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Performing notes inégales: Evidence from cantates françoises

January 8, 2016
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The performance of notes inégales (the primarily French convention of performing equally notated melodies in an unequal fashion by alternating short and long notes) is often a major impediment to keyboardists unfamiliar with 17th- and 18th-century French music. Although there is a wealth of primary and secondary literature devoted to the topic of notes inégales,1 this literature is usually focused on when notes inégales are to be used, and the differential ratio between the short and long notes. However, almost no literature exists that describes how notes inégales actually sounded. In this article, I will present new evidence on how notes inégales were performed in the eighteenth century, and how this knowledge can illuminate keyboard pedagogy and performance of notes inégales.

The very first challenge when playing French baroque music is to know exactly when notes inégales ought to be used. The treatises tend to be somewhat circumspect on the subject, occasionally just leaving it to a matter of taste. Here are but two examples of this maddening vagueness.

Nivers in 1665 states that “This style [notes inégales] is applied by personal discretion as are many other things which must be governed by the ear and by wisdom.”

Saint-Lambert in 1702 instructs: “When using this inequality of eighth notes or quarter notes, taste must decide if they ought to be altered a little or greatly. There are some pieces in which it works well to alter them greatly, and others where they require less. Taste judges this as it does tempo.”3

However, there is a body of repertoire that can shed light on this issue: the cantate françoise.4 This genre flourished in the first half of the 18th century, and arias in this genre predominantly feature an “instrumental anticipation,” a relatively new compositional device for French baroque vocal music. The instrumental anticipation is simply a short preview of the singer’s part, played by an instrumentalist as an introduction. 

Comparing the instrumental anticipation to the upcoming vocal part yields special insight into French baroque performance practice, and can sometimes prove that the vocal part ought to be performed with notes inégales. For example, in Figures 1 and 2 (both from the first air of Montéclair’s Le Triomphe de l’Amour), the two parts have the exact same melody. The instrumental part is dotted, but the vocal part is not. The vocal part is therefore an example of notes inégales: it is notated equally, but meant to be performed unequally.

Having isolated this melody as unambiguously using notes inégales, we can examine the text underlay to better understand how notes inégales should sound. Notice how naturally the text lends itself to inequality, with a slight lengthening of “ha-” and “des”, and a correspondingly shorter “-bi-” and “re-.” It is also clear that the text is set across the beat. That is, the momentum of the text carries us into the strong beat. I have illustrated this by adding arrows to Figure 2 to show the momentum of the text.

Figures 3 and 4, from Clérambault, Apollon et Doris (Book 4), First Air, contain another example of an unequally notated instrumental anticipation, followed by an equally notated vocal part. The vocal part must therefore also be an example of notes inégales. Here again we see that the text is naturally unequal, and that the momentum of the text is across the beat.

Figures 5 and 6, from Clérambault’s Clitie (Book 5), Second Air, are particularly interesting, since the composer explicitly asks for the eighth notes to be played inégales in the instrumental part. And once again, we see that the text underlay is set across the beat.

At first, it may seem puzzling that composers used a different notation for the same melody. In the first two examples above, the instrumental part was dotted, but the vocal part was not. In the third example, a performance directive asked for notes inégales, and this directive is missing from the vocal part. The central question is: why is the vocal part notated equally?

 The answer seems to be that dotting the vocal part was redundant, since the singer had the text underlay for reference. Since the French language is naturally unequal, there was no reason to waste engraving time to express a subtle rhythm that was obvious to the singer. If you know some French, try saying (or singing) “Pourquoy cher auteur de mes peines” without any inequality… it’s almost impossible! On the other hand, the instrumental part has no text, so there is no signal to the player when or where to use notes inégales. This forced the composer to write out the inequality using dotted rhythms.

This is fundamental to understanding notes inégales: it is a vocal phenomenon. As keyboardists, when we use notes inégales, we are imitating French song.

But what does it mean to imitate French song at the keyboard? Simply put, our performance needs to sound like it has a French text. This precludes a seamless legato: texts have consonants that break up the sound. At the keyboard, armed with a good and sensitive action, we use subtle articulations to project our “text.”

Of course, if we are playing a melody with lots of leaps, or long virtuosic passages, the music is probably instrumentally conceived rather than vocally conceived, and the use of notes inégales would be inappropriate. But primarily stepwise melodies, with clear phrases (like sentences and clauses), will be best projected with notes inégales.

Fingering is an important aspect of playing notes inégales at the keyboard. We must devise a fingering that allows us to easily transfer the momentum across the beat. This is not a new idea: in 1716 François Couperin, in L’art de toucher le claveçin (p. 29), prescribed the right-hand scale fingering shown in Figure 7.

(Note that the passage starts on the second eighth note of the measure. Since the passage ends on an “orphan” eighth note, the engraver didn’t include the first eighth note rest, in order to make the total time values in the two measures add up correctly.)

This fingering aligns perfectly with across-the-beat notes inégales performance. For example, in the ascending scale, the given fingering naturally transfers the momentum from each short 3 to the following longer 4.

It is also important to note that these fingerings are totally unlike North German and English early fingerings. The fingerings of those schools stress within-the-beat performance, and in my opinion, this is simply because those languages are not spoken or sung as unequally as French.

To train ourselves to play the keyboard with a French accent, it can be helpful to add a text when we practice. As an example, I have selected the “Petit Fugue sur la Chromhorne” from François Couperin’s Messe pour les Couvents. For this piece, I engraved an edition myself from a facsimile of the original print, and added a text (see Figure 8). I chose to add the text from the Clérambault aria above (Figures 5 and 6), since it has the same rhythm and meter as the Couperin. Keeping this text in mind while practicing will make the notes inégales sound effortless, and will allow each “au-” to transfer its momentum across the beat to the following “-teur.”

It is vitally important to ignore the instrumental-style beaming, which is a difficult task for performers. When two eighth notes are beamed together (like “cher” and “au-”), we often feel obligated to somehow bind those two notes together. But this impulse will destroy our French accent. When playing French baroque keyboard music, we need to have our beam-cutting scissors close at hand. In fact, the vocal parts from the cantates cited in Figures 2, 5, and 8 are completely unbeamed!

Another impulse to avoid is putting an artificial break at the bar line. For many musicians, this is an ingrained habit. But it is absolutely contrary to a good French accent at the keyboard.

Obviously we cannot conclusively generalize about how a language is
sung from only three examples. I strongly encourage keyboardists to investigate the rich and dramatic music contained in the cantates françoises.
As we get used to singing them, it becomes easy to transfer this singing style to French baroque keyboard music. And when we reach that point, we no longer worry about ratios,
articulation, or fingering. We simply project the imagined text, like an
orator.5 We need only to remember to “play it like you say it!”

 

Notes

1. A review of the literature regarding notes inégales is summarized in Stephen E. Hefling, Rhythmic Alteration in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Music: Notes Inégales and Overdotting (New York: Schirmer Books, 1993), 3–61.

2. Guillaume Gabriel Nivers, Livre d’orgue contenant cent Pieces de tous les Tons de l’Eglise. par le Sr. Nivers Me. compositeur en musique et organiste de l’Eglise St. Sulpice de Paris (Paris: chez l’Autheur proche S. Sulpice et R. Ballard seul Imp. du Roy pr. la musique, 1665), Preface. Cited and translated in Judith Caswell, “Rhythmic Inequality and Tempo in French Music Between 1650 and 1740” (PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 1973), 105.

3. Michel de Saint-Lambert, Les Principes du Clavecin Contenant une Explication exacte de tout ce qui concerne la Tablature & le Clavier (Paris: Chez Christophe Ballard, 1702), pp. 25-26. Cited and translated in Caswell, “Rhythmic Inequality,” 141.

4. The history of this repertoire can be found in David Tunley, The Eighteenth Century French Cantata (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). Many of the cantates are available in facsimile.

5. Those interested in the art of French baroque musical oration will find Patricia Ranum’s book, The Harmonic Orator, to be an invaluable and inspiring guide.

 

Bibliography

Clérambault, Louis-Nicolas. Cantates Françoises Mellées de Simphonies; Dediées a Monseigneur le Maréchal de Villeroy. Composées par Mr. Clérambault, Livre IVe. Paris: L’Auteur, 1720. Facsimile, with an introduction by David Tunley (The eighteenth century French cantata, 10). New York: Garland, 1990.

———. Cantates Françoises Mellées de Simphonies; Dediées a la Reine. Composées par Mr. Clérambault, Livre Ve. Paris: L’Auteur, 1726. Facsimile, with an introduction by David Tunley (The eighteenth century French cantata, 10). New York: Garland, 1990.

Couperin, François. L’art de toucher le clavecin. Paris: l’Auteur, 1716. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb38808175z (accessed May 3, 2015).

———. Pièces d’orgue II. Messe propre pour les couvents de religieux et religieuses. Paris: Chéz l’autheur, 1690. Facsimile. Courlay, France: Editions J. M. Fuzeau, 1986.

Helfling, Stephen E. Rhythmic Alteration in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth- Century Music: Notes Inégales and Overdotting. New York: Schirmer Books, 1993. 

Montéclair, Michel Pignolet de. Cantates: à Une et à Deux Voix et avec Sinfonie. Composées par Mr. Montèclair. Second Livre, qui contient six Cantates Françoises et une Cantate Italiène. Paris: L’Auteur, Foucault, [s.d.]. Facsimile, with an introduction by David Tunley (The eighteenth century French cantata, 12). New York: Garland, 1990.

Ranum, Patricia M. The Harmonic Orator. Hillsdale, New York: Pendragon Press, 2001.

Tunley, David. The Eighteenth Century French Cantata. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

 

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