Portamento
- See also Nonchord tone#Portamento.
Portamento (plural: portamenti, a noun meaning literally "carriage" or "carrying") is a musical term originated from the Italian expression "portamento della voce" (carriage of the voice), denoting from the beginning of the 17th century a vocal slide between two pitches[1] and its emulation by members of the violin family and certain wind instruments,[2] and is sometimes used interchangeably with anticipation.[3] It is also applied to one type of glissando as well as to the "glide" function of synthesizers. (see main article glissando).
Vocal portamento
In the first example, Rodolfo's first aria in La Sonnambula (1831), the portamento is indicated by the slur between the 3rd and 4th notes. The second example, Judit's first line in Duke Bluebeard's Castle (1912), employs a more explicit notation; it is unusual in that the termination of the slide (shown as a grace note) typically anticipates the pitch of the second note. Portamento may of course also be used for descending intervals.
Opinions of vocal portamento
Although portamento continued to be widely used in popular music, it was disapproved of for operatic singing by many critics in the 1920s and 1930s as a sign of either poor technique, or of bad taste, a mark of cheap sentimentalism or showiness.[4] This of course is not valid criticism of a performer when portamento is explicitly specified in the score or is otherwise appropriate. However, when there is no such specification, the singer is expected to be able to move crisply from note to note without any slurring or "scooping".[5]
See also
Notes
- ^ Harris 2001.
- ^ Stowell 2001.
- ^ Merritt 1939, 82; Jeppesen 1946, 184 & 188; Gauldin 1985, ; Stewart 1994, 37; Schenker 2001, 88; Benjamin 2005, 71.
- ^ Potter 2006, 543–44.
- ^ Potter 2006,
References
- Benjamin, Thomas. 2005. The Craft of Modal Counterpoint: A Practical Approach, second edition. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415971713 (cloth); ISBN 0415971721 (pbk).
- Gauldin, Robert (1985). A Practical Approach to Sixteenth-Century Counterpoint. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. OCLC 59143146.
- Harris, Ellen T. "Portamento (i)". 2001. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
- Jeppesen, Knud. 1946. The Style of Palestrina and the Dissonance, translated by Margaret Williams Hamerik, second revised and enlarged edition. Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard Publisher; London: Geoffrey Cumberlege; Oxford University Press. Reprinted, Minneola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. ISBN 0486442683.
- Merritt, Arthur Tillman. 1939. Sixteenth Century Polyphony: A Basic for the Study of Counterpoint. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
- Potter, John. 2006. "Beggar at the Door: The Rise and Fall of Portamento in Singing". Music and Letters 87:523–50.
- Schenker, Heinrich. 2001. Counterpoint: A Translation of Kontrapunkt, by Heinrich Schenker: Volume II of New Musical Theories and Fantasies. Book 1: Cantus Firmus and Two-Voice Counterpoint, translated by John Rothgeb and Jürgen Thym, edited by John Rothgeb. Ann Arbor: Musicalia Press. 0-967-8099-1-6.
- Stewart, Robert. 1994. Introduction to 16th Century Counterpoint and Palestrina's Musical Style. Ardsley House Pub. ISBN 9781880157077.
- Stowell, Robin. 2001. "Portamento (ii)". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
Further reading
- Katz, Mark (December 2006). "Portamento and the Phonograph Effect". Journal of Musicological Research 25 (3–4): 211–32. doi:10.1080/01411890600860733.