Engraving of a one key flute, developed by the family of wind luthiers
Hotteterre, which is found on the book "Principes de la flûte traversière ou flûte d'Allemagne", by Jacques Hotteterre (1707).
Engraving of a one key flute, developed by the family of wind luthiers Hotteterre, which is found on the book "Principes de la flûte traversière ou flûte d'Allemagne", by Jacques Hotteterre (1707). |
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The 20th century has had a great debate - which still lasts - on the question of whether the best performance or the most adequate, o even the only possible one, is the nearest to an "authentic" performance, this is to say, to the hypothetical performance that the creators and contemporary performers of that music would do (and did do); this way of thinking has created a manner of performance called: period instruments performance, or historical performance, or historically informed performance (HIP), and in turn, this has produced a rejection in the performers more attached to the tradition, but no doubt has influenced their ways of performance. What we exactly mean by more attached to the tradition, is referring to the great performing tradition transmitted uninterruptly from masters to pupils since the 19th century (but not before, because then no one performed music of earlier times).
From this new performing fashion came the recent recovery of period instruments to perform early music (a few may be originals, but the majority are replicas), as well as the study of each musical period and the conventions that constitute the style.
A very important guide to achieve a historically informed performance is the one provided by the study of the contemporary texts which describe the performing manner of each time, and within it, the styles of each country or region. But we have to take into account the fact that the practical musician is always ahead of the theoric, and when these ones decide to write a code of the present performing practice, this has already started to change into a newer thing.
To judge the music theory texts, we need to have into account that the ones from the Middle Ages are in fact theological philosophical writtings which use music for their philosophical reflections, while the Renaissance texts try to link music to the classical greek thought (and justify it thereby), and it is not until the 17th century that the treatises begin to content practical performing indications. Therefore, in this page we will give information about medieval, renaissance, and baroque texts, but will put the emphasis on those of the 18th century which is when in fact, the detail and the thoroughness of the explanations give a more precise directions about performance.
Thus, the three most important theoretical german texts on music from the 18th century, which we will discuss right now, were written by mid of the century and describe the right way of performing; but to which style they refer? late baroque, or galant style, or "empfindsamer", or maybe already the first classical style? and, are they applicable to all european music, or only the german one, or the italian, or the french? clearly they are not immovable rules, but nevertheless they have a high value as a guide.
These three texts are:
I found this book by CPE Bach in a french translation by Jean-Pierre Coulon, however in a Webpage (http://icking-music-archive.org/scores/bach-cpe/versuch.pdf) which is very often not accesible. Therefore, I preferred to upload the document in my page to make it available at all times. So you can get the .pdf file of the "Versuch", directly from here.
On the other side, you will find my comments to this book by CPE Bach in my report about the Pedagogy of the harpsichord which you can access from here: look at pages 13 to 16 of the report, and to the Attachment no. 7.
Here you will find a short information about the Quantz' book, (basically, the table of contents) on the Web site of Agostino Cirillo, professor at the Conservatorio Superior de Música, in Murcia.
And in the main page of this Web site by Cirillo, you will find as well, a spanish translation of the first 2 Chapters of the Hotteterre's book "Principes de la flûte traversière ou flûte d'Allemagne" (1707), and other informations on the performance of early music.
Another information about the Quantz's book, in this case, the Catalan translation of the Chapter XVI of the book, titled Del que un flautista ha tenir en compte en la música pública, is to be found on the Web site of the recorder player Joan Vives.
On the main page of this Web site by Vives, you will find as well, several informations about hte performance of early music, like the preface to the "Tratado de Glosas", by Diego Ortiz (1553), or a writting about the "notes inégales", or another one about ornamentation, besides a catalan translation of some chapters of the mentioned book by Hotteterre.
Click to get an entry at Wikipedia (in german) containing a short information about the book by Leopold Mozart, (basically, the table of contents).
Here, there is another short information about the L Mozart's book, referring to the convention of playing at the keyboard with piano and forte according to the context, even if this is not specified in the score.
Here is a summary of the Avertissement (warning) which accompanies the edition of 1715 of the Premier Livre de pieces pour la Flûte traversiere, et autres instruments, by Hotteterre le Romain, containing a table of "Agréements" (ornaments), applicable to the french music in general, but above all, to Hotteterre's music.
Here are the writtings by Agazzari (1607), Del Sonare Sopra’l Basso Con Tutti Li Stromenti E Dell’ Uso Loro Nel Conserto, and from Viadana (1602), the preface to Li Cento Concerti Ecclesiastici, which are two of the first text of the musical baroque devoted to basso continuo (here in italian original, and translations into English and German).
A translation into French of some fragments of the book by Daniel Gottlob Türk, Méthode de clavicorde pour élèves et professeurs, 1789.
And here there is a link to the Web page of ESMUC devoted to early music. Even though a lot of information is only accesible with a password, the small part of free access is quite interesting, specially the sound examples on different historical tunings and temperaments (it is the section "MIDIs trempats").
A page devoted to Folia, to the Folia genre, to all Folias along the history.
A page called Thesaurus musicarum italicarum, which contains the majority of treatises (in italian) of the music theorists of the Renaissance and the early Baroque, from the A of Artusi to the Z of Zarlino.
Another page called Thesaurus musicarum latinarum, which contains the latin texts of the majority of treatises by music theorists from th 3rd century to the 17th century, including for example, Boecius, Isidorus from Sevilla, or Gaffurius. Click [Enter TmiWeb].
And a page called Thema, which is specific of the musical treatises of the Middle Ages: for example, it contains the texts by Franco de Cologne or Johannes de Garlandia.
This is The HIP-ocrisy Home Page, (english language uses sometimes the expression Historically Informed Performance, o HIP, for a performance according to criteria from the early treatises).
This page is called "Present day misconceptions about Bach performance practice in the nineteenth century".
Here there are some short remarks about musical performance in diferent past times.
Modern or ancient way of pronunciation: Chantez-vous Français? by Olivier Bettens. Curious remarks about the sung French from the Middle ages to the Baroque period.
Page on baroque ornamentation, specially that of Bach as it appears in the Klavierbüchlein.
Many link to pages of early music, the important ones and the simply curious ones.
Monographies about 13 early music topics , among them, Tempi in the baroque era, and Ornamentation.
Goldberg, The Early Music Portal.
