The Long and Short Of It:
Interpreting Counterpoint Agogically1
Based
On A Grave From Concerto a
Quattro…con Violini Obligati
By Giuseppe Matteo Alberti
(1685 – 1751)2
Dr. Charles Heiden, June 4, 2011
In an
orchestra, the string player learns that to
sustain a note (particularly some pitch in
an incisive, punctuating chord) longer than
other players in the section will draw
adverse attention from the conductor.
“Short!” the irate maestro growls. It
follows, however, that if holding some pitch
a bit longer attracts a conductor’s adverse
attention, the objectionable technique may
be turned to advantage in a contrapuntal
idiom if it is desired to lead a listener’s
attention to some particular voice. Bach –
the organist and the violinist
– understood this. Consider the opening of
his g-minor sonata for self-accompanied
violin, BWV 1001 (fig. 1).
Fig. 1: Bach’s Audible Voice-Leading
At circle A,
Bach’s notation shows that it is the soprano
voice which leads onwards into the 32nds.
Similarly, at B, the notation specifies that
the 32nd-notes emerge from the
4-3 suspension in a middle voice. At C it is
again the middle voice that continues. A
performer must therefore by careful to
“short” the previous F-sharp quarter-note so
that the pitch C is clearly heard by itself
before the line erupts into its fioratura.
At D, the same careful player (mindful that
the fioratura has resolved to the
B-flat in the alto voice) will “short” the
soprano G so that the last pitch that a
listener hears is the alto B-flat. In this
way the performer “leads” the listener to
believe correctly that it is the alto voice
that continues with the 64th-notes.
Fig. 2 below
shows a Grave, middle movement of an
orchestra concerto by the Bologna
violinist-composer Giuseppe Matteo Alberti
(born the same year as Bach,1685, but lived
one year longer, until 1751). Like Bach, the
modern editing (i.e. suggested
interpretation) proceeds in a fashion
calculated to aid a listener’s sense of the
polyphony.
The second movement, in score, with the
basso-continuo realized. The a4 continuo
homophony of the outside Allegro
movements provides a light-weight frame
for this a3 Grave – serious and
dramatic – with clashing suspension
dissonances. If the framing movements
reflect an emerging galant style,
the imitative counterpoint of the
Grave looks back on the baroque
tradition of polyphonic trio sonatas.
Fig.2:
Detailed interpretation communicates the
polyphony to a listener.
Circle D marks
a comma that asks the players to phrase with
a response that is precisely equal in all
voices – orchestra players and conductors
are used to this kind of shortening. At B,
however, the accents in Violin 2 imply
separation as well as dynamic emphases –
both quarters need shortening. But in Violin
1, the tie symbol specifies
“hold-to-the-rest!” Performed in this way –
the sustained sound of Violin 1, overhanging
the early release of Violin 2 after its
accents, leads the listener’s attention back
to Violin 1. Then at C, it is Violin 2 that
makes an overhang so that a listener’s
attention is directed back and forth from
one voice to the other in this counterpoint
of leap-frogging suspensions. Letter A marks
a similar situation at the start of this
dialogue.
The unusually
detailed marking of dynamic nuances and
contrapuntal articulations – all of it
editorial – is intended to stimulate
thoughtful response, not blind obedience.
“What principles should guide the
interpretation?” asks the thoughtful
approach. Contrapuntal dissonance
treatment –this surely is one of the
principles. But no less important is
tonal harmony (progressions with a
strong directional sense). The
straightforward modulation descends
inexorably away from A-major, with eighth
notes that march through the relative
F-sharp minor, to D major at measure 5. A
dramatic re-definition of this destination –
“not D as tonic but D as IV, the
sub-dominant!” -- then is brought about with
sudden ferocity (marked sfz). All
independent contrapuntal motion is arrested
on the half note (marked sfz!). An operatic
anguish – the ambiguity of a
diminished-seventh (secondary, leading-tone
of the dominant, diminished-seventh chord)
sustains the suspense, but then collapses
quickly in an authentic V-I cadence with the
conventional 4-3 suspension, marked p, then
pp when repeated in the violin’s lowest
range.
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1.“Agogic” has to do with length as
opposed to loudness. Hugo Riemann
coined this useful word in German (Agogik)
by analogy with “dynamik” in 1884.
See the article “Agogic” in the New Harvard
Dictionary of Music, Don Randell, ed.
Harvard University Press, 1986.
2.
Performance materials for this
three-movement Concerto A Quattro…con
Violini Obligati, never printed, are
available as an electronic file from
Heiden Music Publications (see
http://HeidenMusic.com ). This
D-Major, 3-movement orchestra concerto (no
soloists) is a 4, but violas are tacet in
the middle movement. No. 28 in Michael
Talbot’s catalog, the concerto survives only
in a complete set of manuscript parts from
the Sächsische Landesbibliothek in Dresden,
now posted on line at IMSLP The Petrucci
Music Library. Using these free, public
domain parts as a source, the Heiden set
corrects egregious errors in the basso,
repairs minor mistakes elsewhere, and
furnishes a keyboard realization of the
continuo. Additional pages furnish analysis.
For
samples of other movements, click here
Charles Heiden and