“Study, practice, and a reasonable working method”

This article presents the first step toward a hitherto unwritten history of creative process pedagogy in the territories of the Holy Roman Empire between 1500 and 1850. In answering the question of how musical creativity was taught and learned beyond the obvious theoretical aspects of composition such as counterpoint, harmony, and instrumentation, it analyzes a plethora of treatises, composer’s sketches, and study manuscripts to identify and describe important pedagogical trends and methodologies. These include, for example, the use of principles from classical Latin rhetoric and, as a derivative technique, the study and use of loci or musical commonplaces. Musical “shorthand” notation such as partimento and figured bass are investigated as basis for the sketches and drafts by composers of the Classical period which, in 19th-century treatises, became the foundation for creative process pedagogy themselves.

Aspects of Performance Practice in Morton Feldman's Last Pieces

Morton Feldman’s Last Pieces for piano solo of 1959 poses an interesting interpretive problem for the performer. As in many Feldman compositions of the 1950s and 60s, the first movement of the work is notated as a series of "sound events" to be played by the performer choosing the durations for each event. The only tempo indications are "Slow. Soft. Durations are free." This situation is complicated by Feldman’s remark about a similar work from 1960, "[I chose] intervals that seemed to erase or cancel out each sound as soon as we hear the next." I interpret this intension to keep the piece fresh and appealing from sound to sound. So, how the pianist supposed to play Last Pieces in order to supplement the composers desire for a sound to "cancel out" preceding sounds? To answer this question, I propose a way of assessing the salience of each sound event in the first movement of Last Pieces, using various means of associating each of its 43 sound events according chord spacing, register, center pitch and bandwidth, pitch intervals, pitch-classes, set-class, and figured bass. From this data, one has an idea about how to perform the work to minimize similarity relations between adjacent pairs of sound events so that they can have the cancelling effect the composer desired. As a secondary result of this analysis, many cohesive compositional relations come to light even if the work was composed "intuitively".

Solfeggio and Partimento

The chapter outlines the way solmization has been described as a “vocal” system at odds with the “keyboard” system of figured bass (partimento). It investigates the relation between melody and bass in solfeggio, especially in terms of imitative counterpoint, and proposes a synthesis between them. It surveys the historical evidence for solmizing figured and unfigured accompaniments and asks what this might tell us about the functions of the bass. Two solfeggi by the celebrated partimento master Fedele Fenaroli are examined in an attempt to shed light on this obscure feature of eighteenth-century practice.

In the Footsteps of Corelli

Technical information on the basic bow stroke of the giga and dynamic variation within it are the subject of two exercises. The sarabanda is contrasted with that of Corelli (Lesson Seventeen) and the student encouraged to realize the figured bass of this and other movements. Rhythm contains emotional information just as harmony does: altering the rhythms of a melody line by Pergolesi and comparing their impact demonstrates this point. Vivaldi uses syncopations, hemiolas, and ambiguities of time signature, and he tussles with the bass to give his corrente rhythmic interest, so maximizing the rhythmic impact is the purpose of Exercise 87. Last, the student is encouraged to read the by now familiar sonata from the original 1709 edition as a preparation to reading seventeenth-century notation in upcoming lessons. As usual, the lesson is packed with detailed observations of the text and technical and musical information.

Partimenti and the Power of Improvisation

Like a lead sheet in popular music, a partimento gives a performer a single line of music to aid in the performance of a multivoice composition. Lead sheets provide a simplified melody and symbols for chords. Partimenti provide a bass and sometimes figured-bass numbers to indicate specific intervals. In both cases the reconstruction works well if the performer has a good knowledge of the style of music involved and a memory for the kinds of musical patterns needed. In Naples, children played the written partimento with their left hands at a small harpsichord. With their right hands they improvised the types of melodies, chords, and counterpoints implied by the bass. Beginners may have improvised mostly simple chords. Intermediate-level students improvised melodies and counterpoints. And advanced students developed highly contrapuntal realizations that included partimento fugues.

Bach’s Choral-Buch?

This chapter examines a collection of Bach chorale harmonizations copied in Dresden sometime during the 1730s, with the goal of clarifying both its likely provenance and purpose. “Sebastian Bach’s Choral-Buch” is a collection of chorales—melodies with figured bass, intended to accompany singing—given in a sequence similar to that found in many hymnals. The mid-eighteenth-century manuscript was purchased from Hans P. Kraus, Vienna, in September 1936 by the Sibley Library at the Eastman School of Music. This chapter first describes the Sibley Choralbuch before reviewing its provenance and content. It then considers the manuscript’s significance as a possible source of evidence for the practices of the circle of organists who studied with Johann Sebastian Bach in the 1730s and 1740s. It argues that Choralbuch served as a workbook for learning how to create four-part settings but had a double usefulness: Bach could assign particular chorale melodies for the pupil to work on as test pieces, while the anthology could serve to accompany chorale singing at services.