Harpsichord News

Larry Palmer is harpsichord editor of THE DIAPASON.

Bach from Finland and Medici Music from Italy

Elina Mustonen’s recording of Bach’s Six Partitas for Harpsichord

An artist of distinction new to me is the superb Finnish harpsichordist Elina Mustonen. Her 2009 recording of the Six Partitas, BWV 825–830 by Johann Sebastian Bach (Polyhymnia Records PH 0908), provides musically stimulating readings of these major dance suites played with understanding and integrity on a fine harpsichord after Couchet by Dutch builder Willem Kroesbergen (Utrecht, 1993).

Ms. Mustonen, who has been playing the harpsichord since the age of eight, graduated from the Helsinki Sibelius Academy in 1983, moved on to pursue graduate study with Ton Koopman at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, and returned to Finland to join the faculty of the Sibelius Academy. She achieved her doctorate from that institution in 1988 with a thesis on J. S. Bach’s harpsichord pedagogy.

Her earlier recordings of fifteen Scarlatti sonatas, chamber works, and complete sets of Bach’s French and English Suites for Harpsichord built Mustonen’s reputation as an artist of merit.

Of particular interest is the order in which she offers the partitas on this two compact disc set: beginning with the C-Minor Partita (number 2), she continues with the third Partita in A Minor, and concludes with the fourth, in D Major (total time 76:22). Disc two opens with Partita Five in G, continues with the first Partita in B-flat, and ends with the sixth Partita in E Minor (total time 75:57)—giving an especially coherent tonal trajectory to each disc, and a satisfying, almost concerto-like feel to both, achieved  because of the somewhat gentler dance suites as the mid-point of each disc.  

All movements are recorded with the indicated repeats. Ornaments sound ornamental and tempi are well maintained with just the right amount of flexibility at important musical and cadential points. The ambiance of Orimattila Church provides clear but spacious sound. Ms. Mustonen has also provided the informative notes published in Finnish and English (translated by Jaakko Mäntyjärvi). These discs are highly recommended, both for archival use and for genuine listening pleasure.

The Medici Harpsichord Book, edited by Aapo Häkkinen (Bologna: Ut Orpheus Edizioni ES 66, 2011), €14.95.

Fifteen anonymous Italian keyboard pieces from the late 17th century are to be found in this slim, intriguing publication. Mistakenly attributed to the great Frescobaldi by a librarian’s penciled notation on the flyleaf of the handsomely bound volume, it is now assumed to be from a time at least forty years after Girolamo’s death. The most interesting of the possible authors would be the Tuscan Grand Duke Ferdinando III de’ Medici (1663–1713), a patron of music honored in his lifetime with the laudatory descriptor “the Orpheus of Princes [Orfeo dei  Principi].” If indeed these few works come from the Duke’s pen they would comprise the only surviving music thus far ascribed to him. 

The pieces form four multi-movement sets, each containing one or more binary Aria alla Francese, all of which are in duple meter, with both A and B sections ending in a petite reprise. Each aria ends with open harmony, lacking a third—major or minor—in its final chord.

The first group of pieces, in A Major, contains a Preludio Cantabile con Ligature, Passagagli  Pastorali  (at 109 measures, the longest work in the volume), and two Arias. Set Two, in A Minor, begins with a Preludio di Botte, Acciachature, e Ligature—containing especially thick chords with  handfuls  of notes— and two Arias, separated by a 30-measure Tochata that opens with four measures of whole notes outlining ascending tonic chords, suggesting arpeggiation similar to that at the beginning of a Frescobaldi work in the same genre.

A third set of pieces, in G Minor, opens with brief Preludio and Aria, a 16-measure Tochata, continues with an extended 89-measure Passagagli, and concludes with an Alemanda that not only cadences with a third-bearing chord, but has it prominently placed in the top voice. Two more pieces, in D Minor, make a pair rather than a suite, comprising only a Preludio Cantabile con Ligature and the ubiquitous Aria alla Francese.

In an interesting concordance of review items, editor Aapo Häkkinen (born 1976) studied harpsichord with Professor Elina Mustonen at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. A notice in the printed score mentions that he has recorded The Medici Harpsichord Book on compact disc for Deux-Elles (DXL 1083)—an aural boon that might offer helpful assistance in figuring out how to interpret the ornament sign (+), or what to do about several measures in the binary dances that do not contain enough beats, and perhaps, give an aural suggestion of how to manage wide-ranging leaps that occur in some of the bass lines—intervals for which a damper pedal could be a definite advantage (although several of them would fare quite well on a short-octave harpsichord in which the lowest three notes C, D, and E would be played from keys that appear to be E, F-sharp, and G-sharp). In a Preface of less than a full page there is no editorial guidance given to help the non-specialist or curious player, nor are there any suggestions offered for added accidentals in places where they might, indeed, be musically valid or even superior to the printed score. For an exploration of these fascinating pieces, the interpreter is on his/her own.

That said, after playing through the newfound pieces several times, I find them of sustained interest, and recommend this beautifully printed Urtext edition to the musically adventurous harpsichordists among us.

Comments and news items are always welcome. Address them to Dr. Larry Palmer, Division of Music, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275. E-mails to .

But the basis for all improvisation must be preparation. If I haven’t prepared, I can’t improvise. If I’ve made careful preparations I can always improvise. 

—Ingmar Bergman, 1968

The question of fugal improvisation in the Baroque era has been raised in the pages of musicology literature more than once.² It still remains topical today; yet in the practice of Baroque improvisation, the improvisation of fugue has rarely become an object of independent study. Besides William Renwick’s book, The Langloz Manuscript: Fugal Improvisation through Figured Bass (2001), it is difficult to name any widely known work that is specifically dedicated to the art of fugal improvisation in the Baroque era.³ Much valuable and interesting information about this performance practice of baroque musicians is scattered throughout various books and articles, whose subject matter is not even directly related to improvisation.

The present article therefore aims: 

1) to summarize the existing research on partimento practice;

2) to describe all the stages of fugal improvisation, beginning with the mastery of separate elements and finishing with an organization of the whole, as recorded in German sources of the first half of the 18th century.

Introduction 

Today the ability of an academically trained musician to create “on-the-fly” is thought of as exceptional—for the gifted only. Yet it is well known that in the Baroque era every professional musician was expected to possess this “gift.” Within the rich diversity of improvisational genres and forms that made up the standard set for which a Baroque improviser was to be prepared, fugue held the greatest place of honor.

At that time it was not just the great musicians who were skilled at improvisation; every church organist had to be able to improvise a fugue on a given theme. . . . The ability to improvise fugue was considered a requirement for every serious musician to such a degree then that the lack of that skill could serve as reason for ridicule. . . . And, although the testing of organists did not always include fugue improvisation, both Mattheson and Adlung think that no one should be taken as an organist who has not proved his right to such a post through the improvisation of fugue.⁴

In the 18th century if you couldn’t improvise you couldn’t call yourself a keyboard player. Worse than that, you couldn’t get a job, since all organist auditions required extemporaneous performance of a fugue on a given subject.⁵

Truly, the ability to improvise fugue was a necessary skill for organists, because a fugal statement of musical material was stipulated by the very program of the liturgical service. Beginning in the second half of the 17th century, the role of the organist, on whose shoulders rested the burden of the musical life of the church, grew remarkably.⁶ The organ, which had at one time humbly accompanied church ritual, became a most important attribute of the church service—almost its main participant. This was especially true in the northern regions of Germany, where the organ gained such acoustic strength and richness of register that it became like “a second minister,” and the musical compositions that it “delivered” were self-contained “texts” addressed to the congregants. Mattheson emphasized that fugal presentation of the chorale subject on the organ helped “to arouse reverence within the listeners.”⁷

For musicians in the secular sphere, fugal improvisation as a skill was not as necessary as it was for church organists, but the ability, nevertheless, was always appreciated. In the circle of experts and enlightened amateurs, fugal improvisation on a subject proposed by someone among those present could become one of the most intriguing and entertaining elements of a musical program. Success in such improvisation provided the performer with the established reputation of master of the highest order (a reputation that could help in a further promotion).

Although fugal improvisation was a widespread practice among Baroque musicians, we are forced to gather information on its technique literally in bits and pieces. As early as 1702, Andreas Werckmeister, in his treatise Harmonologia musica, points out the reason: “many musicians are secretive and reticent with their knowledge.”⁸ Possibly, musicians divulged their knowledge about improvisation very unwillingly because they considered it a unique commodity, providing a constant supply of students. Perhaps they did not wish to destroy the myth of the divine origin of the gift of improvisation. In any case, even in treatises that are dedicated specifically to improvisation and fantasieren, there are no concrete instructions that would allow us today to understand how fugue was improvised.⁹

Nonetheless, some secrets of Baroque fugal improvisation have already been revealed by scholars. David Ledbetter writes about one of them:

By the early eighteenth century, instruction in fugue in Bach’s tradition grew out of the figured bass, rather than contrapuntal treatises, and so was approached as an improvised genre. The technique of this was practised by using fugato movements expressed as figured basses, called in Italian partimento fugues.¹⁰

To the uninitiated musician such a statement may seem paradoxical, since according to our notion fugue and figured bass represent distinct types of musical thinking and observe a different tradition of notation. However, the discovery during the last decade of a large number of examples of so-called partimento fugue or thoroughbass fugue shows that improvisation of fugue during the Baroque epoch—just like the improvisation of homophonic forms—actually had its foundation in the practice of figured bass.¹¹ The detailed study and comparison of these examples, strengthened by the testimony of contemporary treatises, allow us to take another step forward on the path to understanding the Baroque technique of fugue ex tempore.

That the overwhelming majority of improvised fugues during the Baroque epoch were thoroughbass fugues can be explained from the point of view of psychology. The texture of a “contrapuntal fugue” (i.e., polyphonic texture) is formed by combining individualized melodic lines, each vying for our attention. In contrast, the texture of thoroughbass fugue is predominantly two-dimensional—that is, it can be clearly divided into the leading voice and a complex of accompanying voices. Consequently, improvisation of a multi-part “contrapuntal fugue” necessitates the division of attention into three or more channels, whereas performance of a multi-part thoroughbass fugue demands division into just two. Experience shows that the attention of even a well-prepared musician is capable of maintaining control over only two (a maximum of three) simultaneously proceeding streams of information.¹² As such, for objective (psycho-physiological) reasons, improvisation of thoroughbass fugue is attainable for a broad mass of musicians, whereas improvisation of a multi-part “contrapuntal fugue” is negotiable to a rare few.¹³ 

Having touched on the issue of the limits of human attention, which is so relevant to musical improvisation, it would be remiss to ignore the opportunity to quote Sergey Prokofiev, in an interview published by the New York Times in 1930:

Three melodies remain about the limit that the average ear can grasp and follow at one time. This can be done when the melodies are clearly sounded and contrasted in pitch and tone color. For a short time the ear may perceive and assimilate the effect of four different parts, but this will not be long continued, if the four parts, or melodies, are of equal importance. Listening to a four or five or even six-part fugue, the ear is conscious, possibly, of the presence of all the voices, but it only perceives and follows precisely the most important of the melodies being sounded. The other parts fill in, enrich the musical background and harmony, but they become as blurred lines of the picture. They are not clearly recorded in the listener’s consciousness as separate melodic strands in the tonal fabric. This being true, it behooves the composer to realize that in the polyphonic as well as in the structural sense he must keep within certain bounds.¹⁴

Such is the point of view of a professional musician who possessed extraordinary musical faculties. As for specialists in the fields of psychology and physiology, they have yet to come to a single opinion concerning the volume and capabilities of human attention.

Analysis

The modern theory of improvisation is based on these principles: 1) “improvisation is based on memory” and “the improviser does not create the material, but builds it from prepared blocks, from long-memorized musical segments”;¹⁵ and 2) the improviser always works from a given model.¹⁶ 

What were the building blocks that Baroque performers utilized in the process of fugue improvisation? In what sequence could they combine them? To answer these questions, let us turn to concrete musical material.¹⁷

The overwhelming majority of German samples of thoroughbass fugue follow strophic form in their composition.¹⁸ In addition, organization of the musical material inside the strophes is very often based on the typical Baroque-era structure of “head and tail,” where the role of the “head” is played by a group of statements (more rarely by a single statement) of the subject and the role of the “tail” by sequence based on standard harmonic formulae of thoroughbass. The conclusion of each strophe is marked by a cadence. Such is the method used by Kirchhoff, for example, in his C-major fugue from L’A.B.C. Musical (c. 1734), which clearly presents three strophes (Example 1):

Strophe 1 includes five statements of the subject (bars 1–9), a 2–6 sequence (bars 9–11), and a 7–6 cadence (bar 12);

Strophe 2 includes two statements of the subject in the upper part in immediate succession (bars 12–15), a statement in the bass (bars 16–17) and the 2–6 sequence already used in strophe I (bars 18–20), and a 7–6 cadence (bars 20–21);

Strophe 3 contains a statement of the subject in the bass (bars 21–22), a 2–6 sequence that shifts to 7–7 (bars 22–25), and the more explicit 5–6/4–5/3 cadence (bars 25–26).

The structural similarity among the strophes is evidence of the improvisatory nature of thoroughbass fugue, the result of work that uses a single model. It was specifically the strophe that served as the universal compositional unit, by which through duplication the improviser assembled his fugue. The number of strophes was varied, according to how long the improvisation should last. The structure of the strophe, though, did not vary. In this way the improviser’s task was to quickly and neatly fill out this preassembled structure with concrete musical material.

Obviously, the improvisation of a fugue had as its starting point the harmonization of the chosen or suggested subject. A harmony, as a rule, was kept for all multi-part statements of the subject, becoming, might we say, a retained “counter-harmony” (Gegenharmonie).¹⁹ Changes to the harmonization were made only in cases where a tonal answer was necessary. Frequently, even the counterpoint to the answer (the first countersubject) was drawn out of this same “counter-harmony.” This is easily affirmed by noting the numeral for the harmonic intervals between the answer and countersubject and then comparing the result to the author’s own figures for analogous multi-part statements (Example 2).²⁰ 

In many samples of thoroughbass fugue, all entries of the subject are concentrated at the beginning of a strophe. Following one after another without dividing episodes, the statements form a compact thematic group that serves as an entire syntactic unit larger than just a single statement. The tendency toward an increase in the hierarchical degree of unit complexity is another specific quality of improvisatory technique. The combination of smaller syntactic units into larger ones helps to expand the general volume of information accessible within short-term memory.²¹

The similarity among the strophes of thoroughbass fugue is also increased by the uniformity of the order of entries. In all strophes, a descending order of entries of the parts predominates as the most convenient and intrinsic with respect to technical considerations and notation of thoroughbass.²²

The next syntactic unit of the strophe, following the group of statements, is the episode. This section of the fugue was the most comfortable for the improviser, since here he could use patterns that he had learned. Judging from extant samples of thoroughbass fugue, episodes most often consisted of sequential repetition of one, more rarely two, harmonic formulae stereotypical to thoroughbass. This observation is supported by the theoretical works of that time. As such, to attain success in the improvisation of fugue, Philipp Christoph Hartung, in Musicus Theoretico-Practicus (1749), recommends learning entire musical progressions, which one should be able to freely and confidently play from memory, and not just read from sheet-music.²³ Many of the fragments he suggests are nothing more than textural elaborations of standard thoroughbass sequences. The thoroughbass nature of Hartung’s sequences appears especially clear if we extract their harmonic scheme and supply it by figures (Example 3).

Playing sequences had to become an automatic skill, something that was simply “in the hands” of the performer. The automation of playing skills allowed the improviser to free his attention considerably so as to be directed instead to solving upcoming tasks. In other words, while the hands played out the episode, the mind could be planning out the next set of operations. Given this, the hands had to be able to play for as long as was necessary for thinking out. For this reason, the inert nature of sequential development was not a detriment to fugue played ex tempore. The existing unspoken rule in musical practice that the number of segments in a sequence (in the case of exact repetition) should not exceed three was not observed too strictly during the fugue improvisation. Theoretically, there could be any number of segments in a sequence, as it was defined less by artistic needs than by technical ones. In practice, episodes, composed of sequences made of four to five segments, were the norm for thoroughbass fugue.

The unity of thematic material was not also a problem for thoroughbass fugue. The episode could smoothly continue the subject, but could also introduce  new musical material. In any case, the primary task of the improviser in moving from one syntactic unit to another was to transition as naturally as possible. It follows then that the greater the active memory capacity of the performer and the more formulae he could recall and have “in his hands,” then the higher the likelihood of attaining agreement of intonation between the suggested subject and episodes selected from among those prepared during the process of his musical training. The ability to competently use these preparations from “homework assignments” was very likely a basic craft known to the improviser.

The degree to which the improviser relied upon such materials prepared in advance can be judged by examining, for example, the B-flat-major fugue from Johann Caspar Simon’s collection Leichte Præludia und Fugen (1746). Of its total 37 bars, 20.5 bars (i.e., more than half) are based on material connected neither with the fugue subject, nor with its countersubject. The especially obvious “home preparations” reveal themselves in the second half of the fugue, which is made up of four autonomous sections resembling, in their function, additions in the tonic key (Example 4). At first, Simon builds a sequence on the harmonic formula 7–7, embellishing the bass line with melodic figuration. He then builds a second sequence on the harmonic formula 2–6 in strict chordal texture. Further, he inserts a toccata-like fragment pulled from the fugue’s preceding prelude, a fragment that is also in its nature a sequence. Finally, he concludes the piece with a decisive cadence in solid chordal presentation (Grave). Comparing the “specific gravity” of thematic and non-thematic material in Simon’s fugue, the conclusion suggests itself. Essentially, if the improviser were not restricted by concrete devices of thematic work, then the entire fugue, excepting statements within the exposition, could be designed from elements prepared in advance.

Judging by some samples of thoroughbass fugue, the “stock” material could penetrate straight into the group of statements, replacing separate statements or pulling them out. For example, in Fugue no. 21 (F major) from the Langlo(t)z Manuscript, the second strophe begins not with the restatement of the subject, but with non-thematic counterpoint, and only the bass part enters with the theme (Example 5).

In the D-minor Fantasy from the Mylau Tabulaturbuch, a straightforward “home preparation” in the form of a typical sequence 6/5–5/3 appears in the first strophe between the fourth and fifth statements (Example 6a). Viewed separately, this fragment appears optional—since the other statements work successfully without it (Example 6b).

The energy expended by a performer for fugue improvisation could be conserved by using the same episode for various strophes. This repetition could be identical, but it could also be modified by means of various textural clichés. For example, the second and third episodes of the anonymous G-major Prelude (which is in fugue form) from the Mylau Tabulaturbuch are based on a single harmonic formula, the 7–7 progression, though the shapes of their texture are distinct. In the first case, the lower voice is diminished; in the second, the pair of upper voices (in regular imitative counterpoint). Incidentally, this prelude demonstrates direct application of Hartung’s aforementioned recommendations: the prelude’s second episode (Example 7a) differs from his sequence shown in Example 3a only by key.

The existence of a single stockpile of thoroughbass harmonic formulae inevitably led to the appearance of universal sequences that traverse the pages of thoroughbass literature from one composition to the next, regardless of authorship. Comparison of the episode sections of numerous thoroughbass fugues makes clear that of the great variety of harmonic formulae offered in contemporary thoroughbass treatises and manuals, a precious few sequential patterns predominate: 7–7, 6/5–5, 6–6, 4/2–6.

The manner of sequential motion also deserves special comment. In many samples of thoroughbass fugue, the episodes are based on diatonic sequences that descend stepwise down the scale. On one hand, descending motion step-by-step possesses a certain inertness, which under the conditions of improvisation (i.e., mental and psychological tension and temporal deficit) just plays into performer’s hands. On the other hand, diatonic motion step-by-step provides the sequence freedom in the selection of the target tonality. In reality, the great tonal mobility is hidden in diatonic sequence; a trajectory of such a sequence could be easily and organically turned at any moment into one of closely related keys. Here is a small experiment: the test of the key possibilities of a 2–6 sequence from the second strophe of the C-major fugue from Kirchhoff’s L’A.B.C. Musical (Example 8).

As these examples demonstrate, it is possible to conclude the sequence in any closely related key without applying much effort. Understandably, the target key will influence the length of the sequence. Here it is very important not to lose a sense of balance and good measure. Although the versions represented in Examples 8e and 8f are technically no different than the remaining ones, these two are much less suited to actual artistic use due to their extended monotony. Should Kirchhoff have needed, in the process of improvisation, to expand the fugue by adding another strophe, he likely would have followed version c) or d) in place of the cadence on the C-major tonic.²⁴

Once the fugue’s continuation took a concrete shape in the mind of the improviser, he could stop the potentially endless development of a sequence via the most convenient cadential formula. The playing of cadences (as well as sequences) in any key of the instrument—literally, with closed eyes—was also a necessary skill for every professional keyboardist of the Baroque era. In the opinion of many 18th-century musicians, cadential formulae are the basis, the foundation of thoroughbass; it is specifically this skill that forms the starting point for practical study of the trade. The number and types of cadential formulae varies with each source. The Precepts and Principals (1738) attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach, for example, count seventeen patterns among the most frequently used (Example 9).

Immediately following the cadence, occasionally commencing upon its final tones, the new strophe begins and all events of the described process are repeated. The similarity of the strophes imparts to the unfolding of the fugue’s form a character of repeated expositions. The formal approach to realization of the strophic scheme inevitably aroused the feeling of monotony, which, naturally, stirred up criticism from contemporaries. Mattheson, who regularly attended testing of organists, wrote:

One should restrict oneself even less to the practice of some organists, who first quite respectably, without the slightest embellishment, perform the theme four times through on the entire keyboard in nothing but consonances and pastoral thirds; then begin again just as circumspectly with the consequent from its beginning; always producing the same tune; interposing nothing imitative or syncopating; but constantly only playing the naked chord, as if it were a thoroughbass.³⁰

Here are the impressions produced on Marpurg by a certain organist who attempted to play fugue ex tempore:

Someone often has the good intention to make it better. But what does he do? He slams out the figured bass, and this is terrible to hear. There are no suspensions which make the harmony pleasant, fluent and coherent. It is a jolting harmony. One hears no stretto, no motivic development of the theme. There is no order, and the number of voices one can only surmise at the end, when as, per forma, it ought to be clear directly after the first exposition of the theme through different voices of the fugue. The theme is will never be wisely advised in the middle voices. You only ever hear it above or below—as one hand accompanies another as in an aria. One never hears the theme as comfortable, nor at the appropriate time, expressively and sensitively for the mind and the ear in a sustained and affecting way. It is but a senseless din and tumult—not to mention the discord within the harmony.³¹

The picture described by Mattheson and Marpurg was characteristic of improvisations by mediocre organists. The more talented and gifted performers avoided precise repetition of strophes and brought to each new strophe a certain degree of newness, to which extant samples of thoroughbass fugue eloquently testify. In addition to the aforementioned tonal reinvention of strophes, one can quite often find such methods of refashioning as introducing a new counterpoint to the subject, “register leap” (i.e., a skipping of two or more register pitches where the subject can enter), and the use of stretto in the final strophe.

Although the opinion does exist that “the part of the fugue related to statements of the subject was created during improvisation,”²⁵ there is reason to suggest that even during these sections the performer could sometimes refer to prepared material. Judging from extant samples of thoroughbass fugue, the study of fugal improvisation included not just the regular practice of sequential progressions and cadences, but the development of a definite set of concrete approaches to working with the most common types of subjects. Describing the demands placed on candidates for the vacancy of organist at the Hamburg cathedral, Mattheson noted: 

I don’t consider it art to concern people [organists] with unknown themes; rather, it is better to take something well-known and flowing in order to work it out even better. That is what matters, and the listener will like it better than some chromatic piddling about.²⁶

If one allows for the possibility that Mattheson was not alone in this opinion, then the chances of being tested on a subject built of familiar melodic patterns, or even on a known subject, were not so small, and thus the entire improvisation could come down to a combination of prepared materials.

Let us recall, for example, the subject that King Frederick the Great suggested to J. S. Bach for an improvised fugue in Potsdam (Example 10). It is not known with certainty whether Frederick himself composed this subject or borrowed it, but judging by its melodic profile, the monarch had chosen to demonstrate to Bach his knowledge in the “learned style” (gelehrter Stil).²⁷ It must be noted that the subject contains four thematic elements, and all of them are conventional within Baroque style: a) movement in the tonic triad, b) a jump of a seventh (saltus duriusculus), c) descending chromatic movement (passus duriusculus), and d) melodic cadence. Any Baroque musician would certainly know these melodic patterns, along with the methods of their elaboration within a fugue. The elements listed here are well represented both in didactic and artistic samples of thoroughbass fugues, and what is especially important is that their musical realization (counterpoint, harmonization) often coincides.

Depending on the conditions of improvisation, “home preparations” could have various degrees of concretization. In those cases where a fugue was improvised on the occasion of a public challenge or competitive auditions, the performer had to hold his prepared materials in his memory. In everyday practice, however, it was acceptable to use the preparations written out on paper. We find examples of such preparations in a Daniel Magnus Gronau manuscript, which is held today in the Library of Polish Academy of the Sciences (Gdansk) as MS. Akc. 4125.²⁸ This manuscript contains 517 (!) sets of preparatory sketches for fugue improvisation in all twenty-four keys. Each set holds three thematic records, written one below the next on individual staves (Example 11). On the upper staff in soprano clef, the subject with figures is written out, and the beginning of the answer with countersubject is outlined in small notes.²⁹ On the second staff in bass clef, the counterpoint to the subject with figures is recorded. On the third staff, also in bass clef, the answer with figures is fixed. In this way, every set encompasses all necessary material for planning any statement of the subject, whether alone or with multiple voices, whether in the tonic or in the dominant.

Thanks to such preparations, the process of fugue improvisation is considerably simplified, since the need to search for a harmonization of the subject, a counterpoint to it, and a suitable answer is taken care of. Essentially, the performer must only care for the episode material, and the fugue, necessary for the church service, is ready.

In summary, the improvisation of fugue during the Baroque epoch was not necessarily the spontaneous nor extemporaneous fruit of inspired fancy. Much more often it was soundly prepared and planned on all levels: from the syntactic to the compositional. Even before the start of improvisation, the performer could clearly imagine the compositional structure that he must fill out using his musical material, the bulk of which could be prepared during “home” practice. One of the most widespread compositional models was strophic form, where the structure of each strophe had identical organization and included three syntactic units: the group of statements, the sequential unfolding, and the cadence. As a result, the entire improvisation could be boiled down to finding the right harmonization for the given subject and thinking up a tonal structure for the strophes; all the rest—textural formulae, cadences, sequences—the performer took from his memory practically in ready form.

Postscript

It stands to reason that the strophic form described in this article was not the only compositional model used for fugal improvisation during the Baroque. The discovery of this model, though, in other improvisatory genres of the Baroque era gives reason to consider it as universal within the improvisation practice of that time.

There is reliable evidence that the strophic form was purposefully worked out in the process of musical training. For example, Precepts and Principles contains a set of fourteen keyboard exercises for mastering the harmonic formulae most common to thoroughbass. Surprisingly, all these exercises are precisely identical in form—all are strophic (Example 12).

The outer strophes are in the tonic, while the central ones are in the closely related keys (in dominant and parallel). It is not difficult to imagine how many distinct figuration preludes could be created on the basis of only one model, varying merely harmonic content and textural formulae.³² If one involves methods of structural transformation (extension or compression of strophe), then the number of variants is multiplied.

Examples of such preludes can be found among the sources discussed in this article. Thus, in analyzing some pieces from the Langlo(t)z Manuscript or Kirchhoff’s L’A.B.C. Musical, one gets the impression that the authors had the structure of Bach’s exercises specifically in mind while they composed, so strong are the similarities. The C-minor Prelude from the Langlo(t)z Manuscript, for example, differs from Bach’s exercises due only to one additional strophe and short melodic links between the strophes (Example 13). The F-major Prelude from Kirchhoff’s L’A.B.C. Musical also contains an additional strophe, but the development within the third and fourth strophes is dynamicized thanks to structural transformations: the sequential development is truncated in the third, and the “head” motive is withdrawn in the fourth (Example 14).

The list of works of an improvisatory character that have strophic form with variations of its solutions can be further extended, but this would be a topic for a separate article. ν

The list of German sources, containing samples of thoroughbass fugue

“39. PRAELUDIA et FUGEN del Signor Johann Sebastian Bach” (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung; shelf mark: Mus. ms. Bach P 296). Published in The Langloz Manuscript: Fugal Improvisation through Figured Bass, With Introductionary Essay and Performance Notes by William Renwick. (New York: 2001), pp. 35–187.

“Des König[lichen] Hoff-Compositeurs und Capellmeisters ingleichen Directoris Musices wie auch Cantoris der Thomas-Schule Herrn Johann Sebastian Bach zu Leipzig Vorschriften und Grundsätze zum vierstimmigen spielen des General-Bass oder Accompagnement. für seine Scholaren in der Music. 1738” (Brussels: Bibliothèque du Conservatoire royal; shelf mark: mr. FRW 27.244). Published in J. S. Bach’s Precepts and Principles for Playing the Thorough-Bass or Accompanying in Four Parts, Leipzig, 1738, translation with facsimile, introduction, and explanatory notes by Pamela L. Poulin. (Oxford, 1994), pp. 41–45.

Händel, Georg Friedrich. Aufzeichnungen zur Kompositionslehre: aus den Handschriften im Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge (Composition Lessons: from the Autograph Collection in the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge), Hrsg. von Alfred Mann. Leipzig: Veb Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1978. S. 53–70 (Hallische Händel-Ausgabe: Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Suppl. Bd. 1). Republished in Continuo Playing According to Handel: His Figured Bass Exercises, With a Commentary by David Ledbetter (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 44–61.

Heinichen, Johann David. Der General-Bass in der Composition. Dresden, 1728, S. 516–520.

Kellner, Johann Christoph. Grundriss des Generalbasses. Op. XVI. Erster Theil. Cassel, [1783], S. 41–45.

Kirchhoff, Gottfried. L’A.B.C. Musical (Amsterdam [c. 1734]), 34 S. Republished as Kirchhoff, Gottfried, L’A.B.C. Musical, Hrsg., kommentiert und Generalbaß realiziert von Anatoly Milka (St. Petersburg: Musikverlag “Compozitor,” 2004), XXVIII, 104 S.

Niedt, Friedrich Erhardt. Musicalische Handleitung. Erster Theil. Handelt vom General-Bass, denselben schlecht weg zu spielen (Hamburg, 1700), Cap. X. Republished as Niedt, Friedrich Erhardt, The Musical Guide, Parts 1 (1700/10), 2 (1721), and 3 (1717), translated by Pamela L. Poulin and Irmgard C. Taylor; introduction and explanatory notes by Pamela L. Poulin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), pp. 48–49.

“Pral: Kirchhoff” (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung, Mus. ms. 11605), published in Kirchhoff, Gottfried, Prelude and fugue for organ from the manuscript Mus. ms. 11605: first edition, edited and with a preface and commentaries by Maxim Serebrennikov (St. Petersburg: Polytechnical University Publishing House, 2009), 16 p.

Simon, Johann Caspar. Leichte Praeludia und Fugen durch die Tone: C. D. E. F. G. A. B. dur (Augsburg [1746]), 14 S.

Simon, Johann Caspar. Leichte und wohlklingende Praeludia und Fugen durch die Tone: C. D. E. F. G. A. H. moll (Augsburg [1747]), 14 S.

Simon, Johann Caspar. Musicalisches A. B. C. in kleinen und leichten Fugetten (Augsburg, 1749), 24 S.

“TABULATUR Buch 1750” (Mylau, Archiv der Evangelisch-lutherischen Kirchgemeinde; shelf mark: MS H 3a). Transcribed in Shannon, John R., The Mylauer Tabulaturbuch: a Study of the Preludial and Fugal Forms in the Hands of Bach’s Middle-German Precursors. Ph.D., Music, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1961. Vol. 2, iii, 184 p.

Notes

1. I wish to express my deep gratitude to Prof. David Ledbetter (Royal Northern College of Music), who read the final draft of this article and kindly provided me with helpful comments and constructive suggestions.

2. The topic has been actively discussed especially in the last two decades in connection with awakened interest in the Italian improvisational practice of partimento, which spread throughout Europe in the 18th century. Currently the study of partimento is gaining incredible momentum. The most comprehensive study of this field at the moment is Giorgio Sanguinetti’s book The Art of Partimento: History, Theory, and Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

3. Although Renwick’s book contains a special subheading, Fugal Improvisation through Figured Bass, he does not treat the actual process of improvisation. His work is not a theoretical study about fugal improvisation, but an anthology of authentic musical samples for practical mastery of this skill. In fairness, the article “On the fugue improvisation” by the Russian musicologist Sergey Maltsev also should be mentioned: Sergey Maltsev, “Ob improvizacii i improvizacionnosti fugi,” in Teoriya fugi: sbornik nauchnish trudov, otv. red. A.P. Milka (Leningrad: Izd-vo LOLGR, 1986), pp. 59–60. Unfortunately, this work containing many valuable observations about the process of fugal improvisation, because of a language barrier, did not gain wide circulation.

4. Maltsev, “Ob improvizacii i improvizacionnosti fugi,” pp. 59–60.

5. David Yearsley, “Spontaneous fugue,” in Early Music, 2001, Vol. XXIX (3), p. 452.

6. See Marina Nasonova, “Prakticheskaya deyatelnost severonemetskogo organista XVII veka,” in Starinnaya muzyka: praktika, aranzhirovka, rekonstrukciya: Materialy nauchno-prakticheskoy konferencii (Moscow: Prest. 1999), pp. 117–128.

7. Johann Mattheson, Grundlage einer Ehren-Pforte (Hamburg, 1740), S. XXXIII, § 48. Based on the study of ecclesiastical protocols, Reinhard Schäfertöns concluded that the free prelude and the organ chorale prelude and fugue were central points of organ playing at the time of worship (Reinhard Schäfertöns, “Die Organistenprobe— Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Orgelmusik im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert,” in Die Musikforschung, 1996, 49, Jg. Hf. 2, S. 143).

8. “Denn viel Musici sind heimlich und rahr mit ihren Wissenschaften,” Andreas Werckmeister, Harmonologia musica (Franckfurth und Leipzig, 1702), S. 95.

9. In Part I of his Musicalische Handleitung (1700), F. E. Niedt promises to give a “proper instruction on how Fugues are to be improvised” in the next parts (Cap. X). Unfortunately, his death prevented him from fulfilling his intention.

10. David Ledbetter, Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier: The 48 Preludes and Fugues (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002), p. 99.

11. For more details about the difference between the terms partimento fugue and thoroughbass fugue, see Maxim Serebrennikov, “From Partimento Fugue to Thoroughbass Fugue: New Perspectives,” in BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute, vol. XL, no. 2 (2009), pp. 22–44.

12. It is also important to realize that there is a notable difference between the resources demanded for perception of information as opposed to its creation (which is precisely what improvisation requires). The latter takes much more energy, and therefore, resources for attention are more quickly expended.

13. One musician alive today who possesses a phenomenal gift for improvising in any style and genre is Richard Grayson. Some of his improvisations (including fugue) on a subject proposed by an audience can be viewed on YouTube.

14. From an interview with Olin Downes, in New York Times, February 2, 1930, Arts & Leisure, p. 112.

15. Mikhail Saponov, Iskusstvo improvizatsii: Improvizatsionnye vidy tvorchestva v zapadnoevropejskoj muzyke srednikh vekov i Vozrozhdeniya (Moscow, 1982), p. 57 [in Russian]. Similar statements can be found also in Maltsev, “Ob improvizacii i improvizacionnosti fugi,” p. 6; David Schulenberg, “Composition and Improvisation in the School of J. S. Bach,” in Bach Perspectives I, 1995, p. 5; William Renwick, Analyzing Fugue: A Schenkerian Approach (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1995), p. 17; Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra, “J. S. Bach and Improvisation Pedagogy: Extemporaneous Composition,” in Keyboard Perspectives II (2009), ed. by Annette Richards, p. 43; Michael Richard Callahan, Techniques of Keyboard Improvisation in the German Baroque and their Implications for Today’s Pedagogy (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Rochester, Eastman School of Music, 2010), p. 10.

16. “The improviser, let us hypothesize, always has something given to work from—certain things that are at the base of the performance, that he uses as the ground on which he builds. We may call it his model.” Bruno Nettl, “Thoughts on Improvisation: A Comparative Approach,” in The Musical Quarterly, 1974, Vol. LX, No. 1, p. 11.

17. A list of German sources, containing samples of thoroughbass fugue, appears at the end of the article.

18. The strophic form of the thoroughbass fugue has roots in the verset fugues tradition and to the sectional structure of motets and ricercar. What we say about strophes of thoroughbass fugue is closely related to Joel Lester’s “parallel sections” and David Ledbetter’s “series of expositions.” See Joel Lester, “Heightening levels of activity in J. S. Bach’s parallel-section constructions,” in Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Spring 2001), p. 49–96; and Ledbetter, Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier, p. 100.

19. The term “Gegenharmonie” first appeared in Abhandlung von der Fuge by Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, where it is given the following definition: “Counterharmony. Thus is named the material in the remaining parts which is set against the subject.” (“Die Gegenharmonie. So heißt diejenige Komposition, die dem Fugensatze in den übrigen Stimmen entgegengesetzt wird.”) Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg, Abhandlung von der Fuge (Berlin, 1753), S. 18.

20. Since all standard harmonic structures in thoroughbass are noted in shorthand, we have added to the original figuring (where necessary) those signatures within brackets, which were implied by default.

21. By way of numerous experiments, it has been shown that the capacity of short-term (active) memory, without which the process of improvisation is simply impossible, is limited to 7 ± 2 units of information (the so-called Miller’s number). This can be increased only by uniting disparate elements into groups. We refer to a very illustrative example from Maltsev’s article in order to demonstrate the activity of this mechanism: “For example, short-term memory can retain around seven different letters (perhaps, X, J, D, B, G, U, S), but the number of letters drastically increases if we try to remember seven words, and will increase even more drastically if we try to remember seven sentences.” (Maltsev, “Ob improvizacii,” p. 69.) As Michael Callahan emphasizes: “Experts recognize relevant patterns, and therefore perceive stimuli in larger and more meaningful units than novices do; expert improvisers notice patterns in music and conceive of musical units in large spans (e.g., entire voice-leading structures and phrases, rather than individual notes).” (Callahan, Techniques of Keyboard Improvisation, p. 22.)

22. We remind the reader that the harmonic vertical in thoroughbass is constructed upwards from a given note, therefore the part entering with the subject must always be the lowest one.

23. “Alle in bissherigen Numern muessen nicht nur vom Papier, sondern auch auswendig auf das fertigste und deutlichste gelernt werden,” in Philipp Christoph Hartung, Musicus Theoretico-Practicus, Zweyter Theil (Nuremberg, 1749), S. 12, § 42).

24. Sometimes the tasks that were given to organists for the purpose of testing were limited by a time-frame. For example, the testing of organists for the post at the Hamburg Cathedral (24 October 1725) included the presentation of an entire fugue “created for four minutes,” a prelude of “about two minutes,” a chaconne of “about six minutes,” etc. See Johann Mattheson, Grosse General-Baß-Schule (Hamburg, 1731), S. 33. It is very difficult to improvise a piece with continuous development and at the same time fit everything within a given time-frame. It is much easier to fill the established time limits with standard-size strophes, adding a necessary number.

25. Anatoliy Milka, Muzikalnoye prinosheniye I. S. Basha: k rekonstrukzii I interpretazii (Moscow, 1999), p. 151 [in Russian].

26. “Denn mit fremden Sätzen die Leute zu scheeren, halte ich für keine Kunst; lieber was bekanntes und fliessendes genommen, damit es desto besser bearbeitet werden möge. Darauf kommt es an, und es gefällt dem Zuhörer besser, als ein chromatisches Gezerre” in Mattheson, Grosse General-Baß-Schule, S. 34–35.

27. For more details on the authorship of Thema Regium see Milka, Muzikalnoye prinosheniye I. S. Basha, pp. 153–167.

28. For more details about the manuscript MS. Akc. 4125 see Andrzej Szadejko, “Daniel Magnus Gronau (1700–1747)—didaktische Aspekte in Orgelwerken am Beispiel der Signatur MS. Akc. 4125 aus der Danziger Bibliothek der Polnischen Akademie der Wissenschaften,” in Musica Baltica (Gdansk, 2010), S. 351–361. It is interesting that Szadejko views the given source solely from a didactic perspective: as exercises in counterpoint. In my opinion, considering its intended purpose, MS. Akc. 4125 has more in common with such collections as the Langlo(t)z Manuscript and the Mylau Tabulaturbuch; it is also an anthology containing musical material necessary for the church organist’s everyday activity.

29. Indeed, the written-out figures concern themselves not with the single-part statement at the beginning of a fugue, but to the latter (multi-part) statements.

30. “Vielweniger darff man sich an den Gebrauch einiger Organisten binden, die das Thema erst, ohne die geringste Verblümung, fein ehrbar und viermahl durchs gantze Clavier in lauter Consonantzien und Lämmer-Tertzien hören lassen; hernach wieder mit dem Gefährten eben so bescheidentlich von oben anfangen; immer einerley Leier treiben; nichts nachahmendes oder rückendes dazwischen bringen; sondern nur stets den blossen Accord, als ob es ein General-Baß wäre, dazu greiffen” in Johann Mattheson, Der Vollkommene Capellmeister (Hamburg, 1739), S. 388, § 97.

31. “Ein anderer hat öfters den guten Willen, es besser zu machen. Aber was thun er? Er dreschet den Generalbaß, und dieses ist sehr erbaulich anzuhören. Da sind keine Bindungen, die die Harmonie angenehm, fliessend und zusammenhängend machen. Es ist eine holperichte Harmonie. Da höret man keine enge Nachahmung, keine Zergliederung des Satzes. Da ist keine Ordnung, und die Anzahl der Stimmen erfähret man zur Noth am Ende, da man solche gleich nach der ersten Durchführung des Satzes durch die verschiedenen Stimmen hätte empfinden sollen. Dieser Satz wird niemahls in den Mittelstimmen klüglich angebracht. Man höret ihn nur immer oben oder unten wozu beständig die eine Hand die andere, so wie eine Arie, accompagnirt. Man hört das Thema niemahls bequem und zur rechten Zeit auf eine den Verstand und das Ohr nachdrücklich rührende Art eintreten. Es ist ein hanbüchenes Gelärme und Gepolter; der unharmonischen Gänge nicht zu gedenken” in Marpurg, Abhandlung von der Fuge, Theil II (Berlin, 1754), S. XXIII–XXIV).

32. About the use of ars combinatoria techniques in the 18th-century, see Leonard G. Ratner, “Ars Combinatoria: Chance and Choice in Eighteenth-Century music,” in Studies in Eighteenth-Century Music: A Tribute to Karl Geiringer on his Seventieth Birthday, ed. by H. C. Robbins Landon and Roger E. Chapman (New York: Da Capo Press), pp. 343–363.

Buried Treasures: 

The Harpsichord Pages 

in Retrospect (2006–15)

Once upon a time (well, twice actually, in The Diapason issues of January 1974 and February 1979), we offered cumulative indices of harpsichord-related matters in the journal, from Philip Treggor’s first harpsichord column (October 1967), through December 1978. Treggor continued his responsibility for harpsichord news until December 1968. Following his resignation, harpsichord submissions were managed by the magazine’s Chicago staff until September 1969, at which point I took over at the invitation of Editor Frank Cunkle.

As it has been 36 years since we have offered a third cumulative listing of harpsichord-centered writings, it may be time to offer this “backward” look, covering the past ten years. I cannot begin to count the number of instances in which the previous retrospectives have been of use to me: so much so that I keep these indices filed next to my bound copies of the magazine. If this present list proves useful to you, please let me know. I could then plan to complete indexing the years 1979 through 2005. Our January issue includes the journal’s composite index of the previous year; this would be a logical target date for continuing such offerings.

In the following citations, the title or subject appears first, followed by the month and year of publication, page number(s) in parentheses, and author. My contributions are indicated by the letters LP; other, less-frequent contributors, by their full names. I have added a few articles not specifically published under the Harpsichord News rubric. Categories sometimes overlap, particularly those of Personalities
and Obituaries.

Instruments and Builders

William Dowd: An Appreciation, Jan 09 (22), LP; The Earliest Surviving English Spinet by Charles Haward [c.1668], July 09 (12, 14), Charles West Wilson; Harpsichord News: ARTEK Goes German, July 15 (13), LP; Autobiography of a Clavichord (Dolmetsch-Chickering 2006), Dec 15 (12–13), LP.

Repertoire and 

Performance Practice

Mozart and the Harpsichord: An Alternate Ending for Fantasia in D minor, K. 397, Nov 06 (20), LP; “Entartete” Music: Hugo Distler and the Harpsichord, Aug 08 (22–23), LP; Harpsichord News: Chris DeBlasio Dances, Soler, Scarlatti, Lully, the Borrel Manuscript, May 09 (14), LP; Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s English Suite at 100, Dec 09 (36–37), LP; The Chopin Bicentennial at the Harpsichord, Feb 10 (23), LP; Addenda to Chopin, Aug 10 (11), LP; A Harpsichord Piece by Henri Mulet, Aug 10 (11), LP; Mulet Petit Lied—a complete facsimile, Jan 11 (12), LP; Harpsichord Works of Asiko Hirabayashi, Nov 10 (12–13), LP; J. S. Bach’s English and French Suites with emphasis on the Courante, May 11 (24–25), Renate McLaughlin; Gathering Peascods for the Old Gray Mare: Some Unusual Harpsichord Music Before Aliénor, Dec 12 (27–29), LP; Soler’s Fandango: new edition from Ut Orpheus and recording by Diego Ares, Dec 13 (12), LP; Multi-Media Mozart—Words, Notes, and Sounds [Harpsichord News], Feb 14 (12–13), LP; Christmas Music for Harpsichord, Oct 14 (12), LP; Going [J. William] Greene—Music for Harpsichord, June 15 (11), LP; Pedaling the French: A Tour de France of Revival Harpsichordists 1888–1939, Aug 15 (10–11), LP; Harpsichord Plus: The Accompanied Harpsichord Music of Jacques Duphly, Nov 15 (10), LP. 

Personalities in the Harpsichord World

Helmut Walcha, Oct 07 (28–29), Nov 07 (21–23), Dec 07 (21–23), Paul Jacobs; Oscar Peterson, Feb 08 (12), LP; Gustav Leonhardt (anecdote, footnote 3 in AGO National Convention Review), Nov 08 (27), LP; Pavana Lachrimae: A California Tribute to Gustav Leonhardt, Aug 12 (18), Lee Lovallo; Crazy about Organs: Leonhardt interview from 2000, Nov 12 (20–22), Jan-Piet Knijff; Gustav Leonhardt—a Letter to the Editor from Hellmuth Wolff, Jan 13 (3); Mamusia: Paul Wolfe Remembers Wanda Landowska, Oct 12 (23–25), Craig Smith; Janos Sebestyen, May 12 (12–13), Robert Tifft; Harpsichord in the News: Mahan Esfahani, Jory Vinikour, Frances Bedford, and a 1615 quotation from Trabaci about the status of the instrument, July 12 (10, 12), LP; Remembering Irma Rogell (and a review of Martin Elste’s book Die Dame mit dem Cembalo), April 13 (11–12), LP; A Triptych for Rafael [Puyana], May 13 (11–12), Betina M. Santos, Jane Clark, and LP; Virginia Pleasants Turns 100, Feb 12 (11); Harpsichord Playing in America after Landowska, June 11 (19–21), LP; Ralph Kirkpatrick Centennial, June 11 (13–14), Gavin Black; Remembering Wm. Neil Roberts, Sept 11 (12–14), LP; Joseph Stephens—In Memoriam, Sept 14 (15), LP; Remembering Hilda Jonas, Dec 14 (11), Glendon Frank and LP; Remembering George Lucktenberg, Feb 15 (11), LP; Remembering Richard Rephann, Mar 15 (25), Allison Alcorn.

Pedagogy and Technique

Dear Harpsichordists: Why Don’t We Play from Memory?, Sept 11 (24–25), Paul Cienniwa; Continuo (On Teaching), Nov 11 (15–17), Dec 11 (11–13), Jan 12 (16–17); Gavin Black; Recital Programing, Aug 12 (13–14), Gavin Black.

Reports on Harpsichord Events

Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society 2006 Meeting in Rome, Georgia, June 06 (12), LP; Westfield Center 2006 Conference, Victoria, British Columbia (includes mentions of Colin Tilney and Edoardo Bellotti), Dec 06 (29), Herbert Huestis; Boston Early Music Festival 2007, Sept 07 (22–23), LP; East Texas Pipe Organ Festival 2012: A Harpsichordist in Aeolian-Skinner Land, Feb 13 (20), LP; Continuo: the Art of Creative Collaboration—Westfield Center 2013 Conference at Pacific Lutheran University, 2013, July 13 (20–21), Andrew Willis; Historic Keyboard Society of North America 2013 meeting in Williamsburg, VA, April 14 (10–11), LP; HKSNA International Conference in Montréal and Aliénor Competition, Aug 15 (10–11), LP; Broadening a Harpsichordist’s Horizons: Remembering 2014 ETPOF, Sept 15 (11), LP. 

Reviews of Books, 

Music, and Recordings

A Guide to Musical Temperament (Thomas Donahue), reviewed by G. N. Bullat, June 06 (16); Guilty Pleasures: Mark Schweizer’s The Soprano Wore Falsettos, Choices (a novel) by Paul Wolfe, CD of Landowska reissues, DVD: Landowska—Uncommon Visionary [Harpsichord News] Mar 07 (10), LP; Peter Watchorn Plays Bach’s WTC I [Harpsichord News] Aug 07 (12–13), LP; Fernando Valenti’s Scarlatti recordings, Feb 08 (12, 14), LP; Peter Watchorn’s Isolde Ahlgrimm, Vienna, and the Early Music Revival and a published score for Richard Strauss’ Capriccio Suite, June 08 (12), LP; The Best Medicine—a review of Schweizer’s The Diva Wore Diamonds, Aug 09 (10), LP; New Harpsichord Music, Oct 09 (18–19), John Collins; a new compact disc set of Bach’s Six Partitas, and the publication of A Medici Harpsichord Book from Ut Orpheus, April 12 (12), LP; Joys of Re-Reading: Blue Harpsichord, Early Music mystery series by James Gollin, and more, Aug 14 (11), LP; Harpsichord News: Words and Music—Ralph Kirkpatrick Letters and Frank Ferko Triptych, April 15 (12), LP. 

Obituaries

Daniel Pinkham (d. 2006), Feb 07 (8); A Pinkham Memoir, Mar 07 (20), James McCray; Albert Fuller (d. 2007), Dec 07 (10); Remembering Albert Fuller—Trombones in Dido and Aeneas?, Feb 08 (14), LP; Fenner Douglass (d. 2008), June 08 (8); Thomas Dunn (d. 2008), Mar 09 (10); Virginia Pleasants (d. 2011), Feb 12 (11); Gustav Leonhardt (d. 2012), March 12 (10); Christopher Hogwood (d. 2014), Nov 14 (10); Bruce Prince-Joseph (d. 2015), July 15 (10); Paul Jordan (d. 2015), May 15 (18–19); Roger Goodman (d. 2015), Sept 15 (10); Alan Curtis (d. 2015), Oct 15 (10).

Esoteric Ephemera

Nineteenth-century harpsichord citings: Bizet and a Chopin student [Harpsichord News], Feb 08 (12), information from John Carroll Collins reported by LP; Historic 20th-Century Harpsichordists in Hungary, Italy, and the Czech Republic [Harpsichord News], Feb 08 (12), Robert Tifft; Bytes from the Electronic Mailbag: Fandango, Misspellings of the Word Harpsichord, April 14 (10–11), LP; November Musings: Blessed Cecilia (In Honor of Isolde Ahlgrimm’s 100th Birthday), Nov 14 (12), LP; A mystery, a cautionary tale: Mark Schweizer’s The Maestro Wore Mohair and Simon Menges’ misadventure [Harpsichord News], Oct 15 (12), LP.

And Something New: Mysteries
with Musical References

The American expatriate author Donna Leon (born in New Jersey in 1942) has published 24 books in her series starring Commissario Guido Brunetti of the Venetian constabulary. Number one, Death at La Fenice (1992) introduces the soprano Flavia Petrelli who is singing Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata at the venerable opera house. German maestro Helmut Wellauer dies before the final act of the opera, and Brunetti finds that he has a complicated bit of detecting to do before solving this clever crime.

For Acqua Alta, book five in the series, Leon brings back this soprano, a “favorite character because of her voice.” By the novel’s end Flavia is off to sing her first Handel opera, a plot twist chosen so that, should Petrelli return in future books, Leon would be able to write about her best-loved music. In real life the author became closely associated with American conductor Alan Curtis; together they created an opera company, Il Complesso Barocco, to perform rare works by Handel and other baroque composers. References to harpsichord are found on pages 201–2 of Acqua Alta, and again on page 229 when Flavia’s companion Brett chooses Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony for listening rather than harpsichord music, the “plunky sound of which would snap her nerves.”

Volume 24 of the Brunetti stories arrived in 2015: Falling in Love is set in La Fenice again, this time with Petrelli starring as Puccini’s Tosca. Music figures prominently, the plot is gripping, and I particularly enjoyed a comment on page 154, where Brunetti is reminded of a CD shop owner who opined that “the weirdest customers were people who liked organ music. ‘Most of them shop at night,’ his friend said. ‘I think it’s the only time some of them ever leave their houses.’”

Further “baroquery” is to be found in Leon’s standalone novel The Jewels of Paradise (2012) which features a musicologist and a plot driven by the legacy of Italian composer Agostino Steffani (1654–1728). Highly recommended for all fans of mystery novels and baroque music. Finally, dear readers, should you come across references to the harpsichord, please send me the citations! ν

Comments are always welcome. Please submit them to [email protected] or by post to Dr. Larry Palmer, 10125 Cromwell Drive, Dallas, Texas 75229.

Homage to Rafael Puyana (October 14, 1931–March 1, 2013)

Betina Maag Santos, Puyana’s musical producer and friend, is managing director of SanCtuS Recordings. 

Jane Clark is a leading authority on the keyboard works of Domenico Scarlatti and François Couperin. Her most recent book, with Derek Connon, is The Mirror of Human Life: Reflections on François Couperin’s Pièces de Clavecin, published by Keyword Press in 2011.   

Larry Palmer, professor of harpsichord and organ in the Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, has been harpsichord editor of The Diapason since 1969.

Memorial tributes by Betina Maag Santos, Jane Clark, and Larry Palmer

Homage to Rafael Puyana (October 14, 1931–March 1, 2013)

Rafael Antonio Lazaro Puyana Michelsen was born in Bogotá, Colombia. At age sixteen he entered the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston; later he studied at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, Connecticut. His passion for early music and harpsichord led him to the great harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, with whom he studied during the last seven years of her life. During summer months he traveled to France to enroll in the harmony and composition courses of Nadia Boulanger in Fontainebleau and Paris.

Puyana’s career as a harpsichordist began in 1957 with recitals at the Hotchkiss School, Jordan Hall in Boston, and Town Hall in New York City. He was immediately ranked as one of the most striking musical personalities of his generation. He gave numerous performances across several continents, performing with such musicians as Andrés Segovia, Leopold Stokowski, Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrakh, John Williams, Maxence Larrieu, and James Galway. He was an inspiring teacher who gave masterclasses for many years at the Santiago de Compostela, Prades, and Dartington summer schools. Trevor Pinnock, Christopher Hogwood, and Genoveva Galvez were among the students who attended these classes. He was also in charge of harpsichord instruction at the Curso Manuel de Falla, at the International Festival of Granada in Spain. He founded and was president of the International Harpsichord Forum of the Festival Estival de Paris, and was also a jury member for numerous harpsichord competitions.

A recognized authority in baroque music, Rafael Puyana also extended his repertoire to works for eighteenth-century fortepiano and to principal compositions composed for harpsichord in the twentieth century, including Master Peter’s Puppet Show and the Concerto by Manuel de Falla as well as the Concert Champêtre by Francis Poulenc. His refined yet strong and vital playing inspired several contemporary composers to write works for him, among them Frederico Mompou, Alain Louvier, Julian Orbón, and Xavier Montsalvatge.

King Juan Carlos of Spain invested Puyana with the highest decoration of that nation: the Orden de Isabel la Católica, in recognition of the artist’s merits in communicating his knowledge and appreciation of early and contemporary Spanish keyboard music. Puyana leaves behind an important discography, several recordings of which are deemed definitive.

Puyana had a longstanding relationship with SanCtuS Recordings, a collaboration that lasted over a period of fifteen years. During this time three new albums were released on this label: Magica Sympathiae and The Musical Sun of Southern Europe (I and II). For the past four years, I worked together intensively with the artist on previously unissued recordings, one of which is his magisterial recording of J. S. Bach’s Six Partitas, played on his celebrated three-manual harpsichord built in 1740 by Hieronymus Albrecht Hass. This album is currently being prepared for release. Others are to follow.

Rafael Puyana will be remembered by all those who recognize the greatness of his art for its exceptional beauty, intelligence, refinement, excitement, force, and vitality of his playing and, most importantly, his musical integrity. Those who had the privilege of knowing and collaborating with him will remember further qualities: the sharpness and brilliance of his unique mind, his incredibly vast knowledge and culture, his outstanding sensitivity and creativity, his aesthetic refinement, his sense of perfection, his impeccable memory, his force and intensity, his charm, his uncompromising nature and courage to stand by his beliefs, his loyalty, warmth, refined humor, and generosity.

The death of Rafael Puyana leaves those who admired and loved him as orphans. While Colombia lost one of its foremost internationally recognized cultural ambassadors, the world suffered an irreplaceable loss of one of the last artists from a golden era filled with larger-than-life musical personalities; Puyana was a direct link to the Landowska legacy as well as a player who possessed a striking individuality. His spirit and art will live on through the recorded legacy he has left behind, and in the hearts of those who loved and admired him.

—Betina Maag Santos

Rafael Puyana: an appreciation

‘Last of the harpsichord legends is buried in Colombia’ reads a headline on the Arts Journal website. Rafael Puyana, who lived for many years in Paris, suffered poor health during the last several, and was not allowed by doctors to fly home to Bogotá, a fact that saddened him. It is, perhaps, an ultimate irony that only his death allowed him such a journey. 

The other contemporary harpsichord legend, harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt, three years his senior, died just more than a year ago, in January 2012. Comments on Puyana’s playing, prompted by his death, show that comparisons between these two major players are inevitable. Puyana had a head start on Leonhardt: he was an international celebrity before the Dutchman had gained any reputation at all. Unlike Leonhardt, however, Puyana was temperamentally unsuited to coping with the demands made by the commercial world of a present-day recitalist, and, sadly, was somewhat eclipsed by the Dutch player. 

This was understandable: many listeners felt Leonhardt to be more his teacher Landowska, Puyana was as well acquainted with seventeenth- and eighteenth-century writings as anyone. If he did not always act upon them, it was not because he was ignorant of these sources. His disadvantage was that he started life with a Pleyel harpsichord. Many listeners now accustomed to the sound of more classical instruments are unable to get past the sound of the Pleyel to hear the music being played on it. Interestingly, Puyana’s interpretations recorded on his magnificent three-manual Hass harpsichord, though unchanged, are often admired by those who rejected his earlier recordings. 

His playing had an old-world Hispanic dignity ideally suited to Hispanic music. This musical character was so strong that it invaded all the music he played. He excelled in works that owed a lot to the influence of Spain, those of the English Virginalists and the French and Italian seventeenth-century dance music influenced by Spaniards who were employed by Louis XIV’s Spanish queen, or affected by the Spanish domination of Naples. 

He was a loyal and entertaining friend. He once asked, when he was practicing a piece by my husband, Stephen Dodgson: “Jane, has your husband got a metronome?” “Yes,” I replied, “why?” “Well, it is not the same as mine,” came the answer. On another occasion when he was going to rehearse the Sonata for Guitar and Harpsichord by Manuel Ponce with John Williams: “Jane, will you come and turn my pages?” I was meant to be doing something else, so I asked: “Is it long?” “All bad music is long,” was the dismissive reply. 

It is sad that Rafael Puyana is not here to see his many recordings now appearing on the Internet as well as the many appreciative comments about him. Since he had stopped playing in public some years ago, he might be happily surprised to find that he was by no means forgotten. 

—Jane Clark

Memories of Rafael

In the years following those life-changing first harpsichord lessons at the Salzburg Mozarteum, I continued my interest in that fascinating instrument, which, sadly, was not one for which instruction was offered at the Eastman School of Music in the 1960s. I also continued my practice of writing letters to my parents. In addition to many Letters from Salzburg (now published as a memoir with that title), my mother saved all of my letters. Thus I was able to substantiate dates and some details of the beginning of my acquaintance with Rafael Puyana.

Rochester, New York

16 February 1961

Dear Mom and Dad,

. . . Tuesday afternoon [14 February] Rafael Puyana, harpsichordist, gave a lecture-recital in Kilbourn Hall. In the evening he played on the chamber music series there. This was such a treat—we were all very excited. [David] Craighead was so delighted that he dragged me off to his studio during intermission to talk about the playing. Puyana, a Colombian, studied for seven years with Landowska. After the concert a few of us were going out to celebrate Mardi Gras [which fell that year on Valentine’s Day!], and I invited him to go along. He had another date, but joined us about midnight. He’s friendly and very interesting. I’ll hope to hear him again. 

Yesterday, Ash Wednesday, was a full and most tiring day . . . [indeed it was, after such a late night of celebrations!]

As it turned out, that was the only time I heard Puyana in live performance. I remember the exhilaration and energy of his playing; his announcement to the audience that, although he usually played from memory, he had experienced a pre-concert night of fitful sleep, including the premonition of a memory failure in the Bach F-sharp minor Toccata, so he asked to be forgiven for placing the score on the music desk of his Pleyel harpsichord, “just in case.” And, as a foretaste of my subsequent repertoire interests, I remember how beguiling I found his playing of Catalan composer Frederico Mompou’s Canción y Danza XI (11), a new piano piece dedicated to him, which Rafael had transcribed for harpsichord. Equally memorable (and somewhat to be envied) was the relative ease of Puyana’s concert touring with such a large and heavy instrument, facilitated by his large Buick station wagon and a personally employed driver. As his fellow Landowska student Paul Wolfe reminded me recently, Rafael was the son of a wealthy family. Paul continued, “Of all WL’s students, he sounded most like her. [Also] like her, he had small hands . . . and he was extremely well educated.”

For the next forty years, Rafael remained on my musical radar screen through his masterful recordings. His first recording of Falla’s Concerto (Philips LP6505001) became my favorite interpretation of that iconic work. But even more exciting on that disc was a work totally new to all of us when the record was issued in 1970: Julián Orbón’s Tres Cantigas del Rey, sung with haunting intensity by soprano Heather Harper, supported by the London symphony String Quartet and Puyana, all conducted by Antal Dorati. A second, digital recording of these same pieces (Dorian 90214) dates from 1994, with soprano Julianne Baird, conductor Eduardo Mata, and Puyana performing on a 1993 Hass-copy instrument by Robert Goble. 

The Golden Age of Harpsichord Music, recorded in New York by Mercury Records during the springs of 1962 and 1964, showcased Rafael playing Landowska favorites, such as Bach’s transcription of Alessandro Marcello’s D-minor Concerto, Antoine Francisque’s Branle de Montirandé, works by Chambonnières and Rameau, together with some of Puyana’s beloved early English keyboard works by Bull, Peerson, Byrd, and Peter Philips, all played on a Pleyel harpsichord. This particular release was widely known as well for the strangely evocative photograph gracing the record jacket, portraying the young keyboardist in full white tie and tails, playing his harpsichord outside in a garden! Unfortunately, when this program was reissued on compact disc in 1995, someone turned the negative upside down, so the harpsichord lid appears attached to the right side of the instrument rather than the left (Mercury CD 434 364-2).

Occasionally other mentions of Rafael and his musical pursuits came from our mutual friend Jane Clark. At her urging I sent Rafael a copy of my book Harpsichord in America. What a delight to receive a handwritten communication from him, and thus reestablish personal contact after so many decades!

Paris, November 7, 2004

Dear Larry,

. . . Jane had mentioned your book about harpsichord life in the USA several times and I am now delighted to have some interesting reading for my hospital stay, after my operation on November 15th. Jane, in fact, suggested that I send you my latest recording effort, an album containing many splendid English pieces that have given me such a joyful time over the years. Two more records are in preparation (already recorded) and will eventually be released: Spanish and Portuguese music on original harpsichords and fortepianos. Our musical passion, I am glad to admit, is endless! 

The accompanying disc was the beautifully recorded and packaged Magica Sympathiae: Tudor and Jacobean masterpieces for keyboard, played by Puyana on an Italian harpsichord from the 16th-century maker Domenico da Pesaro [Domenicus Pisaurensis] and a 1998 copy by Willard Martin of a Flemish muselar virginal built by Jean Couchet in 1650. This elegant album from SanCtuS (SCS015) was recorded in France in 2000 and produced by Betina Maag Santos.

Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to accept Rafael’s generous invitation to visit him in Paris. Work does, indeed, interfere with one’s social life!

Quite often I turn to Louis Couperin’s F-major remembrance for a departed friend, the sublimely moving Tombeau de Mr. de Blancrocher, as a memorial tribute for someone I have known and loved. For Rafael, a more fitting postlude might be his own recording of Thomas Tomkins’ autobiographical A sad pavan for these distracted tymes—track 18 of Magica Sympathiae. Tomkins dated this work on the 14th of February 1649: indeed a sad time for the elderly organist of Worcester Cathedral, who, at age 78, endured the destruction of both political and musical worlds at the hands of the English Cromwellians. In a strangely apt concurrence, Tomkins’ composition, written just two weeks following the beheading of King Charles I, bears a date exactly 312 years before my first meeting with Rafael Puyana. 

—Larry Palmer

John Collins has been playing and researching early keyboard music for over 35 years, with special interests in the English, Italian, and Iberian repertoires. He has contributed many articles and reviews to several American and European journals, including The Diapason, and has been organist at St. George’s, Worthing, West Sussex, England for over 26 years.

In 2014 there are several composers whose anniversaries can be commemorated, albeit some of the dates are not known for certain. Some of the names need no introduction but there are also several lesser-known names listed here whose compositions are well worth exploring. No claim is made for completeness, and there is no guarantee that every edition is in print—there may well also be editions by other publishers.  

Giaches Brumel (ca. 1510–64).French composer who worked at the court in Ferrara from 1532. Ascribed to Brumel are two ricercars (one imitative and one chordal) and a Missa de la Dominica in the manuscripts at Castell Arquato, edited by Knud Jeppesen for Norsk Musikforlag, Oslo, in Die italienische Orgelmusik am Anfang des Cinquecento and more recently, albeit in halved note values, by H. Colin Slim for American Institute of Musicology Corpus of Early Keyboard Music 37, volume 3, which contains a wider selection from the manuscripts. It has been postulated that 14 of the set of 17 ricercars known as the Bourdeney Codex may also be by Brumel. These lengthy contrapuntal works have been edited by Anthony Newcomb for A–R Editions (R89).

Francisco de Peraza (1564–98).Organist in Seville, he left a Medio Registro alto de 1 Tono, the earliest known surviving example of this genre, which became popular in the Iberian repertoire. This has appeared in several anthologies, including American Institute of Musicology’s Corpus of Early Keyboard Music 14: Spanish Organ Music after Antonio de Cabezon, edited by Willi Apel. 

Gregor Aichinger (1564–1628).Organist in Augsburg to the Fuggers, six ricercars and four motet intabulations have been edited by Eberhard Kraus in Cantantibus organis, vol. 7, for Verlag Friedrich Pustet. A further motet intabulation is included in Altbaierische Orgelmusik, vol. 1, edited by Eberhard Kraus for Noetzel. 

Giovanni de Macque (ca. 1550–1614). Born in Flanders, he came to Naples ca. 1585, becoming head of the vice-regal chapel in 1599. He was the teacher of Ascanio Mayone and Giovanni Maria Trabaci, both of whom published two volumes of highly influential pieces. De Macque published copious amounts of madrigals but no keyboard works; however, almost 40 pieces survive in manuscripts. These include eight canzonas, four capriccios, two stravaganzes, a consonanze stravaganti, a durezze e ligature, an intrata, a toccata a modo di Trombetta and a set of variations on Ruggiero, which have been edited by Liuwe Tamminga (vol. 1), and 14 ricercars (the first book of 12 published ricercars set for keyboard together with a further two thought to be from the second book), edited by Armando Carideo (vol. 2); both volumes are published by Il Levante (available through La Stanza della Musica). The first set of 12 ricercars has also been edited by Christopher Stembridge for Zanibon. This edition includes a comprehensive discussion of the modes and their affects, along with the registration prescribed by Diruta. The ricercars are the first to present the different subjects at the beginning of the piece. The durezze and stravaganze are highly chromatic compositions. The older edition by Watelet and Piscaer for Monumenta Musica Belgae also contains Partite sopra Zefiro de Rinaldo attributed by the editor to de Macque; this, however, is almost certainly a set of partite on Zefiro composed by Rinaldo dell’Arpa. 

Hans Leo Hassler (1564–1612). Primarily known today for his vocal music, he studied organ in Venice with Andrea Gabrieli and became a leading player in Augsburg. He left a substantial corpus of keyboard works of considerable scope and length, most of it preserved in the Turin manuscripts, including eight toccatas, 18 ricercari, 18 canzone, fourteen Magnificats, an organ Mass, four fugues, and two sets of variations. Problems of attribution have occurred with pieces variously ascribed to Sweelinck, Christian Erbach, and Giovanni Gabrieli. A good selection, as well as the variations on Ich ging einmal spazieren, was edited by Georges Kiss for Schott and Sons. The toccatas were edited by S. Stribos for the American Institute of Musicology, and the Magnificats by A. Carpene for Il Levante Libreria. A few other pieces from other manuscript sources have been included in various anthologies, including 25 of the 39 intabulated songs from his Lustgarten of 1601, edited by M. Böcker for Breitkopf & Härtel. The complete works from the Turin manuscripts are available in two volumes, edited by W. Thein and U. Wethmüller for Breitkopf & Härtel. A further volume containing the complete remaining keyboard works from other sources has been in preparation for some time. These supersede the edition of a small selection of pieces by Hassler and Erbach, edited by Ernst von Werra ca. 1903 for Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Bayern, second series, vol. IV, no. 2. 

Franz Tunder (1614–67). Organist of the Marienkirche, Lübeck, he left about 17 compositions in manuscripts, including five praeludia exemplifying early use of the Stylus Phantasticus and a canzona, along with 11 chorale settings, of which six are fantasias. Auf meinen lieben Gott is set for two manuals without pedal, Jesus Christus, wahr Gottes Sohn is for single manual and pedals, and Jesus Christus, unser Heiland has three separate variations, of which the first includes much use of double pedal. Two further chorale settings in the Pelpin manuscripts originally attributed to Scheidemann have now been tentatively attributed to Tunder. All pieces have been edited by Klaus Beckmann for Breitkopf & Härtel.  

Benjamin Rogers (1614–98). Organist at Eton and Oxford, he left sacred and secular vocal music, consort music, and 17 keyboard works of which the great majority are dances better suited to stringed keyboard instruments. Two, however, are voluntaries and are more suited to performance on the organ. All pieces have been edited by Richard Rastall for Stainer & Bell. 

Charles Racquet (1597–1664). Organist in Paris, he left 12 versets de psaume en duo, which was printed in Mersenne’s Harmonie universelle, Paris, 1636–37, and a large–scale Fantasie in manuscript. All have been edited along with works by De Bourges, N. de la Grotte, and D. Gaultier by Jean Bonfils in L’Organiste Liturgique, xxix–xxx for Schola Cantorum et de la Procure générale de musique.

Georg Leyding (1664–1710). He had lessons with Buxtehude and became organist in Brunswick. Although Walther mentions his many keyboard pieces, only five organ compositions have survived in manuscripts, including three praeludia with demanding pedal parts (C, B-flat and E-flat), a set of variations on Von Gott will ich nicht lassen and a prelude on Wie schön leucht uns der Morgenstern. These have been edited by Klaus Beckmann for Breitkopf & Härtel.

Johann Speth (1664–1720). Organist in Augsburg, he published Ars Magna Consoni et Dissoni… in 1693, which contains ten toccatas, Magnificats on the eight tones that include a praeambulum, five verses, and a finale (some verses are actually by Poglietti, Kerll, and Froberger), and three sets of partitas for manuals only, each with six variations. Although the preface states that these pieces are all playable on the clavichord, the toccatas and Magnificats contain an obbligato pedal part, although this is either octave doubling or long held notes. All were edited (alas, without the original preface) by Traugott Fedke for Bärenreiter and there is a facsimile published by Early Music in Facsimile, Edition Helbling, Innsbruck, with a preface by Rupert Frieberger.  

Pablo Nassarre (1664–1724). Blind from infancy, he was organist in Zaragoza, and is best known today for his theoretical works, Fragmentos músicos and Escuela música, según la práctica moderna, which are available in facsimile. He also left five organ pieces, including three tocatas [sic] edited by José Llorens for Diputación Provincial de Barcelona and a tiento partido and two versos from a manuscript in Astorga, edited by José Alvarez in Colección de obras de órgano de organistas españoles del siglo XVII for Union Musical Española. 

Pierre Dandrieu (1664–1733). Organist and priest in Paris, he left a book of 36 noëls with variations, similar in style to those in Lebègue’s third book, and five other pieces including a carillon. Pierre’s book appeared in several editions from 1714 up to 1759, and 37 pieces were reworked by his nephew Jean-François for a publication that also included 11 of the latter’s noëls. Edited by Roger Hugon for La Sociéte Française de Musicologie and published by Heugel. A facsimile edition of the prints of 1729/59 has been published by Fuzeau.

Guillaume Gabriel Nivers (1632–1714). Organist of St. Sulpice, Paris, his Livre d’orgue contenant cent pieces de tous les tons de l’église of 1665 is the earliest known of such volumes presenting a group of pieces by tone (12 in this case, the first two having 10 verses, the rest eight), with highly individual and specific registrations. There is a comprehensive explanation of the tempi, registration, and ornament signs. He published two further volumes: 2e livre d’orgue contenant la messe et les hymnes de l’église in 1667, which contains a Mass and 25 hymn settings, and 3e livre d’orgue des huit tons de l’église in 1675. He also published some vocal and much liturgical music. The first two Livres d’orgue have been edited by Norbert Dufourcq for Editions Bornemann and the third Livre by him for Heugel. All three Livres are available in facsimile from Fuzeau. The third Livre is also published by Societé Française de Musicologie (EZ.SFM20). 

Franz Matthias Techelmann (ca. 1649–1714). Two sets of pieces (in A minor and C major) comprising Toccata, Canzona, Ricercar, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, and Gigue (or Minuet in C major set) survive in an autograph manuscript, of which the non-dance elements work well on the organ. Between the ricercar and the dances in the A minor set there is an aria (with 30 variations). The non-dance movements in A minor have been edited by Laura Cerutti for Edizione Carrara, and a complete edition by Herwig Knaus for Denkmäler Tonkunst Osterreich vol. 115 also includes 13 dance suites, which may be by Techelmann or possibly Kerll. 

Diego Xarava (1652–ca. 1714). Nephew of Pablo Bruna and organist of the Capilla Real, Madrid, he left two pieces in the extensive Martin y Coll Manuscript 1357: an Ydea Buena y fuga por a la mi re (the fuga occurs separately in the Jaca manuscript), and an Obra en lleno de 3 Tono. These have been edited by Carlo Stella and Vittorio Vinay for Zanibon, available through Armelin, and by Julián Sagasta in vol. 2 of Tonos de Palacio y Canciones Comunes for Union Musical Española.  

Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach (1714–88). Fifth child and second surviving son of Johann Sebastian, he is well known today for his many sonatas, fantasias, rondos, and miscellaneous pieces for stringed keyboard instruments, as well as his important treatise on playing keyboard instruments (Versuch über die wahre Art…). He left only a few pieces specifically for organ, including a set of six sonatas for Princess Amalie, edited by Peter Hauschild and Gerhard Weinberger and a Prelude in D, six fugues, a trio, two chorale preludes, and five chorale arrangements edited by Jochen Reutter and Gerhard Weinberger, both volumes published by Wiener Urtext. The edition of the organ works as part of the complete C. P. E. Bach edition has been edited by Annette Richards and David Yearsley as volume 1/9 for Packard Humanities Institute (this volume omits the sonata Wq 70/1). Four further fugues have been edited by Wilhelm Poot for Interlude Music Productions. 

Gottfried Homilius (1714–85) studied with J. S. Bach and became organist in Dresden in 1742. In addition to Passions, a cantata cycle, Magnificat settings and motets, he left 41 chorale preludes, of which 38 have been edited by Christoph Albrecht and published by Breitkopf & Härtel, and five organ pieces from a privately owned manuscript in Dresden have been edited by Christoph Albrecht and published by Leutkirch: Pro Organo. Thirty-eight chorale preludes for organ and melody instrument have been edited by Ellen Exner and Uwe Wolf for Carus Verlag. 

Johann Anton Kobrich (1714–91).  Organist in Landsberg, in addition to vocal music he left several sets of Parthien better suited to stringed keyboard instruments, although the two sets of Der clavierspielende Schäfer are described as “Welche sowohl in der Kirche als auch zu Hause können producirt and gebraucht werden.” Of his organ collections unfortunately most, including 20 toccatas, six sonatas, and pieces suitable for Offertory, Elevation, and Communion, remain unpublished in modern editions. Selected pieces from these sets have been edited by A. Maisch and published by Albert J. Kunzelmann. Figuralische Choral–Zierde, his collection of preludes and versets in the eight church tones was edited by Rudolph Walter for Alfred Coppenrath, Alttötting and is now available from Carus Verlag. Several pastorales that were appended to the first set of Der clavierspielende Schäfer have been edited by Gerhard Weinberger and published by Anton Böhm & Sohn.

Johann Mattheson (1681–1764). Better known today for his numerous theoretical works, he left a small collection of keyboard works, mainly for stringed keyboard instruments, but Die wolhklingende Fingersprache (containing 12 fugues, some with dances) of 1735 and 1737 is also suited to the organ. Edited by Lothar Hoffman-Erbrecht for Breitkopf & Härtel. 

John Reading (ca. 1685–1764). Organist at Lincoln and various London churches and an influential teacher, he compiled several volumes of keyboard music for organ and harpsichord, in addition to vocal music, of which three containing organ pieces (voluntaries and psalm settings) are preserved at Dulwich College, one at Tokyo, and one at Manchester. They are unique sources for many pieces, including his own compositions. A comprehensive selection of the Dulwich volumes has been edited by Robin Langley as volume 3 of the ten-volume series of English organ music for Novello; it includes early versions of voluntaries by Stanley. 

Johann Xavier Nauss (ca. 1690–1764). Organist in Augsburg, he published several volumes of keyboard music, of which the two parts of Die spielende Muse—consisting of preludes, verses, finale, aria (1st to 6th tones) or pastorella (7th and 8th tones) and fugue on the 8 tones, plus a set in E major—have been edited in one volume by Rudolph Waters for Alfred Coppenrath, Alttötting, which is now available from Carus Verlag. 

Wilhelm Hieronymus Pachelbel (1686–1764). Son of Johann, and organist in Nuremberg, he left two Praeludia und Fugen, a toccata, and two chorale settings, which have been edited by Hans Möseler and Traugott Fedke for Bärenreiter. 

Charles Burney (1726–1814). Also better known today for his numerous writings on music including The Present State of Music in France and Italy, The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Provinces, and his monumental General History of Music in four volumes, which just beat the similar publication by Sir John Hawkins. He also wrote articles for Rees’s Cyclopaedia. Burney left some vocal music, a set of concerti, and several sets of sonatas for harpsichord solo and duet, along with chamber pieces, and a set of VI Cornet Pieces and a Fugue (1751), which comprises an Introduction in E minor followed by six Cornet movements and concludes with a fugue in the still-rare key of F minor. Around 1787, Burney published Preludes, Interludes and Fugues Book I, which includes pieces in keys from A to C; no trace of the second book survives, if indeed it was ever printed. These two publications have been edited by David Patrick and published by Fitzjohn Music. 

Abbé Georg Vogler (1749–1814). Widely traveled with the electoral court, organ designer and teacher, he left theater productions, symphonies, and concerti, and several collections of organ music, which remain largely unpublished in modern editions. 112 Petites preludes pour l’orgue ou le clavecin, op. 16, has been edited by Joachim Dorfmüller for Rob Forberg. A collection of 32 preludes has been edited by Armin Kircher for Carus Verlag, and, together with his Pièces de clavecin of 1798, by Floyd Grave for A–R Editions (C24).

Nicolò Moretti (1764–1821) left some 29 organ works; 17 (including 13 sonatas, a pastorale, two rondos, and an adagio) have been edited by A. Aroma, the others (including four sonatas, a sinfonia, Elevazione, versets, concertino, rondo, marcia, pastorale, and polacca) by Aroma, S. Carmelos and G. Simionato. Both volumes were published by Paideia Brescia for Bärenreiter, and are now available from Armelin.

Matthew Camidge (1764–1844). After time as a chorister at the Chapel Royal under Nares, he returned to York, where he became organist of the Minster. He published mainly church music, a set of instructions for the pianoforte or harpsichord, and left a set of six multi-movement (including a fugue) concertos for the organ or pianoforte in (ca.) 1815, in which he endeavored to imitate the styles of Handel and Corelli. Edited by Greg Lewin and published by Greg Lewin Music. 

An increasing number of pieces, ranging from complete original publications/manuscripts (which present the usual problems of multiple clefs as well as original printer’s errors) to selected individual works, are to be found on various free download sites, most noticeably IMSLP; however, the accuracy of some modern typesettings is highly questionable, and all should be treated with caution before use. Publishers’ websites include: 

Schott Music: www.schott-music.com 

Breitkopf & Hartel: www.breitkopf.com

Bärenreiter: www.baerenreiter.com 

Armelin: www.armelin.it

Carus Verlag: www.carus-verlag.com 

Butz Verlag: www.butz-verlag.de 

Edizioni Carrara: www.edizionicarrara.it

American Institute of Musicology—Corpus of Early Keyboard Music series: www.corpusmusicae.com/cekm.htm 

Fitzjohn Music: www.impulse-music.co.uk/fitzjohnmusic.htm 

Wiener Urtext: www.wiener–urtext.com  

Denkmäler Tonkunst Osterreich: 

www.dtoe.at

C.P.E. Bach complete works (Packard): www.cpebach.org 

Interlude Publications: www.interlude.nl 

A–R Editions: www.areditions.com 

Editions Bornemann: 

www.alphonseleduc.com 

Fuzeau: www.editions-classique.com   

Société française de musicology: 

www.sfmusicologie.fr 

Verlag Friedrich Pustet: 

www.verlag-pustet.de 

Greg Lewin Music: www.greglewin.co.uk

Heinrichshofen Verlag and Noetzel: www.heinrichshofen.de  

Norsk Musikforlag: 

www.norskmusikforlag.no  

Stainer & Bell: www.stainer.co.uk 

Schola Cantorum: 

www.schola-editions.com

Helbling Verlag: 

www.helbling-verlag.de 

One of the most interesting genres of music to arise during the 17th century was that of Portuguese and Spanish battle music written specifically for the organ. Iberian organs, highly versatile for their size and often equipped with formidable banks of horizontal reeds, were an inseparable factor in the development of this musical category, and still inform us how to play it. This article will examine the repertoire of Iberian battle music, its origins, and the impact of the villancico, ensalada, and the Iberian organ.

The repertoire

In an environment where composers wrote tientos and versets by the hundreds, the battle music repertoire seems quite small. Only about twenty pieces survive from the 17th century (Table 1), even if the list expands to include battle-like works with more generic names, or which appear to contain material borrowed from non-Iberian composers. Yet, perhaps because their unique battle-related content makes them fun to play, this small body of works appears on modern concert programs far more often than do the many tientos and versets that surround them in the manuscripts of the period. Mary Ellen Sutton¹ recommends in particular the battles marked in Table 1 with an asterisk as being of interest to modern audiences. Pieces marked + are nearly identical. The selection marked § has been attributed to both composers, or neither, as will be discussed later.

Most of the manuscripts containing battles (batalla in Spanish, batalha in Portuguese) came originally from monastery or cathedral libraries, no doubt because their composers were cathedral organists, some of them in holy orders. All of the manuscripts are now held in central libraries in or near Oporto and Braga, Portugal, and Madrid and Barcelona, Spain. Most of these works are available in modern transcription, but because so many of the anonymous pieces have similar names, I have included the original manuscript and folio numbers in Table 1.² 

In fact, almost all are described simply as a battle in a given mode. Mode designations imply that the compositions were intended for liturgical use. Fifth and sixth modes are the most common. The seven pieces in sixth mode have key signatures of F major. The four in the fifth tone are in C major. Although fifth mode is generally thought of as an F-based mode, its tenor is C. Sutton suggests that the use of C major here accompanies a general shift towards tonality. Three fifth-mode batallas, which are for all practical purposes written in the key of C, appear in Madrid MS 1357 in volumes indexed by mode. All of the fifth-mode versets in the first two volumes of MS 1357 were transposed to C.³ One of the two eighth-mode works, both thought to be by Aguilera de Heredía, is also in C major. The choice of key signature could be, of course, editorial. However, after playing the battles, I would agree with the editorial decisions. 

Most of the composers of battle music (Table 2) were famous musicians of their time and place. Pablo Bruna was considered one of the best organists and teachers in Spain. Blind since birth, he was known as “el ciego de Daroca” (the blind man of Daroca). Juan Batista Cabanilles was a master of the Spanish Baroque style, which enlarged on Renaissance practices and does not resemble the styles composers preferred in other parts of Europe during this era. A colleague said, “The world will crumble before a second Cabanilles appears.”

Some of the composers are less well known. The name of Diego (or Diogo) da Conceição appears in only one manuscript, where his few compositions are the best in the collection. Others remain unidentified, although stylistic similarities suggest that some of the anonymous pieces could be copies or variations on works by known composers. All of the known composers of battle music worked in Portugal or the Castilian region of Spain, where Iberian organ builders made improvements to the organs that facilitated this genre.

Borrowing from other composers was more acceptable in the Baroque era than it is today, and several of the battles demonstrate this procedure. The most notable is Cabanilles’s Batalla Imperial, which is identical, other than the ordering of the sections, to that of Johann Caspar Kerll, a slightly older German composer who worked in Austria. Who borrowed from whom is questionable, Mary Jane Corry positing a third composer entirely.⁵ In his article on Cabanilles in Grove Online, Barton Hudson attributes the battle to Kerll. In another example, two batalhas in Porto MS 1607 are quite similar to each other; Doderer suggests that based on their style, these might be different versions of a work by Cabanilles. In a third case, measures 58–159 of the Batalha de 6º Tom by Torrelhas are virtually identical to a section of one of José Ximénez’s Batallas.

Origins of the organ batalla/batalha

In approaching this topic, a person might ask what actually makes a composition a battle. The most basic consideration is the title. It is a battle if the composer says it is. However, battle pieces generally imitate the commotion of war with busy voicing, ostinato figures, lively rhythms, and percussive chords that simulate musket or cannon fire. They also often imitate the music of battle in the form of trumpet signals or fanfares. It is perhaps this trait that makes the music sound warlike in the 21st century. Trumpet signals are still in limited use in today’s military and are familiar to most listeners from ceremonies and the entertainment media.

The earliest music with these characteristics is the 14th-century caccia, which imitates the hunt with fanfares and rallying cries. A 15th-century battaglia by Heinrich Isaac for instruments with keyboard accompaniment has several characteristics that appear in most later battle music, such as ostinato figures and alternating duple and triple meter. It is interesting to note that Isaac also may have written his work for voices first, since Bianca Becherini found a poem whose text matches the music.

The music that began the battle craze in earnest, perhaps because it so cleverly captured the sounds of battle despite being written for unaccompanied voice, was Clément Janequin’s chanson La guerre. It immortalized a French victory over Swiss and Italian forces at the Battle of Marignano in 1515. Written in two large sections, this is a four-voice vocal work filled with a variety of techniques for making it sound warlike. Melodies imitate the calls of war trumpets, using actual tunes employed in battlefield communication. The onomatopoeic text that accompanies these may have come directly from the syllables players used when learning their music. Triadic figures in a simple harmonic background reflect the ensemble formation trumpeters of the time used, and quick notes simulate both the action of battle and more of the ceremonial trumpet sound.

La guerre was wildly popular and quickly spread across Europe, not only in its original form but also in imitations and transcriptions. Fifteen years later Matthias Werrecore wrote a retort, La battaglia taliana, commemorating an Italian victory over the French. Published in Germany, it was known everywhere as Die Kleine Schlacht, with Janequin’s chanson now being called Die Große Schlacht. Werrecore borrowed not only Janequin’s key (F Ionian) but copied the beginning motive from La guerre’s Secunda pars. This opening gesture, or variants of it, as well as the F-based mode, appear in a number of battles and tientos. I believe that Janequin’s motive was so widely admired because it was more than just a clever compositional device: it also accurately captured the sound of battle trumpets, both harmonically and melodically. 

The trumpet

To understand just what this battle sound was like, it is helpful to know a little about the trumpets that created it. From ancient times until the modern invention of radio, the trumpet was the primary means of battlefield communication. Art from ancient Egypt shows trumpet-playing soldiers on the march. After a hiatus following the fall of Rome, the trumpet appeared again in Europe as war booty collected from the Saracens. As the art of trumpet making progressed, the instruments developed from examples that could play only one low note to models that could play more than an octave above middle C and had a few diatonic notes. The trumpet ensemble became a symbol of power in the Renaissance court, and trumpet players were valued more highly than other performers.

Prior to 1975, scholars knew much about the Renaissance trumpet through two books published during the 17th century. These were Marin Mersenne’s Harmonie Universelle (1635), and Girolamo Fantini’s Modo para Imparare a sonare di Tromba (1638). Both books contain examples of battle trumpet calls, with syllables written under the notes, possibly to indicate tonguing but apparently also to aid the instrumentalist in learning the music. Scholars were able to see by studying the trumpet tunes that Janequin and his imitators had used real battle music in their compositions. While the syllables Mersenne and Fantini indicated were not the same as those Janequin used, that did not mean Janequin’s were not accurate for his time and location.

In 1970 historian Edward Tarr published a facsimile and translation of a third manuscript, Cesare Bendinelli’s Tutta l’arte della Trombetta. In 1614, Bendinelli had donated to a library his instrument and a manuscript containing a wealth of music and pedagogical material, and there they had lain for the next three and a half centuries. Bendinelli had gone a step further than Mersenne and Fantini. He described not only the notes but also the system by which Renaissance trumpeters played:

Here all the trumpeters begin to play, in the field, at princely courts, or in other places. I point out that a single [player] begins and the others follow in order, as is the custom . . . First the grosso; second the vulgano; third, alto e basso, that is, he who imitates the sonata with his notes, only lower, and who has to be quite expert; fourth the one who leads; and fifth, the clarino, who avoids octaves since they clash and are not used by those who understand music.

We can understand now why a Renaissance sovereign might have required twenty-four trumpeters. A chart of the harmonic series shows what notes each of the performers named by Bendinelli would have played (Example 1).

Understanding that Renaissance trumpeters played as an ensemble rather than as soloists now clarifies why composers so often imitated the opening gesture of La guerre’s Secunda pars. It represented not only the notes but also the harmony of the war trumpet sound of Janequin’s time. James South implies that even Janequin’s key of F may have been taken from practical example. Bendinelli’s own trumpet sounds close to our modern key of E, which may have been the F of his time and place.⁹ Bendinelli labeled the chart describing his own trumpet’s range as Trombetta Antigua, perhaps referring to the older war trumpet as contrasted with the newer C trumpet that had replaced it.

Example 2 shows how Bendinelli’s battle trumpet formation appears in Janequin’s much-imitated second section. In the first measure, all voices simulate trumpet harmony; then the bass and tenor sing the lines that the grosso and vulgano trumpets normally would have played. The rhythm of the short notes with the syllables “Fre re le le lan fan” is that of the rotta, a flourish with which both military and ceremonial trumpet music might end. I have discovered that the rotta figure features in many organ battles (Example 3). 

Perhaps the most imitated trumpet motive Janequin uses is the Boutez selle (“put on the saddle”) (Example 4). Distinctive and easily heard through the busy texture of the chanson, this figure appears in all of the Renaissance trumpet methods. In Bendinelli’s it is entitled Buta sella and includes an example of mnemonic syllables like those Janequin may have had in mind when he wrote La guerre. The Boutez selle figure appears repeatedly in the organ battles, and I have observed that it is often accompanied by battle trumpet harmony (Example 4).

The organ battles of Iberia do not simply copy Janequin’s chanson, however. They use fanfares and other trumpet-like figures that the composers no doubt heard as part of ceremonies, or perhaps even composed for trumpet as well (Example 5). Because these figures are still used today for similar purposes, we recognize them immediately.

Portuguese and Spanish organ battles also depart from Janequin in their overall structure. The actual battle depiction in La guerre, Secunda Pars, falls into roughly two parts. The first uses trumpet motives, and the second drum and gunfire sounds. The texture remains quite consistently in four voices. There are some meter changes, but the listener does not perceive discrete sections. 

Iberian organ battles, on the other hand, are distinctly sectional. The texture varies between full block chords and the battle ensemble depiction of solo voice over triads (on the organ these can also appear under the chords). Meter changes often delimit the sections. The unique shape and style of Iberian battle music developed due to the influence of three musical elements exclusive to Spain and Portugal and their colonies in the western hemisphere. These are the villancico, the ensalada, and the particular direction Iberian organ builders took with their creations.

The impact of the villancico, ensalada, and Iberian organ developments

The first of these influences, the villancico, vilancete in Portuguese, is a song form. Villancicos had vernacular text, folk melodies, and an energetic rhythmic style replete with syncopation, hemiola, and meter changes. The villancico was strophic with a refrain (estribillo) and sometimes many verses (coplas). Villancico-like characteristics in the organ battles may include changing meters, hemiola, and a dance-like 3+3+2 rhythm that often appears at cadences (Example 6).

At first a secular form, the villancico moved into the realm of liturgy as devotional coplas were created to accompany estribillos that often remained secular. It became customary to perform these following each lesson at Vespers and during the elevation of the Host during the Mass.¹² Buelow suggests that battle pieces, closely related to the villancicos as they were, would also have been performed at the same points in the Mass.¹³ Phillip II of Spain banned the performance of villancicos in his chapel in 1596, but his complaint apparently was that they were sung in Spanish rather than Latin, and not that they were too spirited. The rest of the Iberian peninsula ignored this prohibition, and the villancico remained popular in Spanish and Latin American churches until the 19th century.

A popular theme for villancicos was the battle between good and evil. A song might depict a battle between the Virgin or the newborn Christ Child and Lucifer. Often the battle image might become more worldly. One example from mid-17th century Coimbra begins with a symbolic battle between divine and worldly love, but then turns into a skirmish between Portuguese and Spanish troops. Amid the repeated cries of “Long live divine love!” comes the text:

Viva el Amor divino 

Que nos ha quitado 

la prisión esquiva

De un ciego traidor.   

Praise the divine Love

Who has rid us

Of the unreachable prison

Of a blind traitor.

It is not surprising that some images of actual war might creep into the texts of sacred music. During the 17th century, Portugal was often at war, both battling for political separation from Spain and sparring with Spain in the western hemisphere, as they divided up the Americas between them.

A second factor in the development of organ battle music was the ensalada. The word means “salad,” and in fact the ensalada was a hodge-podge, a kind of musical revue made up of hymns and villancicos, sometimes acted out. These were performed on feast days and were especially popular at Christmas, New Year, and Epiphany. Ensaladas were sung and accompanied by an interesting variety of wind instruments, all of them loud. A composition might specify two trumpets and a schalmei, although the oboe and organ were also popular. 

Because the ensalada was made up of a variety of individual pieces, it was by definition a sectional music form. Spanish keyboard music already had a sectional genre, the tiento, one based on imitation similar to the Italian ricercar. Organists had simply to move from accompanying an ensalada to writing one for the organ alone. Ricercar-like imitation, usually at the octave, appears in some battles (Example 7), and authors often include battles in discussions of the tiento.

The third factor to influence the development of Iberian organ battle music was the instrument itself. At the beginning of the 16th century, Spanish and Portuguese organs were constructed by Flemish organ builders and were the same as those in other parts of Europe. Flemish practices continued in the Catalonian region of Spain, but in Castile and Portugal local organ builders took the instrument in a new direction. 

One difference was the divided manual, or medio registro. Each half of the manual, from middle C down and from middle C# up, could have its own registration. This allowed a small instrument much more variety than it might have with just one setting for the entire manual. Composers wrote pieces for medio registro with one hand soloing and the other playing an accompaniment. On a medio registro instrument, an organist could use different registrations to create an echo effect with this type of imitation. In the battles we often see paired imitation with a figure played first in one octave and then in another (Example 8).

Another improvement was the swell box, which appears to have been developed in Spain before anywhere else in Europe.¹⁵ Some of the enclosed pipes included reeds. The swell could potentially create echo effects without changes of octave or registration (Example 9). Some Spanish organs of the 17th century even had devices that allowed quick change of registration, although this was by no means universal. 

Organs became more versatile as organ makers learned to build pipes that imitated the sounds of other instruments. Pipes might do a credible job of mimicking the bassoon, the oboe, buzzing reed instruments such as the crumhorn, schalmei, and dulzian, and trumpets in all registers. The organ could play these sounds with more volume and a greater range than could performers on the actual instruments, sounding a death knell for these players who until that time had been highly valued. 

During the 17th century organ builders began to place trumpet-shaped reed pipes horizontally for more brilliant tonal effect and visual beauty. Almost every battle has at least one solo that might have been played on horizontal reeds against a background of a quieter reed chorus (Example 10). However, Doderer believes that organists would also have used horizontal reeds for dense chordal passages, creating a truly immense volume of sound (Example 11).

Not all Iberian organs were equipped with accessory stops to simulate percussion instruments as was the one at Lérida Cathedral (it also had bells and six different birdsongs). However, composers definitely assumed that performers would imitate this effect through articulation. Batalha famoza includes an instruction to play the left hand quickly in order to imitate musket fire (Example 12). Possibly this could be turned into a special effect, since the full sound of a pipe might not speak when played with a very short stroke.

These organs had fewer pedals than do modern ones. Organs surviving from the 17th century generally have from one to three pedals that might play C, F, and/or G, depending on the organ’s basic pitch (some were based on 24′ F stops rather than the 16′ C stops common in Germany).

Performance considerations

Developing insight into the trumpet sounds Iberian organists were emulating in their compositions throws new light on how this music should be played. The triadic accompaniment to a solo line should not hide in the background, but sound like a trumpet chorus. The organist can phrase a fanfare or battle call so that it sounds as if an actual trumpeter were playing it.

Understanding the organ of the time provides additional clues to bringing this music to life. Sutton suggests using an organ with at least two manuals to create the contrast that one medio registro keyboard could generate.¹⁷ Use pedals sparingly, since the organs for which the battles were written could only play sustained notes in common cadence pitches. One registration possibility would be a strong solo reed and bright reed chorus contrasted with full organ at sectional divisions. Barbara Owen suggests avoiding gaps in the registration or allowing it to become too foundational or too top-heavy.

Battle music remains a satisfying part of the organ literature today. Because their trumpet fanfares and battle signal motives persist as part of our aural culture, modern audiences still respond to this sound. Today we use battle music in concert rather than as liturgical repertoire, since tastes in church music have changed. However, battle music might make a satisfying postlude on a festive occasion, much as this music was used four centuries ago. 

Notes

1. Mary Ellen Sutton, A study of the 17th-century Iberian organ batalla (Ann Arbor: UMI, 1978), 142–143.

2. Gerhard Doderer, Orgelmusik und Orgelbau im Portugal des 17. Jahrhunderts: Unteruchungen an Hand des MS 964 d. Biblioteca Pública in Braga (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1978), 198–199.

3. Sutton, Iberian organ batalla, 92.

4. Josep Elías wrote on the title page of a collection of the master’s works, “Ante ruet mundus quam surget Cabanilles secundus.” George J. Buelow, A History of Baroque Music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 382.

5. Mary Jane Corry, “A Spanish-Austrian Battle.” Music/The AGO and RCCO Magazine (March 1970), 35.

6. Sutton, Iberian organ batalla, 65.

7. Cesare Bendinelli, The Entire Art of Trumpet Playing (1614), trans. Edward H. Tarr (Nashville: The Brass Press, 1975), 12.

8. Monteverdi provides a written-out example of the trumpet ensemble in the Toccata that opens his opera, Orfeo, 1607. See Example 13.

9. James South, “References to trumpet music in the battle chansons of Clément Janequin.” DMA diss., University of North Texas, 1990. RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, EBSCOhost.

10. Renaissance trumpets were generally pitched between modern B and F.

11. Walton, Clifford, History of the British Standing Army, A.D. 1660–1700 (London: Harrison and Sons, 1894), p. 467.

12. Buelow, History of Baroque Music, 371.

13. Ibid., 380.

14. Manuel Carlos De Brito, “A Little-Known Collection of Portuguese Baroque Villancicos and Romances,” Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle, No. 15 (1979), 17–37. Translation by Dr. Miguel Chuaqui, Professor of Composition at the University of Utah.

15. Douglas Earl Bush and Richard Kassel, eds., The Organ: An Encyclopedia (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2005), 548.

16. Doderer, Orgelmusik und Orgelbau, 203.

17. Sutton, Iberian organ batalla, 123.

18. Barbara Owen, The Registration of Baroque Organ Music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 130–134.