On 4 Sep 2005 at 16:28, John Howell wrote: > At 2:19 PM -0400 9/4/05, David W. Fenton wrote: > > >But I don't play Bach -- for one, he wrote not a whole lot of music > >for gamba, and what he did write is *very* hard (I am reluctantly > >concluding that Bach didn't know the gamba very well, because the > >gamba sonatas really aren't like other advanced gamba music, > >especially the French, in that they aren't terribly idiomatic, > >requiring extreme high positions on more than the top string, as well > >as having bowings that are different (and non-graceful) from any > >other gamba repertory I've seen). > > Perhaps not entirely fair to Bach (who did own a > gamba according to the inventory taken at his > death, if I remember correctly), although I admit > that I've never worked up the sonatas. What > you're saying is that Bach did not write music > like the French composers of his time, . . .
They were the ones pushing the envelope on viol technique. > . . . which is > quite correct and not at all surprising! Chances > are fairly good that he wrote the sonatas for his > friend, Abel, at Köthen, and it's probably more > likely than not that it was Abel who acquainted > Sebastian with the new developments at the French > court, including the adoption of the 7-string > bass, and may even have been invited to Leipzig > to play the first performances of the St. Matthew > Passion. (All this is speculation on my part, of > course, but at least informed speculation.) . . . Well, it's interesting you should mention Abel, as Bach's gamba sonatas are not much like Abel's music either, from a technical point of view. > Certainly the obbligato in No. 58 of the St. John > Passion is not un-idiomatic, and the fact that it > calls for notes above the frets on at least the > top two strings seems rather irrelevant. . . . That's not what I was criticizing. It's quite common for many repertories to use the position with the first finger on the top fret on both of the top two strings, but Bach's arpeggiation in the gamba sonatas requires that position on the E string, as well as the positions a half step above that on both D and E string as well as a whole step above the top fret on the A string. These are *very* uncommon positions in any repertory I know of, including the French gamba virtuosos, but also including Abel, Buxtehude (who wrote some pretty difficult solo gamba parts) and Telemann. It's the figuration that doesn't fit, except by using positions that are uncommon. > . . . I've > never played the part in Actus Tragicus, so I > can't comment on that. And the two gamba parts > in Brandenburg 6 are certainly not virtuoso > parts, with the 2nd part very likely written for > the Prince. As to bowings, do we know for sure > what Bach's bowings were? Is there an autograph? > I really can't remember. I can't remember the source situation, to be honest. I loaned my Dreyfus score to a friend, so can't check his voluminous preface on this subject. > Oh, and I agree completely that gut strings are > much more important than pitch level for getting > the silvery sound on violins that is so lovely. I was most struck by your choice of pointing out that the sound was much more relaxed at 415, a result that I think comes more from the gut strings and Baroque bows than from the lower pitch. > >But that's precisely why 415 is nonsense -- it offers a single > >solution to a problem that requires multiple pitches. As I said, it's > >a pragmatic compromise, just like equal temperament. But it has no > >historical authority as *the* pitch for playing early music (i.e., > >music before c. 1840). > > And I doubt that anyone would claim such > authority! Of course it's a compromise, just as > the various temperaments including ET are, just > as the average harpsichordist can't have a > different instrument for each repertoire, just as > standardizing recorders and other woodwinds as > being in C and F, just as many things are > compromised for practical reasons. And one of > the most practical is that we don't sit in one > place and play music with one set of people using > one tuning and one pitch and one temperament. > Modern musicians are portable, and require > instruments that can be used equally well in > different locations for music from different > countries and centuries, so compromises are > inevitable and necessary. But just because they > are compromises doesn't make them fraudulent! But A415 *is* fraudulent -- it was chosen for being 1/2 step below A440, so that you could have transposing sliding keyboards, not because any historical pitch was at that level (it was close, but not exactly 415). > One of the most pitch-dependent instruments is > the 18th century oboe. Oboes at 415 sound > baroque. Oboes at 440 don't. . . . Oboes at 435 sound different. Oboes at 420 sound Baroque. I'm not arguing that a lower pitch is not appropriate, only that the particular choice of 415 has no historical basis. > . . . But all that > really means is that we have LEARNED to think of > the tone quality of oboes at 415 as being > "baroque," even though we know perfectly well > that there was no standard pitch. I wonder > whether Bach's tiefe Kammerton wasn't closer to > 415 than to 440. "Closer to" is not the point -- the point is that 415 as the choice for the lower pitch is not justified by historical evidence but by modern practicality because A440 is the standard pitch and using a lower pitch 1/2 step lower was an easy solution. > I don't know whether you're familiar with the > Harnoncourt series of recordings of Bach's > cantatas and oratorios, but the boys who recorded > the first album (the St. John Passion, and I > can't remember whether it was the Kings College > boys or the Wiener Knabenchor) sang consistently > sharp on the opening chorus, as if they had not > adjusted to 415 yet, or perhaps had not even > rehearsed at 415. Muscle memory is pretty > powerful! Plenty of people have the kind of perfect pitch that makes performing at low pitch difficult. I feel fortunate to not be burdened with such a "gift." My argument about this is not that we should use only A440, but that the choice of 415 was entirely pragmatic and modern in its derivation. Yes, it's close to the low pitch used in certain locations at certain times, but it's also quite far away from the lower pitch used in any number of other places (it's also higher than the pitch in some places). I'm not really arguing that we should play at as many different pitches as the repertory we are performing justifies historically, because I recognize the horrendous practical difficulties of attempting that (even when using only instruments that can easily be repitched, such as strings and keyboards, in contrast to woodwinds, which usually can't be repitched at all). It's the same reason many of us play in equal temperament, because practical difficulties make using historical temperaments significantly more work. I recognize all of that. But there was an implicit assumption in your post that introduced the issue of A415 that the groups I work with would naturally, as a matter of course, be using A415 (at least, some of the time), and that demonstrates that A415 *does* have exactly the kind of spurious "authority" that I'm alleging, and arguing against. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
