There are, it appears, two aspects to this presentation: one, which is convincingly shown here, encompassing off-string technical possibilities of the earlier bow; the other marrying these technical possibilities to the music itself. As this marriage is less convincingly described here, that aspect has (reluctantly) to be the sole focus of my remarks. There are six types of articulation notation typically used in this music: the détaché note (unmarked), the slurred note, the note qualified by a dot, the note marked with a stroke, carat, wedge (all the same), the note under both a slur AND dot(s) and, in very rare cases, the note under both a carat and a slur. All of these articulations were originally in aid of creating parlando effects. Dots and carats are NOT the same thing-the idea that they are originated with Carl Czerny, Joseph Joachim and Andreas Moser, in aid of a new, Romantic aesthetic valuing the evenness of long, legato phrases-and in reaction to the former rhetoric-based aesthetic, which cut the line much more often. It seems that both the dot and carat are understood here to be off-string qualifications. If so, then there can be no practical difference between them. Why, then, do both appear? Why is the difference between them, moreover, a point of real contention even as late as late-period Beethoven? It’s furthermore possible to create all the bowings notated in the original sources using both on- and off-string techniques; their presence in the manuscript neither differentiates between them nor, indeed, proves either the one or the other is intended. Furthermore, the bow’s range of technical possibilities-encompassing as it does here sautillé, spiccato, gettato, flying staccato, etc.-is not matched by a corresponding series of designated counterparts on the printed page. The strokes so convincingly demonstrated on the video make clear on one hand that Paganini did not emerge in a vacuum. One may be certain they were each used. On the other hand, to assert that they were standard-issue equipment, so to speak, rather than the province only of the highest order of virtuoso, is something I find far less convincing.
Have always been a fan of the Viol da Gamba but dont know enough music that has the instrument. I am very much in love with the technique at 15:30. Does anyone know of any musical excerpts or links I could hear more of this technique?
this is quite an illuminating video. It does convince me that bouncing bows could be and were part of the viol technique. However, as with the violin family, the bow that bounces well is quite different from a legato bow. All the bouncing technique demonstrated in the video is with bows with pronounced inward camber. Violin bows with an outward camber do not bounce well, and the inward camber is the first defining characteristic of an early classical violin bow. During the baroque period, very few bows had an inward camber, or an adjuster to adjust the precision of bouncing. It seems to me that bows with clip-in frogs and/or outward cambers would be poor for bouncing. although some stringing with the bow is possible with such bows, anything approaching a sautille stroke would be unlikely with an outwardly curved bow stick, which was the norm until after 1750.
I find it strange that Mr Simpson's words were presented speaking of "the norm", although he explicitly says "if occasion so require". And signore Ghielmi himself said that "on special occasions" one could use a jumping bow throughout. Mayhap I am missing something, but it appears to me that it is suggested, that the essential aspect of technique is to be found within the exception. And sure, such bowings are possible and have been used, but logic of "it wasn't initially notated, therefore it was the standard way until it had to be specified" is flawed at best. Or are we to play the first couple of Marais books with enfles on every note? Furthermore, "ideal bowholds for jumping" are in all likelihood not the primary concern and using this assumption as a justification for an underhand bow grip is laughable, considering that generally upright bowed intrument were and are played with an underhand hold, as it is much more natural and comfortable, as can be evidenced in bowed instruments from Europe (gadulka, lyra, gudok,...), the Middle East (Kemenche, Ghaychak, Rebab,...) and Asia (Morin Khuur, Erhu,Banhu, Tro Khmer,...), neither in a tradition particularly characterized by jumping bow-strokes. How legato having been the exception means that spiccato or even staccato were the standard is also beyond me. We can say that bowing directions changed from note to note, but making a generalized claim as how it was done based on two quotes also seems rather disproportionate.
The "If occasion so require" refers to "on every note," NOT to the technique in question. He is saying you should be able to control your phrasing in divisions by changing between connected and detached strokes at rapid fire command. This is a stark contrast to the way of playing fast passages only at the tip of the bow which more closely resembles sawing logs than carrying a phrase.
@@ryangallagher893 As much I understand. The trouble I have is justifying inferring a general tendency to play a certain way based on a suggestion of what should be possible in an extreme case.
I watched this video with growing incredulity. Certainly, it is physically possible to do these things on string instruments, and doubtless they have been tried in the past. The suggestion, however, that such techniques were a standard aspect of performing practice in the 17th and 18th centuries is certainly not supported by the scanty evidence presented here, all of which is capable of being explained in a variety of ways. In particular, the suggestion that staccato marks specifically indicate a jumping bowstroke is historically untenable. Fundamentally, in string playing, staccato marks indicate notes that are not slurred, or where they appear under slurs that the notes are not slurred smoothly, nothing more; how long or short they were expected to be, or by what technique they were to be articulated will have varied according to the stylistic characteristics and fashions of different periods, and the musical contexts in which they occur. There is often confusion between a ‘lifted’ bowstroke and a ‘springing’ bowstroke. J. J.Quantz (Versuch (1752), p. 201) explained that for staccato notes the bow should be raised somewhat from the string (etwas von der Seyte abgesetzt), but only if they were long enough, and explained that this should not be the case with eighth notes or faster in an Allegro (which for him equalled quarter-note=120) or they would sound ‘as if they were hacked or whipped’ (als wenn sie gehacket oder gepeitschet würden). The aural effects envisaged by composers, or understood by performers at any period before the development of recording are speculative, and become increasingly so for earlier periods. The current employment of springing bowstrokes in historical repertoire, in which they were not originally envisaged, goes back to the nineteenth century, but the contexts in which they have been used have changed substantially over time. Until the mid 20th century, for instance, it was conventional to use on-string bowstrokes in Baroque music, where springing strokes are now used, as I (b. 1947) can testify from my own early experience as a violinists. There have been only two reliably documented fashions for springing bowstrokes. One, in continuous passages of rapid separate notes (especially in concertos), spread during the last 30 years of the 18th century, apparently stemming from an innovative practice of the violinist Wilhelm Cramer, whose bowstroke was, according to his friend C. F. D. Schubart, ‘wholly original’. Cramer’s innovation had a substantial number of adherents until the early years of the 19th century, but it was not generally adopted; there is no evidence that it played any part in the teaching of Giuseppe Tartini, or other leading 18th-century Italian string players, and it became increasingly unfashionable around 1800 with the rise to dominance of the so-called ‘Paris’ School in which springing bowstrokes were not taught. The other, which is the ancestor of modern practice in this respect, began to gain currency in the 1820s, particularly among French string players and admirers of Paganini, but it was not widely adopted by German string players until much later, and has only in the last half century become pervasive for baroque repertoire.
it *was* considered. maybe people didn't care about single note crescendos back then, as the technique the entire video is trying to show was very common and easy couldn't do it...
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Amazing video!!!!
Thankyou very much for sharing!!!! Top quality information
Fascinating and insightful, when will the video about enflé be released?
There are, it appears, two aspects to this presentation: one, which is convincingly shown here, encompassing off-string technical possibilities of the earlier bow; the other marrying these technical possibilities to the music itself. As this marriage is less convincingly described here, that aspect has (reluctantly) to be the sole focus of my remarks. There are six types of articulation notation typically used in this music: the détaché note (unmarked), the slurred note, the note qualified by a dot, the note marked with a stroke, carat, wedge (all the same), the note under both a slur AND dot(s) and, in very rare cases, the note under both a carat and a slur. All of these articulations were originally in aid of creating parlando effects. Dots and carats are NOT the same thing-the idea that they are originated with Carl Czerny, Joseph Joachim and Andreas Moser, in aid of a new, Romantic aesthetic valuing the evenness of long, legato phrases-and in reaction to the former rhetoric-based aesthetic, which cut the line much more often. It seems that both the dot and carat are understood here to be off-string qualifications. If so, then there can be no practical difference between them. Why, then, do both appear? Why is the difference between them, moreover, a point of real contention even as late as late-period Beethoven? It’s furthermore possible to create all the bowings notated in the original sources using both on- and off-string techniques; their presence in the manuscript neither differentiates between them nor, indeed, proves either the one or the other is intended. Furthermore, the bow’s range of technical possibilities-encompassing as it does here sautillé, spiccato, gettato, flying staccato, etc.-is not matched by a corresponding series of designated counterparts on the printed page. The strokes so convincingly demonstrated on the video make clear on one hand that Paganini did not emerge in a vacuum. One may be certain they were each used. On the other hand, to assert that they were standard-issue equipment, so to speak, rather than the province only of the highest order of virtuoso, is something I find far less convincing.
Have always been a fan of the Viol da Gamba but dont know enough music that has the instrument. I am very much in love with the technique at 15:30. Does anyone know of any musical excerpts or links I could hear more of this technique?
this is quite an illuminating video. It does convince me that bouncing bows could be and were part of the viol technique. However, as with the violin family, the bow that bounces well is quite different from a legato bow. All the bouncing technique demonstrated in the video is with bows with pronounced inward camber. Violin bows with an outward camber do not bounce well, and the inward camber is the first defining characteristic of an early classical violin bow. During the baroque period, very few bows had an inward camber, or an adjuster to adjust the precision of bouncing. It seems to me that bows with clip-in frogs and/or outward cambers would be poor for bouncing. although some stringing with the bow is possible with such bows, anything approaching a sautille stroke would be unlikely with an outwardly curved bow stick, which was the norm until after 1750.
I find it strange that Mr Simpson's words were presented speaking of "the norm", although he explicitly says "if occasion so require".
And signore Ghielmi himself said that "on special occasions" one could use a jumping bow throughout.
Mayhap I am missing something, but it appears to me that it is suggested, that the essential aspect of technique is to be found within the exception.
And sure, such bowings are possible and have been used, but logic of "it wasn't initially notated, therefore it was the standard way until it had to be specified" is flawed at best. Or are we to play the first couple of Marais books with enfles on every note?
Furthermore, "ideal bowholds for jumping" are in all likelihood not the primary concern and using this assumption as a justification for an underhand bow grip is laughable, considering that generally upright bowed intrument were and are played with an underhand hold, as it is much more natural and comfortable, as can be evidenced in bowed instruments from Europe (gadulka, lyra, gudok,...), the Middle East (Kemenche, Ghaychak, Rebab,...) and Asia (Morin Khuur, Erhu,Banhu, Tro Khmer,...), neither in a tradition particularly characterized by jumping bow-strokes.
How legato having been the exception means that spiccato or even staccato were the standard is also beyond me.
We can say that bowing directions changed from note to note, but making a generalized claim as how it was done based on two quotes also seems rather disproportionate.
The "If occasion so require" refers to "on every note," NOT to the technique in question. He is saying you should be able to control your phrasing in divisions by changing between connected and detached strokes at rapid fire command. This is a stark contrast to the way of playing fast passages only at the tip of the bow which more closely resembles sawing logs than carrying a phrase.
@@ryangallagher893 As much I understand. The trouble I have is justifying inferring a general tendency to play a certain way based on a suggestion of what should be possible in an extreme case.
Exemplos começam em
14:45
I watched this video with growing incredulity. Certainly, it is physically possible to do these things on string instruments, and doubtless they have been tried in the past. The suggestion, however, that such techniques were a standard aspect of performing practice in the 17th and 18th centuries is certainly not supported by the scanty evidence presented here, all of which is capable of being explained in a variety of ways. In particular, the suggestion that staccato marks specifically indicate a jumping bowstroke is historically untenable. Fundamentally, in string playing, staccato marks indicate notes that are not slurred, or where they appear under slurs that the notes are not slurred smoothly, nothing more; how long or short they were expected to be, or by what technique they were to be articulated will have varied according to the stylistic characteristics and fashions of different periods, and the musical contexts in which they occur. There is often confusion between a ‘lifted’ bowstroke and a ‘springing’ bowstroke. J. J.Quantz (Versuch (1752), p. 201) explained that for staccato notes the bow should be raised somewhat from the string (etwas von der Seyte abgesetzt), but only if they were long enough, and explained that this should not be the case with eighth notes or faster in an Allegro (which for him equalled quarter-note=120) or they would sound ‘as if they were hacked or whipped’ (als wenn sie gehacket oder gepeitschet würden).
The aural effects envisaged by composers, or understood by performers at any period before the development of recording are speculative, and become increasingly so for earlier periods. The current employment of springing bowstrokes in historical repertoire, in which they were not originally envisaged, goes back to the nineteenth century, but the contexts in which they have been used have changed substantially over time. Until the mid 20th century, for instance, it was conventional to use on-string bowstrokes in Baroque music, where springing strokes are now used, as I (b. 1947) can testify from my own early experience as a violinists.
There have been only two reliably documented fashions for springing bowstrokes. One, in continuous passages of rapid separate notes (especially in concertos), spread during the last 30 years of the 18th century, apparently stemming from an innovative practice of the violinist Wilhelm Cramer, whose bowstroke was, according to his friend C. F. D. Schubart, ‘wholly original’. Cramer’s innovation had a substantial number of adherents until the early years of the 19th century, but it was not generally adopted; there is no evidence that it played any part in the teaching of Giuseppe Tartini, or other leading 18th-century Italian string players, and it became increasingly unfashionable around 1800 with the rise to dominance of the so-called ‘Paris’ School in which springing bowstrokes were not taught. The other, which is the ancestor of modern practice in this respect, began to gain currency in the 1820s, particularly among French string players and admirers of Paganini, but it was not widely adopted by German string players until much later, and has only in the last half century become pervasive for baroque repertoire.
The lute can’t be the “king of the instruments” because it lacks expression: it cannot make a crescendo note.
it *was* considered. maybe people didn't care about single note crescendos back then, as the technique the entire video is trying to show was very common and easy couldn't do it...
The king of instruments doesn't HAVE to make a crescendo to be expressive!