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!