"Notes Inegales": A Re-ExaminationAuthor(s): Michael CollinsSource: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Autumn, 1967), pp.481-485Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/830324 .

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STUDIES AND ABSTRACTS 481

III. NOTES INEGALES: A RE-EXAMINATION*

IN A RECENT STUDY Professor Frederick Neumann has attempted to restrict the practice of notes inegales to France, to deny the use of short-long in-

equality in I8th-century French music, and to sever any relationship between notes inegales and "good" and "bad" notes of non-French theorists.' Thus doubt has been cast upon the applicability of Quantz to performance in the French style or to previous German music. A re-examination of sources, however, shows that Professor Neumann's theories are subject to qualification.

One cannot dismiss as an afterthought the earliest documentation of the less frequently practiced short-long inequality that is found in Loulii's Elements ou Principes de Musique (1696): "In the second part [of my book] I forgot to mention when I spoke of triple meters, that the first half of each beat can also be performed ... by playing the first note shorter than the second, thus: [Example ia].'"2

It has further been argued that the term appuyer means only "to empha- size," not "to sustain" as it is used by Couperin in this phrase which ac-

companies Example 2b in the First Book of Clavecin Pieces (1713): "couls dont points marquent que la Seconde note de Chaque tems doit tre plus appuyee." Now appuyee, as seen in any French dictionary, means to sustain or dwell upon. Thus I translate, "slurs whose dots indicate that the second note of each beat must be sustained." Dupuit (1741) and Bedos de Celles (1778) also use signs to indicate short-long inequality (Examples Ic and id).

A previously overlooked source, M. Valentin Roeser's L'art de toucher le clavecin par M. Marpourg mis au jour [1764], states in connection with

Example i e that one must never use the same finger twice in a row except "when the first of two notes is brief with respect to its intrinsic value, and above all when it is detached; which is equivalent to a rest."' The importance of this passage is that here a "French" author and composer, German by birth, mentions inequality and the intrinsic value of notes in the same breath. Although four of these writers use signs to indicate short-long inequality, the fact remains that the notes themselves in all four cases are equally written but unequally played.

That the short-long practice was known outside France is shown in the Tractatus compositionis augmentatus of Christoph Bernhard, written ca. 1657: "Prolongation is when a dissonance is held longer than the foregoing consonance, in transitu as well as in syncopatione. In transitu the following are seldom used [Example 2].4

* This paper was read at a meeting of the New York State Chapter of the A.M.S., Rochester, N.Y., April 15, 1967.

1Frederick Neumann, "The French Inigales, Quantz and Bach," this JOURNAL XVIII (1965), pp. 313-358.

2 Page 62: "On avait oubli6 de dire dans la 2. Partie en parlant de Mesures de trois temps, que les premiers demi- temps s'executent encore d'une quatrieme maniere, savoir en faisant le i. plus court que le 2. Ainsi."

8Page 3: "Lorsque la premiere des deux notes est brave quant a sa valeur intrinseque, et sur tout lorsqu'elle est detachee; qui 6quivant

' un Silence." This is not to be found in the original Die Kunst das Clavier zu spielen (1750) of Marpurg.

4 "Prolongatio ist wenn eine Dissonantz sich linger aufhilt, als die vorhergehende Consonantz, in Transitu sowohl als in Syncopatione. In Transitu sind folgende nur selten."

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482 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Ex. x

(a) Louli6 (b) Couperin

.F. --

(c) Dupuit

(d) Bedos de Celles (e) Roeser 4 3 3 2 4 3 3 2

Ex. 2

- =I .f op'06 F 0 F

,m -.

Finally, J. S. Bach himself gives us two examples of what must be con- sidered written-out inequality of the short-long type: the passage in the second movement of the D-major harpsichord transcription of the E-major Violin Concerto, and the flute passage in the Domine Deus of the B-minor Mass. The latter passage no doubt served (pace Mr. Neumann, p. 355) to alert the French flautist, M. Buffardin, that the notes were to be played in the reverse of a normal long-short pattern, i.e., exactly as written.

The prevalence of French practice in Germany made it unnecessary for Quantz to proclaim that he was writing about French style. In an article in Der Critische Musicus an der Spree (April 15, 1749), Marpurg takes the French manner of Quantz for granted. He also suggests that J. S. Bach was

quite at home in the various national styles:

One takes only pieces that are composed in good taste. In all types of music, in the music of all nations, there is bad stuff and again something beautiful. This is the opinion of old Bach in Leipzig, whose word in music can be honored. [After all] do not Quantz, Benda, and Graun play very French?5

There is at least one place in Bach's works where there are telltale dots that could be convincingly interpreted as symbols requiring cancellation of

5 p. 2x8: "Nur nehme man Stiicke, die in einem guten Geschmack gesetzet sind. In allen Arten der Music, in den Music- ken aller Nationen giebt es schlechtes Zeug und auch wieder etwas sch6nes.

Diess ist der Auspruch des alten Bachs in Leipzig, der gewiss in der Music gelten kann. Spielen nicht Quantz, Benda, Graun sehr franz6sisch?"

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STUDIES AND ABSTRACTS 483

inequality. These dots appear in measures 8 and 9 of Variatio x6, the [French] Ouverture of the Goldberg Variations. They are placed very appropriately over the only stepwise x6th-notes in the piece.

In addition, Walther, friend and colleague of Bach, did not identify lourer as a strictly French manner of playing when he wrote the following in his Musicalisches Lexicon of 1732:

Lourer means that with two notes of equal value one holds the first one a little longer, giving it more pressure, than the second, just enough so that one does not actually dot it or play the second too short.6

Quantz is definitely not the only author to speak of notes inegales in connection with note buone e cattive, anschlagende and durchgehende Noten, or notes that are innerlich or quantitate intrinseca long and short. We have

already seen that Roeser did so, but as early as 1678, Printz writes:

Before we close this chapter, I mention first that [in performance] all running figures can be held by placing a dot behind the notes that are of intrinsically long quantity (thus the odd-numbered notes) and diminishing those that follow, as in this example: [Example 3] .7

Ex. 3

With this quotation in mind, we may interpret the definition given by Walther in the Musicalisches Lexicon. Although he does not say so, he is

probably referring to the smaller note values and really means long-short:

The outward and inward value of notes: according to the former, notes of the same kind are performed [italics mine] in equal length, according to the latter, [they are performed] in unequal length; that is, the odd part of the measure is long and the even part short.8

Leopold Mozart has also been misinterpreted. In Chapter 12, paragraph 9 of the Versuch he speaks of "herrschende oder anschlagende Note welche die

Italiiiner Nota buona nennen." In this paragraph he writes of the accentuation of half notes and quarter notes in C, 6/4, 6/8, and 12/8 measure. But in the

following paragraph he talks of quite another thing. Here, in reference to 8th- and i6th-notes in C and 3/4, and 16th-notes in 3/8 and 6/8, the very note levels which receive inequality in French music, he says the following:

6Page 372: "Lourer bestehet darinn: dass man unter 2 gleichgeltenden Noten, bey der ersten ein wenig mehr hilt, und derselben mehr Nachdruck giebt, als der zweyten, jedoch so, dass man sie nicht punctiret oder abst6sset."

7 Printz, Musica Modulatoria Vocalis, p. 56, para. z21: "Ehe wir dieses Capital beschliessen erinnere ich erstlich dass alle lauffende Figuren gehemmet werden ki*nnen durch Hinzuthun eines Puncts

zu denen Notis quantitates intrinsecd longis, (so mit ungerader Zahl gezehlet werden) und Minuirung der darauf fol- genden: E. gr."

8Page 507: "Die Hiusserliche und innerliche Geltung der Noten; nach jener Art ist jede Note mit ihres gleichen in der execution von gleicher; nach dieser aber, von ungleicher Lange: da nemlich der ungerade Tact-Theil lang, und der gerade Tact-Theil kurtz ist."

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484 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

Now when more of these notes follow one another, over every pair of which there is a slur, then the accent falls on the first of every pair, and they are not only played somewhat heavier, but also held somewhat longer [italics mine]. The second [of every pair], however, is very smooth and quiet and also brought in somewhat later.9

Mozart definitely is speaking of inequality in pairs, and this statement must not be confused with his later remarks about larger groups of small notes under slurs.

In 1779, Antonio Lorenzoni reveals that the practice was also known in

Italy and that it was applied to note buone of small value:

The good notes, when they are of some speed, must be brought out in preference to the bad; that is, one must give more time to the good notes, just as if they were dotted.1'

The practice of inequality must also have been known in the Netherlands, for in 1758 Frischmuth mentions it in the following context:

If in the Allemande there are no dots after the first and third i6th, and in the Courante after the [first and third] 8th, they must still be played as if they were there.11

Finally in reference to knowledge and practice of French style in Germany we turn again to Marpurg, this time his Historisch-Kritische Beytriige of

[754:

Very many of our most famous players admit that they have taken from the French the preciseness of their performance. In reference to the ornaments with which a piece must be played, they have rendered them scrupulously sooner than other nations. Among the Germans there appears in addition to the famous Georg Muffat, the dexterous J. C. F. Fischer, who was to be the first to make known to us this part of music.12

9 Leopold Mozart, Versuch einer Griindlichen Violinschule (Augsburg, 1756), Chapter XII, para. io: "Wenn nun dergleichen mehrere Noten nachein- ander folgen, iiber deren zwo und zwo ein Bogen stehet: so fillt auf die erste der zwoen der Accent, und sie wird nicht nur etwas stirker angespielet, sondern auch etwas linger angehalten; die zwote aber wird ganz gelind, und still, auch etwas spaiter daran geschlissen."

loSaggio per bene sonare il flauto- traverso (Vicenza, 1779), p. 81: "Le note buone, quando sono di qualche prestezza, debbono essere rilevate preferibilmente aile cattive; cioe, si dee dare pii tempo alle note buone, che alle cattive, non per altro quanto se avessero de' punti."

11Gedagten over de Beginselen en Onderwyzingen des Clavicimbaals (Am- sterdam, [1758]), p. 52: "Een Allemande en Courante, wil zeer erstig behandelt

weezen, zyn 'er in de Allemande geen tittultjes agter het eerste en derde sesti- ende, en in de Courante agter de agts- tens, moeten ze dog zo gespeelt werden, als of die daar stonden." For evidence of inequality in English music see the excerpt from Corrette quoted by Don- ington, this JOURNAL XIX (1966), p. 112.

12 P. 27: "Gar viele unsrer beriihmtes- ten Spieler gestehen zu, dass die von den Franzosen die Nettigkeit ihres Vortrages genommen haben. In Bezeichnung der Manieren, womit ein Stick abgespielet werden soill, haben sich diese hiebey ehe als andere Nationen sorgfiltig erzeiget. Unter den Deutschen scheinet nebst dem beriihmten George Muffat, der geschickte Clavierist Joh. Casp. Ferdin. Fischer der erste gewesen zu seyn, der diesen Theil der Musik bey uns bekannt gemachet."

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STUDIES AND ABSTRACTS 485

Although Marpurg mentions specifically only ornaments, it seems clear that his larger frame of reference is to the French style of performance in general. We are certainly led to think that the Germans actually did learn how to perform in the French manner from Muffat, and in the prefaces to both Florilegia (1695 and 1698) Muffat explains carefully the practice of

inequality. It is a mistake to underestimate the extent to which French methods of

style and performance had infiltrated England, the Low Countries, Germany, and even Italy in the I8th century. Quantz was not alone in using the concept of good and bad notes to explain the French notes inigales; indeed most non-French writers did. Inequality was a live convention in the Germany of Bach's time, and I think that we must assume, at least until it is definitely proved otherwise, that inequality was a general Baroque practice and that there seems no reason why it should not be applied to the music of J. S. Bach.

University of Rochester MICHAEL COLLINS

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