Dear Mathias,
At last I have been able to look at Bocquet's Allemande, the one on
page 76 of the CNRS edition. It is a fine piece, and I have been
playing it all evening. Thanks for pointing me in its direction.
-o-O-o-
As far as the trill on the first chord is concerned, I believe it
should be played with an appoggiatura, producing a dissonant 9th (C2),
even though the piece begins with an anticipation of a2. There are many
pieces in the French style which start with a dissonance, perhaps to
capture the attention of the listener, perhaps just because they
relished such dissonances, so often created by an ornament. The comma
ornament, as far as I know, is consistently used for an appoggiatura
from above, with or without any number of turns, depending on the
context and the length of the note which is being ornamented. That
means I would play
| | |\
| | |
| |. |
_______________________________a______#e___e____
__a__|___a)______________c)____'___a___'_______|_
__"__|___a_____________________________________|_
_____|___a_____________________________________|_
_____|_________________________________________|_
_____|_________________________________________|_
///a
something like this
| | |\ |\ |\ |\ |\ |\ |\
| | |\ |\ |\ |\ | |\ |
| | |\ |\ |\ |\ | |\ |
| | |\ | |\ | | | |
___________________________________a_______c_e_e___
__a__|___c_____a_c_a_c_a__d_c_d_c__'___a___'_____|_
__"__|___a_______________________________________|_
_____|___a_______________________________________|_
_____|___________________________________________|_
_____|___________________________________________|_
///a
the rhythm signs don't quite add up, but hopefully they give an idea of
the sort of thing I have in mind.
If the music were fast, there would only be time for an appoggiatura
(one extra note)
__c)__ becomes __d_c__
(always with the dissonant appoggiatura on the beat, not before),
but in this piece, I think there is always time for three extra notes,
so
__c)__ becomes __d_c_d_c__
-o-O-o-
The # sign I would interpret as an ornament from below, either
__#e__ becomes ___c_e___ (e.g. bar 1, for a short note)
or
__#f__ becomes __e_____f_e_f__ (e.g. bar 2, for a long note)
holding on to that first dissonant e1 as long as possible within
reason.
If I am right, that # = an ornament from below, you would get as much
dissonance at the start of the second section as you would at the start
of the first. The ornament comes on a long chord, so I would interpret
| |
| |
| |.
________________
__c__|__#c______
__"__|___e______
_____|___e______
_____|__________
_____|__________
like this
| |\ |\ |\
| | |\ |
| |. |\ |
________________________
__c__|___a_____c_a_c____
__"__|___e______________
_____|___e______________
_____|__________________
_____|__________________
The same chord appears in the penultimate bar, but there is not enough
time for a turn, so I would play
_________
__#c_____
___e_____
___e_____
_________
_________
as
_________
___a__c__
___e_____
___e_____
_________
_________
-o-O-o-
There is a brief appearance of a third ornament in bar 11: e4 has a
curved line below. The curved line has to be different from #, so I
suggest
__e__ = __a_c_e__
u
Those are only my thoughts, with the limited knowledge I have of lute
music from this period, so I could well be hopelessly wide of the mark.
I would be very interested to know what you and other lutenetters think
about my interpretation of these ornaments.
Best wishes,
Stewart.
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