When historically-interested performers need guidance on practical issues, we often look for answers in 18th-century treatises. (Or, if we don't, we really should: as I've already discussed.) Anyone who has talked to me about this topic knows that I'm a passionate believer in the power of treatises to enrich us in ways that recordings and teachers can't.
Still, I concede that 18th-century sources are limited. They can't actually play for us; their musical advice must be approximate, mediated by language. Furthermore, each treatise represents its author's viewpoint, but that author is rarely a composer we care about. We may read, say, Geminiani and Türk; instruments in hand, however, who wouldn't rather play Corelli or Beethoven? And one often wonders whether Leopold Mozart's theoretical advice really applies to his son's mature compositions, or whether, by the late 1770s, a surname was the only thing Wolfgang and his father had in common.
In many cases, treatise-reading encourages generalization, while performing should really be about specificity. Unless we devote unrealistic amounts of time to reading an unrealistic number of treatises, we risk overburdening a few authors. Thus, Geminiani becomes a go-to source for all Italian music; likewise, so many French performances ape Muffat.
(As an aside: the widespread Muffat-infatuation has always puzzled me. Look at the dates: he went to France briefly in his late teens, and didn't write the treatise until decades later. Is his evidence reliable? I wonder, too, why nobody seems interested in his German bowings. They could be applied to Bach and Telemann, who, despite vaguely-Francophone interests, were writing German music, in Germany, to be performed by German musicians and consumed by German audiences.)
Having now made a meal of the appetizer, I hasten to my main point: Treatises aren't our only option! We can steal the occasional glimpse into past practices by searching for clues within the notation. Of course, most notation is neutral, and we need treatises to help unravel "what" (if anything) it "means". But, sometimes, a composer leaves a clue.
Still, I concede that 18th-century sources are limited. They can't actually play for us; their musical advice must be approximate, mediated by language. Furthermore, each treatise represents its author's viewpoint, but that author is rarely a composer we care about. We may read, say, Geminiani and Türk; instruments in hand, however, who wouldn't rather play Corelli or Beethoven? And one often wonders whether Leopold Mozart's theoretical advice really applies to his son's mature compositions, or whether, by the late 1770s, a surname was the only thing Wolfgang and his father had in common.
In many cases, treatise-reading encourages generalization, while performing should really be about specificity. Unless we devote unrealistic amounts of time to reading an unrealistic number of treatises, we risk overburdening a few authors. Thus, Geminiani becomes a go-to source for all Italian music; likewise, so many French performances ape Muffat.
(As an aside: the widespread Muffat-infatuation has always puzzled me. Look at the dates: he went to France briefly in his late teens, and didn't write the treatise until decades later. Is his evidence reliable? I wonder, too, why nobody seems interested in his German bowings. They could be applied to Bach and Telemann, who, despite vaguely-Francophone interests, were writing German music, in Germany, to be performed by German musicians and consumed by German audiences.)
 |
| Muffat's Treatise: Menuet. The German bowing is above, the French is below. Note that the German version begins on an upbow, and is entirely bowed out. Presumably, the upbow at the beginning is meant to accommodate the figures in bars 3, 5 and 6. |
Having now made a meal of the appetizer, I hasten to my main point: Treatises aren't our only option! We can steal the occasional glimpse into past practices by searching for clues within the notation. Of course, most notation is neutral, and we need treatises to help unravel "what" (if anything) it "means". But, sometimes, a composer leaves a clue.
For example, on the question of whether Mozart's grace-notes should be played on or before the beat, treatises are unhelpful. Most say nothing; Quantz, writing in Berlin, gives the wrong answer. We know that Quantz is wrong because an examination of the Minuet from Mozart's KV 304 reveals grace-notes of three different durations, all in a single phrase:
 |
| Copyright restrictions prevent me from posting from the NMA, but see here for an urtext original. Amazingly enough, all editions on IMSLP show incorrect grace-notes! (In our age of increasing IMSLP-reliance, it's a reminder not to believe everything posted there.) |
At once, we infer that note-value does matter for grace-notes. It follows that they have to be on the beat -- after all, if grace-notes were to be played before the beat, could a quarter note be distinguished from an eighth or sixteenth?
The notational clues are not always even related to performance-practice per se. The example that inspired this essay comes from Biber's Sonatae Violino Solo 1681, on my mind this month. Halfway through Sonata VI, the violinist must retune into scordatura -- the only instance of mid-sonata retuning I'm aware of pre-1900:
I've spent the last few days testing various different retuning methods. When I last performed this piece, a few times in 2011, my habit was to knock the E string completely slack, and then retune it from scratch. (This seemed to improve the stability, but it takes a lot longer to bring off.) Now, I'm considering inching down from E to D, and then simply adjusting as necessary if the string creeps sharp -- the quick fix. After all, Biber's dramatic pacing is characteristically perfect, and drawn-out retuning would do more harm than would a slightly-sharp top string.
Whatever I decide to do, this moment speaks worlds about Biber -- his own ability to tune quietly and accurately, and his flexible stance towards tuning in general. There are also subsidiary inferences, such as the thickness of his E string (it must still have sounded good when loosened to D) and the stability of his G string (with the slightly decreased tension on the bridge, my own Aquilla "type F" silver-wound, sheep-gut string goes unplayably sharp).
Have you encountered any other moments in music pre-1830 when these sorts of indications are buried in the notation? My instinct is that such notational clues don't surface on our music stands every day...