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On Bach's Rhythm and Tempo

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On Bach's Rhythm and Tempo Ido Abravaya Does tempo, as a variable parameter, conform to any laws; can any general theory on the behaviour of tempo, i.e., its range and modes of change, be formulated? Was the concept of a standardized tempo unit still accepted in On Bach’s Rhythm and Tempo the Baroque? Is the tempo of a given piece directly derived from other parameters, such as its formal, rhythmic and metric structure, distribution of note values and similar factors? Durational strata – a strategy of viewing a composition, or an entire style, through a “cross section” of its various note durations – is offered here. Its clearest example is found in the “Palestrina style”, but a similar phenomenon can be observed also in Baroque styles, which has some repercussions on tempo. Other tempo-determining factors, such as time signatures and tempo words in the music of J. S. Bach are surveyed and compared against tempo theories of Bach’s time, by Quantz and Kirnberger. The conclusions are used in the evaluation and critique of some present-day tempo philoso- On Bach’s Rhythm and Tempo phies. The aim of the present work is not to establish prescriptions for the “right” tempo in Bach’s music, but rather, from the angle of tempo, to gain a perspective on the much broader field of rhythm and rhythmic texture. Abravaya · BÄRENREITER HOCHSCHUL SCHRIFTEN Ido Abravaya On Bach‟s Rhythm and Tempo Bochumer Arbeiten zur Musikwissenschaft Herausgegeben von Werner Breig Band 4 II On Bach‟s Rhythm and Tempo by Ido Abravaya III Bibliografische Information Der Deutschen Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar. Besuchen Sie uns im Internet: www.baerenreiter.com © 2006 Bärenreiter-Verlag Karl Vötterle GmbH & Co. KG, Kassel Second corrected printing © 2011 by Ido Abravaya ISBN 3-7618-1602-2 ISBN 978-3-7618-1602-8 IV Table of Contents Abbreviations VIII Preface IX Some Questions for Introduction 1 Durational Strata and Musical Style 1 16th-Century Vocal Style: Counterpoint Rules and Tempo 7 1.1 The four vocal strata 7 1.2 „Sacred‟ and „secular‟ text underlay 10 1.3 The „chanson-canzon-ricercar‟ rhythm 12 1.4 Counterpoint rules as speed controls 12 1.5 Fast strata and speed evaluation 13 1.6 Double-standard notation 14 1.7 Barring traces in (unbarred) partbooks 15 1.8 Palestrina the Retrospective 17 2 Early Instrumental Rhythmic Styles 19 2.1 The passage-stratum (V) 19 2.2 Time signatures in Andrea Gabrieli‟s Canzoni 21 2.3 Merulo‟s Canzoni d’intavolatura d’organo 23 2.4 Frescobaldi‟s organ music: the binary meters 23 2.5 Frescobaldi‟s ternary proportions: Canzoni 1615 26 3 Bach’s Style and Durational Strata 33 3.1 “Old” and “new” stile antico 34 3.2 Performing tempo in Bach‟s stile antico 40 3.3 Bach‟s stile moderno and durational strata 42 3.4 The middle stratum 43 3.5 The fast and hyper-fast strata 47 3.6 Alternative readings of Kirnberger‟s remark 49 4 The New Tempo: Partisans and Opponents 53 4.1 Quantz 53 4.2 Mattheson 54 4.3 Roger North 57 5 Durational Strata on the Threshold of Classicism 61 5.1 The Concerto BWV 1044 and Bach‟s durational practice 61 5.2 Fast and hyper-fast 64 5.3 Slow tempo as function of interest 67 5.4 Fast tempo as function of interest 69 5.5 Bach, Chopin, and wasted information 71 V Measure, Beat, and Upbeat 6 Upbeats, Bach, and Old Traditions 75 6.1 Duration and accent 75 6.2 Empty and straightforward upbeats 76 6.3 Forebeats, short and extended 79 6.4 The French extended forebeat 80 6.5 French precedents of the extended forebeat 82 6.6 Vocal and instrumental upbeats 84 6.7 Afterbeat 85 6.8 Les Goûts réunis: French-flavoured upbeats in Handel and 88 Bach Handel, Air (“The Harmonious Blacksmith”) 89 Bach, Sinfonia 5 in E major (BWV 791) 90 6.9 The compound afterbeat: Bach‟s Capriccio BWV 992 91 6.10 Conclusion 94 A note on performance 96 Tempo: Rules of its Behaviour and Change 7 Goldberg Variations as a Counterexample: 99 Proportions and the Myth of Bach's Mensural Tempo 7.1 Praetorius as a model for Bach‟s tempi 99 7.2 Perfect durational symmetry: premeditation or coincidence? 103 7.3 Proportions and their limitations as tempo determinants 105 7.4 Proportionism as metric misunderstanding 108 7.5 Proportionism and Progress 110 7.6 Recent proportionistic thinking 111 7.7 Did Bach use proportional tempi? 116 8 Theorists of the 18th Century 119 8.1 Theory and temperament 119 8.2 „Chronométristes‟ and „mouvementistes‟ 120 8.3 Praetorius and Tact 121 8.4 Normal tempo as middle value 122 8.5 Quantz‟s tempo classes 124 8.6 Tempi in Quantz‟s music compared with his own Versuch 128 8.7 Kirnberger‟s Bewegung 129 8.8 Tempo giusto 132 8.9 Rameau‟s method of tempo indication 135 VI 9 Bach's Tempo Practices 139 9.1 Fastest note values and tempo 139 9.2 Bach‟s tempo words and tempi 140 9.3 Alla breve 143 9.4 Normal tempo in Bach 146 9.5 Bach‟s tempo traditions 147 9.6 Time signatures as tempo indications 148 9.7 Mid-movement tempo words 150 9.8 Order versus pragmatism 156 10 Old Tempo – New Interpretations 157 10.1 Diverging opinions on tempo in “bygone days” 157 10.2 Diverging opinions in the 20th century 159 10.3 The new pendulum controversy 160 11 Some Doubts for Conclusion 165 11.1 Can tempo be defined? 165 11.2 A very secret art 168 11.3 The relevancy of proportion 173 Coda 175 Appendix A. Collective lists of Bach’s Tempo Indications 181 List I: Vocal Works 181 List II: Instrumental Works 197 B. Translated Quotations 208 C. Bibliography 214 D. Index of Bach’s Works 227 E. General Index 229 VII Abbreviations Asterisked numerals in brackets (such as [1*]) before quotations refer to their English trans- lations in Appendix 2. AfMw Archiv für Musikwissenschaft A.I.M American Institute of Musicology AM Acta Musicologica BD [BDok] Bach Dokumente, Kassel: Bärenreiter (I. 1963; II. 1969; III. 1972) BJ Bach-Jahrbuch CMM Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae EM Early music EMH Early Music History FS Festschrift HP Historical Performance JAMS Journal of the American Musicological Society JM Journal of Musicology JMR Journal of Musicological Research JMT Journal of Music Theory KB Kongressbericht Mf Die Musikforschung ML Music and Letters MJb Mozart-Jahrbuch MQ The Musical Quarterly MTO Music Theory Online MTS Music Theory Spectrum (The Journal of the Society for Music Theory) MuK Musik und Kirche NBR Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel (Chr. Wolff, rev.), The New Bach Reader PAMS Papers Read by Members of the AMS at the Annual Meeting PPR Performance Practice Review R/ Reprint, New edition [3/ = Third edition] RdM Revue de Musicologie RMI Rivista musicale italiana UP [...] University Press WTC J. S. Bach, Das Wohltemperirte Clavier VIII Preface An entire study devoted to rhythm and tempo cannot be limited to the work of one composer. Thus the title of this book is necessarily somewhat misleading: the dis- cussion actually extends to a range of composers, from Josquin to Chopin. Bach was chosen to be the central object of my study, among other reasons, for his out- standing knowledge of – and involvement with – older traditions, placing him both at the closing point of an older era and at the threshold of a new one, marked by a revolution of rhythmic texture and tempo. Another reason for my choice of Bach is not due to any lack of new literature in this domain, but because I take issue with a theme prevalent in several existing works. Quite a few studies of Bach interpreta- tion and historical performance practice set out to rediscover the „correct‟ tempo of the music of the past, and Bach in particular.* As some of the titles reveal (e.g., The Lost Tradition in Music, „Bach and the three Tempo Puzzles’), their authors are convinced that their work has the answer to an old riddle. Despite their diverging opinions, they share the belief that within the notes there lurks a carefully encoded secret message just awaiting to be deciphered. However, these modern treatises can hardly serve as a guide to the perplexed performer, as their solutions largely contra- dict each other. I have strong doubts that any such secret was ever intended, either by Bach or by other composers of his time; I have even stronger doubts that any one solution is Out There. Moreover, I contend that assigning „correct‟ tempi in the form “tempo X for piece A, tempo Y for piece B”, is wrong in principle. The question of tempo in early music is often relegated to the field of perfor- mance practice, assuming a very „practical‟ character. The aim of this study is to gain a wider perspective on what may be termed the „rules of tempo behaviour‟ in Baroque music, and in Bach's music in particular. This is achieved by approaching the question from five different angles: (a) searching for „internal‟ evidence about tempo as revealed by the rhythmic texture of the music; (b) analysis of 17th- and 18th-century authors (Praetorius, Saint-Lambert, Mattheson, North, Quantz, Kirn- berger, Türk and others) on the theory of tempo and its behaviour as an independent parameter; (c) discussion of modern attempts to revive the Renaissance concept of rhythmic proportion and to apply it to 18th-century composers, Bach in particular; (d) review of the controversy between so-called “prestist” and “lentist” factions about the tempi of „old music‟ in light of 18th-century French metronomic data; (e) a comprehensive survey and analysis of Bach's tempo indications.
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