Dear Mathias,
On 2009-02-01, at 00:23, Mathias Rösel wrote:
Dear Jerzy,
checking the source would be great, but unfortunately I share your
plight, not owning a copy or facsimile of Vm7 6214. I have to rely on
the CNRS edition.
I wasn't familiar with the dating by Rave. The sisters Bocquet
flourished during the 1640ies, so there are some 30 years between this
copy and its possible authors. 30 years of change in style and
aesthetics...
I wasn't looking for the one and only appropiate execution of commas.
The one and only appropiate execution shouldn't exist in music, and
best if we end up with different solutions! For the welfare of United
Colours of B... aroque Music.
I'm suspicious that what I was actually looking for, was some support
for the execution of commas as simple trills.
Here is a salvation:
If the music was by or for the Bocquets, then Mersenne (1635/6)
solves the problem. In an English translation (Martinus Nijhoff /The
Hague 1957 /repr. 1964) on page 107 he says:
IV. On the ornamentation.
………
Now the one which is formed in this fashion: "," is called “shake”
ordinarily, and most people use no other character to express all the
different sorts [[JZ: sic!, meaning both upper and lower auxiliary,
with two or more notes?]]; that is why I have not wished to change
it, since it is familiar to everyone, so as not to use any novelty if
it is not useful. But there are still other ornamentations which they
call _accens plaintifs_, _martelemens_, _verves cassez_, and
_battemens_, as we shall see at the end of this treatise. [[JZ: now --
>]] As for the first marked by this comma and used on the open
string, it is necessary to consider two things for executing it well,
that is, that the finger tip of the left hand, which ought to make
this ornamentation, be well upon the string on which it is to be made
and that the finger not be lifted from above the sad string, so that
one perceives only that it has been played by the right hand. [...]
If this ornamentation is found at another letter than an "a" as is
seen here, the first finger of the left hand must [...] be place
above the fret "d", [...] and form the ornamentation of the little
finger above the fret "f". [...]
For me it is a clear description of your "simple trill" starting from
the main note. However I personally don't like the word "trill" which
is for me a modern passkey for to great variety of historical
ornaments. But I have no access to original Latin or French. I cut
out all Mersennes painfull divagations whether to play one or two
semiton second in the ornament.
But now, in the light of this, I'd have another problem -- what to do
with the next note (only melodic), also with the come after it. Shall
we play too a "simple trill" or appogiatura from above (which I never
liked in such situations) or perhaps from below, if Mersenne allowes
the coma "to express all the different sorts" of ornaments -- ?
But if the source is late (say 1680) and the ornamental signs are
from Brossard rather (or understood his way) then I wouldn't be quite
sure about the "simple trill" from the main note. Now maybe DGautier,
Gallot or Mouton is a better prompter -- ?
And what if a piece be called "La Belle Homicide" and found in the
Augsburg fantastic JBHagen Collection, what is actually the case with
"the Beautifull Criminal" -- ?!
A Horror !!! We'd have to study Leopold Mozart.
Not as a rule, and by far not at all places. Just e. g. with the
opening
chord of allemande #7. I was seeking liberation from the rule that
baroque trills, and French baroque trills in particular, are always to
be preceded by appogiature.
If I remember well, this splinter sits in the a.. from the beginning
of modern research on historicall ornamentation. There are people who
cannot imagine a baroque "trill" without an appogiatura from above or
below. On the other side perhaps is Frederick Neumann (Ornamentation
in baroque and post baroque music: With Special Emphasis on J. S.
Bach, 1983) who's shown good number of very nice exceptions and in
fact, for some, definitely broke the magic rule.
With that opening chord, an appogiatura on the root would obscure and
confuse the recognition of the key. And that's not what ornaments are
generally supposed to serve as.
As much as I like Neumann, I personally enjoy obscuring and
confusing ;-) and in such a simplistic music as this, in a way, the
flourishes and other "personalities" would for me be the last weapon
to ...bring it to life. But this is only me.
some sort of ornamental dissonace at the very begining. At the first
chord of your Allemande (7) section B, there is also
'something' (inverted mordent?) which creates 'harmonic confusion'.
Similar coma at the first chord have also the Sarabande (18) and
'Autre facon' (19)... &ct.
With these two, I have less difficulties, as the comma affects the 5th
above the root. If executed as an appogiatura, the opening chord is a
first inversion, turning back into the basic form which then turns
into
a leading major 6th (f-e-f sharp above A). That is playful but not
ubscuring IMHO.
But here you have a different sign, a cross, which can be an inverted
mordent or appogiatura from below -- I'd like the last one much
here! ...But first I'd have to look at Mersenne again ;-)))
remember, the music have to please, not cause a headache, even the
'historical music' ;-))
YES, wholeheartedly agreed.
Mathias
Jurek
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