mann, originally also dating from 1966.

Finally, Julianne
David Ledbetter Baird has given us an annotated English translation of
Agricola's annotated German translation of Tosi's Italian.
18th-century singing treatises It is a widely held view that, while most of us are look-
ing for information about how to perform the works of the
Pier Francesco Tosi, Johann Friedrich Agricola: Anleitung
great masters of the late Baroque, we have little that can be
zur Singkunst, facsimile edition with introduction and
related directly to them, but an overwhelming richness of
commentary by Kurt Wichmann
detail about performing the works of C. H. Graun and his
(Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1994)
Berlin colleagues. This notion of a narrowly localized Pots-
Introduction to the art of singing by Johann Friedrich dam style does not do justice to the diversity of back-
Agricola, translated and edited by Julianne C. Baird grounds of the many highly talented musicians who
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) moved to Berlin from the later 1730s, benefiting from the
jeunesse de prince of Frederick II. They created a lively en-
Tosi's Opinioni (Bologna, 1723) has long been known and vironment and a melting pot of styles, which crystallized
loved in the English translation of Johann Ernst GaUiard in the instructive works of Quantz (1752), C. P. E. Bach
(London, 1743) as the prime source of information about (i753> 1762) and Agricola, and was not for the first decade
vocal performance in the Handel era. This is available in or so the ossified and stifling thing it was later to become.
several modern reprints. Both Tosi's Italian original and As one would expect at such a Francophile court,
Agricola's much extended German translation (Berlin, French influence was prominent, at least in instrumental
1757) were issued in facsimile by Moeck in 1966 with com- music. The foundation of Quanta's flute style lay in his
ments by Erwin Jacobi. These have been out of print for friendship with Blavet. The highly evolved language of es-
some time, but the facsimile of Agricola has now been sential ornaments set out so consistently by all three writ-
reissued by Breitkopf, without Jacobi's notes but with a ers is clearly traceable back to the tables of D'Anglebert
substantial introduction and commentary by Kurt Wich- (1689) and Couperin (1713), both of which set new

ABBAYE DE ROYAUMOSIT
(north of P»rii)

Master-classes (JAdusic for Large Ensemble

Summer 1996 in Fine Facsimiles
MEDIEVAL MUSIC
(EUROPEAN CENTER FOR RESEARCH AND
CORELU: Concert! Grossi,
PERFORMANCE OF MEDIEVAL MUSIC - CERIMM)
Opera Sesta (Amsterdam,
• MARCEL PERES [1714]). 7part-books. £56.00
Aquitanian polyphony, with a Roman organ HANDEL: Concert! Grossi, Opera Terza
(for singers and organists) (London, [1734]). 9part-books. £54.00
• P E D R O MEMELSDORFF HANDEL: The Musick for the Royal Fireworks
14th century Italian music (J-ondon, [1749]). 11 part-books. £29.50
(for singers and instrumentalists) HANDEL: The Celebrated Water Musick
(London, [1733]). 7part-books. £29.50
BAROQUE MUSIC VIVALDI: L'Estro Armonico, Opera Terza
(CENTRE DE LA VOIX) (Amsterdam, [1711]). 8part-books. £62.50
• GERARD LESNE - I I SEMINARIO MUSICALE VIVALDI: II Cimento dell'Armonia e dell'
Venetian cantatas Inventione, Opera Ottava (Amsterdam,
(for singers and instrumentalists) [1725]). 5part-books. £50.00

Further Information A application forms from : Broude Brothers Limited

FondertJon Royeumont - Centre de le VoixICerimm 141 WHITE OAKS ROAD
95270 Asni&ressur-Oite - France
WILL1AMSTOWN, MA Oli6j USA
Tel: (33) ( 30 35 59 00 - Fox (33) / 30 35 39 45

160 EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY 1996

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 standards of sophistication and exactness. J. S. Bach made
his own copy of D'Anglebert's table around 1710 and it lay
at the basis of his practice, passed on to his sons and
pupils, judging by the signs he used and his short instruc-
tion to W. F. Bach. There is clearly a continuity of tradition
here, albeit an evolving one. It is through this prism that
Agricola views Tosi.
Agricola's relation to J. S. Bach and his sons was close.
He was Bach's pupil from 1738 to 1741, made copies of
many organ, clavier and other works, and collaborated on
his obituary with C. P. E. Bach in 1754. To Agricola's anno-
tations for Adlung's Musica mechanka (1768) we owe our
knowledge of J. S. Bach's opinions about various organs
and Silbermann's pianofortes, and of his Lautenclavier.
Even with the move to Empfindsamkeit the fundamental
training of key Berlin figures such as C. P. E. Bach and
Agricola was firmly rooted in the practice of J. S. Bach, and
Agricola makes his own valuable contribution to our un-
derstanding. For example, in the issue of assimilating dot-
ted notes to triplets, where C. P. E. Bach says 'do' and
Quantz says 'don't', Agricola makes it clear that it depends
on speed, with assimilation only in very quick tempos.
Agricola's value as a vocal tutor lies not so much in his
version of Tosi, whom he sometimes misunderstood, as in
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his extensive annotations and digressions. Though not so
wide-ranging as Quantz, he gives a great deal of important
information about many aspects of contemporary perfor-
mance practice, and is essential reading for those inter-
ested in vocal matters. One might single out his excellent
remarks on rhetorical projection, recommending singers
to study Gottsched's Redekunst and to practise reciting af-
fect-rich speeches by good speakers and writers. His com-
plaint that singers too often neglect the words can be heard
from Caccini to the present day. More generally, he is
probably most useful for his lucid explanation of Guido-
nian solmization and mutation. It is curious that, in all the
debate about this from the early 17th century, nobody
seems to have pointed out that where it is indispensable is
in the interpretation of ficta in stile antico repertory. In a
tonal context it is ludicrously inconvenient, as Agricola
says, yet it still had its devoted adherents down to his day.
Wichmann's presentation, though revised, is still very
much of the 1960s, particularly in its narrow focus on rele-
vance to J. S. Bach. But he is perceptive in pointing out that
Agricola's sympathies are reflected in some chapters of
Tosi being less well translated and annotated than others.
And he has a great deal to say about Agricola's views on
the physiology of the voice, and his place in the evolving
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 understanding of it. Baird's footnotes, in contrast, dry up
in the long disquisition on the workings of the glottis.
When it comes to translating Tosi's words, Baird has to
compete with Galliard's directness and pungency. It is dif-
ficult to match in modern English favourite phrases such
as the singer 'screaming like a Hen when she is laying her
Egg'. But there are many places where it is good to have
clear modern light for his obscurities. The book could
have done with a final check-through: a number of trans-
lation details need attention and there is one misplaced
music example (p.no). To talk of hard, natural and soft
'modes' is confusing when what is meant is hexachords, or
literally scales (Tonleiter); and on p.91 Baird has Agricola
recommending what he actually describes as 'dem guten
Geschmacke wenig gemaS' ('hardly in keeping with good
taste'). She might somewhere have given Galliard's ex-
amples for Tosi, since they often seem to relate to a very
different tradition from Agricola's, and one far less well
documented. There is also the eternal problem of termi-
nology for ornaments. Is it really helpful to invent a whole
range of modern terms such as, for example, 'compound
appoggiatura' when Anschlag is so style-specific? Who
would now substitute 'appoggiatura' for port-de-vohd
But, details apart, Baird has done a first-rate job and the
VAN WASSENAER
COMPETITION
9TH INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
FOR EARLY MUSIC ENSEMBLES
19, 20, 21 September 1996
Palace of the Council of State, The Hague
Chairman of the Jury
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Awards
CD-recording
money prizes
best individual musicial award
other prizes to be announced
Information
Impulse Art Management
Singel 308
1016 AE Amsterdam
THE NETHERLANDS
l62 EARLY MUSIC FEBRUARY 1996
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translation is intelligent, sensitive and readable. Her intro-
duction gives not only the Berlin context but a general
European dimension as well, and, as one would expect
from such an accomplished singer, there are many illumi-
nating links with repertory. Thanks to her, English readers
now have access to the vocal tutor that stands beside the
books of Quantz, C. P. E. Bach and Leopold Mozart as one
of the fundamental documents of performance practice
for the mid-i8th century.
David Rowland
Fortepianos and their music
Katalin Koml6s, Fortepianos and their music: Germany,
Austria, and England, 1760-1800
(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995), £27.50
The scope of this book is even more ambitious than its
title suggests, since it takes in performance practice as
well as the history of the instrument and its music.
Inevitably, therefore, within the space of 147 pages the
author can only introduce the reader to aspects of her
subject, and, as she herself acknowledges in the preface,
'the thoughts and observations presented here do not
pretend to give a comprehensive account of the subject'.
The aim of the volume is rather to 'draw attention to the
interrelationships between instruments, composers, and
performers, within the first important period of the his-
tory of the pianoforte'. This approach will be welcomed
by those who want a general introduction to the subject;
the book forms a useful accompaniment to the wealth of
late 18th-century keyboard music found in Garland's
London Pianoforte School series (ed. Temperley) and
elsewhere.
Fortepianos and their music is divided into three parts.
The first deals with the history and characteristics of the
'fortepiano'—a term which has become synonymous
with the 'early piano', and which was commonly used on
the Continent for what the English even in the 18th cen-
tury called the 'pianoforte'. Here Koml6s draws on a sub-
stantial amount of recently published material, although
her study was unfortunately just too early to take in
Stewart Pollens's The early pianoforte—a definitive his-
tory of the piano to the 1760s. Her descriptions of pianos
are in terms of their sound qualities rather than their