Tobiah, --- On Mon, 4/8/13, Tobiah <t...@tobiah.org> wrote: > I've heard it expressed by one professor, that > absolute metric time was desired during the Renaissance. I very much doubt it. I've never met anyone who was alive during the Renaissance to tell me what people desired in a tactus. Perhaps the professor is older. > I also remember the notion that rubato, in the romantic > period, was just a way of lending or borrowing time > in such a way that the same piece played straight through > at a constant tempo would end at the same time as the > performance where rubato was performed. Various 19th century writers discuss rubato in terms similar to this. Rubato is also described as a strict accompaniment over which a melodic part may ebb and flow freely. I've done a bit of study of the subject of 19th century performance practice and I know of no late 19th century/early 20th century recordings that utilize either type of rubato - at least none that would qualify as a concrete demonstration of the definitions. That is because the very words used to define the term "rubato" are highly subjective. What may have sounded "strict" or "steady" to 19th century ears sounds like serious liberties with the beat to us. Today we're constantly inundated with devices utilizing time measurement precision of a kind inconceivable to musicians of the past. Their frames of reference were decidedly non-mechanical. They drew tempo analogues to the speed of natural cycles such as the rate of a heart beat, walking or breathing. This, even after the invention of the metronome. Hummel wrote that, "Many people erroneously imagine that, in applying the metronome, they are bound to follow its equal and undeviating motion throughout the whole piece." How much can we extrapolate these themes back in time? I dunno. Ask your professor who knows those folks from the Renaissance. ;-) Chris Dr. Christopher Wilke D.M.A. Lutenist, Guitarist and Composer www.christopherwilke.com
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