Casestudies
From the faculty of Case Western Reserve University
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14
Fall 2009 Early Music America
This is the first of a planned series of columns on
early music performance practice, featuring contributions from faculty members at Case Western
Reserve University. Case has had an early music
program since the 1970s, but the faculty for it has
so grown and diversified over the last few years
that this column seems like a natural use of their
collective expertise. My own interest in performance practice covers a wide time span, and I confess to a wonkish interest in many aspects of the
subject. My primary focus here, however, will be
late 14th into the early 17th century. My colleagues include Peter Bennett – featured in this
inaugural column – who specializes in 17th- and
early 18th-century music of all sorts, as well as
keyboard music generally; David Rothenberg,
who specializes in Medieval and Renaissance
sacred music; Francesca Brittan, fortepianist and
harpsichordist, who will focus on the late 18th
and 19th centuries; Julie Andrijeski, who will
cover string music generally as well as early dance;
and Debra Nagy, who will deal with early winds,
from Medieval to Classical. They have other closet
interests besides: as some of you may know,
Debra is a superb singer as well as a wind player,
and David has additional expertise in harpsichord and lute. In addition, soprano Ellen Hargis, who has been coming to Case regularly as a
Kulas Visiting Artist teacher since 1999, may
make an occasional contribution. Together, we
hope to survey recent studies and draw attention
to significant and sometimes surprising information that may be of interest to EMAg readers.
We do not strive to be critics, nor to do a comprehensive survey of the literature, but questions may
arise, and we want to present things that we personally find intriguing. For those of you who
want to draw our attention to recent studies, you
can write to us all at [email protected].
—Ross W. Duffin
Renaissance Ornamentation
I begin with an article on Renaissance
ornamentation, especially vocal ornamentation, by Timothy J. McGee, in the
online journal Performance Practice Review
13 (2008): “How One Learned to Ornament in Late Sixteenth-Century Italy.”
As McGee points out, the subject has
been well covered in resources like
Howard M. Brown’s OUP booklet,
Embellishing 16th-Century Music (1976), as
well as in articles and editions by various
scholars. Much of the
focus has been on
division-style, or what
McGee calls passaggitype ornaments –
where the performer
basically fills in
between the written
pitches, occasionally
venturing above and
below as well. He distinguishes this from
the dramatic style
often associated with
Giulio Caccini from
his Le nuove musiche of
1601/2, which uses
more affective, irregular ornaments in a
rhetorical delivery. McGee points out
that while the origins of the division
style are well known, dating back most
famously to the Faenza Codex in the
early 15th century, there are earlier
antecedents for the dramatic style as
well. Most intriguing is a quote from
Angelo Poliziano in a 1489 letter
describing the recitation of someone
whose “voice was not entirely that of
someone reading, nor entirely that of
someone singing.”
And Gioseffo Zarlino,
the famous theorist,
opined in 1588 that
singers should be
allowed to use the
rhetorical devices of
the orator. So,
Caccini’s style seems
to have had
antecedents before his
treatise made it more
widely accessible. In
those early days, it was
often necessary for
singers to work with a
teacher in order to
18th-Century Ornamentation
One of the dilemmas most frequently
faced by performers is whether to take
the composer’s notated score at face
value and perform it literally, or whether
Continued on page 59
Ryan Brown, Conductor and Artistic Director
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learn the elements of passaggi, graces,
and dramatic delivery. What is unclear is
how singers managed to learn the sprezzatura – the negligence or nonchalance –
that was also required. If it was hard in
the 16th century, it is even harder today,
but the discussion put me in mind of
Mariah Carey, for some reason, as I contemplated virtuosic divisions and affective graces, delivered with exquisite sprezzatura. Maybe she could be a model for
today’s singers of late-Renaissance solo
vocal music, delivering songs with ornaments that are as virtuosic as they are
unselfconscious.
One other point McGee makes is that
improvisation was also a very important
aspect of vocal performance in the late
Renaissance, and one that could only be
learned first-hand. Interestingly, while
most of the “opera” Euridice (1600) consisted of music composed by Jacopo
Peri, Caccini insisted that his pupils sing
to his direction. His student Ginevra
Mazieri, in fact, was to sing the Prologue
to an improvised strophic variation, and
he sent his son Pompeo to instruct her.
The instruction, ironically, also included
impregnation, which is perhaps a more
intimate relationship than desirable.
McGee’s reminder of the vital role of
improvisation further reminded me of a
recent article by Rob Wegman, “Ockeghem, Brumel, Josquin: New Documents in Troyes” (Early Music, May
2008). This seems like an unlikely place
to find performance practice information, but amid the discussion is the tantalizing revelation that Troyes was the
seat of a regular meeting of singer/
composers around 1500, along the lines
of the annual “Écoles des menestrels,”
unearthed by Keith Polk some decades
ago, where the instrumentalists of the
various courts got together to compare
notes and trade improvisatory techniques. Clearly, these conclaves are
models that modern performers need
to emulate.
—Ross W. Duffin
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CASEstudies
Continued from page 15
Fantasias
HENRY PURCELL
Les Voix humaines
ACD2 2591
A milestone CD with viol ensemble
Les Voix humaines in the first
professional recording featuring the
historic Hart House viols
ACD2 2278
to alter it in some way. Singers in particu- thing new unless the composer’s work is
lar are continually faced with the quesfaulty or intended as a simple skeleton to
tion of what to do with repeated secbe filled out by the performer.” Other
tions of music (in a da capo aria, for
arias (generally those in a quicker tempo)
example) – did the composer expect the were notated much more explicitly, espesinger to ornament it further (or differcially when the composer was an
ently) on repetition, or did he notate
acknowledged master, and in these arias
exactly what he wanted the singer to
added embellishment was apparently not
sing? Or, even if the composer did not
envisaged by the composer. However,
want ornamentation added on repetition, Jerold describes a practice that develdid performers add it anyway? And, if
oped in the later 18th century of “reperformers generally did add it against
embellishing” even these more explicitly
the composers’ wishes, whose wishes
notated arias, a practice which met with
should we respect – the composers’ or
varying degrees of disapproval from the
the performers’? While the issue of how composers themselves. A particularly
to add embellishment is, of course,
important piece of evidence for this is
widely documented
Stefano Arteaga’s histoday in many of the
tory of the Italian
standard performtheatre (1785) in
Singers in particular
ance practice books,
which he cautions
are continually faced with
a recent article in
against embellishing
the question of what to do on repetition: when
Early Music presents
with repeated sections of
some unusual new
an aria uses a particuevidence on when to
music (in a da capo aria, for lar type of explicit
add it and provides a example) – did the composer ornament, these
new perspective
ornaments should
expect the singer to
which should be of
not be altered on the
ornament it further
interest to both
da capo repetition
(or differently) on repetition, since the composer’s
singers and instruor did he notate exactly
mentalists. Beverly
intention has already
Jerold’s article, “How
been achieved and
what he wanted the
Composers Viewed
since any variation
singer to sing?
Performers’ Addiwould sound out of
tions” (February
place. In this light it
2008), focuses on vocal music in a periseems that Pier Francesco Tosi’s oftod (c.1720-c.1790) which crosses our
cited evidence that the repeat of a da
neat Baroque/Classical dividing line but capo aria requires additional embellishwhich makes sense when we consider
ment (1723) may be referring only to the
what writers from the end of the 18th
earlier “skeletal” type aria, not to the
century had to say about the earlier
more “composed,” explicitly-notated
years.
works from the later period. Jerold supAccording to these writers, in the
ports this position with testimony from
early 18th century most vocal music
many of the most important opera com(especially that by minor composers) was posers and commentators of the era on
written in so-called “skeletal” notation, a “re-embellishment,” and although in
technique in which the melody of an aria practice we may still wish to favor the
(generally in a slow tempo) was present- wishes of the performer over the comed in a simplified form which allowed
poser in our own performances, her
the performer free rein to embellish at
work provides some valuable insights
will. According to Johann Karl Friedrich into the way vocal ornamentation was
Triest writing in 1801, for example, the
conceived in the 18th century.
performer “…should not invent any—Peter Bennett
Les Voix humaines’
Concerts a deux
violes esgales
by Sainte-Colombe
on ATMA
15
AT M AC L A S S I Q U E . C O M
YEARS

Early Music America Fall 2009
59