At 2:10 PM -0500 2/23/09, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 23 Feb 2009 at 8:44, Johannes Gebauer wrote:
The violins play the part an octave higher. It just means that they
_function_ as the bass part. It is not uncommon notation.
Would it then be the case that the copyist creating parts would
notate it as intended to sound (an octave higher) and in treble clef?
That would be my guess, but only a guess unless parts have survived.
It is more
often found when all string parts play in octave unisons (ie in the
Manchester manuscript of the four seasons). However, I have seen this
more than once.
We just played an example of this in the Telemann triple violin
concerto from Tafelmuzik, although the passages are only about 4 bars
long and it was violins only (as it often was in Vivaldi). It
doesn't seem to have been at all unusual.
I can't help but wonder what function this notation serves. In the
usual score that is nothing but a guide for the copyist, it's not
helpful. In a score intended to be played from by a continuo player,
it would be useful, I guess (though what continuo player can't read
in treble clef?). I suppose that if the score was intended to
indicate "this is the bass line, but don't realize it" putting in in
bass clef in the violins indicates the former, while having it
omitted from the continuo/Bassi line shows that it's not to be
realized.
I seriously doubt that a continuo player would have worked from a
score, since scores were normally used only for composing and were
hand copied. Bach's continuo parts were all separate, weren't they?
Kim, do you think that there should be no continuo realization here?
I don't know about Kim, but that would certainly be my assumption.
And this is certainly not anything ground-breaking. Very common in
Vivaldi, actually.
And what about the balance? I suppose one recorder in that range is
going to be able to be heard over the first and second violins
playing in unison (we're not talking about 32 players here, of
course).
More likely 4 or 6, and no problem with balance. And if there were,
the players would automatically adjust. It's only much later that
they'd follow the composer's markings and ONLY the composer's
markings slavishly.
I'm having a hard time understanding the utility of the practice, to
be honest. Seems to me there would have been much easier ways to
indicate the same thing.
No argument from me, but then it's a little presumptuous to judge
what may have been a personal or a local practice from the safety of
2 centuries later! Notation has NEVER been cut and dried, one and
only one way to do it, and still isn't!
And the corrected clefs indicate to me that it's not just us today
who could be confused by it.
Unless the composer was the copyist (which seems not to be the case),
confusion doesn't surprise me at all.
John
--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
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
"We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition
of jazz musicians.
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