| From: Jeffrey Snider To: VOCALIST <vocalist> Subject: Re: Cantique de noel: musicologists' answers to rhythm question (long-ish) Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>
JRL wrote:
>>A composer would have to be insane to write dotted quarter-sixteenth when he could easily have written this in triplets.
>I'm no musicologist, but I think this was done quite often in >certain past >times. Baroque period perhaps?
Baroque composers did NOT write quarter note/eighth note triples. Instead they wrote dotted eighth-sixteenth figures which are almost universally believed to be performed as triplets i such cases. The concept is called "assimilation." A good example is the "Sanctus" of the Bach "B minor Mass." I've actually heard an older recording where the dotted rhythms are interpreted as written and it is quite odd sounding!
How late this practice continued is debatable, however. There has been some discussion pro and con as to whether this would go as late as Schubert. (I will have to look up the references, but they were listed in the Jackson Performance Practice Bibliography.)
Hope this helps.
Jeffrey Snider, DMA Chair, Division of Vocal Studies College of Music University of North Texas Denton, TX USA ................................................................................. iWon.com http://www.iwon.com why wouldn't you? .................................................................................
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