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To: GCFADG

Vibrato is part of the zeitgeist, considered a necessity in Kreisler’s day. OTOH, Baroque performance required ornamentation that seems like so much squiggly wallpaper to contemporary ears. Oddly enough, the one place we find melismatic ornamentation in music today is R&B singing since at least Whitney Houston.


16 posted on 01/06/2018 12:43:50 PM PST by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: chajin

Yes — a grating sentimentality was the flavor of his day.

Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead), imo, took a Baroque approach to ornamentation.


19 posted on 01/06/2018 1:00:07 PM PST by GCFADG (Pardon me.)
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To: chajin

ps — if you listen to the Biber piece I linked in post 4, you will find hardly any ornamentation, btw. In Vivaldi’s Violin concertos, most of the ornamentation occurs in the largos. Not so much elsewhere — it’s moving too quickly.

Further, the baroque violin as a musical instrument is different and superior to the modern violin. Different strings, different bow, technique, etc. Much warmer, throatier tone, not so shrill like the modern violin.

Same is true of oboe. The baroque oboe is a beautiful, warm sounding instrument. Listen to a baroque oboe for 20 minutes, then go listen to a modern oboe, and you’ll think you’re listening to a kazoo.


20 posted on 01/06/2018 1:08:34 PM PST by GCFADG (Pardon me.)
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