On 18 Feb 2006 at 14:39, Andrew Stiller wrote: > > On Feb 17, 2006, at 6:07 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: > > > On 17 Feb 2006 at 15:21, Andrew Stiller wrote: > > > >> On Feb 17, 2006, at 1:55 PM, Kim Patrick Clow wrote: > >> > >>> how authentic is improvised percussion to Baroque music? > >> > >> It's authentic where it is known to have been used (as in Handel's > >> Music for the Royal Fireworks)--and not elsewhere! > > > > Is that a joke? > > No. > > > > > We know some about performance practice, but very little. > > On the contrary, we know a tremendous amount about performance > practice.
In context, I thought it was clear that I was referring to percussion performance practice, since that was the issue in question. > > From what I > > remember there are some vague statements of the order of "percussion > > instruments would be used with this kind of music" but nothing > > notated and very little documentation of particular performances. > > We have personnel lists. We have payment records. We have travellers' > accounts. We have engravings of individual ensembles and individual > occasions. We have musicians' letters and diaries. We have > composition/accompanying methods. We have old dictionary/encyclopedia > entries. This is not "nothing" and it is not "little." How much of these do we have in regard to percussion performance practice? For instance, in Salzburg, there are no percussionists on the lists of members of the Court capella, because those instruments were played by members of the court military establishment, who were not necessarily paid primarily as musicians. Thus, there might very well be no evidence in pay records in Salzburg of there having been percussion used in the orchestra there. > > But we don't know much about appropriate performance for lots of > > notated music, either (e.g., Parisian organum). > > Perfectly true. But the question raised was specifically about > *Baroque* music, no? Percussion was the subject of the discussion when I entered it. I thought that was clear, and that my comments clearly applied to the subject of percussion performance practice. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
