At 7:12 PM -0400 5/13/11, David W. Fenton wrote:
On 13 May 2011 at 19:09, John Howell wrote:
Josquin (or Pierre de la Rue) also
wrote the bass down to a low Bb at the end of "xxxx," but again we
don't know what pitch standard he was writing for.
I sent that before remembering that the title was "Abslon, fili mi."
We don't even know which NOTES they were writing. The clef system
back then wasn't tied to a fixed pitch like it is today -- it meant
something entirely different to them than it does to us.
Not quite THAT bad. The RELATIVE pitches were quite fixed. (I.e.,
all Cs were octaves apart, whatever the actual frequencies were.)
The two problems were that (a) with no fixed pitch standard, not even
in the same town, the reference pitch could have been anywhere within
a wide range; and (b) the clefs themselves might (or might not) have
been used in ways that constituted a kind of code indicating a
transposition. But that particular funeral motet is scored for ALL
very low voices if we can trust the original clefs.
Because of that, there is never any reason not to transpose that
older music to the comfortable pitch range, insofar is you're not
changing the overall sound (Ockeghem for 4-part women's choir would
be, er, interesting).
Sure, and Anonymous 4 have done exactly that and sound gorgeous doing
it. (Well, maybe not Ockeghem--that would be a little modern for
them!) But the one recording I have of "Absolon" was recorded a
tritone higher than the notated pitch, and if we assume that Josquin
really wanted a very low, dark sound, that spoils it.
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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