Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.classica
Titolo: rubato barocco o rubato romantico?

Sull'onda dell'appassionante discussione su Bach al pianoforte vorrei
chiedere la vostra opinione su ciò che differenzia il rubato nella
musica barocca e in quella romantica. (Molto probabilmente è una questione
già posta in passato, e me ne scuso)
Molto rozzamente, mi verrebbe da dire che il rubato romantico investe la
dimensione melodica, come una sorta di aggiunta espressiva, di estrema
libertà nella struttura, mentre quello barocco è legato al percorso armonico
(ovvero, lo fa in primis il basso).
Credo che questa distinzione spesso non venga compresa, per un autentico gap
linguistico. Io stessa da classica pianista classica fino a qualche anno fa
rifuggivo con orrore l'idea di una manipolazione ritmico-agogica in Bach.
Poi, i casi della vita...
E.
PS: I vecchi programmi ministeriali dicevano che per il diploma di
clavicembalo ci vuole quello di pianoforte? Io adesso rovescerei la
prospettiva, e renderei obbligatorio un bell'esame su clavicembalo per gli
aspiranti pianisti... Concordo su quanto detto da altri: il repertorio non
basta, ci vuole lo strumento giusto!

 armonico (ovvero, lo fa in primis il basso).
Cinghialescamente direi che il discorso sia assai più complesso. Tanto 
per cominciare è bene sostituire, per la musica settecentesca, il termine 
"rubato" con "ineguale", "ineguaglianza", e derivati, termini che trovano 
una collocazione specifica nella trattatistica di particolari stili ma 
che, utilizzati con una certa elasticità, rendono meglio il concetto. 
Inoltre l'ineguaglianza è qualcosa che riguarda non solamente l'aspetto 
ritmico ma anche quello agogico e quello relativo all'articolazione, per 
ogni strumento secondo l'idiomatica attinente. Per fare un esempio: ogni 
trattato strumentale dell'epoca riporterà esempi di "passi" 
a) senza alcuna articolazione (per esempio legature o indicazioni di 
staccati, respiri o quant'altro) e "colore", con la dicitura "cattivo" o 
similari
b) con indicazione di articolazioni o colori e dicitura "meglio" (o 
parenti)
c) con svariate ineguaglianze di varia natura e dicitura "buono"
Esagero e generalizzo, ovviamente, ma l'ineguaglianza e qualcosa che 
interviene in maniera idiomaticamente molto più profonda e secondo 
molteplici modalità sul testo rispetto al "rubato" romantico, spesso 
legato all'interpretazione stilistica di specifiche stilistiche affatto 
particolari.
Il resto ai migliori
c
-- 
I cinghiali non li caga mai nessuno, lontani dalla polenta................


Quello che dici è molto interessante e certamente giusto.
La mia esperienza, avendo fare con colleghi pianisti che non guardano al di
là del loro classicissimo naso, è che un Bach fraseggiato con intelligenza e
gusto armonico viene bollato come "romantico" e troppo "rubato" laddove di
rubato inteso come lo intendono loro non c'è traccia. (La verità è che lo
vorrebbero a tempo, ma negano, negano pervicacemente l'evidenza).
Sulle inegalitè (?) confesso la mia ignoranza.
E.

 Poi, i casi della vita...
in soldoni,all'interno di una frase musicale,si ruba suonando alcune note
per una durata inferiore al loro valore scritto e altre al contrario per una
durata maggiore ,in modo che alla fine sostanzialmente,il pezzo risulta
metronomicamente corretto.
tanto e' vero che chopin diceva che la mano sinistra va suonata in tempo,
mentre la destra piu' liberamente; e quindi,se si accorcia da una parte
bisogna allungare dall'altra
prova ad ascoltare arrau o schnabel e noterai che alla fine suonano col
metronomo per quanto arrau rallenti sempre in fine di frase e schnabel al
contrario tenda a stringere
dove si accorcia e dove si rallenta?questo e' il punto e per la verita' non
sarebbero utili le definizioni da dizionario ...comunque come modesto
suggerimento direi di ascoltare cortot e horowitz che in quanto a eleganza
nel porgere e nel cantare secondo lo stile della vecchia scuola ,non hanno
davvero rivali
per il rubato barocco non conosco la definizione esatta anche se piu' o meno
credo di aver capito qualcosa di come si puo' "rubare" in una ouverture sans
mesure di clerambault o di froberger ad esempio;anche se poi c'e' da dire
che il fraseggio barocco si fa usando speciali diteggiature che ti portano
in effetti a seguire l'andamento della frase in un modo,che come hai
osservato,un pianista di solito non riesce nemmeno a concepire...
(il pianista e' fra i solisti piu' importanti(violino,violoncello,organo e
clavicembalo) decisamente il piu' rozzo di tutti...questa e' una mia
personale opinione di pianista dilettante)
cmq vuoi sentire il piu' bel rubato barocco che esista? comprati il disco di
blandine verlet che suona froberger(non quello intitoloato "froberger ou
l'intranquillite'" ma quello in cui c'e' la "lamentazione funebre per
monsieur de blancheroche")
per adesso beccati questo prelude sans mesure di d'anglebert in cui si ruba
alla francese
http://www.fernandodeluca.it/audio/html/d-anglebert-deuxieme-suite01.htm
m
--------------------------------
Inviato via 
http://arianna.libero.it/usenet/

 ha scritto nel messaggio 
news:LBydi.11817$y05....@tornado.fastwebnet.it...

A proposito della semplice inégalité,
diciamo che il discorso si fa un po' complesso
I due stili principali dell'epoca barocca sono quello italiano e quello 
francese. E' noto che lo stile francese usa moltissimo l'inégalité, mentre 
quello italiano molto meno. I due stili d'altronde richiedono diversa prassi 
esecutiva in tutto, anche nell'ornamentazione, ad esempio.
I tedeschi stavano nel mezzo, e dunque....si dicute ancora se convenga più o 
meno usare l'inégalité per i brani bachiani di ispirazione francese, ad 
esempio.
Non tanto paradossalmente, infatti, sono proprio i tedeschi (Quantz, Muffat) 
ad averci lasciato trattati con specifiche indicazioni sull'interpretazione 
dei due diversi stili; questo significa che in Germania non era data per 
scontata una pratica diffusa dell'uno piuttosto che dell'altro stile.
Comunque, copio l'articolo del Grove sulle "notes inégales" che è di certo 
interesse e che ne spiega anche l'uso anche al di fuori della Francia
Purtroppo non posso ricopiare gli esempi musicali...
Notes inégales
1. Definition and early history.
As it existed in France from the mid-16th century to the late 18th the 
convention of notes inégales was first of all a way of gracing or enlivening 
passage-work or diminutions in vocal or instrumental music. As styles 
changed and the figurations born of diminution entered the essential melodic 
vocabulary, inequality permeated the musical language. Its application was 
regulated by metre and note values; it always operated within the beat, 
never distorting the beat itself. (An anomalous instance of alteration of 
the beat appears in Gigault; see §2.) The degree of inequality (i.e. the 
ratio between the lengths of the long and short notes of each pair) could 
vary from the barely perceptible to the equivalent of double dotting, 
according to the character of the piece and the taste of the performer. 
Inequality was considered one of the chief resources of expression, and it 
varied according to expressive needs within the same piece or even within 
the same passage; where it was felt to be inappropriate it could be 
abandoned altogether unless explicitly demanded.
Inequality is usually defined as the uneven performance of evenly written 
values. Although the practical problem is certainly that of deciding when to 
alter what appears on the page, the rhythmic convention itself is 
independent of questions of notation. French composers frequently wrote out 
inequality with dotted figures, sometimes to resolve doubt, sometimes to 
ensure a sharply dotted effect, and sometimes for no apparent reason. 
Outside France, where performers could not be counted on to alter the rhythm 
in given situations, a composer who particularly wanted inequality had to 
indicate it. To insist that notes inégales are, by definition, always 
written equal is to insist that a style of performance has no existence 
apart from notation: that this style is, in fact, a matter of notation. It 
is, furthermore, to hobble and skew research in the subject (Fuller, 1981 
and 1989).
Although the history of notes inégales may stretch back to the modal rhythms 
of the Middle Ages, the first explicit description was by Loys Bourgeois 
(1550), who explained it in its essential features as an embellishment of 
diminutions, linked to metre and conferring upon singing a meilleure grâce. 
Similar accounts are to be found in Spanish treatises by Tomás de Santa 
Maria (1565), who mentioned the short–long alteration of quavers as well as 
the usual long–short kind, and Cerone (1613), and there are examples of 
dotted diminutions in manuals by Ganassi dal Fontego (1535), Ortiz (1553), 
Conforti (?1593) and others. Chailley’s thesis (1960) that inequality arose 
from French declamation cannot be sustained, since it was typically applied 
not to successions of syllables but to decorative prolongations of single 
syllables; moreover the Spaniards, whose language was spoken very 
differently from French, wrote of it in the same terms. Nor is the 
hypothesis that inequality resulted from paired keyboard fingerings (Babitz, 
1969 etc.) a plausible explanation. A closer connection exists between 
inequality and the tonguing of wind instruments (Haynes, 1997), but notes 
inégales did not originate with any instrumental technique. There are 
sporadic references to both long–short and short–long inequality in Italian 
sources of the first half of the 17th century (Caccini, 1601/2; Frescobaldi, 
1615; Puliaschi, 1618) and brief mentions of long–short inequality by 
Bernhard (1657) and Burwell (c1660–72; see Dart, 1958), but if the momentum 
of unequal diminution established in the 16th century continued in the art 
of performers of the first two-thirds of the 17th, it was largely 
undocumented by theorists. Parallel to but separate from the performing 
conventions of inequality, however, there developed a compositional, that 
is, a written ‘dotted manner’, like notes inégales owing its origin to 
Renaissance diminutions, but absorbed and transmitted through the concertato 
style of Monteverdi and his contemporaries and engendering a long line of 
sometimes obsessively dotted pieces as diverse as the second partita from 
Biber's Harmonia artificiosa-ariosa, Contrapunctus II from Bach’s Art of 
Fugue, sonatas by Benedetto Marcello and even the second movement of 
Schumann’s Phantasie op.17. The chief characteristic of this style is a 
relentless nervous energy quite unlike the grace or piquancy which is the 
normal effect of notes inégales; nevertheless there must have been some 
interaction between the two styles in the 17th century and it is not now 
possible to draw a clean line between them (Fuller, 1985).
Notes inégales
2. French practice.
More than a century elapsed between Bourgeois’ description and the next 
mention of inequality in French writings. In the preface to his first Livre 
d’orgue (1665) G.G. Nivers recommended that the quavers in a short fugue in 
the time signature  ‘and other similar pieces’ should be played as if 
‘half-dotted’. Bacilly (1668) recommended a similarly gentle inequality in 
divisions; and in explaining that the dotting was left unwritten for fear of 
tempting the singer to an excessively jerky delivery in the manner of ‘the 
old method of singing that would be very disagreeable today’, he provided us 
with a rare clue to what seems to have been an early or mid-17th-century 
style of violent inequality, at least in vocal music. Burwell around 1670 
(Dart, 1958) and Perrine in 1680 provided evidence of inequality in lute 
music and Rousseau (1687) in viol music. Although a gradual systematization 
of the relationship between inequality and metre is discernible in treatises 
and prefaces from the last two decades of the 17th century, rules were slow 
to evolve, partly as a result of uncertainties concerning metre and 
measure – reflected in a chaotic treatment of barring and signatures – at a 
time when the transition from Renaissance mensuration to modern metre was 
not quite complete. The modern performer cannot depend on a code that was 
not yet fully formulated for decisions about inequality in the music of 
Lully, Charpentier, Louis and the young François Couperin, the young Marais, 
Mouton, Grigny and others at the pinnacle of French classicism. It is 
particularly the ‘quarter-beat rule’ in  (see below) whose application is 
uncertain. Nivers was not the only one to suggest unequal quavers (i.e. 
half-beats) in that metre; Jullien (1690) did the same. Loulié admitted them 
(‘sometimes’ in ‘any’ metre) and some scores seem to demand them – notably 
the offertory from François Couperin’s Messe des paroisses for organ (1690). 
Rousseau (1687) was the first to say that quavers were equal in ; he also 
said that one should ‘mark’ the odd-numbered semiquavers. It is not clear, 
however, that ‘mark’ meant ‘lengthen’ here; it may simply have meant 
‘emphasize’. Saint Lambert (1702) wrote explicitly of making quavers 
alternately long and short except in , where it was the semiquavers that 
were unequal.
A collection of 180 organ pieces from 1685 by Nicolas Gigault (c1627–1707; 
said to have been one of Lully’s teachers) amounts to an encyclopedia of 
applied inequality for this period. The inequality is completely written out 
with dots but is presumably meant to be treated flexibly according to the 
expression of the music. The rhythms have been discussed in detail and the 
arguments presented for accepting this dotting as notated inequality by Pyle 
(1991) and Fuller (‘Notes and inégales’, 1989 and ‘Gigault’s Dots’, 1994). 
The most important general observations are: (1) Inequality is the norm for 
the principal moving values of a piece or passage and even motion the 
exception. (2) Dotting is applied to the half-beat (quaver) in two-thirds of 
the pieces in  (providing further evidence that the ‘quarter-beat rule’ was 
not yet solidified). In two pieces in  it is applied, exceptionally, to the 
beat itself (crotchet) – this in addition to the usual application to 
semiquaver motion (quarter-beats) under this signature. (3) Dotted and even 
notes of different values and in different parts are freely mixed. As 
melodic motion shifts from one value to another (e.g. to a passage in 
semiquavers in a predominantly quaver motion) or from one part to another, 
the dotting may shift with it. (4) Even notes may be introduced for short 
passages or a whole section, apparently for the sake of variety and 
contrast. (5) Dotting is not affected by the intervallic character of the 
melodic movement: wide leaps are dotted as well as stepwise movement. (6) 
Except in crotchet motion in 6/4, the first note of a ternary group is 
normally dotted. (7) Syncopated notes are not normally dotted, though there 
are exceptions. (8) Slow accompaniments to expressive récits are usually 
undotted, though imitations of the solo will preserve the solo dotting. (9) 
Contrepoint simple (chordal texture) is not dotted. (10) A four-part Fugue 
poursuivie à la manière italienne (68 bars of densely imitative, more or 
less stile antico counterpoint) is not dotted. There appears to be some 
connection between learned counterpoint and even rhythm in this collection, 
though it is not consistent. (Gigault’s music shows no trace of the 
Corellian style that was felt later by most to be incompatible with notes 
inégales; Corelli was only just becoming known in France in the 1680s.) The 
most illuminating and useful observations concern reversed, or short–long 
inequality, a subject touched only glancingly by writers. It is found in a 
little over a third of the pieces, under any signature, in any part and in 
any style, as occasional and unpredictable rhythmic ‘seasoning’, most often 
as a single instance of semiquaver–dotted quaver, rarely 
demisemiquaver–dotted semiquaver. Two short–long figures in a row always 
descend scalewise and are most characteristically found in ‘3’ (3/4 time). 
If there are three, the last two descend scalewise. Only when short–long 
figures are part of a fugue subject do they dominate the movement of a 
piece.
Towards 1700, this fluid approach to inequality began to crystallize into a 
set of rules. These are found first of all in performance manuals in 
connection with mesure, i.e. time beating and metre. The manuals describe in 
varying detail what note values were normally unequal and occasionally under 
what conditions. The number, distribution and consistency of these accounts 
show beyond any possible doubt that inequality was a normal component of 
musical instruction in France in the 18th century. Further explanations and 
examples exist in dictionaries, treatises and avertissements to editions. 
The note-by-note treatment of whole pieces can be studied on barrel organs 
and in instructions for making them. The scores themselves supply examples 
of notated inequality and written directions for the treatment of particular 
pieces. Finally, dotted and undotted versions of the same passages may be 
taken as evidence that the undotted versions were dotted in performance, 
even though other explanations (such as a change of mind) cannot be ruled 
out.
The code that emerges from the many dozens of French manuals and treatises 
that appeared between about 1700 and the Revolution seems at first 
acquaintance to be remarkably uniform, rational and even ‘scientific’. The 
uniformity extends over all media; there was, astonishingly, almost no 
evolutionary change from the 1720s to the 1770s to match the innovations in 
compositional styles and the changing play of foreign influences. These 
books, however, were addressed to children, amateurs and their teachers: 
they vary enormously in completeness and competence; they are rarely 
concerned with the analysis and description of professional performance; and 
they rarely answer any but the easy questions, leaving to the instructor or 
to that imaginary oracle, le bon goût, the hard ones, such as how unequal 
the inequality should be, whether it should be consistent and above all, 
what to do when passages of apparently redundant dotting are mixed with 
plain notes that the rules say should be played unequally. (See below for 
further discussion.) Not all performing treatises of the period dealt with 
the question of inequality, but the ones that did (the majority of those for 
voice and strings, especially during the middle 50 years of the 18th 
century) concerned themselves chiefly with listing the note values that were 
equal and unequal in the different metres; it is this aspect, in which there 
is (with certain exceptions) general agreement, that lends them an air of 
authority and system. These lists run to as many as six values and 20 
signatures, many of them purely hypothetical (Borin, 1722), seemingly 
designed as much to impress as to instruct; Dard (1769) specified unequal 
hemidemisemiquavers in 2/16. In many cases this is all we learn, as if the 
listed values were unequal in all circumstances without regard to style or 
expression. In others, inequality is associated with certain genres, ways of 
cancelling it are described, triplets are mentioned and other problems are 
discussed, but sporadically and with much disagreement among sources. Many 
of the treatises rely on great numbers of exercises (leçons) with little or 
no explanation, on the probable assumption that they were to be mastered 
with the help of a teacher. A few writers discussed one or two aspects – 
never all – in depth and with intelligence: these included Démoz de La Salle 
(1728), La Chapelle (1736–52), David (1737); Vyon (1742 and 1744, with an 
unusual wealth of examples from major composers), Denis (1747, 1757), 
Labadens (c1772), Azaïs (1776) and Mercadier de Belesta (1776). Some, such 
as J.-J. Rousseau (1768), went no further than to say that in French music 
one always dotted quavers a little except in .
The core of the doctrine was what one might call the ‘quarter-beat rule’ for 
duple metres; for triple or compound metres, the rule (never summarized in 
these terms) was that notes whose value was half the smallest value grouped 
in three were unequal. Occasional disagreements arose from continued 
differences about how time was beaten. In simple metres with two or four 
beats to the bar, notes of the value of a quarter of a beat or less were 
unequal. Thus quavers were unequal in 2 (2/2) and in  when taken in two 
beats, and semiquavers were unequal in  (4/4),  when taken in four beats, 
also in 4/8, which was taken in two beats. Semiquavers were unequal in 2/4 
according to most writers, though Loulié (1696) specified unequal quavers.
In the 17th century the time signature ‘3’ could mean any simple triple 
metre. In the 18th it usually meant only 3/4 and implied the French style; 
the signature ‘3/4’ was associated at first with Italian style and therefore 
could be taken to exclude inequality, but as ‘3’ dropped out of use ‘3/4’ 
gradually lost this connotation. Triple metre could be taken (as today) in 
one or three beats, depending on the tempo, or in two unequal beats. 6/8, 
9/8 and 12/8 were beaten in two, three and four respectively. No matter how 
beaten, however, in triple metres values of half the denominator were 
normally unequal. The principal exceptions were courantes in 3/2, in which 
quavers, not crotchets, were unequal, and sometimes 3/4, which a few writers 
of the mid-18th century distinguished from 3 in specifying equal quavers and 
sometimes unequal semiquavers. ‘Croches blanches’ (whitened quavers and 
semiquavers with the value of crotchets and quavers) had no special rhythmic 
significance, as far as can be determined (for three pieces in this notation 
see Les folies françoises in François Couperin’s Troisième livre, 1722). 
Underlying all these rules was probably the assumption that the principal 
unit of melodic movement in a piece corresponded to the theoretically 
unequal one for that metre. If there were smaller values, they became 
unequal; this might be called the ‘rule of descending inequality’. There was 
disagreement, however, about what happened to the original values. Some said 
they became equal, as would appear logical if they occurred simultaneously 
with the smaller ones in another part. But Morel de Lescer (c1760) gave 
examples of melodies with mixed unequal values: in a very slow 3/2, 
‘crotchets and quavers are unequal’; in 6/4 with mouvement marqué, ‘quavers 
and semiquavers are unequal’. Inequality did not (at least in the 18th 
century) move up to values larger than the theoretically unequal ones. A 
useful table summarizing the unequal values for each metre in a selection of 
sources throughout the period of these manuals is given by Neumann (1965, 
p.322; reproduced in Hefling, 1993).
It is extremely difficult to evaluate the roles of theory and practice in 
all of this. To some extent writers were trying to describe usage in a 
number of well-defined rhythmic styles, each associated with a certain metre 
and genre. The rules themselves must have influenced practice to some extent 
among the musicians who grew up with them. But there are many references to 
how hard it was to give general principles (e.g. Bailleux, 1770) and to the 
fact that style and taste were the final arbiters. Occasionally an author 
spelt out exceptions, as did Démoz de La Salle (1728, p.166):
  In the expression of declamatory airs, in recitatives, or in solos 
[récits] measured in two or three simple beats, theoretically unequal 
quavers are very often performed equal according to the expression of the 
words and the style of the melody. And in recitatives, bass solos, or other 
[pieces] measured in four simple beats, quavers which are naturally equal in 
their motion are, on the contrary, often sung unequal, also according to the 
style of the melody, and according to how regularly these kinds of airs are 
written and how well they express the text.
What is certain is that inequality suffused French thinking about 
performance, in which it constituted one of the most important and difficult 
questions. Borin (1722, p.26) summed it up: ‘Expression … consists 
principally in knowing what notes are equal or unequal’.
The careful composer who wished to ensure inequality or equality in doubtful 
situations used symbols or written directions. The dot of addition was the 
usual sign for inequality; very occasionally, in order to suggest gentle 
inequality, there was no compensatory shortening of the second note of the 
pair (Nivers, 1667; Perrine, 1680). The reasoning of Bacilly (1668) with 
regard to dots has been noted above: they were normally left unwritten in 
order to avoid tempting the player to jerkiness. He explained written dots 
in a particular example, however, as a warning ‘not to omit them in singing, 
which would [otherwise] lack all grace’ (p.233). La Chapelle (i, 1736), on 
the other hand, said that dots indicated a greater inequality than usual: to 
perform plain semiquavers and demisemiquavers in  ‘one dwells on the first 
and takes the second quickly, but when they are dotted one dwells a little 
longer’; the reason for dotting is ‘to indicate those on which one should 
dwell the most’. The symbol for equality was dots over the notes (hereafter 
‘equality dots’); strokes meant equal and staccato. The simplest written 
directions were ‘notes égales’ or ‘croches égales’ to cancel inequality, and 
‘pointé’ (sometimes qualified) to ensure it. Most other terms are ambiguous. 
‘Piqué’ as an adverb heading a piece meant sharply (over-)dotted; as an 
adjective, ‘notes piquées’, it meant staccato (Rousseau, 1768, ‘Piqué’). The 
expression ‘passer les croches’, whose strict meaning in this context is 
simply ‘execute the quavers’, was used on rare occasions to mean ‘execute 
the quavers unequally’. ‘Louré’ meant slightly unequal to Loulié but legato 
and in the style of a loure (the dance or bagpipes) to others. ‘Mesuré’, 
‘marqué’ and ‘martelé’ had meanings of their own which might or might not 
imply equality in a given situation. ‘Gracieusement’ probably implied 
inequality where metre and note values permitted.
There was a broad but variable and inconsistent association between 
articulation and equality or inequality. Detached delivery was associated 
with equality, as reflected in one or two cases by the use of the term notes 
détachées as a virtual equivalent for notes égales (e.g., Labadens, c1772), 
more often in scattered remarks and music examples in treatises. (Détaché 
meant detached by silences, not the modern string détaché, for which 
Labadens’s idiosyncratic term was notes articulées or notes assemblées, and 
which demanded inequality.) The association of connected delivery with 
inequality was mostly implicit in the treatment of equality as an exception 
imposed by detached or marcato articulation. The relationship between 
intervals and inequality was more complicated. In the 18th century 
inequality was associated with conjunct motion. A few writers (e.g. 
Couperin, 1717) said so explicitly, and examples of inequality given in the 
treatises are usually conjunct. It followed that disjunct motion was equal, 
but statements to that effect are rare. Montéclair gave a rule of restricted 
application: ‘When the melody proceeds by disjunct intervals, the quavers 
are ordinarily equal in 3/4’ (ex.1).
This was partly a matter of style: the lines in the new Italianate string 
music were typically far more disjunct than traditional French melody –much 
more likely to outline chords or imply two parts by leaping between them – 
and Italian music was (according to most but not quite all) played as it was 
written. Even when the motion in a recognizably Italian style was conjunct, 
it was still equal, especially the walking basses imitating those of Corelli’s 
grave movements and much cultivated by Couperin and others. Batteries 
(arpeggios, broken-chord figures, rapid repeated notes, bariolage and 
similar string effects), Alberti basses and similar keyboard accompaniments, 
all were played evenly. A whole vocabulary of analogous keyboard figuration 
invented (according to his own claim) by Rameau and imitated to excess by 
his followers, involving throwing the left hand back and forth over the 
thumb as well as rapid alternation of the hands, also demanded equality, if 
only because of its speed (e.g. Les niais de Sologne and Les cyclopes, 1724, 
and the Gavotte avec 6 doubles, c1729–30). The difficulty comes when leaps 
or arpeggios occur in music that is not obviously Italian. The 17th and 
early 18th-century repertory for bass viol includes much highly disjunct 
melodic writing. This was imitated in organ music in the 1650s by Louis 
Couperin (also a viol player) and cultivated by French organists for 100 
years. As has been noted above, Couperin’s contemporary Gigault, who did 
not, to be sure, compose division basses, dotted the most extravagant and 
rapid leaps without hesitation. Yet it is by no means clear whether this 
sort of inequality extended to other and later genres.
Only the most careful composers made their intentions clear regarding 
exceptions to the metrical rules. Cappus (1730) observed after explaining 
‘equality dots’ that ‘it would be desirable if all composers took this 
trouble’ (pp.16–17). François Couperin, who considered the French habit of 
writing one rhythm and expecting another a ‘defect’, indicated exceptions 
only sporadically and inconsistently. In ex.2, from a piece (one of Les 
folies françoises) whose main idea is the contrast between equal and unequal 
motion, redundant dots of addition are used for passages that would normally 
be unequal anyway and ‘equality dots’ are placed over the plain notes, even 
though their equality could have been inferred from the surrounding dotting 
or the disjunct intervals. His Les guirlandes (Quatrième livre, 1730), a 
long piece in 2/4 time moving throughout in semiquavers, is dotted in the 
predominantly disjunct première partie (in which there is much leaping 
between the parts) while the conjunct deuxième partie is undotted (the 
equality is emphasized by the heading coulament: ‘flowing’), thus reversing 
the usual relationship between intervals and inequality. In Rameau’s 
magnificent A minor Courante (ex.3), where metre (effectively 6/4) and the 
predominantly conjunct motion decree notes inégales, 15 or so arpeggios 
suggest croches égales. Does one change back and forth according to the 
intervals? Or is the whole piece either equal or unequal? Rameau’s own 
arrangement of La Livri from his Pièces de clavecin en concerts (1741) in 
Zoroastre (1749) shows that unequal performance of such arpeggios was not 
unacceptable to him; it may suggest but does not prove that he expected them 
to be played unequally in La Livri or the Courante (figs.1a–b). Ex.4 shows a 
type of figuration often introduced during the course of chaconnes and 
passacailles. Corrette (1741) and others cited it as cancelling inequality 
of the quavers (which would in any case be impossible on account of the bass 
line) but they did not say whether in this case the semiquavers would become 
unequal in accordance with the ‘rule of descending inequality’.
Modern discussions of inequality often list additional contra-indications 
which are either based on a single, sometimes dubious source or are outright 
fabrications: the presence of syncopated notes (Lacassagne, 1766, as 
reported in Borrel, 1934); the presence of rests of the same value as the 
notes in question (Borrel); the fact that the notes are in an accompanying 
part (Emy de l’Ilette, c1810, as reported in Borrel); allemandes (Dolmetsch’s 
misreading of the sources, 1915); repeated notes, slurs over more than two 
notes, and motion that is too fast (Quantz, 1752, as reported by Borrel and 
others); motion that is too slow (Saint Lambert, 1702, as reported by 
Donington, 3/1974). None of these has the force of a rule and most are 
refuted by sources. Only the long slur seems at times to be intended to 
cancel pairing and to suggest to the player that only the first note should 
be emphasized.
The theory has been advanced that dotting the approach to a cadence 
compensates for an otherwise unrecorded convention of easing up on 
inequality at the ends of sections (Newman, 1992). Occasionally in French 
music (and elsewhere, notably in music by Handel) there are dots in the 
first bar or two of a piece which disappear thereafter, even though the same 
theme or figures continue; in such cases the dotting is meant to continue as 
well, according to one or two theorists. That notes inégales entailed 
overdotting is confirmed by at least four French theorists (see Hefling 
1993, p.68) and implied by many more. In ex.3, if the running quavers are 
unequal, then the quaver–dotted crotchet figures would be overdotted. Such 
overdotting is not dependent on inequality in an accompanying part to 
‘legitimize’ or measure it, however, since the dot itself (or a rest of the 
same value) is counted as the first of an unequal pair. It is governed by 
all the considerations that affect inequality in general.
Reverse inequality or ‘Lombardic rhythm’ (i.e. short–long alteration) had a 
shadowy existence in French theory. Its use by Gigault has been described. 
It was mentioned as an afterthought by Loulié (1696, p.71) that in 3 (3/4) 
the first halves of beats may be made shorter than the second halves. 
François Couperin’s sign for it was a dot over the second of two slurred 
notes. His heading ‘pointé-coulé’ for a courante à l’italienne (Concerts 
royaux, no.4, 1722) has been cited as a direction for reversed inequality. 
It is possible that plain slurs over pairs of notes, particularly if they 
descend stepwise, were sometimes meant to be read as reversed inequality. 
Couperin’s example and explanation were copied by Pierre-Claude Foucquet 
(Les caractères de la Paix, 1749), while Dupuits (1741) used a slur with the 
dot over the first note. Both signs are extremely rare.
According to most descriptions, the degree of inequality ranged from that of 
a pair of notes of which the first was ‘a little longer’ than the second 
through ‘almost as if it were dotted’ to the 3:1 ratio of normal dotting. 
Couperin asked for semiquavers in a harpsichord Allemande to be ‘un 
tant-soit-peu pointées’ (‘very slightly dotted’; Premier livre, 1713). But 
an anonymous, late 17th-century manuscript treatise seems to go well beyond 
3:1 ratio: in a very slow-moving organ trio, ‘dotting must be executed with 
great fire and boldness, because it is the piece that most needs to move, 
and only dotting will do it … thus one cannot dot it too much’ (see Pruitt, 
1986, p.247). Although sharp overdotting was certainly not what was 
ordinarily meant in the descriptions of notes inégales, its occasional use 
is implied for the earlier 17th century by Bacilly (cited at the beginning 
of this section) and later by use of the direction ‘piqué’. It may also be 
what was intended for certain pieces (such as ex.2 and Les guirlandes) with 
written dotting of values that would be played unequally even if undotted. 
For the only French attempt at the analysis of actual performances, 
including the variable ratios of long to short, one must turn to Engramelle 
(1775) and his chapter in Bédos de Celles (1778) on the pinning of barrel 
organs, where he described a method of obtaining ratios of inequality as 
subtle as 9:7. Such ratios – sometimes varying in the same piece – can be 
heard on surviving instruments, mostly in clocks (Fuller, 1979 and 1980; 
Houle, 1987, p.120). Cossart-Cotte (1969) found only one example of 
unvarying inequality in 500 samples taken from late 18th-century barrel 
organs. Although some of this irregularity was doubtless caused by faults in 
the mechanism or carelessness in pinning the cylinders, it is likely that 
much of it was intentional. Inequality not only varied in sharpness, it came 
and went altogether, as in ex.2.
The alteration of ternary groups was generally discouraged, most writers who 
discussed them at all expressly excluding it from triplets or the quavers in 
6/8 etc. But Mercadier de Belesta (1776) and a few others allowed the first 
note to be lengthened at the expense of the second, producing the rhythm of 
a French gigue. According to Cappus (1730), quaver triplets were ‘most often’ 
even, but ‘it sometimes happened’ that they were played ‘as if the last two 
quavers were semiquavers, or finally, as if the first had a dot and the 
second were a semiquaver’. A topic which is often improperly included in 
discussions of notes inégales is the assimilation of duple to triple rhythm 
(see Dotted rhythms). That this was a widespread habit in all countries in 
the Baroque period cannot be disputed. But there is a fundamental difference 
between this kind of alteration and notes inégales as defined in this 
article. The long–short pairing that results cannot vary with the 
requirements of embellishment or expression, since it must be synchronized 
with a rhythm that already exists elsewhere in the texture; it does not add 
a fresh nuance; and its origin and purpose are different (see Collins, 
1966). The performance of gigues in 4/4 time or other duple metres raises 
problems of rhythmic alteration which are again not those of notes inégales. 
Such gigues are common in mid-17th-century French lute music where they are 
closely related and sometimes identical to the allemande; they are also 
found in English, French and German sources later in the century and beyond, 
the best known being those in Bach’s First French Suite and Sixth Partita 
for harpsichord. The only French theoretical source to discuss them says 
that they can be ‘very easily reduced to 3/4 or 3/8, which may suit them 
better’ [than duple execution]. It adds a caution that could be applied to 
the whole subject of rhythmic alteration: ‘to understand this kind of gigue 
properly you must have played or heard one’ (Cleret fils, 1786, p.407; see 
also McIntyre 1965).
The classification of notes into metrically strong and weak ones was a 
feature of music theory in all countries throughout the 17th and 18th 
centuries and has occasioned enormous difficulties for those who argue about 
notes inégales. Notes on first beats, first parts of any beat, or first 
parts of parts were strong in relation to a succeeding note of similar 
value. Thus notes whose value was half that of the next larger metrical unit 
(this would exclude, for example, quavers in 6/8) proceeded in strong–weak 
pairs beginning at the bar-line. At first glance the system appears to have 
much in common with the convention of inequality, but the differences are 
fundamental. The strong–weak classification applied to notes of almost any 
value in any style, and it was an analytical distinction independent of 
performance. The terminology varied: the French said ‘first’ and ‘second’ or 
‘strong’ and ‘weak’; the Italians ‘good’ and ‘bad’; the Germans any of these 
and also, after Printz (1668), ‘intrinsically long’ and ‘intrinsically short’. 
Walther’s explanation (‘Quantitas notarum’, Musicalisches Lexicon, 1732) of 
these last invites misunderstanding: ‘according to [its extrinsic quantity], 
each note is equal in length to similar ones in performance; according to 
[their intrinsic quantity], however, [the notes are] of unequal length’ – 
i.e. they are defined metrically as long and short even though they are 
played equal (for the opposite interpretation see Collins, 1967, p.483). 
French writings on inequality did not normally appeal to the strong–weak 
distinction to explain the phenomenon, but Mercadier de Belesta (1776), 
after a very lucid presentation of strong–weak, continued with a kind of 
transition to the usual rules for notes inégales (p.67, ¶151) that suggests 
a connection. Nevertheless, inequality was restricted in its application, 
decorative or expressive, and easily heard, while the strong–weak 
distinction was universal, structural, and did not need to be heard at all, 
though attention to it enhanced performance.
Except for scattered echoes, notes inégales disappeared from French theory 
and pedagogy towards the end of the 18th century; the rhythms persisted, 
however, in performance and composition, particularly in opera and military 
music, and not only in France. What changed were musical styles and 
attitudes to notational exactitude. But even while the practice of 
inequality was still alive, an ambivalence about unnotated dotting cropped 
up occasionally, and nowhere more strikingly than in the anonymous treatise 
here tentatively ascribed and dated as ?Labadens (MS, c1772, F-Pn). After 
stating that ‘articulated [here meaning ‘connected’] notes are always 
alternately … long and short’, the author continued in the following 
paragraph: ‘The principle of making audible … the longs and shorts, being 
contrary to the rules of good taste, should only be used in learning the 
music, to distinguish essential from passing notes …. No more should one 
make the notes unequal unless their values are different [the redundancy 
results from the careless handling of the distinction between ‘intrinsic’ 
and ‘extrinsic’ quantity]; there are, however, many passages in a given 
piece of music where one should make articulated notes unequal without it 
being indicated, but this knowledge is only acquired by experience’.
Notes inégales
3. Application outside France.
Whether the conventions of notes inégales should be applied to the music of 
non-French composers, particularly J.S. Bach, is a question which has 
engaged the attention of scholars and performers ever since Dolmetsch (1915) 
recommended it for parts of Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s St Matthew Passion. 
After World War II a number of writers (Babitz, Donington, Dürr, 
Geoffroy-Dechaume, Sachs and others) took up and enlarged on Dolmetsch’s 
views, analysing early fingering, bowing and tonguing, amassing instances of 
passages in both dotted and undotted versions, and combing the theorists in 
order to show that inequality was a normal resource of Baroque music in all 
countries (though not in all styles), and therefore that one might, should 
or must – depending on the recklessness of the argument – sometimes alter 
evenly written notes in non-French music. Then Frederick Neumann (1965) 
dismantled the entire structure of post-Dolmetsch research on inequality, 
piece by piece. This unleashed a controversy lasting several years during 
which the ‘left’, represented chiefly by Donington, Collins and Babitz (in 
order of increasingly vehement advocacy of a broad application of notes 
inégales), were stimulated to uncover a great deal of new evidence in their 
favour, while Neumann on the ‘right’ resolutely defended Germany and Bach 
against the alien taint by discrediting their authorities and refuting their 
evidence. The battle – which seems to have engaged the passions of few 
outside the English-speaking world – never entirely died down, and it flared 
up again in 1988, reaching a climax with the publication of Hefling (1993), 
which occasioned an acrimonious exchange whose resonance continued beyond 
Neumann’s death and had not ended at present writing (1999). The entire 
controversy, though distorted by arbitrary assumptions on both sides 
(especially the assumption that notes inégales are by definition written 
equal) and weighted down by futile struggles over isolated authorities such 
as Quantz, is indispensable reading for anyone wishing to pursue the 
subject.
The real issue was not whether Bach and other non-French composers used 
notes inégales – countless scores show that they did. Although never clearly 
stated, the issue was rather whether they ever failed to write them out when 
they wanted them. The evidence is different for different countries. Purcell’s 
normal treatment of running quavers in 3/4 time was to dot them (examples 
include ‘Thou tun’st this world’ and ‘The Airy Violin’ from the Saint 
Cecilia Ode, 1692). English harpsichord music from Locke onwards is full of 
written inequality, most commonly in preludes and allemandes (Alcock, 
Clarke, Croft, Felton, Gunn, Richard Jones, Moss, Nares, Roseingrave 
[Introduction to Scarlatti’s sonatas], J.C. Smith, Symonds); pieces by G.B. 
Draghi and Handel (e.g. the opening movements of the sixth, seventh and 
eighth suites of the Suites de pieces pour le clavecin, i, 1720) are in this 
tradition. But unwritten inequality too is suggested by multiple versions of 
pieces from Jenkins to Handel (Johnson, 1967, found that the most frequent 
discrepancy in mid-17th-century English ensemble manuscripts involved even 
quaver figures in one source appearing as dotted figures in another), and 
dotting was explicitly recommended by Burwell and North – ‘tho’ not express’d’, 
to give ‘a life and spirit to the stroke’ (see Wilson, 1959). Whether these 
references are to isolated pairs or continuous inequality is not certain; 
but Corrette (1740), who had been to England, clearly meant the latter when 
he stipulated that quavers were to be dotted in English ‘vaudevilles and 
contredances’ in 6/4, such as Bartholomew Fair, Hunt the Squirrel, 
Lilliburlero and Hoopt Pettycoat. Versions of pieces by Handel for automatic 
instruments also show some added inequality, both in the scores (Squire, 
1919) and on the instruments themselves, for instance the last movement of 
op.4 no.2 on a late 18th-century barrel organ (Fuller, 1974 and 1980). In 
1771 Anselm Bayly advised unequal quavers as possible in an anthem by Greene 
(see Pont, JAMS, xix, 1966).
The French influence was strong in the low countries, not only in 
French-speaking regions but among the Dutch as well, as can be seen from the 
correspondence of Constantijn Huygens from the mid-17th century and the 
activity of the Amsterdam presses later on. A treatise in Dutch by 
Frischmuth (1758) specified unequal semiquavers for allemandes and unequal 
quavers for courantes.
French dance music had become thoroughly naturalized in Italy by the 1660s, 
as specific labels and styles of pieces by Uccellini, Giuseppe Columbi, G.M. 
Bononcini (i) and G.B. Vitali show – the aria and allemande especially being 
frequently dotted (Klenz, 1962). The recommendations of Frescobaldi and 
others have been noted. Lorenzoni (1779), who cited Loulié, Rousseau and 
Quantz, recommended normal inequality to enhance the distinction between 
‘good’ and ‘bad’ notes, and many more clues to rhythmic alteration have been 
collected by Collins, Pont, Donington and others. But none of this adds up 
to an expected norm of inequality, and certain typical italianisms expressly 
demanded that at least the quavers should be even, as in ‘walking’ basses 
and vigorous allegros. French authors disagreed with each other and 
sometimes with themselves about Italian music. In L’école d’Orphée (1738) 
Corrette said of the metre  that it was ‘much in use in Italian music …. 
The quavers are played equal and second semiquavers are hurried’. A similar 
rule (i.e. specifying unequal semiquavers) was given for 3/8 time, and 
Handel, Giovanni Bononcini, Pepusch, Alessandro Scarlatti and Porpora were 
cited for examples. At the same time the French 3 with unequal quavers was 
distinguished from the Italian 3/4 with unequal semiquavers. In Corrette’s 
flute tutor (1740) the wording was much the same, except that ‘semiquavers 
are also sometimes played equally in the allegros and prestos of sonatas and 
concertos’. In his cello method (1741) the reference to unequal semiquavers 
in 3/4 was dropped, and the courante from Corelli’s op.5 no.7 was cited as a 
piece in 3/4 where the quavers must be equal – not a contradiction but a 
shift of emphasis.
Loulié (1696), Brossard (1703) and Rousseau (1768) excluded inequality from 
Italian music; others besides Corrette seem to admit it (Mussard, 1779; 
Rollet, 1760). Azaïs (1776) wrote that foreigners in France played unequal 
quavers in 3/4. The uncertainty about foreign music must have reflected a 
diversity of practice among musicians in Paris. There are so many 
imponderables – not least the possibility that some visiting Italians may 
have tried to please French audiences by adopting their style of playing – 
that it is advisable to keep an open mind on the subject. In French music 
composed under Italian influence the situation was still more complicated, 
as there were real efforts at stylistic synthesis from Lully onwards. What 
Couperin expected from his players in Les goûts réünis, an essay in the 
combination of French and Italian styles, and what Mondonville meant when he 
wrote that in his Pièces de clavecin avec voix ou violon (1748) one must 
‘distinguish the phrases which are in French style from those which require 
the Italian style’, are among the problems posed.
French dancing-masters, musicians and their music spread over Germany from 
the early 17th century, and knowledge of French performing style kept pace. 
In 1664 Johann Caspar Horn published five ballets ‘to be played in French 
style’, and much later Marpurg (1749) remarked on how Quantz, Benda and 
Graun played ‘in a very French manner’. Georg Muffat (1698) explained notes 
inégales clearly and authoritatively to the Germans, and direct French 
influence on Froberger, Kusser, J.C.F. Fischer, J.S. Bach and a legion of 
others is documented. (It is worth noting, however, that when Bach and 
Walther copied Grigny, Le Roux, Dieupart and Clérambault, they did not 
translate notes inégales into dotted notation.) The French overture became 
an obsession; Telemann is estimated to have composed some 1000 
overture-suites. Yet although Printz (1678) recommended inequality as a 
device to keep the tempo under control, and C.P.E. Bach (1753–62) as a way 
to treat two semiquavers following a quaver in the accompaniment of an 
adagio, only one German writer besides Muffat treated the convention in 
terms approaching those of the French, that is, as a normal way of playing a 
substantial amount of music; this was Quantz (1752). As he did not say that 
his remarks applied only to French music – indeed they include no mention of 
French music at all – his passage has acquired a kind of scriptural status 
for those who wish to alter even rhythms in Bach, and it has become a 
principal target of attack by the right. But even the most subtle exegesis 
cannot make Quantz say that Bach wanted his rhythms to be altered in 
performance; the most that can be concluded is that Quantz himself might 
have played Bach that way, and perhaps that the trio sonata from The Musical 
Offering was subjected to inequality when (or if) it was played at Potsdam. 
On the other hand the best efforts of a Frederick Neumann can produce 
nothing but silence to prove that Bach did not want alteration.
The ubiquity of notes inégales in French performance of the 17th and 18th 
centuries is beyond dispute, yet at the end of the 20th century there was 
still, even among the most brilliant and historically informed specialists, 
a reluctance to apply them with anything resembling the frequency with which 
all the evidence indicates that they were applied in earlier times. The 
visceral revulsion felt by the great musicologist Charles Van den Borren 
(1936) when he declared himself ‘literally overwhelmed at the thought that 
anyone could reconcile the finicky requirements that Muffat [1695] 
enumerates with the style, so simple so sober, so genuinely inspired by the 
grand siècle, that Lully offers us throughout his work’, and in particular, 
at ‘that deformity, devoid of logic, which consists in the unequal 
performance of equal quavers’ (a revulsion that informed the researches of 
the indefatigable Frederick Neumann) still inhibits efforts to discover the 
elixir of vitality that must have enlivened the old performances. The 
favourite recipe in recent years has been sheer velocity. The secret must 
lie elsewhere, however: in the subtlety and variability that is only hinted 
at in the verbal descriptions but is made more concrete, if crudely, in 
automatic instruments. As noted below, something comparable may be heard 
today in jazz, but the incorporation of notes inégales into the performance 
of early music can only be accomplished by experimentation, and specifically 
through practice in executing ratios of long to short that are less or much 
less than the 3:1 of strict dotting and then in varying these ratios in 
response to the expression. Sharper inequality should not be neglected, but 
it is much easier.
Modern discussions of inequality in Baroque music often conclude with an 
appeal to ‘good taste’ as the final arbiter in good performance. The idea 
comes directly from innumerable similar appeals by 18th-century French 
writers, and is dangerously misleading. It is indeed taste that decides, but 
the taste of the period when the music was written. Alien taste is 
laboriously acquired, and never completely so except by imitation; one need 
only imagine with what degree of authenticity some future musician might 
succeed in reproducing the ‘taste’ of a Charlie Parker from written 
documents alone. Taste is the most inconstant of values, and it was a 
conflict of taste far more than of objective findings which lay at the root 
of the inequality controversy of the 1960s and fuelled its partisan zeal.
DAVID FULLER

 piuttosto che dell'altro stile.
Tutto vero. L'uso del termine "ineguaglianza" che io proponevo era, come 
ho specificato e come il non uso del francese "inégalité" doveva 
suggerire, assai più esteso delle determinazioni relative a stili 
nazionali o situazioni particolari ampiamente documentate dalla 
trattatistica. Trovo che l'idea stessa di ineguaglianza sia più adatta ad 
illustrare il procedimento improvvisativo-interpretativo alla base 
dell'esecuzione della musica sei-settecentesca di quanto non sia il 
termine "rubato", più legato alla tradizione romantica per gran parte 
degli amatori o dei musicisti di media cultura; questo sia che si tratti 
di "inégalité" alla francese, che ha goduto della particolare attenzione 
di trattatisti insigni, sia che si esamini documenti più tardi e relativi 
a stili alieni da un uso intensivo e precettivo delle ineguaglianze.
Per il resto, come ho detto, largo ai migliori..... e al Grove.
Comunque raccomando l'ascolto delle toccate di Frescobaldi eseguite da un 
cinghiale ben allenato come zio Michele: il ritmo "alla lombarda" degli 
zoccoli sinistri nei passi omoritmici con gli zoccoli destri, unito al 
grazioso effetto percussivo dei medesimi sulla tastiera, è foriero di 
effetti di grande suggestione  


 effetti di grande suggestione
poi alla fine si fa il barbecue?
Z

 poi alla fine si fa il barbecue?
Zio Michele non si tocca............. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR


 diciamo che il discorso si fa un po' complesso
No, un attimo... io credo che la nostra nuova amica si riferisse a 
tutt'altro che l'inegalitè. Penso che la domanda fosse sull'agogica, e 
l'inegalitè non c'entra nulla con l'agogica, che è arte differente. 
L'inegalitè è una tecnica esecutiva, ma la stessa può benissimo essere 
eseguita (rozzamente) da un... pianista, riproponendo lo stesso problema.
Mi trovo abbastanza d'accordo sul fatto che il rubato "romantico" sia legato 
al'andamento melodico, mentre quello "barocco" sia legato all'incedere 
armonico complessivo del pezzo. Il punto è che in entrambi i casi di rubato 
si tratta, ma chi è abituato alle amenità romantiche non sa di solito dove 
mettere le mani e che cosa fare quando affronta Bach et similia. Insomma, 
Bach non si deve eseguire a tempo, come maestri e maestrucoli pappagallano 
nei nostri conservatori, ciò non significa che bisogna rubare come fa la 
Nikolayeva...
Ciao
Mario 

 bisogna allungare dall'altra
E' proprio quello che avevo in mente. Chopin diceva che la sinistra era il
suo "maestro di cappella" - un'immagine controversa, in realtà, perchè
presupporrebbe una costante sfasatura tra destra e sinistra, cosa che di
solito non si fa  (L'ha fatto mi pare Cascioli, un paio di anni fa, in cui
Cd con, se non ricordo male, gli Scherzi)
Quello che credo faccia la discriminante, è, nel caso della musica
pianistica, che nella musica romantica il rubato lo guida la destra, in Bach
la sinistra.

 Cd con, se non ricordo male, gli Scherzi)
 questa poi sarebbe la definizione "di scuola" e io non la condivido appieno
perche' secondo me i criteri e le modalita' delle liberta' ritmiche sono di
gran lunga piu' complessi
e infatti ecco cosa dice con molto sarcasmo paderewski in persona, proprio a
questo proposito:
The technical side of Tempo Rubato consists, as is generally admitted, of a
more or less important slackening or quickening of the time or rate of
movement. Some people, evidently led by laudable principle of equity, while
insisting on the fact of stolen time, pretend that what is stolen ought to
be restored.
We dully acknowledge the highly moral motives of this theory, but we humbly
confess that our ethics do not reach such a high level. The making up of
what has been lost is natural in the case of playing with orchestra, where,
for the security of the whole, in spite of the fractional alterations of the
movement, the metric integrity should be rigorously preserved. With soloists
is quite different. The value of notes diminished in one period through
accelerando, cannot always be restored in another by ritardando. What is
lost is lost. For any lawlessness there is, after a certain term,
proscription.


 proscription.
geniale.



Grazie,
il mio è un rovello principalmente didattico. Ho una ragazzina di tredici
anni che fraseggia Bach intuitivamente con coerenza armonica anche se in
modo esagerato, e i colleghi la bollano come "troppo romantica". Ho provato
a spiegare loro la differenza ma non c'è stato verso. Per questo ho parlato
di gap linguistico. Io tuttavia proseguo per la mia strada, e certo non
ingabbio un tale entusiasmo nel suonare Bach - tra l'altro la ragazzina, se
prosegue, dovrà studiarlo per almeno altri cinque anni in dosi massicce, tra
Suites Inglesi, Invenzioni a tre voci e Clavicembalo Ben Temperato. Intanto
le piace e ci trova gusto (il che è, con Bach, e a quell'età, è una gran
cosa). Col tempo e crescendo le sue intuizioni troveranno forma e
compostezza. Comunque è dura... quest'esperienza mi ha aperto gli occhi
sulla grande ignoranza che noi pianisti ci portiamo dietro in fatto di
interpretazioni (siamo negli anni cinquanta?)
E.

 tutt'altro che l'inegalitè.
sì, ma io riprendevo il discorso non dell'amica ma di cinghio che devo aver 
frainteso, perché zoccolava troppo veloce
Z 

EmilimE ha scritto:

Al riguardo ti consiglio un bello ed esauriente libro sul tema:
"Stolen Time: The History of Tempo Rubato" di Richard Hudson, edito da 
Clarendon Press
Esistono degli esempi scritti di come eseguire il tempo rubato, e questo 
avviene, soprattutto in epoca tardo barocca in modo alquanto ritmico, 
una specie di sfasamento ritmico tra melodia e basso (ed è la melodia a 
farlo, non il basso); detto a parole povere un poco come se la melodia 
cominciasse a suonare un sedicesimo prima del basso e continuasse per 
alcune battute........ senza accorgersene, per poi accorciare od 
allungare la fine (del rubato) per riappaiarsi con il basso, chiaro?
Sulla musica romantica non so nulla, per me è un terreno inesplorato, mi 
fermo più o meno alla fine del settecento. ;-))
Per l'esame di clavicembalo sarei d'accordo, bisogna stare però attenti 
a che i pianisti non ne rompano troppi.......
Ciao,
Dario

 Clarendon Press
grazie per la segnalazione!
Z