On 04.09.2007 John Howell wrote:
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.
Another misconception. They weren't "spread out", rather the same boys
had to sing in several services. One at 10, one at 11, one at 12.
Actually, I believe Bach was only directly responsible for two churches
not five.
If you have ever worked with a boys choir you will know that once the
flu strikes, it takes out more than one.
I must say to hear your lecture on how little sense this all makes to
you, while at the same time you claim you have only seen one set of
parts, which happens to be the John Passion which is a special case in
many ways, I must question your competence. Joshua has seen most if not
all existing vocal parts by Bach. He has immense knowledge on the
sources, the forces etc. If you really want to question his theories I
suggest you start doing some serious research. Perhaps you should start
by actually reading Andrew Parrot's book, which comes to mostly the same
conclusions. Bashing Joshua for his conclusions without knowing his
research in depth is very bad scientific practice. He may well be wrong
in some details, and I am sure he would be the first to ackowledge his
errors when he is given the evidence.
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.
Again, this is crazy coming from someone who knows only the John Passion
parts. Where do you take your knowledge from?
Perhaps the case is the other way round? You probably conduct choirs,
and because Joshua's theories rob you of the whole Bach repertoire you
simply assume there must have been large choirs?
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.
It is not so much a question of whether they could have, but of whether
they did. Incidentally there is still very little agreement on which
parts of the B minor mass are solo and which are full choir. The reason
is simple: the original parts have nothing to indicate the use or
non-use of the choir. Noone has yet come up with an answer to this. How
do the three boys know where to stop?
I must say I personally don't even see any reason to discuss this
subject any further. The literature is all there, and anyone who hasn't
at least read Parrot's book on the subject simply doesn't know the facts.
Johannes
--
http://www.musikmanufaktur.com
http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de
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