Peter Holman: Notation and Interpretation
Over the centuries, the music performing style and compositional style has changed radically. He raised a question, said: “How are we to perform old music now?” Especially music from Baroque era.
The term baroque had a negative meaning when critics first used it. Baroque meant abnormal, bizarre, exaggerated, imperfect, distorted, grotesque, misshapen, irregular, or in bad taste. In the 20th century, around 1940, musicologists agreed to use the name, Baroque, for the period of music history from about 1600-1750. The meaning of the word, baroque, was no longer considered to be negative. The Baroque era began with such important events as the invention of opera and oratorio, and the development of figured bass played by
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The keyboard or lute player must improvise harmony from the figured bass. This is called realizing the figured bass. A numeral written below a bass note indicated the interval to be played above the note. For example, a 6 indicates a first-inversion chord, a 7 indicates a seventh chord. If no numeral is written under a bass note, a chord in root position is played. A sharp, flat, or natural sing by itself indicates the corresponding alteration of the third of the chord. Those are what I have learn from the figured bass. Peter Holman wrote: “In the early seventeenth century it was still common for composers not to specify particular voices and instruments, and a good deal of flexibility was often expected when they were specified.” He also gave an example that Matthew Locke’s Broken Consort suites for two violins and bass seem to have been performed with a continuo section consisting of three theorboes and organ. The basso continuo parts are in quite large combinations. Also, until the middle of the seventeenth century performers were add accidentals according to the rules called music ficta. “Flats are often needed to avoid tritons, while sharps are needed to raise