Hello, I'm David Wilson, I play baroque violin and I'd like to talk to you today about bowings
in French Baroque music. In the 17th and 18th centuries the French were the
only ones who had a systematic approach to bowing, meaning what notes are played down
bow and what notes are played up bow. And the reason they thought it was so important
was because of the rule of dance in French music of that time. Much of the orchestra
music was either directly intended to accompany the dance or was influenced by the dance style.
So they found that if there was a general agreement about how to approach ups and downs,
and if everyone played the same way, then you get this really clear set of strong and
weak inflections that can be made to mirror the
motions of the dancers. Fortunately we have a really detailed description of that bowing
system from a composer named Georg Muffat, and Muffat wrote down a set of ten of the
most important rules of bowing as he put it. So lets just cover them one at a time. Rule
number one, the most important rule. The first note of any measure which begins without a
rest is to be played down bow. Muffat gives an example, it's a few measures of a Menuet,
with two sets of bowings. One he says is like the Germans or Italians might play, and the
other is like the French might play. This is what he says Germans or Italians might do.
And this is with the French bowings according to Muffat.
Muffat's second rule. If a beat is divided into an even number of notes, odd numbered notes are played down bow and the
even numbered notes are played up bow. Pretty simple, for example if we're in 4/4.
Rule three. In triple time, such as 3/4, if the rhythm is just a note on every beat, then
if the tempo is slow you would play down, up, down. Down, up, down. So downbeat on every
measure and just as it comes within the measure, it sounds like....
But if the tempo is fast then you would play two ups after the down beat which would sound like....
Rule four. In compound meters, 6/8, 9/8, 12/8, that sort of thing, the first note of each large beat
is played down bow. So the other two are played up bow. If you're in 12/8, for example, it sounds like....
Rule five. If there is one note per measure, each note is played down bow. Something that we don't do much these days but it looks like, if it's in 3/4....
Rule six. Syncopated rhythms are played as they come.
So you just keep moving the bow back and forth, if we're in 4/4....
Rule seven. When shorter notes come after long notes in a measure, the first of
the shorter notes is considered odd numbered for the rules. So for example, if you have
a measure that starts with a quarter note and then you've got some eighth notes the
first eighth note after the quarter note is odd numbered and therefore it gets played down bow.
Again, just getting the strong beats of the measure on the strong bow, which is the down bow.
Rule eight. If the big beats of a measure are made up of three notes and
the first is dotted, then each big beat is played down bow.
Rule nine. If a passage has rests on down beats or on the big beats of the measure, you can play the notes after
the rests with alternating downs and ups.
Notice he says you can play them back and forth, which says to me that it wouldn't be wrong to play them all down.
Just a little more variety to do it the other way.
Rule ten, the last one. Short notes, which are pick ups, are played up bow.
And if they come after a dotted note on a main beat of the measure they are played up bow.
Just getting the strong beats on a down bow. Or after a syncopation,
they're played up bow...short notes after a syncopation are played up bow.
Now Muffat also says that exceptions to the rule can be made if the tempo is too fast to follow those rules comfortably.
And an example that he gives is a Gigue, a dance that moves along pretty quickly. So rather than playing all the strong beats of
the measure down bow, you play as it comes.
Even rule one, the very most important rule, can be not broken but accommodated. The example he gives is a Courante, another fast dance,
where it would be a little awkward to play the even numbered measures, second measure
for example, as another down bow. So he says you can play that as an up bow and that is
why in Courantes, often two measures worth of beats occur within a set of double bars
rather than just one. And here's Muffat's example.
I'm David Wilson for Voices of Music.