When we last encountered cadences, we noted how the anonymous transcriber of the Hannay-MacAuslan collection documented the relative infrequency of the appoggiatura cadence, and how MacDonald’s book adopted her transcriptions in to his book.

This begs the question: how did the appoggiatura cadence come into prevalence?

The answer to his question lies in a direct exploration of the primary sources, where you uncover a very interesting fact:

Angus MacKay shows evidence a style of performance that brought prevalence to the held-E cadence.

Compare this (Hannay-MacAuslan):

with this (Angus MacKay):

Notice all the E’s in MacKay? Every phrase begins with one.

Notice how the themal notes that follow have lost their prominence and been shorted in MacKay.

This is pure, stylistic choice. How do we know this? We can read it. There is no evidence to support the skeptical idea that the early transcribers did not accurately reflect performance. Certainly, time signature constraints had their influence upon notating relative time values, but we see plenty of evidence that even these restraints did not prevent the transcribers from making sure prevalent notes were not captured. In one important case (Peter Reid), we have a transcriber who simply did away with time signatures when one could not be signified without altering the expression being captured by him when writing.

The skeptical argument simply fails the test of empiricism. It is a straw-man argument used by those who have difficulty accepting the evidence of their senses. [McInness also has much more to say about it here (pg 235).]

This does not mean something was not lost when writing down notes: in every case, literacy can be called a diminution of information compared with orality. All but the most blunt forms of voice inflection (exclamation = ” ! “, question = ” ? “, emphasis = italics) are lost in writing. Same is true with staff notation: all but the most obvious forms of expression of living music was difficult to capture (but to the extent it could be, it was: hence things like fermatas, grace notes with 2 and 3 and 5 and 6 flags, staff without time signatures, confusing marks such as two 1/16th notes, one of which has a dot on it).

That is not the point. The point is, to the degree the vocabulary of classical music notation allowed, the transcribers knew full well how to make sure what was being heard was being written.

Which means, what we have is evidence of two styles of performance, one which prefers the held-E cadence (MacKays), and one which does not (Hannay-MacAuslan, Donald MacDonald, Peter Reid).

That one came into prominence over the other is no secret, and no surprise. It is, however, a mistake to assume that this dominance was due to musical superiority. Many factors contributed to the adoption of the MacKay style, not least of which would be royal patronage. But one cannot rule out the ambitious breadth and quality of his publication, his reputation as a composer and performer, and the fact that by the time his publication came out, pipers had reconciled themselves to using staff notation. His book, in fact, became the source from which pipers learned to write notation and was used for copying. (See here, pg 290.). His father’s reputation as a teacher, and the impact that the next generation of pupils coming out from under his tutelage, also served to secure this style’s dominance.

Success is often as much a matter of timing and who you know, as it is of quality and ability. There are too many historical examples of this to recount.

What we know is that the appoggiatura cadence came to prominence. It is a question of whether other forms of expression should not be heard. It is a question of whether they should not be given their chance at helping us bring new and different insights from out of the music we perform. It is a question of whether we are open-minded enough to allow for them to do so, or whether we will simply dismiss them as “unmusical”.

And let’s be clear: to allow them the chance to be explored, be performed, be heard is not to repudiate the current approach. It is to expand and allow for additional approaches.

Approaches that bare all the same hallmarks of history and tradition as today’s style.

More to follow…