At 11:03 AM -0400 5/24/10, David W. Fenton wrote:
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).
An excellent point, indeed! Opera Roanoke did a rather good production of Monteverdi's "L'Orfeo" some years ago. (And yes, I realize that Monteverdi is hardly Bach, let alone Mozart!) On our side of the pit we had 3 lutes, a harpist, a harpsichordist, a recorder player, and myself playing viol and recorder, but the recits were led VERY competently by an imported theorbist. He worked with the singers, and I followed him like a hawk!
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. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
