Music Commons^™

Realizing The Continuo In Monteverdi's Lamento Della Ninfa And Its Implications For Early-Seventeenth-Century Italian Continuo Practice, Roland Jackson

Performance Practice Review

Monteverdi’s “Amor, dicea” (Lamento della ninfa), appearing in his Eighth Book of Madrigals published in 1638, is regarded as among his most emotionally moving works, Denis Arnold (for one) calling it “unforgettable” and “almost unbearably intense.” Nonetheless, our full sense of it and of its expressive potential, remains uncertain in that its accompaniment has come down to us in incomplete form, consisting of but a single bass line on a descending fourth, A – G – F – E, repeated throughout. How this line is to be interpreted has not been agreed upon among scholars or performers, despite its critical …

Identity In Violin Playing On Records: Interpretation Profiles In Recordings Of Solo Bach By Early Twentiety-Century Violinists, Dorottya Fabian, Eitan Ornoy

Performance Practice Review

Performance studies relying on sound recordings as evidence have often focused on establishing trends and traditions in various periods and repertoire. So far little attention has been paid to individual artistic profiles and idiosyncratic expression. Yet if performance is as significant as the notated work, as has often been argued, musicologists must be able to show what identifies a particularly famous interpreter just as they can state what characterizes the works of a prominent composer. This paper investigates the individual differences between two famous violinists. The solo Bach recordings of Nathan Milstein and Jascha Heifetz - two of Leopold Auer's …

The Violin Concerto Soloist’S Orchestral Role, From Mozart To Beethoven, Carey Campbell

Performance Practice Review

The relationship between soloist and orchestra is central to the way many listeners, scholars, and performers understand the concerto. In particular, the juxtaposition of solo and tutti sections often guides our perceptions of form, dialogue, and meaning for the genre. Some regard the soloist and orchestra as conceptually separate entities, and this is reflected onstage in most modern performances by the physical separation of soloist and orchestra, whose interactions are mediated by a non-playing conductor. This strict division between soloist, orchestral player, and leader was not necessarily what late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century composers had in mind. The bulk of …

Improvisation In Sixteenth-Century Italy: Lessons From Rhetoric And Jazz, John Bass

Performance Practice Review

Saying that embellishment was a big deal for sixteenth-­century musicians is hardly a bold move; evidence abounds in treatises, music collections, and written accounts from the time. It has also been the subject of a fair amount of keen musicological scholarship over the years. But making sense out of what musicians of the time actually did in performance and trying to reproduce it today has proven to be more difficult, mainly because improvisers, by nature, do not tend to record what they do. The modern prevailing view seems to be that ornamentation was important, mainly because evidence suggests it was …

Correspondence: February 5, 2008, Roland Jackson

Performance Practice Review

Roland Jackson responds to Peter Holman's review in the 2007 volume of Performance Practice Review.

"How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (And Why You Should Care)" By Ross Duffin, Rudolf Rasch

Performance Practice Review

Rasch discusses and critiques Duffin's book on equal temperament.

"The Clarinet" By Eric Hoeprich, Colin Lawson

Performance Practice Review

Lawson discusses and critiques Hoeprich's book on the history of the clarinet.

"The End Of Early Music: A Period Performer's History Of Music For The Twenty-First Century" By Bruce Haynes, Roland Jackson

Performance Practice Review

Jackson critiques and discusses Haynes' book on the history of early music performance.

"Vivaldi's Music For Flute And Recorder" By Federico Sardelli, Jane Bowers

Performance Practice Review

Bowers discusses and critiques Sardelli's book on Vivaldi's music for flute and recorder.

On Divided Lines: Instrumentation For Bass Parts In Corelli-Era Sonatas, Peter Walls

Performance Practice Review

There has been considerable debate in recent years about the appropriate treatment of bass lines in Corelli Op. 5 and other duo and ensemble sonatas of the era. This article examines the relationship between continuo parts and separate bass parts in publications that include both. It argues that the case for accepting publication formats as a guide to performance practice is weaker than has often been claimed. The inadequacy of the standard terminology (particularly ‘trio sonata’) for Italian chamber-music ensembles in this period has been much commented on. Italian practice in the 17th century was to designate pieces a 2, …

In Search Of The Eighteenth-Century “Violoncello”: Antonio Vandini And The Concertos For Viola By Tartini, Marc Vanscheeuwijck

Performance Practice Review

In this rarely-quoted excerpt, Johann Philipp Eisel obviously paraphrases Johann Mattheson’s definition of the violoncello in Das Neu-eröffnete Orchestre. It is yet another description that does not conform precisely to our early twenty-first century historical construct of the “baroque” cello. In the past not much attention has been given to such descriptions, considered to be too deviant from the general understanding of what a cello was supposed to be: five or six strings were not considered to represent the “normal” cello, and the viola da spalla was considered a different instrument altogether. However, recent research has finally taken such descriptions …

How One Learned To Ornament In Late Sixteenth-Century Italy, Timothy J. Mcgee

Performance Practice Review

Several of the sixteenth-century ornamentation manuals state that they are self-sufficient tutors; that instrumentalists and vocalists could learn the skill without further assistance from a teacher. While this may have been possible for one type of ornamentation, it did not hold true for the newer, dramatic, Neapolitan style of ornamentation that was heavily based on rhetorical models, and which needed careful guidance from an experienced teacher (Author).

Bach's Tempo Ordinario: A Plaine And Easie Introduction To The System, Robert Marshall

Performance Practice Review

The initial impetus for this inquiry came from a question posed by Arthur Mendel during a coffee break in a Bach seminar some thirty years ago. Why, he asked, did Bach notate the last movement of the fifth Brandenburg Concerto in two-­four time, with triplets rather than in six-­eight time?...

"Attractively Packaged But Unripe Fruit"; The Uk's Commercialization Of Musical History In The 1980s, Colin Lawson

Performance Practice Review

The decade from 1980 proved to be truly significant in the development of historical performance, as recreations of post-Baroque repertory gradually became the norm. At its close, three complete cycles of Beethoven Symphonies had been recorded on “period” instruments, implicitly demonstrating the complexity of the spectrum between practical expediency and historical accuracy. By 1991, Clive Brown was issuing a timely warning that the pedigree of many of the instruments on these recordings was of doubtful authenticity. The commercially-motivated rush to push period-instrument performance ever more rapidly into the nineteenth century did not offer much hope for the consolidation of historical …

A Correctly-Attributed Fake, Bruce Haynes

Performance Practice Review

A few years ago, a harpsichord ascribed to Nicholas Lefébure and dated 1755 appeared on the scene. Although it was enthusiastically received, there was a problem with this instrument. It seems its attribution was incorrect; in fact, by some two and a half centuries. Shortly afterwards, its real maker, Martin Skowroneck, published an amusing and sensational article in which he described how he had created an instrument that was so stylistically convincing that harpsichord restorers didn’t hesitate to call it an original...

Consequentialism About Historical Authenticity, Aron Edidin

Performance Practice Review

The historical authenticity movement arrived on a wave of polemical prose, and was met by a similarly energetic polemical response. The controversy has persisted to the present day.

The Antebellum "Piano Girl" In The American South, Candace Bailey

Performance Practice Review

Throughout the nineteenth century, the education of young gentlewomen almost always included music lessons, with piano lessons being the most frequently recommended. The social context for these young women pianists, “piano girls,” has been described in several modern works, particularly since Arthur Loesser’s seminal work Men, Women, and Pianos: A Social History.1 In the 1980s, Judith Tick made the term “piano girl” a familiar one in musicological studies, and since that time the idea of the piano girl and her role in society has been explored by others.2 Most of these studies describe the social phenomenon of the piano girl, …

Performance Practice Bibliography (1995-1996)

Performance Practice Review

Bibliography of articles published in the field of Historical Performance Practices during 1995-1996.

Contributors/End Matter

Performance Practice Review

List of Contributors for the Fall 1996 of Performance Practice Review.

End matter and advertisements from the Fall 1996 (9/2) issue of Performance Practice Review.

Violes Esgales--Sainte Colombe, Marais, Couperin, Les Voix Humaines. Duo De Violes De Gambe, Annette Otterstedt

Performance Practice Review

Reviews and critiques Violes Esgales' record of Baroque music for two violes de gambe.

"Stolen Time: The History Of Tempo Rubato." By Richard Hudson., Barton Hudson

Performance Practice Review

Review's and critiques Hudson's 1994 book.

"Monsieur De Saint Lambert: A New Treatise On Accompaniment." Trans. And Ed. By John S. Powell, Charlotte S. Mattax

Performance Practice Review

Reviews and critiques Powell's translation and editorial work on Lambert's Accompaniment Treatise.

The Mandolin: Its Structure And Performance (Sixteenth To Twentieth Centuries), James Tyler, Paul Sparks

Performance Practice Review

RILM: "A history of the instrument, with information about the construction and repertoire, and particular reference to performance techniques. The derivation of the term "mandolin" is discussed, as are the differences between the mandolino and the Neapolitan mandolin."

Performing On The Trombone: A Chronological Survey, David M. Guion

Performance Practice Review

RILM: "A history of the trombone from the late 14th c. to the present, with special emphasis on performance practice."

Action And Singing In Late 18th And Early 19th Century England, Robert Toft

Performance Practice Review

RILM: "Examines the role that action played in the performance of vocal music in the late 18th and early 19th c., through descriptions in writings from the period. Gilbert Austin's Chironomia, or, A treatise on rhetorical delivery (London, 1806) provided instruction in elocution and described such topics as standing, using the hands and arms, and making gestures in relation to the text. Austin's notation of action is applied to Thomas Gray's poem An elegy written in a country church-yard--which was set to music by Stephen Storace--to illustrate how action might have been employed by singers in the late 18th …

Historical And Regional Pronunciations In Vocal Performance, Douglas Leedy

Performance Practice Review

RILM: "Particular pronunciations or dialects are important factors in the creation and execution of vocal music. Such sounds can have a dramatic effect on the coloration and rhythmic profile of a piece of music; the recreation of such sounds is thus of great importance."

With Intent To Stage: Editing Kurt Weill's Music For The Theater, Ed Harsh

Performance Practice Review

RILM: "A critical edition of Weill's opera and music theater works confronts special editorial problems. The complex and dynamic identity of a work for the theater conflicts with the paradigm of the stable, definitive text that critical editions usually aim to present. Further, the collaborative nature of such works allows significant influence to be exerted on the text by individuals other than the composer. A satisfactory solution to these problems is not possible by recourse to the conventional musical-editorial philosophy that has prevailed for most of the 20th c. Rather, a new philosophy that places a positive value on the …

Cover/Table Of Contents

Performance Practice Review

Table of Contents for the Fall 1996 issue of Performance Practice Review.

Contributors/End Matter

Performance Practice Review

List of contributors to the Spring 1995 (8/1) issue of Performance Practice Review.

End matter and advertisements from the Spring 1995 (8/1) issue of Performance Practice Review.

"A History Of Pianoforte Pedaling." By David Rowland, Sandra P. Rosenblum

Performance Practice Review

Rosenblum reviews and critiques Rowland's book on the history of pianoforte pedaling.