musica poetica rediviva

Musica Poetica Rediviva ¥ David Kettlewell

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Musica Poetica Rediviva

DIGEST/ABSTRACT

This article puts the spotlight on how musiciansin earlier times saw music in the same way asany other communicative art - through thetradition of rhetorical public speaking whicheach learner had mastered before studying music.

It then proposes simple ways to apply theseinsights to enhance music-making today.

- a new look at the renaissance musician's approachto moving the emotions


CONTENTS

Introduction - first reflections

1. MUSIC IN A COMMUNICATIVE CONTEXT

2. HOW MUSIC IS CONCEIVED AND CREATED

3. WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE PERFORMER

Conclusion - final reflections

Where to go next

Sources

ONTENTSC


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Introduction - first reflectionsIn today's world, many people think of theability to speak in public, and do so in suchas way as to move an audience, as a ratherspecial skill, given only to a few. Thiscontrasts with the situation in earliertimes, when every educated person hadd e v e l o p e d h i s l a n g u a g e - a n dcommunication-skills to a mastery of

composing both verse and prose; and toperforming - both reading poetry aloudand making a speech. Many of the tricksof everyday language were polished asrhetorical techniques - s imiles,m e t a p h o r s , r e p e t i t i o n s , l i v i n gdescriptions - and their use was firmlyestablished as the basis for life at court, inthe church and in academic circles.

Many of the old teachers made clearcomparisons between prosody and music,or between spoken rhetoric and musicalrhetoric. At the general level they pointed


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out that the functions and practice ofmusic corresponded to those of poetry andrhetoric; and at the detailed level, theydescribed the connection in phrasing,emphasis, breathing, length of syllable andnote, ways of teaching and so on.

Some remnants of this tradition can betraced in modern 'art' singing, where it issometimes possible to hear the words; butin ÔartÕ-music generally 'expression' hasbecome a standard clich�, such that acomposer can mark a piece with nothingmore precise than 'con espressioneÕ , and ateacher can say 'I can't tell you what youÕresupposed to express - just play withexpressionÕ.

On the other hand, writers from Ganassiin the 16th century to Mattheson in the18th make it quite clear that the criterionof a good instrumentalist was not onlythat the listeners recognised what specific

emotion was being expressed, but that theyeven understood the individual words.

There are indeed old teachers whomention nothing explicit about conceivingmusic as another language, and somemodern scholars have interpreted this tomean that rhetorical thinking doesn'tapply in their music; but anotherconclusion may be taken as much morelikely, that everyone was so impregnatedby their training in poetic and rhetoricalspeaking that the parallels were simplyobvious, and to express them would havebeen superfluous.

At the same time the languages of bothspeech and music have always been used ata more superficial level, simply to givepleasure to the ear or the mind: consensusand practice have swung like a pendulumbetween the two extremes - clarity versussimple beauty.


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Spoken rhetoric is far from dead, even inthe busy modern world: if you listen to aspiritual leader, a leading actor, apersuasive politician - whatever the valueof the content... : Ghandi, LawrenceOlivier, Margaret Thatcher... Or, mostsurprisingly, country singer Dolly Parton,who revealed the model for her stageshows - which come complete withsurprise fireworks - as "Make 'em laugh,make 'em cry, scare 'em to death, and gohome!".

The fact that it has in later times becomenormal to consider rhetoric as 'empty', is aresult of its misuse and devaluation, ratherthan any reflection on its intrinsic value:

nothing stops us reaping great benefit fromusing it in a sensible way today.

Scientists, musicians and listeners wouldsay that there is much to distinguish speechfrom song, as they are used today. But forthose who lived in ancient times, the onlydifference between speech and song is thatin song you can measure accent andrhythm with greater exactness. To explorewhat difference it makes to adopt again theolder way of thinking, can lead to exciting'new' (i.e., old, but forgotten) possibilitiesfor making music more natural, moreeasily approachable, more satisfying andmore enjoyable.

u v u v u v u v u v u


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As it is the task of an orator,not only to decorate a speech

with beautiful, lovely and lively words and delightful figures,but also to perform well and to move the emotions and in this he sometimes raises his voice, now lowers it, sometimes speaks with a full voice, now softly and gently:

In the same way, it is the task of the musiciannot only to sing, but to sing artistically and beautifully: and so the listenerÕs heart and emotions are moved, and so the song may reach the goal it was made for.

Michael Praetorius (1618, tr. DK)


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We also need to recognise that the meansof expression used in earlier music aremuch more delicate and subtle than thoseof later music: we are looking, not at aWagnerian chorus of blacksmiths bangingtheir anvils on the banks of the Rhine,

but at a gossamer trio of Graces weavingfiligree figures in a sylvan grove..

"To go from Romantic music to earlymusic is to leave aside oil painting for awhile to discover the nuances of drawing"(Morgan Niklasson).


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1. Music in aCommunicative ContextThe first level of medi¾val andrenaissance university studies wasessentially a foundation course inÔCommunication Skills', divided intothree main areas:¨ grammar (putting words together inthe accepted way, including prosody -pronunciation and poetry)

¨ logic (reasoning so that all can agree on the conclusion)

¨ rhetoric (speaking in public so as to move your listeners from one emotion to another)

These three topics were compared to ameeting of three roads, the trivium (from'tres vi¾', hence 'trivial', of lowerimportance), which together led through

the Gateway to Eloquence - the art ofspeaking well.

Thus, when the next stage of studies wastaken - the four branches of mathematics(Gk. mathematik�, knowledge, learning),the quadrivium , the meeting of four ways,leading through the Gateway to Wisdom -what could be more natural, than that thestudy of music should be based on acomparison with the communicative skills


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already acquired.

'The Roman Empire became great because theCaesars were skilled orators': and forrenaissance writers, the model orators wereCicero, the Hitler of the ancient world, activein the power struggle around Julius Caesar,and Quintillianus, a 1st century Martin LutherKing, and tutor to the Roman princes. When

the Romans later adopted Christianity asthe state religion, their language becamethe international language throughout thespiritual empire of the Roman Church,which, of course, reached places where themilitary of the Roman State never did;and the grammatical, poetical andrhetorical doctrine of Latin, for better orworse, became the model for all thewestern languages.

The pronunciation of Latin in each nationwas characterised by its local mothertongue: but the Italian was considered themodel to imitate.

To all skills belong three things: Natura,Ars sive Doctrina, Excercitatio - nature,knowledge and practice. Later authorstaught that art - the application of humanskill - must replace nature: but to therenaissance creator, art comes into thepicture only at the point where nature isno longer adequate.


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The emotions which music was used toarouse were also clearly recognised andeven catalogued: some teachers consideredthe number large, Bo�thius reduced themto four:

♦ two positive: joy and sorrow*♦ two negative: hope* and fear

The emotions show themselves naturallyand one notices their various signs, such asskin color, gestures, the voice's melody oraccent, rhythm, emphasis, etc.

The closer a speaker or musician imitatesnature, the more he moves the emotions -though in varying degrees: a distinction ismade between different styles, which areappropriate in different situations.

2. How Music isConceived and CreatedTo begin with our model, eloquence, oneway to consider speech is to distinguishbetween speech pure and simple, oratiop u r a , and its ornaments, ornamentaorationis. These are partly the figures ofspeech (metaphor, simile, exaggerationetc.), partly such aspects as form,appropriateness (decorum), and elegance:and the performer needs to recognisethem, to be able to bring out their effect inperformance.

Music is taught in three parts, or stages ofcomplexity:

____________________________________________________________________________________

* sorrow is seen as positive, because it leads to catharsis, healing through mourning; hope is seen as negative because it is based on uncertainty - to know is positive...


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vvvvcontrapunctus simplex - note-against-note, as in a hymn or psalm

vvvvcontrapunctus floridus- Ôflowering counterpointÕ, with added ornamental notes

vvvv musica po�tica, musica rhetorica -adapting the notes to suit a text.

And particularly at this third stage, theornamenta orationis have theircounterparts in music: and the musicalperformer needs to recognise them, to beable to bring out their effect in the musicalperformance:

Å


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vvvv form is concerned both with how thedifferent parts fit together, the length ofdifferent sections etc.: but also formality inquestions like key;

vvvv decorum is concerned with choice of anappropriate rhythm, key, instrument,tempo, in relation to the basic mood andpurpose of the piece

vvvv eleganti¾ are the passaggi - elaborateruns - variations, trills etc.

- and the figur¾ are concerned with how acomposer departs from the basic practice,and uses 'licence' - freedoms - to expressthe text:

vvvv basic practice: ♦ consonant harmony, together with a very few dissonances conventionally handled - suspensions and passing notes ♦ stepwise melodic movement ♦ a basic 'white-note' scale

♦ rhythmic unity = notes of the same length ♦ rests & pauses only at the end of a phrase, before starting again

vvvv freedoms, licenti¾: ♦ unexpected dissonance ♦ unexpected leaps in the melody ♦ occasionally altered notes, sharps and flats ♦ rhythmic variation = notes of different lengths

♦ rests within a phrase, e.g. sospirium, a sigh

Ôbinding dissonance or Ôsuspension -


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... as Henry Mancini understood perfectly well when he wrote the theme music to 'The Pink Panther'...

Most remarked on of the figures washypotyposis, the bringing to life of a story,which might use all the unexpectedfeatures at once - a sigh, sudden quicknotes, a chromatic alteration, anuncomfortable leap, a dissonance handledirregularly - the mark of a Monteverde, aSch�tz or a Matthew Locke...

After 1600, four styles were distinguished,

each having its own way of treating a text,but the details are more appropriate for adeeper study than this survey.

So a practice is built up for phrase lengths,melody, harmony, form and so on, alldependent on 'text thinking': and thispractice is used even when you latercompose without a text - a Marini violinsonata is essentially the same thing as aMonteverde solo madrigal, thoughwithout a text and with a larger rangewhich reflects the instrument's physicalcapabilities rather than the voice's.

3. What it Meansfor the PerformerOf course the performance of music ismore than just playing the notes andsinging theÊtext: but here it is specificallypoetical and rhetorical speaking which arethe models for music-making:


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♦ you consider the basic mood♦ you phrase, emphasise, breathe as you do when you speak in public♦ you trace the rhetorical figures in the written music - i.e. everything which is not usual - and exaggerate them as an actor or any other orator does.

When looking at the notes, the performernotices first which are the basic consonantharmonies: where there are suspensions(stile alla Palestrina) he emphasises these alittle, so that the following consonance willbe all the sweeter; where there arepassaggiz - groups of running notes, oftenfour or eight, to link the main harmonynotes - he makes these a little softer and alittle shorter, so that the listener is clearabout which is the main note.Remembering that the basic style of melodyis moving by step, any leaps he sees will beslightly more articulated, in a hierarchy so

that the greater the leap, the more a specialpoint is made of it; similarly with anyoccasionally altered note, flattened orsharpened - in a hierarchy depending howfar from the basic scale they are. And againthe same with any unusual rhythms. Allthese features will have been put there fora special effect by the composer, to reflect afeature of the text - whether it is an actualtext written in near the notes, a textimagined by the composer, or theresonance of all the clich�s floating aroundin the composer's consciousness as hewrote an instrumental piece...

This can mean adopting the maxim thatthings must be ten times as large as life onstage, if they're to appear life-size whenthey reach the listener: or it can meanadopting the keyboard player's technique,of articulating by the use of silence - a notewhich comes after a longer pause hasgreater effect, even if it is no louder: you


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don't need to shout out your greatsurprise, you can just keep silent amoment longer than anyone expects - - -and then whisper it...

Everything is done with d e c o r u m -appropriate to time and place, to companyand situation.

As Vincenzo Galilei (Galileo's father) putit,

go to the theatre... observe, when onequiet gentleman speaks with another, inwhat manner he speaks, how loudly,with what gestures, and how quickly orslowly... notice how the angry or excitedman speaks, the married woman, thegirl, the child, the lover speaking to hismistress ... examine them with care... toselect the form which is fitting for theexpression...'


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The question of 'how far to go' is one ofpersonal judgement, of course: evenamong those who recognise the rhetoricalbasis of early music, there are the twoextremes of 'reservataÕ and 'concitataÕ - the'cool' and the 'excitable', and advocates ofeach find the other's taste questionable.

And this dichotomy is part of the historicaltraditional too. To Monteverde'sgeneration, around 1600, the artist must bepossessed of a genuine passion at themoment of creation, and the performermust recreate it in the moment ofperformance; but 'serious' musicianspoked fun at the comedians who took thedramatic element so far as to pointupwards when they said heaven, and growlin their throats enough to frighten a childwhen they pronounced 'hell'.

To Quanz, in the mid 18th century, thekind of expression aimed at was a politepublic representation of something whichonce had been private and genuine - 'Canyou imagine anything so disgusting as adisplay of real emotion?!': while for hiscolleague at the same court, CPE Bach, itwas still the expression of genuine feelingswhich was the goal.


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One very practical application of all this isin rehearsal strategy: a common scenario isto first spend ages tuning, then get all thenotes right, and finally see if there's anytime left for the words and the expression.Of course we want to get the tuning andnotes right - the question is whatÕs the bestway to do it: an alternative is to get the textright first - even with instrumentalists -because that gives you the mood, tempo,phrasing, and more - perhaps 90% of thetotal message - from the organicmotivation of the text. This in its turnbecomes the motivating context in whichto get the tuning and the notes right,usually with less time and energy thannormal - people describe the feeling ofsimply 'hanging the notes onto the words'.

Singing is in its turn the model for playing:the whole way of singing, including the

pronunciation of vowels and consonants, isapplied when you play a part which has atext - or when you imitate another partwhich has. Remember, the listeners expectto be able to understand the words whichthe player pronounces.


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It's not at all difficult, for example, to playa balletto with an Italian text by Gastoldi,and then one with a German text by HansLeo Hassler, so that the listener hears thedifference between the soft Italian andthe hard German consonants: Ganassigives us specific examples to practice.There is even plenty of challenge and funto be had from playing the same piece indifferent languages, as for example theGastoldi balletti which have severaldifferent contemporary texts ...

Without a text, whether you sing or play,you apply the same habits you have builtwhen using a text - consideration to thebasic mood, the formation of thesyllables, phrasing, pausing, accent,breathing, the performance of rhetoricalfigures. If anything doesn't fitimmediately in ensemble playing, youcan agree on specific words at a few keyplaces...

Conclusion - final reflectionsDifferent ways of being together

We can read in today's music dictionaries thatthe words 'concerto', 'concert' and 'consort'come from the Italian "concertare" meaning'to strive or compete together' when makingmusic - and many modern ensembles seem tohave taken this to heart: but none of theauthors I have read mentions this idea. Theoriginal Latin word was "concantare", 'tosing together', which was softened in Italianto "concentare" : it seems that people simplypreferred to soften the sound yet again to"concertare", without implying its normalmeaning of 'strive'. Some teachers sayexpressly that "concertare" in its truemeaning is exactly what one does not do: onthe contrary, the model of musical behaviouris that those making music together showconsideration, making room for one anotherand taking care not to give offence.


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Different ways of speaking together

It is clear that part of the rhetorical tradition includes the representation of dialogues and echoes;

and by extension from that, it has become common today to talk about the music of several voices as a conversation

- an argument even: but ofthe old authors I have read,only two make thatcomparison. For all theothers, it seems that thedifferent voices create apoetical or rhetorical unity,'forming one body' asCount Bardi put it, like aGreek speaking chorus.


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In improvised playing together the modelis to avoid each playing a leading role at thesame time, like so many sparrows, orfarmyard birds all competing to be cock ofthe roost at once.

Different ways of doing things

As time went on, national characteristicsgrew up, especially in the Baroque era. TheItalians dared to express the sharpestfeelings in music: the French preferredsimply to flatter the ear. The Italians usedelaborate passaggi to join up the mainnotes, while the French preferred to polisha single note. The French developed thesweetness of the flute and oboe: while theItalians concentrated all their genius ondeveloping the art of the violin. TheGermans imitated the French and theItalians by turn, keeping a clear distinctionand even exaggerating the differences:

while the English synthesised the best ofeach, distilling the result into somethingquite their own.

Different ways of seeing things

It's also interesting to note that while theItalians did it, the Germans wrote about it:i.e. the Italians created new freedoms,simply because they felt right, while theGermans tried to systematise the practice ofthe Italians, giving Greek names to thelicences by comparison with the rules ofspeech: but these hardly do more thancatalogue the effects of the differentlicences after the event.

So we have a modern Europe in embryo,where the Italians are busy creating, theFrench are busy polishing, the Germans arebusy systematising what the others do, andthe English are busy making a compromiseof the whole lot.


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This article is simply a first overview to sketch the extent of the field. Each aspect touched on here can be explored in depth in the form of a paper compendium, while those who have access to a computer and the World-Wide Web can continue their studies at the author's 'New Renaissance' web-site, under the theme 'Johan Skytte's Musical World' -

Where to go next

Academia Gustaviana, later Tartu University, was founded on the initiative of Johan Skytte,who was the Swedish Governor General of Estonia, and its first rector .

mailto:[email protected]

http://web.ibs.ee/newren


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Plato

Socrates

Aristoteles

Tullius Cicero

M. Fabius Quintillianus

Bo�thius

Guido d'Arezzo

Johannes Grocheo

Johannes Tinctoris

Franchino Gaffori

Andreas Ornithoparcus

Baldassare Castiglione

Pietro Aron

Silvestro Ganassi

Diego Ortiz

Giovanni Palestrina

Gioseffe Zarlino

Vincenzo Galilei

Thomas Morley

Giovanni de' Bardi

Giulio Caccini

Lodovico Grosso da Viadana

Giovanni Maria Artusi

Claudio Monteverde

Giulio Cesare Monteverde

Joachim Burmeister

Agostino Agazzari

Maternus Beringer

Michael Praetorius

Charles Butler

The Authors referred to in this work include:

Marin Mersenne

Christoph Bernhard

Heinrich Sch�tz

Christopher Simpson

Thomas Mace

Roger North

Friederich Niedt

Jean Philippe Rameau

John Gay

Johan Mattheson

Leopold Mozart

Carl Philip Em. Bach

John Walker

Johan Joachim Quanz

Charles Burney

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