Dotting, the ‘French style’ and Frederick Neumann's Counter-Reformation

I have been asked to respond to Frederick Neumann's article on dotted notes, a translation of which appeared in the last issue of Early Music, to 'put the other point of view'. It is a delicate assignment, to answer in 1977 ideas originally published in 1965. They may have undergone modification or refinement; a large work on baroque ornamentation by the same author is now in the press. Moreover, a direct answer by Michael Collins has already appeared, and Neumann's reaction to it was published two issues later in the same journal.' But because the article is new to English-speaking readers and wields perhaps even more authority now than it did at first by virtue of the volume of Neumann's writings which have accumulated since, and because it raises serious questions not only of substance but even more, concerning the tactics of scholarly dispute, I felt obliged to accept. Readers familiar with the literature on performance practice will be aware that these articles form part of a much broader controversy which reached its climax in the sixties with what might be called the querelle des inigales, a heated exchange of at least a dozen articles and communications in various journals on the subject of inequality.2 The controversy as a whole extended, however, to trills, appoggiaturas, and triplets, as well as to inequality and dotted notes, and its beginnings went back to the early 1950s. On the 'left' were scholars following the paths blazed by Borrel (1912), Dolmetsch (1915), and Arger (1917-21): Donington, Babitz, Geoffroy-Dechaume, Collins, and a few others.3 On the 'right' stood Neumann, almost alone as a spokesman, but backed by a 'silent majority' mistrustful of the new zealots who would challenge the most fundamental values of musical performance and who seemed ready to cast on to the rubbish heap the great musicians of a generation gone by--the Beechams, the Schweitzers, the Casalses, the Dupres. Many other writers as well, right, left, and centre, also discoursed on these subjects, though without becoming directly involved as attackers or targets.4 Let us first try to determine exactly what Neumann's article is about. In his own words: 'Among the questions concerning rhythm in old French music [is] the dotted note and the so-called "French style" of overdotting. [This] is proclaimed as a well-established principle... This theory of performing dotted notes is the subject of the present study ... [It] consists essentially of two elements: one is overdotting, and the other synchronization. Overdotting means that the dot after a note is to be lengthened by a second or even a third dot, or a corresponding silence, and that the short note that follows the dot should be played as late as possible. Synchronization means that if, for example, there are dotted quarters in one voice and dotted eighths in the other, the short notes following the dot must be played simultaneously and as quickly as possible.' Overdotting is thus defined, contrary to what one might expect, not merely as an increase in the ratio of long to short, but as the greatest possible increase. Strictly speaking, the explanation of synchronization is