On Sep 8, 2007, at 3:13 PM, Daniel Wolf wrote:
The effect in an ensemble, especially when combined with completely uncoordinated bowing (going even further than Stokowski in this dimension), is a characteristically lively, indeed wild, sound. It is the sound of an ad hoc ensemble, playing a repertoire in which many aspects are transmitted aurally, including a large variety of affects and ornaments which are played _ex tempore_, and it is a sound unmediated by any set of formal aesthetic goals, a received sound.
Two comments. 1) among vocalists there is a notorious "Slavic wobble"--a wider vibrato than otherwise used. While Romania is not a Slavic country, one would expect it to come under the aesthetic domination of the Slavic countries that almost completely surround it. In this regard it may also be mentioned that Eastern Europe is the only area where (classical) clarinetists routinely play with a vibrato.
2) It is not that 18th-c. treatises ask for less vibrato, it is that they treat vibrato as an ornament. The extent to which ornamentation *of any kind* ought to be allowed in an orchestra is subject to such diverse opinions that it is clear no consensus can be assumed to exist. However, writers (not necessarily in treatises) of both the 17th and 18th cc. are, TTBOMK, unanimous in calling for the absolute unison of the main string choir, so that they sound as much as possible like a single instrument. When the orchestra was new, this effect (especially the opening downbow) was considered electrifying and unprecedented--the very reason, in fact, why an orchestra should exist in the first place. Individual vibratos militate against such a strict unison, and ought (according to *modern* thinkers) to be avoided.
Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://www.kallistimusic.com/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
