Happy New Year~Wish all my reader have a wonderful New Year~

Last time I have mentioned about the harmony also the figured bass~

This time I will talk about another type of choice~
Another basic type of choice you have as a performer is to decide whether to play or sing a note short or long.In my period~ the 18's it became common practice to specify the various types of staccato by means of dots, wedges or strokes. Many composers, presumably to mean all ways of shortening notes, though whan the dot was used as well as the wedge or stroke the latter seems to have meant a shorter and more marked note. In the later century it became common to write such shortenings precisely into the music, increasing the complexity of the notation. But for much of the Baroque period such decisions were still left to the performer.

It is important to realize that the written duration of a note is normally its maximum length in performance, and that you can achieve various things by shortening it. What is normally called "articulation" involves shortening the last note of a phrase or section in order to distinguish it clearly from what follows. In the early 16's the ends of sections were often marked by fermatas, which sometimes get interpreted as pauses by unexpected breaks in the beams connecting the stems of the notes, or by small oblique dashes, as in Purcell's Sonnata's of III Parts. In his Troisieme livre de pieces de clavecin ~ 1722, Francois Couperin used a comma for this purpose, appropriately likening its effect to punctuation in speech~
You will find a new sign of which the form is ~ this is to mark the ends of melodies or of our harmonic periods, and to make it understood that it is necessary to separate the end of melody before passing on to that which follows. That is almost imperceptible as a rule, though people of good taste will feel something lacking in the performance if this little silence is not observed~ in a word, it is the difference between those who read aloud continuously and those who stop for full-stops and commas~ these silences should make themselves felt without altering the time.~

There are still some notes about the "Articulation"~ I will continuare shortly~
Again ~ wish all my readers have a wonderful and brighter New Year~

del Antonio Vivaldi~

Sei un grande amico~
Buon Natale e felice Anno Nuovo~
per il 2009 vi auguro il meglio~

Thank you so much for the question~
I will try to reply you not only "you & me" but also want everyone to know~

My list of the "Top Friend"~ why most of them are "really pass away"?

 ~ in your words describe as "pass away or gone" is not completely correct~
all my old friend including myself are known as "historical person",but all their work including my music are still "living" in this period~not only one place~ is in every corner of the Earth~ "living" in everyones mind ~is a kind of universal language ~ may my friend's ~ their work~ living forever~!

I will try my best ~ in this small place ~ to let more people know about  every musical matters in my period~

Thank you for your question~
I hope I can give you a perfect reply~

All the way best in 2009~

del Antonio Vivaldi~

To all of my dearest and most precious reader~

I have not came here for a long period of time since August~
A new school term has already began in September~
Teaching is my daily life~
Also the "Concert month" in October, made me feel exhausted~
Life is back to normal in November~
I have time to continuare to share my humble knowledge to all of my freinds~

Winter seems arrived much more early recently~ I would like to use my "L'Inverno" to describe what I have seen outside my window~

To tremble from cold in the icy snow,
In the harsh breath of a horrid wind;
To run, stamping one's feet every moment,
Our teeth chattering in the extreme cold
Before the fire to pass peaceful,
Contented days while the rain outside pours down.
We tread the icy path slowly and cautiously, for fear of tripping and falling.
Then turn abruptly, slip, crash on the ground and, rising, hasten on across the ice lest it cracks up.
We feel the chill north winds course through the home despite the locked and bolted doors...
this is winter, which nonetheless brings its own delights.

The best way to describe what I have seen at this moment~

Last time I have mentioned about to use strong dynamic while dissonances occur~The English Restoration writer Roger North wrote in one of his notebooks that "binding notes" or "emphaticall discords" should be "prest hard",adding that "when you come off into a sweeter calmer air, as to cadence, which often follows such passages, then be soft and easy, as much to say. Be content all is well'. Quantz~ the young German flutist ranked dissonances according to whether their strength merited them being played mezzo-forte, forte or fortissimo~
A good way of approaching the process of shaping a piece is to use the harmony to tell you which beats are strong and which are weak. If you are a singer or an accompanist, you will find that strong beats nearly always coincide with the natural stresses of the words, particularly in dominated by abstract musical patterns than 18th music. For this reason you need to develop an ability to analyse harmony, and that is best done by reading treatises on figured bass was not confined to keyboard players or lutenists, since it was used for teaching harmony as well as for accompanying.

I will continuare shortly ~ sharing is my greatest of joyfulness~

Del Antonio Vivaldi

Today~thunder storm again~ I am stay at home just finished the Largo of my violin concerto~before I continuare the topic~I would like to share a poem to you~all of my friend~ this is well describe the weather outside~

Devil Storm by Hazelmarie Elliott

The mighty trees stood watching
Over the river within the glen
Watching ~ deep and silent
As they had done ~ time and again

How quiet was this early dawn
As clouds thickened in the morn
Birds were silent in the trees
It was the calm ~ before the storm

But feisty winds began to blow
Across the wooded glen
Warning of the devil's ire
Evoked in wrath ~ again

Lightning flashed and thunder roared
Angrily wakened ~ by the devil's call
To strike the earth a mighty blow
Seeking devastation ~ for them all

Rain pounded down from the darkest sky
Drenching the soil below
Voicing threat of impending flood
Within the valleys ~ that lay low

The mighty trees that lined the bank
Of the river running wild
Stood tall and faced the raging storm
For their spirit had been riled

No storm from hell would overtake
Their place within this land
For they were strong-embedded
And were prepared to take a stand

The trees then shifted slowly
To spread their branches wide
Shielding all ~ throughout the glen
With the river hid inside

The storm did rage against its foe
But as it battled on
It knew the trees had won again
And its will to fight ~ had gone

As darkened skies began to clear
The trees whispered to the glen
Don't worry ~ for we'll guard you well
When the devil calls again ~

This is best describe the weather outside~
Now we continuare the last topic ~ Shaping the music~

A musical version of the rules of classical rhetoric~any educated person at the time would have been taught the rules of rhetoric as they applied to literary composition and public speaking, and writers such as Joachim Burmeister in the year of 1599, 1601 & 1606~ Athanasius Kircher, 1650~ and Johann Mattheson ~1739 showed in detail how they could be applied to music.Muscial rhetoric has particular relevance for the treatment of dynamics.
By the large, dynamics as we understand them in later music were not important in my period~An enormous amount of music of all types has no specific dynamics and was just presumed to be forte, while the volume of the two main types of keyboard instrument, the organ and the harpsichord, could normally be modified only by changing stops or moving to another manual. Thus you should avoid arbitrary changes of dynamics, particularly when applied to whole sections irrespective of the character of the music, as with the traditional hushed pianissimo on the return to the opening of Handel's Messiah overture.

It is better to think of dynamics as a resource to be used mainly on the scale of the single phrase. Rising or falling passages often require an increase or decrease of volume, just as an orator should 'raise his voice in words require a gentle crescendo and decrescendo: the messa di voce associated with the Italian singers in my period~ not to be confused with the ugly bulges on every note that are still considered good practice by some early music performers. Repeated phrases also usually require added emphasis, though in some contexts repetition can imply an echo~ in which case the piano is usually indicated in the music.

Most importantly, you should use dynamics to bring out the features of the harmony. Dissonances need to be strong, their resolutions weak. In particular, it is usually best to emphasize the subdominant and dominant chords in cadences, where the dissonances occur, dropping down softly and lightly on to the final tonic chord.

I will continuare shortly~this is some of my personal comment~just want to share with you~ all my friends~
Thank you for reading my humble words~
del
Antonio Vivaldi