At 1:36 PM -0400 9/27/09, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 27 Sep 2009 at 10:21, Christopher Smith wrote:
I imagine (perhaps wrongly!)
that the tempo might stay fairly solid for each section, but change
from variation to variation, maybe with a connection to what kinds of
subdivisions are in the top parts. David F., I hope you will point us
to a link with your findings once you have worked it all out.
Hi, Christopher. I don't think that works for the Pachelbel. The
variations are too short (just 8 notes in the ground) and too
continuous, much like the contemporary and later French Rondeau. It
would sound too much like "let's slow down on the hard parts"!
I'm not very far into to the project yet, and have mostly listened
carefully only to the earlier recordings (1960s, 1970s). I had
thought that the idea of Baroque style was fairly inflexible back
then, but what I'm finding is that this is just not true.
Don't forget that that was a transitional era in terms of performance
practice, with Wili Apel and his opinions still alive and well as
well as some pioneers like Noah Greenberg and John Reeves White
exploring newer ideas on the performance side, and Arthur Mendel and
Howard Meyer Brown on the theoretical side. And MANY people having
trouble believing that whole notes could be performed as fast as 8th
notes!
I hope you enjoy reading. I'd certainly like feedback -- though my
blog has no comments, you can email me via the link on the blog (or
via this email address).
Just one comment. I've read somewhere (and I wish I could remember
where!) that Pachelbel was buddies with some of the finest players in
Vienna, which has made me wonder whether the Kanon wasn't intended to
be a real virtuoso piece, with those sections of running Italian
ornamentation intended to be whipped off as showoff stuff. Some of
us have played it too many times for weddings, where an entirely
different affect is needed, but we could easily be wrong!
John
--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:john.how...@vt.edu)
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
"We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition
of jazz musicians.
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
Finale@shsu.edu
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
