Choleric sdegno (anger) is easily diverted to a Sanguine love-paradise.

 

 

… heart (movere)

Over a descending bass-line, Si dolce ‘l tormento juxtaposes contrasts even more closely, to sway the listener’s emotions line by line: sweet torment, happy, cruel, beauty, ferocity, mercy, a wave-swept rock – all this in the first strophe alone!  As the momentary affetti swirl around, the minor mode, tender dissonances and descending bass communicate a pervasive sense of Melancholy.

 

 

…and ears (delectare)

That glance from the lover’s eyes – Quel sguardo sdegnosetto – is no real threat: we might paraphrase the first line as “You’re so cute when you’re angry!” And the bass-line variations on the ciacona dance reveals that the lovers are fooling around, playing risqué party-games: “When I die, your lips will quickly revive me”.

In this song, contrasts of affetti are perhaps less cerebral, less melancholic, but rather charming and delightful, and the pervasive mood is Sanguine. There is little doubt that the poet is confident that his hopes of love will be enjoyed!

 

 

Come Hell or High Water

 

Fury in the Fifth Circle of Dante’s Inferno

 

Baroque contrasts can be extreme: In the Ballo delle Ingrate women emerge from the ‘wild, hot prison’ of Hell, to take a brief respite in the ‘serene, pure air’ of the upper world.

The furore of divine anger provides an excuse for Vivaldi’s favourite seasonal storms, tempered by the calm of clemency, but returning with the delicious inevitability and ornamental surprises of the Da Capo Aria. A Recitative makes it personal: “Spare me, sad and languishing”. The central Aria, with its contrasts of fletus… laetus (weeping… happy), corresponds to the slow movement of a violin concerto, with an Alleluia as the virtuosic finale.

 


The instrumental compositions that follow are variations on descending bass-lines. The fun of Corbetta’s Caprice, played on a modern copy of the Stradivarius Harp (1681, the year of Corbetta’s death) more about Rainer Thurau’s Strad Harp here, lies in its contrast of the gentle nobility of the French chaconne with the more energetic celebrations of an Italian ciacona.

 

Handel’s Organ, Whitchurch; Bushey Museum and Art Gallery;

 

Handel’s Andante, with its variations on a walking-bass, was published posthumously as an Organ Concerto. A Baroque listener described how the composer would improvise an introduction to the concerto, with a polyphonic fantasia “which stole on the ear in a slow and solemn progression.”

A fine and delicate touch, a volant finger, and a ready delivery of passages the most difficult, are the praise of inferior artists: they were not noticed in Handel, whose excellencies were of a far superior kind; and his amazing command of the instrument, the fullness of his harmony, the grandeur and dignity of his style, the copiousness of his imagination, and the fertility of his invention were qualities that absorbed every inferior attainment.

When he gave a concerto, his method in general was to introduce it with a voluntary movement on the diapasons, which stole on the ear in a slow and solemn progression; the harmony close wrought, and as full as could possibly be expressed; the passage   s concatenated with stupendous art, the whole at the same time being perfectly intelligible, and carrying the appearance of great simplicity. This kind of prelude was succeeded by the concerto itself, which he executed with a degree of spirit and firmness that no one ever pretended to equal.

Sir John Hawkins General History of the Science and Practice of Music (1776)

 

Iconographical coding characterises Handel as composer (pen and scores), performer (keyboard) and – unmistakeably – as Melancholy (head leaning on left hand).



Handel’s Messiah and that glorious Aria of Sanguine hope, Rejoice greatly, need no introduction. But in Jennens’ carefully chosen biblical excerpts the characters of the Daughter of Sion and the Heathen are also coded symbols for the politics of the Hannoverian monarchy, of another King who “cometh unto thee”. So whether or not we can identify with the rejoicing daughter, the Messiah offers Peace for those who believe differently.

 

18th-century London

 

Rhetorical Structure: architecture & building blocks

 

From Monteverdi’s and Vivaldi’s Venice to Handel’s London, the grand architecture of Baroque music adopted a variety of fashions. But the building blocks remained similar: the sighing slurs of Vivaldi’s calms also create Handel’s peace; bass-lines still walk steadily; a jump in the melodic line always makes the heart leap, whether falling in love with Monteverdi, or rising to rejoice with Handel. And the ancient power of Music’s rhetoric still charms the ears, communicates between minds, and consoles your hearts.

 

17th-century Venice

Welcome to Spanish Baroque Opera

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We have a tradition in our theatre…

 

 

For the last four years, Celos, aun del aire, matan the earliest surviving Spanish Baroque Opera has been running in repertoire at Moscow State Theatre Natalya Sats, with performances each month during the winter season. The performers are the soloists, chorus and orchestra of the Theatre, supported by members of Opera Omnia, the research, training and performance Academy for Baroque Opera and Dance. More about OPERA OMNIA here.

On the eve of the online broadcast – Friday 3rd April 2020, 19.00 Moscow time (5pm UK time: there is no summer time in Russia) on http://www.cultura.com and  direct link to the opera broadcast here – this post is a slightly expanded version of the introduction I have given to live audiences at each show. 

In most theatres, if someone walks on stage to speak before the show starts, it usually means bad news: a singer is indisposed, or whatever. But as a theatre for young people, we always welcome our audience with an informal greeting.

 

 

Introduction


We have a tradition in our theatre to say a few words before the show begins. And so tonight it’s my pleasure to welcome you, on behalf of our Director Georgy Isaakyan, to Theatre Sats and to this performance of Celos, aun del aire matan (1660) translated into Russian by Katerina Antonenko as любовь убивает – Love Kills! 

When we think of Baroque opera, we might first think of Handel and Vivaldi, but ‘opera’ began in Italy a hundred years earlier, and Monteverdi’s (1607) Orfeo and the very first opera, Cavalieri’s Anima & Corpo (1600) both run in regular repertoire in our Theatre – you will be very welcome at those shows too! 

Tonight’s performance is different again – the earliest surviving Spanish Opera.

 

 

Drama

 

Calderón’s verse-drama draws on the strengths of Spanish spoken theatre, with a fast-changing combination of exquisite poetry, complex plot, powerful emotions and hilarious comedy. As in a Shakespeare play, romantic and tragic scenes are parodied by the antics of the comic characters. who also interact with the principal protagonists. Calderón weaves together two mythological stories, which his audience would already have known: the spectators’ pleasure came from appreciating how cleverly, beautifully, passionately and entertainingly those familiar stories were unexpectedly brought together.

 

Diana



The plot is dominated by the powerful figure of Diana, goddess of hunting and of chastity. One of her nymphs, Aura, has broken the rules by falling in love with Eróstrato.

 

Erostrato & Chorus of Villagers

 

His mythological destiny is to burn down the temple of  Diana and – as a punishment – to have his name forgotten forever.

Nymphs of Diana



In the opening scene, another nymph, Pocris presents Aura to be judged and punished. 

Céfalo

 

The hero of the opera is Céfalo, who arrives in the nick of time to rescue the damsel in distress. His servant, Clarín, is the anti-hero: he would rather flirt with a pretty girl than assist in any rescues. 

 

Floreta (Pocris) Clarín



Diana wants to know who left the garden gate open, allowing Aura and Eróstrato to meet. She cross-examines her maid-servant, Floreta, who lets slip that it was her husband, the gardiner Rustico‘s fault. In revenge [and revenge becomes a theme in this drama], Diana transforms Rustico into various different animals.

 

Rustico



Aura escapes by being magically transformed into an airy spirit. And her revenge on Pocris is to make her fall in love (against Diana’s rules) with Céfalo. But Céfalo’s mythicological destiny is that he will kill his own wife.

Halfway through Act I, and again in Act II, Calderón helps and entertains his audience, by having a comic character – first Rustico, then Clarín – re-tell the story so far, each in their own comically-warped version. The interval in our show comes before Act III.

 

Diana with the green moon-stone

 

In that final Act, Diana takes three revenges for the burning down of her temple, despatching three Furies to destroy Eróstrato (who loses his humanity and runs like a hunted beast), Pocris (who loses her trust in Céfalo) and Céfalo (whose spear, stolen from Diana, kills Pocris).

 

Furies

 

But at the darkest moment, Aura reappears to avert Tragedy… And meanwhile, just as Rustico has come to understand that he is an animal, he regains human form, to his, Clarín’s and Floreta’s utter confusion, and for the audience’s gleeful delight!

 

Floreta



Watch out for the motto-refrains that punctuate the action and colour each scene – these were ‘take-home messages’ for the 1660 audience. These are just some of them:

Ah, alas for the girl who makes it true that someone dies of love!

The aura of love softly inspires… 

Hate does not erase love.

If the air causes jealousy, jealousy – even of the air – kills!

 

Aura


Music

 

Hidalgo’s music is also characteristically Spanish, with strophic songs and syncopated dance-rhythms. The most important instruments are the continuo section of harps, percussion, organ, regal and baroque guitars. The guitar ensemble of different sizes and pitches  – soprano, alto, tenor, bass – is the essential element of Spanish Baroque theatrical music, and the smallest and largest guitars (tuned an octave apart, in D) were specially built for this production at Theatre Sats. The Spanish Baroque harps are by master luthier Rainer Thurau.

The Theatre orchestra brings together modern strings, woodwind and trumpets with a consort of baroque sackbuts. 

Hidalgo’s score calls for two choruses, who represent the Nymphs of Diana and the local Villagers, respectively. 

 

 

Downloads


You can download the original Spanish text (in the version performed in our production) and an English translation. A detailed synopsis of the plot, in English is here. The Theatre’s English language information page is here.

I wish you all a very enjoyable, and very Spanish, Baroque evening!