Supporters of the one-per-part argument characterize choral performances as transcriptions, like a Haydn string quartet played by an orchestra. In this view, Bach tailored all the writing to solo voices. Opponents might respond that listeners sometimes prefer transcriptions to originals. More likely, they will disagree with the supporters about how Bach tailored his writing.
The controversy, no matter how it is resolved, has led to a great deal of choice for listeners. Several conductors, for example, use one-per-part for specific sections only. This idea was proposed and tried out before Rifkin, but his writing has inadvertently given it new life. Brüggen, Gardiner, Hengelbrock, Jacobs, and King use solo voices in a few selected choral passages or movements, to contrast with a prevailing choral sound. Parrott uses solo singers as his base, adding a second echelon of solo singers for effect in certain passages (a practice that we know Bach used in certain works).
Speaking and Singing
If Baroque specialists have a favorite metaphor, it is that phrasing and articulation in Baroque music shouldn’t “sing” so much as “speak.” The metaphor may be simple, but its application is not. Speak, for example, the word “Kyrie,” then listen to some HIP recordings of the B Minor Mass’s first movement. You will, on the one hand, notice that the performers avoid the singing style you might learn from a conservatory voice teacher: they will not extend each vowel until the very beginning of the next consonant. In rejecting that kind of operatic super-legato, they have strong historical support. But a few of them go to the opposite extreme, cutting the syllables “Ky-” and “-e” short to a degree that sounds mannered—and not at all like a person speaking the word.
It would be nice to say that the autograph score and parts show us exactly where Bach fell on the legato/choppiness spectrum. They don’t, of course, but they provide at least some evidence, such as numerous slurs and dots. Alas, while Bach’s articulation markings sometimes have unambiguous meanings, they sometimes do not.
One example, out of many, illustrates the ambiguities. In a recent (and very good) book on the B Minor Mass, George Stauffer argues that the oboe slurs in early copies of the “Et in Spiritu Sancto” show that the third note of each triplet should be separated from the previous two notes and played short. This “2+1” slurring would sound distinctly choppier than the smoother “3+3” articulation used on even the HIP-est recordings. But a look at the autograph score raises doubts about Stauffer’s claim. As Butt points out, the only unambiguous way to indicate “2+1” slurring was with a dot over the third note (you can find an example in the opening of the St. Matthew Passion); Bach does not use a dot in the “Et in spiritu” oboe slurs. Indeed, these slurs are placed haphazardly enough to suggest that Bach may be calling only for a smoother, more general slurred effect (the opening of the St. John Passion is an analogous case). It’s not clear, in the end, what Bach had in mind.
Even when a marking is clear, we may not agree on just how “articulated” it should be. How strongly do you bring out a two-note slur—say, those in the violin lines of the “Et incarnatus” or in the Kyrie 1 fugue subject? Historically inclined performers have varied widely in how they solve this, and the historical evidence does not settle the matter. As in other repertory, performers differ in how much to underline and emphasize musical events. Such tendencies may be as much a matter of temperament or of the “school” one belongs to as of one’s reading of history or of its importance.
Words and Meaning
The survey above hardly exhausts the controversial issues. Debates rage about such questions as what instruments played in Bach’s continuo group, whether boy sopranos are preferable in his music, whether Bach wanted performers to double the voices with instruments in the Credo and “Confiteor” choruses, whether his alto lines were sung by boys or men, and so forth.
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