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Notes and inégales Unjoined: Defending a DefinitionAuthor(s): David FullerSource: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Winter, 1989), pp. 21-28Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/763618Accessed: 23-01-2016 23:34 UTC

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Notes and inegales

Unjoined:

Defending

a

Definition

DAVID

FULLER

rederick

Neumann

(for

whom our

published

exchanges

have

not

prevented

me

from

developing

a warm

personal

regard

and

whose immense

contribution to our field I

gladly

acknowl-

edge)

has

invited me

to "rethink" certain of

my

ideas

about notes

inegales

as

they appear

in

two

essays

he is kind

enough

to

call

"important."l

It

is with

considerable

misgivings

that I

pile yet

another

utterance

on a

stack of

controversy

that-like

the

disputes

over

dot- 21

ting,

triplets, appoggiaturas,

and trills-has

long

since

outgrown

its

subject.

Even

though

inequality

occupies

an

amazing

proportion

of

the

space

in

many

French

treatises of the

eighteenth

century,

and

though

its

flagrant

defiance

of the

principle

of

Werktreue,

with which

most

of

us were

brought up,

has

fascinated

a handful of

the

curious

(including

me)

ever since

Eugene

Borrel

"discovered"

it

in

1912,

it

occupies

but

a

modest corner of the

performer's rhythmic

concerns

Volume

VII

*

Number

1

*

Winter

1989

The

Journal

of

Musicology

?

1989 by

the

Regents

of

the

University

of

California

"The Notes

inegales

Revisited,"

this

Journal

VI

(1988),

137-49.

I

would like to

believe that I

rethink

my

ideas

every

time

I

have to write about

them,

and

these

writings

include

besides

the two

essays

in

The New Grove and The

New Harvard

Dictionary

(the

latter not a

"condensation"

of

the former

but a

freshly

"rethought"

article that never-

theless contains the

principal

ideas of the

former)

a

little

piece

called "You

Can't Prove

it

by

Notation:

Thoughts

on

Rhythmic

Alteration,"

The

Diapason

LXXII

(1981),

March,

p.

3,

a much

longer

one,

"Rhythmic

Alteration-If

Any-in

Bach's

Organ

Music,"

The

American

Organist

XXI

(1987),

June,

pp.

40-48,

a short

report

on

Cappus's

Etrennesde

musique (1732-6),

Early

Music

XV

[1987],

384-85,

as well as a

facsimile edition

to

be

published by Minkoff,

and

a

discussion

of

the

subject

in an

essay

on

problems

of

Baroque performance

entitled

"Beyond

Notation: The Performer

as

Composer"

in the

forthcoming

New GroveHandbook

of

Performance

Practice,

ed.

Stanley

Sadie and

Howard

Mayer

Brown. I

have also

surveyed

persistent

written

dotting

in

"The 'Dotted

Style'

in

Bach, Handel,

and

Scarlatti,"

Bach, Handel,

and

Scarlatti:

Tercentenary

Essays,

ed.

Peter

Williams

(Cambridge,

1985),

pp.

99-117,

and referred to

inequality

in

some

of

my

work on automatic instruments.






THE

JOURNAL

OF

MUSICOLOGY

by comparison

to such

vital

and elusive matters

as the

declamatory

and

choreographic

aspects

of musical

delivery,

the

shaping

of

the

musical gesture, and the expressive nuance.2 Nevertheless, since Pro-

fessor Neumann's

article

has

me

failing

to

escape pitfalls (p.

141),

swaying (p.

145),

and

falling

victim

to a snare

(p.

148)

like

some

boozy

rabbit,

I

felt

I

ought

to

try

to

show that

my footing

is

surer than he

claims and that

owners of Grove and The

Harvard

Dictionary

need not

regret

their

investment after all.

The

central

idea that

I

am to rethink

is

that

inequality

is a

rhythmic

phenomenon

n

sounding

music

independentof

questions

of

notation,

and

that it is not

always

and

necessarily

the

unequal

rendition of

notes

written in equal value, as Professor Neumann insists that it should be

considered.

My

definitions

might

have

passed

unchallenged

if

they

had

not been followed

(in

Grove)

by

the

warning

that

"to insist

that

notes

inegales

are

...

always

written

equal

is

to

mask a

great

deal of

evidence

that can

help

in

mapping

the

geographical

extent of

the

convention ..

." and

(in

Harvard)

by

the assertion

that

passages

of

written

dotting

in

Purcell,

Corelli,

Bach, Handel,

and

Alessandro

Scarlatti are

sometimes

to

be

understood as

written-out

inequality.

22

The

danger

in

my

"dangerous

assumption"

(the

expression

is

Neu-

mann's) was that it opened chinks through which the virus of score-

tampering

might

seep

out

from

quirky

France into

the

performance

of

world

masterpieces.

I

seemed

to

be

saying

that if

Purcell's

streams

of

dotted

eighths

in

3

time

were

written-out

notes

inegales,

then

per-

haps

streams of

undotted

eighths

could

be

dotted in

performance,

or

if

Bach could

write the

ritornellos

of

the

"St.

Anne"

prelude

as

he

did,

maybe

a similar

relentless

jerking

could

disfigure

some

other

piece

by

him.

This was

not

the

reasoning

that

led

Dolmetsch to

decree notes

inegales

in

Bach

and

Handel;

he was

mainly

extrapolating (unjusti-

fiably, I agree with Professor Neumann) from Quantz. And it was not,

in

fact,

what

I

wrote. But

the

implications

seemed to

glow

with the

baleful red

of the

"early

music

movement,"

a

color

calculated

to un-

muzzle the

whole

array

of

the

Neumann

artillery,

as no

one who

heard his

paper

at the

1988

meeting

of

the

American

Chapter

of the

New

Bach

Society

can

doubt.

If,

with

Frederick

Neumann,

you

state

as

a

principle

that

inequal-

ity

can

exist

only

in

passages

that

are

written

even,

then

there can

be

no

such

thing

as

inequality

apart

from

notation-that

it

is

indeed a

2

A

new book on

Dance

Rhythms

of

the

French

Baroque by Betty

Bang

Mather

(Bloomington

and

Indianapolis,

1987)

and articles

by

Patricia

Ranum,

notably

"Au-

dible Rhetoricand

Mute Rhetoric:

he

Seventeenth-Century

rench

Sarabande,"

Early

MusicXXIV

(1986),

22-39,

can

convey

some idea of

the

range

of

rhythmic

problems

in this

repertory

that

are

only

beginning

to

be

addressed n

the

literature.






NOTES AND

INEGALES

UNJOINED

matter

of notation. But

then

you

must

agree

that the

lilting rhythms

in

the double

you

have

just improvised

on a courante

by

Chambonnieres,

though they may have sounded just like the notesinegalesthat lent such

grace

to the

written double

by

D'Anglebert

that

you

played previously,

were

not notes

inegales

at

all,

since

your

double was not

written down.

Let us

now

suppose

that

you

want

to write out

your

double

using

dotted

figures

to

suggest inequality.

The dotted

passages

are

still

not

notes

inegales

according

to

Neumann because

they

are not

written

equal.

If

you

had

written them

equal

and said

"pointez"

over

them,

then

they

would be.

In

1690

Gilles

Jullien,

organist

of Chartres

cathedral,

published

a

Livred'orguewith a great many passages of even eighths and almost no

dotted

ones-except

in a Trio

pour

une

elevation,

written

almost

entirely

in dotted

eighths

and sixteenths.

In the

preface

he

wrote,

"I

have

put

the dots after

first

eighths

[of

each

pair] only

in

the

piece

on

f.

51

[the

trio]

to serve

as an

example

of

dotting

the others

in

the

same

way,

more

or less

lightly,

according

to the

tempo

which

is

marked."3 Fre-

derick Neumann

would

not,

I

believe,

deny

that

in this

case

the dot-

ting

is written notes

inegales,

since

the

intent is

clearly

explanatory,

and

he

admits

that "authors of manuals

explained

notes

inegales

with dot-

23

ted note illustrations." But only five years earlier a collection by the

Parisian

organist

Nicolas

Gigault

had

appeared

in

which most of

the

pieces

looked

very

much

like

Jullien's

dotted

one.

In

fact,

the number

of dots

in

this

collection is

staggering,

and the

composer

invites the

organist

to

add

still more

"to animate his

playing"

It seems to me to

require

a resolute

suspension

of common sense

(and

a

very

deficient

knowledge

of this

repertory)

to see these

rhythms

as

anything

but

notated

notes

inegales,

and indeed

I

have

recommended

them

every

chance

I

have

had to

anyone wanting

to

observe how

inequality

was

actually used in pieces of music at this period.4 Gigault was not a very

good

composer,

but he was

far from

being

a

non-entity

and

very

much in the musical

mainstream,

having

been one

of

Lully's

teachers,

among

other

things.

3

Ed. Norbert

Dufourcq

with facsimile

of

composer's preface,

Publications de

la

Societe

francaise

de

musicologie

XIII

(Paris,

1932).

4

Archives

des maitresde

l'orgue,

ed.

Alexandre Guilmant

and Andre

Pirro,

IV

(1902,

repr.

New York,

1972).

What is

especially

illuminating

about this collection is the

variety

of

figures

that are

combined

in some

pieces.

A

fugue

(p.

133)

combines

copious

dotted

eighths

and

sixteenths

with occasional even

eighths

and

sixteenths,

but the

dotting

gradually

ceases

toward

the

end.

In

a

trio,

p.

64,

there

is more

short-long

than

long-short

dotting.

A

Fugue poursuivie

a la

maniere

italienne

(p.

77)

has,

as one

might

expect,

almost

no

dotting.






THE

JOURNAL

OF

MUSICOLOGY

And

Lully

himself-did

he

not dictate

his

operas

to his secretaries

according

to Le Cerf?

If the

story

is

true,

how

would

they

have

de-

cided in the rush of keeping up with their employer whether the

uneven

notes

he

played

on his

filthy harpsichord

were

to be

written

with

dots?

Related

Lully

sources

show much

disagreement

in

dotting.5

Who

can

say

that

some

of it does

not

represent

notes

inegales?

The

use

of

dotting

to indicate

inequality

was

not without

prob-

lems,

of course.

On

the one

hand its look

of

rigidity

and

uniformity

ran counter

to the

expressive

flexibility

and

the

spontaneity

that

seem

to have been

important

features

of the

convention,6

and on the

other

it

usurped

the

notation

for

strict

dotting

where

the

composer

might

want that effect. Nor could it be distinguished from the inexact but

very

common

dotted

notation for

pairs

of notes assimilated

to

triplet

rhythm.

The situation

became

especially

confusing

if a careful com-

poser

wished to

use

dotting

in

a

cautionary

sense

to indicate

inequality

where

the character

of the

melody might suggest

even

delivery,

or

if

the

rhythm

was meant

to

change

back and

forth between

equal

and

unequal,

or

if

one hand

was

to

be

played

equal

and the other

unequal.

By

far

the most

common

problems

for

today's performer

arise

in

24

passages

theoretically

eligible

for

inequality

and written

in

a mixture

of even and dotted notation that does not seem to correspond to any

plausible

pattern

of contrast between

mild

and

sharp inequality.

Is

the

dotting

redundant?

A

reminder

to make

the

rest

unequal?

An indi-

cation

that the undotted

notes

are to be

played

as written?

Perhaps

it

is

up

to le

bon

gou't

to

decide,

but

in that

case,

where

is the

rigor

of

Frederick

Neumann's

dichotomy?

A rare direct

reference

of this

kind of

uncertainty

(as

well as

to

the

dotting

of

undotted

music

outside of

France)

is to be

found

in

a

keyboard

tutor

by

the Amsterdamer

Leonard

Frischmuth

(1758).

After specifying unequal sixteenths in allemandes and unequal

5

Communication

from

Lois

Rosow.

6

I know

of one

statement

to the

effect that

dotting

should

be consistent.

It

is

in

an

anonymous

late

seventeenth-century

treatise

on

organ playing

(F-Pa

MS.3042.

ff.

1oo-119)

"that would

be

thrown out

of

court

in

any

civilized

society" (p.

145),

but

by

which

I nevertheless allowed

myself

to

be

"swayed"

on another matter.

In

fact,

it

contains

more detailed

and concrete

(though

sometimes

almost

undecipherable)

infor-

mation

on

organ

playing

of the

period-however

particular

and

idiosyncratic-than

any

other source

in

any

language;

it

appears

to have been taken

down

from dictation

by

a

semi-literate

student,

and whatever

its

applicability

to

anything

outside the

tribune

that

engendered

it,

it is

totally

convincing

as an account

of what was said

within. On

consistency

in

dotting

trios (which are

played

"boldly

but

very

slowly"):

"I1faut faire

une

grande

atention

a bien

pointer

et couller etc. mais

particullierement

a

pointer

toujours

de la mesme

force car cela est

de la dernierre

consequence

afin de maintenir

la

piece

dans

toutte sa suitte

de la

meme force dont

on

la

commancee

sans ce de

mentir

[sans

se

dementir]" (transcribed

and translated

by

William

Pruitt,

Early

Music

XIV

[1986],

237-51).






NOTES AND INEGALES

UNJOINED

eighths

in

courantes he

continued,

"even

if

there

are

no

dots

(my

emphasis)

. . .

they

must be

played

as

if

they

were there." Pierre

Mar-

cou (1782) observed that there was not "perfect agreement" on

whether

notes

inegales

should

be

played

only

where

dotting

was written

or whether one

should dot even notes

lightly

and dotted ones

"in

a

more

marked fashion." Problems

or no

problems,

however,

disagree-

ments

or

no

disagreements,

there

are

countless

examples

of

contin-

uous

written

dotting

in French

baroque

music and

in

foreign

music

imitative

of

French

styles

which,

played

or

sung

with

any

musical

sensitivity,

will be

indistinguishable

to

the

ear from

notes

inegales

as

taught

in

French

manuals.7

Much of the case against me rests upon the author's notion of

notes

inegales

as

"a

unified,

fully

integrated, organic

unit"

(p.

137),

"a

unified

system,"

"an

organic, logical

whole,"

a

"complex, sophisti-

cated,

system"

which was

"mandatory,"

which

"held

together

over

a

period

of a

century

and a

half'

during

which

writers

"agreed

and

kept

agreeing

on

all

important points" (pp.

139-40).

It takes a

very

selec-

tive

reading

indeed

of the theoretical sources

and-again-a

serious

lack

of

experience

with

the music

to

come

up

with

a

description

like

this.8

In

Grove

I

spoke,

to

be

sure,

of an

"admirably

rational,

even

25

scientific code" emerging from the instruction books, but immediately

went

on to

say

how

illusory

it

was.9 First

of

all,

the

completeness

of the

sources

varies

from

something

as laconic

as

"Le

Duo se

jouie

viste .

. .

et le

pointer

quand

il

est

en croche"

(Andre

Raison,

1714)

to the

elaborate

treatments

of a Demoz

de La Salle

(1728)

or

a Mercadier

de Belesta

(1777)-"complex"

and

"sophisticated,"

up

to a

point,

but

in a

minority

and

far from

agreeing

on details.

You

cannot claim

agreement

on matters about which

many

of

your

sources are silent.

Secondly,

the area

of

agreement

between

even the

more

thor-

ough writers was narrow. The most fundamental rule was that ine-

quality applied

to

the

quarter-beat

in

duple

meters

and the half-beat

in

triple,

and its elaboration

through

all

possible

meters

and note-

values

is

what

gives

the

descriptions

their

look of

exhaustive

rigor.

(Dard,

1769,

specified

unequal

sixty-fourths

in

2/16 ).

But

even here

7

For

many examples

out

of an

infinity,

see G.

B.

Draghi,

Harpsichord

Music,

ed.

Robert Klakowich

(Madison,

Wisc.,

1986),

passim,

also

preface, pp.

xivf.

8

It

is, moreover,

a

gross

error of fact

to

say

that

"all

French texts

without

excep-

tion

.

. .

explained

the

system"

(p.

141).

A

quick

check

of

my

notes,

yields

the

following

practical

treatises

where one

might

expect

to find mention of

inequality

but which are

silent on the

subject:

Millet, 1666; [Nivers], Methodefacile, i666ff; Borjon de Scellery,

1672;

Jean

Rousseau's

singing

method,

1683ff;

Danoville,

1687;

Berthet,

1695;

"Principes

de

musique"

for students at

Saint-Cyr,

MSS

F-V;

Moyreau,

1753;

Berard,

1755;

Blanchet,

1756;

De

Lusse,

1761;

Francoeur,

1772;

Cupis,

1772;

Dellain,

1781.

There

are

certainly

many

others.

9

I also used

the word

"mandatory"

(p.

425),

but

wish I hadn't.






THE

JOURNAL

OF

MUSICOLOGY

there was

disagreement

about

the

foreign-seeming

2/4, 4/8,

and

3/4

(as

opposed

to the native French

"3").

There was

also

uncertainty

about t and about the "descent" of inequality to smaller note-values,

especially

in

passages

of

mixed

values,

where

the

larger

values

were

supposed

to become

equal.

And there were

exceptions

even to

the

basic rules

(see

the

quote

from

Demoz

in

Grove,

p.

421).

Many

authors

indeed seem to

say

that

inequality

was

"mandatory"

except

under

certain

conditions,

but the lists of

conditions varied.

Dots over the

notes

(like

staccato

dots)

canceled

inequality,

but one could not

de-

pend

on

them.1o

The

quarter-

and half-beat

rules did not

emerge

until

the end of the

seventeenth-century

and had a

life of about a

hundred

years: half-beats in C were unequal in Nivers (1665) and Perrine

(1680),

as

well as

Gigault

(1685)

and

Jullien

(1690),

while

Jean

Rous-

seau

(1687)

was

perhaps

the first to

specify equal

eighths

and

unequal

sixteenths

in

C.11

Hardly

a

rule,

but

characteristic of

the

majority

of

sources that

mention

it,

was the

description

of

the ratio of

long

to

short as

being

milder than

the

3:1

of

strict

dotting.

A

few writers

distinguished

explicitly

between notes

inegales

and

sharper

written

dotting

(e.g.,

26

Vague,

1733,

and La

Chapelle,

1736).

But

David

(1737),

who

con-

suited with Campra and Rameau among others in the preparation of

his

treatise,

went to

some

length

to

explain

that

even

notes were

altered

to the

precise equivalent

of

dotted

ones.

Georg

Muffat

(1698),

describing

the

Lully

style

of

playing,

was

nearly

as

explicit,

and

several

others said

simply

that

one

played

eighths

"as

if

they

were

dotted."

Jean-Jacques

Rousseau

(Dictionnaire,

art.

"Pointer")

gave

it

both

ways:

after

describing

the strict

3:

1

dotting

of a

string

of

eighths

he

wrote,

"to

dot them in

performance,

one

takes

them

unequal

according

to

these

same

proportions,

even

if

they

are written

equal."

He

then

went

right

on to say that in French music one always dotted them "a little."

(Professor

Neumann

cites-characteristically,

I

am

afraid-only

the

last

bit,

which is

favorable

to his

argument,

p.

145).

There

are even

a

few

instances

(other

than

the

poor

organ

scholar

of the

Arsenal

MS)

that

suggest

overdotting,

e.g.,

"pique"

where

the

meaning

of

10

Cappus

(see

note

i)

said of

them,

"It

would be

desirable

if

all

composers

took

this

trouble." He also

authorized

the alteration "at

times" of

triplets

to

anapests

or

dactyls

(p.

25;

cf.

Neumann,

p. 139:

"never

ternary"),

and after

filling

five

pages

with

rules for

inequality

in

the various time

signatures,

blew

the whole

system

sky high by

saying

that

the

signatures

were

often

wrong

and in

the end it was

the contents of

the

measure that decided

(p.

14).

1

Though

it is

true

to

say

that

Bourgeois

(1550)

was the first to

make a connection

between

inequality

and

meter,

there is no

thread

of

theory

to

connect

him

with

late

seventeenth-century practice (p. 140).

His book was

written in

Geneva to instruct

Cal-

vinists

in

psalm singing,

and

so

far

as

I

know

was never

reprinted.

RISM

lists

only

three

surviving copies.






NOTES AND INEGALES

UNJOINED

"staccato"

is ruled out

by

written

overlapping

(Dandrieu,

La

Lyre

d'Or-

phee,

second

harpsichord

book,

1728).12

Other features of the convention about which there was even less

unanimity

in the

theory

books were its limitation

to

stepwise

melodies

and

its

confinement to French music

(on

the latter

limitation,

see

Grove,

p.

424).

But

the

body

of written

theory

is a model

of

consistency

compared

to

the

music,

as

has been

suggested

already.

It is rare that

one comes

across a

piece

of French music

in

which

one

can

say

with

confidence

that this

passage

would have been

dotted,

that one

not,

these dots

are written notes

inegales

meant

perhaps

to

be

underdotted,

those

were meant

to

be

strict or

exaggerated.l3

(All

the

uncertainties

of text-transmission come into play here, needless to say, dotting be-

ing

one

of the

most

variable features

of

variant

readings-not only

of

Lully.)

Even

passages

that seem to

fit

some rule

may

turn out to flout

it,

as

for

example

the two-octave

arpeggios

in

the

left hand

of

Rameau's

La

Livri,

which are

certainly

disjunct

and therefore accord-

ing

to

some writers

ought

to be

played evenly.

But

when Rameau

arranged

this

piece

in

Zoroastre,

he dotted the

arpeggios.l4

It

is

a

different

matter

with

foreign

music,

which

was not

(so

far

as one can

tell

from the

theory

books)

subject

to

any

broadly

accepted

convention

27

of inequality. Ought we to dot the sarabande of Bach's French Over-

ture,

which

has

many

points

of

similarity

with

the

dotted,

quasi-French

sarabande

of the fifth Partita?

We

might,

Bach

might,

but

I

doubt

whether

he could have counted

on

purchasers

of the

Clavieriibung

o

do

so;

if he

really

wanted them

to

play

it that

way,

he

would have

had

to write out

the

dotting.

For

twenty-five

years

Frederick Neumann has

sought

to insure

that

Bach's sarabande

will not be

dotted,

and

that

the

12

Of the

trio,

the Arsenal scholar

(see

note

6)

says,

".

..

il

faut

que

ce

pointement

ce face avec

grand

feu et

grande

hardiesse

...

on ne

peut

dont

pas

trop

le

pointer;"

"il

faut

etremement

pointer

le

duo." God

forbid

that the reader should

imagine

that I

am

advocating sharp inequality

as a

norm;

I

am

simply

pointing

out

that not

everyone

distinguished

between written

dotting

and a

milder

inequality

(p.

144),

and the dis-

tinction

cannot

in

any

case

be used to

prove

that notes

inegales

were

never written

out

with

dotting.

13

See,

for

example,

Monteclair's

cantatas,

ed.

James

Anthony

and

Diran Akma-

jian,

(Madison,

1978)

for

a

treasury

of

both

puzzles

and

precise

indications

of

equality

and

inequality-the

puzzles

in

spite

of the fact that the

composer

was one

of

the most

prolific

and

lucid writers on the

problem.

14 The two versions are

printed

side

by

side in Pieces de clavecin, ed. Kenneth

Gilbert

(Paris,

1979),

pp.

106-07.

Since

the

meter

is

"2"

(2/2),

and the

arpeggios

are

in

eighths, they

satisfy

the

quarter-beat

rule

for

duple

time. Such dual versions are

always

subject

to the

interpretation

that

they represent

a

change

of

mind

and

not

rhythmic

alteration

of the undotted

original,

but

they

also show that

inequality

cannot

be

ex-

cluded

on the

ground

that dotted

rhythm

is

unsuitable

to the

context.






THE

JOURNAL

OF

MUSICOLOGY

false ideas with which

the devotees of

Early

Music would

threaten

modern

"mainstream"

performing

traditions

will

be

"laid to rest"

(p.

138) forever. He has pursued this goal with prodigious energy, and

his

method has been to

surround the

masterpieces

of the

eighteenth

century

with an

impregnable

fortress of

rationalistic

"proof"

but-

tressed

by huge quantities

of

documentary

evidence. It is

a measure of

his

power

and

success that those who

would refute him

find them-

selves drawn into battle on

his

terms,

become

entangled

in

futile

argument,

and

retire discredited to

toot their

on-beat

appoggiaturas

and

jangle

their

upper-note

trills.

Here the battle is over the

nature of note

inegales,

and his

purpose

is not so much to learn how the convention might have graced the

music of the

past

as

it

is to define

that nature in

such a

way

as

to

demonstrate

conclusively

that it

could

not

have

been

applied

to

any

music

outside of France.

My

purpose

has

been not

to

argue

that

evenly

written

notes were

performed

unequally

in

other

countries

(though

I

think

they

probably

were,

unsystematically

and on

a

limited

scale,

in

some

places,

especially England)

but to show

that

Fortress

Neumann is

heavily

slanted

and

vulnerable to

close

inspection,

that it

28

cannot

protect

Bach from

open

minds,

and

finally,

that

my

dictionary

articles are not wrong in severing the arbitrary bond

tying

notes in-

egales

to

undotted notation and in

finding

their

effect in

passages

of

persistent

written

dotting.5l

State

University

of

New

Yorkat

Buffalo

15

Unlike

Professor

Neumann,

I

do

not,

however,

"stand

by

every

word"

of

these

articles

(p.

138).

In

Grove,

pp.

423f,

the mention of

inequality

in

a

barrel-organ per-

formance of the overture to TheMarriageof Figaro is wrong; the effect is probably due

to

wear and tear. The

reference

to

Couperin's

Offertoire

p.

423),

which is in

C-time,

is

inconsistent

with

my

presentation

of

the

quarter-beat

rule

on

p.

421.

It is the

latter

that

is

faulty,

as it omits

to

point

out

that

(on

the

evidence of

Nivers,

Perrine, Jullien,

and

Gigault;

see

above)

the

rule

had

not stabilized

when

Couperin

wrote

his

organ

music

and

eighths

were

often

unequal

in

4/4

measures.

Also,

though

I

do

agree

with

Neu-

mann

that

Walther's

quantitas

notarumhas

nothing

to

do with

notes

inegales (p.

141),

I was

wrong

in

implying

(Grove,

p.

423)

that French

writers never

connected

strong-weak

doctrine with

inequality.

See

for

example

Mercadier

de

Belesta,

pp.

66f,

and the

very

interesting

but

anonymous

Nouvelle

methode

pour

apprendre

jouer

du

violon,

(?c.

1760;

F

TLm),

p.

29.

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