Reg Boyle, and others ,
Reg, I really liked your post, so forgive me for not quoting bits of it -
it's just that I seem to be running off at the typemouth today.
I'm highly pleased that you cited Bach's voice type - of course he would
have sung - he was a trained singer and his music shows the kind of vocal
knowledge that non-singers don't seem to be able to fake. I just didn't
think of this, obvious though it now seems. (I thought he was writing for
me: this is going to take some adjusting :o))
I don't believe there was ever a time or place, except England in the
1970s and 1980s, when a certain amount of vibrato was not normal. I know in
my own voice that vibrato is something that blooms out of the voice when
you *stop* doing stuff, rather than something manufactured, as it must be
on a string instrument.
I believe that gut strings were only expected to last a couple of days in
some circumstances, and that there would be hardly more wear through the
application of a gentle vibrato than through normal playing. Bear in mind
the additional strain of the kind of scordatura that Biber asked for.
I must cite my own experience (I think rather large) with lute repertoire:
there are often symbols for various types of embellishments in lute
repertoire of the baroque, and one such embellishment is vibrato. It is a
commonplace that composers of that period tended to mark embellishment only
in places where they really, really wanted to make sure you embellished,
but that they expected you to embellish the rest according to taste. So it
must be with vibrato, which, I submit, must be marked only at spots where a
straight tone might have been the expected effect, perhaps because of the
possibility of playing the note on an open string. I also think that a nice
messa di voce is another of those 'embellishements' too common to need
mention except in places where it might be perceived odd. I further think
that the 'authorities' that considered 'vibrato' an abomination were either
writing about wobble or were crusty iconoclasts struggling against what
everyone did. Here endeth the rant. john
John Blyth
Baritono robusto e lirico
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada
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