Most recorder players feel at home playing Baroque music. After all, the period between around 1600 and 1750 was the heyday of our instrument, with composers like Handel, Bach and Telemann producing exquisite solo and chamber music for the recorder. However, there’s one rhythmic feature of Baroque music which often creates confusion and concern among recorder players - the hemiola. As we shall see, the hemiola wasn’t restricted to the Baroque period and can be found in repertoire as disparate as Susato and Brahms.
When conducting recorder ensembles, I often ask if everyone knows what a hemiola is when we encounter one. Usually, I see a handful of confident nods around the room, but these are invariably outnumbered by people who either look at me blankly or else suddenly find the floor immensely interesting! My aim today is to help lift the mists of rhythmic confusion, to assist you identifying and playing them with more confidence.
What is a hemiola?
Put simply, it’s a temporary change to the music’s regular rhythmic pattern, changing groups of three beats into groups of two. It’s always simplest to explain such concepts with musical examples so you can actually see them in practice. Take a look at this extract from Lully’s Bourgeois Gentilhomme:
The time signature gives us three beats in each bar. The first beat of the bar is the strongest, so the hierarchy of beats in bar one is strong-weak-weak. The same applies to bar 2. Now look at bars 3 and 4 and see how the rhythm changes. Instead of three crotchet beats we have three minim beats spread over two bars. With a note held across the barline, there’s no way to emphasise the first beat of bar 4, so instead stronger pulses occur every two beats, rather than every three. This is a hemiola.
This particular example is about as simple as it gets with hemiolas - all five voices play the same rhythm so the effect is inescapable. Unfortunately, not all hemiolas are so obvious. If you glance at bars 6 and 7 you’ll see a very similar rhythm, but here the highest voice deviates slightly from the pattern. The overall effect is still a hemiola but slightly less clear cut.
If you find it easier to understand this concept visually I recommend watching this video, created by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, which uses different examples to help explain the hemiola further - including a juggler! The video also includes the Lully example I showed above, among others.
Why do we have hemiolas?
There are several reasons why a composer might wish to include a hemiola in his or her music - let’s look at them..
To add rhythmic interest
Shifting between groups of two and three beats brings an extra layer of variety and energy to the music. Brahms does this a lot in his music, sometimes bringing hemiola shapes into different parts independently. Recorder players don’t often get to play Brahms, but the same things happens in earlier music too. In The Fairie-round Anthony Holborne shifts endlessly between duple (2) and triple (3) time rhythms. Sometimes the parts shift between meters simultaneously, but often they work independently of each other. sometimes simultaneously. I’ve altered the colour of the notes in this extract to show the triple time rhythms in red, while the duple time rhythms are blue. Click on the image to see it enlarged. If you’ve ever tried to play the Fairie-round you’ll understand why it can be so tricky to put together!
To speed up the musical movement
When you create a hemiola you shift from having a strong pulse every three beats to one every two beats - this gives a sense of the pulse increasing in speed. I’ve added a drum line to the Lully example shown above, placing a drum beat on the stronger pulses. Notice how the speed of the pulse increases when the beat occurs every two beats rather than every three beats.
An aural guide to the music’s phrasing
This is perhaps the most important function for a hemiola, especially in Renaissance and Baroque music. While modern music can be hugely complex, early music frequently contains more consistent and predictable harmonic and rhythmic patterns. That’s not to say it can’t be surprising, but there are melodic and rhythmic features which crop up regularly - for instance trills at cadences in Baroque music.
The hemiola is one such musical feature and composers use it to flag up to the listener that we’re approaching the end of a phrase. Of course, it’s unlikely that you’ll sit there thinking to yourself, “Oh, there’s a hemiola - that must mean it’s the end of a phrase!”. But if you listen to music from this period often enough you’ll subconsciously sense the movement of the rhythm and harmony, feeling a sense of arrival as the music reaches a cadence.
The biggest clue is the rate of change in the harmonies. Very often there will be just one or two chords or harmonies in each bar. At the hemiola this alters, as the harmonies change more swiftly. For instance, listen to this short movement by Gottfried Keller and notice how the rhythm and harmony shifts up a gear just before the cadences. If you’re not sure where the cadences are, listen out for the trills which also occur then. If you’d like to follow the music as you’re listening click here.
Where do hemiolas happen?
Generally hemiolas occur in triple time music - that’s music which has three beats in each bar, say 3/4, 3/2 or 3/8. Let’s look at a few examples.
The first comes from Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks - a short extract from the Minuets. The music is in 3/4 time but two bars before the end of the phrase (look out for trills as these often occur at cadence points too) the harmonies change from mostly being one chord per bar to three chords spread over two bars - shown by the boxes.
If you’d like to try this example for yourself you can play among with my consort video of the minuet here.
Minuet from Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks - click on the image to see it larger
Now let’s take a look at a hemiola in minim beats - this time taken from Handel’s Recorder Sonata in D minor. If you look at the boxes, you’l notice the first first two beats (box 1) include notes which are predominantly from one chord - A major (A, C sharp and E). The second box contains two different chords, but the final one is once again made up almost entirely of A major.
Handel recorder Sonata in D minor, 2nd movement
As a further example, here’s a short snippet from another of Handel’s recorder sonatas - this time in C major. The time signature is 3/8 - three quaver beats (or one dotted crotchet beat) per bar. In bars 46 and 47 he changes this to have rhythmic groups of two quaver beats. The hemiola is clearest in the recorder part, where the silence on beat one of bar 47 means the emphasis inevitably shifts to the dotted quaver note on the second beat of that bar. This particular movement is littered with hemiolas just like this, introducing a delightful shift from the one in a bar feel elsewhere in the movement. You can listen to the whole movement below.
Handel Recorder Sonata in C major, 2nd movement
Of course, there’s no such thing as a rule that’s never broken, so occasionally you’ll find hemiolas in unexpected time signatures. In La Paix Handel writes in 12/8 time, but still manages to squeeze a hemiola in at the cadences! The music isn’t in triple time, but as the dotted crotchet beats each contain three quavers Handel can group those quavers in twos rather than threes, thus creating a hemiola. Take a look at the top three parts where I’ve added the boxes and you’ll once again see the beats grouped in twos - predominantly either crotchets or as pairs of quavers.
La Paix from Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks
Finding the hemiola in its natural habitat
Let’s take a look at the most likely locations for hemiolas…
Cadence points
In Renaissance and Baroque music hemiolas almost always occur immediately before a cadence. These are the points where the music comes to rest momentarily, giving a sense of arrival. If you’re not sure what a cadence is, think of them as the musical equivalent of punctuation in written text. When reading text aloud, the commas and full stops tell you where to take a moment to allow a point to sink in, allowing both you and your listeners a moment to breathe. A cadence has the same purpose, bringing a sense of pause or arrival in the music. Play through any of the examples I’ve shared so far today and you’ll feel this sense of arrival on the note or chord immediately following the hemiola.
When you learn a new piece of music, listen out for these moments of repose as they will guide your phrasing. If the music is in triple time (3/8, 3/4 or 3/2) or in 6/8 you may well find a hemiola in the bar or two immediately preceding these cadence points.
Take a look at this section from Andrew Parcham’s Solo in G, where I’ve marked two hemiolas. Both come at cadence points and if you try playing the top line you’ll no doubt feel that moment of arrival on the note immediately following the hemiola. The composer would almost certainly have expected the performer to add a trill to the final dotted crotchet of each hemiola too - as you can hear in the recording below. The Allegro begins 2 minutes and 27 seconds into the video.
Andrew Parcham Solo in G
Look for trills in Baroque music
As I’ve already mentioned, cadence points are often decorated with trills in Baroque music. These aren’t always marked in the music because composers generally assumed the musicians would be familiar enough with the musical style to know where they should be added. But some did take the trouble to notate them and you’ll often find places where modern editors suggest adding cadential trills. These can be an additional way for you to spot where a hemiola may be lurking.
Look at the whole score
Perhaps the most important piece of advice I can give is to look at the whole score of the music, not just your individual part. Sometimes the hemiolas will be clear as day in your line, but, as we’ve seen in some of the examples I’ve shared, it’s often easier to spot the hemiola when looking at several parts together.
For instance, look at this extract from a Ronde by Tielman Susato. If you’re playing the top line, reading from a single part, you’d be forgiven for missing the hemiola entirely because both bars look like standard 3/2 rhythms. Cast your eye down through the score though and the hemiola becomes much clearer, with a two beat note at either end. Here the top line is simply providing rhythmic contrast, but the overall effect is definitely a hemiola.
Susato Ronde
Look for the rhythmic clues
Very often a hemiola’s effect is amplified by the use of longer notes, which have more weight or aural mass, as I like to call it. Look through any of the examples I’ve shared here and you’ll see time and again, how the composer fills one or two of the hemiola’s three parts with a longer note. This length and weight of these notes makes that section of the hemiola feel more significant, emphasising the fact that he or she is moving the musical stresses away from their usual position on the first beat of the bar.
For example, look at the last few bars of Telemann’s Concerto in C below - at the hemiola you’ll see I’ve circled the dotted crotchets in red. These notes will naturally draw the ear because they’re longer than the other note values within the hemiola. This brings the hemiola effect out effectively, especially if the quavers are kept detached and light.
Telemann Recorder Concerto in C, 4th movement
Look for consistency of rhythm through the texture.
As we’ve already seen, the hemiola rhythm doesn’t always appear in every voice, but often there will be some unanimity. Take a look at this Galliard by Anthony Holborne and you can clearly see a consistency of rhythm between the five voices. Unlike the Lully we looked at first, the parts aren’t entirely unanimous in their rhythm, but in both hemiolas several voices simultaneously have the same rhythm. Looking at the score, it becomes clear there’s a move away from the usual 1 2 3 - 1 2 3 rhythm to a hemiola pattern.
How do I play a hemiola?
Once you’ve identified your hemiola it’s very tempting to emphasise the start of all three sections to hammer the point home. Undoubtedly this will make your hemiola stand out, but it’ll likely lack subtlety!
A better approach is to think in terms of only emphasising one or two sections of the hemiola, which will result in a more subtle, musical effect. For instance, there are two hemiolas in this section of Purcell’s Chaconne from The Gordion Knot Untied. Both begin and end with dotted rhythms, which will naturally attract the most musical weight because of their longer length.
Ordinarily, the first beat of each bar would be the strongest, but here the aural mass of the dotted crotchets moves the emphasis onto the second beat of bars 52 and 59. Now you could also put some added weight onto the last beat of bars 51 and 58 to bring out the middle section of the hemiola. However, the result would be rather heavy and a better approach is to make the middle section of the hemiola light and less important. In this case I’d simply make the crotchets which fall within the second box of each hemiola short and light, creating a sense of lift and bounce. You can hear me putting this approach in practice in my consort video of this piece here.
Let’s take a look at another example, this time from Handel’s Recorder Sonata in B flat.
If you listen to this recording by David Antich you’ll hear the ensemble allow the longer notes to have some weight, but the cellist keeps the crotchets in the bassline light and separated, so as to minimise their importance and help highlight the rhythmic shift of the hemiola.
Looking beyond early music
As I said earlier, hemiolas aren’t restricted to the music of the Renaissance and Baroque - later composers used then too. One of the most famous appears in Leonard Bernsteins’s score for West Side Story and you’ll almost certainly be familiar with the shifting rhthms in America. But had you ever thought of it as a hemiola? You will now! Take a listen - the famous melody line begins around one minute and fifteens seconds into the video below.
Another example occurs in the opening bars of the Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquin Rodrigo. The solo guitarist opens the whole work with the rhythmic pattern shown below - a clear hemiola in 6/8 time.
As I said at the beginning, Brahms wrote hemiolas too and you’ll find them dotted about endlessly in his music. Very often he chooses to write hemiolas independently in different voices but in this example, from his Intermezzo No.1 for piano, he shows them very clearly together. Normally in 6/8 time the quavers would be grouped in threes (as they are at the beginning of the extract) but on the second system here he writes a series of crotchets - notes worth two quavers - to create a series of hemiolas.
Johannes Brahms Intermezzo No.1 for piano
Are the hemiola mists clearing?
I hope my explanations and all these musical examples have helped you to understand the hemiola better. Don’t be afraid of them, but just be aware of their existence when you meet pieces where the note patterns are grouped in threes. Take every opportunity to consult the score, as you’re more likely to see them there, and don’t hesitate to experiment with your phrasing and articulation in bars you think may be hemiolas. These fascinating rhythmic patterns don’t bite and they can bring more variety, light and shade into your performances.
Finally, if you have a trick for spotting or dealing with hemiolas which I haven’t mentioned please do leave a comment below so we can share our ideas and musical knowledge.