Cercare dela Nota
The word Cercare means to search. A Cercare dela nota means to seek out the note. The Cercare (pronounced: chair-car or chair-cár-e [Italian]) in music is defined in Riemann's Musiklexicon as a 17th century Italian ornament in which the upper or lower auxiliary note is performed softly/silently and suddenly/rapidly to the main note. It is designed to provide feedback to assist in creating the feeling of harmony in the souls of the listeners and the person talking. Human beings will produce this "technical" verbal utterance when acknowledging or agreeing with the person talking. The harmony between speaker and listener results from this utterance; the absence of this utterance indicates a failure to communicate or to persuade. The technique is most effective when the speed and manner of executing it is closest to a spoken technique.
A universal recognition signal in human speech, the cercare is a technique designed to elicit from the listener, agreement, the ability to follow a line of reasoning, assent to a point made, etc. It is sounded: "uh-huh," with the pitch rising or falling at the end, and is often accompanied by a bob of the head from down to up or up to down. In Section X of his Poetics, Aristotle defines recognition as "a change from ignorance to knowledge." When listeners hear the cercare, it is a recognition signal expressed in music, it creates the feeling in the listener of being able to easily follow what is happening in the music and the feeling of unanimity between the performer and the listener. It also makes knowing with utter clarity how to harmonize a note. The "cercare" is a recognition signal alluded to by Aristotle whereby the feeling in the listener is transformed from not knowing to knowing. That feeling has often been described by listeners as spiritual because it suggests a feeling of being enlightened.
The word, "cercare", is found in a quote from a letter written in 1840 by F. Griepenkerl, who was a great-grand-student of Bach:
"Bach himself, his sons, and Forkel performed the masterpieces with such a profound declamation that they sounded like polyphonic songs sung by individual great artist singers; thereby, all means of good singing were brought into use. No cercare, no portamento was missing. There was even breathing at all the right places...Bach's pieces want to be sung with the maximum of Art."
Interestingly, the cercare has been frowned on and avoided by classical musicians as being in exceedingly bad taste. Really? Do you suppose Bach played his own music in bad taste? Who do we trust in this matter? We choose to trust Bach and natural human expression.
The speed of the Cercare is its most important characteristic. If the speed of the cercare is too slow, then it sounds like an arpeggio. If the speed is too fast, then it sounds like a grace note. The correct speed for most uses is the speed at which you most naturally would say "pah-DUM" with the accent on the second syllable. If you say this as PAH-dum with the accent on the first syllable, it is too slow. And, if you say it as pahdum without accent, it is too fast. As the music expresses greater gravity of feeling, the cercare is performed more slowly and with greater emphasis. As the music expresses more liveliness, the cercare is performed more rapidly and lightly.
The most powerful aspects of a cercare are a result of its unique communicative properties that stem from the interval sounding between the lower auxiliary note and the upper main note. Affectively or emotionally, the interval between the two notes of the utterance communicates different feelings or states of mind. For example: a simple feeling of agreement might use the interval of a fourth between the auxiliary and main notes; a fourth also indicates that the listener is able to follow the conversation; the feeling of sudden awareness or joy sounds an octave between the auxiliary and main notes; suspiciousness in the listener creates a minor second between the auxiliary and the main note; and when questioning certainty about what was expressed, the cercare may sound a fifth between the auxiliary and main notes. The effect of this affective expressive property of the interval also informs the composer and the performer of two things: one, what the exact harmony belonging to the main note is and, two, how to interpret that note when singing or playing the main note of the cercare.
Notice in the audios below how Bach has composed his Chaconne beginning it with a total of 20!! Cercare with only a few notes intersperse between them. Count them yourself as Mr. Hill and Mr. Ricci play the music. The music begins with a cercare followed by another followed by another and so on. What is wonderful is how Bach's statement of the Chaconne from the D minor violin Partita appears to be just one big excuse for playing one cercare after another. Notice, too, that Mr. Hill and Mr. Ricci play the cercare at the right speed for the piece, not too fast and not too slow yet varying in speed depending on the affekt being expressed.
To hear Ruggerio Ricci play the beginning of the Chaconne from Bach’s Partita no. 2 in d minor use this link:
https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxE9D1ywhfgdxfJFKDjLpRPQOcC-EN6zo9
The Italian Concerto by Bach begins with a cercare. Beethoven's Pathetique sonata begins with a cercare followed by another with a few notes stuck in between. The Ninth Symphony of Beethoven is full of cercare. In Mengelberg’s conducting from you can hear how Beethoven begins the symphony with cercare from above then from below, then again from above and so on.
https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxDQgzzCFFbrVaYHr69ux-78fX1QQMBaAR