Geminiani’s concerti grossi after Corelli’s Op.5 by Andrew Manze

These twelve orchestral concerti grossi by Francesco Geminiani are based on the Op.5 sonatas for solo violin by his teacher, Archangelo Corelli. They are more than arrangements or orchestrations: they are explorations, expansions, the end product of a process of musical evolution.

Geminiani composed these concertos while in London, at a time when circumstances had ‘concurred to convert the English Musick intirely over from the French to the Italian taste’ (Roger North, an amateur theorist and copious scribbler). One of these circumstances was ‘the numerous traine of yong travellers of the best quality and estates, that about this time went over into Itally and resided at Rome and Venice, where they heard the best musick and learnt of the best masters.’ This is what we now refer to as The Grand Tour. Another reason was that there ‘then came over (i.e. from Italy to England) Corelly’s first consort (his Op.1 trio sonatas, first published in 1681) that cleared the ground of all other sorts of musick whatsoever. By degrees the rest of his consorts, and at last the conciertos (Op.6, 1714) came, all which are to musitians like the bread of life.’ Praise verging on blasphemy is high praise indeed and an indication of the cult status accorded Corelli.

His ‘conciertos’ had long been rumoured to exist, since Corelli had been performing and refining them in Rome for at least twenty-five years. Many ‘yong’ Englishmen may well already have unwittingly heard early versions in Rome. But it was not until 1714, the year after Corelli’s death, that they were finally published by Roger in Amsterdam. In his General History of Music (1776), Sir John Hawkins describes their arrival in London: ‘Mr. Prevost, a bookseller, received a large consignment of books from Amsterdam, and amongst them the concertos of Corelli, which had just then been published; upon looking at them he thought of Mr. Needler, and immediately went with them to his house, but being informed that Mr. Needler was then at the concert at Mr.Loeillet’s, he went with them thither. Mr. Needler was transported with the sight of such a treasure; the books were immediately laid out, and he and the rest of the performers played the whole twelve concertos through, without rising from their seats.’

This charming anecdote not only displays seventeenth century mail order at work in small-town London, but it also sheds light on the citizens’ musical habits. John Loeillet was a Flemish musician who held gatherings every week at his home, the sort of regular rendezvous from which organisations like the Academy of Ancient Music arose. Henry Needler was Accountant-general of the Excise-office by day, but of an evening he turned into London’s finest violinist, who ‘in the performance of Corelli’s music, in particular, was not exceeded by any master of his time’ (Hawkins).

Not for long, however, because in 1714 two of Italy’s brightest violin stars arrived in London: Geminiani and Francesco Maria Veracini. Veracini’s was a brief visit (though he reappears later in this tale), whereas Geminiani settled in London for most of the rest of his life. He was born in Lucca in 1687 and, after studying there and with Corelli in Rome, he had first worked in Naples. There, ‘from the reputation of his performance at Rome, he was placed at the head of the orchestra; but he was soon discovered to be so wild and unsteady a timist, that instead of regulating and conducting the band, he threw it into confusion; as none of the performers were able to follow him in his tempo rubato, and other unexpected accelerations and relaxations of measure. After this discovery he was never trusted with a better part than the tenor (i.e. the viola), during his residence in that city.’ This story, in Charles Burney’s ‘A General History of Music’ (1776–89), if accurate, is perhaps as much a reflection of the quality of the Neapolitan orchestra as of Geminiani’s sense of rhythm. Although they were personally acquainted, Burney is a far from impartial source about Geminiani, not so much because he did not rate the man or his music, as because Hawkins, his arch musico-historiographical rival, did.

When Geminiani first arrived in London, his being a Corelli alumnus served as a useful calling card. In 1716, however, his Op.1 removed the need to advertise his pedigree. These violin sonatas, which ‘will be admired’, Hawkins confidently predicted, ‘as long as the love of melody shall exist’, earned Geminiani a summons to play before the king, George I. Geminiani was delighted of course, ‘but was fearful of being accompanied on the harpsichord by some performer, who might fail to do justice both to the compositions and the performance of them’: in short, he suggested ‘a wish that Mr. Handel might be the person appointed to meet him in the king’s apartment.’ Handel duly agreed and ‘Geminiani acquitted himself in a manner worthy of the expectations that had been formed of him.’

Following this success, Geminiani was emboldened to dedicate his next publication, the present concertos, to the king. It was certainly an interesting, and unusual, decision to publish orchestrations rather than new works. As well as being a mark of respect towards his former teacher, it also made good, commercial sense. By turning twelve violin sonatas which no Englishmen could actually play (apart from Mr. Needler) into orchestral works in which everyone could partake, he in effect created a dozen, brand new Corelli concertos for a hungry market. Commercial considerations aside, it is likely that there was also a more symbolic explanation for Geminiani’s decision. Corelli had chosen January 1st, 1700, as the publication date of the original sonatas, a clarion call if ever there was one, though to whom and what it signified we don’t know. Nevertheless, it seems that Geminiani and his supporters did, because he published the first volume (concertos I to VI) through the agencies of a newly founded lodge of Freemasons, the Philo-Musicae et Architecturae Societas. In fact he was initiated into the craft, and made the lodge’s ‘Solo Director and perpetual Dictator of all Musical Performances’, specifically in order ‘that the First Six Solos of Corelli be made into Concerti Grossi’. With the king as dedicatee, a large number of subscribers applied for copies, including five other members of the royal family and numerous members of the aristocracy. The first six concertos had to be reprinted several times over the next few years, though in comparison the second six were only a modest success.

By happy coincidence the first concertos were first published in the same year that the organisation which came to be known as The Academy of Ancient Music was founded: 1726. Geminiani was himself a founding subscriber: ‘a frequent visitor of the Academy, [he] would often honour it with the performance of his own compositions previous to their publications’, and ‘all who professed to understand or love music, were captivated at hearing him.’ So wrote Hawkins, himself an Academician, who also tells us that ‘the amiable Henry Needler, Esq; for many years led the orchestra’, sometimes in performances of the present concertos. Geminiani was clearly a supporter of the Academy’s manifesto, to uphold ‘ancient’ musical ideals and practices in the face of modern degeneracy. He even dedicated his last concertos, Op.7, ‘alla celebre Accademia della buona ed antica musica’ in 1746 — six extraordinary and daring works, whose story must await another day.

Despite their success, some were critical of Geminiani’s orchestrations, among them Burney: ‘he transformed Corelli’s solos into concertos, by multiplying notes, and loading, and deforming, I think, those melodies, that were more graceful and pleasing in their light original dress’. Burney’s error is to underestimate Geminiani’s high regard for his former teacher and the skill and sensitivity with which he created new works out of old. The results on the enclosed discs should speak for themselves, but some words in Geminiani’s favour might be helpful, and are certainly long overdue.

In the first six, da chiesa (church) style concertos, the original violin and bass parts are distributed cunningly around the whole orchestra. Only on a few occasions, such as Concerto V’s fourth movement, does Geminiani use the most obvious solution: the first violin plays Corelli’s original while the orchestra mutely accompanies. More often he shares the original violin part equally between first and second violins, and occasionally even the violas, revealing and exploring Corelli’s technique of thinking in three parts though writing in two. Having heard Geminiani’s rendition of Concerto II’s fourth movement, it is hard to believe Corelli meant anything else. In the second half of the set, the da camera (chamber) sonatas, the original violin and bass parts are often unchanged. Hawkins saw this as a drawback: ‘having no fugues, and consisting altogether of airs, [they] afforded him but little scope for the exercise of his skill.’ But Hawkins was overlooking two things: firstly, Geminiani’s great ingenuity in the young art of orchestration, creating textures by careful handling of the inner parts. The opening of Concerto X is a wonderful example: first violins and basses are pure Corelli while the seconds meander in sixteenth notes and the violas add a discreet yet exquisite commentary. Secondly, Hawkins forgot to mention the final concerto: Geminiani elevates the famous Follia from a showpiece of solo pyrotechnics into one of the most dynamic pieces of orchestral virtuosity in the baroque repertoire. The Follia was an important, and widely imitated, musical landmark — Corelli himself told Geminiani of ‘the Satisfaction he took in composing it, and the Value he set upon it’ — and the younger man’s version is that greatest mark of respect, a masterpiece in the form of a tribute.

After nearly twenty years in London, Geminiani became disillusioned with its music scene, where ‘the Hand was more considered than the Head; the Performance than the Composition’. He complained that ‘instead of labouring to cultivate a Taste the Publick was content to nourish Insipidity’, so he looked for pastures new and found them in Ireland and to a limited extent in the Netherlands and Paris. The prevailing French style he encountered on his travels certainly made its mark on his compositions, which became increasingly eclectic and idiosyncratic. This can be heard well in the cello sonatas he published in Paris in 1746: the opening of Op.5 No.2 is reminiscent of Rameau’s ‘La Livri’ of 1741, whereas the fast movements are typically Italianate and modern, or as Burney put it, ‘wild, decousu (rambling), & without symmetry’. ‘As the best specimen that can be given of the style and manner of [Geminiani’s] execution’, Hawkins supplied a sonata by Corelli, ‘written as Geminiani used to play it, and copied from a manuscript in his own hand-writing’. This version does not ornament Corelli’s original so much as paraphrase it. The manuscript is now lost, so we must be grateful that Hawkins wished to illustrate how ‘all the graces and elegancies of melody, all the powers that can engage attention, or that render the passions of the hearers subservient to the will of the artist, were united in his performance.’

Such tampering with Corelli’s divine work was not to everyone’s taste, however. Roger North represents the reactionaries: ‘upon the bare view of the print any one would wonder how so much vermin could creep into the works of such a master.’ And in a wild piece of hypocrisy, Geminiani was branded as one of the rifriggitori (reheaters) by Veracini, who seems temporarily to have forgotten that he himself rewrote, and expanded interminably, all of Corelli’s sonatas. For some reason now unknown, Veracini took every opportunity to ridicule Geminiani in the form of a thinly disguised, anagrammatical alias: Sgranfione Minacci. Geminiani once told an acquaintance ‘that he lovedpainting better than music’. In this respect he was again at one with his old teacher, Corelli, who had collected paintings. Geminiani went a step further and, while in Dublin, dealt in pictures as well, claiming at one time to have both a Caravaggio and a Correggio in his collection. Burney offers the caveat that ‘a propensity towards chicane and cunning, which gratified some dispositions more by outwitting mankind, than excelling them in virtue and talents, operated a little on Geminiani.’ Whatever the case, he always received a mixed press. He was, one source tells us, ‘a little man, sallow complexion, black eye-brows, pleasing face; his dress blue velvet, richly embroidered with gold.’ He never married and died in Dublin in 1762, ‘well known by the Lovers of Harmony, for his capital Performances on the Violin’ (The Dublin Gazette).

© Andrew Manze, October 1999

Violin virtuosi of the eighteenth century by Stephen Rose

At the end of the seventeenth century one of Italy’s greatest exports was the virtuoso violinist. Italy was the cradle of many of the advances in the instrument’s construction and also in its playing techniques. A succession of makers in the Cremona region, notably the Stradivari dynasty, were responsible for bringing the instrument to an unparalleled expressive ability; while techniques of violin playing were brought to new heights by the school of violinists around Arcangelo Corelli. Many Italian string players, in fact, would have launched their careers by advertising themselves as pupils of Corelli.

There was ample employment in Italy for violinists at princely courts, at the basilicas that maintained orchestras, and in the opera houses of the cities. But countless players sought fame and fortune north of the Alps. The many small but ambitious courts of Germany and central Europe attracted numerous violinists: as early as the 1620s there were Italian musicians working at the Dresden court. The Dutch Republic was another magnet, partly because of its reputation in music publishing: many an Italian violinist, Corelli and Vivaldi included, made their name through editions issued by Estienne Roger in Amsterdam. Above all, the Italians were drawn to London, whose commercial prosperity and freedom from military strife gave it one of the richest musical cultures of all Europe. For musicians, according to Luigi Mancini, London was ‘the terrestrial paradise’; or, as the German writer Johann Mattheson observed: ‘In these times, whoever wishes to be eminent in music goes to England.’ From the 1690s, therefore, a steady stream of Italian violinists crossed the English Channel to seek their fortune in London, including Francesco Geminiani and Francesco Maria Veracini.

The life of the travelling virtuoso could be hazardous. Journeys by land might be interrupted by highwaymen and carriage accidents; travellers by sea might find themselves shipwrecked or becalmed. And although some journeys might be organised by patrons, there was nothing approaching today’s infrastructure for arranging concert tours. Many musicians must have had to travel in the hope that they would be able to win a livelihood in their foreign destinations. Given the risks and excitements of a travelling virtuoso’s life, it is not surprising that their biographies are filled with colourful incidents. Some violinists engaged in contests of virtuosity; Giuseppe Tartini was an expert fencer; Veracini jumped from a third-floor window in a fit of madness. Above all, though, the colour of their lives stemmed from their quasi-magical power to entrance an audience with their playing.

One of the most travelled virtuosos of the age was Francesco Geminiani (1687–1762). Like many violinists he trained in Corelli’s circle in Rome, and then in 1714 came to London. It was an opportune moment to visit, for Corelli’s music was immensely popular in England at the time. Not only could Geminiani bask in the reflected glory of his teacher, he also made arrangements of Corelli’s solo violin sonatas op.5 for orchestra. Such reworkings were not always well received: Veracini accused Geminiani of ‘reheating’ his master’s music, offering the same ‘eternal stew’ rather than cooking something afresh. Yet these arrangements filled a strongly felt need in England. Corelli’s Op.5 solos were too hard for many players, but his op.6 concerti grossi did not pose such technical challenges and were keenly played by music clubs and amateur orchestras. What better, then, than to orchestrate the op.5 pieces as concerti grossi? Tonight we hear the climax of the set, the variations on La Follia. The piece is based on a catchy harmonic formula that may have been associated with a Portuguese dance of noisy excess and cross-dressing. Certainly Corelli-and Geminiani in turn-caught some of this spirit in the excited, even riotous violin variations that follow. In making this arrangement, Geminiani may have had particular insights into the original: he claimed he had discussed the solo version with Corelli, ‘and heard him acknowledge the Satisfaction he took in composing it, and the Value he set upon it’.

Geminiani’s great rival in London was Francesco Maria Veracini (1690–1728). Even by the standards of his contemporaries, Veracini was exceptionally well-travelled: besides working in London, he had also played in Bologna, Florence, Venice, Düsseldorf, Dresden and Prague. He was notorious for his eccentric and wilful character, as seen in his outbursts against Geminiani; indeed, the extreme mobility seen in his career may have reflected an inability to hold down a steady job. Yet he was also renowned for his violin technique, so much so that he often provoked envy among lesser musicians. According to an eye-witness account by Charles Burney, ‘the peculiarities of his performance were his bow-hand, his shake, his learned arpeggios, and a tone so loud and clear that it could be distinctly heard through the most numerous band of a church or theatre’. Veracini’s compositions also show a confident and independent musical voice. Because he had travelled so widely, he was familiar with Italian, German and French styles; and his compositions combine a cosmopolitan air with an engaging originality in their themes.

A somewhat less turbulent career was pursued by Pietro Locatelli (1695–1764). To be sure, he spent much of his twenties and early thirties travelling, with visits to many German courts including Berlin, Dresden, Frankfurt am Main, Kassel and Munich. But by 1729 he had settled in Amsterdam, which would be his home for the remaining thirty-five years of his life. Here he adopted a more relaxed lifestyle, collaborating with the publishing house of Estienne Roger to issue numerous collections of his own music. He also held concerts every Wednesday at his house, but preserved a social exclusiveness and mystique by playing only before gentlemen.

Locatelli’s op.3 Capriccios, though published in Amsterdam in 1733, were probably written during his travels in the 1720s and first performed during a visit to Venice. In these pieces he offered a unique variant upon the violin concerto as popularised by Antonio Vivaldi. Both the opening movement and the finale start like a conventional solo concerto, with a regular alternation between the orchestral ritornello and the episodes for the soloist. But near the end of both movements, the soloist has an immense cadenza, written out by Locatelli, full of triple stopping and other technical challenges. Only after several minutes of such solo pyrotechnics is the movement eventually closed by an orchestral ritornello. Tonight’s piece bears the title Harmonic labyrinth, with a subtitle indicating that it is easy to enter but hard to exit. Other composers gave such a name to maze-like, convoluted displays of chromatic harmonies, but Locatelli was probably alluding to the awesome challenges of the cadenza (or capriccio). Truly this is a movement that is easy to begin, but much harder to end successfully.

The least known composer in tonight’s programme is Giacomo Facco (1676–1753). Although he too was Italian, he began his career in the south of the Italian peninsula, serving the Spanish nobility who governed Naples. Later he moved to Madrid to act as music-master to the infants Luis, Carlos and Ferdinando; he here wrote many operas and serenatas, often with Spanish words. Few of his instrumental works survive, apart from a collection of concertos, Pensieri adriarmonici, published in Amsterdam in 1720–1. Tonight’s concert includes a rare opportunity to hear the E flat major concerto from this publication.

Despite their frequent journeys, the virtuoso violinists of the early eighteenth century often found that their paths crossed; then, as now, the music business could be a small world. Giuseppe Tartini (1692–1770), for instance, was reportedly spurred on in his violin studies by an encounter with Veracini in 1716. He was so impressed with Veracini’s bowing technique that he spent the next two years intensively practising his own. Later, his technical prowess was acknowledged in his reputation as a teacher; he created a ‘School of the Nations’ at Padua, where violinists from across Europe came to study with him. Yet in much of Tartini’s music, the technical feats are secondary to a pervasive lyricism; the goal of the soloist’s dexterity is to beguile the audience with melodious or sometimes overtly emotional passages. The Concerto in D minor ‘Ombra diletta’ D44 opens with a simple triadic theme, far from the virtuoso figuration of Locatelli or Vivaldi; while the finale has delicate slurred motifs, echoed between the instruments. Tartini’s autograph manuscript for this piece includes algebraic calculations based on the number of bars of the finale; slightly less cryptic is the piece’s subtitle, with its reference to a beloved shadow, perhaps hinting at a source of poetic inspiration.

Our concert ends with pieces by undoubtedly the most famous of the Italian virtuoso violinists, Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741). Yet despite his fame he was relatively little travelled. He spent almost all his career in Venice, either working in its opera-houses or as music-master in the orphanage of the Pietà; he also had a sojourn in Mantua, and made brief forays to Vienna, Prague and some courts in Bohemia. Two factors, though, allowed him to win wide renown without further travel. Firstly, he published books of his concertos through the Amsterdam firm of Roger, and many of these became international bestsellers among musicians. Secondly, because Venice was such a tourist attraction for wealthy north Europeans, he found that foreign patrons often visited him and bought copies of his music as a souvenir. Through such connections he also gained many commissions from north of the Alps, writing music for venues as diverse as the Schouwberg theatre in Amsterdam, the Dresden court of the Elector of Saxony, and the Bohemian court of Count Wenzel von Morzin; there is little evidence, though, that he visited all these places.

Of the music by Vivaldi in tonight’s concert, the Concerto in G minor for strings RV156 exemplifies the compact form that he favoured when not writing for a solo instrument. The outer movements have Vivaldi’s customary passion and dash, with the added spice of a chromatic bass against syncopated upper parts at the start. The middle movement is more like a trio sonata, albeit with the addition of a viola part. Far more expansive is the Concerto in D major for violin RV210, where the presence of the soloist allows for long virtuoso episodes. Here both outer movements start as if fugues, with each string section entering in turn with the theme; but solo virtuosity soon takes over, interrupted by occasional chromatic detours. The slow movement is a classic Vivaldian combination of a lyrical solo line with a pulsing accompaniment for upper strings only. This concerto was published in Amsterdam in 1725 as part of Vivaldi’s Op.8 collection, Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione; through the circulation of copies via the music-trade, Vivaldi achieved a presence at the courts of Europe far more pervasive than had he visited them in person.

Purcell's Fairest Isle

CD liner note

Peter Holman writes:

There were two main types of song in Elizabethan England. The older of the two, represented on this recording by William Byrd’s ‘O Lord, how vain are all our frail delights’ and ‘Though Amaryllis dance in green’, seems to have had its origins in the laments sung in choirboy plays at court in the 1560s and 70s. These plays were mostly put on by members of the Chapel Royal, with the boys taking the female parts and the gentlemen playing the adults and providing the music. Thus the laments were written for a soprano with four viols, and they gave rise to a genre of independent consort songs for the same combination. At first, composers writing consort songs tended to set serious poetry, often dealing with religious sorrow and penitence, to grave contrapuntal music. Byrd’s ‘O Lord, how vain are all our frail delights’ is a good example of the type. It was not published at the time, though it was probably written in the late 1570s and is a setting of poem once thought to be by Sir Philip Sidney. By the middle of the 1580s, when ‘Though Amaryllis dance in green’ was written, the subject-matter of consort songs had widened considerably to take in light-hearted pastoral verse, set in this case to lively music in galliard rhythms, with the characteristic alternation of 6/4 and 3/2 patterns. Although it was written as a consort song for solo voice and four viols, it was published in 1588 with text added to all the parts – a change that reflected the increasing popularity of the madrigal in England.

The other type, the lute song, had quite different origins. It was effectively created by John Dowland, whose First Booke of Songes or Ayres of Foure Parts (London, 1597) was an outstanding success and became the model for all other lute song collections. Most of Dowland’s early lute songs are based on dance forms and rhythms, and pieces such as ‘If my complaints’ and ‘Flow my tears’ seem to have been adaptations of instrumental Pieces— the galliard Captain Digorie Piper his Galliard and the pavan Lachrimae respectively— using a technique of adding words to existing tunes borrowed from the broadside ballad ‘Away with these self-loving lads’ and ‘Come again: sweet love doth now invite’ use the rhythms of the almand, though the former sets an existing poem attributed to Fulke Greville (and is therefore clearly not an adaptation of an instrumental piece), while the latter has the lively interplay between the voice and the lute we associate with the madrigal. As these matchless songs show, Dowland revelled in the discipline of finding precise correspondences between poetic metre and musical rhythm, line and phrase lengths, rhyme schemes and dance structures. The lute songs by Thomas Morley and Thomas Campion recorded here follow the pattern established by Dowland, though ‘It was a lover and his lasse’ is much more extended and complex than most almand-like lute songs. A variant of its text appears in Act V of As You Like It (?1599); it is not clear whether Shakespeare borrowed an existing song for the play, or whether Morley set his text for the original stage production.

A work by John Jenkins is an appropriate interlude between the Elizabethan songs on this recording and the works by Henry Purcell. Jenkins was born in 1592, and was therefore old enough to have known Byrd (who died in 1623) and Dowland (1626), and yet he lived until 1678, and as a court musician after the Restoration would certainly have encountered the young Purcell, who was rapidly making a name for himself in the middle of the 1670s, and whose early consort music was heavily influenced by Jenkins. The four-part fantasia comes from a set probably written near the beginning of Jenkins’s career, and shows his fondness for subtle contrapuntal manipulation: the theme with its classic canzona-like long-short-short rhythm is heard in one guise or another virtually throughout the work.

By the time Purcell was writing his first mature songs in the 1680s, English song was being transformed rather rapidly by the influence of Italian music. In particular, there was a sudden enthusiasm for songs on a ground bass (constantly recurring theme in the bass), often imitating examples in imported Italian collections, or by Italian composers resident in London. ‘She loves and she confesses too’ is a good example, for it is based on an Italian ground bass, the ciaccona, and is related to a setting of the same words (lines from Abraham Cowley’s The Mistresse) over the same bass by the immigrant composer Pietro Reggio. Purcell seems to have written it in part as a criticism of Reggio’s setting of English, for the publisher John Playford wrote in the preface to the song collection in which it appeared that Reggio was ‘a very able Master but not being perfect in the true Idiom of our Language, you will find the Air of his Musick so much after his Country-Mode, that it would sute far better with Italian than English Words’. ‘The Plaint’ uses a freely varied ground derived from the four descending notes of the passacaglia, the other most popular Italian ground. It was sung by June in Purcell’s semi-opera The Fairy Queen, though it was not used in the original 1692 production, and may not be by Henry Purcell at all: its inordinate length and rather exaggeratedly ‘Purcellian’ lamenting style suggests that it could be by Daniel, Henry’s younger brother. ‘When I am laid in earth’, Dido’s Lament in Dido and Aeneas, needs no introduction, except to say that it is based on a chromatic version of the passacaglia, the most potent emblem of love and death in Italian seventeenth-century opera.

Although Purcell was much taken-up with writing Italian-style vocal music in the 1690s, he still occasionally returned to the English tradition of dance songs. ‘Fairest isle’, sung by Venus in the Act V masque in his opera King Arthur (1691), is perhaps most perfect minuet song. The first setting of ‘If music be the food of love’ was written the following year, and is a beautiful example of an aimand-like air cast in the fashionable flowing quavers of the time. The text, incidentally, is not by Shakespeare, but by Colonel Henry Heveningham.

© copyright The Decca Music Group,
and reproduced with their kind permission.

Biber Mystery Sonatas by James Clements

In 1676 Heinrich Biber wrote of his ‘faith in stringed instruments (fidem in fidibus)’, demonstrating his love of rhetoric, probably imbued in him by his Jesuit education. Of all Biber’s seven collections of music, however, the expression ‘faith in stringed instruments’ is most evident in the Mystery or Rosary Sonatas, which survive in a beautifully-written manuscript, compiled in the early 1670s, and now housed in the Bavarian State Library. The manuscript contains fifteen compositions for violin and bass, and a concluding Passacaglia for unaccompanied violin. In the absence of a title page, the various titles in use today derive from the fifteen engravings in the manuscript, one placed at the start of each of the first fifteen compositions depicting, in turn, the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary. Similarly, the Passacaglia is accompanied by a drawing of a Guardian Angel holding the hand of a child.

The engravings were probably cut from a Rosary psalter, the name given to the hundreds of devotional books published by Rosary confraternities active in central Europe at this time. These books contained detailed instruction on praying the Rosary, and frequently included biblical quotations, meditations, prayers, and engravings depicting the mysteries. Such books were produced by the Jesuits — a religious order who influenced education and devotional practices more than any other religious group in seventeenth-century Europe — and who were known for advocating Rosary devotion with music. One such confraternity existed in Salzburg during the seventeenth century. It met in the lecture hall — the Aula Academica — of Salzburg’s University, which still contains fifteen paintings depicting the mysteries. The Rosary Sonatas were probably performed in this room. As Biber mentions in the Latin dedication of the Rosary Sonatas, Rosary devotion was promoted most ardently by the dedicatee of the collection and Biber’s employer, Archbishop Maximilian Gandolph von Khuenberg, who may have attended meetings in the Aula Academica. The paintings in the Aula Academica, the engravings in Biber’s manuscript and Rosary psalters exemplify the importance of imagery in Rosary devotion in the region at this time, which correlates with a principal concept of Jesuit devotion, namely, the use of all five senses when praying. Thus, by contemplating the image, reading the texts, and hearing the music, individuals were supposed to create a mental picture of the mystery, often in minute detail and at great length.

Besides the images in the manuscript, another technique uniting the sonatas is the use of scordatura (the retuning of the violin strings to notes other than the conventional g, d', a', e'') in all but the first and last of the sonatas, requiring a total of fifteen different tunings in the whole collection. The compositions using scordatura are notated in the manner of certain tablatures in that the violinist is told where on the string to place the fingers, but the resulting pitch is different from the notated pitch. The requisite scordatura tuning is indicated at the start of each composition, along with a signature often including a curious mixture of sharp and flat signs. The most extraordinary scordatura tuning in the set is in Rosary Sonata XI (The Resurrection), which requires the violinist to interchange the middle two strings, crossing them before the bridge of the violin and again at the nut, resulting in a symbolic cross shape.

The Rosary is formed of three groups of five mysteries: the joyful mysteries (I–V), the sorrowful mysteries (VI–X), and the glorious mysteries (XI–XV), which are presented in this order in Biber’s manuscript.

The violin writing in the sonatas is characterised by the use of musical rhetoric-melodies, harmonies and other musical devices-that would have been understood by educated listeners to represent certain moods, images or ideas. Such devices were either in general use at this time or can be seen elsewhere in Biber’s music. For example, the rapid, swirling figuration that opens the first sonata represented the notion that children are a gift from God in some of Biber’s other music; Christ’s despair in the garden of Gethsemane is depicted with chromatic ascending and descending lines, a device used by Biber in laments; repeated notes on the same pitch denote agitation or anger, combined with sharply twisting melodic lines; and the violent opening figuration of the tenth sonata is sometimes said to represent the nails being hammered into the cross while the virtuosic figuration that ends the sonata could represent the earthquake after Christ’s death. These specific images enhance the mood of each sonata created through careful choice of key, movement type and scordatura tuning, one example being the fifth sonata, using a scordatura of a, e', a', c'' sharp, combined with predominantly ascending melodies to evoke the joyous moment when Mary and Joseph find Christ in the temple.

This article has been adapted from James Clements’ booklet note written for the new recording of the Mystery Sonatas, played by Pavlo Beznosiuk, and released in 2004 on the Avie label.

Bach Passions by Justin Lee

The practice of re-enacting the events that led to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ has two connected origins both dating back at least to the 4th century.

The first is the custom of teaching Bible stories by means of sacred dramas, or Miracle plays. These were later called ‘Mysteries’ or ‘Mystery plays’ and were similar in character to ‘Moralities’ which taught moral lessons through the personification of virtues and vices. There are records of Miracle plays associated with many religious centres and they continue to be staged in Europe in cathedral cities such as Chester and York (England) and every ten years in the southern German town of Oberammergau.

The second and more direct origin is the dramatic recitation of the Passion story in the days leading up to Easter, Holy Week. In its earliest form, the priest would recite in Latin the story from one of the Gospels. By the 8th century, the words of Christ were sung to plainchant. Soon, special lesson tones (plainchant) were developed for the entire story and, by the 12th century, it became usual to divide the story between three singers: a ‘middle’ voice (tenor) for the narrator or evangelist, a ‘low’ voice (bass) to portray Christ and a ‘high’ voice (alto) to represent the crowd or ‘turba’.

Gradually the musical settings became more elaborate. By the 15th century, composers were given greater freedom to compose new music for the crowd sections while retaining the ‘traditional’ chant for the narrator, Christ and other characters. By the 16th century, composers such as Lassus, Victoria and Byrd were employing increasingly complex choral polyphony for the crowd scenes and Christ’s words until settings by Ruffo and de Rore were setting all the text polyphonically.

Up to this point, passion music had been solely vocal and had retained a central place for plainchant, either in the stylised declamation of the narrative or as a ‘cantus firmus’ or melodic thread running within more complex choral polyphony.

The most important developments of the passion in 17th and 18th centuries, largely in Germany, were to take the form away from its purely vocal, plainchant and Latin origins. First, the German Lutheran church, acting on its belief that the people should be able to follow the liturgy, adapted it to the German language. Then the plainchant narrations were gradually replaced with ‘recitative’ drawing on opera and the Italian style, instrumental accompaniment and continuo were introduced, purely instrumental sinfonias were added, and non-Biblical texts usually in the form of hymns and arias were incorporated. It was the passion in this form that Bach brought to a stylistic peak with his passions according to St John (1724) and St Matthew (1727/29), drawing immense dramatic effect from the interplay of recitative (narrative), aria (commentary), choruses (representing the crowd) and the chorales sung by the congregation.

Old music for new by Christopher Hogwood

‘Historical’ has almost become a dirty word — at least as far as music is concerned. Will it, one wonders, go the same way down the semantic waste-pipe as stoned, gay, fantastic, grass, hip and pot ? After a particularly excruciating performance of a Bach cantata with ‘original’ instruments last year, an eminent German critic turned to his speechless companions, radiant with enthusiasm, exclaiming ‘Ach, And so it would have been,’ and proceeded to write the event up as ‘an historical performance.’ An American scholar of distinction recently wrote that ‘there is nothing drearier than ‘historical’ performances that lack musical conviction and imagination:’ surely it is simpler to leave out the word ‘historical’ and express a general distaste for dreary performances rather than snipe at the current trend towards cleaning the picture of music.

‘Historical’ has become for us what ‘Gothick’ might have been for our great-grandparents. They, no doubt, found Rembrandt’s Night Watch a painting overflowing with Gothick atmosphere and imagination. Pity, therefore that on cleaning, it has turned out to be a day-time scene, bearing no relation to the tenebrous imitations it spawned in the last century, but adding much to our knowledge of Rembrandt as a recorder of civic grandeur. In this case it is the encrustation of faded varnish and dirt that is ‘historical’ — the new picture is ‘original’.

Recently in music ‘historical’ has become as apologia for much painful vivisection performed by ill-qualified surgeons before a paying audience, an affront to our sensibilites which in non-artistic spheres would be illegal. Musical performance is exploratory, not experimental: uplifting, not therapeutic. It consists of an act of faith on the part of the composer (alive or dead) that performers will with conviction recreate the nuances of sound and expression that made up his original intention — a social contract implicit in all the interpretative arts. Were a Matisse on the closing of the gallery doors to dissolve into a small pot of primary colors, leaving a blank canvas on the wall plus the painter’s recipe for the reconstitution of his work, how rigorously we would adhere to his instructions. How painstakingly we would reassemble the statue of David from a heap of marble dust. And if we had had this opportunity in the plastic arts, of course, we would never have stopped short at Venus de Milo’s arms (or would we? — think of those amputated Figaros and Traviatas.)

Music has potential advantages which we should not despise simply because the act of recreation brings it into closer contact than usual with the fads and fashions of presentation. The greater danger, however, is that the live performer can effect introductions between artists of the past which the non-interpretative artist could never conceive. To hang a Rubens beside a Whistler will not alter the mode of expression of either of those gentlemen. But to perform Bach with the resources, reactions and expectations of Tchaikovsky will certainly alter the former (the reverse situation, mercifully not yet with us, might be even more bizarre.)

Dr Johnson’s creed as a literary editor has taken too long to influence musical circles, and when it has, the victims have been accused of contracting musicology. ‘Nothing shall be imposed... without notice of the alteration; nor shall conjecture be wantonly or unnecessarily indulged.’ This is fine for the production of a text, for the resolution of historical quandaries and for the exposing of as much source material as the active musical builder requires for his present manner of construction. But in the arts, a clock without a face does not tell the time, no matter how exquisitely the mechanism has been fashioned. And it is in giving breath to mute documents, proposing an historical sensation as a living actuality that the ‘unscientific’ element of the performer can rouse such strong feelings today.

Just as the 19th-century composer frequently found he was his own best interpreter, so the 20th-century musical archaeologist should, and does defend his own theories in practice. With the two facets combined, there need be no complaints of the ‘unquestioned primacy accorded intellectual activity over artistic’ in ‘authentic performance practice.’

I quote these last three words with trepidation, since, as I suggested at the outset, too many general complaints are marshalled under the semantic umbrella of the ‘historical’ approach. Each generation knits its own baroque, just as it knits its own Shakespeare. We have farily recently knitted our own Renaissance and Middle Ages in a variety of florid patterns. While purl is almost always preferred to plain, the resulting garment often will not fit the body it was supposedly measured from. When, several years ago, the Early Music Consort was invited to supply incidental music to accompany a filmed life of Henry VIII, it seemed a natural opportunity to include some music by the monarch himself. After playing through a few sample peices to the directors of the venture, it was decided that such repertoire could not be used because it ‘didn’t sound in period’. It seems that, on the open market at least, Jacobean music must wed Tudor monarchs, just as, in most civilized media, Vivaldi must hold the hand of Bernini. And yet so accustomed have we grown to this chronological displacement that when history is synchronized, we greet with disbelief the news that Handel wrote oratorios while Haydn was producing divertimenti; or, more disconcerting still, that Haydn actually sang at Vivaldi’s funeral.

Comparisons with the graphic arts may sound finely metaphorical, and many analogies crumble along with received principles at the first ring of the cash register. But whatever the commercial temptations, some things cannot change. We still have two ears, left and right. We would hesitate to reassemble the sections of a Memling altar triptych, putting aside both panels on the left; we would offer our ticket for resale if we discovered Concorde with two starboard wings and I would suggest that the reaction of Bach and Mozart would be similar if asked to attend a performance of their orchestral music with both the first and the second violin sections seated to the left of the conductor. Antiphony was an integral component of their composing techniques; question and answer was for them as basic as it was for the Psalmist. It is perverse and unfair that the very age that considers itself to have invented stereo should so persistently obliterate all evidence of it in the works of such masters, and describe attempts to reinstate the wishes of Bach and Mozart as ‘anachronisitc.’

Nature has placed a limit to the highest note that you can sing, even given the best sound-proofed bathroom. To insist that pitch should rise higher and higher, simply so that large orchestral sections of violins may sound the more and more brilliant, is to pose impossible problems for the voice, and to distort the balance and colours of the original (Rembrandt ‘imporved’ with fluorescent tints... ). Beethoven asked his choral basses in the Ninth Symphony to reach for the highest note that could be called pracitcable, a high F. Even the text ‘uberm Sternenzelt muss ein lieber Vater wohnen’ (Above in starry canopy, there must dwell a loving father) cannot justify the grotesque results when the passage is sung at present-day pitch which, in some countries, has risen almost a semitone above the one Beethoven knew, and is contining to rise.

Most composers intend the details of their compositions to be audible. The two flute parts of the ‘Qui Tollis’ in the B Minor Mass are the life-blood of that movement, yet even the most golden of modern flutes cannot rescue them when the chorus is six times the size Bach scored for. Conversely, Handel, faced with a similar problem, allocated two oboes to each line of his score; the fact that we persist in emplying only one to a part convicts us of inconsistency as well as insensitivity. And, reducing the problem to its most vulgar union woul dapprove the 18th-century solution of the inaudible harpsichord or lute, which was to employ two or more of them rather than the present reinforcement of one with an amplifier.

Even though Brahms might will be as affronted as Bach to hear what alterations have been made to his music, the prejudices which blind us to the needs of classical and pre-classical music derive essentially from the 19th-century symphony orchestra. A continuous legato from all players and a continuous vibrato from all singers is as good a way as any of closing the avenues to a feeling for 18th-century nuance and inflection, just as insistence on modern orchestra and choral numbers will upset 18th-century calculations. The fact that the last train leaves at 10:30 is no excuse for insulting Beethoven’s basic design by ignoring his express indication for repeats; the fact that Madame Zabaglione must sing Aida tomorrow should not reconcile us to her offering a foretaste of that role in her Monteverdi today.

True, we can never listen to early music with the ears of those who first heard it — but the same limitation does not prevent us using our other senses in the visual — and even edible arts. Nor can the argument that resources have ‘improved’ be invoked; this is flourescent paint again.

None of this mentions ‘original instruments’, nor ‘authentic voices’. The omission is deliberate, since they are no more than the out-riders of the crusade. The fact that they have scholar-performers in their midst minimizes, to me at least, the likelihood of their betraying the act of faith that accompanied the act of setting down music in notation in the first place. But the musical problem is one that recruits us all — listeners, editors, musicologists and performers; the banner under which we march is neither the neume, nor the one-keyed flute, but the Night Watch — before and after.

This article was originally published in 1988 in Upbeat, the newsletter of The Handel & Haydn Society in Boston.

The Baroque Violin by June Baine, London 1976

Imagineu el concert per a violí de Beethoven tocat en un violí barroc amb un arc barroc. El 1806, quan aquest va ser compost, ja s'estaven construint violins de major sonoritat per tal que poguessin ser executats en sales més grans. Però, segurament, molts instrumentistes van preferir els seus madurs i encara no convertits instruments italians. Per augmentar el volum dels mateixos, el coll-que fins llavors estava en el mateix pla que la caixa de l'instrument-va ser bolcat cap enrere per crear major tensió a les cordes, mentre que al pont se li augmentava la curvatura per permetre una major pressió de l'arc. D'aquesta manera, un pont que abans suportava al voltant de 27 Kg podia aguantar ara un pes que superava els 67,5 quilos. Per aconseguir-ho, va ser necessari inserir una barra harmònica més gran i llarga, i, de forma similar, cap a la fi del segle XVIII l'arc va anar fent-se més llarg i pesat, fins que Tourte va desenvolupar el tipus d'arc que s'ha fet servir des d'aleshores fins nostres dies. Els canvis fonamentals van ser: construir la corba cap endins en lloc de cap a fora com es venia fent i duplicar la quantitat de cerdes a més d'augmentar l'ample de la mateixa. Els violins de Amati amb poca tensió a les cordes tenen un so més suau però més focalitzat i, el que és més important, una gran ressonància en els harmònics, de tal manera que el més lleuger cop de arc pot posar en vibració tot l'instrument. Quan Beethoven va compondre el seu concert, eren els Amati, i no els Stradivari, els violins més apreciats per la dolçor del seu so.
Com es tocava aquest violí barroc? Hi ha pintures originals de l'època i s'han conservat recomanacions de mestres contemporanis, com ara Tartini, Geminiani i Leopold Mozart. Atenent als mateixos podem confiar que instrument i arc mostraran per si mateixos els següents passos a donar. El violí era sostingut indistintament recolzant sobre el pit, la clavícula o l' espatlla i, en aquest últim cas, el mentó podia descansar sobre el cordal o sobre la tapa, a la dreta del cordal, encara que tot fa suposar que preferien sostenir l'instrument només amb la mà esquerra, molt probablement per a no opacar el seu so. Les mentoneres per recolzar la barbeta no van ser introduïdes fins al segle XIX. Per aquesta raó, es feien servir més sovint les primeres posicions -és la part més ressonant de l'instrument-tocant les cordes en manera transversal, i canviant d'una a una altra per obtenir els sons més aguts. Aquest tipus de manipulació incloïa el estendres sobre la corda més aguda o córrer per petits passos-amb facilitat cap a amunt i una mica més dificultosament cap avall-avançant el polze i seguint-lo amb els altres dits en un moviment que recorda la forma d'avançar del cranc. L'arc era sostingut lleugerament balancejat sobre una zona que anava des de la celleta fins a uns 5 o 8 centímetres més amunt d'aquesta (les pintures de l'època mostren una enorme diversitat en aquest sentit), i estava suspès sobre les cordes amb el colze penjant fluixa, ja que encara no era necessari exercir una pressió més gran. Qui intentin manejar un arc barroc, ha d'oblidar les modernes tècniques d'ensenyament que divideixen l'arc en una part inferior, una altra mitjana i una superior; l'arc barroc només té la part mitjana estenent cap a un i altre costat. De tota manera, el començament de l'arc és variable ja que, moltes vegades, hi ha diversos centímetres rere dels dits: "... els millors executants no malgasten l'arc i el fan servir en la seva totalitat, des de la punta fins a la part de baix, i encara més enllà dels dits ... " (Geminiani, 1751).

Tots els teòrics posen èmfasi en que el so del violí ha de ser sempre bonic i que mai ha de atacar una nota amb duresa. "El primer exercici ha de ser la manera de sostenir l'arc, balancejat i recolzant lleugera però fermament sobre les cordes, de tal manera que sembli respirar en el primer so que produeixi; aquest so ha de provenir fonamentalment de la fricció sobre la corda i no de percudida com si es donés un cop de martell sobre ella. Per aconseguir-ho, cal començar per donar suport suaument l'arc sobre la corda i després pressionar amb delicadesa ja que si això es fa en forma sobtada podria resultar massa violent. Un cop aconseguit que el so sorgeixi amb suavitat, es podrà llavors fer-lo més violent o endurir sense gaire risc "(Tartini, 1760).
"Cada so, encara el més fort atac, té suavitat en el començament del moviment de l'arc-encara que això sigui pràcticament inaudible-, de no fer-ho així, en lloc de so s'obtindrà un soroll inintel.ligible i desagradable. La mateixa suavitat haurà d'escoltar-se al final de cada cop d'arc "(Leopold Mozart, 1756).
Fins i tot sense lligar dues notes, hi ha una quasi infinita varietat de cops d'arc i inflexions a disposició de l'executant. El seu arc ha de "parlar", ara festejant, ara animant o tranquil · litzant al seu oient.
"Ha de saber-se com distribuir l'arc per denotar tant debilitat com a força, i per tant com, mitjançant la pressió i la relaxació, produir notes bella i commovedora "(Leopold Mozart).
El violí és, en veritat, el més romàntic dels instruments.

El fraseig de la música antiga polifònica segueix l'ascens i descens natural del fraseig vocal sense considerar la barra de compàs; les notes llargues es toquen expressivament i les curtes, amablement, amb moviment de dits i canell. Els violinistes professionals de la tall, en acompanyar les danses i els entreteniments utilitzaven un estil més animat. A França, on es feien servir arcs més curts, es tocava d'una manera més marcada donant més èmfasi a l'fraseig per ajudar els ballarins a mantenir el ritme: cops d'arc descendents a la barra de compàs i accentuant els segons temps en les zarabanda i chacones. Els fogosos i marcats ritmes punteigs, característics de Lully, eren subratllats per l'arc i s'executaven portant-lo a les notes amb punt i tocant les recolzament sobre el temps. Aquesta seria més tard la característica principal de l'obertura francesa, una tàctica per atreure l'atenció del públic gal, sorollós i parlador. Molt diferent l' cantabile estil instrumental de la Canzona italiana, al qual es feia palès el bell so dels seus meravellosos instruments italians. Quan Haendel va dirigir una de les seves obertures a Roma, retreure al concertino-el mateix Corelli-la seva falta de vigor, i aquest replicar amb honestedat: "Caro Sassone, questa musica i nella stile francese, di ch'io non m'intendo ".
A Itàlia, els ritmes irregulars s'executaven amb més suavitat, a la manera de les gigues, sense aixecar necessàriament l'arc. En lloc del dinamisme de l'estil francès era necessari allà una major fluïdesa de l'arc per evitar els falsos accents. En una figura puntetes que es repeteix, la suavitat pot obtenir baixant el colze abans del final del cop ascendent i, de forma similar, aixecant-abans de la finalització del cop descendent, és a dir, anticipant el moviment propi de l'arc. En veritat, la habilitat per tocar sense falsos accents és una part important de la tècnica d'execució d'un instrumentista.
L'articulació està dictada per l'instrument mateix. Així un òrgan s'allargarà o escurçarà els espais entre notes demorant la següent o robant-li a l'anterior. Un instrument de vent pot, així mateix, atacar la nota amb més o menys volum. Un violí barroc pot fer ús de la ressonància [1] dels seus harmònics per allargar una nota, de manera que resulta difícil distingir el final de la nota de la seva ressonància [1] (Qui podria determinar la longitud de semblant nota?). Sovint, en la música barroca es troben accents sobre certes notes (com dagues); aquests denoten articulació, però no necessàriament durada, i si aquestes notes són tocades amb cops d'arc decidits i ressonants, poden accentuar la música com amb un signe d'admiració i atraure d'aquesta manera l'atenció de l'oient. En passatges més tranquils, l'executant pot sostenir la nota amb un fil de so, en imitació de la veu humana, o deixar córrer el so mitjançant la ressonància del cop d'arc, de la mateixa manera que un cantant entonant a boca chiusa. La propera nota pot atacar imperceptiblement, després d'un silenci breu o amb la consonant més lleugera. Alternativament, l'executant pot articular com un òrgan, sostenint un so ferma a través de la durada de tota la nota, deixant-lo anar gairebé al final. En realitat hi ha tanta varietat com ho permetin la imaginació i habilitat de l'instrumentista.
L'arc creat per Tourte és un mitjà una mica maldestre de manejar amb referència a la música antiga. Professors i concertinos gasten considerables quantitats de temps en rearreglar arcs a causa de la dificultat d'efectuar amb aquest arc més pesat ia causa de la tendència, heretada del segle passat, d'ignorar el fraseig intern en favor de la línia llarga. La conseqüència d'això és que es resta èmfasi i claredat no només als ritmes amb punt, sinó també a aquests difícils grups bachiano on es donen 3 o 5 notes en un arc i una separada, destruint la vitalitat del fraseig intern. Una altra característica de l'arc modern és la de trencar els passatges indicats legato -com en els trinos d'un adagi de Corelli o d'un preludi de Bach - cosa innecessària amb un arc barroc. El mateix Corelli deia que es havia de sostenir un arc 10 segons, el que no és tant. Amb el pont més chato, els acords podien ser tocats gairebé simultàniament, o bé arpegiats suaument com en la lira da braccio de segle XVI, la qual tenia tantes cordes que de vegades arribava a incloure un La sostingut. Un instrumentista d'avui que es troba amb una llarga successió de corxeres, per exemple, afegiria interès a la seva interpretació mitjançant una acurada elecció de les lligams, en canvi, amb l'arc antic hi ha gran diversitat de possibilitats per tal d'aconseguir un fraseig variat a través de l'articulació en les seves diferents modalitats incloent l'execució inégal [paraula francesa que significa 'desigual'].
Per finalitzar podem incursió en el tan debatut tema de l' vibrato. Hi ha evidència que, durant els segles XVI i XVII, era acceptable algun tipus de vibrato, sempre que es tractés d'una vibració molt propera a la nota, la qual no consistia en pujar i baixar el to com fem avui en dia, sinó: "el vibrar del dit tan a prop com sigui possible de la nota que està sonant, prement la corda tan suaument que no hi hagi variacions de to "(Simpson, 1659).
Aquesta "vibració tancada" [2] era un ornament així com la "vibració oberta" [3] era un trino. El vibrato que coneixem en el present va aparèixer probablement al segle XVIII, a finals del qual es feia servir sovint amb el mateix excés amb que l'usa a vegades en els nostres dies. "Hi ha executants que vibren cada nota sense excepció com si patissin tremolors "(Leopold Mozart).
El 1830, Spohr va dir que el vibrato havia de ser gairebé imperceptible a cau d'orella i aconsellava als seus alumnes que l'utilitzessin amb molt poca freqüència. Més tard, Joachim utilitzaria una línia onejava per indicar quines notes o passatges específics requerien vibrato. Molt més recentment, Oistrakh (1908-1974) demanava als seus alumnes que practiquessin el concert de Txaikovski "senza vibrato", per estimular la expressivitat obtenible només amb l'arc. De manera que hem, doncs, completat el cercle. Nosaltres donem suport a la idea de tocar el violí barroc seguint l'esmentada recomanació de Oistrakh fins a perdre el costum del vibrato automatitzat i comprendre que la ressonància [1] i expressivitat naturals de l'instrument, així com la claredat i la subtil entonació que li són pròpies, només es ressenten amb el vibrato, i que el so pur i sensual de l'instrument en si mateix no pot sinó proporcionar goig.
El problema inicial de tocar música barroca amb instruments i arcs moderns no té fàcil solució, en comptes de donar consells, preferiria comptar senzillament els camins que s'han intentat en Anglaterra. El 1953, Thurston Dart es va fer càrrec de l'orquestra de Boyd Neel-que ara passarà a anomenar-se "Philomuso of London" - i se li va ocórrer donar a totes les cordes, arcs barrocs per tal que els utilitzessin amb els seus propis instruments. Per descomptat, en un principi no tenia idea de com utilitzar-los i, a sobre, Dart, un virtuós del teclat, posseïa gran coneixement però no massa experiència en instruments d'arc. Per això, depenia molt del seu concertino, Granville Jones. Granville era un músic molt respectat per Dart i els seus companys de orquestra, no només com a instrumentista, sinó per tenir un especial instint per a la música barroca. En aquesta època, l'èxit d'aquesta idea va significar un veritable succés i una crida d'atenció sobre l'arc barroc.
Fa alguns anys, el meu marit-Francis Baines-trobant-se a càrrec del departament de Música Antiga del Royal College de Londres, va decidir crear un petit grup barroc. Als estudiants interessats se'ls aconsellava intentar l'ús dels arcs de les violes da gamba-la càtedra estava a càrrec de Francis-els quals són similars als arcs barrocs. I si insistien a utilitzar els seus propis arcs, es els demanava que toquessin prenent-los uns 5 o 8 centímetres per sobre del taló. D'aquesta manera, utilitzaven la part mitjana de l'arc i mai, mai, mai, usaven un dur "martelé" ni un picant "spiccato" (al qual anomenem "spiccato estudiantil"). Per contra, practicaven arcades lleugeres i ressonants amb dits i canell flexibles, i poc o gens de vibrato. A l'espai d'un any, els concerts (que s'efectuaven sense director) van ser tan èxit que el Col.legi va començar a comprar instruments convertits a nous-tant cordes com vents-i ara es compta amb suficients com per a una petita orquestra de cambra.
En l'actualitat la majoria dels directors londinencs insisteixen en orquestres d'instruments barrocs per a l'execució de música barroca.

NOTES

1. Ring en l'original anglès.
2. Close shake en l'original anglès.
3. Open shake en l'original anglès.