Yes, but like the scene created in real life, there are many
things going on, of which the tocsein is but one.
So the fact that the recurring 'gongs' don't occur on accented
beats doesn't mean anything. It's all part of
the structured chaos of the scene of say, a fire, where people
are running here and there. Nonetheless the
tocsein is present throughout. 'le cabriolet' is about a
rollicking cab ride through paris; 'la poste' rhythmically
creates the rhythm of a galloping horse, but the drama
unfolding is the journey; from departure to arrival
à la fin.
Damian
Anthony Hind wrote:
Having just discussed the tempo of "La Cascade", with a friend
who
argued that it should not be too slow or you could lose the
'mimetic'
cascading effect, I rather supposed "le tocsein", as a
"gigue", might
contain a mimetic rhythmic element.
However, I just had a message from Jean-Daniel Forget on this
subject:
First he tells me, le tocsein, is the sound of a single bell
struck
rapidly: about two forced beats per second (according to the
length
and size of the clapper), giving a monochord sound that
immediately
draws attention. This was exactly my impression, and it
reminds me
that I have heard it in several French films.
Then J-D, suggests that the evocative element, if there is
one, would
not be a direct reference to the rhythm of the tocsein, but
should
rather be looked for in terms of the tocsein as a
(metaphoric)
reference to "sentiments amoureux", possibly the palpitating
heart-
beat ("batant la chamade") of the lover thinking of his
"belle", or
of the alert of the cuckolded lover.
(J-D goes on to give an example of an expression "prescieux"
using
the term 'tocsein', but saying (in an appropriately
"prescieux"
manner) he would prefer not refer to the quotation that Pierre
Desproges attributed to Cardinal de Richelieu, when
complimenting the
beauty of a "dame de la cour" : "Madame, si ma robe était de
plomb,
vous entendriez sonner le tocsin !").
Madame, if my robe was made of lead, you would still hear
"sonner le
tocsin".
"J'ai toujours pense, en jouant ces pieces, que la reference
va
plutot vers un sentiment amoureux et doit être cherchee dans
la Carte
du Tendre
(comme dans presque toutes les pieces de cette epoque,
d'ailleurs) ;
par exemple, ce pourrait etre le cœur battant la
chamade de l'amoureux pensant a sa belle ou l'alerte de
l'amant
trompe! (Je me garderai bien de faire reference a la
citation que Pierre Desproges attribuait au Cardinal de
Richelieu
faisant compliment a la beaute d'une dame de la cour :
"Madame, si ma robe etait de plomb, vous entendriez sonner le
tocsin !")." J-D
J-D, however, then goes on to say that without the presence of
a
text, all speculation is possible.
Anthony
Le 30 déc. 08 à 11:16, Anthony Hind a écrit :
I agree that the gigue form, in French lute music could have
determined the degree of imitation possible when evoking the
tocsein. It might nevertheless be interesting to discover
exactly what the rhythm of the bell-toll might have been
that could have been imitated. I found this definition:
"Tintement d’une cloche à coups pressés et redoublés pour
donner l’alarme, pour avertir du feu, etc." (so fast and
double); however, I also found that the tocsein could have
been originally given on a drum, and perhaps later was used
for other warning notes
"probably originally meant a signal given by tap of drum,
but subsequently always applied to a flourish or fanfare on
a trumpet. "
http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/270732
Anthony
Le 30 déc. 08 à 06:02, damian dlugolecki a écrit :
I quite agree with Jorge Torres. After playing these
pieces for a while it really seems to me the accents are
duple; accent on the 1st note of each semi-breve.
DD
Dear list:
A few thoughts concerning the French duple-meter gigue.
1) The two examples of Toxin are not in 4/4 there is no
time signature
given. They are probably both in Binarie mineur or "cut
time" or 2/2,
again, see Perrine's distinction between an allemande and a
gigue in
his "pieces", p. 16-19. This makes a huge difference in
the way we
would play them.
2) In this repertoire, Allemandes and Gigues are, at times,
almost
indistinguishable, as evidenced by Perrine's distinction
between an
allemande and a gigue in his "pieces", p. 16-19
3) There is no evidence to assume that these gigues should
be played
very fast.
4) I would not force a a ternary subdivision as a uniform
rhythm (6/8
or 12/8). The French had a ternary, gigue-like genre: the
canarie
5) It is very likely that notes inegales were used in these
pieces,
but to insist on them throughout the piece in order to
change the
rhythm to something that sounds more like 6/8 or 12/8 seems
pedantic
to me.
All the best,
Jorge Torres
On Dec 28, 2008, at 12:51 PM, Mathias Rösel wrote:
I would imagine it could be binary.
Both Tocxin by Denis Gaultier and Toxin by Charles Mouton
are gigues in
4/4 metre. I'd go so far as to say that there's a
relationship
discernible between the pieces of master and student in
that both gigues
have a very similar opening motif and both share the same
rhythmic
pattern in each measure of their respective second halves,
i. e. with
the bass note off-beat on 2nd half of 1st beat. That
repeated bass note
even being a 4 in both pieces (notwithstanding that it
means B with
Gaultier, C sharp with Mouton).
With what I heard with Froberger gigues transferred to
these 4/4 gigues,
you would play them extremely inegale, IOW amounts of
crotchets as
sharpened ternary units. Gaultier seems to indicate that
way of playing
by stating rhythm more precisely in each one but last
measure of both
halves of his gigue.
Still, would you perform Tocsin "as loud and fast as
possible", i. e.
raising connotations of alarm? Mouton seems to indicate
something of
that kind by using means of chromatic escalation at the
conclusions of
the 1st half.
Mathias
Tocxin is tocsin in both French and English, an alarm
bell which is
musically depicted by the repeated bass notes.
My former question was concerned with tempo. If it is
agreed that
alarm
bells would usually be chimed as loud and fast as
possible in case of
emergency, was the gigue which bears that name supposed
to be played
that way, too?
It's a sequel, so to say, of a short discussion that we
had in
December
2003 (Re: binary and ternary GIGUES).
Mathias
"Anthony Hind" <anthony.h...@noos.fr> schrieb:
Damian
"Sonner le tocsin", meant roughly "to ring a peal
of warning
bells ", but could also mean the bell used for such a
warning. This
would have come from earlier "touquesain" from
Provencal "tocaseneh".
It seems that "tocar" (or toquer), distantly related to
"touch",
comes from Latin "toccre" make a sound like "toc".
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O27-touch.html
and "senh" could be derived from Latin "signum" a
sign - a signal,
giving ancient French "seing", later "sein", and which
took on the
meaning of "bell".
My source is the historic dictionary of the French
language, le
Robert, but etymology of a single expression, even
backed-up by such
a dictionary is rarely safe.
Around 1570 and for a certain period, the expression
apparently took
on a metaphoric meaning (Bossuet) to allert public
oppinion.
Best wishes
Anthony
Le 28 déc. 08 à 02:51, damian dlugolecki a écrit :
You are quite right David. I just looked up 'tocsin'
in my OED
where the earliest usage in English is in 1598. I
just assumed it
was an earlier spelling of 'toxin' which led me to my
incorrect
interpretation. Never encountered the word 'tocsin'
with that
meaning. The OED reads, "an alarm signal, sounded by
ringing a
bell or bells; used orig. and esp. in reference to
France."
Thanks for clearing that up.
Damian
Subject: [LUTE] Re: le Tocsein de Gautier
I might have missed something here, getting into the
discussion
late
(I rejoined today---hellew everyone), but doesn't the
English word
"tocsin" refer to the pealing of a bell? I always
thought "tocsin"
came from an old form of French. Could some form of
the word have
existed in French in the 17th century with a similar
meaning? Used
perhaps in similar sense to Vallet's piece depicting
bells in a
village church.
Davidr
dlu...@verizon.net
On Dec 27, 2008, at 7:48 PM, damian dlugolecki wrote:
At the moment this is only a guess, but I believe
the 'tocsin' of
Mouton and that of D. Gautier have something to do
with disease.
The word 'toxin' only come into the English language
during the
19th century. My OED defines it originally as
"A specific poison...produced by a microbe which
causes a
particular disease.' By this perhaps we can infer
that this
was closer to the original French meaning than to
our current
understanding of the word 'toxin' as some kinde of
poison. There
were many diseases like typhus, smallpox, cholera
etc. that wiped
out large numbers of
people. I need to find a French dictionary like
my OED. My
Larousse does not have historical meanings or
etymologies.
In any case, the pieces by Gautier and Mouton are
very similar,
and it seems to me that the Mouton piece is
transposition to f#m
of D. Gautier's piece in e minor. The repeated low
'B' has a
funerary feeling to me anyway and it appears
throughout Mouton's
piece as a low C#. But even though it is possible
these
'tocsins'
were about disease, they are gigues and should be
played at faster
tempos. Played in the salons of Paris during
recurrences of 'la
Peste' they were perhaps demonstrations of musical
'black humor.'
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Jorge Torres
Associate Professor of Music
237 Williams Center
Lafayette College
Easton, PA 18042
(610)330-5365
torr...@lafayette.edu
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