This article concisely introduces touch to those of you not too familiar with early music. It was prepared thanks to Jon Baxendale and Sylvain Nowé :
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Le 01/08/2023 12:53, Frank Mento via The Jackrail écrit :
This article concisely introduces touch to those of you not too familiar with early music. It was prepared thanks to Jon Baxendale and Sylvain Nowé :
Thanks for the article, Frank.
What was this “different technique” you refer to?
“Although the 16th century virtuosi and certain later 18th-century
performers employed a different technique for fast runs,”
And why did it disappear throughout the seventeenth century?
You’re welcome, Dennis.
The problem is that it was a trade secret during the 16th century. I got this information from Maria Boxhall’s harpsichord method listed in the Bibliogragraphy.
Your second remark refers to the following paragraph which deals with another subject concerning the technique of German organists. It disappeared in the seventeenth century because it was supplanted by the Spanish technique. This information also comes from Boxhall.
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Le 01/08/2023 14:50, Frank Mento via The Jackrail écrit :
The problem is that it was a trade secret during the 16th century. I got this information from Maria Boxhall’s harpsichord method listed in the Bibliogragraphy.
This begs a few other questions. Where did Maria Boxhall get this
information from? Where in her method does she mention this? I glanced
through it but didn’t find it. But, especially, how could it have
disappeared for over a century and then reappear in the 18th century if
it was a trade secret?
It has also been revived in the 20th century - easy passages with “early
fingering”, and fast runs with the “trade secret”.
I don’t know where Maria Boxhall got that information. I Googled her, but can’t find any recent information. There is no contact information as far as I know. As far as where she mentions this information, it is near the end of the instruction booklet if I’m not mistaken. I’m on vacation right now, so I don’t have access to the score. One needs to look carefully to find the information concerned. She didn’t expand on this subject perhaps to avoid being too lengthy, however, this is just a speculation.
Perhaps other colleagues in this group might be able to complement this information.
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Le 01/08/2023 19:30, Frank Mento via The Jackrail écrit :
I don’t know where Maria Boxhall got that information. I Googled her, but can’t find any recent information. There is no contact information as far as I know. As far as where she mentions this information, it is near the end of the instruction booklet if I’m not mistaken. I’m on vacation right now, so I don’t have access to the score. One needs to look carefully to find the information concerned. She didn’t expand on this subject perhaps to avoid being too lengthy, however, this is just a speculation.
Perhaps other colleagues in this group might be able to complement this information.
Found it on p. 38. She gives no source for this, which makes it just
about worthless.
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Dennis, it’s Maria Boxall (no h). You might be interested in this interview with her:
best wishes,
David
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You may note I posted this here some time ago.
I think that is the sum total of info about her on the trillion pages of the internet.
I had that book. Her little book is long ago and I’m not convinced it is very authoritative of scholarly. E.g. not giving sources. You’d fail a student for that. I think it was just supposed to be a practical book and not a repository of detailed historical study.
I share the same perplexities on Maria Boxall booklet others have expressed. It’s an old book, has no sources, and has little text explanations. Very little on mechanics, nothing on style.
The “trade secret” thing for fast runs seems to me just a trick for not knowing how to explain how the fast runs were done with that archaic fingering. It’s impossible to do fast runs doing 12343434, so how did they do? Simple, they had another fingering technique but it was a trade secret.
Silly. Why would they hide that technique, while writing entire treatises on every other subject? And how would they maintain the secret? Somebody would have looked while they were playing, no?
Fact is, it is perfectly possible to do fast runs with 12343434 etc., and no trade-secret-hypothesis is necessary.
There are more recent and comprehensive books on this topic, let me cite Enrico Baiano’s “Metodo per clavicembalo”, Baiano, Enrico: Metodo per Clavicembalo. Guida pratica per Pianisti, Organisti e Clavicembalisti | Ut Orpheus Edizioni. It has been translated in English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese (all in the above link). Mostly practical but with plenty of sources quotations and citations.
If one aspires to completeness, he must read Claudio Di Veroli’s books on fingering and on “playing the baroque harpsichord”. There are discussed openly about all the extant sources. https://www.braybaroque.ie/
Claudio updates his books frequently, so they are up to date with the current knowledge.
I think trade secret is a mistaken term in this context. Trades in 18C and before often had trade secrets, the divulgence of which was fiercely punishable, in order to protect the livelihood of a workshop. For example, techniques of glass making (see the wonderful Herzog film Herz aus Glas for example.) Chinese ceramicists for hundreds of years refused to divulge the techniques of porcelain making until it finally manged to escape into Germany in the 18C.
But I never heard any contemporary musician in 17-18C say in a treatise, this part is secret so I can’t tell you. It doesn’t make sense. As Domenico says, you only have to watch the player to see the secret. I don’t buy it. Music is not a workshop trade with jealously guarded secrets, it’s public (or perhaps limited private audience) performance art.
I guess people like Bull scarlatti sweelinck and the like didn’t bother to write about it……
For me it’s rather clear that someone like Bull used his own system of fingering. Otherwise l can’t see how anyone could play for instance his variaton on Pipers Galliard ( unless we play everything too fast in general😉)
And perhaps it was his personal secret. Especially concerning performing issues around the virginalists is rather unclear anyway….Also fingerings in MS are sometimes contrary to the ‘official’ virginalist fingering. So l guess things were never very black and white.
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Yes but when people did write treatises there are no references to private or secret things.
I’m sure players all had their own fingerings. Nothing was standardized. That does not imply secrecy. Let’s say rather that Bull had his own technique, rather than secrets. Besides, there was no protective guild or union to obey, and say somebody saw his fingering and learned it, do you really think his livelihood or position would be threatened? Surely not.
If you want to associate Bull with secrets, try the circular canons and puzzles, not simple fingering matters. People can’t solve them properly even today.
Thank you, Pieter. I have bien trying to get into contact with Maria Boxall for justification of her statement on this matter. I have just asked Schott concerning contacting her.
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I estimate she would be 75 or 80 now. She looks about 30 in that 1977 interview photo. Is she indeed still alive? Very low profile on the internet.
Slightly more scholarly article from Boxall:
In that case, as today, the fingerings were presumably put there to remind the player not to attempt to play the passage with the “official” fingerings – and to avoid a wreck!
David
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