Rhythmic alteration in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century music

by Stephen E. Hefling

The problems of rhythmic alteration are among the most controversial issues facing today's historically oriented performers of Baroque music. Hitherto, anyone seeking to understand the French practice of notes inegales and the related concept of overdotting had to absorb an unwieldy and frequently polemical literature of essays. Now, for the first time, Stephen E. Hefling's Rhythmic Alteration in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Music provides a comprehensive compendium of what is known about notes inegales and overdotting, including tables and summaries that make pertinent historical evidence readily accessible to performers and scholars alike. The volume concludes with a concise overview of problems and choices faced by performers. Notes inegales is the historical name of the French practice, prevalent from 1690 to 1780, of performing diminution-like passages as uneven pairs of notes despite their notation in equal values. "Overdotting" (a modern term) designates the Baroque custo