a performer's guide to baroque musicby robert donington

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A Performer's Guide to Baroque Music by Robert Donington Review by: Gilbert L. Blount Notes, Second Series, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Dec., 1976), pp. 296-298 Published by: Music Library Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/897585 . Accessed: 15/06/2014 02:42 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Music Library Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Notes. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.2.32.110 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 02:42:58 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: A Performer's Guide to Baroque Musicby Robert Donington

A Performer's Guide to Baroque Music by Robert DoningtonReview by: Gilbert L. BlountNotes, Second Series, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Dec., 1976), pp. 296-298Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/897585 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 02:42

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Music Library Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Notes.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.110 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 02:42:58 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Page 2: A Performer's Guide to Baroque Musicby Robert Donington

leased time for work on a project which, in some locales, may yet be regarded as a passing fad. Hixon is already known to us by at least one other publication, Music in Early America, also issued by Scarecrow, in 1970.

Their work begins with a list of fifty sources indexed, all but five of which are cited in the thrid edition of Duckles' Music Reference and Research Materials (New York, 1974). The main body of the work is a name list which includes cities and dates of birth and death, as well as areas of musical activity. The entries are followed by refer- ence to the indexed sources wherein in- formation on the figures can be located. This is concluded with an iudex of activity areas (such as accompanists, administrators, amateur musicians, arrangers, etc.).

The preface indicates that subjects in- cluded were selected from the literature consulted, eliminating those women active in "popular" music, and that additional sources (indicated in each instance within theentry) were checked for later vita mate- rial.

This is a noble project on a subject of substance and great interest. The authors have coordinated a very impressive mass of information not available in any other single source at this time. Every library with even a hint of a music collection should consider the acquisition of this reference work, but there are inherent shortcomings.

With no disrespect to Duckles or the sources he had cited, reliance on these publications implies that the subject of women in music has been given proper consideration in the past. A more intensive search of the literature published during the past century, however, will readily pro- vide over fifty books and articles specifically on this subject not cited in Duckles. Without these, we are in the position of perpetuating shortcomings of previously accepted re- search while working with a subject precise- ly because it has been shortchanged.

Some qualms may be given to the exclu- sion of "popular" artists such as Bessie Smith and Mahalia Jackson (who are cer- tainly as significant as Carrie Jacobs Bond and Mana Zucca, who do appear), to the lack of clarity about the interrelationship of name forms, and to transliteration procedures which differ from those of the Library of Congress.

How serious are these matters? One really

should accept a book for what it offers, and this is the first major source of the movement. But it is not as complete as it probably should have been, and not as detailed as those who use it will expect.

For example, I have seen the preliminary research of Susan Stern, who is compiling a biobibliography of women composers. Even within the A and B entries of her initial draft she has 247 figures not included in the Hixon-Hennessee book.

Among those women Hixon and Henne- see do not include are, e.g., three major contemporary composers: Jean Ivey, Nancy Van de Vate, and Pozzi Escot. Eileen Southern, Edith Boroff, and Geneva Southall should certainly appear among the musicologists. There are no entries for flutists Antoinette Handy or Dorothy Dwyer. Also missing are Claudia Cassidy (critic), Alice Chalifoux (harpist), Frances Cole (harpsichordist), Elayne Jones (timpanist), and Ren&e Longy (educator and pianist). Because the indexed sources omit Victor Rene (pseudonym for Mrs. Philip Hale, nee Irene Baumgras), she is also neglected.

A more complete picture will be provided when Stern's research is published. There is also en route a biographical encyclopedia on women composers being prepared by Aaron Cohen, of Johannesburg. Mean- while, the cause is being capably championed by the League of Women Composers (Nancy Van de Vate, chairper- son, 5610 Holston Hills Road, Knoxville TN 37914) and a one-person clearing house, Jane Bowers (429 West 48th St., New York, NY 10036).

DomINIQUE-RENt DE LERMA Morgan State University

A Performer's Guide to Baroque Music. By Robert Donington. Lon- don: Faber and Faber; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973. [320 p.; $20.00]

For anyone vitally concerned with early music, particularly with its authentic re- creation in live performance, these are exciting times. The plethora of festivals and institutes, the ever-increasing number of fine ensembles specializing in early music,

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Page 3: A Performer's Guide to Baroque Musicby Robert Donington

and the virtual explosion of interest in such music in the colleges and universities across the country are but a few indices of the growing enthusiasm for this exciting reper- tory.

It is in this atmosphere of enlightened enthusiasm that we receive Donington's Performer's Guide. The book seems to be directed toward the performer who has not had extensive experience with Baroque instruments and who is not widely read in various areas of Baroque performance practice. On one hand Donington wants to lure the modern performer to become directly involved in a new and gratifying kind of musical experience; on the other, he seems to be saying that with a little pruning and grooming quite satisfactory results can be obtained with only slight modifications of present-day approaches and techniques. The inherent danger in this approach is that it may alienate the aficionado-a danger made all the more apparent by statements such as the follow- ing:

When fine performers using fine instru- ments of authentic character are avail- able, are we nowadays unanimous in preferring them? By no means. There are still plenty of modern musicians who do not want the fine early instruments on any conditions; and while this is now a somewhat old-fashioned taste, it is a perfectly legitimate one. (p. 46)

The book is divided into four large sec- tions ("The Baroque Attitude," "The Ba- roque Sound," "The Notes," and "The Expression") subdivided into a total of twenty-two chapters, which are further subdivided, in the manner of Quantz or C.P.E. Bach, into numerous alphanumeric particles sometimes so brief as to interrupt continuity. Donington provides some 214 numbered -and many unnumbered-lit- erary quotations, nearly half of which are drawn from German sources. (All are translated into English.) The volume also contains 133 musical examples, whose na- tional distribution is: Italian (51), German (36), English (22), French (14), (Donington [8]), and Dutch (2). Most of the textual. sources cited are lucid and to the point, although a number of the passages quoted are either too sparse, too imprecise, or too general to be of much value. More prob-

lematic are the occasions upon which Don- ington makes a rather strong statement without documentation or contemporary evidence: "Continuous trills on long or very long notes are for colouring or sustaining the tone. They do not need to start (though in baroque music they regularly do) on the upper auxiliary" (p. 202).

Of the musical examples, most are wisely chosen and instructive. One might feel the need for more of them; several passages in the text (e.g., the bottom of p. 93) could have been made far clearer with the addi- tion of a musical example. A few of the examples are from Donington's own pen, including doctorings of Handel and Purcell complete with a rather elaborate "ad libi- tum" cadenza (pp. 171-77-the most lengthy examples in the book!), and a Han- del trio sonata for which the author has supplied a rather unmusical figured-bass realization. Although it is not often the case, there are errors in some of the examples: In example 62 the first and third fermatas are misplaced; the trill at the end of the second staff belongs over the penultimate A and not the antepenultimate B as shown; and the eighth notes of beats three and four of the bottom staff are slurred as duplets in the Quantz original.

In view of what I take to be the identity of its target consumer, Donington's book is at its best when he summarizes and cuts through detail. Moreover, a number of the author's own performance experiences are nicely articulated and can in many instances serve as guides to those facing similar cir- cumstances for the first time. To my mind the strongest chapters of the book are those on strings (Donington is a string player!), accidentals, ornamentation, and accompa- niment. Those on tempo and rhythm are also generally well handled.

Even in these chapters, however, Don- ington's views cannot be accepted uncriti- cally. His ideas on retrospective accidentals are in my opinion largely untenable; many readers will want to compare his position with those of Frank D'Accone (in Musica Disciplina 27 [1973]: 65-106) and Don Harran (in Journal of the American Musico- logical Society 29 [1976]: 77-98). I would also suggest that Donington's treatment of accompaniment be supplemented by study of Heinrich Albert's Arien (1638-50; ed. in Denkmaler deutscher Tonkunst, 12-13). Al- bert includes a wider range of fundamen-

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Page 4: A Performer's Guide to Baroque Musicby Robert Donington

tal instruments than Donington's treatment would suggest.

In spite of its many strengths and well- documented conclusions, the book does have some weaknesses and errors. Although a short review is not the place for a complete catalog, several of these must be pointed out. In the section on articulation no in- formation is given for winds, despite the number of treatises on the subject, not to mention easily accessible articles by Imo- gene Horsley (in Brass Quarterly 4 [1960]: 49-63) and George Houle (in American Recorder 6 [1965]: 4-13). Not only does the section on temperament not deal with the less common systems, but even mean- tone and just intonation are mentioned only in passing. (Donington recommends equal temperament in all situations, with the possible exception of the organ.) Even though Donington is a gamba player, no mention whatever is made of the lyra-viol, its tunings, or its literature. Plucked strings of all sorts occupy the space of one and one-half pages, while bowed strings receive eighteen and one-half pages. In the chapter on wind and percussion instruments Don- ington does not mention the important recommendations for the preparation of skins for drumheads, descriptions of tympani sticks, and the various Schlagman- ieren given in Johann Eisel's Musicus autodi- dactus (Erfurt, 1738). Treatment of the organ (one page!), flute, recorder, and oboe is sketchy at best, and in several instances erroneous. (For example, the early flute, with its cylindrical bore, is louder and more easily focused than the later, conically bored instrument-contrary to what Donington would have us believe.) The treatment of the harpsichord is likewise marred by some misconceptions, and the entire discussion of vibrato raises more questions than it provides answers. Finally, the documen- tation provided on the raised leading tone is scant (p. 147); and Donington's concept of flattening at the peak of a phrase and sharpening at the trough is a rather tenuous extension of una nota supra la.

While it is generally adequate, the index suffers from insufficient cross-referencing and from the occasional omission of terms. There is, for example, no entry under "unequal notes," nor is there one under "notes inegales." If one is persistent enough to consider additional possibilities, one eventually checks under "rhythm" and is

there directed to proceed directly to "ine- quality of rhythm," where, indeed, the in- formation sought can be found. One seeks in vain in the index for messa di voce, however, and in this instance the process of locating the term is particularly time- consuming. It is not to be found at all in the chapter on voice; one encounters it for the first time on page 88 in the section on strings!

The book properly speaking does not have a bibliography, but rather a "Reading List," despite the contrary citations in the main body: "For numerous surviving speci- mens on which to model our attempts [on ornamentation], see my Bibliography under Ernest T. Ferand, Imogene Horsley, and Hans-Peter Schmitz" (p. 170). It is indeed unfortunate that Horsley does not actually appear in the Reading List!; her contributions to the field are important.

Despite the generally careful preparation of this book, several errors managed to escape the proofreaders' eyes: On page 80 "quiet" should read "quite"; on page 91 insert the word "not" near the end of line 22; page 150, substitute "unjustifiable" for "justifiable" in line 13; page 156, the melo- dic tritone A-flat to D does not occur in either example 55a or 55b; page 162, substitute "Wiley" for "Willey"; page 198, six lines below (g) "firmy" should be "firm- ly"; the first note of example 84c should be an A; page 215, insert "the bass" after "doubling" in the line above (104); page 255, example 148a should be 149a, since example 148 is on page 250 in the chapter on tempo; page 279, line three under (b) should be "is" and not "ids."

Although a number of major and minor criticisms have here been leveled at Don- ington's book, on balance it should be on the reading list of anyone deeply interested in Baroque performance practice. It is not the book for the specialist, but it is a good book for the relatively uninitiated perform- er and conductor of Baroque music. Many Collegium directors will benefit from it, and even the most knowledgeable veteran, while he will be quick to identify areas of dis- agreement, will find some new material here, together with some old material viewed in a different and useful light.

GILBERT L. BLOUNT University of Southern California

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