Unmeasured or non-measured prelude is a prelude in which the duration of each

note Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened versi ...

is left to the performer. Typically the term is used for 17th century

harpsichord A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard, keyboard. Depressing a key raises its back end within the instrument, which in turn raises a mechanism with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic that plucks one ...

compositions that are written without

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular r ...

or metre indications, although various composers of the

Classical music era The Classical period was an era of classical music between roughly 1750 and 1820. The classical period falls between the Baroque and Romantic periods. It is mainly homophonic, using a clear melody line over a subordinate chordal accompaniment ...

were composing small preludes for woodwind instruments using non-measured

notation In linguistics and semiotics, a notation system is a system of graphics or symbols, Character_(symbol), characters and abbreviated Expression (language), expressions, used (for example) in Artistic disciplines, artistic and scientific disciplines ...

well into the 19th century. The form resurfaced in the

aleatory music Aleatoric music (also aleatory music or chance music; from the Latin word ''alea'', meaning "dice") is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the ...

of the 20th century, where various other aspects of performance are also left to free interpretation.

Unmeasured preludes for lute

The first unmeasured preludes appeared during the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

era. They were short improvised compositions for

lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck (music), neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lu ...

, usually performed as an introduction to another piece of music or to test the instrument. Later unmeasured lute preludes retained the improvisatory character of the genre but became more complex and lengthy. Unmeasured preludes flourished into full-fledged compositions by the middle of the 17th century. However the development of lute music had already stopped by that time and the last surviving unmeasured lute preludes date from the end of the same century. Important lute composers who contributed to the development of the unmeasured prelude include Pierre Gaultier, René Mesangeau and Germain Pinel.

Unmeasured preludes for harpsichord

Unmeasured preludes for harpsichord started appearing around 1650.

Louis Couperin Louis Couperin (; – 29 August 1661) was a French Baroque composer and performer. He was born in Chaumes-en-Brie and moved to Paris in 1650–1651 with the help of Jacques Champion de Chambonnières. Couperin worked as organist of the ...

is usually credited as the first composer to embrace the genre. Couperin wrote unmeasured preludes using long groups of

whole note A whole note (American) or semibreve (British) in musical notation is a single note equivalent to or lasting as long as two half notes or four quarter notes. Description The whole note or semibreve has a note head in the shape of a hollow ov ...

s, and these groups were connected by long curves. This kind of

is found in Couperin's unmeasured preludes and was also done by

Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to: People * Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name) * Empress Elisabeth (disambiguation), lists various empresses named ''Elisabeth'' or ''Elizabeth'' * Princess Elizabeth ...

. Another important contribution to the development of the genre was made by

Nicolas Lebègue Nicolas-Antoine Lebègue (also ''Le Bègue''; c. 16316 July 1702) was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was born in Laon and in the 1650s settled in Paris, quickly establishing himself as one of the best organists of the c ...

, who used diverse

note value In music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration (music), duration of a note (music), note, using the texture or shape of the ''notehead'', the presence or absence of a ''stem (music), stem'', and the presence or absence of ''flags ...

s in his unmeasured preludes. The first ever published unmeasured preludes appeared in Lebègue's ''Le pieces de clavessin'' in 1677. The unmeasured harpsichord prelude became a typical French genre, used by many famous composers including

Jean-Philippe Rameau Jean-Philippe Rameau (; ; – ) was a French composer and music theory, music theorist. Regarded as one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the 18th century, he replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of ...

, Jean-Henri d'Anglebert,

Louis Marchand Louis Marchand (2 February 1669 – 17 February 1732) was a French organist, harpsichordist and composer. Born into an organist's family, Marchand was a child prodigy and quickly established himself as one of the best known French virtuosos of ...

and

. Unmeasured preludes were also present in the works of German composers who were influenced by French style. Of these,

Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer (some authorities use the spelling Johann Kaspar Ferdinand Fischer) (1656 August 27, 1746) was a German Baroque composer. Johann Nikolaus Forkel ranked Fischer as one of the best composers for keyboard of his da ...

was one of the first to use unmeasured preludes in harpsichord suites. One instance of unmeasured prelude by Giovanni Battista Draghi is an example of the genre in English harpsichord music.

François Couperin François Couperin (; 10 November 1668 – 11 September 1733) was a French Baroque music, Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as ''Couperin le Grand'' ("Couperin the Great") to distinguish him from other members of the musi ...

's didactic '' L'art de toucher le clavecin'' (1716) contained eight preludes that, while unmeasured and improvisatory in nature, were measured for teaching purposes. These pieces, along with several preludes from Nicolas Siret's ''Second Livre de Pieces de Clavecin'' (1719), were among the last unmeasured harpsichord preludes written.

External links

*{{cite journal, url=https://www.hornmatters.com/2008/06/the-non-measured-preludes-of-jacques-francois-gallay/, date=June 2008, title=The Non-measured Preludes of Jacques-François Gallay, last1=Ericson, first1=John, journal=Horn Matters
The History and Pedagogy of Jacques-François Gallay’s Non-Measured Preludes for Horn, Op. 27, Nos. 21-40 A dissertation by Dr. Scott Russell
includes scores with Couperin's highly original unmeasured prelude notation Classical music styles Preludes (music)