Table Of ContentBeating Time & Measuring Music
in the Early Modern Era
OXFORD STUDIES IN MUSIC THEORY
Series Editor Richard Cohn
Studies in Music with Text, David Lewin
Music as Discourse: Semiotic Adventures in Romantic Music, Kofi Agawu
Playing with Meter: Metric Manipulations in Haydn and Mozart: Chamber Music
for Strings, Danuta Mirka
Songs in Motion: Rhythm and Meter in the German Lied, Yonatan Malin
A Geometry of Music: Harmony and Counterpoint in the Extended Common
Practice, Dmitri Tymoczko
In the Process of Becoming: Analytic and Philosophical Perspectives on Form in
Early Nineteenth-Century Music, Janet Schmalfeldt
Tonality and Transformation, Steven Rings
Audacious Euphony: Chromaticism and the Consonant Triad’s Second Nature,
Richard Cohn
Mahler’s Symphonic Sonatas, Seth Monahan
Beating Time and Measuring Music in the Early Modern Era, Roger Mathew Grant
Beating Time & Measuring Music
in the Early Modern Era
Roger Mathew Grant
1
1
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© Oxford University Press 2014
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Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the
National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grant, Roger Mathew.
Beating time & measuring music in the early modern era/Roger Mathew Grant.
p cm.— (Oxford studies in music theory)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–936728–3 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Musical meter and
rhythm—Hmistory. I. Title.
ML174.G73 2014
781.2′209—dc23 2014005414
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Abbreviations ix
Notes on Orthography and Translation xi
Introduction 1
A History of Meter Theory, Or, the Rules of the Rules 3
Reading in the Dark 7
Part I
1. Beating Time 15
Themes in Meter Theory, 1500–1700 15
The Theoretical Work of the Beat 18
The Organizing Principle of Meter Theory: Four Approaches 29
“Honor Them All”: On the Use (and Misuse?) of Meter Theory 39
2. The Beat: A Technical History 43
A Technical and Physical Solution 43
A Problem of Continuity 45
The Technē of the Beat 52
Rereading Zarlino 59
3. A Renewed Account of Unequal Triple Meter 63
Equality 63
Inequality 71
Part II
4. Measuring Music 93
Meter, Measure, and Motion in Eighteenth-Century
Music Theory 93
A Transformation in Time 97
A Multiplicity of Measures 105
Kirnberger’s Contribution 117
5. Techniques for Keeping Time 125
The Problem of Tempo 125
vi Contents
T
Timekeeping Two Ways: 1. Chronometers 127
Timekeeping Two Ways: 2. Taxonomies of Meter 134
6. The Eighteenth-Century Alla Breve 147
A Rather Vague Indication 147
Long-Note Music in the Eighteenth Century 148
Long Notes in Eighteenth-Century Music 160
Part III
7. The Reinvention of Tempo 183
A New Chronometer? 183
Meter, Tempo, Number 186
Length into Duration, Duration into
Length: A Crisis of Measures 195
Maelzel’s Metronome 199
8. The Persistent Question of Meter 209
The Measure as Mystery 209
Meter as Attention, Activity, Aesthesis 222
Fétis and the Future 257
Appendix 1 261
Appendix 2 271
Bibliography 279
Index 299
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For the past ten years people have been helping me to think about meter. I got
into this beautiful mess in college, when Mary Arlin suggested I undertake an
independent study in theories of rhythm and meter and Rebecca Jemian encour-
aged me to work through Harald Krebs’s Fantasy Pieces. I fell in love with the
topic of time in music then, and I have Professors Arlin and Jemian to thank. In
my first semester of graduate school, during a key seminar with Cristle Collins
Judd, I began to explore the historical legacy of meter theory, focusing my paper
on the relationship between eighteenth-century theories of meter and conceptu-
alizations of time during the period. I have been writing that seminar paper ever
since. With the help of countless supportive friends and teachers, generous insti-
tutions, sympathetic archivists, and unhealthy doses of coffee, I have finally
reached a point at which this study needs to be shared; shared so that it can be
completed by all of you who have thought through other aspects of the material
I discuss here and who can—I hope—offer other versions of the story I tell herein.
Many people talk about the writing of their book manuscripts as a difficult
and trying process, taking them away from other things to which they would
have preferred to attend. I am almost afraid to admit it, but my experience has
been just the opposite. Because so many friends and mentors in my queer intel-
lectual family have committed themselves to helping me think through this proj-
ect (and others), I have had an amazingly enjoyable time writing this book. It has
not taken me away from people—instead it has brought me closer to them. For
this, I cannot be more grateful.
The writing of this book would not have been possible without the University
of Michigan Society of Fellows, the institution that supported me financially and
intellectually for two crucial years. Thanks are also due to the University of
Michigan Libraries (and Kristen Castellana in particular), the University of
Pennsylvania Libraries, the British Library, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, the
Newberry Library, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and the
Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, Yale University, for their assistance during this
time. This project also received generous support in the form of publication sub-
ventions from the University of Oregon School of Music, the University of Oregon
Humanities Center, and the AMS 75 PAYS Endowment of the American
Musicological Society, which is funded in part by the National Endowment for
the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
viii Acknowledgments
T
While still in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania I was lucky to
have formative conversations with Eugene Narmour and Jairo Moreno; although
they may not know it, they have made significant impacts on this project. Emily
I. Dolan and Gary Tomlinson read every word of my dissertation, transformed
my prose, and challenged me to explain the relevance of my project to the
humanities in general. Mark J. Butler has been a foundational support from the
very beginning and has continued to shepherd this project through its final
stages, providing invaluable insights along the way. Don Lopez, Dena Goodman,
Yopie Prins, Louise Stein, Stefano Mengozzi, and many others at Michigan were
expert sounding boards as I began to put the project together. I am very fortunate
to share the field of eighteenth-century music theory with Martin Küster, who
provided astute and friendly assistance with issues related to Kirnberger,
Marpurg, the alla breve, and countless other topics.
I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Rick Cohn and Brian Hyer, who both
read the manuscript in its entirety and provided me with extensive feedback;
I will never forget their generosity and support. I would also like to thank two
anonymous reviewers, who graciously shared ideas with me. Suzanne Ryan,
Adam Cohen, and their team at Oxford University Press have been nothing short
of magical, and I am extremely fortune to work with them. Toward the comple-
tion of the project, Tony Solitro assisted me in the technical details of the manu-
script preparation and expertly proofread my musical examples. Broude Brothers,
Georg Olms Verlag, and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz,
Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv were all very generous in allowing me
to reproduce images from their texts free of cost. Through the entire process of
writing and producing this book, my parents, Henry A. Grant and Lorraine
T. Grant, my brother, Daniel Grant, and my grandparents, Matthew Triggiani,
Jean Triggiani, and Mary Grant, have remained unflaggingly supportive and
enthusiastic.
Finally, those who shared the days of writing with me deserve special men-
tion. They have, each in their own way, allowed me to think through their writing
projects as a means of better understanding my own. They have kept me working,
distracted me, supported me, and made my life possible. Thank you to Darien
Lamen, for all of our lunch dates; to Joshua Tweedy, for every routine and good
habit; to Clare Croft, for her keen sense of prose related to movement; to Sara
McClelland, Sarah Quinn, and Lily Cox-Richard, for their brilliance and for
inspiring me; to Scott De Orio, for feigning sleep if I took too long to explain my
argument (and thereby forcing me to articulate it) and for all of his boundless
energy; to Joseph Salvatore Ackley for all of the Kaffeepausen, work dates, and
tours; to David Halperin, for being a profoundly influential role model; to Sergio
Rigoletto and Pranjal Mehta, for all of the manhattans and for keeping me
moving; to William E. Wieczorek, who made the final stages of this project a joy;
to the brilliant and heroic Gavin Steingo, who I am sure has read more of my
prose than any other person on earth, I am forever happily indebted. I could not
be luckier to have such amazing intellectual interlocutors. To all of you and all of
the others: you are my teachers. This book is dedicated to you.
ABBREVIATIONS
AmZ Allgemeine musikalishe Zeitung
AmB Amalienbibliothek
D-B Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz
D-Bsa Sing-Akademie zu Berlin, Notenarchiv
GB-Lbl The British Library
