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In Reply to: RE: You obviously didn't read the article--it talks about *light* vibrato... posted by C.B. on February 22, 2015 at 08:54:50
Hi, C.B. - Well here we are butting heads over this issue again! ;-)
[The article] talks about "light vibrato"...not the kind of heavy vibrato used nowadays as a crutch or substitute for beautiful tone.
I'm sorry, but that is a wholesale misrepresentation of what the article is saying. The author is very clear about the meaning of "light vibrato", even quoting Sulzer's 1771 treatise: "[the microtones of light vibrato] alternate so rapidly that the alternation itself is not clear; this makes the tone gentle and undulating. . . Because of the gentle vibrato it gives all sustained notes, the human voice has an obvious advantage over all other instruments. A fundamental part of good singing and playing requires holding out EVERY NOTE [my caps] with such vibrato. It is easiest in singing, because Nature herself ensures that the vocal instrument does not remain on any sustained tone with the same rigid tension. But on instruments, vibrato requires more effort. On the violin, it is most easily obtained by rolling the finger rapidly back and forth on the string."
So that's the crux of it! The gentle vibrato (i.e., the vibrato which Geminiani said was "indispensable" in violin playing!) is like the singing of an Elly Ameling type singer - and there are zillions of voices of her type - in its moderation and restraint. IOW, it's probably not the vibrato of some provincial Eastern European or Russian opera singers (the kind which, as we used to joke, was a minor third wide!). Nor is it the type of blanched, androgynous sound of the likes of Emma Kirkby and her ilk. It's the happy (light!) medium.
Assuming we agree on this, I challenge you to find even ONE HIP performance where the string players play with the type of vibrato characteristic of an Elly Ameling, an Edith Mathis, a Ruth Ziesak, et al. You can't do it because it doesn't exist! The existing HIP performances are accurately described in the quoted New Grove article from 2001: "[Vibrato] seems always to have been accepted as an ornament until the first quarter of the 20th century, when its continuous use gradually became the norm… During the Baroque era, vibrato was used sparingly, for emphasis on long, accentuated notes in pieces with an affect or character to which it was suited. Being regarded as an ornament, in principle it was used on single notes like any other… Less common ornaments such as vibrato or glissando were in theory used only by soloists… Continuous vibrato is a 20th-century phenomenon." That's the party-line orthodoxy of the HIP crowd, but is that the way Elly Ameling sings? In your heart, you know the answer is a resounding NO!
BTW, this "singing quality" in the vibrato was one of the key points in David Hurwitz's well reasoned Classic Today articles about vibrato. The Strad article simply and elegantly confirms the rightness of his argument.
For the time being, I'll leave the other red herrings in your post for later discussion. Well. . . except for your anecdotes about Nicolas McGegan: yes, he has a winning personality and his enthusiasm is infectious - I even have a couple of his Rameau CD's. But he's still wrong, wrong, wrong about vibrato!
And as I've argued before, no one can use vibrato continuously (talk about a red herring!), if only because many notes are simply moving too fast to apply vibrato. And BTW, who today uses vibrato as a "crutch" or as a "substitute for beautiful tone"? Let's name some names and not hide behind generalities.
You see, the whole 'vibrato' thing is a kind of red herring thrown out by people who have little understanding of the nuts and bolts of baroque music.
Yes - that statement is staring YOU in the face, because you've been sold a bill of goods on the subject by lemming academicians falling in line with each other in a lame attempt to justify their jobs. And don't presume to lecture me about the concept of rhetoric - I had this stuff crammed down my throat when I was getting my DMA and I'd be happy to trade quotes from treatises with you any day of the week! ;-)
Follow Ups:
My basic view of HIP is: In the pre-industrial world, instruments were not as loud or powerful, performance spaces were often much smaller, and ensembles were also often smaller. Those fundamental differences are at the heart of most differences between HI Performance and Modern Performance.
When a tenor sings Nessun dorma at the Metropolitan Opera, he must sing very, very loudly. (The first thing a non-classical music listener notices when they go to their first opera is how loud everyone is singing.) That has a profound impact on vibrato, phrasing, and all other aspects of vocal technique. It even affects tempo and pitch -- notice how people speak, not only louder, but also at a higher pitch and more slowly when they are speaking in a large venue? Also, since the mid-19th century, instruments have generally been redesigned to be played much louder. That has had a major impact on all aspects of instrumental technique.
Good HIP performers are not academics, or not only academics, but musicians who understand a compelling performance is what matters, not rigid adherence to a series of rules about vibrato, which they do use, or anything else. But they are turning back the clock to a quieter, gentler time, without jets and jackhammers, when you could still hear the breeze rustling the leaves. If you are willing to mentally transport yourself to that quieter time, you can appreciate their work. Otherwise, it may all seem a frustrating bore.
I could give many specific examples, but what's the point? It isn't your thing. But it is a legitimate thing.
. . . I have to deal with emptying chamber pots, getting a good supply of leeches (for when I get sick!), etc.
I'm all for quieter, gentler times however - but for me, those times are best evoked by music such as Mischa Levitzki's "The Enchanted Nymph":
...our definitions and conceptions of 'continuous vibrato' vs. ‘non-vibrato’, as well as the relative amounts or intensity of vibrato, are at odds with each other. I myself may have used these terms rather loosely, so here goes my attempt to pin it down.Putting all historical considerations aside for the moment (bear with me here), the question any violinist, violist or cellist must deal with when playing, say, music prior to 1750, is whether to vibrate on notes equivalent to or longer than a quarter note in m = 60, to pick an arbitrary starting point. I think you'll agree that trying to vibrate on eighth notes (or shorter) in this tempo is unnecessary and to a certain extent impractical--even big name violinists stop roughly at this point, give or take a few clicks of the metronome. (You said essentially the same thing in another post, but I can’t find it right now, so I think we’re in agreement).
Just for kicks, I decided to test this out this question on two of my favorite recordings of the Bach G Minor Violin Sonata, by Viktoria Mullova and the late Sergiu Luca. I picked these two artists for a reason, because both have had respectable careers playing both modern and period, so they are perhaps more flexible than the ‘sackcloth-and-ashes’ types that you despise. Luca, in fact, until his death was a professor at Rice University, and taught both styles of playing.
In the first measure of the Adagio, Mullova vibrates on the first quadruple-stop g minor chord, and quite noticeably at that. After a melisma of thirty-second notes, she plays the suspension on the third beat straight; only the resolving tone, an F-sharp, has vibrato. This is very effective in my book—the straight tone emphasizes the dissonance of the suspension, while the resolution is softened with vibrato. In the second measure, Mullova employs vibrato on beats one and three (an eighth-note quadruple-stop chord), but the two eighth notes leading to the next measure are straight, as are the sixteenth notes on the downbeat, which in her tempo are probably too short for vibrato in any case.
Measure two is handled in similar fashion, this time with vibrato on beats two and three. The ‘and’ of two consists of two straight sixteenth notes leading to the suspension on beat three, which is resolved with a thirty-second-note melisma that leads to the next measure.
As so it goes, a mix of vibrato and straight tone, obviously chosen for artistic effect and not necessarily dictated by any strict historical guidelines.
Luca handles this opening movement in similar fashion, albeit in a slower tempo which allows him even more freedom of expression. In both cases, the violin tone is always attractive (at least to my ears) and seldom entirely devoid of vibrato. The concluding chords in both recordings, for example, are given the slightest ‘shimmer’ of a vibrato, which I find very effective. So neither performer’s sound can be characterized as ‘vibrato-less’ nor ‘continuous’, but somewhere in between. When straight tone is used, it’s always for effect, to heighten the dissonance of a suspension or non-chordal passing note, for example.
A comparison with Heifetz’s recording of the same piece is revealing. He vibrates on practically every strong beat, although there are a few straight held notes (played quite jarringly and with ugly tone), which sound out of place in the overall context. Heifetz even vibrates on every note of sixteenth-note groups, which few violinists do nowadays. Because there is little distinction between strong and weak beats, the playing overall is ponderous—there is no ‘give and take’. The relatively heavy vibrato, as in ‘wide and fast’, adds to this feeling. Altogether, it’s a style of playing that sounds anachronistic and rather self-indulgent in this very rarified, cerebral type of music. Heifetz’s Bach sounds to me more like—I don’t know—Rachmaninoff? I dare say that most listeners nowadays gravitate towards the lighter, more expressive, less indulgent style of Bach playing exemplified by Mullova and Luca, to judge by record-buying habits.
Needless to say, this is hardly the ‘sackcloth-and-ashes’ way of playing Bach. You may dislike the artistic decisions that they have made, but the playing is far from inexpressive, and none of the decisions made are doctrinaire or based on some strict historical rule. As Amphissa said, this style of performing Bach (or Handel, or Vivaldi) is simply one of many options out there. I can’t imagine anyone having a problem with this, unless you’re somebody like Pinchas Zuckerman who has vowed, in print, to gun down anyone he hears playing Bach this way (I kid you not).
So the question for you, Chris, is this: do you object to period violinists because they violate the holy doctrine of the ‘true vibrato’ (as revealed in the Strad article), or do they violate some other 'historical' principle, or do you simply not like the artistic/interpretative choices they make? If it’s any of the above, then give me an example of a modern violinist who floats your boat in Bach, and I’ll give it a listen. Haven’t heard any yet who were half as interesting as the examples I gave, but who knows? Maybe I’m in for a surprise.
BTW—your citing Elly Ameling as an example—as fine a singer as she was—is bogus. Modern singers, even more than modern violinists, depend on vibrato for tone production. The two types of vibrato are produced quite differently, and sound entirely different. I think it’s wrong for a violinist to model his vibrato after that of a singer, since most singers just don’t know how to modulate or control their vibrato .
I say this as a former professional singer (and teacher of singing) who has been paid to sing everything from Obrecht to operetta. It’s a serious problem, one that can’t be dealt with in the limited space here, but suffice it to say that the majority of singers, especially the ones that are coming out of conservatories today, are clueless as to how they produce their vibrato, or that they even have one in the first place. I’ve told students that they have to produce a straight tone in order to blend and sing in tune, e.g. in a Renaissance motet, and they complain that singing straight “will ruin their voice”!
"You weren't afraid of being born--why would you be afraid of dying?" Alan Watts
Edits: 02/22/15 02/22/15
I admit, I was trying to bait you into something more emotional! ;-)
Regarding the Bach G minor Sonata, I don't know either of the two "thoughtful vibrato" recordings you mention. Re the Luca recording - it's been around for a long time I know, but, in its LP incarnation, I either heard part of it on the radio, or I read enough reviews to know that it wasn't for me. Mullova is of course for me a tragic case of someone who sold out her earlier principles to the lure of HIP. Perhaps, as you suggest, she made something out of that bargain with the Devil.
I do appreciate your analysis - but nevertheless, the vibratoless tone on sustained notes is just such an ugly, amateurish sound (IMHO) that I'll never abide it. It's the very opposite of cultivated sound I expect of a professional musician. I'll grant you that one can devise a certain kind of expression by withholding vibrato from certain notes - and in fact, I agree with that approach in certain, VERY LIMITED instances. (Some short places in the Beethoven Quartets come to mind.) But still, with all the other expressive means that we have (articulation, dynamics, etc.), why do we have to resort to this ugly, dessicated sound so often? To me, it has just grown out of control these days.
Allow me to quote the Sulzer treatise again: "A fundamental part of good singing and playing requires holding out EVERY NOTE [my caps] with such vibrato. It is easiest in singing, because Nature herself ensures that the vocal instrument does not remain on any sustained tone with the same rigid tension." In fact, singing is the ideal. I do kind of agree with you that string players can never quite approach even the modest application of vocal vibrato used by such singers as Elly Ameling - but they can sure come a LOT closer than HIP groups do! ;-) And while it may be true that many singers can't modulate or control their vibrato, there are clearly certain singers (the ones I've named already, in addition to many others) who control their vibrato well enough for string players to aspire to, even though, as you say, the vibrato is produced differently.
Your comments about the Heifetz recording are interesting, especially in view of the Auer quote in the comments section of the Strad article (with Heifetz being an Auer student). Strange. In any case, Heifetz' rather strenuous renditions of the Sonatas and Partitas are not my cup of tea. You asked whom I like - I would say J-Fi for sure; I also like both of the Szeryng recordings (although I haven't heard the mono one in many years) even though he is a bit too free with the rhythm in places for my taste. I also like Lisa's B-minor Partita on her debut album - she's another tragic case, who, on evidence of her latest sorry Bach recording on DG, has abandoned her previous artistic principles (at least as they relate to vibrato).
Regarding singers and singing (your last paragraph) - yeah, that's funny. There is so much mythology and charlatanism connected with singing (boh teaching and performing) - I think partly because it's all internal.
Anyway, thanks again for the reply - but I've still got my wooden stake and mallet ready to go! ;-)
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