A Performer's Guide to Renaissance Music, Second Edition

Jeffery Kite-Powell

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9780253013774
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music History & Criticism

Revised and expanded since it first appeared in 1991, the guide features two new chapters on ornamentation and rehearsal techniques, as well as updated reference materials, internet resources, and other new material made available only in the last decade.

The guide is comprised of focused chapters on performance practice issues such as vocal and choral music; various types of ensembles; profiles of specific instruments; instrumentation; performance practice issues; theory; dance; regional profiles of Renaissance music; and guidelines for directors. The format addresses the widest possible audience for early music, including amateur and professional performers, musicologists, theorists, and educators.

PART ONE

VOCAL/CHORAL ISSUES

I

The Solo Voice in the Renaissance

ELLEN HARGIS

Taste in voices for Renaissance music has changed frequently in recent decades, with trends swinging from the operatic to the “folksy” and everywhere in between. Currently there seems to be a tendency to consider size as the most important feature of the “early music voice”; I have often heard singers say, “My voice is too big for early music” or “My voice is small, so I sing early music.” However, if we give primary consideration to flexibility, ability to control vibrato, sense of intonation, and intellectual curiosity about the issues of ornamentation and text, we have a much more accurate set of criteria for determining the singer’s ability to perform early music convincingly. If the variety among human voices was as great in the Renaissance as it is now, then clearly there is room for most singers to explore this repertory.

A rich repertory it is: like the nineteenth-century art song with which we are more familiar, Renaissance art song comprises hundreds of solo songs written to beautiful poetry of great literary merit, set for skillful singers to execute. It is a body of music spanning some two hundred years and nearly every European national style. These songs, along with the devotional music, carnival music, and theatrical music that also can be performed by solo singers, make up a fascinating and varied repertory for the singer to explore.

VOICE TYPES

Renaissance music was composed without designation for specific voice type, so we can choose who sings a piece based on the range, the text, and the melodic style (lyric, florid, etc.). The somewhat narrow melodic range of much Renaissance music, together with the option of transposition, allows nearly all singers of appropriate ability to participate as soloists in an early music ensemble. Because singers in the Renaissance used their voices in a way that differed somewhat from today’s usage, it is best to keep some of these differences in mind when recruiting singers.

Sopranos need to be willing to use the middle and low ranges of their voices, since there is very little repertory that lies mostly above the staff, and they will often have to sing down to c’ and occasionally lower. For those pieces that do go to the top of the staff and above, it is useful to be able to float high notes with ease and without excessive vibrato or volume.

Countertenors who can sing into the tenor range will be very useful for fifteenth-century Flemish music; chansons of DuFay often range from g to c″, making them too low for most female voices and too high for tenors (assuming no transposition). Female altos or mezzo-sopranos will find that they can manage the cantus line of most compositions quite handily, but must be careful that text is still understandable in the high ranges of their voices.

Tenors, like sopranos, need easy high notes, but they also will often find themselves singing in a range lower than that to which they are accustomed. Tenors can sing much of the music available to upper voices, plus the German Tenorlieder, and particularly the highest of the English lute songs, as the text is easier to hear in the high range of the tenor voice than it is in the corresponding part of the soprano voice.

For solo singing, the bass needs to possess a good baritone range. There is little solo song for bass voice, but much of the middle-to-low music is good in the bass voice, provided that the accompanying instruments are low enough to avoid inversions (see chapter 25).

TECHNIQUE

There is little information in primary sources to give us a clue about vocal technique in the Renaissance, but there are descriptions of good and bad singing that give us an idea about what was prized in a voice (see McGee Medieval: 55–65, Knighton and Fallows (Potter), Companion: 311–16, and other entries in the bibliography). We can also learn from the sounds of modern copies of old instruments; this, along with current ideas about performance practice, gives us some aesthetic goals to strive for.

Renaissance music calls for purity of tone, a focused, clear sound without excessive vibrato, the ability to sing lightly and with agility, and the command of a wide range of dynamics: loud singing, particularly for church music, and medium to soft singing, to most accompanying instruments. Some of these qualities are natural in certain voices; all are enhanced by good technique. It will be reassuring to the new singer of early music to know that good technique is still good technique. Essential elements include good breath support, well-formed, resonant vowels, and focused sound. There is a real danger of singers tending to sing off the support when first encountering early music, in an effort to produce a light and vibratoless tone. The result is flabby sound, poor intonation, and insufficient breath to fill out a phrase. It is important that we stress that “light” singing is not “weak” singing, and that a fully supported, firm, resonant sound is always good style!

When singing Renaissance music, technique takes a slightly different role in the complete vocal picture from that in later music: the primary concern of the early music singer is that technique must serve the music before the voice. This is not to say that a voice need not be beautiful to sing Renaissance music, but to say that it is our concept of beauty that must be considered. Text must be pellucid in Renaissance song; however gorgeous the high notes possessed by the singer, they are inappropriate if they obscure the text. Similarly, brilliant ornamentation, however skillfully executed, must not be allowed to supersede the transmission of the poetry. Occasionally, the voice must join the instruments in untexted sections of a piece (for example, the long melismas at the ends of phrases in DuFay chansons), and then the voice must be spare and agile, to join in sound with the vielles, lutes, organ, or other instruments. Thus, the term “beautiful singing” takes on a multifaceted aspect. We must always ask ourselves: what is my job in this piece? in this phrase? on this Word? to really understand how to use our voices intelligently and effectively. It is not that we are unconcerned about vocal sound; on the contrary, we are acutely aware of its importance and of the variety that is available to us.

VIBRATO

This is the thorniest issue to confront the singer of early music! The argument about vibrato is probably the primary reason for singers’ reluctance to become involved in early music ensembles. This is a real shame, because it leaves the directors with amateur singers to sing professional-level music and deprives singers of exposure to an enormous part of their repertory.

Thankfully, after years of “straight-tone” singing being the ideal, it is now generally accepted that a gentle vibration of the voice is natural and expressive, and an inherent part of a healthy singing voice. It is really the degree of pressure and pitch obfuscation that is the problem with the modern vibrato; therefore, the argument should be about how much and what quality of vibrato is being applied in a given musical context. Obviously, the effect of vibrato or nonvibrato is highly subjective and depends entirely on execution and context. The only vibrato that is really completely inappropriate to Renaissance music is one with a wide pitch variation, or any vibrato that cannot be consciously altered by the singer. Most singers are challenged and stimulated when asked to experiment with this aspect of their singing.

I have found that a positive approach helps immensely when dealing with a singer new to Renaissance styles. A director does much harm by starting from a rigid platform of “no vibrato!” and grudgingly allowing bits here and there when earned by the dutifully hamstrung singer. Instead, if you provide the singers with something new to do or to think about, you avoid depriving them of an element of singing that they have been programmed to think is fundamentally essential to their technique, expecting them to sing beautifully in spite of it. When vibrato is included in the array of expressive devices available to the singer, there is motivation for the singer to opt out of using vibrato in order to use something more appropriate for a particular effect.

Each singer must experiment and work with his or her teacher to learn to control vibrato. It is essential to maintain firm breath support when singing without vibrato or with reduced vibrato, and also to have very clearly focused vocal tone; otherwise, the sound can seem thin and flat. I work with vibrato control in vocal exercises first, adding vibrato, smoothing it out, increasing and decreasing the speed by changing breath pressure—initially, just exploring the possibilities. When the singer begins to feel in control of these variations, we apply them in a musical context.

Vibrato can warm the tone, adding direction and shape to long notes. It can convey a sense of urgency in the text, when combined with heightened dynamics and bright vocal color. With a dark and warm vocal color, it can help to communicate passion, tenderness, or grief. Starting a note with vibrato and then gradually smoothing it out can create a plaintive, poignant sound. Starting a note without vibrato and then adding it can have the effect of crescendo without the change in dynamics.

Nonvibrato can deemphasize text on multiple repetitions of words or phrases, can sound mournful, angry, exhausted, humorous, stern—the options are endless, depending on its combination with other vocal elements. Rapid diminutions must be sung without vibrato, and tuning at cadences is vastly improved when the vibration is reduced or eliminated.

The bottom line: nobody benefits from nonvibrato singing that results in harsh sound, straining, poor tuning, or vocal discomfort. Remembering that the use of vibrato is just one tool of style, and not the basis of all style, will go a long way in helping singers learn to be flexible and imaginative with this aspect of the voice.

ORNAMENTATION

Use of ornaments is probably the favorite “style-making” device of singers (and instrumentalists) new to early music. To the casual listener, it is the most obvious difference in performance practice and at first glance is the easiest change to make in one’s performance of a piece. The important thing is to avoid what I call the “band-aid” approach to ornamentation: throwing in a bunch of ornaments to make a piece sound “early.” For beginners, less is more; and all ornaments should be added to a piece with good reason.

A piece of music should be well learned before any ornamentation is begun. Once melody and harmony are understood, the text is learned, the phrasing decided, the dynamics sketched out, and the tempo established, then ornaments can be added to further embellish and fill out the piece. A good place to begin is at cadences: the singer can be encouraged to decorate final cadential figures, particularly on repeats of sections, with any stylistic cadential formula, or with patterns found elsewhere in the same piece or other pieces of the genre. (Obviously, the greater the exposure to a given style, the easier it is to develop an ear for stylistic ornamentation.)

Next, filling in of intervals, decoration of internal cadences, and ornaments for text painting can be added. Until the singer has been exposed to a sufficient volume of material to develop an instinctive sense, he or she needs rules and guidelines to follow. The best places to find these are in treatises and tutors such as Dalla Casa’s Il Vero modo di diminuir (1584) or Bassano’s Ricercate, passaggi, et cadentie (1598), and in written-out examples in other compositions. For instance, one can take a decorated piece and by careful examination “decompose” it to its basic melodic elements, thus finding ornamental patterns that can be applied in similar places in a similar piece.

Singers often find themselves quite shy about improvising ornamentation so they resort to writing out their proposed decorations in complete detail. Although this is fine at first, they must eventually be able to react to others’ ornaments and be able to simplify or elaborate upon patterns in the event of a too-quick or too-slow tempo. Part of rehearsal time can be devoted to experimentation with ornaments, with one person producing ornaments for the others to imitate, and then changing roles so that everyone can try leading and following. I also encourage singers to participate in classes on improvisation. These classes usually seem to be directed toward instrumentalists, but can be of great benefit to singers, too. (For further information, please refer to chapter 26.)

TEXTS AND PRONUNCIATION

The issue of historic pronunciation of Renaissance texts is discussed in Ross Duffin’s chapter on pronunciation, as well as in Alexander Blachly’s and Alejandro Planchart’s chapters on “Singing and the Vocal Ensemble,” and Anthony Rooley’s contribution “Practical Matters of Vocal Performance.” I add my voice to theirs in support of the attempt to find regional and historic pronunciation systems for performance, however daunting the task may seem. Historic pronunciation affects a vocal piece just as much as the sound of gut strings affects a string piece, or as much as mechanical action affects the sound of an old organ. The rewards of such efforts are immense for both the performer and the audience. I encourage singers to work with coaches in addition to using pronunciation guides. There are some aspects of a language (such as pitch modulation and phrasing) that are difficult to notate, but that affect our singing of the language as much as the individual sounds do.

It is important, however, not to lose sight of the forest for the trees. We must remember that most of these carefully pronounced words form poems, carefully crafted (some more, some less) and intended for life outside of a musical setting as well. By learning to appreciate these poems on their own, we bring new insights to our interpretations of the music. Elements such as phrase structure, meter, syntax, and rhyme scheme become clearer, and help us to make musical decisions that highlight or diminish these qualities in the musical setting.

Singers should always look at the text of a piece as written down separately from the music. First, if the piece is not in the singer’s native language, a translation must be obtained. It is best to ask first for a strictly literal translation, and perhaps make it more poetic for...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Preface to the First Edition
• Part I. Vocal/Choral Issues
• Part 2. Wind, String, and Percussion Instruments
• Part 3. Practical Considerations/Instrumentation
• Part 4. Performance Practice
• Part 5. Aspects of Theory
• Part 6. Introduction to Renaissance Dance
• Part 7. For the Early Music Director
• Appendix A. A Performer’s Guide to Medieval Music: Contents
• Appendix B. A Performer’s Guide to Seventeenth-Century Music: Contents
• Bibliography
• List of Contributors
• Index