Unmeasured prelude

The Prélude non mesure (French Prelude without Signature ) is a musical form that has been mainly used in the early French Baroque Music for Harpsichord. It is a prelude to the introduction of a series of dance pieces, in which mainly whole notes are specified as note values ​​. The musical phrases are often connected by slurs, the rhythmic aspect is left to the respective players. Important representatives of this genus are Louis Couperin, Jean -Henri d' Anglebert and Gaspard le Roux. In their original notation, enable and require these pieces of music, of which about fifty are obtained in the interpretation of a musical freedom which can not be compared with " conventional " notation.

In some early versions of keyboard suites Georg Friedrich Handel show up sporadically in some Preludes unmensurierte passages. In particular, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach has not posted to 1762 unmensurierte piano pieces.

History

Unrhythmisierte Preludes were first written for the lute, but also for the viola da gamba. From the 17th century lute pieces by Denis Gaultier delivered, as well as pieces for viol of de Machy and Sainte-Colombe. Louis Couperin is the first composer of comparable works for the harpsichord ( Harpsichord) wrote. His works were not printed during his lifetime and therefore are preserved only in manuscript.

Stylistically, these introductory pieces are divided into two groups. There are, on the one hand Toccatas in the spelling Frescobaldi's or Froberger, and on the other hand elegiac Tombeaux in memory of a deceased personality that are sometimes advertised in Froberger as Allemande. Examples of Préludes non mesures outside France are from the German composer Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer and by the Italian Giovanni Battista Draghi, who worked in London.

Regarding the spelling differs d' Anglebert in the notation of his Préludes between white and black notes. The white, whole notes basically serve to specify chords. Eighth or sixteenth notes, however, are references to melodic passages for which the financial statements are stated in some places by a bar line. This spelling was later acquired by Louis Marchand, Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, Clérambault and Jean- Philippe Rameau. Nicolas Lebègue 1677 resulted in his Clavecinstücken a more precise notation, with all values ​​between whole and sixteenth notes. He remained in France, however, the only one who used this type of listing.