A simple partimento with figures to teach beginners. (Fenaroli Partimento No. 1, Book 1, Gj1301) A partimento fugue for more advanced students. As students progressed, partimenti became unfigured. (Fenaroli Partimento Fugue 8, Book 5, Gj1418)
A Partimento (from the Italian: partimento, plural partimenti) is a sketch (often a bass line), written out on a single staff, whose main purpose is to be a guide for the improvisation ("realization") of a composition at the keyboard.[1] A Partimento differs from a basso continuo accompaniment in that it is a basis for a complete composition.[2] Partimenti were central to the training of European musicians from the late 1600s until the early 1800s. They were developed in the Italian conservatories, especially at the music conservatories of Naples, and later at the Paris Conservatory, which emulated the Neapolitan conservatories.[3]
Giorgio Sanguinetti wrote that it was not easy to explain what was a partimento. It was not a basso continuo, for it did not accompany another part. It was not a figured bass, for Neapolitan partimenti were rarely figured. While a bass, it could as well be a soprano or other voice. Though written, its goal was improvisation. And, although it was an exercise in composition, it was also an art form in its own right.
So, what is a partimento? A good definition is a metaphor: a partimento is a thread that contains in itself all, or most, of the information needed for a complete composition... The partimento ... is a linear entity that runs from the beginning to the end of a (potential) composition.[4]
History
Francesco Durante, hailed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau as,"the most celebrated harmonist of Italy, that is to say of the entire world."Leonardo Leo
Beginnings
Partimenti evolved in the late 17th century in educational milieus in Bologna, Rome, and Naples, originally out of the tradition of organ and harpsichord improvisation.[6] The earliest dated collection of partimenti with a known author is attributed to Bernardo Pasquini in the first decade of the 18th century.[7]
The Langloz manuscript, a collection of preludes and fugues that possibly represent the pedagogical and compositional method of Johann Sebastian Bach,[9] is regarded as a collection of German partimenti.[10]Princess Anne's music lessons with Georg Frideric Handel included the use of partimenti exercises.[11] Other collections of German partimenti include Johann Mattheson's forty-eight Probestücke from his Exemplarische Organisten-Probe and Gottfried Kirchhoff's collection of preludes and fugues.[12]
Influence on Paris Conservatory
The Paris Conservatory was greatly influenced by the music conservatories of Naples. Much of the Neapolitan syllabus was renamed "Harmony" at the Paris Conservatory, which included improvising "practical harmony" with partimenti played at a piano, and "harmony" as a written subject where additional voices were added to a given voice such as a bass or soprano. The resulting multi-voice counterpoint in Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass clefs were called a realization (réalisation). A student would begin by playing basic material as a 10- or 11 year-old but would eventually mature to write complicated four-voice counterpoint full of distant modulations and chromatic embellishments.[13]François Bazin was a teacher of harmony at the Paris conservatory and many of his lessons were still titled "partimenti".[14]
Revival in the 21st century
The rediscovery of the partimento tradition in modern research since around 2000 has enabled new ways of looking at the musical education and composing practice in the 18th and 19th centuries, nurturing musical creativity beyond mere partimento realizations. Influential monographs concerning partimento include Robert O. Gjerdingen's Music in the Galant Style (2007) and Giorgio Sanguinetti's The Art of Partimento (2012). Partimenti gained increased recognition due to being part of Alma Deutscher's early musical training, with her studies with Tobias Cramm and Robert Gjerdingen.[lower-alpha 1][15]
Partimento rules
Several Neapolitan teachers such as Fedele Fenaroli, Giovanni Furno and Giaocomo Insanguine published collections of regole (rules) and partimenti that were popular pedagogical materials across Europe. In particular, Fenaroli's Regole enjoyed a long publishing life, from the first edition 1775 to the final edition in 1930.[16]
To begin with, one will play all unfigured basses with simple consonant chords: from that performance the Master will clearly understand if his pupil has correctly understood the principles thereof. Secondly, one shall introduce all feasible dissonances for that given bass. Lastly, one shall shape the properly said imitation.
—Emanuele Guarnaccia, Metodo nuovamente riformato de'partimenti, 3, 1825 ca, [17]
Partimenti were typically used as exercises to train conventional models of voice leading, harmony, and musical form, such as the so-called rule of the octave (the harmonized scale), cadences and sequences (the movimenti, or moti del basso). The beginners’ partimenti treatises usually present rules, which are then followed by exercises of increasing difficulty, presenting figured bass as well as unfigured bass lines, and culminating in the advanced exercises of imitative partimenti and partimento fugues.
Consonances and dissonances
Music is composed of consonances and dissonances.[18]
Consonances
The four consonances were the 3rd, 5th, 6th and 8th. The 5th and 8th were perfect consonances because, at the time, it was believed that one couldn't make distinctions between them by expanding them with a sharp or diminishing them by altering a natural or an accidental. Of course, in reality you can: there are augmented and diminished fifths and octaves. The 3rd and 6th were considered imperfect consonances because one can make distinctions between them.[19]
There's a prohibition against an octave or a fifth moving in parallel because, due to an octave or fifth's perfection, moving one creates no variation in harmony, and these [perfect intervals] are the fundamental basses that rule the key.[20]
Dissonances
The four dissonances are the 2nd, 4th, 7th and 9th. They were invented to make the consonances sound more beautiful. These cannot be used unless prepared by a preceding consonance and subsequently resolved to one of the aforementioned consonances.[21]
Essential foundations of the key
The essential foundations of the key[20] or rule of the scale steps[22] tell the student how to distribute chords over scale degrees, separate from the rule of the octave.[23]
One can give an 8ve to all the degrees of the key, as well as to their consonances, provided that one does not create parallel 8ves, seeing that two 5ths or 8ves, whether above or below, by step or by skip, the one after the other, are prohibited because they make bad harmony.
③ takes a 3rd and 6th. Both of them should be minor if the said ③ is major. If, on the other hand, the said ③ is minor, then it takes the major 3rd and major 6th, and this comes about naturally.
④ takes a 3rd and 5th. Whenever the ④ ascends to the ⑤, it [④] can take the 6th in addition to the 3rd and 5th. And if ④ descends from ⑤, then stay with the same consonances as for the said ⑤, which become in turn a 2nd, major [=augmented] 4th, and 6th.
⑤ takes a major 3rd and 5th. Give a minor seventh to a ⑤ that returns to the ①. This seventh cannot rise, but must resolve by falling to the third of the ①.
⑥ takes a 3rd, and 6th. When ⑥ is major and descends to ⑤, then it is better to use a major 6th in the accompaniment, because it makes better harmony. And one can add to ⑥, as if it were ②, by giving it a 3rd, a 4th, and a major 6th. But if the ⑥ neither ascends to ⑦ or descends to ①, then give it a 3rd and 5th.
⑦ takes a 3rd and 6th. Both of them should be minor if the said ⑦ is major. If, on the other hand, the ⑦ is minor, then the 3rd and the 6th in the accompaniment should both be major, and this comes about naturally. Give a diminished fifth to a ⑦ rising to the ①, in addition to the 3rd and 6th. This diminished fifth cannot rise, but must also resolve by falling to the third of the ①.
Cadences
A cadence is when the bass goes from ① to ⑤, and [then] from ⑤ to ①.[25] There are three types of cadences: Simple, Compound and Double.[26]
Simple cadence
A simple cadence is when one gives the bass the simple consonances required by both ① and ⑤. That is, the ① takes the 3rd and 5th, and the ⑤ takes the major 3rd and 5th.
Compound cadence
A compound cadence is when, above ⑤, one makes a dissonance of a 4th prepared by the 8ve of ① and resolved to the major 3rd of ⑤.
Double cadence
A double cadence is when, above ⑤, one puts the major 3rd and 5th, the 6th and 4th, the 5th and 4th, and then the major 3rd and 5th.
Rule of the octave
Fedele Fenaroli's version of the rule of the octave became the most prominent.
After learning cadences, students at the Neapolitan conservatories were immediately taught the rule of the octave, or scale as they were termed in Naples.[27]
Major mode
Rule of the octave ascending in G major, in 1st position.
Rule of the octave descending in G major, in 1st position.
Minor mode
Rule of the octave ascending in G minor, in 1st position.
Rule of the octave descending in G minor, in 1st position.
Suspensions
According to partimento theory, it is only suspensions that are deemed to be dissonances.[28]
Bass motions
In addition to the rule of the octave, bass motions are fundamental to partimento theory. The ability to identify bass motions in a partimento allows the performer to choose appropriate chords. Bass motions move in a conjunct (stepwise, including chromatic) motion or disjunct motion (sequences).[29]
Rises by a 3rd and falls by a step
Falls by a 3rd and rises by a step
Rises by a 4th and falls by a 3rd
Falls by a 4th and rises by a step
Rises by a 4th and falls by a 5th
Falls by a 5th and rises by a 4th
Rises by a 5th and falls by a 4th
Rises by a 6th and falls by a 5th
Falls by semitone
Rises by semitone
Falls with ties
Diminution
The art of turning a basic, slow melody into a more florid, rapid one is called diminution.[30]
Imitation
[Imitations] occur when the right hand imitates, that is answers to, the motive of the bass, that the left hand has played; or rather, when the right hand anticipates the motive that the left hand will play shortly after.
—Pellegrino Tomeoni, Regole pratiche per accompagnare il basso continuo,39, [31]
Imitation works to improve a basic accompaniment-like realization into a more proper composition.[32] It is also an important preparatory training for partimento fugues.[33]
Partimento fugues
The culmination of partimento training is the realization of partimento fugues.[34]
Partimento and counterpoint
For those who want to learn counterpoint, it is necessary first to thoroughly study the first and second books of partimenti, and then the moti del basso of the third book.
—Fedele Fenaroli, Studio de Contrapunto del Sig I-Nc 22-2-6/2, fol. 1, [35]
Partimenti were also used as bass lines in written counterpoint exercises, over which students wrote two-, three, and four-part “disposizione” (multistave settings).
↑ Her father, Israeli linguist Guy Deutscher, said, “The greatest moment was when we realized that she was playing her own melodies.” He decided to take Alma’s musical soul seriously, and began searching for methods of teaching classical music composition to children—and for a teacher.He discovered a book, Music in the Galant Style, by Robert Gjerdingen, professor of music at North-western University’s School of Music. Gjerdingen reveals the results of his exhaustive search through the libraries of Naples and other Italian cities to and the original sources, the pedagogical workbooks, known as partimenti (or singular, partimento, using the word to mean the method itself) of 18th-century music masters.
Gjerdingen, Robert O. (2007a), "Partimento, Que Me Veux-Tu?", Journal of Music Theory, Duke University Press, 52 (1): 85–135, doi:10.1215/00222909-2008-024, JSTOR40283109
Gjerdingen (2007b), Music in the Galant Style, Oxford University Press, ISBN978-0195313710
Sanguinetti, Giorgio (2007), "The Realization of Partimenti: An Introduction", Journal of Music Theory, Duke University Press, 51 (1): 51–83, doi:10.1215/00222909-2008-023
Sanguinetti, Giorgio (2012), The Art of Partimento, Oxford University Press., ISBN9780195394207
Tomeoni, Pellegrino (1795), Regole Pratiche Per Accompagnare Il Basso Continuo Esposte in Dialoghi Per Facilitare Il Possesso Alla Principiante Gioventù (in Italian), Florence
van Tour, Peter (2015), Counterpoint and Partimento: Methods of Teaching Composition in Late Eighteenth-Century Naples, Upsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, ISBN978-91-554-9197-0
Lodewyckx, David; Bergé, Pieter (2014), "Partimento, Waer bestu bleven? Partimento in the European Classroom: Pedagogical Considerations and Perspectives", Music Theory & Analysis, Leuven University Press, 1 (1 & 2): 146–169, doi:10.11116/MTA.1.9
Mortensen, John (2020) The pianist's guide to historic improvisation. Oxford University Press.
Paraschivescu, Nicoleta (2017), Die Partimenti Giovanni Paisiellos Wege zu einem praxisbezogenen Verständnis (in German), Basel: Schwabe Verlag, ISBN978-3796537240
Serebrennikov, Maxim (2009), "From Partimento Fugue to Thoroughbass Fugue: New Perspectives", Bach, Riemenschneider Bach Institute, 40 (2): 22–44, JSTOR41640589
van Tour, Peter (2017a), The 189 Partimenti of Nicola Sala: Complete Edition with Critical Commentary, Uppsala, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, ISBN978-91-554-9778-1
van Tour, Peter (2017b), Partimento Teaching according to Durante, Investigated through the Earliest Manuscript Sources, Studies in Historical Improvisation: From Cantare Super Librum to Partimento, London: Routledge, pp.131–148, ISBN978-1-472-47327-1
van Tour (2018), "Improvised and Written Canons in Eighteenth-Century Neapolitan Conservatories", Journal of the Alamire Foundation, Turnhout: Brepols Publishers (10): 133–146, ISSN2032-5371
van Tour (2019), "Taking a walk at the Molo': Partimento and the Improvised Fugue", Speculum Musicae, Musical Improvisation in the Baroque Era, Turnhout: Brepols (33): 371–382, ISBN978-2-503-58369-3
van Tour, Peter (2020), "Integrating Aural and Keyboard Skills in Today's Classroom: Modern Perspectives on Eighteenth-Century Partimento Practices", Keyboard Skills in Musical Education: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Freiburg: Freiburg Hochschule
Montagnier, Jean-Paul C. (2021), "Nicolas Bernier's Principe de composition and the Italian Partimento tradition", Early Music, Oxford University Press, XLIX (1): 87–99, doi:10.1093/em/caab004
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradition, strongly developing during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period, especially in the Baroque period. The term originates from the Latin punctus contra punctum meaning "point against point", i.e. "note against note".
In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds together in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harmonic objects such as chords, textures and tonalities are identified, defined, and categorized in the development of these theories. Harmony is broadly understood to involve both a "vertical" dimension (frequency-space) and a "horizontal" dimension (time-space), and often overlaps with related musical concepts such as melody, timbre, and form.
A fourth is a musical interval encompassing four staff positions in the music notation of Western culture, and a perfect fourth is the fourth spanning five semitones. For example, the ascending interval from C to the next F is a perfect fourth, because the note F is the fifth semitone above C, and there are four staff positions between C and F. Diminished and augmented fourths span the same number of staff positions, but consist of a different number of semitones.
In music, a pedal point is a sustained tone, typically in the bass, during which at least one foreign harmony is sounded in the other parts. A pedal point sometimes functions as a "non-chord tone", placing it in the categories alongside suspensions, retardations, and passing tones. However, the pedal point is unique among non-chord tones, "in that it begins on a consonance, sustains through another chord as a dissonance until the harmony", not the non-chord tone, "resolves back to a consonance".
Jehan le Taintenier or Jean Teinturier was a Renaissance music theorist and composer from the Low Countries. Up to his time, he is perhaps the most significant European writer on music since Guido of Arezzo.
Jacopo Napoli was an Italian composer of the 20th century.
Counterpoint is the second volume of Heinrich Schenker's New Musical Theories and Fantasies. It is divided into two "Books", the first published in 1910, and the second in 1922.
Unfigured bass, less commonly known as under-figured bass, is a kind of musical notation used during the Baroque music era in Western Classical music in which a basso continuo performer playing a chordal instrument improvises a chordal accompaniment from a notated bass line which lacks the guidance of figures indicating which harmonies should be played above the bass note. Figured bass parts have numbers or accidentals above the bass line which indicate which intervals above the bass should be played in the chord. However, not all basso continuo parts from the Baroque period were figured.
In music theory, an inversion is a type of change to intervals, chords, voices, and melodies. In each of these cases, "inversion" has a distinct but related meaning. The concept of inversion also plays an important role in musical set theory.
Nicola Sala was an Italian composer and music theorist. He was born in Tocco Caudio and died in Naples. He was chapel-master and professor at Naples, having devoted himself to the collection of the finest models of printed music.
The rule of the octave is a way of harmonizing each note of the diatonic scale, reflecting common practice, and has its origin in the practice of thorough bass, or basso continuo, where it provided an easy way to find which chord could accompany each note of the scale in the bass, particularly in the absence of figuring. The earliest description of the chords harmonizing an octave may be that by Antonio Bruschi in 1711. The name was first given by François Campion in 1716. The rule of the octave also formed the cornerstone of the "regole" (rules) of partimento collections. There is normally a different harmonization for ascending and descending bass lines, and, although called a rule, there are several variants with different chords. Different versions for the major and minor scales are recorded. One example for the major scale by John Hiles:
Achille Longo was an Italian composer and music teacher.
Parallel and counter parallel chords are terms derived from the German to denote what is more often called in English the "relative", and possibly the "counter relative" chords. In Hugo Riemann's theory, and in German theory more generally, these chords share the function of the chord to which they link: subdominant parallel, dominant parallel, and tonic parallel. Riemann defines the relation in terms of the movement of one single note:
The substitution of the major sixth for the perfect fifth above in the major triad and below in the minor triad results in the parallel of a given triad. In C major thence arises an apparent A minor triad, D minor triad (Sp), and E minor triad (Dp).
Robert O. Gjerdingen is a scholar of music theory and music perception, and is an emeritus professor at Northwestern University. His most influential work focuses on the application of ideas from cognitive science, especially theories about schemas, as an analytical tool in an attempted "archaeology" of style and composition methods in galant European music of the eighteenth century. Gjerdingen received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984 after studying with Leonard B. Meyer and Eugene Narmour. His 2007 book Music in the Galant Style, an authoritative study on galant schemata, received the Wallace Berry award from the Society for Music Theory in 2009 and has become influential in the field of music theory. Gjerdingen was also editor of the journal Music Perception from 1998 to 2002.
Giorgio Sanguinetti is an Italian musicologist, music historian and music theorist. He is best known as the author of The Art of Partimento: History, Theory, and Practice, the first monograph dedicated to the history, theory, and practice of partimento instruction as practiced in the music conservatories of Naples from the end of the 17th century to the middle of the 19th century. Sanguinetti is full professor of theory and analysis of music at the University of Rome Tor Vergata.
Peter van Tour is a Dutch musicologist, music historian and music theorist, specializing in Aural Training, Counterpoint and Historical Improvisation. After moving to Sweden in 1990, he co-founded the Gotland School of Music Composition together with Prof. Sven-David Sandström and Ramon Anthin. At this institution, Peter taught counterpoint, aural skills, music analysis, and history of composition. He is best known as an expert in the field of Partimento and is the author of "Counterpoint and Partimento: Methods of Teaching Composition in Late Eighteenth-Century Naples", his doctoral dissertation. Van Tour is an associate professor of Music Theory and Musical Analysis at Örebro University in Sweden.
Ewald Demeyere is a Belgian harpsichordist, conductor and music theorist. He is known as an expert in partimento realization and counterpoint.
Vasili Byros is a Greek-American music theorist, musicologist and pianist. He is best known for his contributions to the field of music schemata theory and partimento.
Nicholas Baragwanath is a British music theorist, musicologist and pianist. He is currently Professor of Music at the University of Nottingham. He is best known for his contributions to the compositional theory and practice of 19th-century Italian Opera. He regularly writes and presents for BBC Radio 3.
Galant Schemata, as described by Robert Gjerdingen in Music in the Galant Style, are "stock musical phrases" in Galant music. The concept of a musical schema is based on schema theory in psychology. Each schema has discernible internal characteristics—such as voice leading, number of events, and relative metric strength and weakness of such events—as well as normative placements in the musical structure as a whole. According to Gjerdingen, the usage of these schemata in a conventional, seamless sequence is "a hallmark of the galant style" and a consequence of the partimento pedagogical tradition of Neapolitan conservatories.
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