On 24 May 2010 at 6:52, Christopher Smith wrote: > Your point about the music growing out of the story line is > even more reinforced by the use the of the verse in pre-WW2 musical > comedy. The verse was typically (though not always) rubato, and it is > WAY easier to accompany a rubato singer with a single instrument like > piano than with a full orchestra (such as it was.
As a continuo player who has had to follow singers in recitatives who didn't understand either recitative nor rhythm, I'd grant that it's easier for a single keyboard player to follow than for the orchestra. Indeed, my viol consort had exactly this problem preparing some of the music for our recent concert (http://tearesofthemuses.com/Listen/VaterUnser/), with several of the pieces having every expressive vocal lines, but being so closely integrated rhythmically with the viol lines that there was no real possibility of the singer(s) having the freedom they'd like to have had. Some of this is actually part of the development of intermediary styles in the tradition in which Bach was writing his cantatas. That is, the so-called arioso style, where you have a lot of text to get through, but it's set fairly melodically (with or without instrumental accompaniment beyond the continuo group). An example of this on our program was the Geist "Es war aber an der Stätte," which is in two parts, an arioso/accompanied recitative section followed by a strophic song. The first part is really not overall clearly delineated in style from the second, but it does have several parts where the instruments are just playing long held chords and waiting for the 8th notes in the vocal line to go by to get through the text. I don't know what the actual tradition is, but in general, secco recitative involves the continuo group, i.e., keyboard plus bass instrument, and that's actually quite hard to coordinate. Before I played the viol, I'd have said the keyboard player should lead the continuo (following the singer), but having now played continuo bass line in addition to keyboard continuo, I think the player of the melodic bass has more control over flow of the texture than anyone else (at least a *good* player). On our concert, the Capricornus "O Traurigkeit" is a good example, where we were breaking in a first- time continuo bass player, and he did a great job. My point is that it's not quite as cut-and-dried in terms of the keyboard player having the freedom to follow a wayward singer indulging in rubato -- there's actually a much more complex musical process going on where the continuo players and the singer play off each other (timing of dramatic pauses and between phrases is particularly important and almost entirely the responsibility of the continuo players, for example). Very interesting discussion! -- 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
