Tarling, Judy - Baroque String playing for ingenious learners

All you ever wanted to know about performing early music, but were afraid to ask. Well, fear no more. Subtitled . . . for ingenious learners . . . . this is a landmark publication that sets out in meticulous detail the many varied skills required for playing string music from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. It will be required reading for amateurs and professionals alike. In a lucid and practical style, Judy Tarling has distilled 30 years of experience in playing chamber and orchestral music of the period, and her brilliantly researched book sets out all the finest points with copious quotations from dozens of historical sources. All bowed string instruments are dealt with; there is extensive information about playing basso continuo and a host of other important topics. Included in the book is a CD with recorded examples to illustrate the finer points of interpretation.

Subjects discussed in the book: Affect, articulation, bow vibrato, bow-hold, bowings, buying Baroque equipment, the 'cello, chords, consort style, continuo instrument choice, dance, dissonance, divisions, dotted notes, double bass, double stopping, dynamics, editions, ensembles, facsimiles, figured bass, fingering choice, harmony, holding the instrument, identifying French & Italian style, inequality, intervals, messa di voce, ornamentation, pitch, position changing, publishers, range, recitative, repeats, rhetoric, rhythm, rubato, rules, scordatura, signs, slurs, speed, staccato, strings, temperament, tempo, time signatures, treatises, tuning, the viola, vibrato, violone.

Tarling, Judy - The Weapons of Rhetoric

Following the success of Baroque String Playing 'for ingenious learners', Judy Tarling's second book strikes at the heart of musical performance with a study of the relationship between music and rhetoric, which was much remarked upon during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Second edition now with enlarged index and references.

Comparisons between oratory and the performance of music are to be found from the beginning of the 16th century and continue until the late 18th century. Thomas Mace (1676) asks the musician to show as much wit and variety as an orator. Geminiani (1751) compares all good music to a discourse, and recommends that the musician should use the same effects as an orator. Quantz (1752) requires the musician to use the skills of an orator to become the master of the hearts of his listeners.The absence of further detail implies that the musicians of the day knew what this meant in practice.

Using the works of the classical rhetoricians Cicero and Quintilian as a framework for the book, their ideas are traced through the Tudor classroom and popular Renaissance eloquence books through to the late 18th century. Concentrating on performance techniques that aid communication of musical ideas to an audience, historical source material is used to demonstrate how to hold the attention of the listener and at the same time move and delight him, as in the classical oration. Quotations from the rhetoric manuals, Shakespeare and the Bible are complemented by over one hundred musical examples, drawn mainly from the 17th and 18th centuries, which illustrate the connection between speaking and playing in the rhetorical style.

Subjects covered in the book include: A survey of the sources from ancient times, Renaissance educational method, the iconography of eloquence and persuasion, the audience, decorum, stage manner, style, imitation, affect, 'the passions', word painting, allegory, speech-based delivery, tone quality, dynamics, length of notes or syllables, exclamations, emphasis, humour, nerves, sprezzatura, articulation, rests, sighs, surprise, silence, tempo, structure, rhythm, ornamentation, figures, repetition, and rhetorical schemes.