A Study on Ornamentation and Expression in French vocal Music  (1650-1750)

Kitty Lai

This study aims to understand and learn about the historical performance practice in the 17th century. As an early music singer, I am attracted to the sweet and charming 17th-century French vocal music. In particular, I am interested in the relationship between French ornamentation and expression. This research investigates the background of 17th-century performance practice in France in relation to the ornamentation, the pronunciation of 17th-century French, the different types of ornaments and the expression implied by the ornaments. The performance practice in the 17th century was different from now since it was undergoing a major change from polyphonic to solo music, which emphasised more the text than the music. The knowledge of ornamentation was an expected requirement for all well-trained singers in the 17th century, ornamentation was not merely a decoration, but a tool in emphasizing the importance of the text. Thus, it is necessary to learn ornamentation for a complete 17th-century French vocal performance. Since text was the main element in 17th-century French vocal music, it is important to know the characteristics of French language in this period. The ability to distinguish French long and short syllables was important because ornamentation could only be applied mostly to long syllables. The pronunciation of certain French vowels has undergone a significant alteration, and the ‘old’ way of pronouncing them is included in the study. The research findings also show that some ornaments were meant to be used only in certain expression and they help me to better ‘compose’ French ornamentation in future performances.

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Bibliography

Primary Sources

Bacilly 1668 – Bacilly, Bénigne de. Remarques Curieuses Sur L'art De Bien Chanter. Paris, 1668. Translated by Austin B. Caswell as A commentary upon the art of proper singing, Institute of Mediaeval Music, 1968.

Le Cerf 1706 – Le Cerf de la Vieville Sieur de Fresneuse, Jean-Laurent. Comparaison de la musique italienne et de la musique Françoise. Bruxelles, 1706. Translated by Elizabeth Hehr in “How the French Viewed the Differences between French and Italian Singing Styles of the 18th Century.” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, vol. 16, no. 1, 1985, pp. 73–85.

Mersenne 1636 – Mersenne, Marin. Harmonie Universelle: Contenant La Théorie Et La Pratique De La Musique. Paris, 1636. Excerpted in Readings in the History of Music in Performances, edited by Carol MacClintock. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979.

Montéclair 1736 – Montéclair, Michel Pignolet de. Principes De Musique. Rue St. Honoré à La Regle D'Or, 1736.

Raguenet 1702 – Raguenet, L’Abbé François. Parallèle des Italiens et des Français en ce que regarde la musique et les opera. Paris, 1702. Translated by Elizabeth Hehr in “How the French Viewed the Differences between French and Italian Singing Styles of the 18th Century.” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, vol. 16, no. 1, 1985, pp. 73–85.

Secondary Sources

Books

Anthony 1974 – Anthony, James Raymond. French Baroque Music: from Beaujoyeulx to Rameau. Batsford, 1974.

Cowart 1989 – Cowart, Georgia. French Musical Thought, 1600-1800. UMI Research Press, 1989.

Elliott 2006 – Elliott, Martha. Singing in Style a Guide to Vocal Performance Practices. Yale University, 2006.

Haynes 2007 – Haynes, Bruce. The End of Early Music: a Period Performer's History of Music for the Twenty-First Century. Oxford University Press, 2007.

Neumann 1983 – Neumann, Frederick. “The French Trill 1630 – 1715.” Ornamentation in Baroque and Post-Baroque Music, with Special Emphasis on J.S. Bach. Princeton University Press, 1983, pp. 244-262.

Neumann 1989 – Neumann, Frederick. New Essays on Performance Practice. UMI Research Pr., 1989.

Ranum 2001 – Ranum, Patricia M. The Harmonic Orator: The Phrasing and Rhetoric of the Melody in French Baroque Airs. Penragon Press Musicological Series, 2001.

Sanford 2017 – Sanford, Sally Allis. “A Re-Examination of port de voix in the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries: Possibilities in Vocal Performances.” A Festschrift for Kerala J. Snyder, GOArt Publications, 2017.

Shrock 2013 – Shrock, Dennis. Performance Practices in the Baroque Era: as Related by Primary Sources. GIA Publications, Inc., 2013.

Spitzer & Zaslaw 2004 – Spitzer, John, and Neal Zaslaw. The Birth of the Orchestra: History of an Institution, 1650-1815. Oxford University Press, 2004.

Warrack & West 1995 – Warrack, John and Ewan West. The Oxford Dictionary of Opera. Oxford University Press, 1995.

Wistreich 2018 – Wistreich, Richard. “Vocal Performance in the Seventeenth Century.” The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Historical Performance in Music, by Colin Lawson and Robin Stowell, Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp. 398–420.

Articles

Christie 1993 – Christie, William. “The Elusive World of the French Baroque.” Early Music, Vol. 21, no. No. 2, 0AD, 1993, pp. 262–266. French Baroque I.

Fader 2003 – Fader, Don. “The Honnêête Homme as Music Critic: Taste, Rhetoric, and Politesse in the 17th-Century French Reception of Italian Music.” Journal of Musicology, vol. 20, no. 1, 2003, pp. 3–44., doi:10.1525/jm.2003.20.1.3.

Hehr 1985 – Hehr, Elizabeth. “How the French Viewed the Differences between French and Italian Singing Styles of the 18th Century.” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, vol. 16, no. 1, 1985, pp. 73–85.

McGee 2008 – McGee, Timothy J. “How One Learned to Ornament in Late Sixteenth-Century Italy.” Performance Practice Review, vol. 13, no. 1, 2008, pp. 1–16., doi:10.5642/perfpr.200813.01.06.

Sanford 1995 – Sanford, Sally Allis. “A Comparison of French and Italian Singing in the Seventeenth Century.” Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, 1995, https://sscm-jscm.org/jscm/v1/no1/sanford.html.

Stewart 1985 – Stewart, Rebecca. “Voice Types in Josquin's Music.” Tijdschrift Van De Vereniging Voor Nederlandse Muziek Geschiedenis, Proceedings of the Josquin Symposium, 1985, pp. 128–145.

CD Recordings

Brel 1988 – Brel, Jacques. 24 Greatest Successes, Polydor 837 297-2, 1988.

Dumestre 1999 – Dumestre, Vincent, and Eugène Green. Robert de Visée & Théophille de Viau: La Conversation, Alpha 003, 1999.

Moreschi 2010 – Moreschi, Alessandro. “Ave Maria”. The Last Castrato: The Complete Vatican Recordings, Opal CD 9823, 2014.

Poème Harmonique 2005 – Poème Harmonique. Lully: Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Alpha 700, 2005.

Van Dyck 2000 – Van Dyck, Stephan, and Stephen Stubbs. Airs à Deux Parties, Ricercar 205, 2000.

Scores

Lully 1670 – Lully, Jean Baptiste. Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. 1670. Bordeau: Nicolas Sceaux, 29 March 2014.

Others

Van Heyghen 2020 – Van Heyghen, Peter. “French and Italian 'national' styles in Baroque Music”, (Conservatory Course Syllabus), 2020.

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