Re: Digest Number 1164 (for Joseph Pehrson)

Hello, there, Joseph Pehrson, and the question of how singers would
recognize cadential events calling for performed-supplied accidentals
(often not indicated in the notation) is one that various writers have
addressed, for example Pietro Aaron in his 1529 appendix to the
_Toscanello_.

For a discussion of what he says, and related questions, one source is:

http://www.yahoo.com/emfaq/harmony/hex.html

Here I have a bit of experience in making decisions on accidentals at the
keyboard: each modern editor may have different opinions of what unwritten
inflections _might_ have been sung, or "should" be sung. Robert Toft's
book which I cite in the above Web page shows how the evidence of
tablatures for instruments such as lute confirms that a lot of this was
indeed a matter of discretion with two or three solutions possible.

Nicola Vicentino tells us also that sometimes singers got their signals
mixed, with things like expected "dissonant sevenths" (read augmented
sixths) resulting. Let's suppose that we have a sixth E3-C4 before D3-D4,
so that _someone_ should be inflecting to make that sixth major, assuming
that we want to follow "closest approach" (a routine but not invariable
thing).

This is a bit like one of those "Prisoner's Dilemma" games: if _either_
the lower singer sings Eb (a _fa_ inflection), or the upper one sings C#
(a _mi_ inflection), we get a major sixth. If neither inflects, we get a
minor sixth before an octave -- routine in some styles or places, but
considered awkward by others. If _both_ make their inflections, then we
get Eb3-C#4, the "seventh" which Vicentino warns singers and composers
about. (Yes, it can occur deliberately, but that's another question.)

The practice of supplying accidentals at cadences which might not be
written in the manuscript, a feature of 14th-16th century practice, can
draw on various cues: what one's own voice is doing (if one is a singer or
player of a melody instrument), the vertical context (unfolding in real
time, to complicate things considerably), and in a Renaissance setting,
often the vital clue of a suspension leading one to feel, "Here comes a
cadence (probably)!"

Of course, as Aaron and others note, rehearsing, finding any pitfalls, and
ironing them out is one solution -- but getting it "right" the first time
(or in one of the umpteen possible interpretations that seems a _version_
of "right") can be a problematic thing.

As for the sizes of the semitones, I suspect that they would approximately
fit a Pythagorean model in 13th-14th century music (the rule of "closest
approach" getting formulated around 1300-1320, but with manuscript
accidentals suggesting some tendencies in this direction near the end of
the 13th century), and some kind of meantone/3-5 JI model starting around
1500 or a bit earlier.

A Pythagorean model means small diatonic semitones (nicely fitting the
active cadential thirds and sixths); a meantone/3-5 JI model means rather
large semitones, and an ideal of smooth thirds and sixths, for example in
resolving cadential suspensions.

Some theorists give rough guidelines in terms of fractions of a tone. One
15th-century theorist says that the Pythagorean semitones are about 4/9
and 5/9 tone for diatonic and chromatic respectively (quite accurate,
since these fractions precisely occur in the almost identical 53-tET!),
while Renaissance writers, once the transition from the old model to the
new gets codified, give converse fractions like 5/9 or 3/5 tone for the
large _diatonic_ semitone of this new model.

The late 15th-century provokes lots of debate, and some people say, "Even
if the organs were in meantone, I suspect that singers would often still
have used something like Pythagorean for at least portions of Ockeghem or
Josquin." It can be a "hot button" issue among performance practice
scholars and critics.

Anyway, as someone who sometimes asks "Should I play this note as C#, Db,
or just plain C?" (in an early 15th-century Pythagorean setting), I
suspect that performers reached lots of different solutions, and that the
different accidentals coming down to us in different versions of the same
piece may indicate that performers were a diverse lot also.

Most appreciatively,

Margo Schulter
mschulter@value.net

--- In tuning@y..., "M. Schulter" <MSCHULTER@V...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_19910.html#19910

> Hello, there, Joseph Pehrson, and the question of how singers would
> recognize cadential events calling for performed-supplied
accidentals (often not indicated in the notation) is one that various
writers have addressed, for example Pietro Aaron in his 1529 appendix
to the _Toscanello_.
>
> For a discussion of what he says, and related questions, one source
is:
>
> http://www.yahoo.com/emfaq/harmony/hex.html
>

Hello Margo Schulter!

Thank you for your commentary. I believe, however, that the above
website is an error... The correct page is at:

http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/harmony/hex.html

Incidentally, in case people don't know... and we're on the topic of
a FAQ (!!) There is an excellent early music FAQ at the "root" of the
above:

http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/

This is serendipitous, since I just happened to be reading the
"hexachord" series of webpages just last night (!!) That's why I
caught the webpage error...

Robert Toft's book which I cite in the above Web page shows how the
evidence of tablatures for instruments such as lute confirms that a
lot of this was indeed a matter of discretion with two or three
solutions possible.
>

I guess I should have surmised as much, since I *have* heard there
are many er... "decisions" that have to be made in early music
performance practice!

>
> This is a bit like one of those "Prisoner's Dilemma" games: if
_either_ the lower singer sings Eb (a _fa_ inflection), or the upper
one sings C# (a _mi_ inflection), we get a major sixth. If neither
inflects, we get a minor sixth before an octave -- routine in some
styles or places, but considered awkward by others. If _both_ make
their inflections, then we get Eb3-C#4, the "seventh" which Vicentino
warns singers and composers about. (Yes, it can occur deliberately,
but that's another question.)
>

I had no idea that the notion of the "augmented sixth" resolution,
even if in "error" came about as early as this!

> The practice of supplying accidentals at cadences which might not be
> written in the manuscript, a feature of 14th-16th century practice,
can draw on various cues: what one's own voice is doing (if one is a
singer or player of a melody instrument), the vertical context
(unfolding in real time, to complicate things considerably), and in a
Renaissance setting, often the vital clue of a suspension leading one
to feel, "Here comes a cadence (probably)!"
>

Well, I guess this is partially what "musica ficta" was about... I'd
better go back over those webpages, now that we have the link
correct...

Thanks so much again, and I appreciate your "refreshing" my memory
about the variability of such performance practices. That much I
*do* remember learning at one point... I did learn something about
the variability of cadences, but I don't believe I was ever engaged
in a discussion of different tunings or different sized semitone
possibilities in cadences...

________ _____ _____ ____
Joseph Pehrson