"Pausa"

Abstract

In medieval theory the word Pausa is used to designate the cessation of tone or the «missing voice» (Franco of Cologne: «vox amissa»). This meaning, derived from vocal music, has persisted to the present day as «Pause» in both English and German. The word Pausa was, however, used in quite a different sense in German organ music of the 15^ century, where it referred to notes played at the end of passages or of entire pieces, that is, to a continuation of activity over the prolonged final note of the tenor. The keyboard Pausa, which can still be found in Bach's Chorale settings, where it often refers back to the beginning of the piece, is investigated from two different points of view in the present article. On the one hand specific examples, chosen from the history of the Pausa-ending, are discussed, and on the other. Pausa is used in a figurative sense as title for a farewell lecture, which indicates a caesura and calls for re-evaluation of my own previous research. The article is thus not merely about the Pausa, it must also be understood as a kind of Pausa in its own right. In this way it attempts to shed light on the changing relationship between vocal and instrumental music, from the earliest forms of polyphony to Bach and Beethoven, with particular attention to vocal and language related elements within instrumental music.