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Theoretical background of free music for keyboard instruments in the 17. century
Vendl, Lukáš ; Tichý, Vladimír (advisor) ; Willi, Barbara (referee) ; Bažantová, Ivana (referee)
Early Music, its history, theory and practice, has become a vigorously discussed theme in the field of musicology. To be able to grasp a musical text adequately, a contemporary performer requires an extensive theoretical knowledge. The theoretical background lying behind the origins of the seventeenth-century musical material was essential in the formation and pre-definition of the possible solutions of the details of compositional techniques and approaches of the period. The theoretical methods employed by the modern disciplines of counterpoint and harmony and the tectonics of music are not sufficient if we wish to examine the nuances of the musical phraseology of those times.
Offering a short introduction into the environment in which keyboard music of the seventeenth century was originating, the first section looks into the character and areas of social demand which resulted in a broad range of musical genres.
The individual chapters of the following section touch upon the key facts about the state and development of different areas of music theory, such as tonal material ? modes, Church and organ keys, the doctrine of clauses, the development of counterpoint and the theory of the fugue, the rhetorical dispositio as the unpronounced, general formal frame of the so-called ?free?, fantasia forms, preludes and toccatas; the application of figures of speech.
The third section brings a survey of the technical conditions which were formative in the case of period musical instruments and traces down some of the occurrences of specific musical terms and consonances in literature. One of the chapters tracks down the influence of tuning and tempering systems, especially of the widespread mean-tone tuning system. The profuse usage of the short, broken and shortened octave accounts for the consonances and sequences which are difficult to perform on modern keyboards. Multiple manuals and the division of the keyboard into the bass and the discant part presupposed a special kind of typesetting.
In the fourth section I propose an analysis of several compositions coming from various places and decades. In an analysis of the cycle of ricercares by G. M. Trabaci I inspect the influence of modality on musical form. Standing at the beginning of the massive development of composition for keyboard instruments, Frecobaldi?s toccatas would have been consulted as a study material by composers throughout the following three centuries at least. Among others, I analyse Toccata prima from Il secondo libro di toccate (1627). The peak of the seventeenth century organ production is undoubtedly to be found in the area of Northern Germany, namely in the work of D. Buxtehude. The section is closed by an analysis of his Preambulum BuxWV 152.
By way of conclusion I speculate about the possible values of studying and theorizing of such issues: if they can only result in excavation of anachronic circumstances, irrelevant to our time, or if they can provide a source of inspiration for the interpretation of early music which has become an inseparable part of contemporary musical scene and culture.
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