[Letter from Robert Donington]Author(s): Robert DoningtonSource: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring, 1966), pp. 112-114Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/830884 .

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. COMMUNICATIONS

Robert Donington, University of Iowa, sends the following communica- tion:

is IT NOT the real weakness of Mr. Fred- erick Neumann's article on "The French Inigales, Quantz, and Bach" (this JOUR- NAL XVIII No. 3, Fall 1965, pp- 313-358) that he has fallen into something of that very rigidity against which he has so wisely been warning us in his own recent articles in The Musical Quarterly and Music & Letters?

He is wise to warn us, because we all do fall into it from time to time. But I would never dare myself to risk anything so confidently negative as his statement that "inequality cannot be considered a general Baroque practice, nor one that was current among German musicians outside islands of complete French mu- sical domination; and that, with the pos- sible exception of a very few marginal instances, there seems to be no reason why it should be applied to the music of J. S. Bach."

It is nearly always difficult to prove a negative; but in this case there are also positive indications too numerous to disregard. Mr. Neumann does not for the most part disregard them; but he does not give them the weight they would seem naturally to deserve. He mentions that Santa Maria in Spain (1565) and Caccini in Italy (cited as i6oi, actually 1602) record both long- short and short-long inequality; Cerone (i6i3) long-short inequality and Fresco- baldi (1614) short-long inequality-both in Italy. Were all these traditions so soon forgotten? Mr. Neumann next cites a splendid list of French authorities, and quotes some of the most interesting. He then assumes that in the baroque period itself (a) inequality was virtually con- fined to France; (b) that short-long

inequality became virtually of no con- sequence anywhere.

Loulid (1696), Corrette apparently in one passage (1740), the great Couperin himself perhaps by implication, perhaps not (cited as 1717, actually the first edi- tion is 1716) suggest that Frenchmen, or some Frenchmen, thought that they had the monopoly of inequality. But else- where (Methode . . . de la flate traver- siere, Paris-Lyon [c. 1730], p. 4) Corrette is more careful: "The 2 or 2 is the 2- 4 8 time of the Italians. This measure is often used in the Allegros and Prestos of so- natas and concertos. The eighth notes must be performed equal, and the six- teenth notes made unequal: they are also sometimes performed equal in sonatas. ... The English compose many Vaude- villes, and Country-dances in [ ]1 meas- ure. . . . These airs ought to be played in a noble manner, marking the quarter notes well; and making the eighth notes unequal two by two. This measure is very little found in Italian music. The 1 2 is found in Italian, German, French and English music, in 4-times Jigs. The eighth notes must be performed equal and the sixteenth notes made unequal."

In my "rhythm" file (I am sure Mr. Neumann has his own collection) I have a choice but growing selection of pas- sages from Italian, German and English (as well as French) composers, where one source gives a passage in equal nota- tion, but another source gives the same passage in unequal notation-e.g. Purcell's famous "Fairest Isle" has equal eighth notes in Orpheus Britannicus (1698 etc.) but dotted eighth notes with sixteenth notes in Playford's Apollo's Banquet (i i, i69I); or where one passage has equal notes written but a corresponding pas- sage has unequal notes written--e.g. often in Carissimi's cantatas (my wife Gloria Rose keeps finding further examples in

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COMMUNICATIONS 113

editing these), and numerous passages in Handel; or where parts in unison show different written rhythms (Purcell again); or where a composer's transcription of his own music shows equal notation in one version but unequal notation in the other version--e.g. J. S. Bach himself in his harpsichord transcription of his E-major Violin Concerto, Second Movement. And since this last, in the harpsichord tran- scription, uses the short-long (Lombard) rhythm on paired stepwise (but, signi- ficantly enough, not leapwise) intervals throughout, we must not only admit in- equality as a possible variant in J. S. Bach, but short-long inequality. I never much like this Lombard rhythm; I agree with Mr. Neumann that it is much less important than the ubiquitous long-short inequality; but we cannot get rid of it, even from Bach, and still less from Pur- cell. It was a lesser variant, but neverthe- less a variant.

Variant is surely the word of words for this, as for so many difficult problems of baroque musical interpretation. We can ask: did J. S. Bach use inequality in his own performances? Unlike Mr. Neu- mann, I feel almost certain that he did, because I think that inequality was per- fectly familiar outside France; because I think it is special pleading to dismiss Muffat and Quantz as untypical Franco- philes (they were Francophiles and in- fluential ones, but the whole point is that the fashion caught on); because Quantz was already teaching while J. S. Bach was alive, and C. P. E. Bach (who also recommended inequality, Versuch, II [Berlin, 1762], XXIX, 15, so that even among contemporary Germans, it is not quite true that "Quantz stands alone") had far more in common with his father than he had in contrast to him; above all, because in Bach's harpsichord music in the French style, the musical effect of inequality is very beautiful and very moving, as much a part of a Bach Sarabande as it is of any French one. Are we to forget that musicology begins with music? But I do not know that Bach used inequality, or that he did not; and I do not even think that this is

necessarily the right question to ask- especially as we can never give a certain answer to it.

The question to which we can give a certain answer is: does Bach's music ever fall within the styles to which we can be sure from German as well as French sources that inequality might have been properly applied by good contemporary performers? Of course it does; the Sarabandes are an outstanding case, but there are many other movements where, if you are at all well into the baroque performing styles, inequality begins al- most to apply itself. In such cases, in- equality is right, and equality is not wrong; they are legitimate variants in theory, of which the first is preferable in practice. I do not go nearly so far, for example, as Mr. Sol Babitz in my en- thusiasm or even my toleration for in- equality; as I described in considerable detail in my long Interpretation of Early Music (London, 1963; N. Y., 1964; 2nd ed. London, 1965; N. Y., 1966; not cited by Mr. Neumann, though he cites my far-away Grove articles and my pocket- size Tempo and Rhythm), I think the use of inequality was hedged around by very limiting conditions indeed, and can sound pretty absurd when applied out- side these conditions. But they were not primarily conditions of nationality; they were primarily conditions of style and context.

I do very warmly welcome Mr. Neu- mann's latest contribution to our knowl- edge of these styles and contexts. If he will look up my book, he will see that I already recognise the stylistic limita- tions of inequality on lines much like his own. But the musician in me knows very well that there are passages in Bach's harpsichord music which cry out for inequality. The scholar in me would be quick to respond to Mr. Neumann's objections if they could not be answered: but they can; and indeed they run up against everything that we know of the general latitude and variability expected of performers in the age of Bach. It is not as if the German musicians-Bach least of all-were unaware of French

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114 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

conventions and French musicianship. I do hope Mr. Neumann will think this point over again. It has been extremely hard to get ordinary musicians to take any interest in the original methods of performing baroque music at all. We do not want to have them saying all over again that since the experts disagree, why should they bother anyhow? I am not under the illusion that we can hope to agree on all points, but I am sure that Mr. Neumann is as anxious as I am to clear up our disagreements wherever we can-which is another reason why I welcome his article yet would not wish to let it go unanswered.

Jeanne Behrend, 1317 Irving Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, sends the following communication: I AM writing in reference to a review

of my edition of Gottschalk's diary Notes of a Pianist appearing in the Sum- mer, 1965 issue of the JOURNAL, which came belatedly to my attention.

It alludes to a recording I supposedly made of American music, including Gottschalk's The Dying Poet. However, I did not make this recording.

Michael Dawney, Lincoln College, Oxford, England, sends the following communication:

I AM writing a study of Masses 1837- 1903 and am trying to locate Gounod's autograph manuscripts of his Masses. Can any reader tell me of any other than those at Oxford, San Marino, California, the British Museum and Paris Opera?

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