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Don Basilio
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« Reply #30 on: 11:49:28, 14-01-2008 » |
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reiner is quite right.
In Salisbury Cathedral there is a touching tombstone to a kid called Thomas Lambert who was born May 1683 and died (it says) in February of the same year.
The Russian Orthodox Church was hardly going to accept anything regarded as a Good Thing by both the Pope and the Bolsheviks, so it stayed with the Julian calendar.
Bach to basics...
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #31 on: 11:54:43, 14-01-2008 » |
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That means even with singers under modern conditions (of education and of physical development) things like vocal register work quite differently (which to me best explains why Bach's tenor parts were practicable for his students then whereas nowadays really good Bach tenors are in the hen's teeth category - I'm certain Bach's tenors used head voice quite freely).
I think the "physical development" question is very important. The majority of men these days have bass or baritone voices, but this is very likely because we are so much taller (by averagely 10-15cm) than our C18th predecessors. If you go around an old warship like the HMS Victory, where space was at a premium, the ceiling-height on the cannon-decks was based on an average height of 5'3". So Tom Bowling was probably a tenor  |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #32 on: 12:16:47, 14-01-2008 » |
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Indeed it's bass voices that seem to have caused problems at the Thomasschule. Parrott pp. 108-110 mentions the case of Johann Christoph Altnickol to whom Bach gave a reference in 1747 attesting that he had "...supplied the want of bass voices to be found at the Thomasschule (because they cannot come to maturity as they depart all too soon)."
Altnickol also played organ, violin and cello and for good measure also became Bach's son-in-law.
Among the additional performers Bach is known to have used, most are either violinists or bass singers. Only the bass singers are actually identified by voice type. There are some listed just as 'voice' but they're comfortably outnumbered by the basses. Kuhnau in 1709 had also mentioned stipends for singers, "especially for a strong bass (because low voices of this type are not so readily to be expected from the school's youths...)".
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richard barrett
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« Reply #33 on: 13:07:09, 14-01-2008 » |
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Yes but...
has anyone written a defence of the anti-Parrott point of view? or are they all keeping quiet and hoping nobody'll notice?
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« Last Edit: 13:11:38, 14-01-2008 by richard barrett »
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #34 on: 13:20:18, 14-01-2008 » |
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Over to you, Messrs Wolff and Koopman. And maybe Gardiner... Defence of the anti-Rifkin/Parrott view? Or attack of the Rifkin/Parrott view?  There's been plenty of the latter. Indeed Parrott quotes quite a bit of it... |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #35 on: 15:35:05, 14-01-2008 » |
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There's been plenty of the latter. Indeed Parrott quotes quite a bit of it...
I was really thinking about SINCE his book came out, during which time the Neinsager must have been marshalling their evidence and arguments (if any) to defend the old, er, new, er, other way of doing things. |
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #36 on: 21:32:36, 14-01-2008 » |
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One thing to get straight I think is that it's not a matter of 'defending' the 12- or 16-voice choir as a performance option, any more than it might be a matter of 'defending' playing Bach on the piano. If it works musically in whatever way, and many choral performances do, then it doesn't need evidence from Bach's time to defend it. Since I have no original thoughts on the matter I'll quote Parrott again: We learnt several decades ago that the pianoforte is not intrinsically superior to the harpsichord as a vehicle for Bach's keyboard music, merely different from it. But while those who play Bach's music on the pianoforte may still sometimes claim that the composer would have preferred it thus, they know better than to say that he wrote it for the modern pianoforte. Is it too much to demand that equal frankness apply to the matter of Bach's chorus? ...of course indeed it is, if those presenting the choral option are not just presenting it as a musically valid possibility but have a vested interest in its being perceived as Bach's intended medium because to some extent they cash in on the 'authenticity' capital. Ah well. Is there anything here? http://www.tonkoopman.nl/ |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #37 on: 22:04:08, 14-01-2008 » |
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it's not a matter of 'defending' the 12- or 16-voice choir as a performance option
No indeed. Nor am I very inclined to take Mijnheer Koopman's word in any matter of authenticity I'm afraid. |
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strinasacchi
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« Reply #38 on: 22:24:07, 14-01-2008 » |
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I think this might be an area where it simply isn't possible to make any claims to authenticity. There has been much interesting discussion on this thread of how people have changed physically since Bach's day - how he was coping with weak basses but had remarkably mature and experienced trebles. Perhaps this situation is similar to castrati. The voices Bach would have known simply don't exist any more. Would using only one each of a completely different kind of voice than Bach would have known get any closer to "authenticity" than using a chamber choir? And at what point does arguing about what is "more authentic" or "less inauthentic" get silly?
Should we all be wearing period costume, so we know how that felt physically? Should we turn off the electric lights in our concerts? Should women be banned from the band as well as the choir?
HIP has always been a balancing act between what research tells us was "authentic" and what works for a performance now. Instruments can be restored or reproduced. But the human body has changed irrevocably. I like OVPP performances, but I also like chamber choir performances. My own opinion is that both are pretty inauthentic when compared with what Bach would have actually heard, but as long as the singers are aware of how the instruments around them sound, either option will give a stirring performance.
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #39 on: 23:09:24, 14-01-2008 » |
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it's not a matter of 'defending' the 12- or 16-voice choir as a performance option
No indeed. Nor am I very inclined to take Mijnheer Koopman's word in any matter of authenticity I'm afraid. The strengths of his arguments and evidence are what counts, not one's personal prejudices against the individual. I recall some other Bach scholars as well as the aforementioned individuals disputing the Rifkin/Parrott view, but can't recall who off hand - will get my thinking cap on. Re strina's interesting post: I tend to think of it slightly differently, in terms of the ways in which the types of forces, style of playing, etc., etc. might have influenced the composer's conception of the work. Whether one actually needs to reproduce those precise forces is another question; but it's not really possible to gauge that conception adequately, IMO, without apprehending those factors. |
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« Last Edit: 23:13:59, 14-01-2008 by Ian Pace »
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #40 on: 23:18:41, 14-01-2008 » |
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...of course indeed it is, if those presenting the choral option are not just presenting it as a musically valid possibility but have a vested interest in its being perceived as Bach's intended medium because to some extent they cash in on the 'authenticity' capital. Not necessarily: they can be saying 'not only does it sound awful' (not my view, but some of theirs) 'but it isn't even what Bach knew/wanted, so doesn't even pass the test of 'authenticity', the only reason for which it is being done'. Again, not my view, but one that some would articulate, and slightly different from the above. |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #41 on: 23:42:49, 14-01-2008 » |
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...of course indeed it is, if those presenting the choral option are not just presenting it as a musically valid possibility but have a vested interest in its being perceived as Bach's intended medium because to some extent they cash in on the 'authenticity' capital. Not necessarily: they can be saying 'not only does it sound awful' (not my view, but some of theirs) 'but it isn't even what Bach knew/wanted, so doesn't even pass the test of 'authenticity', the only reason for which it is being done'. Again, not my view, but one that some would articulate, and slightly different from the above. Hm. In that case they would be welcome to come here and articulate it. But I really can't imagine what kind of evidence they could conceivably come up with. One of the most striking things about Rifkin's research is that the documents he was looking at were the same primary sources that have been doing the rounds for decades if not centuries - he simply pointed out that various assumptions which had been imposed on the documents in order to make them appear to point in a particular direction weren't necessary. In any case, even if Rifkin's, Parrott's, McCreesh's, Milnes's, Kuijken's and Junghänel's efforts (I'm sure I've left someone out...) did sound awful, that in itself wouldn't actually be evidence one way or the other... |
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strinasacchi
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« Reply #42 on: 23:53:57, 14-01-2008 » |
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Re strina's interesting post: I tend to think of it slightly differently, in terms of the ways in which the types of forces, style of playing, etc., etc. might have influenced the composer's conception of the work. Whether one actually needs to reproduce those precise forces is another question; but it's not really possible to gauge that conception adequately, IMO, without apprehending those factors.
I'm not sure that notions of a composer's conception would have been as cut-and-dry then as they are now. This was a time when composers wrote sonatas for violin, flute, oboe, or any treble instrument you have to hand. Pieces written for "keyboard" could have been played on chamber organ, on harpsichord, on clavichord etc. Continuo sections were never clearly defined, and could be as simple as a single violone or as complex as an array of theorbos + harp + cello + harpsichord + bassoon. Of course none of this is an argument one way or the other about OVPP. It's just another way of thinking about HIP. Does it focus more on the "composer's intentions" or on the actual performing practice at the time (which would have been hugely various)? How does it balance the two? And what does it do when something is un-reproduceable? (there must be a better word than that...) |
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #43 on: 00:01:52, 15-01-2008 » |
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Continuo sections were never clearly defined, and could be as simple as a single violone or as complex as an array of theorbos + harp + cello + harpsichord + bassoon. And basson di chalumeau, of course. To me the point isn't only what the composer happened to want; it's also that for me some ways of performing bring the music to life in a way that others don't. Isn't that the whole point of period performance anyway? Doesn't matter if it's Bach cantatas performed in consort or Ravel with a nice tangy French orchestra... |
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strinasacchi
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« Reply #44 on: 00:11:42, 15-01-2008 » |
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Here's a performance of the William Tell Overture that brings it to life in a way that others don't - but I wouldn't exactly call it HIP!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXRj9lSnJnIAhem. Back to Bach now. I think the voice parts all ought to be played on a consort of chalumeaus. I defy Parrott et al to come up with evidence that specifically says it shouldn't be. (And on that note, it's off to the good-night thread...) |
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