I have always been led to believe that baroque (eg the Bach I'm working on) should be played in tempo giusto, except maybe for a final rit.

The Sinfonia no. 7 is a beautiful slow counterpoint in E minor. The extensive ornamentation marked in the AB edition slightly surprised my teacher who tells me that in Russia they learnt it without any ornaments at all. However, ornamented or not this is a piece that I think cries out for an emotional rendition. My brain says fine; Go head with articulation (careful with that legato) and add dynamics (careful never to be too quiet) but tempo giusto except the final cadence. My fingers really, really want to rebel against my brain in places and include slight tempo rubato (not a lot or the different parts start to come apart - definitely a no-no!).

Until told otherwise by my teacher my fingers are just going to have to knuckle down (!) and do what theyr'e told, but I wondered if anyone had any thoughts on this?

I haven't learnt this piece myself, but I have been taught that music from the baroque period is actually quite ornamented and that it should be played in strict time, except for the final rit for a grand finish. I have had moments like yours too, holding back/ accelerating the tempo because it feels right to me, only for my teacher to dictate metronome practice for the rest of the week. Ha!

I've felt exactly the same with some Baroque stuff! And classical as well. In the hands of the likes of Tatiana Nikolayeva or Alfred Brendel a little subtle rubato seems to work wonders, and they can get away with it in public and on cds because of who they are, but examiners, for instance, seem to be very hard on this type of thing at all levels. So my answer to the question, for what it's worth, would be, I suppose, as long as it's tasteful, 'it depends on your audience'! I was criricised in my diploma for 'a tendency to romanticise' the slow movement of a Haydn sonata, having felt at the time that it was the best performance of it I'd ever given, and I was really miffed, because I genuinely felt that I'd kept it very subtle and almost imperceptible. Having listened to Brendel playing the same thing I wonder if he'd actually have passed this if he'd gone in anonymously, because he plays it very emotionally indeed?!

I learn a tempo first of all, but then I do use rubato - rather sparingly, but there nevertheless, enough to show the shape of the music, and very dependent on whose music I'm playing - music from the very early baroque, in stylus phantasticus can actually take a lot of shifts in tempo, with Bach's music I'm much more circumspect. It's such an individual thing though - when I first heard Mitzi Meyerson's rendition of the Italian Concerto, I was irritated by her rendition of it, because the amount of rubato seemed to me to break up the sense of the music - now, when I'm playing the flute partita, I do give the sarabande in particular some rhythmic freedom, because it feels better that way - and the same with the flute sonata I'm learning at the moment, BWV 1032.

Now Brendel's Italian Concerto...

I disagree. I think a tasteful use of rubato can make the playing more expressive, even for Baroque music. Of course, the kind of rubato you use in Bach should be very different from the kind of rubato you use in a Romantic piece. To me, the kind of rubato appropriate for Bach consists of subtle stretching of selected notes--usually the melodic high points--and perhaps very slight accelerandi toward those high points. The playing is more or less in strict time, but it should not sound metronomic.

It depends on who is listening. Do you want to play it as Haydn would have, taking in to account the limitations of instruments and technical ability when he was writing. Or, do you want to play it to (at least in your opinion) the best that it can be today with modern instruments and thinking.

This is a large can of worms I shall not pick at!

Aw, go on...I'll get my toothpick out if you do...

Wouldn't it be great to have been at a recital of the time, just to hear for ourselves how they would have done it, and how much variation there was? I wonder if the academics might just be wrong in their assumption that pre-Romantic music was always played with strict adherence to an imaginary metronome? Is there any written critical record of particular Baroque performances from that era that I'm not aware of that might give us some idea?

Absolutely! I would love to be able to recreate historically accurate performances on a Haydn piano. I have always wanted to get an Edwardian orchestra together too. Stuff modern advances. I love being authentic! I can see the advantages of both schools of thought though.

I see your point about a historically accurate performance with regard to the instruments available at the time - and obviously the likes of Haydn would have written his music in the expectation of it sounding as it would have on what was was available to him. But what about 'tempo giusto'? Do we really know for sure that this was always strictly adhered to in performances of the time? Obviously if the word 'rubato' didn't appear anywhere before a particular date, then the implication is that it didn't exist officially, but I wonder if the concept existed before the word? (I'm not really arguing a case for this, by the way! I genuinely don't know the answer, but I'd be interested to know all the reasons why we take it for granted that Baroque and early classical music should be played in strict time. In many pieces it's obvious that that would be the most tasteful thing to do, but in some already mentioned, for instance, it's less so.)

I think the strict time thing is probably a reaction to the extremes of rubato used in later music - it'll have seemed simpler to ask pupils to play baroque music rigidly in time as a contrast to later tastes. Looking though at sources like Quantz' flute text, which deals with much more than just how to play the flute, it would seem that some form of rubato was used then too - I can't cite examples, but the stress was on expressiveness with taste - no extremes in variation of tempo in other words. As so often happens with texts from this time, the "taste" is assumed to be understood, so not defined further, arrgh. One thing does seem certain - the heavily overlaid even vibrato so often heard with modern playing of woodwind and stringed instruments would have been frowned on, both in baroque and in classical times. Playing on early instruments does help to get an idea of how the sound was balanced, and I do get irritated with those who say that it's so much better to play on modern, more developed instruments - using early instruments can inform playing considerably.

I agree totally about using early instruments, or accurate copies, to find out what they could and could not do. If you want an answer to a query ask a practical musician rather than a musicologist!

We know about performance practices from writers of the time and from annotated scores left from players too. Practices undergo changes of course and these would be gradual rather than sudden. An earlier writer than Quantz, Heinrich Schutz, called regular time the soul of music. I forget the exact wording but he described it as being the most important thing in a performance. Other writers too said similar things. Georg Muffat writing in the late 17th century said that tempi should be maintained in constant uniformity. Quantz was writing in the mid 18th century and things were starting to change by then although he does make a point about the leader of the orchestra keeping a strict beat too. I quote these to my pupils often.

Baroque music sounds so much better when vibrato is used as an ornament rather than an effect throughout the piece. I used to have a violin method of Louis Spohr (1784 to 1851) in my library before it was "borrowed" by a local fiddle teacher and never returned. It showed vibrato as an ornament above the notes where it should be added and was shown as a wavy line that altered in size and intensity.

There are also Froberger's notes, as an earlier source of performance practice than Quantz - in which more leeway is again advocated. One thought on this, though, is that the idea was to keep the measure regular but allowing some freedom within that.

For a really authentic Haydn performance you would have to make sure almost everyone had lice and almost nobody in the orchestra or the audience had bathed for quite a long time. A fair proportion would have TB. Many would be smoking or taking snuff. Also, for a city performance you would have to make the air smell of horse exhaust and excessive quantities of chimney smoke. Personally, I would rather not!!

Ah, the medic speaks! I was thinking more about the instruments being built to a pattern of the time and the performing styles being as close to the original as it is possible to be. I suppose that head lice and TB would have had some effect upon the players though; the latter more than the former in the case of woodwind players. Do you know how common TB was in Haydn's time and what effect it would have had on the breathing and stamina of the players? It is an interesting point.

You paint quite a word picture Robodoc! Another aspect that occurs to me is that both players and audience will only have heard live music. Not for them the aural wallpaper that decorates our lives - for good or bad. My three year old godson was prepared to listen to Radio 3 this morning in the car but kept changing over to Radio 1 because that was Winne the Pooh's music!

That's probably really pertinent, actually. There will have been less of a 'gold standard' in those days, so the performer, unless he had been to several other performances of the same work, will really have had no benchmark to perform against. I wonder if this meant more variation in interpretation? Or, I wonder, was there maybe a bit too much variation in the eyes (or ears ) of some, which could be why academics started stressing the importance of strict time? How musically educated will the audiences have been? Would performers of the day have got away with more imperfections?

Assuming that we use notes inegale I am sure that some leeway would be possible. It was a common practice in keyboard music of the baroque and earlier times to play notes that should be stressed as slightly longer as, apart from adding ornaments there was not any other way of doing so. What one player does another will follow and copy and this was and still is a useful technique for recorder players too. So perhaps not really what might be called rubato now but a little careful robbing here and there is allowed.



I am sure that the conventions of the time would have dictated styles and speeds. The sad thing about so much of the playing of baroque music today is the editing and standardising that happens when keyboard players cannot read and realise figured basses I think. The joy of hearing a baroque sonata played several times by different players, each one with his or her own realization must have been thrilling for the listeners of the time.

That wouldn't have occured to me! I'm getting educated here! And I hope that doesn't sound flippant, because it isn't meant to. I love Baroque and early classical music and am enjoying this thread immensely, whilst realising my comparative ignorance.

Figured bass is really exciting - not just for the audience, hearing it all a different way each time, but also to play - my husband seems to be pretty good at knowing how the harmonic progressions go, so any time we have music where a figured bass part rather than a realisation is provided - we have great fun trying to play from it, and I never quite know what's going to happen next....I just wish there were more mainstream editions like that - as I understand it, we'd have to look at some of the rarer publishers to find more of this material, and most of them focus on the violin, there's little in the way of recorder music.

The other good thing about figured bass editions - we'd be able to put a few more recordings on the recordings site without having to worry about the copyright for the accompaniments to baroque sonatas...

On the issue of hearing live music vs wallpaper, I'm afraid that audiences in the 18th century probably did treat their concerts a bit like wallpaper; I've a feeling the idea was as much to be seen and socialise as it was to absorb any culture....

I don't have a copy of any of the music in my sweaty paw at this instant, but... aren't some of the cello-type parts for things playable as figured bass? Or am I imagining it? (quite possible!)

I'm trying to remember whether the parts are figured... I'm sure I have some figured bass stuff amonst my collection...

This is a really interesting thread. It's a while since I read much about the history of music, but I'm sure I remember reading that the young Mozart was much admired for his ability to play in strict time, which was thought ideal.

Music was viewed as a mood-changing and therefore quite dangerous thing; it was considered important not to inflame people and so music was kept very much within bounds so as to promote good mental health. This was kept in mind right up to the beginning of the 20th century, I believe, when for some reason (probably the enormous changes around WW1) composers began to experiment more.

If I've misremembered any of the above, I'm sure someone will soon put me right!

most of the cello parts we have are not figured; we do have some sonatas by Paisible which have in them exactly what the harpsichordist needs, namely the soloist's part and a figured bass: my husband's harpsichord teacher has also taken cello parts and figured them, or covered up the treble line of a realisation and figured the bass for him.

You may well be right about the other activities going on during concerts (and indeed there have been a few comments in a wedding thread about playing while everyone talked during the reception), but I think it was still different in the 18th century because it was all live. What I would love to know is if folk in those times would wake up with a tune in their heads that would not go away?

I have some of the Green Man publications and these have two copies included; one with the figured bass line and the solo part and another with a full realisation. They are good working copies and well worth using.

I'm with you on this. When I play "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring" I nearly always play with a certain amount of rubato. Of course, this is partly because it's so darned difficult.

I think if the piece was named after a dance - Sarabande, Minuet etc., then it should be played as if people are dancing to it. And if you start putting in massive amounts of rubato, that's going to put them off their stride.

That said, I believe music should be interpreted by the performer - after all, Bach didn't write for the modern pianoforte.

Edward

Looks interesting, I've just Googled for it....

might have to team up with some scary singers, though .
*quake*

Do you know of any other publishers using figured bass, or facsimiles? Clifford Bartlett was mentioned to me, but that's the one doing mainly strings, if I've remembered correctly.

Coming rather late to this thread...
I wonder if things are different in different countries
I thought I'd remembered from my piano lessons years ago in the UK that baroque music should be played strictly in time but my oboe teacher in France says this is not the case. He says that the first beat of each bar should fall regularly (I presume this is what anacrusis means by "measure") but that within the bar the relative value of the notes should be flexible to bring out the "melody" ("melody" for want of a better word).

Yes, that was what I meant by measure .
Interesting point, Kerioboe, because French baroque music is the style in which you're most likely to find notes inégales - so a scale of quavers would not be played as even quavers, not quite as unequal as dotted, but sort of in between....

Interestingly when this came up my teacher specifically said that he was not talking about "notes inégales" in that particular case (the brain has gone this morning and I can't remember which piece it was) as that wouldn't have been right and that it was a case of slightly lengthening the important notes when necessary within each bar.

[quote name='petrat' date='Oct 8 2007, 10:03 PM' post='607872'
It was a common practice in keyboard music of the baroque and earlier times to play notes that should be stressed as slightly longer as, apart from adding ornaments there was not any other way of doing so. What one player does another will follow and copy and this was and still is a useful technique for recorder players too. So perhaps not really what might be called rubato now but a little careful robbing here and there is allowed.
[/quote]

I have quoted myself!

The usual way to accent notes on certain instruments in music of the baroque, and earlier stuff too, was to play these for their full length and then to make other notes in the bar more detached. A steady beat is always kept though, but it gives a little flexibility. Perhaps this is what your tutor had in mind.

Do I take it from that that you'd not particularly care for Andrew Manze's playing, or are we maybe talking about slightly different repertoire? I've been listening to his Stylus Phantasticus recording - one disc of the likes of Castello, Uccellini, Cima, the other a set of Biber sonatas - in both I think there is more rhythmic freedom than you're advocating. Or perhaps he's just incredibly good at giving that impression !

I like the idea of giving the stressed note its full value and slightly shortening the others - Trevor Pinnock does that very effectively in some of the pieces in his Rameau recordings, especially the latest one, les Cyclopes .

I like his playing in many respects. He always guides the listeners through the pieces that he plays and his use of ornamentation is usually qiute exciting. He is a bit too flexible with some of his rhythms for my liking though. One of my favourite players on the baroque recorder is Walter van Hauwe.

Ah, now, my favourites there would be Marion Verbruggen and Dan Laurin (if we're talking ordinary baroque and not mad baroque like Piers Adams). Pamela Thorby has done a concert in Edinburgh, with the most mind-boggling ornamentation, but I couldn't always find the melody in it all, and that started to bother me after a while - it's disconcerting when I know the shape of a piece from having played it through, but can't recognise it....
I've only the one CD by van Hauwe; I enjoyed listening to it, particularly having tried to get my head round some of his teaching method, which is soooo thorough .

Anyone know a good way to set about learning ornamentation in a systematic way? I can fit odd twiddles into the music easily enough, and even the occasional attention-seeking leap up the octave and run down, or something, but have found the idea of working through the examples Quantz gives too daunting, and when I hear really wonderful ornaments, I often can't remember more than half of what the player has been doing.

I like the term "mad baroque" to describe Piers Adams.

The best way to learn ornamentation is by playing along with other players who have a good baroque style, but failing that it would be helpful to work through the Telemann book of Twelve Methodical Sonatas. They work well on the treble recorder and are far more fun than Quantz. Some ornaments will be as second nature to many players; cadential trills for example, but the filling out of simple melodic lines does need more thought. Telemann is full of good ideas.

I really wish that we had an Early Music Forum. I have asked our wonderful mods and I am ever hopeful.

Another minefield I'm discovering at the moment is early baroque trills - in the Castello sonata prima (and secunda, if it comes to that, though I happen to be working on the first one just now), there are some interesting places marked with trills - and I'm now having, after decades of thinking about the later baroque trill starting on the upper note, to learn to start on the note, and then do something wild, sometimes it seems just trilling with any old finger to get a weirdly wide interval - it sounds crazy, but really works.

The Castello pieces have a crazy range of tempo choices, too, shifting as the music progresses (especially in the recording I have of Pieter-Jan Belder playing them...).

*sorry. seem to have hijacked tempo thread and turned it into technical aspects of playing early music thread. Any chance of a forum, mods? *

It's been fascinating


Pretty please??

While I don't really have much to add, I'm certainly enjoying reading this one - and the same would apply to a new forum, I'm sure. Even if Petrat and anacrusis were the only main contributors, I think we'd all find that we'd learn a lot!

I didn't start reading this thread for a while, because it was in viva piano which I don't frequent much, but then I read the whole thing... it's been an education!

The petrat and Anacrusis Forum! Well, that would be lovely! Seriously though, I think that there are enough forumites here with an interest in early music performing styles, editions, instruments etc to merit a forum. Perhaps if we all ask the mods they will consider our requests.

I doubt the mods will go for the idea if you make it that - my stance on making unwilling singers do so in exams, and on scales won't have gone down well

*goes to try out new rhythm pattern and tempo ideas in Castello piece, following on from last lesson*