Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
I'm sorry but I can't answer your question because I don't know which of the many points I made you are addressing. On Feb 17, 2006, at 4:57 PM, Kim Patrick Clow wrote: Really? Which instruments?? On 2/17/06, Andrew Stiller [EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote: On Feb 17, 2006, at 1:55 PM, Kim Patrick Clow wrote: > how authentic is improvised percussion to Baroque music? It's authentic where it is known to have been used (as in Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks)--and not elsewhere! > Praetorius lists many percussion instruments; and we know they were > used in all types of music of his period. No we don't. Some of the instruments he depicts are peasant instruments that would never have used in any of the surviving (i.e., written) music of the period. Others are military signalling instruments, and *none*, to the best of my knowledge, would have been used for anything more exalted than social dance music--i.e., pop. My wife coined the term tinkleplunk as a measure of the degree to which a modern Renaissance ensemble is willing to pander to a modern audience. The more percussion and other inappropriate instruments, the more lowbrow and Renaissance Faireish. Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale -- Kim Patrick Clow There's really only two types of music: good and bad. ~ Rossini___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
Andrew Stiller wrote: Perfectly true. But the question raised was specifically about*Baroque* music, no? I asked the question in relation to new recordings of Baroque music,using such percussion; and quite a few of these recordings are by historically informed performance groups. I mentioned the Naxos recording of the Fireworks and Watermusic. I forgot to mention another recent CD that makes much more extensive uses of these percussion instruments:Ouverturen: Music for the Hamburg Opera. Jordi Savall's group also used a lot of percussion instruments in their recordings of Lully's ballet scores. My question was more along the lines of, why would percussion instruments be suddenly dropped from the Baroque era, when dance movements and forms were such a major factor in almost all the instrumental genres of that period. I just don't imagine on a fine morning in 1680, someone woke up and exclaimed Ok boys, time to put away the percussion instruments. It's the Baroque and we aren't doing those Renassiance dances anymore. It just doesn't make much logical sense that music that was so dramatic in nature would automatically jetison such instruments. I've not seen any of these groups discuss the reasons for including such instruments in their recordings, but I know they are specialists in their fields, and wouldn't do this lightly. Thanks!Kim Patrick Clow On 2/18/06, Andrew Stiller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Feb 17, 2006, at 6:07 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: On 17 Feb 2006 at 15:21, Andrew Stiller wrote: On Feb 17, 2006, at 1:55 PM, Kim Patrick Clow wrote: how authentic is improvised percussion to Baroque music? It's authenticwhere it is known to have been used (as in Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks)--and not elsewhere! Is that a joke?No. We know some about performance practice, but very little.On the contrary, we know a tremendous amount about performance practice. From what I remember there are some vague statements of the order of percussion instruments would be used with this kind of music but nothing notated and very little documentation of particular performances. We have personnel lists. We have payment records. We have travellers'accounts. We have engravings of individual ensembles and individualoccasions. We have musicians' letters and diaries. We havecomposition/accompanying methods. We have old dictionary/encyclopedia entries. This is not nothing and it is not little. But we don't know much about appropriate performance for lots of notated music, either (e.g., Parisian organum).Perfectlytrue. But the question raised was specifically about *Baroque* music, no?Andrew StillerKallisti Music Presshttp://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/___Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.eduhttp://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale-- Kim Patrick Clow There's really only two types of music: good and bad. ~ Rossini ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
On 18 Feb 2006 at 14:39, Andrew Stiller wrote: On Feb 17, 2006, at 6:07 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: On 17 Feb 2006 at 15:21, Andrew Stiller wrote: On Feb 17, 2006, at 1:55 PM, Kim Patrick Clow wrote: how authentic is improvised percussion to Baroque music? It's authentic where it is known to have been used (as in Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks)--and not elsewhere! Is that a joke? No. We know some about performance practice, but very little. On the contrary, we know a tremendous amount about performance practice. In context, I thought it was clear that I was referring to percussion performance practice, since that was the issue in question. From what I remember there are some vague statements of the order of percussion instruments would be used with this kind of music but nothing notated and very little documentation of particular performances. We have personnel lists. We have payment records. We have travellers' accounts. We have engravings of individual ensembles and individual occasions. We have musicians' letters and diaries. We have composition/accompanying methods. We have old dictionary/encyclopedia entries. This is not nothing and it is not little. How much of these do we have in regard to percussion performance practice? For instance, in Salzburg, there are no percussionists on the lists of members of the Court capella, because those instruments were played by members of the court military establishment, who were not necessarily paid primarily as musicians. Thus, there might very well be no evidence in pay records in Salzburg of there having been percussion used in the orchestra there. But we don't know much about appropriate performance for lots of notated music, either (e.g., Parisian organum). Perfectly true. But the question raised was specifically about *Baroque* music, no? Percussion was the subject of the discussion when I entered it. I thought that was clear, and that my comments clearly applied to the subject of percussion performance practice. -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
On 18 Feb 2006 at 14:46, Andrew Stiller wrote: On Feb 17, 2006, at 6:10 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: On 17 Feb 2006 at 21:31, Johannes Gebauer wrote: On 17.02.2006 Kim Patrick Clow wrote: Would a tambourine in a Bach Orchestral Suite be that much of a musical faux paux? Good question. I tend to think that Bach wouldn't have had one, but it's quite obviously possible to add it. On the other hand, Bach's orchestral suites are imo not at all operatic, so perhaps it would be a little weird? I think it's important to ask three questions: 1. what would Bach have done? 2. what would Bach have preferred? 3. what would contemporaries, given Bach's music to perform, have done? Very good questions. The answers are: 1) He wouldn't have used a tambourine, even if he could find one in Cöthen or Leipzig. 2) Q: Would you have preferred a tambourine in that, Herr Bach? A: Whadda you, nuts? 3) They wouldn't--as they in fact did not--use a tambourine. I hope we've cleared that up. No, it clears up nothing, as those are *your* answers, without any support from historical documentation. We cannot always answer all (or even any) of those questions. In the case of Bach, I'm pretty sure that there is no documentary evidence to suggest the use of percussion. However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In regard to the overtures, I think that what matters is: 1. what tradition was Bach writing them in? 2. what were the percussion practices in that tradition? 3. did Bach know of those practices? 4. if he knew of them, would he have followed them or disregarded them? 5. were the overtures written for the same purpose as the works in the tradition/style they were written in? I don't know the specific answers to these questions. I suspect that it's correct that Bach would have been unlikely to have used percussion in them, but that may have more to do with the context in which Bach was performing his music. If, for instance, he'd had the opportunity to travel to Paris (somewhere secular and cosmopolitan), might he have performed the overtures with percussion? Or, if he travelled to a place where it was customary in this type of music to add percussion, might he there have added percussion? These are highly speculative questions. But when considering historical performance, it's important to consider what a composer actually did and the reasons why he did it. There are limitations on a particular composer's work circumstances that would prevent him from doing things that, given other circumstances, he might have done without quibble. This is the core of my objection to Joshua Rifkin's Bach chorus performance hypothesis (that if Bach only ever used one on a part, that means that one on a part it was he wanted and preferred, rather than simply what he was able to manage in the circumstances he found himself in). I don't think it's wise to take merely what a composer is documented as having done as an ironclad limit on what is allowable in historically informed performances. -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
On 18 Feb 2006 at 15:42, Andrew Stiller wrote: Now, as to the Renaissance. You have, I think, greatly overestimated the extent to which percussion were used in that period. Others have addressed this issue, but I will merely state that *maybe* *some* percussion was *sometimes* used to accompany *some* Renaissance dance music--but not terribly often, and certainly not routinely. Er, we have virtually no evidence for a whole class of music, the secular popular music that was mostly not notated at all, even for the non-percussionists. Secondly, almost all the surviving Bq. dance music falls into two categories: ballet music (for the stage) and dance-derived forms not meant to be actually danced to at all. In both cases it is easy to see why any (hypothetical) percussion might be dropped (can you really see a Couperin harpsichord suite accompanied by drums?). . . There were 18th-century harpsichords with drum stops. It's not that I'm suggesting that this indicates that drums should be used, only that the question as asked is not really about the historical context, but about our modern expectations for it. That's entirely the problem here, that our modern expectations may or may not reflect historical practices. . . . --but in fact percussion were (at certain times and places) used in the opera--but such use was definitely highly limited; you wouldn't hear drums used over and over within a single opera, but just in one or two numbers. What's the evidence for it being highly limited? I'm not doubting it (I'd expect it to be limited to dance music or clearly defined stage music), I'd just like to know what the factual basis is for your assertions. This brings up the third point, which is changing tastes. Consider a later example: There are numerous brilliant and elaborate trumpet parts in music of the late Baroque, but in the ensuing Classical period (at least the high-classic style of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven) the trumpet is reduced to discrete background toots and the occasional simple fanfare. Why, you might ask, did composers not continue to write brilliant clarino parts? The answer is that to the Classical taste, such displays would have seemed vulgar and out-of-balance in an age when balance and moderation were highly prized. I don't buy that one. I'm not sure what the explanation is, but yours seems highly dependent on a rather impoverished idea of what the Classical Style was about -- it seems rather an assertion about musical style drawn from a Grout-level conception of the Classical style. Brilliant and florid violin parts did *not* go out of style, at least in stile antico church music, so it is unclear to me why florid clarino parts would have been subject to esthetic banishment and the similar florid writing for other instruments would not. Percussion, to return to the topic at hand, was used very discretely in Baroque opera because, you would have been told, a special effect loses its effect when it ceases to be special. A plausible explanation, assuming that the belief that percussion was intended to be a special effect is true. Evidence for this? -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
Andrew Stiller wrote: Why, you might ask, did composers not continue to writebrilliant clarino parts? The answer is that to the Classical taste,such displays would have seemed vulgar and out-of-balance in an age when balance and moderation were highly prized. Actually I thought it had more to do with the demise of the trumpet guilds in Germany and Austria and the slow decline of the noblity to fund orchestras due to the inflation of the late 18th century. I mentioned the Harmonia Mundi CD Ouverture: Music from the Hamburg Opera where several composers are featured with percussion. I'm doubtful that any of the source manuscripts had any percussion parts. Most of the composers on that disc are pretty obscure by today's standards (well excepting Handel); and I'm pretty sure the untuned percussion used on this CD was not notated on the original manuscripts. But the musicians are very trained in historial performance techniques and musicology. Again, the liner notes do not mention anything about the inclusion of the untuned percussion, but I'd love to know their logic for including them. Thanks, Kim Patrick Clow ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
[Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
I have the Harmonia Mundi CD entitled Ouverture featuring a lot of music from the Hamburg opera during the Baroque. I love the recording and the use of a lot of percussion instruments adds a level of vitality to the performances. Which raises a question in my mind, how authentic is improvised percussion to Baroque music? Praetorius lists many percussion instruments; and we know they were used in all types of music of his period. Why would such instruments have been dropped during the Baroque period, especially when so much of the music of that period was based on the dance (where such additions would have been allowed). Would a tambourine in a Bach Orchestral Suite be that much of a musical faux paux?Thanks, Kim Patrick Clow ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
Kim Patrick Clow wrote: Would a tambourine in a Bach Orchestral Suite be that much of a musical faux paux? Not as much as the use of Accordion or Bagpipes would be. Nah - it depends on how used, as always. cd -- http://www.livejournal.com/users/dershem/# ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
Not far removed from the accordion,but mouth harps were used for basso continuo sometimes. On 2/17/06, Carl Dershem [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Kim Patrick Clow wrote: Would a tambourine in a Bach Orchestral Suite be that much of a musical faux paux?Not as much as the use of Accordion or Bagpipes would be.Nah - it depends on how used, as always.cd--http://www.livejournal.com/users/dershem/# ___Finale mailing listFinale@shsu.eduhttp://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale -- Kim Patrick ClowThere's really only two types of music: good and bad. ~ Rossini ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
On 17.02.2006 Kim Patrick Clow wrote: Which raises a question in my mind, how authentic is improvised percussion to Baroque music? Praetorius lists many percussion instruments; and we know they were used in all types of music of his period. Why would such instruments have been dropped during the Baroque period, especially when so much of the music of that period was based on the dance (where such additions would have been allowed). Improvised percussion was most certainly added for many things, especially in French opera (and English for that matter). Would a tambourine in a Bach Orchestral Suite be that much of a musical faux paux? Good question. I tend to think that Bach wouldn't have had one, but it's quite obviously possible to add it. On the other hand, Bach's orchestral suites are imo not at all operatic, so perhaps it would be a little weird? I recently took part in the new Naxos recording of Fireworks and Watermusic, and conductor Kevin Mallon added quite a lot of percussion, which is defintiely very authentic, as we know that Handel used military side drums and other percussion, at least for the Firewors. Great disc, btw, only came out a few weeks ago. And your's truly is on it with a little solo, too, so it's definitely worth it (and only costs 5.99 Euros over here). (Handel: Fireworks and Watermusic, The Aradia Ensemble Toronto, Kevin Mallon, conductor, also available as SACD and DVD-Audio) (Sorry about the self-promotion, incidentally I don't get royalties for it) Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
I once attended a party of musicians in NY where the music was provided by a cellist and accordionist playing mostly Baroque music. It changed my perception of the accordion. the players were superb, and the "breathing" of the accordion gave the continuo parts a kind of life that was different from the usual harpsichord sound, but certainly no less beautiful. Always ready for good surprises.ChuckOn Feb 17, 2006, at 11:40 AM, Kim Patrick Clow wrote:Not far removed from the accordion,but mouth harps were used for basso continuo sometimes. On 2/17/06, Carl Dershem [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Kim Patrick Clow wrote: Would a tambourine in a Bach Orchestral Suite be that much of a musical faux paux?Not as much as the use of Accordion or Bagpipes would be.Nah - it depends on how used, as always.cd--http://www.livejournal.com/users/dershem/# ___Finale mailing listFinale@shsu.eduhttp://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale -- Kim Patrick Clow"There's really only two types of music: good and bad." ~ Rossini ___Finale mailing listFinale@shsu.eduhttp://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale Chuck Israels 230 North Garden Terrace Bellingham, WA 98225-5836 phone (360) 671-3402 fax (360) 676-6055 www.chuckisraels.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
On 17.02.2006 Chuck Israels wrote: I once attended a party of musicians in NY where the music was provided by a cellist and accordionist playing mostly Baroque music. It changed my perception of the accordion. the players were superb, and the breathing of the accordion gave the continuo parts a kind of life that was different from the usual harpsichord sound, but certainly no less beautiful. Always ready for good surprises. I once heard a Belgian Saxophone ensemble play the Badinerie from Bach's B minor Suite. They swinged it, and I must admit it was one of the most beautiful moments I ever experienced in a peformance. Johannes -- http://www.musikmanufaktur.com http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
At 01:21 PM 2/17/06 -0800, Chuck Israels wrote: I once attended a party of musicians in NY where the music was provided by a cellist and accordionist playing mostly Baroque music. Any chance that was Rip Keller and Tamas Kalmar? You should hear them do the slow movement of the Beethoven 7th on two accordions. :) Dennis -- Please participate in my latest project: http://maltedmedia.com/people/bathory/365-2007.html ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
I was once witness to a wonderful perfomance of the famous Bach Badinerieas part of the Avignon festival. The group played from the top of a tarred and featheredopen-top double decker bus and consisted of a flautist, a violinist, a cellist and a keyboard player. In front of them stood a conductor and behind them, two dark-skinned gentlemen who beat the living daylights out of cymbals and a drum in the style of a military march. The memory still brings a tear to my eye. All the best, Lawrence "þaes ofereode - þisses swa maeg"http://lawrenceyates.co.ukDulcian Wind Quintet: http://dulcianwind.co.uk ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
Really? Which instruments?? On 2/17/06, Andrew Stiller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Feb 17, 2006, at 1:55 PM, Kim Patrick Clow wrote: how authentic is improvised percussion to Baroque music? It's authenticwhere it is known to have been used (as in Handel'sMusic for the Royal Fireworks)--and not elsewhere! Praetorius lists many percussion instruments; and we know they were used in all types of music of his period. No we don't. Some of the instruments hedepicts are peasantinstruments that would never have used in any of the surviving (i.e.,written) music of the period. Others are military signallinginstruments, and *none*, to the best of my knowledge, would have been used for anything more exalted than social dance music--i.e., pop.My wife coinedthe term tinkleplunk as a measure of the degree towhich a modern Renaissance ensemble is willing to pander to a modern audience. The more percussion and other inappropriate instruments, themore lowbrow and Renaissance Faireish.Andrew StillerKallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/___Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.eduhttp://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale -- Kim Patrick ClowThere's really only two types of music: good and bad. ~ Rossini ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
On 17 Feb 2006 at 15:21, Andrew Stiller wrote: On Feb 17, 2006, at 1:55 PM, Kim Patrick Clow wrote: how authentic is improvised percussion to Baroque music? It's authentic where it is known to have been used (as in Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks)--and not elsewhere! Is that a joke? We know some about performance practice, but very little. From what I remember there are some vague statements of the order of percussion instruments would be used with this kind of music but nothing notated and very little documentation of particular performances. But just because we lack exact information doesn't mean the practice of adding non-notated percussion couldn't be fully authentic. It really does depend. The exact nature of what the instruments played is itself highly speculative, though, even when we know the instruments were used. But we don't know much about appropriate performance for lots of notated music, either (e.g., Parisian organum). -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
On 17 Feb 2006 at 21:31, Johannes Gebauer wrote: On 17.02.2006 Kim Patrick Clow wrote: Would a tambourine in a Bach Orchestral Suite be that much of a musical faux paux? Good question. I tend to think that Bach wouldn't have had one, but it's quite obviously possible to add it. On the other hand, Bach's orchestral suites are imo not at all operatic, so perhaps it would be a little weird? I think it's important to ask three questions: 1. what would Bach have done? 2. what would Bach have preferred? 3. what would contemporaries, given Bach's music to perform, have done? The answers have different degrees of applicability to what the modern performer can choose to do. And, of course, it depends on the aim of your performance, to recreate or to re-imagine for our own time. -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
At 1:55 PM -0500 2/17/06, Kim Patrick Clow wrote: I have the Harmonia Mundi CD entitled Ouverture featuring a lot of music from the Hamburg opera during the Baroque. I love the recording and the use of a lot of percussion instruments adds a level of vitality to the performances. Which raises a question in my mind, how authentic is improvised percussion to Baroque music? Probably not authentic at all. I can't recall seeing any iconography that included percussion instruments. Opera is a different can of worms, of course, since percussion might have come under special effects, but I can't imagine even an opera composer leaving it up to a player to improvise. Praetorius lists many percussion instruments; and we know they were used in all types of music of his period. Actually we know nothing of the kind. Once again, the iconography does not, in general, support your statement. And all types certainly includes sacred music, which I really can't picture with improvised percussion. Why would such instruments have been dropped during the Baroque period, especially when so much of the music of that period was based on the dance (where such additions would have been allowed). Again, you are taking a 20th century viewpoint and arguing from 20th century assumptions. Iconography from the Burgundian court (14th-15th centuries) show a typical dance band consisting of two shawms improvising over a cantus firmus played by a slide trumpet. No percussion. In fact the only percussion shown is the tabor drum of the pipe tabor player. If the painters of the time didn't show percussion, how can assume it was used. And of course there's no real indication that minuets, allemands, corentes and gigues would have allowed the addition of percussion. Again, the iconography simply doesn't show it. That said, however, I have felt free to add percussion to very selected medieval or renaissance music for which I felt it appropriate, but not in general and not all the time and not always in dance music. Would a tambourine in a Bach Orchestral Suite be that much of a musical faux paux? Yes. But you go right ahead if you're the conductor and it's your band! John -- John Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
Hi Dennis, I've no idea who these folks were. The cellist was a woman, and the occasion was a going away party for one of the violinists in the pit orchestra of Promises, Promises who was leaving for a teaching position in Athens, GA. Must have been 1968-69, a long time ago. Wish I could remember more. Chuck On Feb 17, 2006, at 1:40 PM, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: At 01:21 PM 2/17/06 -0800, Chuck Israels wrote: I once attended a party of musicians in NY where the music was provided by a cellist and accordionist playing mostly Baroque music. Any chance that was Rip Keller and Tamas Kalmar? You should hear them do the slow movement of the Beethoven 7th on two accordions. :) Dennis -- Please participate in my latest project: http://maltedmedia.com/people/bathory/365-2007.html ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale Chuck Israels 230 North Garden Terrace Bellingham, WA 98225-5836 phone (360) 671-3402 fax (360) 676-6055 www.chuckisraels.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
On 17 Feb 2006 at 18:56, John Howell wrote: Again, you are taking a 20th century viewpoint and arguing from 20th century assumptions. Iconography from the Burgundian court (14th-15th centuries) show a typical dance band consisting of two shawms improvising over a cantus firmus played by a slide trumpet. No percussion. In fact the only percussion shown is the tabor drum of the pipe tabor player. If the painters of the time didn't show percussion, how can assume it was used. Well, not to dispute your actual point, but it's important to remember that we can't treat iconographic sources as though they were photographs of real events. That's quite clear from the bizarro playing techniques we see in any number of depictions of stringed instruments, or in the keyboards with the wrong number of keys and so forth. The contents of paintings and engravings was often not depicting a real incident so much as it was intended to bring together a number of visual elements for their symbolic meaning. Seen in that way, we can't really say if the relative absence of percussion in period icnography really means that the instruments were not used. Nor would the inclusion of them necessarily prove that they were. -- David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
On 2/17/06, Andrew Stiller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My wife coined the term "tinkleplunk" as a measure of the degree towhich a modern Renaissance ensemble is willing to pander to a modern audience. The more percussion and other inappropriate instruments, themore lowbrow and "Renaissance Faire"ish. I can imagine any number of "tinkleplunk-ish" (nice word) panderings applied to many kinds of music, many of which I might well abhor. Still, if any of my music is around in hundreds of years, I hope that some thoughtful person of good judgment will think to apply 21st or 22nd Century techniques as he/she might imagine I'd like them applied, to make my music more "receivable" by contemporary ears, rather than trying to recreate a long gone atmosphere of a bygone era that is no longer applicable.I understand, this is a risky wish, but I prefer it (in my fantasy) to a "purist" approach that would be more likely to keep the deeper meaning of the music from reaching the ears of future listeners.There's a lot to consider here. What I would not want, and do not want, is the use of a "more modern" electric bass, or probably even an amplified acoustic bass, and a rock drummer's esthetic, applied to my music, no matter how many more listeners it might get me, because that would surely ruin my intentions (and my idea of balances). On the other hand, changes in instrumental timbre might not mess things up all that much, and I've re-orchestrated some of my own work (as Stravinsky did - not that I compare my work to his) to no big detrimental effect. I always think it's possible to ruin Bach's music, but the architecture is so strong that really destroying its deep meaning takes a determined musical demolition force.Chuck Chuck Israels 230 North Garden Terrace Bellingham, WA 98225-5836 phone (360) 671-3402 fax (360) 676-6055 www.chuckisraels.com ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] Percussion and Baroque Music (Improvised or not)
Kim Patrick Clow wrote: Not far removed from the accordion,but mouth harps were used for basso continuo sometimes. Not far removed? We generally seat them on the other side of the orchestra! (Just through the double doors and behind the stairs, when possible). cd -- http://www.livejournal.com/users/dershem/# ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
