Early (pre-Bach) Harpsichord Music

[Sean]

I know a few of his harpsichord pieces, long wondering things they are. I spoke to professor Whenham at Birmingham uni a couple of times, who's an early 17th c man and agrees with me that Frescobaldi struggles to give sufficient shape and significance to his writing. It is interesting, but not great music; similar things can be said of Froberger...

[Que]

similar things can be said of Froberger...

Hey, watch it!  

Seriously: you obviously are not very familair with his music, or just fail to appreciate it. Froberger was a very interesting and highly original (!) composer of harpsichord music who fused French, Italian and German musical styles.

I reserve any judgement on Frescobaldi until I've had a good taste of his music.

Q

[Sean]

All keyboard music before the big B is iffy- face it pal.

[DavidW]

All keyboard music before the big B is iffy- face it pal.

Why that generalization is absurd!

[karlhenning]

the big B

Boethius?

Perhaps you're right, at that, Sean.

[Sean]

I've just looked through my list of early composer and really they're too boring to mention. How about Tallis's Felix namque pieces, some of his vocal polyphonic rejects smudged over.

[Gurn Blanston]

All keyboard music before the big B is iffy- face it pal.

Be careful when you sit, you're apt to break your neck, and what a blow that would be for all of us. 

[Drasko]

Be careful when you sit, you're apt to break your neck, and what a blow that would be for all of us. 

Yup.

All keyboard music before the big B is iffy- face it pal.

Bullshit.

By the time of most of big B's harpsichord oeuvre (1720s?) french harpsichord music was created (mostly on basis of lute music), underwent major change in style, from its start as suite combined of dances as created by de Chambonnieres and honed further by Louis Couperin, D'Anglebert, de La Guerre or mysterious Le Roux, into suite of character pieces of Francois Couperin, reaching its highest point with same Couperin and Rameau by 1720s, with predictable path toward late extravagances of mid 18th century (e.g. Royer or A-L Couperin).
If you thing all that is iffy you need some serious taste check, but then again I'm certainly not the first who told you that.

[SonicMan46]

I've just looked through my list of early composer and really they're too boring to mention. How about Tallis's Felix namque pieces, some of his vocal polyphonic rejects smudged over.

Sean - well there is a saying in radiology (my field) - 'Look three times, think twice, and speak once!' - I believe from the number of posts left, you've gone the other way - 

Hope that you don't have to 'eat' those words, and then 'hide' from us for a while? Dave 

[DavidW]

Sean - well there is a saying in radiology (my field) - 'Look three times, think twice, and speak once!'

Sounds like the Walter Cronkite school of radiology, he always would pick up the phone to confirm for the third time.  And why don't we have a Walter Cronkite thread when he was a 100 times better human than Michael Jackson?

Anyway back on topic my Paulb snips last night left me even more curious about the music because it sounded pretty different as compared to the usual baroque sound.

[Gurn Blanston]

Be careful when you sit, you're apt to break your neck, and what a blow that would be for all of us. 

Handy illustration of my point, Dave.


----------------
Listening to:
City of London Sinfonia / Ward - Fiorillo Sinfonia Concertante in F for Oboe & Orchestra 2nd mvmt

[Sean]

Drasko, yes styles were advancing, up to the point where great music could be written- by Bach. I know about three quarters of the Couperin, who's about as good as it gets, and it just doesn't have the melodic or structural distinction of the music of the next generation, Rameau, Scarlatti and Bach.

The likes of Binchois, Tallis, Sweelink, Frescobaldi, Froberger, Bull, Gibbons, Tunder, D'Anglebert, Purcell, Kuhnau, Bruhns, A.Scarlatti and Croft are all interesting and fill in the picture and can be enthusiastically discussed, but there can be no serious consideration of this as great or particularly meaningful or memorble music. So there.

[Drasko]

yes styles were advancing, up to the point where great music could be written- by Bach.

Bullshit. Advance stage of a style is no prerequisite condition for greatness of music. By your little theory Monteverdi or Schoenberg are crap by default.

Couperin, who's about as good as it gets, and it just doesn't have the structural distinction of the music of the next generation, Rameau, Scarlatti and Bach.

Bullshit. Apples & oranges, faulting Couperin's character pieces for lacking structure in comparison with Scarlatti ABA sonatas or Bach's fugues is ridiculous, like it would be faulting the latter in lacking the narrative. Same as saying Schumann's Carnaval doesn't have the structure of Beethoven sonata. Don't you say?


edit: Dave, sorry for thread derailment, I won't any further.

[The new erato]

The likes of Binchois, Tallis, Sweelink, Frescobaldi, Froberger, Bull, Gibbons, Tunder, D'Anglebert, Purcell, Kuhnau, Bruhns, A.Scarlatti and Croft are all interesting and fill in the picture and can be enthusiastically discussed, but there can be no serious consideration of this as great or particularly meaningful or memorble music. So there.

I do seriously disagree. It's not as if music evolves in a linear progression towards ever increasing levels of sofisticatian and complexity. Your statement really baffles me to the extent that I find it totally incromprehensible. I could understand a statement saying that you don't understand the greatness in it, after all we all aren't attuned to all sorts of music. Lots of jazz baffles me, but that doesn't mean I woud be so arrogat as to say that "there can be no serious consideration of this as great or particularly meaningful or memorable music". IMO it comes down to narrowmindeness and downright arrogance, rather than meaningful musical criticism. In what aspect is the music of eg an isorhytmic motet by Dufay any less great than eg Gretchen by Spinnrade by Schubert?

[Sean]

Drasko & erato

Advance stage of a style is no prerequisite condition for greatness of music. By your little theory Monteverdi or Schoenberg are crap by default.

It's not as if music evolves in a linear progression towards ever increasing levels of sofisticatian and complexity.

I certainly agree that artist merit doesn't depend on style but music has fundamental technical components, particularly counterpoint and tonality, that didn't get properly established until into the 17th century- and this fact does compromise what all prior composers could achieve.

And in my notion of structure I wasn't thinking of fixed formal designs but the understanding of musical flow, architecture and logic- which are related to contrapuntal technique and harmony: with primitive modal polyphony instead still in influence, music was naturally wandering, uncertain and without closure regardless of the composers intuitive genius- because they hadn't the means to articulate it.

Musical logic indeed may not have formal closure of those traditional types but it needs the technical groundwork there in order to really do anything. Pre and post tonal works are interesting but lie outside what art music essentially is.

In what aspect is the music of eg an isorhytmic motet by Dufay any less great than eg Gretchen by Spinnrade by Schubert?

As above.

By the way I forgot Buxtehude on my list, who's at least a match for Couperin in quality of music (just to remind erato that aesthetics isn't a subjective matter).

Have fun with that: somehow I expect you'll be looking for another picture for it.

[DavidW]

music has fundamental technical components, particularly counterpoint and tonality, that didn't get properly established until into the 17th century

So you're defining music as necessarily requiring counterpoint and tonality?  Thus making anything pre-baroque, and anything atonal just strange noise?  I don't think that anyone will accept your definition!

[Sean]

Evening/ afternoon David. Yes, that's what I'm saying: non-tonalities are in various ways of value but they're not what music is really about. Let's agree to disagree on this though as it's old ground...

Presently listening to Scarlatti sonatas (Nos.120+)- ah, those blending lines, those consonant harmonies...

[CRCulver]

Evening/ afternoon David. Yes, that's what I'm saying: non-tonalities are in various ways of value but they're not what music is really about.

So you think that artists who preserve the folk musics of the world should just give up? Chinese opera troupes would be better off doing Handel? Shakuhachi players should just quit and listen to Bach instead? In spite of dedicating their lives to their musical crafts, they don't know what music is really about?

[The new erato]

Drasko & erato

I certainly agree that artist merit doesn't depend on style but music has fundamental technical components, particularly counterpoint and tonality, that didn't get properly established until into the 17th century- and this fact does compromise what all prior composers could achieve.

And in my notion of structure I wasn't thinking of fixed formal designs but the understanding of musical flow, architecture and logic- which are related to contrapuntal technique and harmony: with primitive modal polyphony instead still in influence, music was naturally wandering, uncertain and without closure regardless of the composers intuitive genius- because they hadn't the means to articulate it.

Musical logic indeed may not have formal closure of those traditional types but it needs the technical groundwork there in order to really do anything. Pre and post tonal works are interesting but lie outside what art music essentially is.

As above.

By the way I forgot Buxtehude on my list, who's at least a match for Couperin in quality of music (just to remind erato that aesthetics isn't a subjective matter).

Have fun with that: somehow I expect you'll be looking for another picture for it.

So what you basically say is that nontonal music can never be great? Like Indian ragas, Webern, Machaut etc? Well I strongly disagree. And how you can say that principles of counterpoint was established in the 17th century is plain wrong. Greatness IMO has nothing to do with tonality, but with our tonalityconditioned minds it perhaps requires greater training, listening experience or openness to recognize it. I cannot hope to convince you I guess, but again, tying greatness up with tonality (any kind of tonality BTW?) to me me simply seems culturally restricted and narrowminded.

EDIT: I see the technicalities as defining the framework of composition, what the composers does, is fill the framework -whatever it is - with substance, and therein lies greatness and the composers genius - however hard or impossible that may be to define. What you basically say is that Middle of the Road's "Chirpy Chirpy Tweet Tweet" has a bigger chance of aspiring to greatness than early Dufay or an Indian raga developed as a result of thousands of years of musical development, because it is within a framework foreign to you. To me, that is simply madness...and makes greatness simply an individual and subjective matter. In that case I know people who would probably think that said ditty is a greater work of music than any Wagner opera, and they would be right, clearly an unsustainable position I would think.  

[DavidW]

Once Eric sees this thread, it's really going to take off.

Him and Sean probably see eye to eye.