Reflections on articulation.

Reflections on articulation. (Part 1)

Again and again we repeat that treatises on singing are of great help, emphasizing the obligation for the singer to clearly pronounce consonants as well as vowels, and to respect the correct prosody. The fact that this requirement is so frequently seen may indicate that in the past, too, not all singers have taken this obligation into account. Goethe was not complementing singers when he wrote in 1807: « Vokalmusik heißt sie, Weil man Beim Singen nur die Vokalen hört » (« Vocal music is when while singing one can hear only vowels »). Also, in matters of articulation, we can compare music with language: we should not only speak correctly, but also understand the difference between ordinary conversation and public declamation. I am convinced that the invention of the microphone and loud-speaker had a disastrous effect on declamation and rhetoric. The news anchors on radio or television learned to speak clearly and calmly in front of the microphone, without emotional accents: so that « two thousand people were killed in an earthquake » and « Clear sky is expected today » are pronounced in the same way. This kind of « public » speaking, although recorded in the studio, has become far too neutral (and familiar). It threatens to become the model not only for public speech, but also for theatrical play. Everything seems to sound nice, clear, clean and without any emphasis or emotion. The danger is to start perceiving ourselves through the prism of bland and neutral words undermining our emotional ability and intelligence.

Another consequence of microphones and loud-speakers is that public speakers such as teachers, lawyers, priests, popular singers, even actors, are no longer required to develop their voices properly since technology does the work for them. Listening to old recordings of the Comédie Française, Charles de Gaulle or Adolf Hitler (even ignoring their content), we hear variations in tempo and rhythm, great inflections of intonation and dynamics and a lot of vibrato on words that should trigger and provoke our emotions. Grétry wrote in his Memoirs or Essays on music (1789-1797) that hearing the actors recite their text, inspired him a lot in the composition of his vocal music: « they give you melody and rhythm ». Today, we could blame this sort of declamation for being exaggerated or not being « natural » – with all that it means. On the other hand, I’m not sure that modern actors can necessarily be good role models for composers.

As in phrasing, instrumentalists should also imitate the singers from the viewpoint of articulation. Once again, we notice significant differences between the modern style of articulation and the principles presented in so many ancient treatises. In the today’s style, most of the notes are played with a lot of effort making them as long as possible for the sake of sound equality and homogeneity. This is clearly demonstrated in the almost uniform articulation, in the legato as in the « perlé », of so many pianists. Wind and strings players often playing together follow the same principles, trying to avoid audible note beginnings or « consonants before vowels » (erasing attack transients). The famous Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, in her book On and off the record (1982), reveals an interesting fact of this style, talking about her husband Walter Legge, one of the most influential record directors of the mid-twentieth century. She quotes Legge describing the ideal string sound that he and Herbert von Karajan developed « deliciously polished, free of anything ugly, great brilliance and fortissimo without the clap of an attack … we have collaborated for years on the theory that no ‘entry’ should start without the already vibrating string and the bow already in motion, and when you have the bow already in motion touching an already vibrating string, you get a nice entry. But if any of these bodies are not alive and already in motion, you get a slap ».  Listening to Karajan’s recordings, we note that he largely achieved his goal and set a new standard: this style became the general model for most string instrumentalists for the rest of the century, in any repertoire. The wind instrumentalists of some « schools », for example the American School of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and all brass have well integrated into their play this « vowel style ».

The methods of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, on the contrary, require much more differentiated applications in technical aspects such as touch for keyboards, bow strokes for strings, tongue strokes for winds. Interestingly, not only the beginning of the note, but also the end of the note are discussed in detail. Especially in faster tempi, notes were rarely held to their full value, except when slurred or when the mentioning of « tenuto » is explicit. The length of individual notes also determines its relative weight in the bar or in the passage, and thus extends to the dynamics.

Some general principles on articulation and slurring in the eighteenth century :

– Ornaments consisting of many notes (the equivalent of coloraturas and diminutions for the voice) are slurred (and mumbling). On the other hand, long slurring is rare, although it becomes more frequent towards the end of the eighteenth century.

– Slurs are usually in one single harmony and are not extended after the barline, especially not from a weak beat to a strong beat or subdivision.

– It was expected that most slurs would have the effect of diminuendo and that the last note of the slur would generally be shortened, thus the note after the slur is clearly detached from the previous one (this principle is still claimed by Brahms); in contradiction with the current habit of extending any slur to the first note of the next group of notes, which was developed during the nineteenth century.

– Notes before appoggiaturas are shortened, in order to give more declamatory value to the appoggiatura.

– The less a note is important, the shorter its duration is.

– Articulation is proportional to the size of the intervals to be played: the larger the interval, the shorter the articulation.

The absence of articulation signs in a composition basically means that the performer had to follow the « general rules ». Exceptions can be expected to be noted by the composer: even a well-educated musician might fail to assume occasions to go against conventions. Often, music for stringed instruments requires much more annotations because the latter logically direct the bow stroke. The string treatises insisted on the basic rule that « good » beats should be played by pulling, much more systematically than it is done today.

Unfortunately, todays’ performers of ancient music are careful neither with articulation, nor with phrasing. Both are often neglected and undifferentiated, erasing any interest in careful declamation. In Vocal Music, the balance between expression and articulation makes a text not only well understood, but also emotionally received. This is what allows us to understanding the words pronounced by the opera singer without the captions. But this has become exceptional! It is rare when poetry, music, acting and stage setting mutually add and reinforce each other. Yet, while the last two can be, more or less, easily imagined by an attentive and creative listener, the absence of an intelligible text delivery removes an essential element. In instrumental music, the lack of phrasing and / or articulation causes almost the same effect as in singing: attention is drawn to the instrument, like a beautiful abstract, mute voice, rather than to what is expressed by its sound. As an instrumentalist, I have always been impressed and jealous of the expressive possibilities of the voice. When this potential is not fully utilized, I feel strongly disappointed. I can admire a magnificent vocal or instrumental sound and a virtuoso technique, but I cannot understand and endure that they become the goal unto itself and not the means to deliver an idea. I compare the voice or instrument to a pencil: what I write is more important than the pencil itself, even if it is a golden pencil.

Rafael Palacios