Text Painting: What Colors to Use?

One of the most popular things to do as a Baroque composer was to use the text of a piece to dictate what happened in the music.  This technique is called text painting, and our October 2nd program has two pieces that feature this technique: Vivaldi's All'ombra di sospetto and Bach's "Ich folge dir gleichfalls".

Vivaldi's cantata is very interesting in that the text painting really helps to understand the text.  The text is talking about the deception of beauty and the simplicity of love.  The first recitative talks about how beauty can be flattering but deceiving at the same time.  In the following aria, the flute plays a melody that has many ornaments (smaller notes in between the longer, more important ones).  In fact, the melody sounds awfully complex at times, and when the soprano joins in, singing in more detail about the flatteries of beauty, she sings some heavily ornamented music.

In the next recitative, the soprano sings about the details of love.  She sings that true love sees dedication, even bloodshed, in order to prevail.  Obviously this section is more impassioned.  Then, as almost a reaction to this, the flute begins with a more upbeat, but simple melody.  There are fewer ornaments in this melody, and the singer continues about how love is more true and simple than beauty.

Text painting is not always about complex ideas such as love and beauty.  Many times, text painting is much more literal, such as what happens in Bach's "Ich folge dir gleichfalls".  In this aria, the flute and soprano are in a constant dialog throughout, and this dialog usually helps bring out the details of Bach's technique.  The main melody, or ritornello, is quite repetitive.  However, this repetition seems to prepare the listener for the text that follows.  The soprano sings something along the lines of, "I will follow you joyfully."  When she starts singing this, the flute follows immediately after.  This goes on for much of the first section of the piece.  As soon as the singer starts to sing, "Do not stop pushing and pulling me," she sings a very long line that has no pauses.  Then, she starts to repeat "do not stop" many times, essentially commanding the flute to continue playing a longer passage.  Some other ideas that come through with this technique are the parts where the soprano sings, "pushing and pulling me."  In these measures, the melody breaks up into smaller bits, slowly climbing up a melodic ladder, as if the singer were pushing through each challenge as a hypothetical other being were pulling her along.

I personally find that Bach's use of this technique were spiritually motivated, especially since some of his other uses of this technique are quite subtle.  The biggest example of this came to me during our dress rehearsal today.  In the St. John Passion, this aria comes right after Peter and another disciple decide to follow Jesus into His passion.  Whenever I read the gospel accounts of this and think about them, I can only imagine that this was a very dark time for everybody, and there was uncertainty with every step.  Bach actually incorporates this uncertainty into the music, which actually has made this particular piece challenging to put together.  The baroque flute is a finicky instrument, to say the least.  Unlike its modern metal descendant, the notes on the baroque flute are all very distinct in sound quality.  G is loud.  F is soft.  B-flat is dull, and A-flat is duller still.  C is uncomfortable, but D is gorgeous.  E-flat goes sharp; the list goes on and on (and I even complain about them during my lessons).  Bach was a smart man, and he used these peculiarities in the composition of this aria.  Something that is so important to Baroque music is the downbeat.  For many pieces, the downbeat is pretty strong in each measure, creating a steady pulse on which people could improvise.  Generally, these downbeats would be on "good" notes for instruments (such as a G or D on a flute).  However, in this aria, the downbeat is played by only one out of four instruments many times.  The flute has to play these downbeats on terrible notes, making them quite weak for a downbeat.  Add on top of that the bass and harpsichord coming in on the second and third beats, and you have a somewhat uncertain sounding rhythm throughout the piece.  I find that this uncertainty was intended to show the uncertainty that Peter and the other disciple felt as they followed Jesus into His passion.

In this video. I am playing through some examples of this text painting with my singer for October 2nd, Laura Councell.  Enjoy the video, and don't forget to come to my recital!

Senza Basso: The Challenge

Let's rewind back to my time as a freshman in music college.  I was just getting used to practicing compulsively, just as my high school teacher had taught me, and I was supposed to play everything evenly and easily.  I was a bassoonist making his first time through the Milde Scale and Arpeggio Etudes (a standard book of exercises for bassoonists that covers all the difficult things of the instrument).  At the same time, since I was at Longy School of Music, and since I'd just started to toot on the recorder and baroque flute, I thought it would be helpful to take some lessons from the baroque flute teacher.  So, I decided to take a stab at a new book of music I'd just purchased at a festival the summer before, a collection of fantasias by Georg Phillip Telemann.

Of course, when I saw all the notes, I thought it would be a good time for me to practice the way I'd always known how: slowly, shifting the beat, and making sure everything was even.  Then, I went ahead and took the piece to play in a masterclass in front of all of my fellow students, quite confident that I'd covered everything necessary in the music because it was even.  After playing through what I thought was a great performance, my teacher told me to look at the music again.

"What is happening in this music?" she asked.
"It's a French Overture."  I said proudly, throwing around that advanced vocabulary.
"Yes.  So what does the middle section usually have?"
"A fugue."
"Exactly.  Why aren't you playing the different voices?"
I looked closely at the notes and noticed that there was a simple melody hidden behind all of those extra notes.  You see, a fugue is a type of technique that requires more than one voice to be playing at the same time, and on flute, it's not really possible to do that (unless you want to sing while you play, but that wasn't very common at the time).  So, after seeing that Telemann had come up with a way to write more than one voice into a flute piece, I never forgot to consider that with all of the other pieces in the collection.  If I had been more aware at the time, I would've realized how important the title of the collection was for the interpretation.

One of the most important aspects of Baroque music, much like music today, is the bass.  Not only was it important to have somebody playing the bass, but it was also important to have at least two people covering the bass part: a melody instrument, and a chordal instrument.  A melody instrument is one that would play just one line, like the bassoon, viol, or cello.  A chordal instrument is one that would supply chords, like a harpsichord, a lute, a harp, or even a guitar.  Because of this expectation, one of the biggest lies in Baroque music titles is the "Trio Sonata".  There would be two solo voices and one bass voice, but it was always assumed that there would be a melody instrument and a chordal instrument covering that part - therefore, four instruments.

So what?  Why is that relevant?  Well, let's just say that a piece titled, "Fantasia per il flauto senza basso" [fantasia for the flute without bass], terrifies me at the onset.  All of a sudden, I, a flute player, a melody instrumentalist, am in charge of supplying more than a melody.  I have to take the role of three people with just one instrument!

In this particular fantasia, I as the flute player have to supply a bass line to my fleeting melody.  This happens in two different movements: one is a little more abstract sounding, and the second is a dance, a gigue.  Luckily, at my last rehearsal with my bass viol player, Pedro Funes (whom you'll be hearing much more from), I was able to have him help me play the fantasia with a bass.  In this video, I have three different play-throughs: one with the bass and soprano parts separated, then one with me playing the actual written music with the help of the bass instrument, and then one with just me, playing the way it's supposed to be played: without bass.

Don't forget, if you're free and in town, you can come hear my recital, Musica Inspirata: A Baroque Flute Recital.

Hotteterre Suite: What's in a Name?

French Baroque music is something that is a very particular.  When I first heard a prelude by Couperin, I was upset because I could not figure out where the beat was, let alone the melody.  Everything sounded so uncontrolled that I almost lost interest.  However, after listening to more of it, I started to enjoy it more and more.  Luckily, there are many things that one can listen for in this music, and when one listens with those things in mind, the music might seem a little easier to comprehend and appreciate.

Hubert Robert, La Cascade de Saint Cloud

In much of the music from the Baroque, pieces will be titled with their tempo markings or with dance titles.  You've probably heard of many pieces with these names, such as a bourree or gigue of Bach.  These dances were written many times in collections called suites.

In France, something that was quite different than the other countries was that they would add some descriptive titles to their dances.  Rather than the first dance in a suite be called "Allemande", it is called, "Allemande: La Cascade de Saint Cloud."  So, with the suite that I will be performing by Jaques-Martin Hotteterre, each movement has a descriptive title.  This is quite helpful because it gives the audience something more to listen to (at least, when the title is straightforward enough to understand).  The first movement, called "Allemande: La Cascade de Saint Cloud," features many descending figures, starting from a fairly high part of the flute's range descending all the way down to the bottom, just like the water making its way down the Cascade de Saint Cloud.

The next movement, called "Sarabande: La Guimon," is enigmatic, unfortunately.  Some have suggested that this is the name of a student or admirer of Hotteterre, but the name is all but lost today.  Still, the dance Sarabande is pretty standard for Baroque suites.  This dance features a slower tempo and an accent on the second beat of every other measure.  This can give the dance a push forward before relaxing every other bar.

The "Courante: l'Indiferrente" is quite interesting to me because the title seems to play off the title of the next movement, called "Le Plaintif".  The character depicted in this courante is one who will dance her steps virtuosically, yet gracefully.  She stops for nobody, and her point gets across quite well.  On the other hand, the "Rondeau: Le Plaintif," features a gentle melody that comes back many times, as if the performers were asking the same question over and over again to the indifferent lady.

After backing away from the conversation between the indifferent and the plaintive, we can find "Menuet: Le Mignon," or "The Cute One."  We see a child who is taking its first steps in a courtly dance.  The melody is very simple, with many repetitions, as if the child were trying to practice to make sure everything was correct.  In addition to these features, the fact that the movement is quite short suggests that it is the cute little baby compared to the rest of the movements belonging to a family of a suite.

Lastly, Hotteterre makes a bow to tradition, but with his personal twist.  Firstly, it was common for suites to begin with an allemande and end with a gigue, which is why it is no surprise that the last movement of this suite is the "Gigue, l'Italienne."  Secondly, Hotteterre has the nickname "Le Romain" because he studied in Rome for a period of time.  I do not know if this is intentional to his name, but I like to think that this Italian gigue is named as a call towards his nickname.  Regardless, this gigue is called the Italian because it is a dance in the Italian style rather than the French one.  The French gigue uses many dotted rhythms, which the French considered to be more elegant than other rhythms (more on this in a little bit).  However, Hotteterre decided to end this suite with an Italian gigue, which is much faster in tempo and virtuosic in nature.  It seems, though, towards the end of the movement, that even Le Romain could not keep up with this non-French style dance, for there is a section where he has the flute play a passage with the French dotted rhythms.  At the very least, in keeping with our images for the movements, this gigue is as if we have stepped outside the court and started dancing to the pipe band in the streets: not one care in the world.  In this video, you can here examples of a French Gigue, then an Italian Gigue, and then Hotteterre's "Gigue: l'Italienne".

You can listen to this whole cast of characters in my upcoming recital, Musica Inspirata, on October 2nd, at 5 pm!

Preparations

As I prepare for my first recital on the Baroque flute (in two forms), I am learning about the complexities that go into making this program well worth the effort.  I remember from one of the earliest traverso lessons I had, my teacher and I both agreed that modern flute was a toy.  There are many great modern flute players out there who can make some of the greatest music, in my opinion, but they have it so easy when it comes to maintaining an instrument!  I mean, since everything is made of metal, the instrument isn't quite as susceptible to the weather as, say, a bassoon is.

A typical reedmaking scene

For those of you who don't know me, I am a modern bassoonist by training and by trade.  I enjoy the instrument above all others, even if it seems like I stray quite far away from it from time to time.  I can play all my ideas on it and understand it the most.  During my time in college and graduate school, one of the most recurrent things in my preparations was reedmaking.  This is a craft that casts a shadow over many double reed players of many different backgrounds.  It's also a craft that requires just as much, if not more, time and attention than actual practice.  A good musician can make any instrument sing, but a bad reed can make any musician cry.  After eight years or so of having to make my own reeds, I had gotten used to having to work extra hard at, basically, making my instrument that I still can't imagine playing another instrument without dedicating such time to a craft like that.

But, playing historical flutes has given me an opportunity to avoid that toil.  One of my best friends said that playing recorder is a relief from reedmaking.  Sure, it doesn't have the same range as the oboe or bassoon, and it doesn't have much of a dynamic range, but it is still an instrument that we can play without worrying about reeds every break.  And, even after pursuing recorder further than our ridiculous reading sessions (Mozart Oboe Concerto for recorder quartet, anyone?), I still find recorder to be a joy to play with its ease of access to the entire range of the instrument.  Perhaps something that has been a blessing is the fact that my recorder is finished with some wax in the bore, so I don't have to worry so much about the instrument being as temperamental with the climate, but I do still have to deal with the mouthpiece getting clogged.

Look at that high C!  Screech just for the fun of it!

Yes, that is the same drying rack I use for reeds.

What I found to be quite strange, at least in my experience playing wind instruments, is having to oil the bore.  In a lesson I had a few months ago with my current traverso teacher, I complained that I wasn't able to get a consistent tone out of the instrument.  Of course, I blamed myself for the issue, especially since I'm still quite new to the world of flute playing.  However, she asked, "Have you oiled the instrument lately?"  Then I remembered that the instructions that came with my traverso said to oil every six months or so.  It had been over six months since I had oiled the bore, so I decided to do that that night.  The next day, the instrument was playing wonderfully, and I became confident once again in my playing.

Learning recorder and traverso has been quite a journey for me, but I am loving every step of the way, and I hope to be able to impart that same joy with anybody willing to hear my playing.