ooh ooh! and "tiered dynamics" (the mythical Baroque performance practice of shifting between dynamic levels only abruptly, never with ordinary crescs. and decrescs.) is suspiciously similar to the modernist interest in selecting a discrete dynamic level for every note (per serial or other process) - ThreadSky

chrisbrody.bsky.social • 6 days ago

ooh ooh! and "tiered dynamics" (the mythical Baroque performance practice of shifting between dynamic levels only abruptly, never with ordinary crescs. and decrescs.) is suspiciously similar to the modernist interest in selecting a discrete dynamic level for every note (per serial or other process)

Reposted from dankettercello

Hard to believe I have terminal degrees in music and only just realized that the mechanical stiffness of mid 20th century Baroque and Classical performance practice is the same austerity of avant garde modernism

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mikejolk.bsky.social•5 days ago

This was a fun discussion. I woke up thinking
(1) harpsichord music can have non-registration-based dynamics simply from how dense or sparse the writing is;
(2) what do people think about terracing in concerto grosso orchestration (concertino/ripieno)?

I am not a scholar of these things.

mikejolk.bsky.social•5 days ago

Well, there are harpsichords

chrisbrody.bsky.social•5 days ago

yeah! And yet pianos sound terrible when you play them like harpsichords—and this is true whether you're mimicking bad harpsichord playing or good harpsichord playing. The whole point of a piano is dynamic variation, and it sounds good if and only if you use its capabilities. Bach would have agreed.

augmented3.bsky.social•5 days ago

I talked to Bach last night and he was ok with harpsichords but the organ gets his full attention

mikejolk.bsky.social•5 days ago

Yes… so much performance practice is dictated by the instruments themselves. It’s dang near impossible to play strings or woodwinds w terrace dynamics, and it’s weird to try. I don’t know about baroque organs… did they have swell shades, or were dynamics dictated by registration?

chrisbrody.bsky.social•5 days ago

That's such an interesting question about Baroque organs—I don't know the answer!

Some people definitely used to advocate for Baroque string music to be played with terraced dynamics—I agree, it's unnatural-sounding.

matildaertz.bsky.social•5 days ago

I just have to step in to say that organs and harpsichords sound great when playing Baroque music because the dynamics are built into the composition and the player utilizes articulation and timing (and stops) as expressive elements. 1/3

matildaertz.bsky.social•5 days ago

And these instruments, while not able to produce a pianistic cresc. and dim., have such clarity of timbre that they actually highlight built-in compositional dynamics and layers (e.g. dissonance vs consonance, thick vs thin, fast vs slow harmonic rhythm, etc.) 2/3

chrisbrody.bsky.social•6 days ago

hmm I guess "terraced dynamics" is the more usual word for this. Anyway it's stupid

theorymeg.bsky.social•5 days ago

But they didn't write hairpins in the score, Chris, obviously they sang mechanically and at a single dynamic level throughout.

chrisbrody.bsky.social•5 days ago

Pianists love (or used to love, idk) to debate whether you should "play Bach with dynamics." Playing Bach at a single volume level throughout is playing Bach with dynamics! Specifically, it's playing Bach with shitty dynamics.

eklorman.bsky.social•5 days ago

Google n-gram suggests "terraced dynamics" entered their corpus around 1950.

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