Shorter DT:
We are playing it backwards. The sources agree, the music agrees.
You can see the differences, including the
changed harmonies and changed position of the trill itself:
http://voicesofmusic.org/trill.html
Note that this is one example, there are a
thousand ways to play this trill, but they mainly have this long
appogiatura.
I prefer the 2/3rds rule, but there are different
ways to do Long Short, as long as it isn't Short Long.
I look at this as a fantastic opportunity to be
on the cutting edge, and the music sounds
radically different when performed in this way.
Skip the rest. It's dull.
Long version:
I only mention the Monteclair because it is so
readily available, and explains the key points.
I think that for most of the basic things, that
is fine. It is translated into English, and so on.
Experts will always prefer the primary
sources--mainly the music itself. Most people
will not want to read twenty books when they can
look at one eight page document.
Basically, when applying French ornamentation you
are looking at the multiple sources for the
theory, and then the multiple sources for the practice.
For example, any ornamentation chart can be derived from the
"doubles"
The process is simple, you identify the interval,
look in the double, paste it into the chart. The
composers have left thousands of clear examples.
If you don't want to use primary sources, you can
rely on premixed recipes, such as the article in the Grove,
In other words, the ornaments can be reverse
engineered. The sources are easily reconciled.
Brouderie is too big a topic to go into here. I
don't think of it as colloquial, however. It is
essential for playing lute music, and probably is
related to earlier English and French styles.
To say that the lute players differ from the
mainstream is an interesting idea, but I look at it differently.
Since most of the ornaments are written out in
the doubles, using primary sources, one can see what the ornaments
really are.
We can then see if the music is different.
And then you can say, well, there few examples of
this kind of lute ornamnent in French music. The
lute players were trying to be different.
However, I don't see that. In fact, if you look
at ornamentation charts they tend to be
exhaustive--they cover almost all of the ways to get from note A
to note B.
Even the unmeasured preludes cover most of the ornamnents.
But if you have looked at all the doubles, all
the cadences, all the brouderie and say the lute
ornaments are different, I would be very interested in the work.
And then, we would know for sure--it would not be
speculation. I've looked at thousands of these
pieces--I'm always struck by the similarities.
The real question revolves around the
appogiatura: is everyone playing it backwards? Is
it Sdrawkcab? And the answer is, yes. And here I
cited Monteclair because most sources agree that
the appogiatura is long--specifically 1/2 or 2/3 the note length.
And in the performance of lute solos, lute
players invariably perform these notes shorter
than that--much shorter. In fact, 1/3 or less
than the note length. And that is backwards, like
a Scotch snap. Or a French snap, since they had it is well.
I don't really care--I think people can play the
solos however they want. If you have read all the
primary sources, if you have looked at the
doubles, cadences & brouderie, and you say, you
know, I just prefer to play it backwards, fine.
Play it backwards.
But I don't really think that is the case. I
think this is simply a modern tradition and no
one wants to change it--it is harder on the lute
to play the appogiaturas longer, and you have to
study the voice leading as well. It is slightly more work.
Few people will do it; the best players will
solve the technical problems--they always will.
Here is a clear, parallel example: if you look at
modern lute performance, the trills are most of
the time played on the "easy" positions.
Is that historical? Of course not.
If I look back at all the ornamnentation classes
over the last thirty years I cannot cite a single
example of anyone who had read in may classes:
Singing style at the Opera in the Rameau period. (Paris:
Champion; Geneve: Slatkine, 1986) Music. In French. See RILM
1987-00887-bs. Collection: Jean-Philippe Rameau
and of the Monteclair--available in English--only
two people in thirty years. And they read it in English, which is
fine.
And that is maybe 600-800 students on just that
topic. So the info needs to be made easily
accessible, and teachers of baroque lute need to
at least tell their students about it even if they teach it
differently.
So I think it is, as far as the appogiatura--and
that is only one point of many--we have recorded
all the operas with the wrong ornaments and pronounciation--
we have it backwards.
Since we now have youtube, you can see exactly
how these notes are now being played, but you can
hear them on the hundreds of recordings of French
music as well. Julianne Baird's old but great
recording of French Cantatas demonstrates most of
the main ornaments beautifully.
We need a lute recording that does the same--a "goto" disk.
But let's be practical--you are suggesting that
Monteclair is not on point because he is later,
but is his description true and accurate for most 17th century music?
NB: it is the practice that we are interested in,
and here I think, quite simply, that our modern
practice plays the appogiatura backwards.
I don't think anyone will admit to it, but it
does create the opportunity to rerecord,
reperform these ornaments in line with what many
singers, keyboard players, winds players are now doing.
A big opportunity.
dt
"David Tayler" <vidan...@sbcglobal.net> schrieb:
Have you looked at the Principes de musique of Monteclair,
because
that I think is one of the most important sources for
ornamentation
practice,
There's certainly no argument about the importance of
Montéclair's book.
1736 is a bit late, though, regarding composers of Mesangeau's
generation (1638), don't you think?
and then the airs avec doubles of Lambert for the brouderie
style you can feather in.
That was a bit too colloquial for me, I'm afaid. What is
brouderie, and
what does feather in mean?
And how do airs de court by Michel Lambert (several volumes
1660-1710),
father-in-law to Lully, elucidate, and relate to, ornaments in
French
baroque lute music (with French lute composers trying to differ from
contemporary mainstream music-making as much as they could)?
Mathias
the 17th centurtyairs avec doubles of Lambert At 02:16 AM
1/28/2009,
you wrote:
"David Tayler" <vidan...@sbcglobal.net> schrieb:
Without wishing to go too far down this path, modern performance
practice does not really reflect the historical sources for trills
and other ornamnents. The appogiatura was as long or longer than
the
main note, and they had 23 or so "basic" types of agreements,
Didn't know the exact number (or is that an estimated
number like
3.785?), thanks! I know ornament tables by Rameau or
Couperin, but
would
you say that applied, say, a hundred years earlier, too,
like with
Mesangeau, Gaultier, Bocquet?
As opposed to 30 years ago, the source material is now readily
available--even online--and the situation is starting to change,
which creates lots of nice opportunities.
So let's turn to a live object. I'm currently practising an
allemande in
A minor by Bocquet (Oeuvres des Bocquet, CNRS edition,
piece # 8, p.
77
= Vm7 6214, fol.6v-7). If that is available to you, what do
say
about
the execution of the ornaments?
Mathias
tablatures for d-minor tuning in the CNRS Bocquet volume
are by a Mlle.
Bocquet. Apparently, Monique Rollin did not have a single
shred of
evidence that this music was by one of the two lute-playing
Mlles.
Bocquet. The attribution was entirely speculative. One
wishes it
were so, but it is not.
It was for want of any other suitable candidate. There's merely
the name
Bocquet, mentioned without given name, in tablatures of the 2nd
half of
the 17th century. Rollin says at the very beginning of her
introduction
(op. cit., p. xxiii-xxvi) that one cannot be sure. So, it remains
her
suggestion, and may I add, quite a convincing one IMO. The
material she
offers, and her arguments, possibly qualify as a bit more than a
shred.
Not of evidence, to be sure, but of plausibility.
See the review by Henry L. Schmidt in Notes,
Vol. 29, No. 4 (June, 1973) pp. 784-786.
I don't have access to that review (it's not available at our
local
university library), unfortunately. Would you mind to give an
abstract
or something to that effect?
Mathias
Dear Collected Wisdom,
in several threads, Stewart, David Tayler, Jorge, et al
nicely sorted
out this topic (Re: French Style, and Re: A very basic
question),
concluding that a trill consists of appogiatura (coule),
which is
necessary, trill (tremblement), which is desirable, and
termination
(cadence) in special cases.
However, the comma (curved line right to the letter) is
without
further
elaboration explained as simple trill in the CNRS edition
of Bocquet
(Monique Rollin, Corpus des luthistes franc,ais, Oeuvres
des Bocquet,
1972, p. xxxiii), i. e. without appogiatura. And it makes
sense with
the
music by Mlle. Bocquet.
Could it be that appogiatura is not as essential to the
French trill
as
it previously may have seemed?
--
Mathias
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