ANST - Documenting Vocal Performance

[Gunnora Hallakarva]

Lady Alys said (among other comments):
> Also, the level of documentation that was being suggested
> was enormously high.  For a vocal piece they were
> suggesting information on period vocal style, a hotly debated
> topic among the most educated early music enthusiasts.
> I am thinking that the people that suggested that don't have
> enough information to know what a huge topic they were
> introducing.  Little written information remains, and written
> information to describe a vocal technique is so open to
> interpretation that a text book could not cover the
> subject.

Really, all a vocal performer need to say is, "This is a hotly debated topic, with many serious scholars making convincing arguments for many different interpretations.  I have chosen to perform in ____ style, because _______.  Scholar A and Scholar B suggest that this is reasonable for the period."

You do NOT have to PROVE that it was ONE TRUE WAY and no other.  You only have to show an awareness of how they did it in period, or in this case, the fact that we're not clear on how they did it in period, and explain why you made the artistic choices that you did in yoru performance.  If you know of scholarly opinions that reinforce that decision, cite them.

I am NOT an expert in this field, but the last time I looked into the issue, one of the big issues was that there was much debate over vibrato, with most scholars thinking vibrato was a late innovation and therefore not period. [NOTE: the scholarly viewpoint may have changed by now, I don't know] .  At any rate, I would expect that a vocal perfomer should be aware that this is an issue, and if they choose to use vibrato in their singing performance, I'd expect them
to explain why, and back it up in some way.  The important part here is that the performer shows an awareness of how it was actually done in period, even if they have made an artistic choice to deviate from that original.

::GUNNORA::

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