Table Of ContentStudies in Historical Improvisation
In recent years, scholars and musicians have become increasingly interested in the re-
vival of musical improvisation as it was known in the Renaissance and Baroque periods.
This historically informed practice is now supplanting the late Romantic view of impro-
vised music as a rhapsodic endeavour—a musical blossoming out of the capricious genius
of the player—that dominated throughout the twentieth century. In the Renaissance and
Baroque eras, composing in the mind (alla mente) had an important didactic function.
For several categories of musicians, the teaching of counterpoint happened almost en-
tirely through practice on their own instruments. This book offers the first systematic
exploration of the close relationship among improvisation, music theory, and practical
musicianship from late Renaissance into the Baroque era. It is not a historical survey per
se, but rather aims to re-establish the importance of such a combination as a pedagogical
tool for a better understanding of the musical idioms of these periods. The authors are
concerned with the transferral of historical practices to the modern classroom, discussing
new ways of revitalising the study and appreciation of early music. The relevance and
utility of such an improvisation-based approach also changes our understanding of the
balance between theoretical and practical sources in the primary literature, as well as the
concept of music theory itself. Alongside a word-centred theoretical tradition, in which
rules are described in verbiage and enriched by musical examples, we are rediscovering
the importance of a music-centred tradition, especially in Spain and Italy, where the mu-
sic stands alone and the learner must distil the rules by learning and playing the music.
Throughout its various sections, the book explores the path of improvisation from theory
to practice and back again.
Massimiliano Guido is a Senior Researcher at the Department of Musicology and
Cultural Heritage of Pavia University, Italy, where he teaches courses in history of music
theory and history of musical instruments. Previously he served as a Banting Post-
Doctoral Fellow at the Schulich School of Music, McGill University, Canada, working
with Peter Schubert on a project about the art of memory at the keyboard as a tool for
teaching counterpoint (2012–14). He was the principal investigator of the research pro-
ject Improvisation in Classical Music Education: Rethinking our Future by Learning
our Past, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
(2013–14). He holds degrees in musicology (Pavia Univ. Doctorate and Laurea, Göteborg
Univ. Master of Music Research), organ (Parma Conservatory, Italy), and harpsichord
(Como Conservatory, Italy). He combines musicological research with organ teaching
and performance.
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Studies in Historical
Improvisation
From Cantare super Librum to Partimenti
Edited by Massimiliano Guido
First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2017 selection and editorial matter, Massimiliano Guido; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Massimiliano Guido to be identified as author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Guido, Massimiliano.
Title: Studies in historical improvisation: from Cantare super librum to
partimenti / edited by Massimiliano Guido.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2017. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016029978 | ISBN 9781472473271 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781315611136 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Improvisation (Music)—History.
Classification: LCC ML457 .S85 2017 | DDC 781.3/609—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016029978
ISBN: 978-1-4724-7327-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-61113-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by codeMantra
Contents
List of figures vii
List of tables viii
List of music examples ix
Foreword xii
Preface xiii
Notes on contributors xiv
Introduction: Studies in historical improvisation a
new path for performance, theory, and pedagogy of music 1
MASSIMILIANO GUIDO
Part I
‘Con la mente e con le mani’: Music and the art of memory 7
1 The improvisatory moment 9
THOMAS CHRISTeNSeN
2 Musical inventio, rhetorical loci, and the art of memory 25
STeFANO LOReNzeTTI
3 Climbing the stairs of the Memory Palace: Gestures at the
keyboard for a flexible mind 41
MASSIMILIANO GUIDO
Part II
Improvising vocal music 53
4 Toward a stylistic history of Cantare super Librum 55
PHILIPPe CANGUILHeM
vi Contents
5 Contrapunto and fabordón: Practices of extempore
polyphony in Renaissance Spain 72
GIUSePPe FIOReNTINO
6 Discovering the practice of improvised counterpoint 90
JeAN-YveS HAYMOz
Part III
Improvising keyboard music 113
7 Composing at the keyboard: Banchieri and Spiridion,
two complementary methods 115
eDOARDO BeLLOTTI
8 Partimento teaching according to Francesco Durante,
investigated through the earliest manuscript sources 131
PeTeR vAN TOUR
9 Partimento and incomplete notations in eighteenth-century
keyboard music 149
GIORGIO SANGUINeTTI
Part IV
Nova et vetera: Pedagogy 173
10 Teaching theory through improvisation 175
PeTeR SCHUBeRT
11 Learning tonal counterpoint through keyboard
improvisation in the twenty-first century 185
MICHAeL CALLAHAN
Bibliography 205
Index 217
Figures
I.1 Geese Book, MS M.905, fol. 186 (Nuremberg, Germany,
1507–1510) 5
2.1 Johann Heinrich Alsted, Systema mnemonicum duplex
[Frankfurt: Officina Paltheiana, 1610], 438 26
2.2 Giovanni Battista Chiodino, Arte pratica latina e volgare di
far contrapunto à mente, & à penna [in venetia: Appresso
Ricciardo Amadino, 1610], 38 30
2.3 Giovanni Battista Chiodino, Arte pratica latina e volgare di
far contrapunto à mente, & à penna [in venetia: Appresso
Ricciardo Amadino, 1610], 45 31
2.4 Giovanni Battista Chiodino, Arte pratica latina e volgare di
far contrapunto à mente, & à penna [in venetia: Appresso
Ricciardo Amadino, 1610], 52–53 32
2.5 Pietro Cerone, El Melopeo y maestro, tractado de musica
theorica y pratica, 577: the mnemonic-generative machine. 33
2.6 Pietro Cerone, El Melopeo y maestro, 577: the relationship
between the note and the CF 33
2.7 Pietro Cerone, El Melopeo y maestro, tractado de musica
theorica y pratica [en Napoles: por Ivan Bautista Gargano,
y Lucrecio Nucci impressores, 1613], 585 34
2.8 Triple link 34
2.9 Memoria locale, A. Banchieri, Cartella musicale, in Venetia 1614 35
3.1 Girolamo Diruta’s alio modo: a visualization of counterpoint
movements 47
4.1 Contrapunctus seu figurata musica (Lyons, 1528), ff. 3v–4 63
6.1 Tinctoris’s Counterpoint in the Cancionero de Segovia 108
7.1 Adriano Banchieri, Kyrie from Messa della Madonna
(L’Organo suonarino) 118
8.1 The first partimento of the series of descending bass motions
in the venetian copy of the Studj per cembalo (I-vc B.14 n.8
Fondo Giustiniani, fol. 11r) 136
tables
4.1 examples of improvised counterpoint in more than two voices
from Renaissance treatises 62
8.1 A schematic representation of Durante’s approach to partimento
teaching 134
8.2 The fourteen partimenti originally belonging to the Studj per
cembalo in eighteenth-century sources (I-Gl A.7b.48 and
F-Pn Ac.p. 4105/1), but appearing as “numerati” in the
nineteenth-century manuscript I-Nc 32-2-4 (olim M.S. 1909) 139
8.3 Six additional partimenti diversi originally belonging to
the Studj per cembalo in eighteenth-century sources
(I-Gl A.7b.48 and F-Pn Ac.p. 4105/1) 140
Music examples
2.1 Giovanni Battista Chiodino, Arte pratica latina e volgare di
far contrapunto à mente, & à penna [in venetia: Appresso
Ricciardo Amadino, 1610], 49 32
3.1a A counterpoint played as written by Diruta (Line 1 of Figure 3.1) 49
3.1b Learning how to recombine and adapt patterns from two lines 49
3.1c Assembling a new line out of five 49
3.2 Toccata di Paolo Quagliati dell’Ottavo Tuono, Il Transilvano,
28. Ascending and descending hexachord with diminution 50
3.3 Two accadenze from Fattorini, n. 176 and 179 51
4.1 vicente Lusitano, a four-voice contrapunto concertado,
Paris, BnF, Ms. esp. 219, f. 42 65
4.2 Francesco Corteccia, Alleluia Tu Puer Propheta, Florence,
Archivio del Duomo, ms. II-46, ff. 54v–55 67
4.3 Ghiselin Danckerts, Alleluia Assumpta est Maria, Rome,
Accademia di Santa Cecilia, G. mss. 968, ff. 44v–45 69
5.1 Lusitano, Soprano in concerto col basso & alto, Introdutione,
fol. 15v, mm. 1–6 80
5.2 Aranda, Segunda manera de contrapunto, Tractado de canto,
fol. C5v, mm. 1–8 81
5.3 Reconstruction of the cantar fabordón according to
Juan de Lucena 82
5.4 Anonymous, “Dixit Dominus, vI Tonus” (E-Mp 1335, fol. 274v) 83
5.5 Anonymous fabordón formula (E-Bbc M454, fol.[180bis]) 85
6.1 One or two notes against the tenor 94
6.2 Imitations in the contratenor 95
6.3 The frottola Tenta lora 97
6.4 Fauxbourdon on Sicut locutus est 98
6.5 Four parts on Sicut erat 98
6.6 Concealed jumps of a seventh 99
6.7 Canon at the octave and at the fifth 101
6.8 Canon at the fifth and at the octave 101
