Part I:

National Styles of Baroque music

 

In Baroque music, we see a clear distinction in the presence of national styles. In the first lecture, we will deal with the main styles including the French, Italian, and mixed (German). Together, we will discuss major works that capture the essence of each style, and we will cover the differences in ornamentation, terminology and musical aesthetics from each style. The lecture will conclude with open-ended questions and impulses for the participants to consider before the next lecture.

The second session will be dedicated to the significance of rhetoric and articulation in Baroque music, which are fundamental in interpreting the music through various tools such as interpunctuation, messa di voce, dotted rhythms, and bar hierarchy.

This session will be followed by the role of the bass which drives the harmony of the piece. Here, we can examine the influence of the bass line on the melody, and how the melody is founded on the bass line. We will touch on appoggiaturas, ornamentation, and improvisation.

In the last lecture, we will delve into how to read original manuscripts and interpret treatises, such as Observations on the Florid Song by Pier Francesco Tosi, Treatise on keyboard playing with examples and 18 sample pieces in 6 sonatas by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and On playing the flute by Johann Joachim Quantz. By taking specific examples, we will see how the early music movement found its roots from rediscovering and reinterpreting these texts. Concluding each lecture, we will have time for a Q&A session.

 

Session 1 — National Styles of the baroque: French, Italian, Mixed Styles

Session 2 — Rhetoric, Articulation and Rhythm

Session 3 — Understanding Harmony and Structures

Session 4 — Reading Manuscript and Treatises

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Part II:

Bach Partita in A minor for solo flute, BWV 1013

 

Each session is dedicated to one movement of the piece:

- Allemande

- Corrente

- Sarabande

- Bourée Angloise

 

The only work by Johann Sebastian Bach for flute solo was not originally called a partita. The original manuscript was transcribed by two copyists, the first of whom also transcribed all six of Bach's partitas for solo violin. It is interesting that the title on the manuscript is written in French: Solo p[our une] flûte traversière par J. S. Bach. Because the words sans basse (“without bass”) does not appear in the title, many speculate that the bass part went missing in the course of the last centuries. Personally, I do not think that this is so; After all, the flute part is completely full-fledged and self-sufficient. The manuscript was the last to be discovered in a book of violin partitas, which was why this work also inherited the name of “partita.” It is a well-known fact that Bach loved numbers, especially combinations of six: six partitas for violin, six suites for cello, six French suites, but only one solo for flute has survived. Perhaps there are five more gems still waiting to be found…Each session is dedicated to one movement of the piece. In every session, we can apply several of the concepts we have learned from Part I on our piece. (For instance, what might a bassline for this solo piece look like?)

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Photo credit: Bartolomeo Dandolo Marchesi