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49 Ewa Gubiec Graduate from the Grażyna and Kiejstut Academy of Music in Łódź T

49 Ewa Gubiec Graduate from the Grażyna and Kiejstut Academy of Music in Łódź THE ART OF PRELUDING ON THE FLUTE IN THE 18TH CENTURY IN FRANCE 1 Introduction A prelude (French prélude; German Vorspiel; Spanish preludio; Latin praeludium, praeam- bulum)2 is a very widely used term, which is first of all associated with a music genre of an unspecified form. However, for a better understanding of this article, it is necessary to refer to the etymology of the word “prelude”. The part ludus (or Spiel) means “play”, which points to the connection with instrumental music, whereas the verbs préluder (French) and prälu- dieren (German) mean “to improvise”, “to try” and “to warm up”. The term praeambulum also has a rhetorical meaning – it is connected with attracting the audiences’ attention and introducing the subject3. Hence, the word “prelude” itself reveals its initial role, i.e., to prepare a listener for a music piece that is to follow and to prepare a musician to perform it. There were two basic types of preludes in music in the 17th and 18th centuries. The first type was a part of a music piece (written by a composer) at its very beginning, with a diver- sified construction (e.g. prélude in French suites or prelude to a fugue in German music). The second type was a short music introduction to the key and character of a piece, impro- vised by a musician during a performance4. The subject of this article is the second type of prelude proving a performer’s improvisation skills. The practice of preluding of music pieces was common in the Baroque period, and then also in the Classicism and the Romanticism. However, very few modern performers of music from the above mentioned periods return to this tradition, which raises numerous research questions: What was the role of improvised preludes in each period? How were they con- structed? Were there any specific rules or “composition patterns” for improvised preludes? Was and – if so – how was their style changed and what factors shaped these potential changes? And finally, is this practice worth returning to if we consider our current know- ledge, instruments and concert conditions? In order to find answers to the questions mentioned above, in the article I shall try to discuss the rules of improvised prelude creating on the basis of the included descriptions and my own analysis of music examples taken from French treatises from the 18th century. My analysis is limited only to the treatises issued in France as this country was the main centre where theoretical texts on preluding on wind instruments were written in the period 1 The article was compiled on the basis of the diploma thesis written under the supervision of dr hab. Magdalena Pilch, defended in 2016 at the Grażyna and Kiejstut Academy of Music in Łódź. 2 H. Ferguson, Prelude, entry in: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Vol. 15, ed. S. Sadie, London–New York 1980, p. 210. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., also cf. J. M. Hotteterre, L’art de Preluder sur la Flûte Traversiere, Sur la Flûte-a-bec, Sur le Haubois et autre Instruments de Dessus, Paris 1719, p. 1 and T. Bordet, Méthode raisonnée pour apprendre la Musique, Paris c.1755, p. 15. All French titles of the treatises used in this article were written in original spelling. 50 I focus on. Moreover, that practice in France went beyond the time frames of the Baroque era, which enables the comparison of styles of improvised preludes in flute music from the late Baroque to the second half of the 18th century. Apart from the treatises, in my observations I also refer to the definitions taken from 18th century music dictionaries and the conclusions and historical information included in sparse publications on the subject. There are two significant English-language publications on the art of preluding – the book by Betty Bang Mather and David Lasocki entitled The Art of Preluding 1700-1830 for Flutists, Oboists, Clarinettists and Other Performers5 and the article by Maria Bania called The improvisation of preludes on melody instruments in the 18th century 6. There are no Polish-language sources on the subject. The first of the mentioned publications is a sort of a modern textbook teaching how to improvise preludes and including examples selected by its authors. It also presents the styles of preludes in separate periods but does not group them into the centres they were written in. Both mentioned publications touch on the art of preluding on various melodic instruments and are also based on treatises not referring to the flute, and at the same time they do not mention certain sources devoted to this instrument. The article presents the art of preluding in a chronological order. Its first part describes the principles of prelude improvisation in the first half of the 18th century, paying special attention to the theoretical treatise entitled L’art de Preluder by J. M. Hotteterre 7. The second part is focused on the second half of the 18th century and it touches on the changes which took place at that time in the style and the role of improvised preludes. Affect and melodiousness – preludes as an introduction to the character of mature Baroque pieces The tradition of preluding is an old one and it dates back at least to the Middle Ages. It origi- nates from the custom of instrument tuning by singers who accompanied themselves on the harp. Instrument tuning in their case smoothly turned into improvised preludes to a song which was to follow and it took place even if the instrument had been tuned beforehand8. In Italian Renaissance lute music, there were similar types of improvisation called tastar de corde (literally ‘trying’, ‘touching the chords’) or fantasia, in which artists used the fingering and chords from the ricercar which came afterwards9. In the 17th century in Italy and Germany occurred genres such as intonazione, intrada, toccata, ricercare and praeludium, which were performed freely (as a free introduction) despite their measured rhythmic notation. In France, the development of polyphonic organ preludes which occurred as early as in the Renaissance 5 B. B. Mather, D. Lasocki, The Art of Preluding 1700–1830 for Flutists, Oboists, Clarinettists and Other Per- formers, New York 1984, reissue, 2010. 6 M. Bania, The improvisation of preludes on melody instruments in the 18th century, “The Consort” 2014, Vol. 70, p. 67–92. 7 J. M. Hotteterre, L’art de Preluder sur la Flûte Traversiere, Sur la Flûte-a-bec, Sur le Haubois et autre Instru- ments de Dessus, Paris 1719. 8 M. Bania, op. cit., p. 67–68 9 Ibid., p. 68–69. 51 was continued on the one hand, but on the other hand, in the 17th century, the development of a prelude as a genre connected particularly with the lute could be noticed there. In the 1620s and 1630s, there were experiments and changes in the ways of lute tuning10, and preluding before a piece particularly allowed a musician to familiarise himself with the intervals be- tween the courses of strings of a given instrument. It was at that time when the first examples of semi-measured preludes for the lute appeared, which possibly had a significant influence on later solo non-measured and partly rhythmised preludes for the lute, viola or harpsichord. The beginning of the tradition of placing preludes as the first part of dance suites can be no- ticed in the same period11. La veritable maniere d’apprendre a jouer en perfection du haut-bois, de la flute et du flageolet by Jean-Pierre Freillon-Poncein Chronologically, the first source referring to the topic of this article is La veritable maniere d’apprendre a jouer en perfection du haut-bois, de la flute et du flageolet”12 by Jean-Pierre Freillon-Poncein13, published in 1700 in Paris and addressed first of all to persons learning music without the help of a master. The conclusion based on its text is that even though what the author had primarily in mind was the recorder, all preludes could be transposed for other instruments if needed. Freillon-Poncein introduces readers with the basic rules of music, the purely technical as- pects of playing the three instruments mentioned in the title of the treatise. He also presents the types of metre and cadences, as well as the principles of composition and preluding. The role of prelude is introducing the key of a music piece and it should be improvised by a performer. Detailed rules regarding its tempo, character and duration cannot be specified 10 In that period, composers started experimenting with some accords nouveaux, first on the 10- , and then also on the 11- and 12-course lute. Courses 1–6 were tuned in different ways, the remaining low courses were usually tuned diatonically. Unlike vieil ton, in which the interval was always two octaves, in new tuning systems this interval was different depending on the type of tuning, but it was always less than two octaves. The changes also occurred in the remaining courses. The way of tuning could be adjusted to the key of a piece uploads/s3/ art-of-prelude 1 .pdf