Gabrieli / Susato

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MrHCinDE
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Gabrieli / Susato

Post by MrHCinDE »

I'll soon be playing the 4th voice in the 1st choir of Gabrieli's Canzon Noni Toni a 12 and the 4th of a 4-part arrangement of Susato's Pavane "La Battaille" at a local formal event. There'll be another trombonist playing at written pitch and I'll be an octave lower in lieu of a tuba. There's quite a few low B's and C's so I'm going with my double trigger bass trombone, a Reynolds Contempora.

As far as I know, we'll be using modern (-ish in my case!) instruments so sound-wise it probably won't be one for the purists but at least stylistically we can try to be sympathetic to the original.

I'm also going to take my euph to the rehearsal to see how that works as an alternative to bass trombone, not least for practicality as apparently we'll be playing on the move between banquet tables and I'm concerned about wiping out the guests with a clumsy swipe of my slide.

Anyone got any tips for this type of music? I like listenting to it but have never really played any.


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LeTromboniste
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Re: Gabrieli / Susato

Post by LeTromboniste »

I would advise finding good recordings on period instruments like the ones you posted (and avoiding modern brass ensemble recordings of your goal is to reach for a more historical style) of these pieces but also of other similar repertoire in general, to get a sense of the style and paying attention to note and phrase shapes, articulations. Concerto Palatino is probably THE reference group of early brass and has been for a few decades, they have tons of recordings, many of which are available on Naxos Music Library. Oltremontano is another noteworthy group, as are the English sackbuts and cornetts ensemble and Her Majesty's sagbutts and cornetts for example. More recent recordings are generally more recommendable, recordings from the 60s and 70s are usually outdated.

Listening to those you might notice that the modern brass playing aesthetic of square, even notes is ostensibly avoided, and that unevenness and variety in articulation is favored. It is harder to do on modern equipment, but try pairing notes (especially quarter notes and faster), with stepwise motion receiving alternating stronger and softer tonguing (tede tede tede). We know that's what they did, and just that already goes a long way in creating a very different approach. This music is untexted of course but coming up with a text that would fit the rhythms and then following the word accents of that text is a great way to shape the phrasing.

Equipment wise, I'd stay away from conical brass instruments and stick to trombones as much as you can - that's what they had/wrote for, so why play it one something else if you can play it on trombone?

Not sure doubling down the octave is useful, I would think it's quite counterproductive if you want a lighter style.
Last edited by LeTromboniste on Mon May 06, 2019 7:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
Maximilien Brisson
www.maximilienbrisson.com
Lecturer for baroque trombone,
Hfk Bremen/University of the Arts Bremen
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LeTromboniste
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Re: Gabrieli / Susato

Post by LeTromboniste »

For the Susato, can be very useful to look up videos of people dancing pavanes. Knowing how the steps of the dance go (it's an simple dance and easy to follow) can help a lot to have a good conception of the tempo and of the phrasing. In this piece, in the final bit with all the repeated 16th notes you can do away with the paired strong-soft tonguing, as this particular motif is the "battle"/"war" motif (in fact the entire last section is one big quote from a popular 16th century piece), and they did recommend using "te te te te" and "te ke te ke" tonguing (which they otherwise avoided) specifically for moments where you want to evoke terror (they called it "lingua terribilis").
Maximilien Brisson
www.maximilienbrisson.com
Lecturer for baroque trombone,
Hfk Bremen/University of the Arts Bremen
MrHCinDE
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Re: Gabrieli / Susato

Post by MrHCinDE »

Thanks for the suggestions, definitely some points which are completely new to me, especially the note-pairing.

We had the rehearsal last night and it the Gabrieli was a lot trickier than expected. It turns out two of the choirs (each four parts) will be in side rooms with very limited vision. Relying on listening to the other groups for timing didn’t work great due to delay and echo. The best solution we found was for one member of our choir with the best view of the conductor to pass the beat on to us by body movement, including during his rests. The doubling of the Choir 1 4th part turned out to be an administrative error, one of us should have had Choir 2 Part 4 so no further thoughts of octave doubling here.

The Susato went a bit better, the procession will be fine with trombone so I’m sticking with that rather than euph. At the start there’ll be a couple of celli, a double bass, two bassons and two trombones on the 4th part. Once we walk the celli and bass obviously don’t come with us. It worked quite nicely with the bones in octaves, so as long as I pay attention to shaping the notes I’ll go with that. Mostly it’s not that low so within a range I can play quite light. I don’t know whether it’s authentic to do so but leaning (practically no tongue, just weight) on the low C at the end of each section and phrasing it off over a couple of beats was pleasing to my ears.
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LeTromboniste
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Re: Gabrieli / Susato

Post by LeTromboniste »

MrHCinDE wrote: Wed May 08, 2019 5:29 am
We had the rehearsal last night and it the Gabrieli was a lot trickier than expected. It turns out two of the choirs (each four parts) will be in side rooms with very limited vision. Relying on listening to the other groups for timing didn’t work great due to delay and echo. The best solution we found was for one member of our choir with the best view of the conductor to pass the beat on to us by body movement, including during his rests. The doubling of the Choir 1 4th part turned out to be an administrative error, one of us should have had Choir 2 Part 4 so no further thoughts of octave doubling here.
Oh yeah, uncomfortable playing locations and having to find ways to relay the beat are common issues - and quite the historically authentic problem! :P We were in Italy just a month ago playing with historical organs in old churches...Playing from narrow, 25-foot balconies with no room for music stands and your slide hanging over the edge with the organ blocking your view of the other choir or with choirs widely separated and dealing with cathedral acoustics...very different feel than playing on comfortable modern stages or in small rehearsal rooms! It's actually great that your group is facing part of those challenges, I think it also helps inform the performance and have a better idea of the circumstances in which the music would have originally been played.
Maximilien Brisson
www.maximilienbrisson.com
Lecturer for baroque trombone,
Hfk Bremen/University of the Arts Bremen
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