Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes to the Reader on Sources and Terminology
- Introduction The Pledge of Allegiance
- Part One Establishing an Historical Perspective
- Part Two The Art of Interpreting Rests
- Part Three Case Studies in Musical Punctuation
- Afterword
- Appendix A Translation of Marpurg's Lessons on Musical Punctuation, from His Kritische Briefe über die Tonkunst, vol. 2
- Appendix B Chronological Chart of Punctuation References
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
- Eastman Studies in Music
Chapter Three - Musical “Resting Points of the Spirit”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Notes to the Reader on Sources and Terminology
- Introduction The Pledge of Allegiance
- Part One Establishing an Historical Perspective
- Part Two The Art of Interpreting Rests
- Part Three Case Studies in Musical Punctuation
- Afterword
- Appendix A Translation of Marpurg's Lessons on Musical Punctuation, from His Kritische Briefe über die Tonkunst, vol. 2
- Appendix B Chronological Chart of Punctuation References
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
- Eastman Studies in Music
Summary
Heinrich Christoph Koch begins his chapter “The Nature of Melodic Sections” from Part II of his Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition (1787), with the following statement:
Certain more or less noticeable resting points of the spirit [Ruhepunkte des Geistes] are generally necessary in speech and thus also in the products of those fine arts which attain their goal through speech, namely poetry and rhetoric, if the subject that they present is to be comprehensible. Such resting points of the spirit are just as necessary in melody if it is to affect our feelings. This is a fact which has never yet been called into question and therefore requires no further proof.
Aside from his remarkable assertion regarding the unquestionable relationship between music and the punctuation points of speech, Koch's choice of terminology is in itself fascinating. The long and unwieldy designation of Ruhepunkte des Geistes, which Koch repeats throughout his Versuch, is a difficult one to translate. The German concept of Geist is capable of conveying so many meanings: not only the spirit (my term of convenience), but that which animates and brings beauty to an object; it refers to the capacities of the mind and the intellect, even the genius that an artist brings to his or her art. Koch's use of the term in characterizing musical punctuation conjures up for the reader that of a living, breathing art, one which is supple and adaptable, embodying the very nature of human communication itself. This is the essence of the musical punctuation analogy we are working to reclaim—to recognize, understand, and put into practice.
Music making permeated eighteenth-century life, through the increasing number of publicly held performances in opera houses, salons, and concert halls, and as a popular form of domestic amusement among upper- and middleclass households. It became a kind of magnet for Enlightenment ideals, resonating the intellectual, social, cultural, and philosophical concerns of the age. All the complex and diverse influences on the punctuation of discourse, described in the preceding chapter, were absorbed and digested by a musical community that continued to regard the vocal arts as the idealized form of musical expression.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Art of Musical Phrasing in the Eighteenth CenturyPunctuating the Classical 'Period', pp. 60 - 94Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2008