Ornamentation in Marin Marais' Pieces De Viole
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COPYRIGHT AND USE OF THIS THESIS This thesis must be used in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. Reproduction of material protected by copyright may be an infringement of copyright and copyright owners may be entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. Section 51 (2) of the Copyright Act permits an authorized officer of a university library or archives to provide a copy (by communication or otherwise) of an unpublished thesis kept in the library or archives, to a person who satisfies the authorized officer that he or she requires the reproduction for the purposes of research or study. The Copyright Act grants the creator of a work a number of moral rights, specifically the right of attribution, the right against false attribution and the right of integrity. You may infringe the author’s moral rights if you: - fail to acknowledge the author of this thesis if you quote sections from the work - attribute this thesis to another author - subject this thesis to derogatory treatment which may prejudice the author’s reputation For further information contact the University’s Director of Copyright Services sydney.edu.au/copyright ORNAMENTATION IN MARIN MARAIS’ PIÈCES DE VIOLE Shaun Kam Fook Ng A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Musical Arts Sydney Conservatorium of Music University of Sydney 2013 ii I declare that the research presented here is my own original work and has not been submitted to any other institution for the award of a degree. Signed: ............................................................................................................................ Date: ................................................................................................................................ iii Abstract This thesis sets out to uncover the ornamentation practices of French violist-composer Marin Marais (1656–1728). Marais wrote almost nothing about the execution of his ornaments in his music; in the avertissement of his first book of viol pieces, Pièces à une et à deux violes (Paris, 1686), he listed all the ornaments and their corresponding symbols, but provided no realisations and little explanation of how they are to be performed. While a historical violist could simply visit the master to learn how to properly perform his ornaments, the modern performer has little choice but to consult other historical musical works and treatises to gain a better understanding of the subject. In this thesis, I argue that the ornamentation practices in Marais’ music have largely been misunderstood because these historical works have not been properly examined. This study begins with a brief historical background of Marais, underpinning his significance as a major composer of the French Baroque era, thus showing that his style of ornamentation can be regarded as one of the prevailing methods of the day. The study then focuses on the modern writings that deal with issues that are relevant to Marais’ music, demonstrating how modern writers have sometimes overlooked historical sources, and how this results in their misunderstanding of Marais’ ornamentation practices. Lastly, the practices of historical violists and writers are analysed. The findings of this study offer a range of interpretive possibilities for Marais’ ornaments such as the tremblement, batement, port de voix, coulé de doigt and pincé or flatement. This information provides a basis on which modern performers will be able to apply appropriate historical ornamentation in performing the music of Marais and his contemporaries today. iv Preface Although many scholars have discussed the topic of musical ornamentation of the Baroque period, this thesis attempts to offer new insight by taking a different approach to studying the subject. Most highly-regarded books on ornamentation, such as Ornamentation in Baroque and Post-Baroque Music by Frederick Neumann and The Interpretation of Early Music by Robert Donington, discuss ornamentation in a very general way: information from many different historical sources is presented and discussed according to the type of ornament in an attempt to classify the varying practices of the national styles across different time periods.1 While this method provides for a broad understanding of ornamentation practices, this kind of analysis does not devote adequate attention to the different views that individual musicians had, thus overlooking the particular nature of ornamentation. There is also an attempt by some scholars to explain ornaments using modern terminology, influencing the reader to associate certain historical ornaments with those used by musicians of today. This unspecific treatment of historical information has resulted in an incomplete understanding of ornamentation practices, which has provided an insufficient explanation for the development of ornamentation of particular composers within their respective national styles. This thesis focuses on the ornamentation used by French Baroque violist Marin Marais. Marais was a musician at Louis XIV’s court at Versailles who maintained strong ties with Jean-Baptiste Lully, arguably the most important and influential composer of music in Baroque France. Because of his proximity to Lully and many other important musicians of the day, Marais’ style of ornamentation can be regarded as a major representation of the French Baroque ornamentation style. His large body of published pièces de viole represents one of the most important contributions to the genre. Hence, a study of Marais’ method of ornamentation will not only shed more light on one of the prevailing styles of ornamentation of the day, but will also allow modern violists to render his works more accurately. Marais was probably the most prolific composer for the viol in his time, being one of the first of a generation of violists to publish solo music for the viol. Over a span of nearly forty years, he published five books of pièces de viole for different combinations of one, two and three viols, which he carefully annotated with symbols based on a system of 1 Robert Donington, The Interpretation of Early Music (London: Faber, 1989); Frederick Neumann, Ornamentation in Baroque and Post-Baroque Music, with Special Emphasis on J.S. Bach (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1978). v ornamentation developed through the efforts of his predecessors. However, unlike other French composers, Marais provided little in the form of instruction or realisations for the ornaments in his pieces. He also did not produce any theoretical writings, making some aspects of the execution of his ornaments something of a mystery to the modern performer. Fortunately, many of Marais’ contemporaries, such as De Machy, Danoville, Jean Rousseau, Étienne Loulié and Bertrand de Bacilly published writings that deal with ornamentation.2 Although many of these writers were working in close proximity to each other, they often used different terminology, descriptions and symbols in their writings. As a result, interpreting the intentions of these writers is particularly challenging. All the aforementioned writers, except Bacilly, are either known to have been violists or wrote treatises for the viol. Bacilly is included in this study because of his proximity to many musicians who were associated with Marais, such as Michel Lambert, Lully and Rousseau. Except for Bacilly and De Machy, none of these writers published music and none of their manuscripts have survived; therefore, many of the rules that these writers advocated in their treatises cannot be analysed in relation to their music. Furthermore, little is known about the biographical background of some of these writers, especially Rousseau and Danoville, making it difficult to know how authoritative or representative their works may have been. Because of these difficulties, some modern writers have either disregarded or misinterpreted the historical sources that may be most relevant in interpreting Marais’ ornaments. They have instead relied on other sources, such as François Couperin’s harpsichord publications, which are easier to interpret, but may not necessarily represent accurately the practices of Marais and his viol-playing contemporaries. However, by re- examining the viol sources in a more systematic and critical way, and applying the ideas of these violists to Marais’ music, it is possible to discern some patterns and more details, which may suggest that the picture drawn by modern writers is at best incomplete, and in some respects, probably wrong. From the results of the re-evaluation of the viol sources, it is possible to suggest a range of solutions for interpreting Marais’ ornaments that are more solidly based on primary evidence. Chapter 1 provides a brief biography of Marais, which includes details about his teachers, a summary of his musical works, a discussion on the influence of the Italian style 2 Both De Machy and Danoville’s first names are not known. It has recently been discovered that Bénigne de Bacilly’s first name was Bertrand; see Laurent Guillo and Frédéric Michel, ‘Nouveaux documents sur le maître de chant Bertrand de Bacilly (1621–1690),’ Revue de musicologie 97, no. 2 (2011), 272. vi and other relevant anecdotal information provided by historical writers. This information is mostly derived from Évrard Titon du Tillet’s Le Parnasse François (1732), Hubert Le Blanc’s Défense de la basse de viole (Amsterdam, 1740) and the Mercure de France (1738). While this information is easily