On 17 Jan 2007 at 8:33, Johannes Gebauer wrote: > On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote: > > While I certainly Bach's music enjoyable and convincing when > > performed one on a part, I *don't* find Rifkin's argument convincing > > that this was Bach's intention (and his only intention). As someone > > who's been involved in a lot of church music, I know that you really > > perform with what's available that week, and single copies of vocal > > parts could easily have been sung from by two singers. Had Bach had > > the singers avaiable, I expect he would have prepared additional > > parts. > > That's two things. > > First: No, those parts which are there could not have been used by two > singers, unless they would have sung everything, including arias. > There is simply no, repeat no, indications of where the ripieno sings > and where the solos sing. There are exceptions where there are ripieno > parts, but even for those there are numerous arguments, why they could > only have been used by one singer. It really is time to accept the > research, not only by Joshua.
There is a difference between what Bach did for the performance that the parts were prepared for, and what he'd have done with ideal performing forces and plenty of time to copy parts. And, of course, why would Bach have copied ripieno parts, or parts indicating solo/ripieno for a performance he knew would not have anything but solo singers? If I'm remembering correctly, aren't there some sets of cantata parts where the solo parts were prepared at one time and the ripieno parts later? That strongly suggest an early performance with only solo singers, but the ripieno parts prove that Bach's conception of the work included the possibility of ripienists, despite the fact that the original set of parts lacked them. Perhaps some of the sets of parts without ripieno indications might later have been adapted by Bach had he an opportunity to perform it with more than one singer on a part (either by adding ripieno/solo indications in the existing single part for two singers to sing from, or by copying ripieno parts for one or more singers to use). It's really rather analogous to the situation with the Mozart fragments. Before Tyson's revolutionary breakthrough on the paper types in the fragments (where he showed that some complete Mozart works were started long before they were completed, with the first few folios of the score being on paper from years earlier, such that these works lay as fragments for years before Mozart returned to them and finished them), it was often wondered why Mozart had "abandoned" so many works for which the beginnings seemed so promising. Well, it turns out that, apparently, Mozart would sometimes begin a work and get down enough to recall the work, then lay it aside for later completion. Sadly, he never got around to finishing many of them. Thus, we cannot say for certain that Mozart had abandoned any of his fragments, only that they were works that he'd not yet had the opportunity to complete. Likewise, the surviving parts for Bach's vocal works don't necessarily represent Bach's final state for a "complete" set of performing parts for those works, as we know perfectly well that when performing works a second and third time, he sometimes had additional parts prepared *according to the forces available at the time*. For this reason, I just can't accept any dogmatic assertion that a surviving set of solo-only vocal parts precludes choral performance. In a similar example from a later period, it's pretty clear from surviving parts for Mozart piano concertos in Leopold Mozart's hand (I believe they are at St. Peters, and Cliff Eisen prepared an edition for B&H from them that was recorded by Robert Levin at the fortepiano, but I can't recall what period orchestra was involved -- I actually don't own any of these recordings) that there were oral ripieno/solo traditions even in that repertory, since Leopold's parts include some striking effects with solo/ripieno markings (not always simply corresponding to obvious loud/soft associations between tutti and solo). There is so much that we don't know and that was not included in notated parts that I just think it's not possible to preclude multiple singers on a part for particular Bach's vocal works just because the only surviving parts for those works include no indication that more than one singer was used in the performance(s) Bach supervised. To me, what Rifkin did was to legitimize one-on-a-part performance of Bach's music, but his work certainly does not make performance with more than one-on-a-part illegitimate. > I suggest reading the book by Andrew Parrot, who incidentally comes to > the same conclusions. From todays musicological stand there is really > little question that Joshua is correct. His interpretation may be correct for certain sets of sources insofar as they discribe the way Bach actually peformed them, but that really should not completely restrict us to those exact same limitations in our own performances. Describing what was done does not proscribe what can be legitimately done. > Second: Of course Bach would have liked more singers, question is a) > would he have composed differently, and b) should a historical > performance ensemble do what Bach wanted, or what Bach did. a) I don't > know, but I now think so. Interestingly, the parts of the B minor mass > which were send to Dresden, were written for the exact available > forces (do not mix this up with the opera orchestra and choir, it has > nothing to do with the church performances - I don't know the details, > but there was no choir or large orchestra available). b) is a > worthwhile question for any of us period instrument people. That's why I find Rifkin's dogma problematic. I've prepared parts for string quartet performances of opera excerpts. We only ran off one part per instrument (which wouldn't really tell a future musicologist whether one or two players played from it). But had we more players, we could have printed more parts. Naturally, it's much easier for us to print or photocopy additional parts than it was for Bach to copy additional parts, but the point is we prepared the parts we needed for the performers we had, not for the performers we would have used had we had them. > Btw, the famous letter about the minimal church forces Bach needs > often gets misinterpreted. He is definitely not asking for a choir of > 12. Instead he is simply saying that to sing all the services in the > two churches he was responsible for, he needed more than one per part, > to cover for illness, breaking voices and the like. > > A lot of personal opinions in this discussion. I must say though that > by the very same arguments you could perform a Telemann overture with > a Mahler size orchestra. Of course Telemann would have loved to have a > full symphony orchestra of pros at his disposal. The music he wrote > still doesn't work with one. The main question here is: what does the evidence tell us? Does it limit possibilities for our historically informed performances, or does it only provide information on one (or a handful of) contemporary performance(s)? I think it is really more often the latter than the former, though, of course, cases can be made for going beyond that in the cases of specific sources. I believe the sources provide evidence for a continuum of possibilities, rather than limiting us to only one possible set of performing forces. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
