CORRESPONDENCE
addresses will not be published with-
Jean Berain: costume design for Mile Verdier as Syrinx in Lully's Isis (Paris. Bibliotheque
Nationale)|seep.39l)
Clavichord reseach
I am undertaking a major survey of
historical clavichords as a research
fellow of the Department of Musical
Instrument Technology at the London
College of Furniture, with funds pro-
vided by the Leverhulme Trust. The
object is to create a data base con-
taining as much information as possible
about all extant historical instruments.
While some of this information is in
the public domain a great deal of it is
not. I feel sure that there are many
• a
more instruments hidden away than
are on view.
I would like to ask any museum or
person with a historical clavichord to
contact me. I would also be grateful for
anyone who knows of the presence of a
clavichord to bring this study to the
attention of the appropriate person.
Any additional publicity for the project
would be especially welcome.
It is my intention to make this data
base generally available at the end of
the study, but I can assure individuals
who contact me that their names and
out their consent.
DAVID WELDON. London College of Furni-
ture. 41 Commercial Rd London El
French overdotting
While I am grateful to Graham Pont and
David Wulstan for listing their sources
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for overdotting in France {EM. Feb 87.
p. 141), I still fail to see evidence to
support this position. Let us examine
these sources:
In an essay ('The Musicall Gram-
marian , . . 1728) North contrasts the
equal movement of the lower part with
the dotted, detached bowing of the
upper: 'And the hand nicely agrees with
the foot, especially in the most stately
step they call an entry. I fancy it is
originally owing to the genius of the
violin, of which one of the beautys is
the stabb, or stoccata, and the other is
the arcata. which latter hath given way
and the other chiefly prevailes. I have
subjoyned a basso andante to shew how
well that sober style joynes with the
desultory action of the upper part, as of
one pacifying the rage of an angry
person' (see Ex.1).
A characteristic description of the slow
Entree, but evidence for overdotting7 In
fact. North makes a point of con-
trasting the two parts, rather than
making them conform to the same
degree of dotting. When played with
the written time values and according
to North's description of bowing style,
the passage produces the intended
effect.
In his 1696 tutor for musical neo-
phytes, Elements ou principes de musique.
F.tienne Loulie explains that quavers
can be performed in different manners:
1) Equally in disjunct motion, called
detacher les Mottes:
2) The first note of a pair in conjunct
motion a little longer' than the second,
called Lourer [the most common des-
EARLY MUSIC AUGUST 1987 443
cnption of notes megales],
3) The first note, which must have a
dot, much longer' than the second
The unpublished supplement to
Loulie's tutor indicates that a dot after
a note ordinarily augments its value by
half The dot's value can also be
determined by the length of the fol-
lowing note(s) Loulie's examples,
which show that the dot can augment
the note's value anywhere from 1/8 to
7/8, clarify a simple mechanism for
designating the exact value of the dot
Thus an overdotted quaver would be
written as a dotted quaver, followed by
a derm-semiquaver note
Michel L'Affilard's Pnnapes tres
faciles pour bien apprendre la musique,
also for beginning students, first ex-
plains (p 15) that a dot after a note adds
the value of half that note On p 32 he
indicates how conjunct quavers [m-
egales] are performed 'One must dot the
first and pass quickly over the second '
The text reads 'Pour fair comme ll faut
deux Croches qui suivent une Noire,
on doit pointez la premiere, & passer
vite la seconde ' John O'Donnell, in his
July 1979 Early Music article (vol vn/3,
p 337), adds language not in the French
text 'In order to give the dots their
value, the dotted note must be held and
the second passed quickly ' He justifies
altering the language by saying that
this is what L'Affilard meant L'Affil-
ard's first musical example contains
both equal quavers and dotted quaver
pairs intermingled His next three
musical examples with notes megales,
however, contain only equal quavers
Remembering Louhe's direction that
notes dotted in a 3 1 ratio require a dot,
I suggest that L'Affilard on p 32 is
perhaps contrasting the difference
between standard dotted notes and the
gentler notes megales written with equal
quavers Instances of this practice
occur frequently in Francois Coupenn's
Pieces d'orgue, for example, where oc-
casional dotted quavers interrupt a
passage of conjunct quavers normally
using inequality (This is not to deny
that a few writers of elementary tutors,
lacking any better notational device,
did employ dotted notes in an attempt
to illustrate notes megales)
On p 36 L'Affilard introduces some
vocalises that the singer is to Pointez',
only the first two pairs of quavers are
dotted, but it appears that the direction
includes the remainder of this exercise
(and those following), since it is con-
structed of sequential scale-like pass-
ages, in contrast to the preceding notes
megales examples Here L'Affilard prob-
ably does mean standard 3 1 dotting
throughout Then on p41 we en-
counter a vocalise whose instruction,
Pointez fort, has given rise to the
modern idea that this must mean
overdotting But Pointez fort simply
means strongly dotted—a wise pre-
caution in this exercise where the
natural tendency, especially for be-
ginners, is to perform the two semi-
quaver notes following the dotted
crotchets too early and too sluggishly
The French were casual about their
use of the word pointez, which some-
times refers to dotting in a 3 1 ratio,
and other times simply to an unspeci-
fied lengthening of the first quaver of a
pair in the note megales convention The
context usually clarifies which is
intended And, of course, pointe is a
common term for staccato
Where is the overdotting instruction
in these sources'' Since the French
tutors were written for rank beginners,
it seems misguided to read a sophisti-
cated concept into language that is
intended to communicate at the most
elementary level Overdotting did exist,
but the French indicated it in one of
three ways 1) the use of two dots after a
note, 2) variable dotting, determined by
the value of the note(s) after the dot,
and 3) the use of tied notes
Could it be that future generations
will look back upon ours in wonder-
ment that so many followed uncritically
a doctrine that requires radical alter-
ation of a composer's notation7 Freder-
ick Neumann has written thorough art-
icles on this subject for many years I
urge the reader to consult his Essays in
Performance Practice (Ann Arbor, 1982).
where these articles are collected
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EARLY MUSIC AUGUST 1987
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