French and English music terminology of the late 17th century: a diachronic terminological study

Early Music and Terminological Resurgence: A Diachronic Study of French and English Music Terminology from the Second Half of the 17th Century

Research into historical terminology provides an essential pathway for understanding a specialised language, its evolution over time, and the core of a historical discipline in its proper context. Such investigation proves especially valuable in fields like Early music. Specialists in early music must command the precise vocabulary belonging to the repertoire they perform — a vocabulary often quite distinct from standard music terminology — and they must communicate effectively with experts from other fields. This article discusses an ongoing doctoral research project centred on the music terminology used in France and England during the second half of the seventeenth century, tracing its development across the centuries. The discussion covers the methodology employed, some of the methodological challenges encountered, and a selection of examples that illustrate the work.

Introduction

Like natural languages, cultures, and most specialised domains, the language used to speak and write about music — as opposed to musical language itself — is alive and constantly evolving alongside music. The music terminology used in the second half of the seventeenth century, proper to the music of that era, followed its own evolutionary path, much like the terminologies of other periods. This vocabulary lived, declined, partly vanished, and some of its terms have since been revived, largely thanks to the early-music movement.

As the recent drive toward authenticity and historical awareness in music — both in how it is performed and how it is understood — encouraged scholars and musicians to revisit historical writings with fresh perspectives, terminological questions arose from the very beginning. How can one truly grasp terms that are still used today yet appear to carry different meanings in period sources? How can one accurately understand musical terms that have long been obsolete? Can such understanding even be achieved? How can one be sure that one's interpretation of these terms aligns with that of other colleagues? And how should ancient musical terms be interpreted and translated into other languages? Most research into early-music terminology to date has been carried out by musicians and musicologists. While some degree of consensus seems to exist within the early-music field, substantial work remains if we wish to refine our knowledge. Do early-music performers really use the correct terms today? Multiple schools of thought exist within early music, and even original authors themselves did not always agree on terminology. Furthermore, how can we be certain that the intended meaning of these terms is properly conveyed to readers and interlocutors?

As a baroque violinist with training in musicology and terminology, I decided to undertake a diachronic terminological study to explore how terminological tools and methods might help expand and sharpen our understanding of French and English music terminology from the second half of the seventeenth century. This research concentrates on three main objectives:

• Delineating the portrait of late seventeenth-century music terminology in France and England
• Establishing equivalences between the two languages
• Using a terminological sample to study how music terminology has evolved through time from then to the present, paying close attention to the phenomenon of terminological resurgence — that is, terms or concepts that had fallen out of use and have regained widespread currency in contemporary early-music practice

Yet how should such diachronic terminological research be conducted? What makes a terminological approach different from previous research on this topic? How can various terminological approaches and methods be adapted to fit this specific purpose? Which terminological tools can or cannot be used? What corpora are appropriate, and how should they be constructed? What should be done with the results of this terminological survey? And finally, how best can users of this terminology be advised in different communication contexts? An analysis of representative examples drawn from this research will aim to illustrate the methodology and offer some answers to these questions.

A Word on Diachrony

Before describing this research further, it is necessary to clarify what is meant by diachrony. Terminology textbooks usually teach that studying recent or current-day terminology constitutes a synchronic study, whereas studying terminology from the past or the evolution of terminology constitutes a diachronic study. However, upon reflection, studying terminology from the past actually means examining a given terminology at a remote moment in the past — in other words, studying what was then current-day terminology. This amounts to studying a remote synchrony. Extending this line of thinking further, the evolution of terminology — diachronic terminology — can be understood as nothing more than the study of a succession of small, overlapping synchronies, as illustrated below.

Figure 1. Synchronies (s) and diachrony

To answer the first issue raised earlier — how should such diachronic terminological research be carried out? — given what we have just seen, it should involve drawing successive synchronic portraits of a given terminology at different moments in time, taking a step back, and observing what has changed (or not) over time.

The second issue concerns how working from a terminological point of view makes this research different from what has been done before. As noted earlier, research into historical music terminology has been conducted almost exclusively by musicologists. While highly proficient in their field, they are not necessarily familiar with the study of terms itself or with the terminological methodologies that allow for a thorough examination of a given terminology. Conversely, terminologists, however enthusiastic they may be about music, do not always possess the musical and musicological knowledge needed to guarantee a perfect understanding of music terminology.

The early-music dictionaries consulted prior to this research were mostly published by musicologists. They are certainly valuable and offer a good sense of the meaning conveyed by this terminology, but some questions remain after using them. Do the definitions represent a compendium of all definitions found by the author, or do they correspond to what the author believes the concepts mean? Some dictionaries do not even provide references for individual definitions, although a general reference list for the whole dictionary often exists. An exception is the notable work of Graham Strahle (1995). In his introduction, Strahle provides an enlightening explanation of his work and the peculiarities of early-music terminology. The format of his dictionary is also different: rather than writing a definition for each term, Strahle presents all the definitions he has found in primary sources, whether musical or lexicographical.

Returning to this second issue, it appears that using methodologies developed for terminology, combined with thorough knowledge of the field of Early music, is precisely what is needed to draw an accurate portrait of this terminology and to see how it matches or differs from the terminology currently in use.

Before proceeding to answer the questions raised in the introduction, let us consider how this research has been conducted over the past few years.

Users of Early-Music Terminology

The first issue that arises when embarking on this research journey is this: who uses early-music terminology? The obvious answer would be early-music performers and musicologists. If that were all, the terminological work would still have value, but this research might not be as relevant. Since identifying the users of a given terminology and the users of one's terminological product is a key step in any terminology project, careful thought was given to this at the very beginning. Who was this research directed at? And the more one thought about this question, the more categories of users of early-music terminology emerged.

Figure 2. Categories of early-music terminology users

As the diagram shows, the number of potential users of early-music terminology is rather surprising. Obviously, they do not all require the same level of terminological proficiency, but all are likely to need at least some understanding of this terminology in certain contexts, as shown in the following matrix.

Figure 3. Matrix of discourse categories and levels of proficiency required by different categories of users of early-music terminology

In any case, all these different users may find themselves needing to interact and communicate effectively with one another, which only demonstrates the relevance of this research project.

Methodology

The second major issue was how best to proceed in order to accomplish this challenging task. The general purpose was clear, but a methodological framework was required. Examining the different approaches used in terminology, it soon appeared that the best option was to develop a custom-made methodology based on a combination of different terminological approaches, mainly the cultural and socioterminological approaches. What was certain was that this research would be based on corpus-based term extraction.

What is meant by corpus terminology? Essentially, it is similar to corpus linguistics: it involves describing the actual use of terminology as it occurs in texts. This means one cannot rely merely on the content of a specialised dictionary or on simple definitions to understand a given terminology and how it is used in different contexts. The study of texts has become an increasingly important part of terminology work. This study may be based on written or oral texts — not so different, in a way, from field study in ethnomusicology.

In this case, the general guidelines on corpus-based approaches were followed. Four distinct corpora were required: a term-extraction corpus for French period texts, a term-extraction corpus for English period texts, a French reference corpus spanning from the late seventeenth century to the present, and an English reference corpus spanning the same period. The rigour with which terminological work is performed guarantees its scientific value and must be evident at every step, whether when building a corpus, establishing a protocol for term extraction, collecting and recording data, or interpreting and analysing the data.

Before selecting the texts — that is, before starting to build the four corpora — it was necessary to decide which data should be retrieved and what information would be relevant. The retained data categories were as follows:

• Term + part of speech + gender + language + source(s)
• Equivalent term(s) FR–EN
• Subject field + subfield
• Variant(s) + source(s)
• Synonym(s)/quasi-synonym(s) + source(s)
• Symbol(s)/illustration(s) + source(s)
• Contexts + source(s)
• Definition(s) + source(s)
• Information on how the concept fits into a concept system (subordinate, superordinate, and coordinate concepts)
• Notes: conceptual and linguistic

Figure 4. Categories of data to be retrieved

Each data item encountered in the corpora will be registered in the database. Only after the data processing is complete will some items be set aside if they are considered superfluous or repetitive. Although any definition suggested by an author will be entered into the definition field during data retrieval, the final definition will be written at the end of the data processing to ensure it encompasses all the conceptual information collected from the corpora and agrees with all the proposals from the authors. Language-to-language equivalences will also be established at the end of the data processing, based on a comparison of all the conceptual information retrieved for the records in both languages, and will only be confirmed if an exact or near-exact match is found between the two records.

When discussing music terminology, terms come to mind first. But as in general terminology, one often forgets that terminology is fundamentally about concepts, and that terms are above all the designations of concepts. In doing so, one tends to disregard a large share of material: non-textual elements. And when thinking of non-textual elements, one automatically thinks of symbols and illustrations. For sources from the second half of the seventeenth century, this is correct: the only non-textual information available is pictorial. But what about musical notation? Are not some examples in music texts musical explanations of concepts? The figure below shows examples of such musical explanations by Chambonnières (1670) and d'Anglebert (1689) of non-textual contexts related to the different graces. Hence the importance of being able to include multimedia files in the database.

Figure 5. Examples of non-textual information, Chambonnières and d'Anglebert

If one were working on today's early-music terminology, one could also consider using recordings of performed musical examples as explanations of the corresponding musical concepts.

The idea of building a large collection of period writings on music to study music terminology is one thing, but what texts should actually be included in the corpora? What types of period texts exist? Which are available, and which are relevant?

Methods and treatises are undoubtedly the first category of texts to consider. These works, written for honnêtes hommes and honnêtes femmes — cultured men and women — and for music enthusiasts, were not necessarily intended for the education of future professional musicians but were a means of spreading musical knowledge and know-how. It is in treatises that one is most likely to encounter the most complete terminology. Given their didactic nature, these texts introduce basic concepts, name them, and define them more or less formally. They also suggest concept systems that help classify and hierarchize them.

Other writings on music include prefaces that appear at the beginning of music books. It was very common at the time for composers to include a presentation of their work, providing players and singers with meticulous directions on how the music in the book was to be performed — explaining the notation used or graces, among other things. Some forewords, such as Purcell's preface to his 1683 Sonatas' in III Parts, also include explanations for new musical terms used in the book. In this text, Purcell explains the "few terms of Art unusual to [the reader]" (foreign words) — Adagio and Grave, Presto Largo, Poco Largo, Largo, Allegro, Vivace, and Piano — that he uses in his Sonatas'. However short, these prefaces must be considered when building a corpus.

Figure 6. Purcell's Foreword to his 1683 Sonatas' in III Parts

Lexicographical works — dictionaries — could also have been interesting candidates for the corpora. Two examples that could have been included in the French corpus are Furetière's Dictionnaire universel from 1690 and Sébastien de Brossard's Dictionnaire de musique, first published in 1703. However, as specialised as they may be, dictionaries do not necessarily reflect natural discourse. They belong to metalinguistic speech, and the definitions they contain are not always written by experts in the field (in Furetière's case, for example). They would certainly not suffice as a basis for drawing the portrait of music terminology at the time. For this reason, it was decided to use these works as a reference instead of including them directly into the corpora meant for term extraction — or using them as a direct reference for ultimate definitions of the studied concepts.

Other types of period writings on music include letters, journals, accounts of journeys, memoirs, and even ledger books. Although all of these often contain interesting — if not relevant — information on music, music making, and music writing, and could have been regarded as a fortunate addition to these corpora, it would have proved difficult to choose which of the great many writings of this type to include. One could almost consider that these writings could actually constitute a corpus by themselves.

The most difficult thing when gathering a corpus for term extraction is knowing where to stop. The more one digs, the more potential elements one finds. This is why it is important to establish criteria for selecting texts and to decide when to close the corpora. Otherwise, the project becomes endless. One clear limiting factor is the availability of sources. When assembling a corpus of writings on music from the second half of the seventeenth century, one is entirely dependent on what writings are actually still available. Original copies of treatises can be found in libraries around the world, and a wide variety of treatises are also available in reprints as facsimiles. Fortunately, more and more of these writings are appearing on the Internet, on websites such as the Center for the History of Music Theory and Literature at Indiana University, Bassus generalis, Early English Books Online, Google Books, IMSLP, and Early Music Sources — just a few examples for English sources. However, some problems arise when extracting terms from these sources, as will be explained later. The two corpora built for this term extraction include about sixty texts, mostly music treatises and forewords of music books. These are open corpora, so any additional text fitting the established criteria will be added.

Corpus terminology today comes with a great ally: automatic term extraction.

Also known as automatic term recognition (ATE), term extractors play an even smaller role in actual terminology work. They do yield strong results with modern texts — electronic documents or scanned prints. With ancient writings, however, such tools become unusable for several reasons.

If one works from printed facsimiles, terms must be extracted the old-fashioned way — manually. The same holds for digital copies of historical treatises. Websites mentioned earlier, like Google Books and Early English Books Online, have used OCR (optical character recognition) to provide plain-text versions of the books. That is a helpful start. Yet while OCR generally handles modern typography well, it often produces miserable results with old texts, partly because of less consistent letterforms and partly because of some deterioration in the original copy, as can be seen here:

Another argument against using automatic term extractors with ancient texts is the profusion of spelling variants. Some are predictable, others represent mere authorial quirks, making it hard not to miss significant terminological information when relying on an automated tool. The Center for the History of Music Theory and Literature took work one step beyond OCR, providing a full retranscription in plain text for a large collection of treatises (both French and English). That resource proved extremely useful, though the website was unfortunately offline for over a year.

In the end, however — particularly because of the non-textual elements mentioned earlier (some of which, as shown in the examples, contain textual information — mostly terms — not captured by OCR or plain-text transcriptions) — it became clear that the manual approach had to be used in every case. This was time-consuming, but it also ensured thoroughness in term extraction. Manual term (and context) extraction also cuts down noise and offers the best chance for exhaustive results.

Although terms (together with all conceptual and definitional information) are collected manually, an electronic tool is employed when loading data into the database. The plan from the start was to use an existing database system specialized for collecting and managing terminological data: i-Term, created by DanTerm. It offers many useful features, including the ability to attach multimedia files to each terminological record.

5. A few examples

More than one thousand records have already been created in the database. The scope of this paper permits only a handful of instructive cases, chosen to illustrate some of the results this research has yielded.

5.1. Note values

A first case of interest is that of note values. It is a classic example of a concept system: many authors introduce them with a tree diagram, showing each value equal to half of its superordinate, and so forth, as seen below:

But there is more to this example. As described earlier, this project examines past music terminology and its development. What one discovers here is that many of the treatise authors were doing essentially the same thing. Numerous works in the corpora introduce not just current note values, but also those used in the past — used by the Ancients, no longer in use, and so on. Antoine du Cousu, for instance, mentions eight note values: "There are eight note values in Music […] and they are the Maxime [larga, Maxima nota], the Longue, the Brefve [Brief], the Semibrefve [semibrief], the Minime, the Semiminime, the Fuze [quaver], and the Semifuze [semiquaver], of which the last three were added so as to sing faster, because the Ancients used only the first five" (1658: 39).

In his 1696 Elements de musique, Loulié notes the same: "the Maxime, Longue ou quarrée à queue and the quarrée" appear "in the music books of the Ancients or of foreigners" (1696: 30). By 1702, however, according to Michel de Saint-Lambert (1702: 25), these five values had apparently vanished; he writes about only five: ronde, blanche, noire, croche, double-croche.

On the English side, Christopher Simpson says: "The first two Notes in use, were Nota Longa & Nota Brevis (our Long and Breve) in order to a long and short syllable. Only they doubled or trebled their Longa, and called it Larga or Maxima Nota, which is our Large. When Musick grew to more perfection, they added two Notes more, under the names of semi brevis and Minima Nota; (our semibreve and Minim) which later was then their shortest Note. To these, later times have added Note upon Note, till at last we are come to Demisemiquaver; which is the shortest or swiftest Note that we have now in practice" (1667: 13).

In this passage, Long, Breve, and Large are older values than Semibreves and Minims, which themselves precede Crotchet, Quaver, Semiquaver, and Demisemiquaver. What is also striking in Simpson's account is the suggestion that the characteristic shortest note first belonged to Minima Nota and later to Demisemiquaver, a clear diachronic conceptual shift. A third reason this example matters is that many — indeed most — of the terms and concepts for note values used both contemporaneously and historically by these authors (several falling out of current use between 1700 and modern times in French: maxime, longue, quarrée, brève, semibrève, minime, semi-minime) have since regained currency among performers of early music, illustrating a case of terminological resurgence.

idem.

5.2. Chronometre and Sonometre

Another interesting example from the research appears in Loulié's Elements. In his 1696 treatise he shared with the world one of his own inventions, the Chronometre. Loulié felt that musical notation was insufficient for indicating a piece's speed, even with tempo markings, and this was especially problematic for foreign music. He wanted a way to specify how long a beat should last or how many beats there should be per minute, and so he designed a machine "to measure Time." He created this device, explained thoroughly how it worked and how to build it, and supplied the reader with exact instructions.

This example is notable from several angles. First, Loulié's detailed description of his invention is a rich source of conceptual information, particularly regarding partitive concept systems. Second, it tells (or reminds) us that such a device — recognizably the ancestor of the metronome, which would appear much later — had already been developed in the late 17th century; Diderot and Rousseau would remark on it decades later. Finally, it provides an interesting case of diachronic terminological evolution. The idea of a machine measuring time would persist — hence the metronome, patented in 1801 — but Loulié's original concept of the Chronometre would vanish. The term chronometre itself, however, would be reused to designate a different concept, one widely known today.

The same thing happened with another of Loulié’s creations. Working with mathematician Joseph Sauveur, he grew interested in tuning systems, particularly for harpsichords. He built another device he called Sonometre, a one-stringed instrument for tuning harpsichords, presented to the Académie Royale des Sciences and patented in 1699, and introduced through his Nouveau Système de Musique in 1698. In this case, the underlying concept would reappear as a tuner, while the term sonometre was reused for a different apparatus used by acousticians.

6. Conclusion

This paper aimed to outline the research, explain some methodological aspects briefly, and offer a few cases of interest. These represent merely a handful among hundreds in the database. The work continues and should be completed within the next couple of years. By the end, I hope to provide as complete a database as possible of French and English music terminology from the second half of the 17th century, together with guidance on how to use this terminology correctly according to different communication contexts. Another goal is methodological: showing how to approach comparable complex historical terminological work, not limited to music but relevant across disciplines in the Arts and Humanities. Finally, I aim to contribute substantially to the diachronic approach in terminology work — a still insufficiently respected area of investigation, despite its great value for understanding specialised vocabularies and specialised domains.

References:

Brossard, Sébastien de. 1703. Dictionnaire de musique, contenant une explication des termes grecs, latins, italiens et français les plus usitez dans la musique. Christophe Ballard. Paris.

d'Anglebert, Jean-Henri. 1689. Pièces de Clavecin avec la maniere de les Jouer – Livre Premier. Paris.

Chambonnières, Jacques-Champion de. 1670. Les pieces de clavessin: premier livre. Jollain. Paris.

Du Cousu, Antoine. 1658. La Musique universelle. Paris.

Furetière, Antoine. 1690. Dictionnaire universel: contenant généralement tous les mots français tant vieux que modernes, et les termes de toutes les sciences et des arts […]. Chez Arnout & Reinier Leers. The Hague.

Loulié, Étienne. 1696. Éléments ou principes de musique […]. Christophe Ballard. Paris.

Loulié, Étienne. 1698. Nouveau Système de Musique ou Nouvelle division du monocorde dans laquelle on donne les raisons de tous les intervalles de musique par rapport à l'accord du clavecin ordinaire. Christophe Ballard. Paris.

Playford, John. 1674. An introduction to the skill of musick […]. London.

Purcell, Henry. 1683. Sonnata's of III parts: two viollins and basse to the organ or harpsecord. J. Playford and J. Carr, for the author. London.

Saint-Lambert, Michel. 1702. Principes du clavecin.

Simpson, Christopher. 1667. A Compendium of Practical Musick. London.

Strahele, Graham. 1995. An early music dictionary: musical terms from British sources, 1500–1740. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge; New York.