Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Re: Intonations, Intentions, and Interpretations

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Intonations, Intentions, and Interpretations:
One composer's view
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Hello, everyone, and recently there has been a lot of debate about
"adaptive tuning" schemes which realize a composer's music in ways
likely quite different from the composer's own original intentions or
expectations. For example, people have discussed performing Landini in
11-limit just intonation (JI) rather than some expected version or
approximation of 3-limit JI; or performing Bach in 7-limit JI, rather
than in an expected well-temperament such as one of Werckmeister's, or
possibly 31-tone equal temperament (31-tet), etc.

While part of this debate depends on the specifics of intonational
systems and tastes, a good part depends also on how one sees the
relationship between composer and performer. My purpose here is _not_
to speak for all composers, nor to propose any universal norm for the
composer-performer relationship, since so much of it is culturally
specific. Rather I speak for one viewpoint, a viewpoint affirming both
the importance and beauty of style-appropriate tunings, and the
freedom to experiment with what I call "xeno-interpretations" which
may knowingly or even deliberately apply an unexpected tuning to a
composition in order to achieve a novel effect or to express the
artistic perspective of the interpreter -- which others are free to
adore or abhor.

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1. Disclaimer: Confession of biases old and GNU
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In expressing my views here, I speak as one whose composing and
performing (the latter mainly for my own edification and recreation)
are oriented mainly to the medieval, Renaissance, and Manneristic
traditions of Europe, and who thus shares some attitudes about the
relationship between composer and performer which may be typical of
these traditions.

From this viewpoint, I take such matters as the choices of voices or
instruments, changes of instrumentation (for example to contrast the
repetitions within a fixed form such as a rondeau or virelai), subtle
changes of tempo to express a text (recommended by Vicentino), and
improvised ornamentation to be decisions left to the _artful_ judgment
of the performers.

More specifically, I would regard intonation as a matter generally
left to the performers (ideally informed by period practice), except
in some new pieces I am now composing which call by nature for
Vicentino's tuning, either 1/4-comma meantone carried to 31 notes per
octave, or 31-tet, as performers may choose. This is not to exclude
xeno-interpretations of these fifthtone pieces, only to say that the
music in this case clearly implies a 31-note system like that of the
first five ranks of Vicentino's archicembalo. For some of these
pieces, at least, a "reduction" to a 12-note tuning (e.g. meantone)
may be practical simply by ignoring the diesis marks; most other
intonational alternatives would be highly "experimental."

In the case of my more "conventional" compositions, however, as with
medieval and Renaissance compositions generally, the question of
intonation is one for the performers to solve, hopefully with some
guidance from period practice and theory. Thus I might generally
recommend that my pieces in medieval styles be realized in 3-limit
(Pythagorean) JI, or some artful approximation for variable-pitch
instruments (including that most perfect instrument, the human voice),
and Renaissance and Manneristic pieces in 5-limit JI or meantone.

However, as with usual medieval and Renaissance compositions, no
intonation is specified; in some cases, performers may want to try
Mark Lindley's excellent method for certain early 16th-century lute
pieces, for example, of trying different tunings and seeing which
sounds best.

Beyond these specifics, my compositions should be open, now and in the
future -- however modest their merits -- to the same liberties,
licenses, and even misguided excesses by performers as those of
Perotin, Adam de la Halle, Guillaume de Machaut, Guillaume Dufay,
Nicola Vicentino, Maddalena Casulana, and Vittoria Aleotti.

This is, in effect, the musical equivalent of a GNU copyleft:
performer modifications or derivative works are freely and joyfully
permitted, with imitation, quotation, and variation the highest forms
of flattery. This is not to say that tasteless or misguided
interpretations have any value in themselves (except as object
lessons), but that a decision to tolerate them has, because it permits
a performer freedom and choice, which are indeed of great value.

It may well be that the ethos which I express here may reflect a
certain social context, for example a setting where music is fostered
by a monastic community or by courtly patronage. There may also be a
kind of tacit assumption that audiences will have the means (and
discernment) to distinguish between a composer's musical text and a
specific performance ot it.

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2. One model: Nicola Vicentino
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In judging the issue of a performer's liberty (and responsibility)
within the precedents afforded by my own stylistic tradition, I could
quote a range of views. For example, Guillaume de Machaut advises that
one of his polyphonic compositions should be performed "without either
adding to it or taking anything away," while it is said that Josquin
des Prez responded to a singer's ostentatious ornamentation of one of
his pieces: "Let the donkey compose his own pieces if he so wishes!"

At the same time, I might point out that criticisms of excessive or
misplaced embellishments can be found in treatises on how to embellish
with discretion and taste. Such liberties are underscored by a
composer and theorist such as Thomas Morley (1597), who treats the
performer's liberty to break a note into two or four as one reason
for rules of counterpoint prohibiting forms of similar motion into a
perfect consonance which could become outright parallel motion if such
"breaking" were applied, thus violating the basic Renaissance norm of
avoiding parallel fifths or octaves.

While Josquin might justly object to a singer more anxious to show off
than to participate in an apt rendition of his work, various
16th-century composers honored this paragon of music by making
arrangements of his pieces, including sacred motets, for instruments
such as the lute. These arrangements are a kind of record of
performance practice, showing idiomatic ornamentation as well as the
artful discretion involved in applying accidentals. Thus the same
cadence may have a minor sixth before an octave (e.g. B2-G3, with C4
as middle C and higher numbers showing higher octaves) made major by
the application of Bb in one arrangement, and G# in another, or the
sixth may be left minor (as happens especially in some German
sources).

While such interpretations, not to mention the pervasive reworking of
established compositions in such forms as the quodlibet and parody
Mass (i.e. a Mass setting based on a motet or chanson, etc.) and
instrumental variations on a popular theme, are commonplace, I would
like to focus on the liberty of what might be termed outright
xeno-interpretations advocated by a noteworthy composer: Nicola
Vicentino.

In presenting brief samples of his enharmonic compositions using
fifthtones, Vicentino notes that usual compositions may be improved by
adding semitonal inflections (sharps and flats) or dieses (fifthtone
alterations) at appropriate points. While _musica ficta_ (accidentals
other than Bb, an integral part of the hexachord system along with B)
might often be left unspecified by the composer, the addition of
diesis (i.e. fifthtone) inflections to an ordinary 16th-century pieces
seems to me about as radical a reinterpretation as performing Landini
in 11-limit or Bach in 7-limit.

At the same time, Vicentino takes the same open and experimental
attitude to his own compositions. Thus he states that some of his
works can be performed either in a pure diatonic manners (without any
accidentals), in a chromatic manner (observing the sharps and flats,
but not the dieses), or in an enharmonic manner (observing all
inflections). Performers might also realize certain works in a "mixed"
manner, observing some inflections of a given kind while disregarding
others.

At the very least, Vicentino's example may suggest that people who
explore novel tunings in their own compositions may be prone to
experiment with them in other people's compositions as well, to good
effect or otherwise (possibly depending in part on who is the judge).

From my own viewpoint, I would say that adding dieses to a piece by
Arcadelt or Willaert would be tantamount to a kind of "recomposition,"
one which would be most unhappy as a _substitute_ for a likely
interpretation within the original composer's intended gamut, but
which might be intriguing as a kind of _variation_.

In contrast, Vicentino's adaptive 5-limit JI system which he offers as
an alternative tuning for his 36-note-per-octave archicembalo might
make possible an interpretation combining the melodiousness of
meantone and the pure concords of JI. Interestingly, Paul Erlich
proposes the same solution for realizing 5-limit on a keyboard while
minimizing melodic shifts (the disparity being 1/4 syntonic comma or
~5.38 cents with a basic meantone temperament providing pure 5:4 major
thirds.)

Thus while Vicentino's proposal to add enharmonic dieses to
conventional compositions involves a kind of xeno-interpretation, his
adaptive 5-limit JI might be seen as a technical refinement
reconciling meantone temperament and more consistently pure concords
without radically redefining the music to which it is applied.

Many intonational decisions may fall somewhere between these extremes
on a kind of continuum of discretion. Thus deciding _which_
Pythagorean intonation scheme to use for a late ballata of Landini or
a song of Ciconia may be an open question even if one seeks to be as
"period appropriate" as possible: should one use Eb-G#, G-Bb, or
possibly some 15-note or larger scheme to have a choice between active
thirds and sixths for directed cadential resolutions to stable
concords, and "softened" thirds and sixths in prolonged sonorities
elsewhere?

With whatever historical warrant, possibly from Marchettus of Padua
(1318), some serious groups performing 14th-century Italian music
_are_ adding "microtones"; whether one applauds or decries this
Vicentinan liberty, it adds another possibility to the spectrum of
performances.

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3. In defense of period-appropriate tunings
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Having read some of the less complimentary opinions expressed here
about what I might term deliberate xeno-interpretations, I would like
to affirm a positive proposition: good performances of pieces in the
period-appropriate tunings for which they are likely designed and in
which they can carry a unique flavor and aura are indeed a necessity
too often neglected.

Perotin or Machaut in Pythagorean, Lasso or Casulana in meantone or
5-limit, Vicentino in 31-note meantone or 31-tet, Bach in Werckmeister
-- these are high experiences which should set an artistic norm. Let
the variations, parodies, and experimental retunings indeed be heard;
but let also the cardinal theme of a tuning to fit the original
ambience of the music resound with joy and honor.

Celebrating the beauty of period-appropriate tunings, I would caution
that it may be all too easy to blame a few artists experimenting with
xeno-interpretations for a scarcity of period-appropriate performances
which may be far more due to mainstream intonational inertia.

To perform Bach on a 12-tet keyboard, no less than to perform Bach in
some adaptive 7-limit scheme, is to offer a period-unlikely reading.
While the 7-limit interpretation may arouse more controversy because
it more obviously sounds "different," and represents a clearer
deviation from the consonance/dissonance contrasts of the style, a
12-tet interpretation may pose a greater danger of eclipsing a period
reading in Werckmeister or the like.

In both cases, the remedy is not to prohibit either 7-limit renditions
or performances on a 12-tet keyboard which happens to be at hand, but
to make the beauty of a performance in Werckmeister or some other
unequal well-temperament more widely known.

One might in fact argue that some xeno-interpretations (7-limit or
otherwise) could actually promote the period-appropriate
well-temperaments by sparking debate on intonation as it relates to
Bach's treatment of tonality and concord/discord. An obviously
"unusual" rendition may from at least this viewpoint be less
"dangerous" than one quite different from the likely original
realization but too easily confused with it, as in the common
misunderstanding that "Bach invented 12-tet."

Similarly, I might be less concerned about some exotic 11-limit
interpretation of Landini than about a 5-limit interpretation based on
the too-popular doctrine that "Pythagorean is just the construct of
some medieval theorists placing rules over musical common sense." Some
years ago, a scholar commented that although medieval documentation
seems to call for Pythagorean thirds, he had not heard any group use
them in performance, because they would likely be criticized for their
"discordant" intonation! This is the kind of prejudice which can do
far more harm than an obviously "unconventional" xeno-interpretation,
precisely because it is "the conventional wisdom."

Here I might add a word of advice as an exponent of style-appropriate
tunings: proponents of xeno-interpretations might be wise to emphasize
that their alternatives are indeed alternatives rather than
replacements for period tunings.

Above all I would stress that the value of tuning pluralism suggests
an appreciation for the unique qualities and musical virtues of the
period tunings, as opposed to their dismissal as _merely_ reflecting
technical limitations or other constraining factors.

Just as the best remedy for the excesses of free speech is more free
speech, so the best corrective for xeno-interpretations which one
considers dubious is more interpretations in period-appropriate
tunings.

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4. The inevitability of interpretation
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Even if one champions style-appropriateness as a prime intonational
virtue, the ultimate freedom and responsibility of interpretation
remains, however delicately it may sometimes be exercised.

Thus to perform a 13th-century French motet in Pythagorean is a good
stylistic choice, but still leaves open the question (especially for
voices or other non-fixed-pitch instruments) of what variations might
have taken place.

To perform the early Dufay in a modified or extended Pythagorean with
at least some major thirds realized as diminished fourths seems an
appropriate solution, and the aura of the altered thirds in this
sonorous environment can indeed be captivating; but some singers may
lean to consistent 5-limit JI, and it may be difficult to say just how
choristers would have tuned Dufay (or Dunstable, the fount of the
"English countenance" which he is said to follow in a contemporary
poem of around 1440).

Such problems may arise from various stylistic perspectives. For
example, if a 12-note Pythagorean tuning of the kind popular in the
early 15th-century is applied to 14th-century compositions, then some
cadential thirds and sixths will be "softened" -- contrary to the
aesthetics which may have prevailed for most of that century, at least
if we are to trust such theorists as Prosdocimus of Beldemandis or
Ugolino of Orvieto.

Similarly, one of the organs around 1460 with an innovative meantone
tuning might well have been used to play pieces conceived in the
traditional Pythagorean system.

Rather than rejecting variation -- whether deliberate or technically
unavoidable or inertial, let us strive to be more aware of the
decisions, compromises, experiments, and concessions to sheer inertia
which we are making.

In short, the ideal advocated here is one of stylistically informed
choice.

Most respectfully,

Margo Schulter
mschulter@value.net

Re: Intonations, Intentions, and Interpretations

🔗M. Schulter <mschulter@xxxxx.xxxx>

🔗John A. deLaubenfels <jadl@xxxxxx.xxxx>