Medieval improvisation

Improvisation in the arts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Timothy J. McGee, Early Drama, Art and Music Monograph Series, xxx (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2003) $30

This is a collection of essays on improvisation in the arts arranged under the headings of music, dance, drama and art up to c.1700. Most of the authors are scholar-performers, and use their practical skills and experience of improvising to inform other aspects of their academic research; many also take an interdisciplinary approach, exploring ways in which the arts share 'concepts and techniques' of improvisation. The volume stems from a conference held at the University of Toronto in 1999 , which itself was stimulated by years of discussion between Timothy McGee and Domenico Pietropaolo about improvisation in their respective specialities (music and drama). The book succeeds in its two goals: to raise 'awareness that to ignore improvisation is to distort the art in a major way' and to demonstrate that 'the very concept of "faithful historical recreation" takes on a much broader and more complex character' when improvisation is carefully considered (pp.xi-xii).

In an introductory essay Pietropaolo argues the importance of approaching the study of improvisation within the context of cultural history; for example, its relative status varies with 'the changing aesthetic relationship of performance to notation' (p.2). He discusses the relative authority of performers and authors during the Renaissance by contrasting two viewpoints from the time: the Aristotelian view of improvisation as a 'pre-artistic' tool (p.8) and the rhetorical tradition, which values 'the ability to generate by means of stock phrases and variations a rich and vibrant segment of text within a given theme or structure, and the ability to deliver it effectively to the audience' (p.9). This includes the rhetoric of gesture, which has a direct bearing on the performing arts, not just for the performers but also for the audience and their interaction (p.10 ). He discusses three structural levels in the 'textuality of performance'; in early vocal music, for example, the composer provides 'the essential melodic structure' (the notated text), while the performer provides both the 'ornamentation by diminutions and passagework' and 'the gestural expression of emotion . . . [and] the uniqueness of the performance experience' (p.13). He argues that improvisation involves two kinds of imagination, one making use of memorized material (reproductive) and the second creating new material (productive), and emphasizes that the ability to do this 'requires years of training' (p.15). He also points out that 'as we move from a scripted work to a non-scripted one, we note that the pivotal point of the reproductive-productive continuum shifts from a position that favors one extremity to a position that favors the other' (p.20).

McGee's 'Cantare all' improviso: improvising to poetry in late medieval Italy' discusses skilled solo singers of the 14th and 15th centuries (such as the professional civic herald), who improvised songs for various occasions, often accompanying themselves on the lira da braccio. The nature of this prestigious tradition allows McGee to 'propose a probable musical model for the tradition of improvised singing in the late Middle Ages' (p.31) that is based on the performer's intimate knowledge of the modal system and use of the appropriate poetic form as a compositional framework. His carefully constructed argument, involving music analysis and the discussion of sources that describe the modal characteristics of sung poetry, is highly convincing. He also provides a model framework, applicable to a sonnet, for improvising a melody in mode 1 and an accompaniment in mode 2; a ballata by Gherardello da Firenze provides a model of how to proceed melodically.

In 'Performance practice, experimental archaeology, and the problem of the respectability of results', Randall A. Rosenfeld uses experimental archaeology (his 'artefact' is a ship) as a model for producing results in experiments in musical improvisation (likewise an 'artefact') that musicologists would deem as valid as textual citation. He suggests testing 'the range of supportable interpretations [of elements of improvisation] through performing them' and then adopting a...