French Suite Research Articles

Нарративные стратегии И. С. Баха

The article is devoted to the analysis of some narrative properties of J. S. Bach's music. The basis was made up of two types of narrative: plot and plotless. The first one is considered by the example of Cantata No. 150 on the text of the 24th psalm «To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul». The author analyzes the techniques (mostly textured) that Bach uses to embody verbal meanings. The plot narrative also manifests itself in the tonal spectrum of Passions. The second type is described by the example of the d-moll keyboard toccata and the d-moll French Suite. These compositions, not being programmatic, have a plot-like dramaturgy created by the characteristic «behavior» of intonation-thematic elements; they belong to the plotless type. In conclusion, the author concludes that the narrative is not a fixed reality, it is a narrative that can be interpreted.

The role of key IN CREATING AN INTERPRETATIONAL model in Baroque music (based on French Suite in D minor by J. S. Bach)

Background. For anyone creating his own interpretational version of a work which belongs to Baroque culture it is highly important to understand semantics of a given key, which in this day and age becomes a valuable asset to reveal the composer’s intention, including the works like French Suite in D minor by J. S.Bach. The approach, suggested in the article, elaborates existing studies, providing them with new meaning. The aim of the article is to reveal the significance of a key in the Baroque music, particularly in J. S. Bach’s works, as a premise for present-day musicians creating new versions of performance. Methodology of a research is founded on historically-theoretical and interpretational methods of analysis. Results. The genre of a keyboard suite holds an important place in J. S. Bach’s legacy. French Suite in D minor is the first one among others. Allemande is written in accordance with the customs of their time. At the same time, tonal development of each movement reflects general aesthetic principles of movement, realizing pivotal idea of the genre. The change in tonal reference points, which happens in the frameworks of Tonic – Dominant relations, shows diverse colours and tension of the development within one key. Allemande’s harmonic complexity exposes semantical sense of the key, which influences other dances. Sarabande is presented as a concentration of ‘funebre’ lyricism, the sense of Gigue is reconstructed due to the change of expected time signature 3/8 to 4/4 and usage of pulsating dotted notes. Courante and two Menuettos are marked by a certain simplicity and “transfiguration” of musical language, which causes not only a genre, but also imagery and semantical contrast. French Suite in D minor is a relatively difficult material for creation of performer’s interpretation. Contrasts of tempo and mood of the dances typical for this genre are not so obvious in this suite as compared to other J. S. Bach’s suites in minor keys. General atmosphere of reserve and inner tension is stressed by the key of D minor, which shapes the whole cycle’s character. Conclusions. The above mentioned peculiarities of J. S. Bach’s French Suite in D minor define the performance interpretation, designed to reveal dialectic unity of opposites in compositionally-dramaturgical structure of the Suite. The performer chooses means, aimed both at creation of macro-unity and at reveal of typological features of the suite genre which is based on contrast. One of the main factors contributing to unity is tempo of performance: apart from quite similar tempos of Allemande and Courante, Gigue is noteworthy, too, as its tempo due to peculiarity of melody and pathos, uncommon for the genre, is “decelerated” in a natural way. Suite contrast can be revealed through articulation and touche, as well as through tempo in view of singularity of Sarabande. Basing on the piece under analysis, we may state that in Baroque era D minor key was already interpreted as a bearer of complex and profound meaning, devoid of mundane, as a subjective key, retaining, however, possibility to be used to reveal objective generalising senses. Thus, we think it should be a “zone of special attention” for performers.

Старинная французская сюита: сарабанда как вокально-инструментальный жанр

Статья посвящена вопросам тесной взаимосвязи французской просодии, музыки и танца, а также возникновению такого жанра как «танец с пением» (danse chantée) во второй половине XVII века при французском дворе. Рассматриваются различные пути возникновения жанра: от инструментальной пьесы к песне или танцу с пением и наоборот. На примере сарабанды раскрываются некоторые особенности danse chantée в контексте риторичности эпохи барокко. В статье также содержатся результаты поиска атрибуций стихотворений и музыки сарабанд Жака Шамбоньера, а также гавота Луи Куперена в качестве сравнения. Взгляд на сарабанду как на инструментальную пьесу, прототипом для которой служил не только танец, но и песня, а также дальнейший более глубокий анализ дает новый ключ к осмыслению жанра. Наличие поэтических текстов к конкретным инструментальным пьесам не только выявляет их связь с вокальным жанром, но и делает более очевидной необходимость имплицирования законов просодии и пения при исполнении на инструменте в рамках барочной традиции

The Medieval Merlin Tradition in France and Italy: Prophecy, Paradox, and Translatio by Laura Chuhan Campbell

Reviewed by: The Medieval Merlin Tradition in France and Italy: Prophecy, Paradox, and Translatio by Laura Chuhan Campbell Karen Green Campbell, Laura Chuhan, The Medieval Merlin Tradition in France and Italy: Prophecy, Paradox, and Translatio (Gallica, 47), Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2017; hardback; pp. viii, 211; R.R.P £60.00, ebook £19.99; ISBN 9781843844808. In the Phaedrus, 275e, Socrates says of books that ‘once written down they are tumbled about anywhere, all alike among those who understand them and among strangers, […] the book cannot protect or defend itself’. This comes to mind when reading medieval manuscripts, transcribed by poor scribes, so that, ‘Viviane, the bonne clergiesse’ becomes ‘Niviene […] la demoiselle cacheresse’ (p. 79). Bound together, hybrids are refashioned for new uses. Like Chinese whispers, messages are transmuted and deformed. The medieval Merlin manuscripts are no exception. The focus of this study are lateish Italian versions; the early fourteenth-century Florentine La Storia de Merlino ‘translated’ by Paulino Pieri into a text that ‘consists of a combination and rearrangement of material’ from the early thirteenth-century French Merlin en prose by Robert de Boron, and the late-thirteenth-century Les Prophecies de Merlin (p. 187), and two Venetian texts, Lo Libero dello savio Merlin by Jachomo de Çaune Barbier and La Historia di [End Page 190] Merlino compiled by Luca Venitiano. To glean these facts, turn to the appendices, for the Introduction jumps straight into a confusing account of Pieri’s rendition of Merlin’s story of the corrupt city of Orbanza, which was, according to Pieri, translated by ‘a Maestro Riccardo at the behest of Frederick II, Holy Roman emperor’ (p. 1). Socrates’ observation not only applies to medieval manuscripts, but also to the philosophy of language. Campbell is not content to follow those ‘obsessed with binary oppositions within the translation model […] too concerned with defining and redefining the relationship between translation and the original’ (p. 25, n. 80, quoting Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere). Instead she engages with ‘Charles Sanders Peirce’s tripartite sign, rather than Saussure’s signifier-signified dichotomy’. Peirce, she tells us, ‘regarded all interpretation as a translation between signs, creating a continuum of related signs that he termed “semiosis”’ (p. 25). Semiosis is produced by the mutual interaction of the three components of the sign—the object (similar to the signified), the sign itself (the signifier) and a third component: the interpretant, which is a mental sign produced in response to an object. Ouch! Poor Saussure, poor Peirce! Seeing them tumbled about into so inaccurate a repetition of words, by a stranger to their enterprise, is insufferable. Campbell’s appeal to Peircean semiotic theory is only pretentious window dressing. In the detailed descriptions of the way in which stories from the Merlin en prose and Prophecies are reworked by Pieri, Barbier, and Venetiano, she claims that the transformations are not so much distortions from some archetypal original, but are new elaborations, that gain new significance from the new context in which the text is confected (pp. 35–36). No elaborate theory of meaning is applied. In this vein, the first chapter deals with the various, sometimes contradictory, versions of the story of Merlin’s conception by the devil, as found in in the original Merlin and its continuations, and the way in which differing treatments of the origins of the devil’s seduction of his mother, offer alternative accounts of the sin of despair, lack of faith, temptation, and redemption. In the next chapter, a similar comparison is made of the varying explanations of the success of the Lady of the Lake in entombing Merlin, focusing more on the French Suite de Merlin, and the Historia di Merlino than on Pieri’s version, and reading the incident through a variety of other stories in which women ‘undo’ men, such as Samson and Delilah or Aristotle and Phyllis (pp. 65–66), or even Adam and Eve (pp. 92–93). It is observed that different versions of the story convey different moral messages and explanations of the source of Merlin’s downfall. The fourth and fifth chapters turn to the topic of prophetic discourse in general. As Campbell is well aware, the meaning of the...

High-Resolution Audio with Inaudible High-Frequency Components Induces a Relaxed Attentional State without Conscious Awareness.

High-resolution audio has a higher sampling frequency and a greater bit depth than conventional low-resolution audio such as compact disks. The higher sampling frequency enables inaudible sound components (above 20 kHz) that are cut off in low-resolution audio to be reproduced. Previous studies of high-resolution audio have mainly focused on the effect of such high-frequency components. It is known that alpha-band power in a human electroencephalogram (EEG) is larger when the inaudible high-frequency components are present than when they are absent. Traditionally, alpha-band EEG activity has been associated with arousal level. However, no previous studies have explored whether sound sources with high-frequency components affect the arousal level of listeners. The present study examined this possibility by having 22 participants listen to two types of a 400-s musical excerpt of French Suite No. 5 by J. S. Bach (on cembalo, 24-bit quantization, 192 kHz A/D sampling), with or without inaudible high-frequency components, while performing a visual vigilance task. High-alpha (10.5–13 Hz) and low-beta (13–20 Hz) EEG powers were larger for the excerpt with high-frequency components than for the excerpt without them. Reaction times and error rates did not change during the task and were not different between the excerpts. The amplitude of the P3 component elicited by target stimuli in the vigilance task increased in the second half of the listening period for the excerpt with high-frequency components, whereas no such P3 amplitude change was observed for the other excerpt without them. The participants did not distinguish between these excerpts in terms of sound quality. Only a subjective rating of inactive pleasantness after listening was higher for the excerpt with high-frequency components than for the other excerpt. The present study shows that high-resolution audio that retains high-frequency components has an advantage over similar and indistinguishable digital sound sources in which such components are artificially cut off, suggesting that high-resolution audio with inaudible high-frequency components induces a relaxed attentional state without conscious awareness.

On Not “Not Knowing French”: T.S. Eliot's Poetry <em>En Français</em>

In 1917, while suffering from writer’s block following the publication of Prufrock and Other Observations, T.S. Eliot composed six poems in French as a creative experiment. Although four of the poems were subsequently published and remained in print thereafter at the poet’s direction, they have received relatively little critical attention and are typically dismissed as a picturesque detour en route to the annus mirabilis of The Waste Land. But Eliot’s French suite gave voice to new sonorities and tonal registers that would “translate” not only to The Waste Land but also to Four Quartets, while also, curiously, strengthening his ties to the metaphysical poets of the English canon.

Schenker and Bach's French Suite in E major

ABSTRACTThe Oster Collection in the New York Public Library has some 43 documents, comprising 83 written pages of fragmentary jottings, analytical sketches and full‐scale layered voice‐leading graphs, relating to J. S. Bach's French Suite No. 6 in E major – all of which are tabulated and briefly described here. Schenker's analytical work on the middleground structures of its eight movements, in which descending linear progressions and the technique of reaching‐over are prominent, are traced here. This work shows that the theorist was for a long time undecided about the primary tone of the Sarabande. Although none of these documents is dated, Schenker's diary and lesson‐book for 1927–8 suggest that at least some of them relate to this teaching year. Moreover, because in May 1927 Schenker had resumed work, after several years’ stagnation, on Free Composition, and because some of the materials for the Suite were filed in folders that contained materials for this work, there is a presumptive connection between this analytical activity and his final theoretical work, whose supplementary volume includes no fewer than thirteen examples from the Suite.

High-resolution music with inaudible high-frequency components produces a lagged effect on human electroencephalographic activities.

High-quality digital sound sources with inaudible high-frequency components (above 20 kHz) have become available because of recent advances in information technology. Listening to such sounds has been shown to increase the α-band power of an electroencephalogram (EEG). The present study scrutinized the time course of this effect by recording EEG along with autonomic measures (skin conductance level and heart rate) and facial electromyograms (corrugator supercilii and zygomaticus major). Twenty university students (19-24 years old) listened to two types of a 200-s musical excerpt (J. S. Bach's French Suite No. 5) with or without inaudible high-frequency components using a double-blind method. They were asked to rate the sound quality and to judge which excerpt contained high-frequency components. High-α EEG power (10.5-13 Hz) was larger for the excerpt with high-frequency components than for the excerpt without them. This effect was statistically significant only in the last quarter of the period (150-200 s). Participants were not able to distinguish between the excerpts, which did not produce any discernible differences in subjective, autonomic, and facial muscle measures. This study shows that inaudible high-frequency components have an impact on human brain activity without conscious awareness. Unlike a standard test for sound quality, at least 150 s of exposure is required to examine this effect in future research.

Birds Like Music, Too

In the Random Samples item “Monkeys have tin ears” on a recent study by Joshua McDermott and Marc Hauser ([1][1]), Isabelle Peretz is quoted as saying, “The observations suggest that only humans have a natural, or innate, inclination to engage with music” (3 August, p. [577][2]). This statement is not quite true. McDermott and Hauser have shown a difference between how humans and nonhuman primates respond to music, but they have not shown a difference between humans and all other animals. It is a well-known phenomenon that birds use song to communicate. Whether birdsong is considered music is still debatable; however, the many parallels between birdsong, language, and music have been, and are still, extensively studied. Certainly, there are similarities between humans and songbirds in their ability to discriminate and respond to music. For example, Watanabe and Sato ([2][3]) have shown that Java sparrows can discriminate between Bach's French Suite no. 5 in G minor and Arnold Schoenberg's Suite for Piano opus 25. The birds were also able to generalize new music by Bach (Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major) and Schoenberg (Five Orchestra Pieces, Opus 16) and artists in similar categories, i.e., Vivaldi and Elliott Carter. In these experiments, music by Bach and Vivaldi was considered classical music, while the music of Schoenberg and Carter was considered modern music. Watanabe and Nemoto ([3][4]) have also shown that, given the option of three perches producing either silence, classical, or modern music, the Java sparrows preferred Bach to Schoenberg and Vivaldi to Carter. These results indicate that Java sparrows or songbirds prefer classical to modern music, or perhaps just more harmonious to dissonant sounds. Additionally, the sparrows chose music they “liked” (e.g., Bach) over silence or music they “disliked” (e.g., Schoenberg). These findings resemble those of McDermott and Hauser and suggest that birds, like humans, clearly engage, and are inclined to engage, with music. ![Figure][5] CREDIT: JOE SUTLIFF 1. 1.[↵][6] 1. J. M.D. McDermott Hauser , Cognition 104, 3 (2007). [OpenUrl][7] 2. 2.[↵][8] 1. S. Watanabe, 2. K. Sato , Behav. Processes 47, 1 (1999). [OpenUrl][9][CrossRef][10][Web of Science][11] 3. 3.[↵][12] 1. S. Watanabe, 2. M. Nemoto , Behav. Processes 43, 2 (1998). [OpenUrl][13] [1]: #ref-1 [2]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.317.5838.577c [3]: #ref-2 [4]: #ref-3 [5]: pending:yes [6]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1. in text [7]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DCognition%26rft.volume%253D104%26rft.spage%253D3%26rft.atitle%253DCOGNITION%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx [8]: #xref-ref-2-1 View reference 2. in text [9]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DBehav.%2BProcesses%26rft.volume%253D47%26rft.spage%253D1%26rft.atitle%253DBEHAV%2BPROCESSES%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Adoi%252F10.1016%252FS0376-6357%252899%252900048-0%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx [10]: /lookup/external-ref?access_num=10.1016/S0376-6357(99)00048-0&link_type=DOI [11]: /lookup/external-ref?access_num=000082841000001&link_type=ISI [12]: #xref-ref-3-1 View reference 3. in text [13]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DBehav.%2BProcesses%26rft.volume%253D43%26rft.spage%253D2%26rft.atitle%253DBEHAV%2BPROCESSES%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx

On the Genesis of Malory's Gareth

In an article published more than forty years ago F. Whitehead showed us how Malory composed the sourceless and puzzling passage that concludes his Tale of King Arthur, the first great division of the Morte Darthur.1 The Tale relates the adventures of Gawain, Ywain, and Marhalt, each of whom goes off for a year with one of three damsels they meet at a fountain. Gawain's main adventure is his well-known encounter with Pelleas and Ettard, while Ywain and Marhalt have briefer and more routine adventures assisting damsels, freeing prisoners, and defending Arthur's name. When the year is up, the three knights return to the fountain and then go to Arthur's court, where Ywain and Marhalt become Round Table knights. In adapting this narrative from the French Suite du Merlin Malory made structural changes characteristic of his efforts to tighten narrative sequence, but in general he followed his source faithfully through most of Gawain's adventure, departing from it only for the adventures of Ywain and Marhalt, which have no known antecedents in Arthurian literature. Whitehead's task was to discover why Malory suddenly abandoned the Suite and whether the final brief adventures were to be attributed to Malory or to another of his sources. Whitehead concluded that Malory himself invented the episodes, and he traced certain events and motifs in them to passages of the Suite du Merlin that Malory did not reproduce in full. The versions of the Suite that Whitehead used were the Huth manuscript2 and the fragment that appears in MS fr. 112 of the Bibliotheque nationale. With the later discoveries of the Winchester manuscript of the Morte Darthur4 and the Cambridge manuscript of the Suite du Merlin,5 Whitehead's findings were corroborated, and Vinaver

Lecture on the Recital

The color I speak of floats like a needle, sometimes not breaking surface where the fish lie; the recognition of poise on the skin of water is pardonable self-assertion, and it is not vanity alone when you smile, discovering another cadence pointing North. But it must not sink for the sake of the heart's tone nor break surface simply for the redness of depths: reform the French Suite No. 2 to the progress of perpendiculars on an uncluttered board; hold to the equilateral design and distinguish the alternate squares of an identity of none the less separate identities -O Gainsborough girl and cetaceous piano! The reform of palpitations here is all for the sake of the foot's pounding. And C minor is not license for soul-seeking;