High clefs (so-called Chiavetta) and transposition

[@matthijshebly]

I was never really all that much into early music, but thanks to this particular channel, I *AM* getting into it. The content and presentation are superb, and the added humour makes it even better. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[@iltromboncini32]

Excellent video! I have read an article by a UK musicologist that suggests that high clefs were used for vocal ranges as a way of avoiding ledger lines, particularly below the stave. By transposing the music down and using lower clefs, ledger lines appear. Try it on any piece - you'll be surprised how often the ledger lines appear in standard clefs!

[@nolanmaisey]

nice transposed intro

[@JoeGPERY]

Hey, have you guys transposed the opening ? ;)

[@EarlyMusicSources]

Yup :) thanks for noticing

[@ivanabal969]

Early Music Sources

[@dagamusik]

Slap him!

[@jurgenbuschmann9867]

As germans say: Blitzmerker! 😉

[@ronankernoa2132]

Love the conclusion!!! :-)

[@canarias12345]

An example of how it sound it would be wonderful to see the different

[@tedb.5707]

Extraordinary. I've been reading about early keyboard instruments and this is the first time I've gotten a clear explanation of WHY so many early harpsichords have two manuals. 12-Foot and 8-foot makes more sense than 8-8 foot registrations like a 2-manual organ. Though I can see the later attraction of 8-8/4 foot registrations later in the Baroque period and the classical harpsichord repertoire. I suspect that once engraving replaced fixed type the convention of ledger lines this reduced the limitations of just B or B-flat key signatures in intablatura. Technology versus technique.

[@2628064379]

Another great video!!! Loved that ending LOL!!!

[@dmitrysofronov8624]

The blue fellow behind your right shoulder on the harpsichord - is he the same one as in the hands of Palestrina? The guy is an astonishingly quick jumper! He transposes himself from here to there at the Bruce Lee speed!

[@hucbald37]

Hi Elam, this channel is so cool! Thank you very much, also in the name of my students...

[@giovannigalletta4529]

Really nice explanation. Thank you!

[@pedrokenzo4670]

2:26 Somewhere an opera singer just had a heart attack

[@danepeter5282]

I think maybe the transpositions are made because of the tuning systems maybe since we cannot transpose to a intended key signatures because the tuning system might encounter a wolf fifth if it is transposed in such cases so another manual of keyboard with its transposed tonal centre can avoid the wolf fifth and also comfortably played and also benefits the singer in doing so to sing easily in range. I am probably wrong since I do not have much knowledge over this topic but please do educate me anyone if I maybe wrong. Happy to learn

[@sandrinemaffeis8055]

I entirely agree. I first met this problem with Luzzasco Luzzaschi's madrigals and I would transpose them a forth lower. If you don't transpose the ones on high clefs they become really unnatural even with singers that of course can go up very high. Then I read the article on the Grove dictionary of music and everything sounded more logical. Thank you for your explanations they are excellent and very well grounded.

[@paulsmith5752]

Elam Rotem

[@benkopal]

Note that in the Frescobaldi and Monteverdi examples all other voices are notated in standard clefs.

[@fnersch3367]

Now I know the 'why' of transposing doubles in the harpsichord world. Thanks.

[@jhummelgaard9310]

Thank you very useful!

[@akumaki88]

Hola! Podrían hacer un resumen de tratados? 1 por video por ejemplo? Yo quisiera saber más sobre los libros de Ganassi pero son un poco complicados de entender y de leer por el idioma. Dentro de esa temática estaría interesante un vídeo sobre el Tratado de Quantz, su importancia en la historia, su relación con Federico el Grande, con Bach, con C.P.E.Bach, etc... resumen de sus capítulos... ese tipo de videos que no hay en internet. Por favor! Amo su canal!!!!😍

[@coosoorlog]

10:50 me talking to my choir director

[@SydiusVideo]

Thanks!

[@paulsmith5752]

4:37 aha, this explains why one would write in different clefs in the first place, which was the question foremost in my brain.

[@ydvoran7632]

It is interesting that also the quite famous "Un sarao de la chacona (Chacona 'A la vida bona')" by Juan Arañés asks for Chiavette, including the guitar, which gets small case Alfabetto letters instead of the standard ones.

[@gilgermesch]

:-O you have a Griewisch transposition harpsichord. Now, you also have my envy!

[@willemceuleers6041]

It has been suggested that boy's voices in the treble favour a much higher tessitura than do male falcettists. So depending on the disposition of the capella, higher or lower versions would be more convenient. Another element would be that a higher tessitura works better in large spaces. Makes sense to me. However, most of the polyphonic church music was not meant to be heard througout large churches and the sources don't seem to follow these arguments either. In general the pitch was higher back then than it is today, sometimes much higher. Yet again a question of common sense, I guess, by choosing a solution that works best for your singers at hand in a given venue, then as it is today.

[@n7275]

Suddenly all those examples in the Alfred Mann translation of Gradus Ad Parnassum make sense.

[@A_Muzik]

This video helped me to understand one of J. S. Bach's 14 Canons.

[@teodorlontos3294]

Interesting! Which one of them?

[@DouglasAmrine]

As always, a great video! So, does this explain the Allegri Miserere? Was it originally notated in high clefs, and do people today therefore sing it too high?

[@EarlyMusicSources]

Unfortunately, we don't have the original notation of Allegri's miserere, only copies from the 18th and 19th centuries. HOWEVER, in all the early copies of the piece, the famous high place simply does not exist(!). I'll try to research further to see who introduced it.

[@EarlyMusicSources]

So, apparently the part with the high C is an outcome of a "bad edition". read more here: claire.skriletz.net/2014/10/06/monday-music-miserere-by-gregorio-allegri/

[@Grabyrdy]

The "originals" are in normal clefs, but the Papal Choir enjoyed transposing many pieces up probalby from about 1600 onwards, no doubt to show off the voices of their castrati. So there were high Cs heard in the Sistine Chapel in the 18th and 19th centuries. However the version sung now is, as noted below, a modern invention. More info to come in my book on the subject, due next year.

[@EnricusIX]

​@@EarlyMusicSources, actually we have the original source. Or, at least, a 1661 edition (BAV, Capp. Sist. MS 205 for the first choir and MS 206 for the second). Nothing to do with the TopC version. Even the voicing is different, having double tenor instead of double soprano. And no imitations in it. They started appearing in MS 185 written by Iohannes Dominicus de Biondinis in 1731, on the influence of Bai's Miserere. It's quite a long tale with several manuscripts, ornated or not. In 1840, Geminiani's edition says that it was common to sing it a third higher. In 1892, in Mustafa's manuscript, there's a writing: "il tono una quarta sopra". BUT Mendelssohn said in a letter to Zelter that he heard it twice: one in B minor and one in E minor (finishing both in B flat). And transcribed an ornament in... C minor. William Rockstro, writing the "Miserere" part in the Grove's dictionary just pasted the Mendelssohn source without transposing into the Geminiani's second choir and... here it is the hybrid. Ok, this is a "fast" explanation, cutting too many important things, but... that's it!

[@Skunke84]

Brilliant!!

[@giggianna]

Thank You very much

[@cesars8090]

I think they wrote in high keys so that the music is played only by instruments or gifted singers. And in the rest of the cases it was transposed

[@barafostusdreame7134]

craving for some demo on the amazing harpsichord!

[@dmitrysofronov8624]

Well spotted! Me too!

[@filipefrancoafonso]

Mr Elam, maybe this why all the organ accompainment books for Missa De Angelis I found are in Eb, Gb or D. I was very confused because the gregorian neumatic notation for Missa De Angelis is in F major. Why none (of dozens) of the accompainment were written in F major? The choir of my church sings it in standard F major pitch. So, are they supposed to sing in a lower pitch than standard F major?

[@EdleJulve]

jajajaj transpusieron la intro! me encantó!

[@cristianbassi3053]

Creo que evidentemente el motivo esta relacionado al no uso de alteraciones en diferentes tonalidades, no uso de armaduras..

[@easter.bunny.6]

very helpful! and interesting ending haha

[@chrysalifourfour]

Thank you again for this greatly informative video. Of the many questions that arise, this seems to me one of the most problematic: these transposable harpsichords would only have two options: play either 'in tuono' or a 5th lower, but not a 4th lower. Yet music of the time written in high clefs would need both transpositions, depending on the 'key signature' (durum or molle). So how did istrumentalists deal with this? Two separately transposing harpsichords, or transpose ex tempore, in which case why not transpose ex tempore in the first place (as may players often do nowdays)?

[@EarlyMusicSources]

Hi chrysalifourfour I completely agree with you: a fixed transposition device does not cover all the possibilities you need for this understanding of 'chiavette-practice'. Although it could simplify a certain number of transpositions that would be more complicated otherwise. There are a couple of articles dealing with this topic: Rieche, Christiane, Hrsg. 1998. Kielinstrumente aus der Werkstatt Ruckers. Bd. 14. Schriften des Händel-Hauses in Halle. Halle an der Saale: Händel-Haus. Shann, R. T. 1984. «Flemish Transposing Harpsichords - An Explanation». The Galpin Society Journal 37: 62-71. A good overview of the ongoing musicological debate is given here (see chapter 'Flemish tradition'): Kottick, Edward L. 2003. A History of the Harpsichord. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. The most recent contribution to the subject I know of: Eichler, Diez, und Alexander Richter. 2014. «Ruckers-Cembali mit ‹verrückter› Tastatur. Zur Funktion der Transpositionscembali mit quartversetzten Manualen». Concerto, Magazin für Alte Musik 255 (Juni). Personally, I'm convinced that musicians were able to transpose without problems, and I see a different reason for the construction of 'transposing' harpsichords. Because literally none of the authors who published about transposing ruckers manuals tried to link this setup to other instrument families such as viols and recorders. By the way: most of the double manual harpsichords before roughly 1650 were transposing by a fourth, not a fifth as you implied. This publication gives you all the details you need to understand the distribution of types within the Ruckers oeuvre: O’Brien, Grant. 1990. Ruckers: a harpsichord and virginal building tradition. Cambridge University Press. And this article leads you to the suspicion that there were no double manual instruments before 1650 with aligned manuals at all (although this statement is still challenged by many authors and is difficult to prove, because virtually all extant instruments have been altered in the 18th century). Koster, John. 2004. «Three Early Transposing Two-Manual Harpsichords of the Antwerp School». The Galpin Society Journal 57: 81-116, 215. Best! Johannes Keller

[@alfredbackhus6110]

4:25 Think about that: Per stromenti. This makes instant sense if you ever played in a renaissance consort. In vocal music before 1600, there is rarely ever a reason to use instruments that were obviously very common at the time- violins, cornettos and soprano recorders are fundamantally useless at playing canto lines in low clefs or high clefs transposed downwards: The E string of the violin is a hindering appendix, the cornetto has to play in it's dull lower and middle range all the time, and the g' Alto recorder is always superior at playing the cantus part compared to the soprano, especially the soprano in d' which doesn't even cover the range of most canto parts. It's even worse in case of the shawm ensemble- we know from iconography that the highest members- shawm in D and high alto pommer in G - where much more widespread then lower instruments of the family- and they are fundamentally unsuited to read low clef literature as written.

[@HeiligerSatyr]

It is so lovely when foreigners make Italian impressions by doing the hand gesture which in Italy just imply a question, as "che c**** dici?" (the kind of loveliness of all-Germans-are-nazi or French-put-baguettes-under-their-sweaty-armpits impressions... not really lovely). Anyway, great video, as always.

[@juwonnnnn]

👏

[@orsino88]

Let’s also not underestimate how expensive and annoying it was to set leger lines in the 16th century print shop. Composers would have been under some pressure to present manuscripts that could be set without notes and lines outside the usual compass.

[@cesars8090]

I usually play at masses, and it is very normal to have to transpose lower pieces due to the less gifted singers, who are the majority. When there is no singer we play normally, because it is better for instruments

[@blaisecompton5636]

I think your videos are al most informative as well as great fun , but with regards to the high-clef problem, does the English late Plantagenet/Tudor repertoire comprise a general exception with its quatreblex and quinibles ? - starting off with Wulstan's innovative Clerkes of Oxenforde recordings and going through to the recent stunning Taverner recordings, English choirs often seem to want to push things up as high as humanly possible. Is there a male-treble/religious vs. mixed-choir/ secular divide somewhere?

[@EarlyMusicSources]

Well, most of the sources are Italian and German between ca. 1550 to ca. 1650. So it cannot be so happily applied to earlier repertoire from other regions. However, the tendency to push things high seems to be more modern, and I doubt that it's based on specific sources (but I'd be happy to be prooved wrong).

[@Perotinus1]

Some of the Tudor triplex/quatreble rep. appeared in high clefs: in those instances, downwards transposition makes the highest note a G at the top of the treble stave.

[@OzanYarman]

Could it be that A Capella singing with high clefs was preferably "in pitch" when instrumental accompaniment was divorced in some settings?

[@el7284]

I love how the English completely ignored all these guidelines. High tenor lines range up to an octave and half, trebles soar

[@MusicaAngela]

Judging from the beauty of the manuscripts, it might have been considered too ugly to draw ledger lines. Or just too bothersome to read or write them.

[@easter.bunny.6]

i like your Latin accent haha

[@declamatory]

Why not just write it where it's supposed to be? Why bother with transposition at all? This is from a trombonist who has mastered bass, tenor, and alto clefs.