At 1:55 PM -0500 2/17/06, Kim Patrick Clow wrote:
I have the Harmonia Mundi CD entitled "Ouverture" featuring a lot of
music from the Hamburg opera during the Baroque. I love the
recording and the use of a lot of percussion instruments adds a
level of vitality to the performances.
Which raises a question in my mind, how authentic is improvised
percussion to Baroque music?
Probably not authentic at all. I can't recall seeing any iconography
that included percussion instruments. Opera is a different can of
worms, of course, since percussion might have come under "special
effects," but I can't imagine even an opera composer leaving it up to
a player to improvise.
Praetorius lists many percussion instruments; and we know they were
used in all types of music of his period.
Actually we know nothing of the kind. Once again, the iconography
does not, in general, support your statement. And "all types"
certainly includes sacred music, which I really can't picture with
improvised percussion.
Why would such instruments have been dropped during the Baroque
period, especially when so much of the music of that period was
based on the dance (where such additions would have been allowed).
Again, you are taking a 20th century viewpoint and arguing from 20th
century assumptions. Iconography from the Burgundian court
(14th-15th centuries) show a typical dance band consisting of two
shawms improvising over a cantus firmus played by a slide trumpet.
No percussion. In fact the only percussion shown is the tabor drum
of the pipe & tabor player. If the painters of the time didn't show
percussion, how can assume it was used.
And of course there's no real indication that minuets, allemands,
corentes and gigues would have "allowed" the addition of percussion.
Again, the iconography simply doesn't show it.
That said, however, I have felt free to add percussion to very
selected medieval or renaissance music for which I felt it
appropriate, but not in general and not all the time and not always
in dance music.
Would a tambourine in a Bach Orchestral Suite be that much of a
musical faux paux?
Yes. But you go right ahead if you're the conductor and it's your band!
John
--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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