Several performers of medieval music use women's voices where men's voices were certainly or probably intended; others vocalise untexted parts where instruments often seem more appropriate; others use (too) low pitches which results in sombre timbres where medieval sources often rather seem to imply a tendency, a liking for "middle" or high pitches, i. e. rather bright timbres; others sing with a deliberate nasal timbre where medieval sources warn to do just that; other performers use a wide range of different instruments for accompanying (for instance in songs) where medieval sources rather imply a more limited range of instruments (such as harp, vieille); other performers even do not refrain
from mixing their approaches with still living oral traditions (for instance of the orient) which is a hypothetical and in most cases improbable approach and results more in "cross-overs" than in "historically informed" performance practice: These are just some of the most obvious negative or "dubious" points to be observed in the approaches of today's performers. It seems that quite a number of performers are rather searching for "effect" (often resulting in "alienation" effects) than for making early music with the appropriate, the probable performance practice. They probably do this in order to become more "conspicuous" on the "market" of early music. So they often seem more interested in their OWN views than the true or probable meanings of source informations and in "selling" their performances than in a truly serious approach towards performing early music, based on sources. The musicians who make such bad choices in terms of "historically informed" performance practice and style are often good musicians who are able to sing and play well - but their "attitude", their "awareness" does not seem to be that of a musician who wishes to come close to performance practices as implied by historical sources, and their zeal does not go so far as to go for a truly "idiomatic" approach towards style(s).
It is also evident for attentive listeners who compare medieval sources with performances that MANY things which are implied and described in such sources as appropriate performance practice(s) are often NOT being performed. And it is also obvious that we do not have performers who are really specialized on certain repertories (for instance ONLY French Ars nova, or ONLY Ars subtilior etc.) which would be the best prerequisite for developing a truly IDIOMATIC approach towards medieval music.
In my view it would be healthy if some fundamental things in early music, and ESPECIALLY in the revival of medieval music would change: 1.) We NEED a thorough documentation of performance practice informations from all kinds of sources in the form of an online database WITH English translations and notational examples (possibly also audios), so that everyone can inform himself more easily. 2.) Performers need to change their ATTITUDES towards performance practice - historically informed performance practice is NOT something where a performer can "interpret" sources merely
according to one's own "phantasies" and "likings" and the means that an ensemble has (such as the number and types of voices or instruments etc.), it is NOT something where every musician can take as many liberties as he/she wants: GOOD and TRULY informed historical performance practice OBLIGES the performers to take into account as many RELEVANT performance practice source informations as possible for a given repertory and to MAKE MUSICALLY CONVINCING CHOICES in USING them. And that means that a performer cannot simply turn his OWN views into a relevant source information (as really often happens in early music) - it has to be WELL FOUNDED, musically "intelligent" and FITTING - if there is no certainty in applying a certain source information, in finding the true meaning of a source information, then there should at least be PROBABILITY. 3.) We NEED performers who are willing to really specialize on certain repertories in order to attain a higher standard of stylistic refinement: without rehearsing and performing a certain repertory for a long time it seems rather unlikely that musicians can really develop a high degree of "stylistic suppleness" and aptitude, as desired by connaisseurs.
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Please listen also to this danceable version:
Oni Wytars, Ensemble Unicorn:
The reason, why I chose to discuss Troubadours Chansonniers (despite the fact that we already discussed handbooks for liturgical and Old Roman chant elsewhere), is that these sources form alreay a part of the later reception history. We have no manuscript dating back to the period of the Troubadours. Nobody can pretend that our sources were authorised by the poets.
Those who transcribed Occitan language, had not only no standardisation in written orthography, it was like Provençal today not a language which was written at all—a very different situation from canonised scripture, which had been translated into Greek and then into Latin. Since the late 13th century writing down Occitan language was still an early approach to transcribe the language in Latin characters (the Cantigas are even more complex, because they were also written down in Hebrew characters).
As a musician I liked to stick with one manuscript and its orthography (as Luca proposed), and it was Troubadour R. As you would like to consider our time today, the sources also force us to consider that time, when they were written. Please imagine now the temporal distance between the troubadours and the the scribes of R. It was like between us and Beethoven. They might have known some autographs, but scripture had not the same meaning, as it had for Beethoven and his own understanding of his metier as a "composer."
Hence, the transcribed Occitan and its pronounciation was that of the 14th century, not necessarily the one of Bernart de Ventadorn. Since there must have been an oral tradition, we have also the problem that certain words were no longer understood, and therefore interpreted by others (I studied the same phenomenon with living oral traditions today). The music was transcribed into a notation system, wich was unknown to the Troubadours who invented these beautiful and strange melodies. Verses and strophes are arranged differently between the few chansonniers we know today, we do not even know, if all of them are really compositions of one author (though I concentrated on R, I did not follow the scribe's arrangement of the strophes).
We do not also need a lot of phantasy to do our work as musicians (if we like these uncertainties concerning the instrumental arrangements and the rhythm of text declamation, or not), we have also to consider the phantasy of those who used signs of mensural notation in a non-mensural way and who transcribed the text, and probably not the first, but the second or third time. Of course phantasy alone is not enough, we must do some detective work as well, if we would like to understand a little bit better the sources. The effect might be the "specialisation in a certain repertoire," but it is really not something you need to ask for. It is much more important that keep your ears and your brain open for other music tradition, which might offer you sometimes an inspiration to deal with your field of specialisation. Otherwise if you are not ready to live it now in this time, your music will just sound boring, pale and bloodless, or simply incomprehensible, because you were not prepared enough. Concerning "style," I am quite happy that experts of medieval music have not become that boring than some experts specialised in other periods.
Concerning the canso de la lauzeta you might be interested in following versions (the big names are not always the most convincing, and there is even a kind of Mireille Matthieu version). They all have been made out of these difficult conditions.
Thomas Binkley, Studio der frühen Musik:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l-H6eG2SsY
Paul Hillier, Stephen Stubbs, Andrew Lawrence-King, Erin Headley:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frBGQAC2qaY
Clemencic Consort:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3rKCjckp2Q
Ensemble Alla Francesca (Raphaël Boulay, Emmanuel Bernardot):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbj51yQV9Ug
Ensemble Micrologus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y40cH2zJwfU
Maria Dolors Laffitte, Els Trobadors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnPTwGbZqao
Emmanuel Bouquey, Olivier Marcaud, Jean-Paul Rigaud, Evelyne Moser:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9gzaauL67s
Yes, spelling variations (I wouldn't say mistakes, since there was no standardization anyway) are a very valuable source of pronunciation hints, as is the formal structure—metre and rhyme. Amazing how often the latter is overlooked by performers.
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Yes, it seems true, but…there is a but !
We are not medieval musicians, we play medieval music…and medieval music is not the music from the past, it is living music played now…`
In some "traités", the theoricians said that mathematical speculation is the only way for music and even composers are sensual…
In the case of ultra respect, study that music and don't play it…so, it could stay dead material…
I worked once with Rocco Distillo in Calabria about Troubadours songs, and he read for me the texts. I even asked a worker on a wine field of the région du Var who spoke provençal fluently, to read the canzon de la lauzeta of Bernart de Ventadorn.
He read it and said: "Je ne comprenn pas un mot!" Nevertheless, his beautiful pronounciation was very precious for me.
The main problem is that musicians expect too much from linguists. We need to work together, because liquescent forms in notation sometimes offer details about local pronounciation. But these are aesthetic details far from our possibilities. I agree with Andrew, that a clear pronounciation which gives sound to the poetic structure, is already a lot.
Not necessarily; it depends on what evidence is available and there will often be some uncertainties (e.g. affricates and the realization of "v" in the Cantigas de Santa Maria). The point is that, in my experience, most performers never get anywhere near to basing their pronunciation on the best available evidence. The attitude that "experts disagree so I'm going to disagree with what the experts agree on" is just an excuse for laziness.
Terrasa Xavier said:
Of course you're right but... all linguists pronounce in the same way today ?
To all of the above you can add the typical lazy and uninformed attitude to the pronunciation of medieval vernacular languages in the performance of medieval music. It's clear from the great majority of recordings, especially of the Galician-Portuguese cantigas which are particularly abundant, that many performers' delivery of texts is based on little more than half-informed guesswork—sometimes seemingly at the point of delivery. Not only that, but they seem happy to publish recordings in which they have clearly got lost in the text or fluffed simple words, and must be aware of having done so (presumably because they think the audience will never know, so it doesn't matter, does it?) when those same performers wouldn't dream of letting instrumental mistakes see the light of day. More generally, attitudes to conveying the meaning and structural form of medieval vernacular lyrics with the integrity they deserve are typically very poor—it is depressingly common to hear recordings of the Cantigas de Santa Maria where the performers leave out half of the stanzas seemingly at random, with what's left making no sense at all (often not even grammatical sense due to enjambment, but always destroying the story).
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