On 16 Aug 2004 at 11:57, Andrew Stiller wrote: > >On 15.08.2004 21:38 Uhr, Andrew Stiller wrote > > > >> Finally, musicians of the period would not have hesitated to > >> combine viola on the top part with bass gamba on the lower. > > > >Don't get me wrong - I have no doubts you are right, but can you tell > >me where you got this from? Is this just a guess or do you have > >sources telling you this? Which? > > > >Johannes > > This is in Spitzer/Zaslaw, where it is repeated many times. The > sources, if I recall correctly, are mainly iconographic. Also the > confusion of terms (what is a "bass?" A "bass viol?" A "violone?") is > suggestive.
The situation with violone, in particular, is extremely variable over time and place. Even in one place (e.g., Vienna), the situation can be quite complex, with multiple instruments of varying kind and size being used in one era at that location interchangeably. The meaning of the term "bassi" is, therefore, pretty nonspecific generally, and can only be understood in terms of the likely practices of the original context in which the music was originally performed. In the case of Dennis's music, I'm not sure what to make of it. I suspect that there are two things to consider: 1. what the composer considered good choices, AND 2. what would have been considered within the acceptable range of possibilities. Those two in many cases would be congruent, in others, there might be widely variable geographical traditions that would be in contradiction of each other. And in some music, idiomatic instrumental writing could narrow the range of possibilities quite severely. I suspect that what actually happened in real life was that people who acquired music with specific scorings would often substitute anything that was needed to get the music performed, according to what was available locally. I wouldn't use that as a justification for playing the music on whatever instruments you felt like, but I certainly would use it to allow reasonable substitutions. And when the choice is between performing the music with non-ideal instrumentation and not performing it at all, I'd definitely prefer the former (unless, of course, all you've got available is banjos). I just recently played continuo for a performance of Handel's "Alcina" that omitted the wind instruments entirely. The ommission of the horns and flutes applied to only 3 arias in the whole opera, but the omission of the oboes is a bigger deal, as the whole sound ideal of Handel's opera orchestra includes that oboe doubling. But we had dress rehearsals for our two performances in the mornings and after contacting 18 different oboists, were unable to find anyone who was available. Omitting them definitely eliminated a whole raft of potential intonation problems, especially given that this was a situation with very short rehearsal time, with all student performers -- rehearsals began July 26th and the performances were Aug. 4th and 5th, barely 10 days later; the orchestra after the last performance had read through the opera a grand total of 6 times, 1 orchestral rehearsal (2 hours for a 3-hour opera, though with the massive cuts we implemented, we got it down to just over 2 hours of music), one orch/vocal rehearsal (2 hours), 2 dress rehearsals (4 of the 7 roles were double cast) and two performances. So, I think one has to consider what the intentions are, and then do what you can to adapt where necessary. Except for the banjos. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
