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A peer-reviewed research article The rhetorical moaning in Trio research publication 2013

In this article I discuss the musical gestures of moaning in the fourth recitative, Déjà Sirinx, (picture 2.) of Michel Pignolet de Montéclair’s cantata for one voice with accompaniment of basso continuo, violin and oboe or ute, Pan et Sirinx.2 In what ways do the cries of Pan manifest themselves in the vocal part and in my body as a harpsichordist and as a basso continuo player? What kind of movements do I embody while playing the basso continuo for the vocal part? How does the vocalist sing les sons glissés according to Montéclair’s notation and his Principes de musique (1736)? How could I imitate that in my harpsichord playing? To what kinds of larger rhetorical structures is the musical gesture of le son glissé connected? I conclude my article by claiming that tactile-kinesthetic ways of rehearsing and performing French baroque music is one way to stimulate and reinforce the multisensory perceptions the music provides.

This paper is a part of an artistic research project focusing on the rhetorical actio (gesture, voice, mien, movement) of French baroque vocal music from a singular, musician ́s point of being.  e project started in August 2011 as a collaboration of two musician-researchers; DMus Päivi Järviö, mezzo soprano and DMus Assi Karttunen, harpsichordist.  
The project includes concerts, workshops, rehearsals, video re- cordings, experiments and demonstrations as well as articles describing the working processes.  us the approach could be called embodied study of historical perform- ing practices. Since the study of movement related to music is one of the key areas of modern music research, the project participates in the on-going discussions on historically informed musician ́s embodied relationship to the music performed. In John Butt’s words; is the performance of music seen as a lapdog of the composer or of objective, factual evidence from the past rather than as a mode of cultural production in its own right? (Butt 2002, 22.)

TRIO 2/2013 (PDF)

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