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oliver sudden
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« Reply #30 on: 11:04:20, 07-07-2008 » |
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With reciprocal respect, that was actually - er - not your point (as originally offered in message #11 above) Baz, it was indeed exactly my point and I think my post made it clearly. Tommo in any case seems to have understood it. |
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George Garnett
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« Reply #31 on: 11:34:57, 07-07-2008 » |
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the gut strings were not tensioned so greatly, the fingerboard was shorter, and the geometry of the instrument meant that the strings (because the shorter fingerboard was aligned with the instrument rather than angled downwards) required less 'attack' from the bow to produce clean and clear sounds.
Can someone explain to me please the physics of how fingerboard alignment influences required 'bow attack'? Tommo I've been following this thread with great interest and lapping it all up but that bit puzzled me too. The string tension being less, yes, but I couldn't quite see how the angle of the fingerboard would itself have any effect. I therefore consulted a Professor of Physics. She said she couldn't see why it should either but then acoustics wasn't really her field, as I well knew, and couldn't I have worked that out for myself anyway. [Confession and correction in the name of truth, honesty and fairness: She didn't actually say that last bit.] |
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« Last Edit: 11:44:29, 07-07-2008 by George Garnett »
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Baz
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« Reply #32 on: 11:40:22, 07-07-2008 » |
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With reciprocal respect, that was actually - er - not your point (as originally offered in message #11 above) Baz, it was indeed exactly my point and I think my post made it clearly. Tommo in any case seems to have understood it. No Ollie - Tommo referred to your message #25 which was concerned with (as was his message) the credibility of the article. Your point about Bach's notation was not mentioned in message #25, but in message #11. That observation, in my view, weakens rather than strengthens your argument. So your statement that you were making the same point as was I seems to me erroneous. Baz |
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John W
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« Reply #33 on: 11:44:44, 07-07-2008 » |
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I've been following this thread with great interest and lapping it all up but that bit puzzled me too. The string tension being less, yes, but I couldn't quite see how the angle of the fingerboard would itself have any effect.
Hi George, In my suggestions above I too have not attributed to the angle itself any direct influence on the acoustic of the violin, but the effects of the angle (higher bridge, higher tension strings) I believe will have positive effects in resonance and volume of sound. Also the elevation of the fingerboard will allow it to resonate better too, and add to the overall sound, and the better alignment of strings with the angled fingerboard will likely offer enhancement too. John W |
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #34 on: 11:50:34, 07-07-2008 » |
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Baz, you persist in misreading my post. If one really wishes to be pedantic about it, the notation for the opening of the Chaconne could be said to be demanding a rearticulation of the A over a sustained chord, and similarly in the first full bar. I don't see a curved bow helping with that one (and I don't believe it to be the case, either). In other words I don't believe it to be the case that Bach was requesting rearticulation of a note above a sustained chord. I hope this is clear to you now. |
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thompson1780
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« Reply #35 on: 12:15:54, 07-07-2008 » |
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Indeed some time ago I posted such a performance which you may remember Tommo because you did not share my liking of it.
Oh yes, I remember.... And just for extra clarity here, my dislike of said performance was not because of the spreading or otherwise of the chords, or indeed the way lower notes were sustained or not. I am afraid I must not have a soul. I have listened to Baz's post and find I am sucking lemons between bars 177 and 201. The intonation is not of a standard to send my soul (if I had one) heavenward. I also find the opening bars crunchy and awkward, as if the performer is trying to make something out of this statement when playing it is enough.
I would like to state that I am not a huge fan of (over)spreading chords. I do like 3 notes sounding together initially even if they are not all sustained for the full notated length. But each chord has to be taken in context (both of the place in the work, and in the interpretation.) I expect at some stage I will be surprised by a "spreader" who manages to convince me musically. Tommo |
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Made by Thompson & son, at the Violin & c. the West end of St. Paul's Churchyard, LONDON
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Ruby2
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« Reply #36 on: 12:51:17, 07-07-2008 » |
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I would like to state that I am not a huge fan of (over)spreading chords. I do like 3 notes sounding together initially even if they are not all sustained for the full notated length. But each chord has to be taken in context (both of the place in the work, and in the interpretation.) I expect at some stage I will be surprised by a "spreader" who manages to convince me musically.
Tommo
Doesn't it sound very crunchy even with 3, let alone 4? I can't imagine how you could avoid making the central string an awful lot louder than the outer two even if you could get the sound quality reasonably even. |
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"Two wrongs don't make a right. But three rights do make a left." - Rohan Candappa
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Baz
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« Reply #37 on: 13:26:08, 07-07-2008 » |
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Baz, you persist in misreading my post. If one really wishes to be pedantic about it, the notation for the opening of the Chaconne could be said to be demanding a rearticulation of the A over a sustained chord, and similarly in the first full bar. I don't see a curved bow helping with that one (and I don't believe it to be the case, either). In other words I don't believe it to be the case that Bach was requesting rearticulation of a note above a sustained chord. I hope this is clear to you now. But that was never unclear to me - what was unclear was the connection this may have had with your assumption that the notes of the chord should not be sounded simultaneously at the beginning. I am still unclear on your view (and the reason for it) here. Baz |
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Baz
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« Reply #38 on: 13:33:50, 07-07-2008 » |
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Ah, I see reply 25 covers most of my reply 28. I think it just goes to show that the article on www.baroquemusic.org cannot be trusted. If Bach was meticulous, we would have written dotted crotchets for D, F and A in the first bar. He did this later (see bar 8 ). Unless he genuinely did want what he wrote, which Baz considers perverse. That's not so say that 4 part chords were not played by adjustable tension bows, it just goes to show that the article doesn't give a convincing case for it. Tommo I don't think I ever said that playing the piece in its usually-heard manner was 'perverse' - indeed some time ago I posted such a performance which you may remember Tommo because you did not share my liking of it. Sorry for any lack of clarity on my part. By "Unless he genuinely did want what he wrote, which Baz considers perverse." I meant that I thought you had said that to hold the bottom two notes for the full minim was perverse. I got that impression from here: This is not a convincing argument Ollie. There is nothing in the notation to indicate that the performance was intended to sustain the lower notes right through rather than cut them short as a normal means of articulating the upbeat in the next bar. Even were the notes initially sounded simultaneously, only a player of total perversity would fail to do that! The issue remains ONLY one of deciding whether the initial sounding of the chords (hence therefore throughout) should be effected simultaneously instead of being 'spread'.
So, if we are agreed that the D and F should not necessarily be held for a full minim, and given.... In my experience, it is nearly always an error to argue a case for performance upon the basis of Bach's notational presentation. This usually turns out to be descriptive rather than prescriptive - and its mysteries usually become resolved only when one comes to realize that Bach (like most other Baroque composers) was writing for performers who were already well-versed and practised in the performance traditions of the day. Through the notation, they merely performed the composer's notes within a style that both they and the composer were already expecting. It is we - generations later - who have lost this knowledge, and attempts at re-establishing it will always be contentious and full of disputes. This is particularly so when ideas challenge what we have thought acceptable and 'normal'.
Bach's notation is very careful only to indicate the clear architectural and structural elements of the music (e.g. the harmonic and contrapuntal details, sometimes the bowing and phrasing, on occasions dynamic contrasts between f and p). Looking at the piece in question, the presentation of the notes only concerns itself with the conceptual understanding and communication of these technical details, as they bear upon the unfolding of harmony and melody. They do not in themselves indicate what would have been instinctive to the players - Performance Practice. The fact the Bach holds the two lower notes of the first chord through, underneath the final A of the melody, is not to be read as meaning either that the chord is played with simultaneous notes, or that it is spread: in neither performance method can exactly what he has written be performed exactly as it stands (and neither should it need to be played that way). Your citation of bar 8 (and you did not mean the smiley - I just inserted a space after the 8 ) again does not show a difference in performance just because the lower notes appear as dotted quavers. The reason for this notation is to indicate the harmonic and melodic structure of the chords (however these chords were attacked) - not to provide a prescription as to performance methodology. The upper melody on its repetition there is ornamented, and it is harmonically inappropriate (in conceptual terms) for the chord to remain in place beneath this embellishment, which now places the musical priority upon the melody. This does not indicate that the chord there should be spread any more than that it should be sounded with simultaneity - and the notational licence displayed (i.e. the lack of rests one assumes must go with the chords) does not in itself indicate any freedom of performance either. The extent of freedom, or tightness, to be adopted is only a choice to be made by the performer (not the composer) after a conceptual understanding of the musical technicalities as conveyed by the composer has been grasped.
... (which makes a lot of sense), then are we agreed that the article on www.baroquemusic.org is not correct in saying that Bach was meticulous in his notation? Tommo I don't think we are agreed, because I feel that the statement in the article IS correct, and that Bach was meticulous in his notation. It is just that his care was to present a sound product that was syntactially correct, but not one that (for the performer) was prescriptive as to how the details should be interpreted by an individual executant. Baz |
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #39 on: 17:07:30, 07-07-2008 » |
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But that was never unclear to me - what was unclear was the connection this may have had with your assumption that the notes of the chord should not be sounded simultaneously at the beginning. I am still unclear on your view (and the reason for it) here. The point, as I said before, is that if the argument 'Bach wanted what he wrote' (which in the article is used in a particularly narrow-minded way: "Bach wrote chords. Chords were what he intended, and chords are what the violinist should play") applies to the beginning of the chord there's no reason it shouldn't apply to the end of the chord as well. If Bach had meant his notation to be as pedantic as the article takes it to be then he could have written two chords for the first two attacks, or written the D and F as dotted crotchets. (The article in any case has nothing to say about the fact that the notes of the chord are all give separate stems.) That he didn't shows there's already a degree of freedom in the notation which could just as well have included the assumption that a three- or four-note chord would be spread. There is nothing in the notation which points unambiguously towards a crassly curved bow. There is also no as far as I know real historical evidence Bach might have wanted such a bow (the bow Telmányi is using is very considerably deeper than even the Freiburg picture) - if you know of any, Baz, bring it on. All the solo string repertoire I know, from before JSB to the present, seems to have been written with the assumption that big chords would be spread; the same notation is used for chords on gambas, cellos, basses. But are you actually arguing for a deeply curved bow, Baz? Or just for the unprescriptiveness of Baroque notation, which I think we're all fine with by now? |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #40 on: 17:20:14, 07-07-2008 » |
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With respect to the question of playing 'what Bach [or anyone] else wrote', Malcolm Bilson put it best somewhere or other, saying that the question is how one should read what that composer wrote. Often the idea of 'what they wrote' means 'what the score indicates if we read it in terms of later notational conventions' - this can include questions of ornamentations/diminutions as well as more obvious issues of dynamics, articulation, etc.
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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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richard barrett
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« Reply #41 on: 18:04:49, 07-07-2008 » |
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A few more words on the "Bach wrote chords so chords they shall be" argument: actually, as Oliver points out, he didn't really write chords but separately-stemmed notes, besides which he wrote all kinds of things (dotted notes over triplets for example) which likewise relate to a view of notation somewhat different from more recent notions (though the idea that musical notation is supposed to specify exactly everything that a performer needs to do to realise the score is I think unmusical and pedantic whichever period you're looking at). So we're left with one piece of iconographic evidence so far... is that all we're going to get, Baz?
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pianola
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« Reply #42 on: 18:09:17, 07-07-2008 » |
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I can see why we take such care (or agonise, depending on your point of view) over such matters nowadays, because we live in a computer age where it is important to us that everything should be precise. If not uniform, then at least uniformly justifiable. We do like to spend our time justifying ourselves. But I can't see that Bach lived in such an age. I can't see that he would have much cared about the spreading or otherwise of chords, even if he himself played (or directed their playing) in his own preferred ways. I imagine his mind was bent more on the religious significance of all his music, not in a studied way, but simply because the world worked differently then. Check out this on YouTube. It's a very early example of a performance practice discussion board.  Cheers, Pianola |
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #43 on: 21:07:35, 07-07-2008 » |
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this on YouTube. It's a very early example of a performance practice discussion board. I had a Harmony, Theory & Counterpoint teacher just like him  |
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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"
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richard barrett
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« Reply #44 on: 21:19:35, 07-07-2008 » |
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this on YouTube. It's a very early example of a performance practice discussion board. I had a Harmony, Theory & Counterpoint teacher just like him So did John Tavener it would seem. |
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