On Sat, Oct 29, 2016 at 7:13 AM, J. Claudio Di Veroli <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

TREBLE f'''
- I cannot find any non-Iberian harpsichord score including this note, in
spite of J.-J. Rousseau showing a fully chromatic FF-f''' range (1765).

-------------------------------------

There's a high treble f ''' in Rameau's *Pièces de clavecin en
Concerts *(1741).
His famous recommendation for players who don't have the note is for the
fifth finger to "play" the wooden block to the right of the end of the the
keyboard instead... in other words, simply to pretend the note is there,
and play as if it is -- without altering the fingering of the passage or
substituting another note in the F-major harmony (such as the a'').
I've played this work on a harpsichord that stops at high e '''. Doing
precisely what Rameau suggests does work musically. The ear supplies the
missing high f''', a nice aural illusion.

We might also like to think about a second list, including all the
practical "fixes" suggested by composers in cases where players might not
have had (or have today) certain notes. So far, I have this:
-- 1) Couperin's lozenge notes (1713) for the low FF;
-- 2) Couperin's suggestion in *L'Art de toucher le Clavecin* (1716) to
transpose a passage down an octave if the keyboard has no high d''';
-- 3) Rameau's suggestion (1741) to pretend the high f''' is there.
-- 4) In the same vein is Couperin's suggestion for playing a *pièce
croisée *on a single-manual instrument: transpose the left hand down an
octave for the whole piece. This, by the way, produces another phantom low
FF at the end of *Le Tic-Toc-Choc.*..
Are there any non French additions for this list?

There are also the odd cases in d'Anglebert (see Gaillarde in G major, 4th
measure of the second half, left hand) where he writes a widely space chord
encompassing a tenth, but indicates alternative notes with "guidons"
("directs"), presumably suggestions for people with smaller hands. However,
he doesn't do this in the vast majority of the cases where the tenth
spacing is written.

Finally, does anyone who of any cases where an alternative was proposed for
passages written with a short octave in mind? D'Anglebert doesn't provide
one, for example, for the second measure of the second D minor Sarabande
(although the solution is fairly obvious)...

Best wishes,
DM



*Davitt MoroneyProfessor of Music; University OrganistDirector, University
Baroque Ensemble*

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