Accented Bach: Linguistic Influence on Organists' Rubato in Early 20th-Century Recordings

Ludger Lohmann（1996）在一项对1913年至1932年的管风琴录音的研究中指出了“法语和德语rubato之间的根本差异”，推测其原因是“各自口语中的不同重音”。然而，语言韵律对rubato的影响，这是必不可少的，以避免不自然的规律性，尚未被分析。风琴比任何其他乐器都更需要rubato，因为它的二进制声音产生主要通过调整比例长度来塑造，从而实现对rubato的独特检查。在这篇硕士论文中，她将比较1911年至1939年的J.S.巴赫作品由至少两名风琴手演奏，具有母语重音（德语，英语[英国]）和音节定时语言（法语）。通过统计分析和历史论文的演说和表演，她将研究相对节奏和比例的注意到长度。她建议使用量化跨语言韵律变化的方法，包括标准化的成对变异指数，来比较这些录音中连续音符之间的相对持续时间与玩家口语中元音之间的相对持续时间，映射每个表演的节奏，并考虑相对rubato和结构重要时刻。这将使她能够测试器官rubato反映语言的假设，并扩展到语言环境如何影响演奏者将书面音符翻译成声音的有限研究。

In a study of organ recordings from 1913-32, Ludger Lohmann (1996) noted a 'fundamental difference between French and German rubato', speculating its cause to be 'the different accentuation in the respective spoken languages'. However, the influence of linguistic prosody on rubato, which is essential to avoid unnatural regularity, has not yet been analysed. Organ requires rubato more than any other instrument as its binary sound production allows shaping primarily through adjusting proportional length, enabling unique examination of rubato. For this MPhil dissertation, she will compare recordings from 1911-39 of J.S. Bach works played by at least two organists with native stress- (German, English [UK]) and syllable-timed languages (French). Through statistical analysis and historical treatises on oration and performance, she will study relative pacing and proportionate note length. She proposes using methodologies that quantify cross-linguistic prosodic variation, including the normalized Pairwise Variability Index, to compare relative durations between successive notes in these recordings with those between vowels in the players' spoken languages, mapping the tempi of each performance and taking relative rubato and structurally-significant moments into consideration. This will allow her to test the hypothesis that organ rubato reflects language, as well as expand the limited research into how linguistic context can influence a player's translation of written note into sound.