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increpatio
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« Reply #15 on: 18:33:43, 15-08-2007 » |
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And then there is the question of arm vibrato, finger vibrato, wrist vibrato.......
No doubt baroque musicians were able to employ all of these simultaneously, as baroque composers surely intended. |
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Baziron
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« Reply #16 on: 13:02:24, 17-08-2007 » |
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And then there is the question of arm vibrato, finger vibrato, wrist vibrato.......
No doubt baroque musicians were able to employ all of these simultaneously, as baroque composers surely intended. If, as you claim, Baroque composers "surely intended" this, perhaps you could satisfy one of my life-long curiosities and provide for me THE EVIDENCE. Thanks (in advance). Baz |
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strinasacchi
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« Reply #17 on: 13:21:20, 17-08-2007 » |
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My favourite vibrato is bow vibrato!  |
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thompson1780
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« Reply #18 on: 14:55:39, 17-08-2007 » |
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My favourite vibrato is bow vibrato! What, as in 'Viola Solo'? 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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increpatio
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« Reply #19 on: 14:59:14, 17-08-2007 » |
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thompson1780
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« Reply #20 on: 15:02:00, 17-08-2007 » |
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And then there is the question of arm vibrato, finger vibrato, wrist vibrato.......
No doubt baroque musicians were able to employ all of these simultaneously, as baroque composers surely intended. If, as you claim, Baroque composers "surely intended" this, perhaps you could satisfy one of my life-long curiosities and provide for me THE EVIDENCE. Thanks (in advance). Baz Erm, do you have different meanings for finger-, wrist- and arm-vibrato from me? When I use the term arm vibrato, I mean that the movement is led by an opening and closing of the elbow. The wrist and fingers move sympathetically. Wrist vibrato is led by the wrist, and has sympathy in teh arm and finger. It leads to less movement in the arm Finger vibrato is led by the finger, and results in a little sympathetic movement in wrist (and next to nothing in the arm). It's very narrow. At the top of the instrument, arm vibrato can result in a finger vibrato sensation, just cos of the mechanics of holding the thing. Anyway, if you adopt my definitions, I can't see how anyone (Baroque or otherwise) could employ these simultaneously. What are your definitions of the 3 vibratos? 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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Ian Pace
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« Reply #21 on: 15:08:56, 17-08-2007 » |
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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 #22 on: 15:14:41, 17-08-2007 » |
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There were a range of different attitudes to vibrato, depending on region, during the baroque era, as there were a range of different practices in other respects (including discrepancies of a whole major third in pitch across Europe). I have lots of texts with various information and evidence on this subject, but don't really have time to dig them out and post all the details right now. Robin Stowell's The Early Violin and Viola is a good place to start on this subject, as are his other works on performance practice during the period in question.
I trust everyone knows that Geminiani advocated continuous vibrato?
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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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increpatio
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« Reply #23 on: 17:57:05, 17-08-2007 » |
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Anyway, if you adopt my definitions, I can't see how anyone (Baroque or otherwise) could employ these simultaneously.
It is, indeed, quite a challenging technique; to perfect it baroque string-players had to employ a device not dissimilar to Kalkbrenner's ingenious "guide-mains" (see below) and practice for SEVERAL hours a day to ensure a confident vibrato would always be produced.  The resultant sound, as reported by local musical critics (who, needless to say, were far more sensitive in their hearing than their modern equivalents, and ENTIRELY trustworthy in their musical judgments), was said to be not dissimilar in timbre to Athanasius Kircher's famous keyboard:  . It is this reported similarity that has lead many to conjecture that this technique derives from the time of the Black Death in Hungary where, owing to many trade-routes being shut down, local instrument-makers were unable to procure the necessary tools for creating cat-gut strings, but found instead (to their understandable delight) that nailing a live cat to the fingerboard would produce a MOST curious effect, one that it seems the plague-ridden peasants of those provinces found QUITE amusing. |
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« Last Edit: 18:11:43, 17-08-2007 by increpatio »
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sambeckett
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« Reply #24 on: 19:27:11, 17-08-2007 » |
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Here's something people might find interesting. The cellist David Popper was one of the few players in the second half of the 19th century from Central Europe who took up some of the attributes of the Franco-Flemish schools of string playing, including the use of continuous vibrato. After a concert Popper gave in Leipzig in February 1863, one critic gave a generous review, provoking a letter of complaint about Popper's use of vibrato. The original critic defended Popper, saying 'one could not discover any trace of the intolerable 'vibrating' of some virtuosos; the manner of presntation which he applied and which is necessary for the required warmth of the tone was only the shaking (or oscillating) vibrato movement as it is legitimately taught' (Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, March 1863) The original complainant responded as follows:
Next, objection is raised to our statement that Mr. David Popper had tried the nerves of his listeners by continuous vibrato and it is claimed that the vibrato of the gentleman had been the ‘shaking (or oscillating) movement as it is legitimately taught.’ Well, we will not insist on the term: we did not, thus, perceive a single tone from Mr. D. Popper to which – the tempo permitting – he did not apply his ‘legitimately taught vibrato movement’; if the critic of the ‘Neue Zeitschrift für Musik’ found this to his liking it only proves that he no longer has any sense for a natural homogeneous tone and that his hearing organs have been infected by a sickness of taste which at the moment is indeed the fashion; perhaps he will even go a little further and try to apply a legitimately executed trill to each note of a vocal piece as had already happened. (NZfM, November 1863)
(further documentation can be found in Stephen De'ak, David Popper)
Hi Ian, nice to see this posted! For my personal taste, I like to see strings played with no vibrato, and find it odd when early 20th century orchestral recordings are branded out-of-tune, or similar due to lack of vibrato. |
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What's empirical about sound? You can't write an article about it in die Reihe, that's for sure.
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Baziron
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« Reply #25 on: 20:58:36, 17-08-2007 » |
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Thanks for the clarification increpatio - I had misunderstood. Having just listened very carefully to a number of extracts played by a range of performing groups (starting with the lunatic "authentic" hard core, and ending with a 1960s recording of the Berlin Phil) I can confirm that - indeed - the evidence truly IS in the sound. Baz  |
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