The real problem is if this is not done correctly it is not at all musical but can in fact lead the audience to assume that the composition being played is in some areas beyond the abilities of the musician trying to perform it. I once heard a well known Lutenist play a Milano Fantasia,( #28 Ness) with some obvious rubato in a couple of areas. Knowing this piece and where this was done led me to think that it was slowed down because of the difficulties in the passages involved and not because of some sort of musical decision.
However there is something to be said against the actual mechanical practice of being absolutely precise in every note. Specifically running passages. If all of this is played mechanically, and mathematically it is pretty boring and unmusical. I have found that you can stay within the cadence of a metronome without losing a beat and still shape these passages musically by starting them slightly slower and finishing them slightly faster, starting and ending exactly where they are supposed to, there by preserving the integrity of the rhythmic nature of the composition. The beat remains the same, the meter remains the same but the content is slightly shaped within that frame work. It took me a long time to learn this lesson because I was originally taught to be mathematically precise, and then told to shape the phrases. At the time the two seemed to be mutually exclusive. Vance Wood. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Howard Posner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Lute Net" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 3:39 PM Subject: Re: Rubato and rolling chords > Stewart McCoy wrote: > > > the Italian word "rubato" > > means "robbed" or "stolen". It's used in a musical context to mean > > robbing time, or taking time, in other words playing around with the > > rhythm (slowing down/ speeding up) with the aim of playing > > expressively. Musicians who play alone - guitarists, harpists, > > pianists, lutenists, etc. - have a tendency to be quite free with > > their interpretation of rhythm. > > Rubato is used in two senses, which causes a great deal of confusion among > those who think the term has only one meaning. > > One meaning is simply being free with rhythm and tempo: slow down and speed > up as seems appropriate. This is what rubato came to mean in the 19th > century. > > Another meaning is freedom of rhythm in the melody while the accompaniment > remains constant, so that any stretching has to be compensated by shortening > soon after, and vice versa. This is what the word meant to 18th-century > writers like Quantz, CPE Bach and Leopold Mozart. Listen to almost any pop > singer and you'll hear this: the accompaniment is in very strict rhythm > (assuming the drummer is sober) but the singer is all over the beat, early > or late as the spirit moves him/her. > > Howard Posner > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
