JAVS Summer 2021

The most common and literal translation of the words Harmonia artificioso ariosa is “skillful-melodic harmony”; the word harmonia refers generally to the music. Artificiosus signifies something done “according to the rules of art” in broad terms or something “on which much art has been bestowed, made with art, artificial, ingenious.” The Italian term arioso , likewise, means more than just melodic. It can also mean “graceful, light, attractive, pleasing . . . tuneful,” and could also refer to the naturalness of music springing from nature. 3 Clements’s interpretation of “Harmonia artificiosa ariosa” makes it clear that this music provided a specific aural experience for the audience. However, it also evoked a great range of metaphysical responses. In this time, composers wrote harmonies and rhythms that would provoke affections: love, joy, peace, anger, sorrow, fury. 4 This key component of Baroque music composition and performance was surely a significant factor in Biber’s writing and titling of this piece. Five of the seven partias were written for two violins and continuo; one was written for one violin, one viola, and continuo; and the final partia was written for two violas d’amore and continuo. Six of the partias require scordatura, a technique that Biber also featured in his Rosary Sonatas for violin. The primary intention of this scordatura is to change the instruments’ fundamental tonal colors as well as to facilitate difficult fingering techniques. 5 d’amore is a non-fretted, bowed, twelve-string instrument played on the shoulder like a violin or viola. The twelve strings are divided in two groups: six main strings run above the fingerboard to be fingered and bowed and six sympathetic strings run underneath the bridge, vibrating with the main strings. This adds a unique resonance to the instrument. 6 Partia VII contains seven movements— Praeludium, Allamande, Sarabande, Gigue, Aria, Trezza, and Arietta Variata. The piece under consideration here is the seventh partia, written originally for two violas d’amore. The viola

communication of affect. There are of course countless treatises—both historical and modern—written about these principles, but distilled to its simplest essence, musical rhetorical theory in the Baroque era casts each piece as an oration, or a rationally organized argument, with certain distinct sections. Similar to figures of speech, musical sections and gestures served to communicate and amplify the emotional meaning of the piece: its affect . A composer’s goal was to construct the piece in order to move the emotions of the audience, or “to [actively] create the intended affections, not just passively reflect them.” 7 Furthermore, as Stephen Rose describes, the performer holds incredible power in guiding the audience through the passions as if by magic. Patrons would come to concerts seeking to be guided on an intense emotional journey. 8 Understanding and acknowledging that each gesture, dynamic, structural interplay, and harmony encodes a particular shade of meaning deepens the performer’s commitment and strengthens the affect the performer seeks to communicate. As described below, the choices that I made in terms of bowings, articulations, ornamentations, and dynamics had a two-fold purpose: serve and amplify each movement’s affect, and make the work technically accessible on modern viola. Considine proposes that Harmonia may exemplify some aspects of Kircher’s “fantastic style,” which “is organized with regard to manifest invention, the hidden reason of harmony, and an ingenious, skilled connection of harmonic phrases and fugues.” 9 The fantastic style can provoke the emotions of the audience while also featuring the technical abilities of the performers. Considine also proposes a specific organ-style affect for the Praeludium, based on the density and rhythm of many chords in the violas and pedal tones in the continuo. 10 Another important element I aimed to emphasize in Harmonia is the concept of diverse sounds and importance of contrast. Barbara Russano Hanning aptly describes the fundamental characteristic of the Baroque period as “a dynamically unstable fusion of contrasts: between the real and the ideal; between high and low, serious and comic; between heroic and prosaic, elevated and fallen; between light and dark, pleasing and disturbing; between passionate movement and noble calm, stirring drama and still life.” 11 Using the concept of diverse sounds—intentional discordance and disorder—is among the most effective ways to arouse the affections.

Rhetoric and Diverse Sounds

Baroque aesthetic principles informed the performance decisions I made in creating my edition of Harmonia. The two most important were effective rhetoric and

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 37, 2021 Online Issue

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