Category: Book

Susanna Pasticci, ed.
Rivista di Analisi e Teoria Musicale XX n. 1-2, 2014 (Edizioni LIM, 2014)
ISBN 9 788870 968064 €30

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he editor’s “In search of a passacaglia Principle” about how such an unusual issue came to be and the “Notes on contributors” are in English and Italian. After vetting abstracts about a possible construction principle behind passacaglia-inspired compositions from different periods, the scientific committee of the GATM (Gruppo Analisi e Teoria Musicale) selected the eight studies in Italian and English to be included, with abstracts in both languages.

Five are beyond the pale of ‘early’ music, even though the interdisciplinary aim of the volume leads those discussions to refer to a passacaglia ‘tradition’. There was no bias that I can see in favour of authors who did find evidence for a
‘passacaglia principle’, and the two articles I liked best reach opposite conclusions.

My review is not comprehensive, however, because RATM is a journal on music theory from all periods and cultures. I won’t describe the studies on

• on 20th-century opera, by Rostagno;
• on Ligeti, by Meneghini;
• on compositions written in 1944 in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, by Debenham; and
• on Schönberg’s Variations on a Recitative for organ, by Mastropasqua.

I will comment on Allan F. Moore’s “An Outlandish As-If: The Rock and Pop Passacaglia” which ends the volume, because he reflects profoundly on the central, challenging question. In order to make the comparison in such a way as to draw significant conclusions, he first gives thoughtful descriptions of some historical types of ground-bass pieces, because it doesn’t really matter if a rock piece was actually conceived as a passacaglia or just used an ostinato for a possibly similar effect. (The 26 examples, discussed in detail, are certainly far easier to read and hear in one’s head than Ligeti’s and Schönberg’s, adding to the interest! Only one, from Primrose Hill, Moore must have transcribed by ear, because he notates it in the outlandish key of A-flat minor, instead of deciphering the A-minor guitar tabs or just guessing that it was played with 415 tuning, as many rock pieces are!) What he found has nothing to do with an intention to follow a tradition: he says ‘I am asking what might be learnt from hearing [these pieces] as if they were passacaglias’. He found the regularity, the frequently descending bass patterns, and a sense of progressing in intensity toward an emotional climax. He then addressed the meaning of these key aspects: that since time doesn’t stop repetition in itself transforms our experience of it; that downwardness is experienced and its significance interpreted – it ‘carries the embodied sense of being pulled down’; and the weightiest lyrics may occur in conjunction with the timeless ongoing or the stopping of a single bass note. I must say that this is a study to be read a second time after it has brought you to its open-ended conclusion. Honestly, even though it is about rock and pop, I will think of it when hearing or playing Frescobaldi, Purcell, and Bach.

The three studies on early music begin the volume. Stefano La Via’s, the longest in the volume, compares the 16th/17th-century descending tetrachordal passacaglio as a topos (in verbal contexts as well as musical) with 20th/21st-century examples. From the establishment of the strong, harmonic (as opposed to modal) implications of the i-v6-iv6-V pattern in Monteverdi’s Lamento della Ninfa to quite a surprising development of alternative schemes (e.g. Ray Charles’ 1961 Hit the Road Jack’s i-i4/2-VI9-V#9), La Via identifies the thematic idea of a plaint present despite rhythmic and tempo changes or accelerations to dance tempos. His discography gives the numerous pieces he analyzed by English, American, Spanish, French and Italian pop singers from the 1940s to 2010, of which I recognize only a few names (Charles, The Beatles, De André, Zeppelin, Morricone/Baez, Sting). But I felt reluctantly drawn into agreement with his qualified conclusion that, rather than the existence of a ‘passacaglia principle’, there is at least, if we don’t want to ignore it, and if we look at the theme from the viewpoints of sociology, psychology, and even neurology, and if we are considering ‘popular’ music of a certain qualitative level, an expressive or symbolic or semantic common denominator connected to the passacaglia figure. He refers to it not as a ‘common place’, but as a ‘place of common emotive resonance’ which we can be sensitive to. His analysis always distinguishes this quality from one of pure convention, a distinction readers should bear in mind while reading the studies to follow.

Vincent P. Benitez’s “Buxtehude’s Passacaglia Principle” compares the composer’s D minor Passacaglia with his C minor and E minor Ciacconas, all for organ (BuxWV 159-161). It moves from the style of such northern German works generally, and as described by Walther, to analyses of his formal structures, and to his influence on Bach’s C minor Passacaglia for organ (BWV 582). Ostinato pieces, consisting of variations, obviously lend themselves to comparison through harmonic analysis, but their ‘large-scale formal schemes…truly tell the musical stories of these pieces’. That sounds easier to discern than it actually is, since every sort of textural modification contributes to the grouping of variations into sections, which are rarely explicitly defined by the composers. In his analysis and conclusion Benitez shows that Bach was not just an heir to such a remarkably solid and unconventional composer as Buxtehude, but in fact emulated (and went beyond) him.

‘Emulating Lully? Generic Features and Personal Traits in the Passacaglia from Henry Purcell’s King Arthur (1691)’ is the interrogative of Stephan Schönlau. He reaches a qualified “yes”, more in relation to strong similarities found between the text of the Passacaille from Armide and Dryden’s for “King Arthur”. Somewhat less convincing are the melodic parallels, because it isn’t surprising that simple versions of a similar bass can produce identical melodic lines. Once Purcell’s rhythmic and melodic adaptations of the bass are taken into consideration, and his treatment of cadences, not to mention his originality in placing or displacing the vocal line above it, the coincidences or lack thereof do not seem so relevant to the question of his possibly taking Lully as a starting point. Let’s say that the comparison itself is interesting, and the analysis for its own sake. I was surprised by one detail: citing P. Holman, Schönlau calls a b6/#3 on the dominant ‘the “English sixth”…a favourite with Restoration composers’. Salvatore Carchiolo, in his brilliant tome on Italian continuo practice, Una perfezione d’armonia meravigliosa. Prassi cembalo-organistica del basso continuo italiano dalle origini all’inizio del XVIII secolo, reviewed twice by me in EMR, considers this chord to be typically Italian. This example, therefore, might have gone into the last section of this study, on ‘ “Italianate” features’ and shows other influences actually in play. Nor does it hurt to note that Lully himself was born and trained in Florence!

Barbara Sachs

by Enrico Baiano & Marco Moiraghi
Repertori Musicali 5.
LIM 2014. 321pp
ISBN 978 88 7096 7722 €30

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here is a lot to be gleaned from the research, experience, analysis, synthesis and dedication that went into this joint effort. The chapters by each author (both musicians as well as musicologists, Baiano a harpsichordist and fortepianist, Moiraghi a pianist and composer) are complementary, their agenda is one: to bring the sonatas of Scarlatti and their interpretation into focus in the light of older Italian and Iberian traditions, influences, the composer’s personal upbringing and circumstances, and centuries of dispute over styles of execution. I say ‘agenda’ because the ‘theme’ of the book is to stress the necessity of what some will consider a wildly distorting subjective attitude toward tempo changes, ornamentation, and even form.

The first half of the book is succinctly philological, developing fascinating implications for categorizing the sonatas in new ways. I remember once reading a record jacket in which Landowska described a piece as showing lovers sitting under a moonlit sky, with specific details I don’t remember! So it wouldn’t have surprised her to read a ‘plausible’ plot synopsis of an imaginary opera, offered as an example of how a Scarlatti sonata may seem to bring characters onto the stage, to produce a succession of situations, and to come to a theatrical conclusion. I was more puzzled by the relevance of the early Toccata genre (which despite its rhetorical gestures was a contrapuntally conceived composition ingeniously ornamented with passage-work) said to permeate Scarlatti’s language in some sonatas. Extremely illuminating is the reflection of Andalusian folk music in Scarlatti’s music. The history, harmonies, forms, and purpose of specific songs and dances are discussed, with short musical examples (in the sonatas, not from the folk music itself).

This major influence is really only outlined, and serious readers can use the notes and bibliographical leads to explore it further. For Baiano and Moiraghi’s ‘agenda’ all these relationships are crucial and underappreciated. Opera and free keyboard genres, full of lyricism and dramatic contrasts, dependent on conventional understanding of tempos, time signatures, cadences and tonalities, are part of every player’s experience. Less familiar to most of us is the passionate precursor of the flamenco, the canto hondo (transcribed ‘jondo’), with its distinctively oriental melodic twists, semitones, augmented seconds, and particular forms of accompaniment. Originally these songs were monodic and not subject to regular rhythmic controls. They became strophic, with variations comprising danced episodes (the dancer wearing noisy percussive shoes to make accelerations and full stops heard), instrumental solos (guitar, castanets) exploiting dramatically colorful new strumming techniques, the singing punctuated by shouts, pauses, laments (quejíos) and above all following a formal sequence: salida (introduction), tercio de entrada (singer’s entrance), tercio grande (most intensely emotional section), tercio de alivio (literally ‘relief’), cambio (varied recapitulation), and sometimes a brilliant final tercio de valiente (literally ‘virtuoso’). According to the authors, Scarlatti wrote some sonatas as jondos for the harpsichord.

In the 1500s and 1600s, slaves and commerce from Africa and nearby islands introduced dances such as fandangos, zarabandas and chaconas, along with their rhythms and melodies, into the Iberian peninsula, as well as into the Americas, and from there back to Spain and Portugal. The descending tetrachord and Phrygian flavour of the passacaglia are typical. Such elements may be heard in Scarlatti’s writing (and indeed in a great deal of Baroque music).

For these ideas, alluded to repeatedly in later sections in discussing specific sonatas and comparing interpreters, I am extremely grateful to these authors, and to Emilia Fadini, who has instilled the implications of this tradition throughout her long teaching career, and has long suffered the unimaginative approach of many proficient and worthy performers! Hers is the best Scarlatti edition to date, with eight of a total of ten volumes available.[note]For those still eagerly waiting for the two final volumes of Fadini’s ‘new’ complete edition of Scarlatti’s sonatas (begun in 1978), they will soon be available, thanks to her collaboration with Marco Moiraghi. Casa Ricordi no longer exists, but the edition is handled by Universal and their partner Hal Leonard. Click here for further information, or email sales@mgbhalleonard.com.[/note]

I have two complaints, however, about this book. If ever a book needed an index of works, this one does. Some chapter headings list the sonatas to be analyzed in detail, but not the many other Kirkpatrick numbers mentioned in passing, singly and together, often usefully. I would strongly urge players to make a personal index while reading the book. Better still: could LIM or the authors make an index available online or on www.lim.it?

The second is more serious. I was not always convinced by the insistence on contrasts, accelerations, stunning pauses, or tempos varying from half to double their established speed. I think there has to be an extremely cogent reason for not seeking a tempo in which the piece itself, perhaps excluding introductory passages and codas, more or less as written, produces very striking effects. Yes, Scarlatti may be so potentially ‘programmatic’ that he tempts us to indulge, but should tables comparing the metronomic fluctuations not only between but within sections of a sonata, as recorded by a dozen players, be taken as the yardstick measuring the aesthetic value of their performances?

An enlarged edition of Roberto Pagano’s highly praised Alessandro e Domenico Scarlatti. Due vite in una (LIM) will be out soon.

Barbara Sachs

Brepols, 2014.
527pp, €80.00.
ISBN 9 78 2 503 55332 0

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he contents do not completely cover Marenzio’s secular music: the writers tend to pick on specific examples or types. There is a considerable quantity of the music itself discussed in extensive detail.

Music and Poetry.

Franco Piperno Petrarch, Petrarchism, and the Italian Madrigal (pp. 15-30) discusses the revival of Petrarchan verse for madrigals between 1542 & 1570.

James Haar The Madrigali a quattro, cinque et sei voci of 1588 (pp. 31-50) is the only such set by Marenzio, perhaps writing in a style that was aiming at different noble masters; English composers later used the same pattern.

Seth J. Coluzzi Tirsi mio, caro Tirsi: Il pastor fido and the Roman Madrigal (pp. 51-73) makes an attempt to distinguish quasi-soloistic sections, but I’m not convinced. The latest idea isn’t always better than previous ones until the next idea appears. The compromise is noted by Alfred Einstein (p. 70, note 23): “The whole book is full of hidden drama, but the presentation of the actual scene or monologue is always madrigalesque, even if there is a real temptation to dramatize”.

James Chater ends the group with Family matters: Music in the Life and Poetry of Giovambattista Strozzi the Elder (pp. 75-140). Both Strozzi were blind; the Elder was mostly a poet, with over a thousand poems – the Junior is less significant in the discussion of the music, especially the long list of music that is known of but not visible or audible.

Musical Styles and Techniques.

Ruth I. DeFord C and Ȼ in the Madrigals of Marenzio (pp. 143-164) has confusing examples, especially the up and down arrows which interfere with the clashing stresses in the music. The use of C (4 crotchets) and Ȼ (4 minims) are not necessarily firm rules – see, for example, ex. 6/a, b & d (p. 161-2) in C but with 4 minims. 6 is more irregular, presented by the editor with 4 crotchets | 8 crotchets | 1 crotchet |8 crotchets. I’m not convinced that singing to the beat is as significant as the theorists assume anyway: singers need to be aware of the tactus but also of the stress of the poem.

John W. Hill turns to Two Reflections of Sixteenth-Century Italian Solo Singing in Luca Marenzio’s Villanelle (1584-97) (p. 165-202). This is a useful read for those who wish to sing/play the published music or adapt playing with the vocal lines (not necessarily all of them) or strumming a guitar or lute. Performers who enjoy more flexible music should read this chapter.

Music and Patronage: A Debate

Claudio Annibaldi Social Markers in the Music Market… (p. 205-234) is followed by comments by Mario Bagioli, Arnaldo Morelli, Stefano Lorenzetti & Jonathan Glixon, concluded by Annibaldi’s A Reply in an Apologetic Vein (p. 251-261). I found myself more interested by the other writers. and wondered if the four names given above may have taken advantage of later research, and consequently Annibaldi by definition would have also followed even later. However, none of the footnotes by all the authors in this section were later than 2006 (I may have missed a 2007 item that I didn’t see on the check.) This section strikes me as the least successful, but it would have been better without Annibaldi! One misprint: Gardano and Scotto in the 1670s (p. 255, last para.) I’m a little surprised by mention of Condoleezza Rice (p. 259) – I don’t remember a pronounciation with a double zz or tz?

Contexts of Production, Circulation, and Consumption

Giuseppe Gerbino Marenzio and the Shepherds of the Tiber Valley (pp. 265-281) is well worth reading for the short creation of a myth by the Tiber, parodying Tirsi and Clori and the pastor Ergasto. The text was published in 1597 as Prose Tibertine del Pastor Ergasto by Antonio Piccioli Cenedese.

Paoli Cecchi “Delicious air and sweet inventions”: The Circulation and Consumption of Marenzio’s Secular Music in England (c.1588-1640) is a massive exposition (pp. 283-369). While reading it, I regretted that Tessa Murray was too late to incorporate her Thomas Morley, Elizabethan Publisher – see review in EMR 162 p. 4. She creeps into p. 303 note 66 on the strength of a 2012 joint quote from Philip Brett and Tessa. This is a massive survey, not just of available music, but how much was known of its use. The printing of violas accompanying vocal solos is a mistake for viols (p. 318), but on p. 322 there is a treble viale and the viola da gamba (not within quotes) lower down the first para­graph. There is a vast amount of information, not just on existing or hypothetical editions but on how they was used.

I had expected to read the book during a cruise on a boat running from Budapest to Regensburg – but without much likeli­hood of following the plan because of the failure to get under bridges and made worse for me by the failure of my glasses. Reading became very difficult and the final day involved four hours by bus and five hours waiting for the flight, so I couldn’t get through the final section and this is the first chance I’ve been able to catch up at least some back work on our music sales activity. The final group of Print Cultures and Editions covers Jane A. Bernstein, Christine Jeanneret, Laurent Pugin and Etienne Darbellay. The end is a useful short summary of various aspects, preceded by “changing criteria and editorial techniques from one volume to the next, as is the case of the CMM series, which should should be strenuously avoided.” It is, however, impossible for such long-running of some of the series to change in mid course, but new editions should certainly use the more current form – unnecessary cutting note values and elaborate and confusing beaming, for instance. I’ve avoided CMM12 (Giovanni Gabrieli), using editions that are more accessible, though a certain amount of under­standing is needed – I’ve been involved in Cambridge with several 1615 motets for at least three distinguished organisations for the 500th year of his publication (though he died in 1612 and his amanuensis was hardly reliable!)

The final two pages (461-2) draw attention to the differences between manners and notation. Not all will agree, and performers who are not involved in the specialists’s expertise may well be distracted from perfor­mances. There are too many attempts at complete editions: it’s better to publish other composers for whom there is less access. But no complaints about this volume. It concludes with a 50-page list of Marenzio’s works and 13 pages of indexes. The cover is elegant, but 1.780 kg is rather an effort to hold. It has 527 pp, the height of an A4 sheet, and only fractionally less wide.

Clifford Bartlett

[wp-review]

by Helmuth Rilling in collaboration with Kathy Saltzman Romey
Carus-Verlag (CV F 24.070), 2015.
128pp, €16.50.
ISBN 978 3 89948 223 2.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his strikes me as the work of an old-fashioned conductor born in 1933 – six years older than me. However, I kept my eyes on the musicology, and was refreshed when the early-instrument movement became common. I sang the work regularly in my teens, at first in the old-fashioned way from the Novello Prout edition of 1902 and later in the over-marked Watkins Shaw edition of 1959. Later I played continuo in the more fashionable style, generally reading from a complete score. I was honoured to be asked to produce a new edition of Messiah by Oxford University Press, published in 1998.[note]My Oxford University Press full-score edition of 1998 lists the 1754 and 1758 payments and parts on p. viii. The premiere in Dublin probably had 20 singers from the two Dublin choirs of Christ Church and St Patrick’s Cathedral. The 1749 must have been larger forces, both for choir and instruments, the latter having senza & con ripieno: there’s no such evidence for the later performances.[/note] I haven’t done any work on it since then.

Rilling has some good points, especially in pointing to Jennens’ complex and skilful arrangement of the Biblical text to inspire the composer. But two basic points are not discussed. (a) How many singers are appropriate for a choir? Information from the Foundling Hospital in the mid 1750s gives fairly accurate details of the forces concerned. I’m surprised that Rilling did not quote them – around 13 singers including soloists: perhaps stage performances may have had a few more singers. Rilling gives no attempts of the size of the choir or the orchestra, yet he quotes specific smaller groups without relating them to the full-scale modern orchestras that he seems to anticipate. (b) What pitch is being used? Rilling comments on high parts without referring to the lower semitone pitch, which must make some difference. And (c) he misunder­stands the presence of dynamics. The general indication of volume in the period is that the opening of a movement uses the full forces played with confidence, but piano is basically to make oboes and bassoons silent and the strings play at a lower level (though not necessarily as soft as piano).

In fact, Rilling fails by adding markings other than those that are obvious for the score but not necessarily for individual forte and piano. What he needs to think about is the shaping of individual phrases. That’s why there are so few indications of musicality within music of the period. More important than marking dynamics is the shaping of the phrase. The first Accompagnato begins with four bars of strings. The dynamic is quite low (but not low enough to warrant piano). The tenor enters on the chord in bar 4 with Com-fort ye. This has three notes: the singer requires presence, but not particularly high volume. The other half of the bar – for two violins & viola – contrasts, but the absence of a bass makes it plausible to keep the strings at a moderate volume: the two sounds are different but the strings do not need to be echoes. Bar 5 starts with the strings, but con Rip (added in 1749) implying a louder volume, but probably not a forte.[note]The OUP edition has included f and p where there are con & senza ripieno marks; Carus omits f and p.[/note] The voice enters on a top E on the second minim, with a longer phrase: Comfort ye my people. The long Com– should have a brief accent from the first letter (C), then cutting back lower at once followed by a crescendo –om– then lightening fort, semiquaver #f and #g, continuing noticeably to ye my leading slightly on to the semiquaver at the end of the bar ye, ending the phrase with a slight rise on the first note of bar 7 people, followed by diminuendo. Throughout there’s a vast pattern of shaping small phrases.

Similarly, choruses should sing in the same way. The opening of the Hallelujah Chorus presents problems since the crucial word has no fixed stress. Bars 4 & 5 make sense with a strong first syllable, but more plausible is accenting the third syllable in bar 6, but in bar 7 the strong point is the first note in the bar again, with a slight diminuendo for the strings to follow more quietly. I’m not necessarily following the accents on the Hallelujahs; they need to be shaped.

This sort of detail is rare. I think that the shaping of most baroque music is discovered within the phrases, without dynamics that became essential in the 19th century, and we eventually find modern 20th-century scores that can have a separate dynamic on and between each note – let alone pieces that flippantly have dynamics in silent bars! There’s too much about size and volume, while the shaping of phrases is ignored. It is ironic that the Carus edition (55.056) of 2009, by Ton Koopman and Jan H. Siemons is recommended by Rilling, but is more in accord with earlier editions over shortening upbeats. Rilling needs to be much more subtle. The premiere of my edition was given by the Huddersfield Choral Society for the famous Christmas events. The choir was quite large, the orchestra a substantial chamber orchestra, a big organ, a packed audience and a marvellous conductor who hadn’t played the piece before. The musical style isn’t entirely dependent on the size of the choir. Rilling oversimplifies by not commenting on different forces – both size and whether modern or early instruments.

However, the remarks on each number will encourage conductors and performers to think about the work, even if it is rather too general and often repetitive.

Clifford Bartlett