At 9:38 PM +0200 9/3/07, dc wrote:
John Howell écrit:
Well, the only Bach score I've studied in that
kind of depth is the Johannespassion, and there
were definitely copies of the voice parts with
the solos and copies of the ripieno voice parts
without the solos.
I dare say Rifkin and Parrot have studied a few
more than you... In any case, whether one agrees
or not with their conclusions, "The minor
premise, that Bach usually prepared only one
part for each range, is the standard view among
Bach scholars." So your claim that "the
hypothesis that Bach intended his cantatas to be
performed one on a part, but copied extra vocal
parts just for the heck of it!!" is rather
uninformed, to say the least.
Not uninformed; sarcastic! Sorry it wasn't obvious.
Rifkins logic can be expressed in a syllogism.
The major premise is that Bach provided his
singers with written parts meant for use by a
single performer only.
Which is a pretty wild leap of faith in my book.
By the same logic one would have to assume a
priori that he provided his violinists with
written parts meant for use by a single performer
only, so he only used one violin on each part,
and that is certainly not in agreement with his
own description of his "ideal" forces. (From the
1731 Town Council memo, I think, but I'm not
sure.)
The problem with formal logic is that whoever
controls the original and unquestionable premises
controls the outcome of the syllogism. Therefore
those premises must be proven beyond any possible
doubt. It hasn't happened.
The minor premise is that in all but a few of
Bachs surviving choral works only one part was
ever written out for each of the voice ranges.
If both premises are accepted, the conclusion
is obvious: Bach used a solo quartet to sing
the choruses.
The minor premise, that Bach usually prepared
only one part for each range, is the standard
view among Bach scholars. The major premise,
however, is revolutionary. Scholars have long
believed that Bachs singers shared their
parts, typically in groups of threea principal
singer, who sang everything in the part from
beginning to end, and two supporting
ripienists, who joined in only for the
choruses and chorales. But according to Rifkin,
there is no real evidence for the ripienists
sharing the parts, either in documents or in
the parts themselves.
This is why I find Rifkin's hypotheses wildly
speculative. There is, as far as I know, no
evidence for the ripienists NOT sharing the
parts, either. There is, however, Bach's own
description of the classes into which he divides
the boys in the choir, where he very clearly
identifies both soloists and ripienists (as well
as those not yet good enough to use). I believe
that another facet of the "one on a part"
hypothesis is the ASSUMPTION that half the boys
would be too sick to sing on any given day, which
is another wild speculation, and yet another that
Bach was responsible for providing music for the
5 churches in Leipzig every Sunday, so the boys
would have been spread out all over town.
Now you can't have both hypotheses true at the
same time. Either half the boys were too sick to
sing ANYWHERE, or they weren't and they were
spread out all over town. But we happen to know
that Telemann's practice in Hamburg was to
provide large scale music in the larger churches,
and then have his musicians head out to the
smaller churches to provide more modest music for
their services. And we have no evidence that I
seen that Bach could not, or did not, do exactly
the same in Leipzig.
Rifkin's belief is not really an hypothesis at
all. It is a predetermined belief, in support of
which he has sifted through what evidence there
is and selected that which supports his belief.
In doing so he stretches the interpretation of a
great many different facts, as in assuming with
no evidence that 2 or 3 boys could not have read
of the same piece of music. Obviously they could
have. Q.E.D.
John
--
John R. Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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