Partimento Realization: Mastering Durante's Diminutions at the Keyboard

Nicola Sala was a leading 18th-century music teacher in Naples, whose partimento and counterpoint pedagogy descended from Leonardo Leo’s tradition at “La Pietà dei Turchini,” emphasizing church counterpoint over Francesco Durante’s operatic style. Sala’s partimenti are considered valuable resources for studying imitative counterpoint and fugue, particularly when studied alongside his treatise “Regole del Contrappunto pratico.” In this recording, Roberto Cornacchioni Alegre performs Partimento No. 77 in a three-part texture, as the original was not fully notated and was likely intended for extemporization. The style typically omits fourth or fifth voices, treating them as optional free counterpoint. However, the partimento clearly contains a four-part stretto, suggesting it was also used for training in written choral fugue composition. The structural similarities between this piece and Sala’s “Christe eleison” in the “Regole” further support its use in formal counterpoint instruction. The performance is played on organ, reflecting the liturgical context of the pedagogy. The recording was made in May 2022, and the accompanying painting depicts the Porta Capuana in Naples, grounding the historical and geographical context of Sala’s teaching environment.

The Neapolitan partimento tradition, a nearly extinct keyboard counterpoint pedagogy from 18th-century Naples, was dominated by two contrasting schools: Leonardo Leo's church-focused approach emphasizing fugue construction through themes and counter subjects with many ties and suspensions, and Francesco Durante's opera-focused approach emphasizing melodic flexibility, modulation, and element-based training through figures like fourths, sevenths, and ninths. Students could identify a partimento's lineage by visual characteristics—Leo's pieces often appear in pairs with dominant endings and contain many ties, while Durante's pieces feature text explaining rules and focus on specific pedagogical elements. The revival of this tradition requires extensive manuscript research, as thousands of copies with misattributions exist, and understanding these pedagogical differences is essential for proper realization and interpretation of historical keyboard counterpoint.

Leonardo Leo (1694-1744) was a composer from the Neapolitan school who became known as 'maestro di maestri' (master of masters) because he served as first master in two of the four conservatories in Naples, training notable students like Piccinni and Jommelli. His music combined sacred contrapuntal traditions with theatrical elements, reflecting the vibrant cultural life of 18th-century Naples, which was the capital of the world of music during the Baroque period. A significant discovery in 2009 revealed a previously lost manuscript of his sacred drama 'Dalla morte alla vita di Santa Maria Maddalena,' which was commissioned by the city of Atrani in 1722 and represents the fusion of spiritual and theatrical elements characteristic of Neapolitan sacred music.

This video presents a collection of Baroque cello concertos by four prominent Neapolitan composers: Nicola Porpora (Concerto in G Major), Nicola Fiorenza (Concerto in F Major and A Minor), Leonardo Leo (Concerto in A Major), and Nicola Sabatino (Concerto in G Major), performed by the ensemble Nasillo. These works represent the rich musical tradition of Naples during the Baroque period, showcasing the distinctive style of Neapolitan composers who were influential in the development of cello repertoire.

The instructor's book focuses on the first steps of partimento, specifically the 1-5-1 baseline, where students learn to improvise and compose before slowly adding rules of the rule of the octave and sequences. This contrasts with the Feneroli treatise, which starts in the middle and requires simultaneous knowledge of multiple keys, the whole rule of the octave, and various cadences. In Neapolitan conservatories, teachers wrote baselines on chalkboards and students improvised over them, but many of these chalkboard baselines have been lost to time. The instructor cautions against using chorales as models for partimento because they have nothing to do with chorale texture. Partimento is more similar to Domenico Scarlatti's piano repertoire, which has a light texture. The instructor recommends using Baroque suites from lesser-known composers as better examples for students.

Partimento serves as the crucial bridge between structured continuo and spontaneous improvisation. It involves a bass line with figures but requires the student to provide the upper voices, creating a middle ground between fully written repertoire and complete improvisation. Fux's 'Gradus ad Parnassum' is a highly recommended counterpoint textbook. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier is considered the 'Old Testament of music' and can be used as daily practice material. Bach's two-part inventions are excellent for learning composition because they contain multiple compositional elements in a compact form. Pasquini's 'Versetti' are excellent for learning fugal expositions. The progression from basic continuo to partimento to improvisation provides a clear pathway from structured repertoire to spontaneous creation.

Partimento, the Italian system of figured bass improvisation, provides the essential harmonic vocabulary and procedural framework for keyboard artists to improvise fugues, as it teaches musicians to recognize and execute typical harmonic progressions, invertible counterpoint combinations, and thematic relationships that form the structural DNA of fugue writing, enabling them to create authentic historical fugue improvisations by understanding the underlying musical logic rather than memorizing specific pieces.

This video demonstrates how to analyze and realize a Baroque fugue from the Langloz Manuscript (number 27) by first identifying the subject (ending on the second degree in G major), counter subjects (using thirds and tenths), and structural elements like cadences and transitions; the realization process involves applying counter subjects at different voice positions, using chromaticism and suspension figures (7-6, 9-8) to create interest, and maintaining rhythmic coherence through 16th-note patterns while avoiding parallel octaves and fifths.

A fugue is a musical composition where one or two themes (subjects) are imitated by successively entering voices, featuring two types of answers (tonal and real), counter subjects providing accompanying material, and structural elements including exposition and developmental episodes; key techniques include stretto (overlapping entries), pedal point, augmentation/diminution, sequence, and invertible counterpoint.

Counterpoint is the defining characteristic of ancient music (late Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque), distinguishing it from modern music's melodic conception. While modern music separates melody and harmony, counterpoint features voices overlapping and interweaving, with beauty in internal relationships. This reflects Renaissance Neoplatonic thought of a pantheistic universe with mutually dependent parts. The fugue is the queen of counterpoint forms, representing the culmination of imitative techniques that evolved from medieval 'chases' through Renaissance motets to the 18th century. The fugue begins with a subject, followed by a response on the dominant, with subsequent voices entering contrapuntally in the exposition section.

Baroque schemata (scale harmonizations and cadence schemata) differ fundamentally from Galant schemata—they don't necessarily imply balanced, punctuated phrasing. Scale harmonizations may continue indefinitely without boundaries, while cadence schemata only describe local motion. Galant schemata capture articulation, symmetry, and parallelism. Applying Fon schemata to Bach's Fifth Suite Gavotte reveals clearly punctuated, symmetrical four-bar phrases combining into eight-bar phrases with multi-level motivic parallelism. Each Fenol (four-stage schema) contains a dominant-tonic discharge, with the entire Fon transposed a step lower, demonstrating how schemata make Galant characteristics immediately apparent.

The Meyer is a common musical pattern used by 18th-century galant composers, featuring a distinctive opening pattern that can be traced back to a I V V I progression but takes on various nuances through different 'colorings' such as Jupiter, Pastorella, and Aprile; this pattern is essential for understanding how to compose and improvise in Baroque and Galant styles, as it provides a structural foundation that goes beyond functional harmony analysis.

This video demonstrates how Johann Adolf Hasse, at age 26, fully mastered galant schemata in his 1725 aria 'Quel candido armellino' from 'Marc'Antonio e Cleopatra', utilizing the Romanesca as an opening gambit, the Ponte, the Monte, the Circle-of-Fifths Prinner, and sequences built on stepwise ascending bass segments (5-6 and 7-6) within a da capo structure to express Cleopatra's courage and equanimity.