subject:"Re\: \[Finale\] mozart \(OT\)"


On 18.01.2007 dc wrote:

John Howell écrit:

Temperament is only necessary--and a necessary evil at that--for keyboard 
instruments that cannot make microtonal pitch adjustments.  Tuning involves 
pure intervals, including the thirds or course.


Johannes just mentioned that a violin's fifth could be tempered or not. I don't 
think he has a keyboard on it.


Well, tempered open strings doesn't mean we play tempered. I think you 
are both right.



Stringed instruments can do it, although we're trained not to.


Johannes also just said de didn't want pure thirds. It's not a question of 
being able or not to play them.


That really depends on the music, and who we play with. For the music I 
do mostly which is 18th century and later, pure fifth simply don't work. 
For early 17th century music they may work very well, though it will 
require a mean tone tuning for keyboard instruments, and that requires 
the tuning of extremely narrow fifth. It's something one has to learn.


Johannes
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 18.01.2007 dc wrote:

Johannes Gebauer écrit:

Well, tempered open strings doesn't mean we play tempered.


But you at least play tempered if and when you play a fifth on open strings. 
John's idea that temperament is only an issue on keyboard instruments is 
completely wrong. What about fretted instruments? I often play with viola de 
gamba or theorbo, and both of them can and do use meantone, for instance. I 
have no problems playing or tuning with these TEMPERED instruments. But I do 
have problems any time I play with a modern cellist, who seems to think a fifth 
is a fifth is a fifth.


Temperament does not depent on three or four tempered fifth. And no, I 
don't think I even could play tempered. There will be little 
adjustments, for every note we play. It simply cannot be avoided. And it 
is partly the beauty of our instruments. If we didn't want this we might 
as well use frets.



That really depends on the music, and who we play with. For the music I do 
mostly which is 18th century and later, pure fifth simply don't work. For early 
17th century music they may work very well, though it will require a mean tone 
tuning for keyboard instruments, and that requires the tuning of extremely 
narrow fifth. It's something one has to learn.


I assume you mean pure thirds and not pure fifths. For most 17th century music, meantone 
is the only tuning that will work. You find pure thirds vulgar. I find the 
wide and uniform thirds of ET dreadful. But this is a question of musical taste and 
education.


Yes, pure thirds not fifth, mea culpa. I find pure thirds vulgar only 
for 18th century  music. Try listening to a Mozart string quartet where 
every third is completely pure. It won't work and will create all sorts 
of problems.


Johannes
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 18.01.2007 dc wrote:

Johannes Gebauer écrit:

For early 17th century music they may work very well, though it will require a 
mean tone tuning for keyboard instruments, and that requires the tuning of 
extremely narrow fifth.


This extremely narrow fifth of meantone is still only about HALF as bad as an 
ET third. Speaking of lesser evils...


Yes, but tuning such narrow fifth on the violin creates a lot of other 
problems, making playing harder. One has to adjust. That's why a modern 
violinist who is asked to tune mean tone fifth will be completely unable 
to play in any tuning afterwards.


Remember, we don't have frets. The tuning depends on the 100th of a 
milimeter of out finger position.


With gut strings the problems get worse, as they change when they get older.

Complex problems

Johannes
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-18 Thread Christopher Smith



On Jan 18, 2007, at 12:12 AM, John Howell wrote:



Temperament is only necessary--and a necessary evil at that--for  
keyboard instruments that cannot make microtonal pitch adjustments.


OK, I'm with you so far.

Tuning involves pure intervals, including the thirds or course.   
Call it just intonation, if that makes you happy, or call it Fred.   
Stringed instruments can do it, although we're trained not to.


Apparently just intonation is not just a name, nor is it what we  
think of as modern intonation (though there are similarities,  
especially involving perfect intervals). It is a real system, based  
on the simplest relationship between the frequencies of the two notes  
making up the interval.


I went to the Just Intonation website to listen to the examples, and  
I don't know about it. It is all well and good for 4ths and 5ths  
inside an octave, and even the 3rds and 6ths are fine (though I'm not  
sure that anyone tunes EVERY third this way in any kind of music;  
they seem to be OK for tonic chords, though). As far as I can make  
out, many of the early tuning systems differ particularly on the  
thirds, which can be in a fairly wide area and still sound like they  
are thirds. And even in the harmonic series, there are several  
different versions of major and minor thirds, almost all of which can  
sound fine in different contexts.


But the pure seconds and sevenths are way out. Unless one is an  
alphorn player, I can't recall ever having heard these used in any  
kind of common practice. I think most modern players tune them as the  
result of two stacked 4ths or 5ths, which makes them a bit flexible.  
I wouldn't know about early methods. Adding octave displacements  
opens up another can of worms, too.


I have been watching this thread avidly, and I am full of admiration  
for practitioners of early music such as Johannes, who deal with  
these kinds of issues with such clarity of thought, not to mention  
the ability to pull it off consistently in performance! It's tough  
enough for me (on trombone and tuba) to pull off consistent modern  
tuning and fit in with my colleagues, never mind the different early  
systems.


Christopher


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

There are many modern string players who are quite informed about 
intonation.  Kolisch, when playing Schoenberg's Fantasy, tuned all four 
strings to the piano, in order to play more precisely in equal 
temperament. Paul Zukofsky and Marc Sabat have both integrated 
alternative tunings into their playing. Sabat, in particular, has 
phenomenal control and plays various just systems, pythagorean, 
meantone, or tempered as required by the repertoire.  In the 
Netherlands, the Lemkes/Vos duo specialized in playing 31-tone equal 
temperament, which is virtually indistinguishable from an extended 
quarter-comma meantone. Cellist Anton Lukoszevieze has specialized in 
works in which tuning is a central concern.  And there are a number of 
quartets that do phenomenal work with alternative tunings, whether 
tempered or just,  in scores from Haba to Ben Johnston, to Lou Harrison.


Daniel Wolf


dc wrote:

J
I've never seen a modern violinist who even knows what a meantone 
fifth is, let alone accepts to tune his fiddle in anything but what he 
calls in tune. For a modern cellist, an interval is either in tune 
or out of tune. There's no meantone, unequal, well-tempered or what 
fifth. A fifth is a fifth, as I said. I've had many of them look at me 
with the most surprised face when I ask them how they tune their 
instruments, as if there was more than one way to tune. On the other 
hand, string players who come to 17th century music not from Mozart or 
Haydn or Beethoven but from Renaissance music have no trouble tuning 
and playing in meantone.


Dennis


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 18.01.2007 Christopher Smith wrote:
I went to the Just Intonation website to listen to the examples, and I don't know about it. It is all well and good for 4ths and 5ths inside an octave, and even the 3rds and 6ths are fine (though I'm not sure that anyone tunes EVERY third this way in any kind of music; they seem to be OK for tonic chords, though). As far as I can make out, many of the early tuning systems differ particularly on the thirds, which can be in a fairly wide area and still sound like they are thirds. And even in the harmonic series, there are several different versions of major and minor thirds, almost all of which can sound fine in different contexts. 



If you really are interested, you should listen to some good recordings 
in mean tone (17th century music I would recommend), perhaps with a good 
mixture of string and wind instruments, plus meantone tuned virginal or 
harpsichord.


A pure third in this kind of music can be a revelation, almost a drug.

Johannes
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 18.01.2007 Daniel Wolf wrote:
There are many modern string players who are quite informed about intonation.  Kolisch, when playing Schoenberg's Fantasy, tuned all four strings to the piano, in order to play more precisely in equal temperament. Paul Zukofsky and Marc Sabat have both integrated alternative tunings into their playing. Sabat, in particular, has phenomenal control and plays various just systems, pythagorean, meantone, or tempered as required by the repertoire.  In the Netherlands, the Lemkes/Vos duo specialized in playing 31-tone equal temperament, which is virtually indistinguishable from an extended quarter-comma meantone. Cellist Anton Lukoszevieze has specialized in works in which tuning is a central concern.  And there are a number of quartets that do phenomenal work with alternative tunings, whether tempered or just,  in scores from Haba to Ben Johnston, to Lou Harrison. 



You are of course absolutely correct, and I didn't mean to imply that 
there aren't those who do care, and know about temperament.


Actually, Kolisch is one of my idols. And he comes very close to 
historical performance in some respect.


Johannes
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-18 Thread dhbailey


Johannes Gebauer wrote:

On 18.01.2007 John Howell wrote:
I believe that was Wanda Landowska, not Casals, not that that affects 
your argument.


Actually, it does. Had Casals said that it would have been rather strange.

Johannes


I had heard it as part of a masterclass he was giving on the Bach cello 
suites.  But it did come to me second hand, and I certainly don't have 
any citation to offer.


--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


Johannes Gebauer wrote:
Actually, Kolisch is one of my idols. And he comes very close to 
historical performance in some respect.  


Kolisch is the perfect counter-example to one of the critiques (by 
Taruskin, among others) of historical performance practice, that in the 
focus on the prehistory of a repertoire, too little attention is given 
to aspects of performance practice that survive in subsequent practice. 
Kolisch was, at once a musician with clear roots in the Viennese 
tradition, but also a scholar willing to consider evidence of changes in 
that tradition (the MusikKonzepte volume with his study of performance 
practice in Beethoven is very useful), and a progressive, committed to 
performing new music, 

He was also was of the few left-handed violinists. Due to injury, he 
restrung his violin and switched hands.  While it made orchestral 
playing awkward (due to bow crossings when sharing a desk), it was 
useful for both quartet playing and teaching. By all accounts he was an 
excellent teacher, and something of a counterweight to the Russian 
violin style which dominated US conservatory teaching after the war.


Daniel Wolf

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-18 Thread Ken Moore


Johannes Gebauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


Well, actually, the discussion went on in Early Music between
Joshua and Ton Koopman (I believe this was in the year 2000).
Eventually they called in Andrew Parrot as the unbiased mediator,
who then ended up writing a book which basically completely
supports Joshua's view. The whole thing is as settled as it can be.
There will always be those who don't believe the evidence, but it
is nonetheless there.


Andrew was committed to Joshua's view  (with practical accommodations, 
such as
addition of ripieno singers for the bigger choruses) by 1985, when he 
made his own
recording of the B minor Mass, using some of Joshua's parts.*  My 
recollection of the
Early Music correspondence in c. 2000 is that Andrew immediately 
weighed in on

Joshua's side.

* I found the quality of the performance as convincing an argument as 
the deductions

from the historical evidence.

--
Ken Moore

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-18 Thread Kim Patrick Clow


Meantone, isn't it possible that baroque trumpets can use this tuning
system? I have a recording of the Handel's Fireworks music; and I
*think* they use mean tone. The conductor said it was one of the first
recordings to use trumpets that didn't use those tuning holes that
modern copies of baroque trumpets have to create a more tuned sound.

I could be wrong though.


Thanks,
Kim Patrick Clow
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-18 Thread Ken Moore


Christopher Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

But the pure seconds and sevenths are way out. Unless one is an  
alphorn player, I can't recall ever having heard these used in any  
kind of common practice.


I recall hearing a broadcast of Weber's Oberon overture, when I 
immediately knew
that the opening phrase had been played on a natural horn,* because it 
consisted of  a
major tone followed by a minor tone.  I know you could get the same 
tuning with a
chromatic horn, but I don't recall hearing one play the second note 
significantly different
from the mean between the two outer ones (which a good player usually 
gets close to a

just major third apart, whatever fingering s/he uses).

* similar tuning to an alphorn, of course.

--
Ken Moore

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 18.01.2007 Kim Patrick Clow wrote:

Meantone, isn't it possible that baroque trumpets can use this tuning
system? I have a recording of the Handel's Fireworks music; and I
*think* they use mean tone. The conductor said it was one of the first
recordings to use trumpets that didn't use those tuning holes that
modern copies of baroque trumpets have to create a more tuned sound.

I could be wrong though.


Kim, I think you are confusing something here. Without the tuning holes 
they will have natural harmonics, but those are by no means mean (tone).


Johannes
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 18.01.2007 Ken Moore wrote:

Andrew was committed to Joshua's view  (with practical accommodations, such as
addition of ripieno singers for the bigger choruses) by 1985, when he made his 
own
recording of the B minor Mass, using some of Joshua's parts.*  My recollection 
of the
Early Music correspondence in c. 2000 is that Andrew immediately weighed in on
Joshua's side.

* I found the quality of the performance as convincing an argument as the 
deductions
from the historical evidence.


I have that recording, never liked it much. Too much compromise for my 
taste. Either go all the way, or don't do it.


I have a concert recording of a performance with Joshua (where I played) 
from Regensburg in 98 or 99. I still prefer that by a long way, despite 
the technical inadequacies.
BTW the recording was made using an artificial head recording mike, with 
no extra microphone. The balance is perfect, even between trumpets and 
everything else. The power of the Kyrie fugue still gives me a chill. 
(There are things I don't like about it, but they are things which have 
nothing to do with the number of forces or other historical decisions.


It is true that Andrew took Joshua's side from the beginning. The two 
are acquainted. The reason I name him is because he then wrote the book, 
trying to take out some of the polemics in the discussion and coming 
back to a scientific approach.


Johannes
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-18 Thread Andrew Stiller



On Jan 18, 2007, at 8:26 AM, Daniel Wolf wrote:

He [Rudolf Kolisch] was also was of the few left-handed violinists. 
Due to injury, he restrung his violin and switched hands.  While it 
made orchestral playing awkward (due to bow crossings when sharing a 
desk), it was useful for both quartet playing and teaching. By all 
accounts he was an excellent teacher, and something of a counterweight 
to the Russian violin style which dominated US conservatory teaching 
after the war.




Kolisch was teaching at the University of Wisconsin when I was an 
undergraduate  there in the mid-'60s. From what I was told, he played 
left-handed because his first violin was a cigar box that he fashioned 
into an instrument  himself and, not knowing any better, played 
left-handed. He didn't, therefore, use a restrung violin at all, but 
rather wrapped his RH around the back of the neck in an amazing  
contortion you wouldn't think would work, but it did.


Kolisch retired from the university in 1967. In recognition of his 
career, a big Schoenberg festival was held; Kolisch's old friend Rene 
Leibowitz conducted the university orchestra (in wh. I played 3d 
bassoon and contra) for a full semester, and led us in a program 
consisting of the _Prelude to Genesis_, _A Survivor from Warsaw_, and 
the Violin Concerto, for wh. Kolisch played the solo. By this time 
Kolisch had a very bad tremor in both hands, but when he picked up the 
violin it vanished. Every one of those taxing harmonics was perfectly 
placed, and all those fiendish multiple stops absolutely in tune. And 
he played it all from memory--and left-handed.


It has been 40 years, but I still remember this as one of the peak 
musical experiences of my life.


Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-18 Thread Andrew Stiller



On Jan 18, 2007, at 10:32 AM, Kim Patrick Clow wrote:


The conductor said it was one of the first
recordings to use trumpets that didn't use those tuning holes that
modern copies of baroque trumpets have to create a more tuned sound.



Some 30 years ago, Edward Tarr discovered that the intonation problems 
those holes were designed to fix came about because modern copies of 
Bq. trps. were too perfectly made. If you hand-hammer the instrument 
into shape, (as was done historically) it is just enough out of whack 
acoustically that it becomes possible to lip the problem notes into 
tune w.o the holes.


Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 18 Jan 2007 at 10:02, dc wrote:

 Johannes Gebauer écrit:
 Well, tempered open strings doesn't mean we play tempered.
 
 But you at least play tempered if and when you play a fifth on open
 strings. John's idea that temperament is only an issue on keyboard
 instruments is completely wrong. What about fretted instruments? I
 often play with viola de gamba or theorbo, and both of them can and do
 use meantone, for instance. I have no problems playing or tuning with
 these TEMPERED instruments. But I do have problems any time I play
 with a modern cellist, who seems to think a fifth is a fifth is a
 fifth.
 
 That really depends on the music, and who we play with. For the music
 I do mostly which is 18th century and later, pure fifth simply don't
 work. For early 17th century music they may work very well, though it
 will require a mean tone tuning for keyboard instruments, and that
 requires the tuning of extremely narrow fifth. It's something one has
 to learn.
 
 I assume you mean pure thirds and not pure fifths. For most 17th
 century music, meantone is the only tuning that will work. You find
 pure thirds vulgar. I find the wide and uniform thirds of ET
 dreadful. But this is a question of musical taste and education.
 
 Dennis
 
 
 
 
 
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 17 Jan 2007 at 23:22, John Howell wrote:

 But I like your wording, Johannes.  If we can agree that Joshua's
 belief is indeed an hypothesis--an interesting hypothesis, a
 suggestive hypothesis, even a brilliant hypothesis--then the next
 stage in the scientific method follows.  Test the hypothesis.  Test it
 in Bach's own church.  Test it with the instruments he would have
 used.  Most importantly, test it with two boys and two university
 students who are NOT operatically trained soloists!!  Arguments and
 opinions are easy; proof is not.

Such tests can't prove such a hypothesis, it can only show if the 
hypothesis is plausible. Musicological proof doesn't work the way 
science does because you can't actually establish a chain of 
causality because you don't know everything about the historical 
conditions involved. It's basically an example of correlation does 
not prove causation. This is something Bradley Lehman of Bach 
temperament fame does not understand, for instance.

-- 
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David Fenton Associates   http://dfenton.com/DFA/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-18 Thread Kim Patrick Clow


On 1/18/07, Andrew Stiller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Some 30 years ago, Edward Tarr discovered that the intonation problems
those holes were designed to fix came about because modern copies of
Bq. trps. were too perfectly made. If you hand-hammer the instrument
into shape, (as was done historically) it is just enough out of whack
acoustically that it becomes possible to lip the problem notes into
tune w.o the holes.



Makes sense!

The conductor in the recording said that the brass will have a very
raw, rough sound, but to my ears-- I enjoyed it. I can see how
composers during the early Baroque were hestitant to include horns on
a regular basis, given the edgey sound.

Thanks,
Kim Patrick Clow
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 18 Jan 2007 at 10:02, dc wrote:

 What about fretted instruments? I often 
 play with viola de gamba or theorbo, and both of them can and do use
 meantone, for instance.

An organist/harpsichordist friend of mine brought this up when he 
heard my group's Couperin recording, and scolded us for playing in 
equal temperament.

We then did some experiments. We tunee the organ to 6th-comman 
meantone (not appropriate, but it is the basis of temperament 
ordinaire, which would have been a correct tuning), and it was a 
disaster (one that temp. ord. would not have fixed) -- way too much 
of the music was completely out of tune, and it's virtually 
impossible to tune a viol to any form of mean-tone. This also meant 
that our viol consort had to change to 6th-comma meantone, and that 
didn't work well either.

The problem is that you can't have a pure third between the middle 
two strings and also have pure thirds and appropriately tempered 5ths 
in the right places without having frets that snake across the 
fingerboard in all directions. For instance, if you have your 3rd 
fret tuned for a pure 3rd E on the C string, the G# on the E string 
(immediately adjacent) is not right. If you adjust the G#, then the E 
on the C string is unusable. That's but one example.

And then the tenor viol has a whole different set of problems (the F-
A interval is not supposed to be a pure third, so you end up with a 
whole different set of problems).

So, you really never can have 6th-comma mean-tone on a viol, any more 
than you can on a keyboard instrument without split keys. Yes, there 
is adjustment possible to tune as you play (according to where you 
place the finger on the fret, amount of pressure, etc.), but the 
frets themselves can never be set to do anything other than 
approximate a mean-tone temperament.

For the violin family, of course, that whole set of problems is 
irrelevant, because they can train themselves to place their fingers 
wherever is appropriate for the current enharmonic spelling, and for 
the tonal context (a G# will be different from an Ab, but also the G# 
in an E chord will be different from the G# in a c# minor chord).

Of course, viol players tuning in equal temperament (as in my 
consort) already tune intervals when playing (e.g., 3rds of major 
chords are always played low in order to approach a pure 3rd).

But my experiences with attempting 6th-comma mean-tone taught me that 
is much more complicated than many commentators make it sound -- it 
isn't some magic solution to the problems of equal temperament. It 
has its own set of problems that are surprisingly similar to those of 
ET. And when playing with a keyboard instrument, it gets *really* 
problematic (since the keyboard instrument is stuck with one pitch 
for all enharmonic contexts).

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 18 Jan 2007 at 10:37, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

 Remember, we don't have frets. The tuning depends on the 100th of a
 milimeter of out finger position.
 
 With gut strings the problems get worse, as they change when they get
 older.

Yes, indeed, and not uniformly along the string length. When a viol's 
strings get to the point that you have to be moving the higher frets 
down the fingerboard to play in tune, you know it's time to replace 
your strings. And, of course, the wrapped strings change a rate 
different from the unwrapped, and the thicker gut strings change at a 
rate different from the thin ones. The maximal point of conflict on 
the gamba is between the two middle strings, C and E, where the C is 
the thinnest of the wrapped strings and the E is the thickest of the 
unwrapped. Things very quickly become problematic there.

And replacing all your strings on a viol is 50% more expensive than 
for a violin! :)

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David Fenton Associates   http://dfenton.com/DFA/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 18 Jan 2007 at 14:26, Daniel Wolf wrote:

 He was also was of the few left-handed violinists. Due to injury, he
 restrung his violin and switched hands.  While it made orchestral
 playing awkward (due to bow crossings when sharing a desk), it was
 useful for both quartet playing and teaching.

Wouldn't one have to build a violin from scratch for a left-handed 
player, since the bass bar and post would have to be on the opposite 
side, with a different thickness profile for the whole top of the 
instrument?

-- 
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 18 Jan 2007 at 12:02, dc wrote:

 Johannes Gebauer écrit:
 If you really are interested, you should listen to some good
 recordings in mean tone (17th century music I would recommend),
 perhaps with a good mixture of string and wind instruments, plus
 meantone tuned virginal or harpsichord.
 
 A pure third in this kind of music can be a revelation, almost a
 drug.
 
 Agreed! Once you've tried meantone, you become quite addicted. One
 must also listen to voices.

For all mean-tone fans, if you ever make a trip to Northern Ohio, you 
must get to Oberlin and try the mean-tone organ in Fairchild Chapel. 
It's a beautiful Brombaugh, built in the early 80s (it went in while 
I was a student there) and has split keys, candle holders on the 
music rack and both an electric and hand-operated bellows (for 
*really* historically correct performances!). Playing Sweelinck on it 
with pure thirds was a complete revelation to me -- it's amazing what 
power such a small instrument gains when the pipes aren't fighting 
against each other. To my surprise, learning to navigate the split 
keys took only a few minutes.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com
David Fenton Associates   http://dfenton.com/DFA/


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 18 Jan 2007 at 21:40, dc wrote:

 David W. Fenton écrit:
 it's virtually impossible to tune a viol to any form of mean-tone.
 
 Well, I play with _professional_ violists who do it every day, and who
 are perfectly in tune with my meantone harpsichord.
 
 And many others say it is not only possible but ideal:

[]

Well, we worked at it for a whole semester and we never got results 
that felt comfortable. Yes, some things about it were very nice, but 
a viol just cannot be tuned to mean-tone temperaments. If your 
players are in tune with the keyboard, then they are tuning their 
notes as they play. With continuo parts, that's substantially easier 
than it would be in a viol consort, which is the context in which we 
had major problems.

Another issue for us would likely have been that the organ was built 
for equal temperament (it's the portative organ that was built by 
Brombaugh for New York Pro Musica, which came to NYU when the Pro 
Musica instrument collection was given to NYU; it probably has more 
travel miles on it than some jet planes -- the case cover certainly 
has a lot of air freight stickers on it!). But it was very recently 
rebuilt and completely re-leathered, so tuning is much easier and 
more reliable than it was before the rebuild. But it's still very 
problematic.

I think this kind of thing works better on harpsichord because tuning 
problems are not going to be nearly as obvious, since the decay 
ameliorates any clashes. Do you do much with organ continuo?

-- 
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David Fenton Associates   http://dfenton.com/DFA/


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-18 Thread A-NO-NE Music

David W. Fenton / 2007/01/18 / 03:17 PM wrote:

For all mean-tone fans, if you ever make a trip to Northern Ohio, you 
must get to Oberlin and try the mean-tone organ in Fairchild Chapel. 
It's a beautiful Brombaugh, built in the early 80s (it went in while 
I was a student there) and has split keys, candle holders on the 
music rack and both an electric and hand-operated bellows (for 
*really* historically correct performances!). Playing Sweelinck on it 
with pure thirds was a complete revelation to me -- it's amazing what 
power such a small instrument gains when the pipes aren't fighting 
against each other. To my surprise, learning to navigate the split 
keys took only a few minutes.

I was not following this thread at all but I stopped my eyes on this for
pure coincidence.  I know exactly what you are talking about.  You might
know Bill Porter then.  He was the one taught me how to place
microphones for organ recording, and I taught him, in return, how to
make proper noise when you eat Japanese noodle :-)

-- 

- Hiro

Hiroaki Honshuku, A-NO-NE Music, Boston, MA
http://a-no-ne.com http://anonemusic.com


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-18 Thread Aaron Rabushka

Does this mean that we will soon see an avant-garde composition for organ
where the organist (or perhaps even an assisant) audibly slurps noodles
during the performance?

Aaron J. Rabushka
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://users.waymark.net/arabushk
- Original Message - 
From: A-NO-NE Music [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: finale@shsu.edu
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 3:08 PM
Subject: Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

 David W. Fenton / 2007/01/18 / 03:17 PM wrote:

 For all mean-tone fans, if you ever make a trip to Northern Ohio, you
 must get to Oberlin and try the mean-tone organ in Fairchild Chapel.
 It's a beautiful Brombaugh, built in the early 80s (it went in while
 I was a student there) and has split keys, candle holders on the
 music rack and both an electric and hand-operated bellows (for
 *really* historically correct performances!). Playing Sweelinck on it
 with pure thirds was a complete revelation to me -- it's amazing what
 power such a small instrument gains when the pipes aren't fighting
 against each other. To my surprise, learning to navigate the split
 keys took only a few minutes.

 I was not following this thread at all but I stopped my eyes on this for
 pure coincidence.  I know exactly what you are talking about.  You might
 know Bill Porter then.  He was the one taught me how to place
 microphones for organ recording, and I taught him, in return, how to
 make proper noise when you eat Japanese noodle :-)

 -- 

 - Hiro

 Hiroaki Honshuku, A-NO-NE Music, Boston, MA
 http://a-no-ne.com http://anonemusic.com

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-18 Thread John Howell


At 2:37 PM -0500 1/18/07, David W. Fenton wrote:

On 17 Jan 2007 at 23:22, John Howell wrote:


 But I like your wording, Johannes.  If we can agree that Joshua's
 belief is indeed an hypothesis--an interesting hypothesis, a
 suggestive hypothesis, even a brilliant hypothesis--then the next
 stage in the scientific method follows.  Test the hypothesis.  Test it
 in Bach's own church.  Test it with the instruments he would have
 used.  Most importantly, test it with two boys and two university
 students who are NOT operatically trained soloists!!  Arguments and
 opinions are easy; proof is not.


Such tests can't prove such a hypothesis, it can only show if the
hypothesis is plausible. Musicological proof doesn't work the way
science does because you can't actually establish a chain of
causality because you don't know everything about the historical
conditions involved. It's basically an example of correlation does
not prove causation. This is something Bradley Lehman of Bach
temperament fame does not understand, for instance.


Indeed, and of course I had my tongue about 14% in cheek!  Even most 
controlled scientific experiments can neither prove nor disprove an 
hypothesis to the extent that future refinements may change or even 
reverse the results, like the elegant experiment that predicted what 
light would do around the sun if Einstein's theory were true, and it 
did.  (I don't remember the details.)


If only musicological questions could be tested with anything close 
to that accuracy, but as Johannes says, the church as it once existed 
no longer does.  I'll still hold out for non-operatically-trained 
singers, though, before I'll consider Rifkin's hypothesis.


John





--
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David Fenton Associates   http://dfenton.com/DFA/

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--
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
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 18 Jan 2007 at 16:08, A-NO-NE Music wrote:

 David W. Fenton / 2007/01/18 / 03:17 PM wrote:
 
 For all mean-tone fans, if you ever make a trip to Northern Ohio, you
  must get to Oberlin and try the mean-tone organ in Fairchild Chapel.
  It's a beautiful Brombaugh, built in the early 80s (it went in while
  I was a student there) and has split keys, candle holders on the
 music rack and both an electric and hand-operated bellows (for
 *really* historically correct performances!). Playing Sweelinck on it
  with pure thirds was a complete revelation to me -- it's amazing
 what power such a small instrument gains when the pipes aren't
 fighting against each other. To my surprise, learning to navigate the
 split keys took only a few minutes.
 
 I was not following this thread at all but I stopped my eyes on this
 for pure coincidence.  I know exactly what you are talking about.  You
 might know Bill Porter then. 

Yep. He was on the organ/harpsichord faculty when I was a student 
there. He coached a chamber group I played harpsichord continuo in, 
also.

 He was the one taught me how to place
 microphones for organ recording, and I taught him, in return, how to
 make proper noise when you eat Japanese noodle :-)

He's quite a wonderful musician and a very stirring lecturer. He 
happened to play a concert at Freiburg Cathedral while I was studying 
German at the Goethe Institut there, and I went up to him afterwards 
and said hello, and was quite surprised that he remembered me (nearly 
10 years after I'd graduated from Oberlin).

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com
David Fenton Associates   http://dfenton.com/DFA/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 18 Jan 2007 at 22:18, dc wrote:

 David W. Fenton écrit:
 Do you do much with organ continuo?
 
 Quite a bit. But I generally don't get to tune the organ, so the other
 continuo instruments (theorbo, viol) simply tune to the organ. But
 this means they move their frets around when we switch from
 harpsichord to organ (not in the same programme, of course). And it's
 harder for the singers to sing wide thirds than pure thirds.

Does that mean that when playing with the organ you're not playing in 
a mean-tone temperament? Tuning a viol to a temperament based on 
tempered 5ths (i.e., a well temperament) is easier than tuning to one 
based around pure thirds (i.e., a mean temperament, which has 5ths 
that vary by different amounts), so if, for instance, the organ is in 
one of the Kirnbergers or one of the Werckmeisters, it might be 
easier to tune to than if it's 6th-comma meantone (or one of its near 
neighbors, like temp. ord.).

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com
David Fenton Associates   http://dfenton.com/DFA/


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


David W. Fenton wrote:


I think this kind of thing works better on harpsichord because tuning 
problems are not going to be nearly as obvious, since the decay 
ameliorates any clashes. Do you do much with organ continuo?


  
More important than the decay is the attack, which as a plucked string 
includes a marked inharmonic or noise component (no, the noise component 
has nothing to do with the sound of the mechanism). The partials in the 
sustained portion of a plucked string are harmonic, and thus tunable to 
just intervals by eliminating beats.  One advantage of the harpsichord 
(or another plucked string instrument) as a continuo instrument is that 
the initial noise and rapid decay of the harmonic portion (rapid, that 
is in contrast to the rest of the ensemble) may give the ensemble more 
flexibility in intonation, while adding a percussive character.


You can learn a lot about plucked strings by playing with physical 
modeling or Karplus-Strong synthesis.


Daniel Wolf

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


David W. Fenton wrote:
Does that mean that when playing with the organ you're not playing in 
a mean-tone temperament? Tuning a viol to a temperament based on 
tempered 5ths (i.e., a well temperament) is easier than tuning to one 
based around pure thirds (i.e., a mean temperament, which has 5ths 
that vary by different amounts)


Wrong. In standard meantone, all fifths are tempered by a quarter-comma, 
and the good major third is always the sum of four (octave-reduced) 
fifths. Any meantone-like temperament can be fretted with straight frets 
(actually 12tet can be thought of as 1/11 comma !), although having all 
accidentals available on all strings may require more than 12 frets per 
octave. (At which point it is useful to consider larger equal 
temperaments, i.e. 31tet for quarter-comma meantone, 19tet for third 
comma, etc.).


The unequal circulating temperaments, so-called well-temperaments like 
the popular Kirnberger III, Werckmeister III or Young, do not have one 
size of fifth, and there is no consisting summing up of series of fifths 
into the best major third. They cannot be fretted with straight frets, 
requiring crooked frets or fretlets (which do not extend all the way 
across the fingerboard); thus tie-on frets, as on lutes or viols, will 
not work.  There is a real connection here between use of unequal 
temperaments and a decline, from the 17th to the 18th century, in the 
use of fretted instruments in the continuo ensemble.


Daniel Wolf


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-18 Thread Andrew Stiller



On Jan 18, 2007, at 3:18 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:


On 18 Jan 2007 at 14:26, Daniel Wolf wrote:


He was also was of the few left-handed violinists. Due to injury, he
restrung his violin and switched hands.  While it made orchestral
playing awkward (due to bow crossings when sharing a desk), it was
useful for both quartet playing and teaching.


Wouldn't one have to build a violin from scratch for a left-handed
player, since the bass bar and post would have to be on the opposite
side, with a different thickness profile for the whole top of the
instrument?


Absolutely. Kolisch was a famous enough violinist that he probably 
could have commissioned such an instrument--but by that time he would 
have been so accustomed to his own, idiosyncratic playing style that it 
would have been more trouble than it was worth to switch over.


I would say that if he could play the Schoenberg concerto back-handed, 
then he could play anything thus.


Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 18 Jan 2007 at 23:41, Daniel Wolf wrote:

 David W. Fenton wrote:

  I think this kind of thing works better on harpsichord because
  tuning problems are not going to be nearly as obvious, since the
  decay ameliorates any clashes. Do you do much with organ continuo?
 
 More important than the decay is the attack, which as a plucked string
 includes a marked inharmonic or noise component (no, the noise
 component has nothing to do with the sound of the mechanism). The
 partials in the sustained portion of a plucked string are harmonic,
 and thus tunable to just intervals by eliminating beats.  One
 advantage of the harpsichord (or another plucked string instrument) as
 a continuo instrument is that the initial noise and rapid decay of the
 harmonic portion (rapid, that is in contrast to the rest of the
 ensemble) may give the ensemble more flexibility in intonation, while
 adding a percussive character.

I find it much harder to tune my viol to harpsichord than to organ -- 
I always have to tune sharp of my natural gut feeling for the pitch 
in order to end up in tune. I've certainly learned how to adapt since 
I've done quite a lot of it, but I know that the less-experienced 
viol players in my consort have a much harder time of it. It's also 
easier to tune a gamba to the harpsichord than it is to tune a treble 
or the higher notes of the tenor.

I would note, though, that the organ we use (a portative having one 
rank of wooden stopped flutes with lots of chiff) has its own tuning 
issues, especially in the lower range, where the fundamental is very 
weak and the partials rather oddly spaced (the bottom notes of the 
short octave always sound out of tune to me when played in a scale, 
but in chords blend perfectly). And the high degree of chiff is full 
of non-harmonic noise, but is then followed by an upper partial-rich 
sustained tone.

And, of course, there's the issue of having to adjust in a 
performance as the keyboard instruments go out of tune (which they 
unfortunately do with alarming frequency, especially in contexts 
where they were moved into the performance space just hours before 
the performance). I'll often *not* tune my open strings to an out-of-
tune pitch on a keyboard instrument, and use a tunable stopped string 
when I need to play a unison with an out-of-string note. I would 
assume this is pretty much something that decent continouo players do 
as a matter of course, given that I'm barely even what one would call 
competent. It's much more complicated in a viol consort with organ 
parts (continuo or written-out) -- in that case you need a whole 
consort of players capable of adjusting, and I've never had the 
pleasure of playing in a consort at that level. Maybe it does work, 
but we seem to have better luck playing in tune with the organ and 
with each other when working in ET than we did for the several months 
we tried 6th-comma mean tone.

-- 
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David Fenton Associates   http://dfenton.com/DFA/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 18 Jan 2007 at 23:55, Daniel Wolf wrote:

 David W. Fenton wrote:
  Does that mean that when playing with the organ you're not playing
  in a mean-tone temperament? Tuning a viol to a temperament based on
  tempered 5ths (i.e., a well temperament) is easier than tuning to
  one based around pure thirds (i.e., a mean temperament, which has
  5ths that vary by different amounts)
 
 Wrong. In standard meantone, all fifths are tempered by a
 quarter-comma

But we weren't talking about quarter-comma, which is basically 
unusable on a keyboard instrument without split keys for anything but 
a very limited repertory.

 and the good major third is always the sum of four
 (octave-reduced) fifths. Any meantone-like temperament can be fretted
 with straight frets (actually 12tet can be thought of as 1/11 comma
 !), although having all accidentals available on all strings may
 require more than 12 frets per octave. (At which point it is useful to
 consider larger equal temperaments, i.e. 31tet for quarter-comma
 meantone, 19tet for third comma, etc.).

Uh, I don't know of any historical gambas with more than 12 frets per 
octave.

 The unequal circulating temperaments, so-called well-temperaments like
 the popular Kirnberger III, Werckmeister III or Young, do not have one
 size of fifth, and there is no consisting summing up of series of
 fifths into the best major third. They cannot be fretted with straight
 frets, requiring crooked frets or fretlets (which do not extend all
 the way across the fingerboard); thus tie-on frets, as on lutes or
 viols, will not work.  There is a real connection here between use of
 unequal temperaments and a decline, from the 17th to the 18th century,
 in the use of fretted instruments in the continuo ensemble.

This does not match my experience at all. We restrung our instruments 
and retuned our frets at the beginning of the test and we had 
desperate problems with tuning because of it. And we were playing 
17th-century music (early and late). When this was thrown together 
with the organ (our keyboard player was our tuner, so he touched it 
up before every rehearsal), it was a disaster.

Maybe we're just completely incompetent.

-- 
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David Fenton Associates   http://dfenton.com/DFA/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
I just don't think it was his ideal, however often he may have found 
himself in that situation himself.




It wasn't his ideal, but he composed differently when he composed for 8 
singers than when he composed for 4.


Johannes
--
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 John Howell wrote:

I think there's entirely too much evidence that suggests it was not his 
intention or his ideal, starting with the 2 copies of each vocal part.



No, John, there are no two copies of _each_ part. In fact there are no 
two copies of one single part. In some cantatas there are ripieno parts, 
in some there aren't. Please stay with the facts.


Johannes
--
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-17 Thread dhbailey


Raymond Horton wrote:
So McCreesh's instinctive feeling trumps the evidence of Bach's 12 
voice choir, plus his preference for a larger one?


RBH


[snip]

Well, certainly!  Isn't that what musicology is all about?  Starting 
with a preconception and then finding evidence to support it, while 
ignoring other evidence?  :-)


I find that anybody's pronouncements in the 21st century of what Bach 
really intended back in the 18th century to be just so much pissing 
into the wind.


They're ALL just suppositions since we can't know the tempos or the 
tuning pitch that each performance was given at.  And we certainly can't 
know what Bach really envisioned in his mind as he worked with the 
forces at his disposal.  He might have wanted 50 or 80 and not just 16, 
but the reality of the situation told him that the most he could hope 
for might be (if he were really lucky) 16 so that's all he ever mentioned.


We just can't know, so anybody's pronouncement that their approach is 
THE correct one is totally absurd.


But it keeps them in business, and of course generates its own 
cottage-industry subset of musicologists whose sole job in life becomes 
the repudiation of that stated pronouncement.



--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 dhbailey wrote:

Raymond Horton wrote:

So McCreesh's instinctive feeling trumps the evidence of Bach's 12 voice 
choir, plus his preference for a larger one?

RBH


[snip]

Well, certainly!  Isn't that what musicology is all about?  Starting with a 
preconception and then finding evidence to support it, while ignoring other 
evidence?  :-)


I am not so sure who this is targeted at, but I get the feeling you get 
it the wrong way round. McCreesh is certainly not making his feelings 
into the main argument, on the contrary he is taking the latest research 
by Rifkin, Butt and Parrot, and finds that conventional thinking has no 
evidence at all, but instead the evidence for tiny forces is 
overwhelming and can't be ignored.


I find that anybody's pronouncements in the 21st century of what Bach really 
intended back in the 18th century to be just so much pissing into the wind.


So what are you saying, exactly: it makes no difference, or we should 
keep it to what Bach actually had. In which case we are back to the 
single voice choir, or at most, two per part for the repieno.


They're ALL just suppositions since we can't know the tempos or the tuning 
pitch that each performance was given at.  And we certainly can't know what 
Bach really envisioned in his mind as he worked with the forces at his 
disposal.  He might have wanted 50 or 80 and not just 16, but the reality of 
the situation told him that the most he could hope for might be (if he were 
really lucky) 16 so that's all he ever mentioned.


Hang on, we do know quite a bit more than  you think: There is a great 
deal on tempi in Quantz. We _do_ know the exact pitch of the organs Bach 
had at his disposal (this is a lucky coincidence, most north German 
organs were measured in Bach's time.


Unfortunately the fine line between facts and interpretation often gets 
obscured in both directions, making it difficult for the non-expert to 
see the difference. There is no certified label for a historically 
correct performance (actually there isn't such a thing, but we should at 
least try to come close).


Johannes

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 17 Jan 2007 at 0:25, Kim Patrick Clow wrote:

 On 1/16/07, Raymond Horton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  So McCreesh's instinctive feeling trumps the evidence of Bach's 12
  voice choir, plus his preference for a larger one?
 
 What evidence?
 
 Rifkin's pesky idea deals with that:
 (taken from http://homepages.kdsi.net/~sherman/oneperpart.html)
 
 **
  What about Bach's memo to the Leipzig city council, the
 Entwurff? This 1730 letter reads like a call for three or,
 preferably, four singers per part. It seems to be a straightforward
 statement of the composer's ideal, and that's how it was always read
 by Bach scholars - until Rifkin addressed it.

Kim, you and the individual being quoted should never take such 
documents at face value. Have you ever proposed a budget for a 
project or an organization? If you want $10K, you ask for $15K, in 
the hopes that you get what you need. Now, there's no way to know of 
Bach asked for 16 singers because he thought he could then get 12, 
but there's also no way to know for certain if he actually meant 16 
(or whatever it works out to given the number of parts). One could, I 
guess, investigate the politics of the Leipzig city council and 
funding requests that came to it. One would then also need to 
investigate whether or not Bach was politically savvy in regard to 
the conventions and practices of the city council.

But you can't just take the Entwurf at face value and say it proves 
anything at all. Yes, it's what Bach asked for, but we don't know for 
certain whether it represents an ideal or a dream or an overreach or 
a practical minimum for ideal performance.

 Rifkin, Andrew Parrott, and John Butt have argued that when read with
 philological care, this document tells us nothing clear about Bach's
 choral preferences. They point out that the passage about vocal forces
 refers not to Bach's four-voiced cantatas, but to simpler motets by
 older composers - motets typically for eight voices, not four.
 Moreover, they say, the numbers Bach gives refer not to the starting
 lineup (to use Rifkin's favorite baseball analogy) but to the
 roster of team members necessary to staff an entire church-year's
 worth of singing.
 
 The text can even be interpreted as supporting Rifkin's views. It is
 not strong evidence for Rifkin, of course, nor does he claim it is.
 But he and others have shown that is is not strong evidence against
 him.

Aha! I should have read further before taking you to task for quoting 
this.

 John Butt argues in favor of Rifkin's idea (and contributes more
 evidence for it) in his Bach's vocal scoring. Previously, in his
 Bach: Mass in B Minor (p. 40), he wrote, although [Rifkin's] view
 continues to be opposed by some of the most important figures in Bach
 research, there have been no convincing arguments, based on meticulous
 source-study, actually to prove him wrong.

I don't know Butt's work, but I can't see how anyone can argue that 
the evidence for one-on-a-part is incontrovertible in either 
direction. 

 Jeanne Swack has presented research showing that Telemann used
 one-per-part scoring in his cantatas. Kerala Snyder, in her 1987 book
 Buxtehude, shows that this composer - whose performances so captivated
 the young Bach - normally intended his four-voice choral compositions
 for soloists. Finally, David Schulenberg's Music of the Baroque
 (Oxford, 2001) - the leading textbook on the period - endorses
 Rifkin's viewpoint. He writes: Although the exact makeup of Bach's
 vocal forces has been a matter of debate, it appears increasingly
 likely that most of Bach's vocal works were composed for a 'chorus'
 comprising a single singer on each part.
 *

I don't believe the situation is nearly as settled as that last 
quotation would have it.

 That certainly puts to rest your contention that Joshua Rifkin's
 arguments of one-on-a part Bach choruses were long ago shown to be
 without merit.

I would agree with this, that they have not by any means been put to 
rest, but I think they've been severely damaged, at least in regard 
to Rifkin's most vehement claim, that the surviving parts could only 
have been used for one-on-a-part performances. Without that, there 
wasn't much controversial in Rifkin's original thesis.

-- 
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-17 Thread dhbailey


Johannes Gebauer wrote:

On 17.01.2007 dhbailey wrote:

Raymond Horton wrote:
So McCreesh's instinctive feeling trumps the evidence of Bach's 12 
voice choir, plus his preference for a larger one?


RBH


[snip]

Well, certainly!  Isn't that what musicology is all about?  Starting 
with a preconception and then finding evidence to support it, while 
ignoring other evidence?  :-)


I am not so sure who this is targeted at, but I get the feeling you get 
it the wrong way round. McCreesh is certainly not making his feelings 
into the main argument, on the contrary he is taking the latest research 
by Rifkin, Butt and Parrot, and finds that conventional thinking has no 
evidence at all, but instead the evidence for tiny forces is 
overwhelming and can't be ignored.


Well, the evidence for tiny forces being used certainly is overwhelming. 
 Whether this what Bach would have wanted, had he had a chorus of 200 
voices available we can never know one way or the other.




I find that anybody's pronouncements in the 21st century of what Bach 
really intended back in the 18th century to be just so much pissing 
into the wind.


So what are you saying, exactly: it makes no difference, or we should 
keep it to what Bach actually had. In which case we are back to the 
single voice choir, or at most, two per part for the repieno.


What I'm trying to say is that none of us can truly know Bach's ultimate 
wishes for his music, so we each have to find our own level in 
performing his (or any dead composer's) wishes.  We all know from 20th 
century's rich history of recordings by composers that very few of them 
actually followed their own indicated tempi (often expressed rather 
exactly with metronome indications in the written music) and that those 
who were lucky enough to record the same music more than once not only 
varied from the written tempi but also from the tempi used on the other 
recordings.  Why should we think Bach was any different in his adherence 
to what he wrote, or in his desire to do otherwise but which was 
prevented by the reality of his situation?


We can't ever know for sure, so each has to perform Bach's music (or any 
composer's) music in the manner and with the forces we feel best fits 
the music and the situation.


And to try to tell others that my way is the only true way and their way 
is obviously flawed would be very wrong of me.


That's what bothers me in these discussions.

So if you feel Bach's music should be performed with the forces for 
which there is physical evidence in existence (heaven forbid anybody 
actually THREW OUT some parts, back then!) then that's how you should do 
it and take pride in your version.  And nobody should denigrate your 
views on it, but should rather take them as they are -- your 
interpretation.  And others should be free to perform the same music as 
they see fits best.


Casals' supposed remark to some younger musician You play Bach YOUR way 
and I'll play Bach HIS way, while sounding superbly insightful and 
wonderfully instructive, is in reality (it has taken me a number of 
years to realize this) very bogus, since Casals CAN'T know what Bach's 
way truly was.


Anybody's views of Bach's performances from a distance of over 250 years 
can never be accurate.


They remain our best guesses and should be put forth as such and not as 
gospel which proves that anybody who fails to follow it is wrong.


Which I know you aren't doing, Johannes, I'm just sort of ranting 
against some who are involved in supposedly historically informed 
performances.


The very real possibility exists that NONE of Bach's performances were 
what he really wanted but he was simply too much of a pragmatist who 
needed the job too badly to ever dare to complain too heavily in writing 
or in conversation with others.






They're ALL just suppositions since we can't know the tempos or the 
tuning pitch that each performance was given at.  And we certainly 
can't know what Bach really envisioned in his mind as he worked with 
the forces at his disposal.  He might have wanted 50 or 80 and not 
just 16, but the reality of the situation told him that the most he 
could hope for might be (if he were really lucky) 16 so that's all he 
ever mentioned.


Hang on, we do know quite a bit more than  you think: There is a great 
deal on tempi in Quantz. We _do_ know the exact pitch of the organs Bach 
had at his disposal (this is a lucky coincidence, most north German 
organs were measured in Bach's time.


Regarding Quantz' writings on tempi, we do know what he wrote.  Do we 
know what he actually did?  Composers of the 20th century who had the 
great good fortune to conduct the recordings of their own works very 
often failed to follow the very tempi they had carefully indicated with 
metronome numbers.  And some of them (Copland and Stravinsky come to 
mind) who were fortunate enough to live long enough to record the same 
music on more than one occasion not only varied in both

Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 17 Jan 2007 at 0:53, Raymond Horton wrote:

 I just remember an article after the first Rifkin recording that
 settled the issue as far as I was concerned.  If I am wrong, I'm
 wrong.  My instinctive feeling is that I am not!

Robert Marshall was respondent to Rifkin's original article, and he's 
no slouch as a Bach expert. But his case did not come close to 
knocking over Rifkin's argument as it was presented, as it involved 
almost as much hand waving as Rifkin's own. Since then, quite a bit 
of work has been done on the subject, but I don't know that any of it 
has settled the issue in favor of one or the other.

That seems about right to me, as my feeling is that Bach was a 
pragmatic musician, and he performed with what he had, and put 
together the best that he could. Sometimes that would have been one 
on a part, at other times it might have been doubled (i.e., beyond 
solo/ripieno). The result is that we have a range of historically 
justifiable possibilities for performing Bach's music, from one on a 
part to as many as 4 or 5 on a part. Anything larger than that might 
have been something Bach would have enjoyed the luxury of having, but 
I don't believe we have any actual documentary evidence to suggest 
that.

So, to me, it seems legitimate to perform Bach's 4-part vocal music 
with anywhere from 4 to 20 singers. Anything larger than that seems 
outsized (especially given the small-by-modern-standards instrumental 
forces), and the low end of that seems problematic for works of any 
scope and with accompaniment beyond continuo and an instrument or 
two, while two on a part is problematic for intonation and blend 
reasons. Because of that, I'd settle on three on a part as the ideal 
size, myself, though because of balance and blend and the 
capabilities of individual singers and the requirements of the 
particular piece, you might have only 1 or 2 on particular parts 
(i.e., you might not divide up 12 singers into 4 parts of 3 each). 
For works with more parts, you'd either add singers or adjust the 
numbers on each parts. More singers gives more flexibility to keep 
the 3-on-a-part ideal, but seems impractical. I've sung in many 
groups where some parts were sung by 3 and others by 1, and it can 
work perfectly well (single countertenors can almost always balance 
multiple singers on the other parts, much more so than female altos 
singing in the same range; of course, Bach didn't use female altos, 
but we must in modern times unless we are very lucky).

All of the possibilities I described there seem historically 
justifiable, with no documentary reason (as opposed to musical and 
pragmatic reason) to prefer one combination over the other.

And I wholly reject the dogmatic version of Rifkin position, where it 
is argued that Bach wanted, preferred and intended one-on-a-part 
performance as an ideal.

-- 
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-17 Thread Kim Patrick Clow


On 1/17/07, David W. Fenton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


So, to me, it seems legitimate to perform Bach's 4-part vocal music
with anywhere from 4 to 20 singers. Anything larger than that seems
outsized (especially given the small-by-modern-standards instrumental
forces),



You mean like *this*?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UThkfs8WP0M


Kim Patrick Clow
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 dhbailey wrote:

The very real possibility exists that NONE of Bach's performances were what he 
really wanted but he was simply too much of a pragmatist who needed the job too 
badly to ever dare to complain too heavily in writing or in conversation with 
others.


Well, one thing is for sure, the unaccompanied violin sonatas and 
partitas are definitely only for one violin, not a section. I am glad to 
say that in this respect I can deliver totally accurate performances. ;-)


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 17 Jan 2007 at 8:33, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

 On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
  While I certainly Bach's music enjoyable and convincing when 
  performed one on a part, I *don't* find Rifkin's argument convincing
  that this was Bach's intention (and his only intention). As someone
  who's been involved in a lot of church music, I know that you really
  perform with what's available that week, and single copies of vocal
  parts could easily have been sung from by two singers. Had Bach had
  the singers avaiable, I expect he would have prepared additional
  parts.
 
 That's two things.
 
 First: No, those parts which are there could not have been used by two
 singers, unless they would have sung everything, including arias.
 There is simply no, repeat no, indications of where the ripieno sings
 and where the solos sing. There are exceptions where there are ripieno
 parts, but even for those there are numerous arguments, why they could
 only have been used by one singer. It really is time to accept the
 research, not only by Joshua.

There is a difference between what Bach did for the performance that 
the parts were prepared for, and what he'd have done with ideal 
performing forces and plenty of time to copy parts.

And, of course, why would Bach have copied ripieno parts, or parts 
indicating solo/ripieno for a performance he knew would not have 
anything but solo singers? If I'm remembering correctly, aren't there 
some sets of cantata parts where the solo parts were prepared at one 
time and the ripieno parts later? That strongly suggest an early 
performance with only solo singers, but the ripieno parts prove that 
Bach's conception of the work included the possibility of ripienists, 
despite the fact that the original set of parts lacked them. Perhaps 
some of the sets of parts without ripieno indications might later 
have been adapted by Bach had he an opportunity to perform it with 
more than one singer on a part (either by adding ripieno/solo 
indications in the existing single part for two singers to sing from, 
or by copying ripieno parts for one or more singers to use).

It's really rather analogous to the situation with the Mozart 
fragments. Before Tyson's revolutionary breakthrough on the paper 
types in the fragments (where he showed that some complete Mozart 
works were started long before they were completed, with the first 
few folios of the score being on paper from years earlier, such that 
these works lay as fragments for years before Mozart returned to them 
and finished them), it was often wondered why Mozart had abandoned 
so many works for which the beginnings seemed so promising. Well, it 
turns out that, apparently, Mozart would sometimes begin a work and 
get down enough to recall the work, then lay it aside for later 
completion. Sadly, he never got around to finishing many of them. 
Thus, we cannot say for certain that Mozart had abandoned any of his 
fragments, only that they were works that he'd not yet had the 
opportunity to complete.

Likewise, the surviving parts for Bach's vocal works don't 
necessarily represent Bach's final state for a complete set of 
performing parts for those works, as we know perfectly well that when 
performing works a second and third time, he sometimes had additional 
parts prepared *according to the forces available at the time*.

For this reason, I just can't accept any dogmatic assertion that a 
surviving set of solo-only vocal parts precludes choral performance.

In a similar example from a later period, it's pretty clear from 
surviving parts for Mozart piano concertos in Leopold Mozart's hand 
(I believe they are at St. Peters, and Cliff Eisen prepared an 
edition for BH from them that was recorded by Robert Levin at the 
fortepiano, but I can't recall what period orchestra was involved -- 
I actually don't own any of these recordings) that there were oral 
ripieno/solo traditions even in that repertory, since Leopold's parts 
include some striking effects with solo/ripieno markings (not always 
simply corresponding to obvious loud/soft associations between tutti 
and solo). 

There is so much that we don't know and that was not included in 
notated parts that I just think it's not possible to preclude 
multiple singers on a part for particular Bach's vocal works just 
because the only surviving parts for those works include no 
indication that more than one singer was used in the performance(s) 
Bach supervised.

To me, what Rifkin did was to legitimize one-on-a-part performance of 
Bach's music, but his work certainly does not make performance with 
more than one-on-a-part illegitimate.

 I suggest reading the book by Andrew Parrot, who incidentally comes to
 the same conclusions. From todays musicological stand there is really
 little question that Joshua is correct.

His interpretation may be correct for certain sets of sources insofar 
as they discribe the way Bach actually peformed them, but that really 
should not

Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 17 Jan 2007 at 14:03, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

 On 17.01.2007 dhbailey wrote:
  The very real possibility exists that NONE of Bach's performances
  were what he really wanted but he was simply too much of a
  pragmatist who needed the job too badly to ever dare to complain too
  heavily in writing or in conversation with others.
 
 Well, one thing is for sure, the unaccompanied violin sonatas and
 partitas are definitely only for one violin, not a section. I am glad
 to say that in this respect I can deliver totally accurate
 performances. ;-)

But how's your intonation in the fugues? :)

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com
David Fenton Associates   http://dfenton.com/DFA/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 17 Jan 2007 at 7:45, dhbailey wrote:

 Johannes Gebauer wrote:
  On 17.01.2007 dhbailey wrote:
  Raymond Horton wrote:
  So McCreesh's instinctive feeling trumps the evidence of Bach's
  12 voice choir, plus his preference for a larger one?
 
  RBH
 
  [snip]
 
  Well, certainly!  Isn't that what musicology is all about? 
  Starting with a preconception and then finding evidence to support
  it, while ignoring other evidence?  :-)
  
  I am not so sure who this is targeted at, but I get the feeling you
  get it the wrong way round. McCreesh is certainly not making his
  feelings into the main argument, on the contrary he is taking the
  latest research by Rifkin, Butt and Parrot, and finds that
  conventional thinking has no evidence at all, but instead the
  evidence for tiny forces is overwhelming and can't be ignored.
 
 Well, the evidence for tiny forces being used certainly is
 overwhelming. 
   Whether this what Bach would have wanted, had he had a chorus of 200
 voices available we can never know one way or the other.

I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that, no, Bach wouldn't have 
preferred 200 voices, even if he'd had them. He might have tried it 
as a stunt, but it was completely outside the sound conception of his 
music. Remember, the cantatas are part of the concerto tradition 
going back to Monteverdi, and really are soloistic works with some 
choral movements (I think it was Johannes who a couple of days ago 
mentioned that concerto might have meant to Bach more like what we 
mean when we say chamber music). Perhaps he would have liked 200 
singers on the chorales, but certainly not on any of the other 
movements, seems to me.

And, of course, there was no context in which such forces would have 
even been possible in Bach's milieu, seems to me. I think it's only a 
secular performance of sacred vocal works that ever gets that kind of 
forces before the mid-19th century (when Bach's cantatas were not 
even known!).

  I find that anybody's pronouncements in the 21st century of what
  Bach really intended back in the 18th century to be just so much
  pissing into the wind.
  
  So what are you saying, exactly: it makes no difference, or we
  should keep it to what Bach actually had. In which case we are back
  to the single voice choir, or at most, two per part for the repieno.
 
 What I'm trying to say is that none of us can truly know Bach's
 ultimate wishes for his music, so we each have to find our own level
 in performing his (or any dead composer's) wishes. 

We don't know his ultimate wishes, but we know certain things about 
the way he composed in different genres and for different forces. I 
just don't think it's conceivable that Bach would have approved of 
even 50 singers for anything more than special events that were 
little more than stunts. 

 We all know from
 20th century's rich history of recordings by composers that very few
 of them actually followed their own indicated tempi (often expressed
 rather exactly with metronome indications in the written music) and
 that those who were lucky enough to record the same music more than
 once not only varied from the written tempi but also from the tempi
 used on the other recordings. 

Many modern composers have not been particularly gifted 
performers/conductors. That cannot possibly be said of Bach, seems to 
me.

And he didn't write down many tempos and no metronome markings (which 
didn't exist at the time). He didn't need to -- the meters chosen 
indicated tempos pretty clearly to performers of his time.

 Why should we think Bach was any
 different in his adherence to what he wrote, or in his desire to do
 otherwise but which was prevented by the reality of his situation?

Why should we think Bach was *not* different than the examples? Some 
modern composers are quite reliable in performing pretty much what is 
in their scores. Others are not. On what basis could we claim this as 
any kind of evidence for religiously following or disregarding any of 
the specific evidence we have about what Bach actually did in his 
performances?

It's a complete red herring.

 We can't ever know for sure, so each has to perform Bach's music (or
 any composer's) music in the manner and with the forces we feel best
 fits the music and the situation.

I do not know for sure that I will not be hit by a bus the next time 
I cross the street. That does not mean that I cannot cross the street 
with confidence that I have a 99.9% chance of being here tomorrow, 
posting away tomorrow at great length on any topic but Finale. ;)

 And to try to tell others that my way is the only true way and their
 way is obviously flawed would be very wrong of me.

I agree that restricting to one true way is wrong, and I think that 
is what Rifkin's case came near to doing. But he was also writing and 
lecturing and performing in response to a conventional wisdom that 
strongly resisted the basic idea of reduced forces for Bach 
performance (fewer than 20

Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
In a similar example from a later period, it's pretty clear from 
surviving parts for Mozart piano concertos in Leopold Mozart's hand 
(I believe they are at St. Peters, and Cliff Eisen prepared an 
edition for BH from them that was recorded by Robert Levin at the 
fortepiano, but I can't recall what period orchestra was involved -- 
I actually don't own any of these recordings) that there were oral 
ripieno/solo traditions even in that repertory, since Leopold's parts 
include some striking effects with solo/ripieno markings (not always 
simply corresponding to obvious loud/soft associations between tutti 
and solo). 



This is by no means knew research, it has been done. (I did actually 
take part in one of the Levin CDs with AAM and Hogwood).


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
Robert Marshall was respondent to Rifkin's original article, and he's 
no slouch as a Bach expert. But his case did not come close to 
knocking over Rifkin's argument as it was presented, as it involved 
almost as much hand waving as Rifkin's own. Since then, quite a bit 
of work has been done on the subject, but I don't know that any of it 
has settled the issue in favor of one or the other.




Well, actually, the discussion went on in Early Music between Joshua and 
Ton Koopman (I believe this was in the year 2000). Eventually they 
called in Andrew Parrot as the unbiased mediator, who then ended up 
writing a book which basically completely supports Joshua's view. The 
whole thing is as settled as it can be. There will always be those who 
don't believe the evidence, but it is nonetheless there.


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
I would agree with this, that they have not by any means been put to 
rest, but I think they've been severely damaged, at least in regard 
to Rifkin's most vehement claim, that the surviving parts could only 
have been used for one-on-a-part performances. Without that, there 
wasn't much controversial in Rifkin's original thesis.




They were damaged unjustly, and there has since been a lot of research 
by many others which shows that Rifkin was absolutely correct in his 
assumption. Again, Andrew Parrot sums it up, read it.


If you get a chance I would recommend you to hear Joshua's lecture, it 
is extremely powerful evidence, and I am pretty sure you would 
understand why I fight for him so strongly.


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
But how's your intonation in the fugues?  :) 



Actually, when I did a life broadcast of the D minor (no fugue but the 
Ciaccona) this was one of the points I talked about in the interview 
afterwards.


Not modern, if I may say so.

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
And, of course, why would Bach have copied ripieno parts, or parts 
indicating solo/ripieno for a performance he knew would not have 
anything but solo singers?


Well, would he have written that very same piece had he know he would 
have a larger choir?


Interestingly in the whole of the B minor mass there is not a single 
solo or ripinieno indication of any type in any of the original 
manuscripts. I must say that a performance of the Kyrie fugue with 5 
singers is imo much more powerfull than any performance by a large choir 
(even the Thomas Choir).


We are now turning in circles. In Bach's oevre there are cantatas which 
were intended for solistic performance only (only one set of voice 
parts, and no indication whatsoever of solo or ripieno passages, ergo 
(simplified) one singer per part), and the larger cantatas where ripieno 
parts exist. These were typically performed by 8 singers (like the John 
Passion): 4 soloists, and 4 ripienists.


Please don't mix these two types, or the whole discussion is useless. 
Joshua Rifkin _never_ said that Bach's cantatas were all intended for 
single voices, he knows the distinction between ripieno and solo better 
than anyone else.


The problem is that this whole discussion has become a single voices 
against big choir discussion. This was never started by Joshua.


Now, if anyone really wants to know about this, please read the book by 
Andrew Parrot.


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 17 Jan 2007 at 14:46, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

 On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
  In a similar example from a later period, it's pretty clear from
  surviving parts for Mozart piano concertos in Leopold Mozart's hand
  (I believe they are at St. Peters, and Cliff Eisen prepared an
  edition for BH from them that was recorded by Robert Levin at the
  fortepiano, but I can't recall what period orchestra was involved --
  I actually don't own any of these recordings) that there were oral
  ripieno/solo traditions even in that repertory, since Leopold's
  parts include some striking effects with solo/ripieno markings (not
  always simply corresponding to obvious loud/soft associations
  between tutti and solo). 
 
 This is by no means knew research, it has been done. (I did actually
 take part in one of the Levin CDs with AAM and Hogwood).

Well, Cliff Eisen was my dissertation advisor at the time he was 
preparing these editions, so I knew about it back then. That was only 
in the early 90s, which seems recent to me!

It was certainly a revelation that opened a whole world of 
epistemological uncertainty for me, at least.

-- 
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David Fenton Associates   http://dfenton.com/DFA/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 17 Jan 2007 at 14:46, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

 On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
  And, of course, why would Bach have copied ripieno parts, or parts
  indicating solo/ripieno for a performance he knew would not have
  anything but solo singers?
 
 Well, would he have written that very same piece had he know he would
 have a larger choir?

I don't know. But that's not actually the question, is it?

 Interestingly in the whole of the B minor mass there is not a single
 solo or ripinieno indication of any type in any of the original
 manuscripts. I must say that a performance of the Kyrie fugue with 5
 singers is imo much more powerfull than any performance by a large
 choir (even the Thomas Choir).
 
 We are now turning in circles. In Bach's oevre there are cantatas
 which were intended for solistic performance only (only one set of
 voice parts, and no indication whatsoever of solo or ripieno passages,
 ergo (simplified) one singer per part), and the larger cantatas where
 ripieno parts exist. These were typically performed by 8 singers (like
 the John Passion): 4 soloists, and 4 ripienists.
 
 Please don't mix these two types, or the whole discussion is useless.
 Joshua Rifkin _never_ said that Bach's cantatas were all intended for
 single voices, he knows the distinction between ripieno and solo
 better than anyone else.

I'm not using solo/ripieno as an indication of non-one-on-a-part. 
Rifkin's argument was that two people didn't share a part, and that 
when there was solo/ripieno division, there was a part for the 
soloist and a part for the ripienist. That's still one on a part in 
Rifkin's interpretation, and I've been treating it as such in my 
discussions of the situation.

 The problem is that this whole discussion has become a single voices
 against big choir discussion. This was never started by Joshua.

If what I've written gives you the idea that I see it that way, I've 
written unclearly.

-- 
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 17 Jan 2007 at 14:46, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

 On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
  I would agree with this, that they have not by any means been put
  to rest, but I think they've been severely damaged, at least in
  regard to Rifkin's most vehement claim, that the surviving parts
  could only have been used for one-on-a-part performances. Without
  that, there wasn't much controversial in Rifkin's original thesis.
 
 They were damaged unjustly, and there has since been a lot of research
 by many others which shows that Rifkin was absolutely correct in his
 assumption. Again, Andrew Parrot sums it up, read it.

I don't have his book, so I can't immediately read it. But there is a 
problem with interpretation of the evidence here. If you're conveying 
Parrot's case correctly, he's giving the surviving sources more 
weight than they can bear.

 If you get a chance I would recommend you to hear Joshua's lecture, it
 is extremely powerful evidence, and I am pretty sure you would
 understand why I fight for him so strongly.

Um, I heard his lecture in 1985. I made the same objections in the 
question session after the lecture that I've made here. Rifkin has 
never addressed them sufficiently so far as I'm aware.

-- 
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 17 Jan 2007 at 14:52, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

 On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
  But how's your intonation in the fugues?  :) 
 
 Actually, when I did a life broadcast of the D minor (no fugue but the
 Ciaccona) this was one of the points I talked about in the interview
 afterwards.

A friend of mine is a violinist and has a recording of them out and 
performs them regularly. He's a modern violinist, but he played 
extensively with Laurette Goldberg (founder of Philharmonia Baroque) 
when he lived in San Francisco, and she taught him a lot about 
Baroque dance styles, and he's very much historically aware in his 
performances. He's told me that whenever he played Bach in 
competitions the judges always said they loved his playing, but 
marked him down for it because it was non-traditional.

Very annoying.

 Not modern, if I may say so.

Well, I should hope not!

-- 
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David Fenton Associates   http://dfenton.com/DFA/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 17 Jan 2007 at 14:50, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

 On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
  Robert Marshall was respondent to Rifkin's original article, and
  he's no slouch as a Bach expert. But his case did not come close to
  knocking over Rifkin's argument as it was presented, as it involved
  almost as much hand waving as Rifkin's own. Since then, quite a bit
  of work has been done on the subject, but I don't know that any of
  it has settled the issue in favor of one or the other.
  
 
 Well, actually, the discussion went on in Early Music between Joshua
 and Ton Koopman (I believe this was in the year 2000). 

You mean the discussion continued then? The original publication of 
Rifkin's hypothesis was back in the early 80s, around the time the B 
Minor Mass recording came out.

 Eventually they
 called in Andrew Parrot as the unbiased mediator, who then ended up
 writing a book which basically completely supports Joshua's view. The
 whole thing is as settled as it can be. There will always be those who
 don't believe the evidence, but it is nonetheless there.

Nothing is *every* settled. New evidence can emerge, and the 
unexamined assumptions of one generation can become blazingly obvious 
to a later generation. Were it not so, I never would have gone into 
musicology.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com
David Fenton Associates   http://dfenton.com/DFA/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-17 Thread dhbailey


Johannes Gebauer wrote:

On 17.01.2007 dhbailey wrote:
The very real possibility exists that NONE of Bach's performances were 
what he really wanted but he was simply too much of a pragmatist who 
needed the job too badly to ever dare to complain too heavily in 
writing or in conversation with others.


Well, one thing is for sure, the unaccompanied violin sonatas and 
partitas are definitely only for one violin, not a section. I am glad to 
say that in this respect I can deliver totally accurate performances. ;-)


Johannes



Amen to that!   :-)

--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
I don't have his book, so I can't immediately read it. But there is a 
problem with interpretation of the evidence here. If you're conveying 
Parrot's case correctly, he's giving the surviving sources more 
weight than they can bear.



I am not conveying Parrot's case, in fact he makes his own case very 
convincingly. Please read the book, then tell me whether you think he 
doesn't have enough factual evidence.


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:

Actually, when I did a life broadcast of the D minor (no fugue but the
 Ciaccona) this was one of the points I talked about in the interview
 afterwards.


A friend of mine is a violinist and has a recording of them out and 
performs them regularly. He's a modern violinist, but he played 
extensively with Laurette Goldberg (founder of Philharmonia Baroque) 
when he lived in San Francisco, and she taught him a lot about 
Baroque dance styles, and he's very much historically aware in his 
performances. He's told me that whenever he played Bach in 
competitions the judges always said they loved his playing, but 
marked him down for it because it was non-traditional.


Very annoying.


 Not modern, if I may say so.


Well, I should hope not!



I do wonder what kind of intonation your friend used. In my opinion this 
 is actually the biggest difference between a modern and a good period 
instrument performance.


Johannes
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
If what I've written gives you the idea that I see it that way, I've 
written unclearly.




No, sorry, I was in part replying to others opinion, not so much yours. 
Appologies.


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:

Well, actually, the discussion went on in Early Music between Joshua
 and Ton Koopman (I believe this was in the year 2000). 


You mean the discussion continued then? The original publication of 
Rifkin's hypothesis was back in the early 80s, around the time the B 
Minor Mass recording came out.


Well, your question shows that you are not fully informed on the 
subject. Unfortunately this is a pretty common problem when talking 
about this very subject. There is simply a lot of recent research,which 
is constantly ignored by those who still claim Joshua was wrong.



 Eventually they
 called in Andrew Parrot as the unbiased mediator, who then ended up
 writing a book which basically completely supports Joshua's view. The
 whole thing is as settled as it can be. There will always be those who
 don't believe the evidence, but it is nonetheless there.


Nothing is *every* settled. 


Well, that's why I said as it can be.


New evidence can emerge, and the
unexamined assumptions of one generation can become blazingly obvious 
to a later generation. Were it not so, I never would have gone into 
musicology.




Yes, but you can't just insist on your points by simply ignoring all the 
more recent research completely. The current state of research strongly 
suggests that Joshua was correct all the way. Imo it is highly unlikely 
that this will turn around completely. Minor questions might still be 
open, some points unclear, but all in all the main points have been proven.


It's a bit like insisting that Mozart was murdered by Salieri, although 
there is actually no evidence to support it. Of course you can say new 
evidence may emerge in the future. But it is highly unlikely. As settled 
as it can be, just as I said it.


As a matter of fact Joshua is a very serious researcher himself. He 
found out something and he presented it in a provocative way. That 
doesn't de-value the quality of his research. He really knows the 
subject, and did his research trying to be as unbiased as possible.


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 17 Jan 2007 at 17:02, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

 On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
  I don't have his book, so I can't immediately read it. But there is
  a problem with interpretation of the evidence here. If you're
  conveying Parrot's case correctly, he's giving the surviving sources
  more weight than they can bear.
 
 I am not conveying Parrot's case, in fact he makes his own case very
 convincingly. Please read the book, then tell me whether you think he
 doesn't have enough factual evidence.

No amount of evidence improperly interpreted can prove a case, so 
it's not how much evidence he accumulates, but how interprets the 
evidence that is available.

I'll put it on my list of things to read, but I don't believe it's 
fair to attempt to shut off discussion of the issues involved by 
simply claiming there's a book that proves your position without 
citing the actual line of reasoning from that book. You've given some 
examples, and objections to the line of reasoning you present have 
been given, but you seem to me to be simply insisting that the book 
proves that these objections are unwarranted. I don't see that as a 
particularly good-faith approach to discussion.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com
David Fenton Associates   http://dfenton.com/DFA/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 17 Jan 2007 at 17:02, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

 On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
  Actually, when I did a life broadcast of the D minor (no fugue but
  the
   Ciaccona) this was one of the points I talked about in the
   interview afterwards.
  
  A friend of mine is a violinist and has a recording of them out and
  performs them regularly. He's a modern violinist, but he played
  extensively with Laurette Goldberg (founder of Philharmonia Baroque)
  when he lived in San Francisco, and she taught him a lot about
  Baroque dance styles, and he's very much historically aware in his
  performances. He's told me that whenever he played Bach in
  competitions the judges always said they loved his playing, but
  marked him down for it because it was non-traditional.
  
  Very annoying.
  
   Not modern, if I may say so.
  
  Well, I should hope not!
 
 I do wonder what kind of intonation your friend used. In my opinion
 this is actually the biggest difference between a modern and a good
 period instrument performance.

He doesn't use equal temperament, but he's also not striving for a 
particular historical temperament.

-- 
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David Fenton Associates   http://dfenton.com/DFA/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

On 17 Jan 2007 at 17:02, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

 As a matter of fact Joshua is a very serious researcher himself. He
 found out something and he presented it in a provocative way. That
 doesn't de-value the quality of his research. He really knows the
 subject, and did his research trying to be as unbiased as possible.

Um, I know all about Rifkin (though I don't really know him 
personally -- I've been introduced but he wouldn't remember me, 
though he'd probably recognize my name). He was educated in my 
department, though he never completed the Ph.D. He's something of a 
maverick and flouts some of the conventions of musicological 
discourse and this has caused many of his problems.

I think he has always overstated his case, because he was reacting to 
a climate in which his hypothesis was going to be highly 
controversial. Also, as a musicologically-trained performer, he was 
seen by many (wrongly, in my opinion) as justifying his performing 
decisions by interpreting the evidence to favor what he was wanting 
to do with his group. Yes, he knew the sources, but he always seemed 
to me to be making a mistake in saying too firmly exactly what they 
meant. I always felt there was more doubt and flexibility in the 
subject than his polemical approach to it justified.

-- 
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David Fenton Associates   http://dfenton.com/DFA/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-17 Thread Kim Patrick Clow


On 1/17/07, Johannes Gebauer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

If you get a chance I would recommend you to hear Joshua's lecture, it
is extremely powerful evidence, and I am pretty sure you would
understand why I fight for him so strongly.



Where can you obtain a copy of this lecture?


Thanks

Kim Patrick Clow
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 dc wrote:

Johannes Gebauer écrit:

I do wonder what kind of intonation your friend used. In my opinion this  is 
actually the biggest difference between a modern and a good period instrument 
performance.


What do you mean exactly by intonation? Temperament? How good the thirds are?


It's not really accurate to speak of temperament for violin playing. 
Temperament only works if the notes are always the same, which they 
never are.


Too pure a third in Bach actually sounds very odd (a little vulgar) to 
my ears, and that would also require some very odd melodic intervals.


However, I strongly believe that violinists should know a lot _about_ 
temperaments. Only then will they understand to adjust their intonation 
to get good thirds, _and_ good melodic intervals. It's a very complex 
issue, and not many violinists are quite aware of the complexity.


For instance: In an orchestra someone was tuning his fifth to a machine. 
Someone else asked which temperament he was using, which was equal. The 
reaction by at least three other violinists was No, you can't use equal 
tempered fifth for early music. So instead he tuned pure fifths. Now 
think: Any historical temperament I know of tunes the relevant fifths 
(g-d-a-e) even narrower than equal temperament. Only Werckmeister leaves 
 one of them pure. Most are a sixth/fifth or even fourth comma narrow. 
Equal temperament is a twelveth narrow. So what is closer to a 
historical temperament, pure or ET? Throw that question at baroque 
violinists, and you will probably find more of them replying pure.


Whether one tunes the strings pure or tempered is yet another question.


In many cases, I'd say the biggest difference is the quantity of vibrato.


No, I don't think so. Although vibrato is often used to cover the bad 
tuning. The two usually appear together.


Johannes

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 Kim Patrick Clow wrote:

Where can you obtain a copy of this lecture?


I have no idea, but I can ask him, if you like. I heard it life, with 
all his material, and I certainly found it impressive.


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
He doesn't use equal temperament, but he's also not striving for a 
particular historical temperament.




In other words, he probably does just what almost every modern violinist 
does. In which case I would find it dreadful to listen to.


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
I think he has always overstated his case, because he was reacting to 
a climate in which his hypothesis was going to be highly 
controversial. Also, as a musicologically-trained performer, he was 
seen by many (wrongly, in my opinion) as justifying his performing 
decisions by interpreting the evidence to favor what he was wanting 
to do with his group. Yes, he knew the sources, but he always seemed 
to me to be making a mistake in saying too firmly exactly what they 
meant. I always felt there was more doubt and flexibility in the 
subject than his polemical approach to it justified.




You know what? I think the two of you would make a fantastic 
pair...Although I'd probably want to be in a safe distance.


Just couldn't resist...;-)

And yes, he is polemic, I don't think he is overstating, but he is not 
always very diplomatic.


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:

I am not conveying Parrot's case, in fact he makes his own case very
 convincingly. Please read the book, then tell me whether you think he
 doesn't have enough factual evidence.


No amount of evidence improperly interpreted can prove a case, so 
it's not how much evidence he accumulates, but how interprets the 
evidence that is available.




How on earth can you assume this is the case? This discussion is 
becoming rather boring, simply because we circle around the very same 
point, is the evidence good enough or not. I don't have the book here, 
so I simply cannot make the point. If you have doubts, read it. If after 
that you still have doubts, ok. Then we can discuss it. Otherwise, no 
point. I can't list the evidence anyway, and even if I did you would 
doubt it, too, without the prove. Discussing this just for the sake of 
fighting for ever so slightly different views is a waste of time.


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-17 Thread Raymond Horton




Johannes Gebauer wrote:

On 17.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:

Well, actually, the discussion went on in Early Music between Joshua
 and Ton Koopman (I believe this was in the year 2000). 


You mean the discussion continued then? The original publication of 
Rifkin's hypothesis was back in the early 80s, around the time the B 
Minor Mass recording came out.


Well, your question shows that you are not fully informed on the 
subject. Unfortunately this is a pretty common problem when talking 
about this very subject. There is simply a lot of recent 
research,which is constantly ignored by those who still claim Joshua 
was wrong.


This is certainly obvious in my case.  I read the original exchange and 
thought it was over.  I defer.  I'll try to get time to look at some of 
the recent research before I open my mouth again.


Raymond Horton

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


At 8:49 AM +0100 1/17/07, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

On 17.01.2007 John Howell wrote:
(One of my disagreements with the Rifkin hypothesis, whether or not 
it works for modern ears, is that in his 1731 memo Bach 
specifically mentioned both concertists and ripienists among the 
boys, and we do find such vocal parts in his hand or that of one of 
his regular copyists.



In what way does that disagree with Joshua's hypothesis? He uses 
ripienists (one to a part) for the pieces where one can assume that 
there were ripienists. The John Passion is a good example.


Yes, and that Passion is the piece I have studied in great detail.

But I like your wording, Johannes.  If we can agree that Joshua's 
belief is indeed an hypothesis--an interesting hypothesis, a 
suggestive hypothesis, even a brilliant hypothesis--then the next 
stage in the scientific method follows.  Test the hypothesis.  Test 
it in Bach's own church.  Test it with the instruments he would have 
used.  Most importantly, test it with two boys and two university 
students who are NOT operatically trained soloists!!  Arguments and 
opinions are easy; proof is not.


John


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Virginia Tech Department of Music
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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


At 7:45 AM -0500 1/17/07, dhbailey wrote:


Casals' supposed remark to some younger musician You play Bach YOUR 
way and I'll play Bach HIS way, while sounding superbly insightful 
and wonderfully instructive, is in reality (it has taken me a number 
of years to realize this) very bogus, since Casals CAN'T know what 
Bach's way truly was.


I believe that was Wanda Landowska, not Casals, not that that affects 
your argument.


John


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


At 8:07 AM -0500 1/17/07, David W. Fenton wrote:

On 17 Jan 2007 at 8:33, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

  First: No, those parts which are there could not have been used by two

 singers, unless they would have sung everything, including arias.


What is the term?  Reduction ad absurdam?  Where is it written in 
scripture that any given part has to include meticulous instructions 
about everything, when they were performing their music in their 
style and doing it every week under the supervision of the composer! 
That's like saying a jazz player can't swing unless the swing is 
notated and there's a footnote explaining  how to swing!  How long 
would it have taken Bach, at the last rehearsal, to say, OK, Fritz, 
you take that number as a solo if you're over your cold on Sunday, 
but otherwise Hans takes it, and make sure you all sing on the 
chorale?



  There is simply no, repeat no, indications of where the ripieno sings

 and where the solos sing. There are exceptions where there are ripieno
 parts, but even for those there are numerous arguments, why they could
 only have been used by one singer.


Any part can be used by more than one singer or player.  I don't 
understand how there can possibly be ANY evidence to the contrary, 
because it's a plain physical fact!!


John


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


At 6:01 PM +0100 1/17/07, dc wrote:

Johannes Gebauer écrit:
I do wonder what kind of intonation your friend 
used. In my opinion this  is actually the 
biggest difference between a modern and a good 
period instrument performance.


What do you mean exactly by intonation? Temperament? How good the thirds are?


Temperament is only necessary--and a necessary 
evil at that--for keyboard instruments that 
cannot make microtonal pitch adjustments.  Tuning 
involves pure intervals, including the thirds or 
course.  Call it just intonation, if that makes 
you happy, or call it Fred.  Stringed instruments 
can do it, although we're trained not to.


John


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 18.01.2007 John Howell wrote:

I believe that was Wanda Landowska, not Casals, not that that affects your 
argument.


Actually, it does. Had Casals said that it would have been rather strange.

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)


On 18.01.2007 John Howell wrote:

 First: No, those parts which are there could not have been used by two

 singers, unless they would have sung everything, including arias.


What is the term?  Reduction ad absurdam?  Where is it written in scripture 
that any given part has to include meticulous instructions about everything, 
when they were performing their music in their style and doing it every week 
under the supervision of the composer!



No John, they could not. Look at the parts for the B minor mass. Even 
today performances differ on what is sung by the choir and what is sung 
by the soloists. There is no indication. The style doesn't tell 
anything. One piece which we hear today as solo will follow the previous 
choir piece only devided by a double bar on the same line. Nothing, 
repeat nothing would prevent the whole choir from coming in in the 
Benedictus, or you name it.


Imagine 3 Altos coming in in the Agnus Dei. Remember, hardly any rehearsals.

It is simply unimaginable. Again, I recomment you read the book by 
Andrew Parrot.


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On 18.01.2007 John Howell wrote:
But I like your wording, Johannes. If we can agree that Joshua's belief is indeed an hypothesis--an interesting hypothesis, a suggestive hypothesis, even a brilliant hypothesis--then the next stage in the scientific method follows. Test the hypothesis.

Done, I did the John passion with him in Stuttgart in 2000.

Test it in Bach's own church.

I have done the Magnificat there. It makes no sense. The original
accoustics are lost because the original panelling on the walls was
stipped out. No chance to go back to the original.

Test it with the instruments he would have used.

Well, we played on period instruments, I guess this got as close as one
can get today. There is one exception, and one which I in particular
don't like: we always use little chamber organs for the continuo. Bach
used the church organ. And from all we know he might have used more than
the softest stops.

Most importantly, test it with two boys and two university students who
are NOT operatically trained soloists!!

The ripieno parts are no problem for them, it is the solo parts. Since
they are undisputed there is no argument here.

Yes I have done the John Passion with boys (with the choir of Christ
Church College, Oxford, soloists from the choir, including the difficult
soprano arias, though they were doubled by two as the master said this
year he didn't have one secure enough to do it on his own - reminds one
of Bach's Entwurf...). There is one problem with that: Their voices
break quite a bit earlier than they used to in Bach's time, and it makes
an enormous difference whether you have a 12 year old or a 16 year old.
Still I have done it, and the good boys choirs today will have capable
soloists.

I studied at King's College in Cambridge. That's a pretty good example.
Tölzer Knabenchor and Thomas Chor are others.

Just to return to the John Passion: The way Joshua does it (with 8
singers) actually convinced me that this may indeed be what Bach
imagined. The result is almost a double-choir setup like the Matthew.
Especially Eilt, Eilt becomes a completely different piece. I have to
say it is now the only way I like the John Passion. I have played this
piece so many time that I know all the weaknesses, and for me those
weakness come out many times more with anything but single forces.

BTW, the John Passion is on piece with a rather large violin body. It
needs 3 firsts and 2 second violins if one follows the available
material. There is also a contra bassoon part, although I am personally
not convinced it should always be used, I believe it was meant to
replace the organ 16 foot in the year the organ was broken (when the
harpsichord was used).

Arguments and opinions are easy; proof is not.

No proof will ever convince you fully. But I wished you could have heard
it in 2000.

Johannes
--
http://www.musikmanufaktur.com
http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-16 Thread John Howell


At 8:33 AM +0100 1/16/07, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

On 16.01.2007 John Howell wrote:


That's also what I had in mind, and I have 
always thought that the ripieno indications 
were for this purpose.


Is memory betraying me?


Concertino and ripieno go back at least to 
Corelli's concertos (which Handel certainly 
would have known), and had nothing to do with 
how large the ripieno was.  Corelli's and 
Handel's were rather small, and probably 
Vivaldi's as well.  And of course 90% or more 
of modern performances ignore those 
instructions.


I know that, but in the special case of the 
Messiah, there is no concertino, but there are 
ripieno indications, which seems to suggest that 
certain movements used much larger forces (the 
amateur back desks) than others.


Interesting that what seems so black-and-white 
can be so confusing!  In Messiah, since there are 
con ripieno indications, by default there ARE 
concertino players, but certainly not as featured 
soloists.  In the operas and oratorios the 
orchestra is a backup band.  And as you imply, 
there may have been more than one on a part.  I'd 
love to speculate that having learned the 
concertino-ripieno sound contrast from Corelli, 
Handel simply made it a normal part of his 
thinking and writing, whether for opera, 
oratorio, or instrumental music, but it might 
equally well be for economic reasons.  Pay the 
better players more and give them more to learn; 
pay the lesser players less and require fewer 
rehearsals of them.


I've been studying the Water Music score 
(Bärenteriter, from the Halle edition).  In the 
Allegro of the Overture there are definitely two 
violin parts for soloists contrasting with two 
different parts for the sections, even though 
this was outdoor music, and they are labeled 
concertino and ripieno respectively.  Of 
course no autograph survives, so we can't know 
for certain that that was Handel's division of 
forces or that those were the terms he used, and 
since it was outdoors he might well have used 
more than one on a concertino part.


BTW, in the case of Corelli the orchestra was 
actually huge by their standards.


I didn't know that.  Do we know exactly how big?

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

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-16 Thread Johannes Gebauer


On 16.01.2007 John Howell wrote:

Interesting that what seems so black-and-white can be so confusing!  In 
Messiah, since there are con ripieno indications, by default there ARE 
concertino players, but certainly not as featured soloists.  In the operas and 
oratorios the orchestra is a backup band.  And as you imply, there may have 
been more than one on a part.  I'd love to speculate that having learned the 
concertino-ripieno sound contrast from Corelli, Handel simply made it a normal 
part of his thinking and writing, whether for opera, oratorio, or instrumental 
music, but it might equally well be for economic reasons.



I honestly don't think this comparison stands. Corelli never speaks of 
ripieni anyway, afaik, he calls it the concerto grosso.


Handel's treatment is completely different, and it has nothing to do 
with any concertino, which by definition is solistic. Instead he simply 
tells us where he thinks the large orchestra, including the amateur back 
desks, can be used.


I haven't researched this, but unless there is prove of any other reason 
for these indications I really think this is the best interpretation.


Johannes
--
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http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-16 Thread David W. Fenton

On 16 Jan 2007 at 8:33, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

 On 16.01.2007 Kim Patrick Clow wrote:
  The only areas that could mount public concerts that were able to
  pay for themselves completely by the box office sales (and NOT
  support by a nobleman), were in London, Paris, Vienna. The really
  big concerts didn't happen until nearly the end of the 18th century.
  Almost 150 years after the modern orchestra developed in Louis
  XIV's court. That's a long long time.
 
 Well, that I must say is a little too much assumption. You forget
 Corelli (those were really big concerts, no?), and what about Dresden?
 That was a pretty normal size orchestra by todays standards, and we
 even know how they were seated.

Yes, but these were exceptions rather than the rule, relevant, of 
course, to performing the music of the composer who had those 
resources available, but certainly not sufficient that we should 
generalize that nearly unique situation to the whole period.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://dfenton.com
David Fenton Associates   http://dfenton.com/DFA/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-16 Thread Johannes Gebauer


On 16.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
Yes, but these were exceptions rather than the rule, relevant, of 
course, to performing the music of the composer who had those 
resources available, but certainly not sufficient that we should 
generalize that nearly unique situation to the whole period.




I never disputed that in the least. I was trying to support your point, 
not oppose it.


Johannes
--
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http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-16 Thread Johannes Gebauer


On 16.01.2007 Kim Patrick Clow wrote:

Payroll records weren't the only way to figure out how many musicians
performed at concerts, the number of parts tells us how many played as
well. (Of course as Joshua Rifkin's research as proved, not everyone
agrees. 



As someone who used to play with Joshua regularly in the past, I found 
not only his arguments convincing but also the result. I did the B minor 
mass with his group, with 8 singers (no choir), 4 violins and everything 
else one to a part, and it really works. In fact I much prefer that to 
any conventional performance.


Johannes
--
http://www.musikmanufaktur.com
http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-16 Thread Phil Daley


 Payroll records weren't the only way to figure out how many musicians
 performed at concerts, the number of parts tells us how many played as
 well. (Of course as Joshua Rifkin's research as proved, not everyone
 agrees.

So if there was one 1st clarinet part, there was only one 1st clarinet player?

2 clarinet players couldn't share music on one stand?

I know nothing about early music performances, but this sounds absurd, to me.

Phil Daley   AutoDesk 
http://www.conknet.com/~p_daley



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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

2007-01-16 Thread Aaron Rabushka

Yes, that recording is interesting and quite convincing. A few years ago
some of the early music players in Dallas put on Israel in Egypt with 3 or
4 violins, and it worked very well.

Aaron J. Rabushka
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://users.waymark.net/arabushk
- Original Message - 
From: Johannes Gebauer [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: finale@shsu.edu
Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 12:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)

 On 16.01.2007 Kim Patrick Clow wrote:
  Payroll records weren't the only way to figure out how many musicians
  performed at concerts, the number of parts tells us how many played as
  well. (Of course as Joshua Rifkin's research as proved, not everyone
  agrees.

 As someone who used to play with Joshua regularly in the past, I found
 not only his arguments convincing but also the result. I did the B minor
 mass with his group, with 8 singers (no choir), 4 violins and everything
 else one to a part, and it really works. In fact I much prefer that to
 any conventional performance.

 Johannes
 -- 
 http://www.musikmanufaktur.com
 http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de

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 http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)



On Jan 15, 2007, at 1:45 PM, Johannes Gebauer wrote:


On 15.01.2007 David W. Fenton wrote:
Certainly the orchestra before c1750 was very, very different from 
the modern orchestra (in reality, I'd say it was a completely 
different animal).



I completely agree. I have come to the conclusion that anything but 
single or double string forces (meaning two to a part) was the 
exception.




That seems a bit strong to me. Spitzer and Zaslaw in _The Birth of the 
Orchestra_ list the actual rosters of dozens of orchestras from the 
period (some as employment lists, others giving the forces actually 
used on specific occasions). A great many of these lists show more than 
4 violins. Table 8.1, Handel's English orchestras, 1710-58, for 
example, gives the forces used by him on 7 different occasions across 
that time span, not one of which used less than 7 violins. On two 
occasions the total number of violins + violas is given as 24. The 
number of cellos is usually three, though on one occasion there were 
seven.


Similar chronological lists of lists are given for quite a few other 
places, composers, or specific orchestras, and while, yes, there are 
quite a few with very sketchy string doubling, orchestras the size of 
Handel's are certainly frequent enough to be characterized as more than 
an exception.


Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)



On Jan 15, 2007, at 2:56 PM, Kim Patrick Clow wrote:


On 1/15/07, Andrew Stiller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

I have always found this distinction simplistic at best. Orchestras
began to break out of aristocratic boundaries almost immediately
(Corelli gave public concerts), and in London there were multiple,
competing orchestras aimed at various audiences throughout the 18th c.


Don't you think the examples you give are pretty unusual exceptions;
and not the rule? Neal Zaslaw's book The Birth of the Orchestra:
History of an institution, 1650–1815  discusses the development of
the orchestra. From what he states,
while there are some exceptions, I get the sense orchestral concerts
were the venue of the nobility in Europe. Public concerts ( paid by
ticket sales from the public) were not the norm until the early 19th
century.


It's amazing what two different people can get out of the same book. 
Yes of course a majority of 18th-c. orchestras were court 
ensembles--but the others were hardly a negligible exception, and 
become more and more frequent and widespread over time.


The idea that the orchestra *today* has a largely uppercrust audience 
is ludicrous, as one visit to a symphony concert will prove to anyone. 
I mean--am *I* from the upper crust? Is my wife, a nurse practitioner? 
We subscribe to the Philadelphia Orchestra every year!




The London orchestral public concerts didn't really start until the
J.C. Bach / Abel academies


Spitzer and Zaslaw, pp. 276-305, say otherwise.


Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/


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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)



On Jan 15, 2007, at 5:22 PM, John Howell wrote:


At 7:45 PM +0100 1/15/07, Johannes Gebauer wrote:


That is not to say there were no larger orchestral performances. 
Handel's Messiah is a good example.


Oh??  I doubt his orchestra was more than 20, and about the same for 
his chorus.


The 1754 Foundling  Hospital  performance had an instrumental roster of 
39. In 1758 (same locale) the orchestra comprised 35 musicians. Source 
or details on request.


Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/

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Re: [Finale] mozart (OT)