Performance Practice of Early Music
Wednesday, April 10, 2019
Sunday, March 17, 2019
Baroque ornamentation webpage
This webpage put together by Brian Blood is a good point of departure for learning more about ornaments that can be represented by symbols ("essential" ornaments)
There is then also the category of "non-essential" ornaments, which need to be written down as they are to be performed, because they cannot be adequately expressed with symbols alone.
J S Bach: Italian Concerto, Andante, bars 4-6
J G Tromlitz: example of ornamentation analysis
Sunday, March 3, 2019
Friday, February 22, 2019
Early Recordings for 3-page paper
Adelina Patti sings Casta Diva
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Dame Clara Butt sings Ombra mai fu 1917
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Alessandro Moreschi sings Gounod: Ave Maria
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Joseph Joachim plays Bach Adagio BWV 1001 (rec. 1903)
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Joachim plays Joachim Romance in C (rec. 1903)
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Jan Kubelik plays Bach Air BWV 1068
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W H Squire cello and H Harty play Gabriel Marie La Cinquantaine
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Thursday, February 21, 2019
Performance
Practice Seminar Spring 2019
3-page paper
Guidelines
Select a
short (2-5 minute) performance originally recorded before 1930, preferably a
recording on an instrument or voice-type similar to your own.
If possible,
find a score online that is similar to the one used in the performance. Use the score to assist your listening experience.
In three
pages (double-spaced, 12 point), do three things:
First, note your impressions when listening
to the recording the first few times.
Second, analyse the early 20th-century
performance by comparing the performance
characteristics you notice in the recorded performance with your expectations
based on your own experience as a performer.
Be as detailed as possible while staying within the constraint of a
three-page discussion. Possible points
for observation include the relationship of soloist and accompanist;
intonation; vibrato; tempo and tempo modification; tone
production; recording technique.
Third, revisit the recording a day or two
after having completed your analysis, and describe how your perception of the
recording after the analysis compares with your initial perceptions.
Sunday, February 17, 2019
Glenn Gould on playing the harpsichord (1972)
"On the
harpsichord, it's very easy to achieve the sort of secco, pointillistic détaché line that I've always tried to
produce on the piano, with varying degrees of success. On the other hand, having achieved it, you
can't influence [the harpsichord] dynamically and you're left, so to speak,
beholden to the generosity of the ear which is sometimes prepared to read
dynamic implications into rhythmic alterations.
But this introduces another set of problems, because, on the
harpsichord, you have a choice between rhythmic inexorability and its converse,
which is infinite rubato, a kind of sound world which really never comes to
rest on any bar-line. I was determined
to try and find a way around that problem.
And I thought, well, the best solution would be to pretend that I'm not
playing the harpsichord at all."
Glenn Gould (1972)
Columbia
M 31512/glenn Gould/handel Suites For Harpsichord Nos. 1-4 (1972)
Eaton's Auditorium,
Toronto, Canada (1972-03-26&1972-04-30&1972-).















