Towards a Galant Pedagogy: Partimenti and Schemata as Tools in the Pedagogy of Eighteenth-Century Style Improvisation

[1.1] In recent years, there has been a growing scholarly interest in eighteenth-century Neapolitan partimenti and galant schemata on the one hand, and in the practice of teaching theoretical concepts to modern musicians through improvisation and model composition on the other. The work of Gjerdingen (2007) and Sanguinetti (2012) has yielded significant insights into historical models for composition, improvisation, and, presumably, into the cognition of eighteenth-century musicians and listeners. The cognitive archaeology offered in Robert Gjerdingen's (2007) book, Music in the Galant Style,(1) relies on three main sources: period theoretical treatises including the Italian pedagogical tradition of partimenti, a wide repertoire of pieces from the period, and modern-day research in cognitive psychology. Gjerdingen thereby attempts to reconstruct eighteenth-century cognitive schemata or mental patterns that are defined primarily by outer-voice scale-degree pairings. Sanguinetti's work is more historical in nature: in his monograph on the tradition of partimenti, Sanguinetti offers a reconstruction of this lost pedagogical tradition. A partimento is a bass line, typically unfigured, used in the teaching of composition and improvisation. The tradition flourished in conservatories in Naples and other Italian cities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and continued onwards, in different incarnations, into the nineteenth century and beyond.[1.2] The potential for style composition and improvisation to enrich instruction in music theory and musicianship has been persuasively articulated in recent pedagogical literature, including Cook 1996, Azzara 2002, Schubert 2011, and Callahan 2012. Moreover, recent theory textbooks such as Gauldin 2004, Clendinning and Marvin 2005, and Laitz 2012 incorporate model-composition assignments of varying levels of complexity. Such exercises provide an opportunity for students to engage both with abstract issues in music theory and with historical styles, while making theory assignments more musical. Eckert's (2005) article provides a step-by-step approach to using concepts from Joseph Riepel's mid-eighteenth-century writings in teaching modern-day students how to compose minuets based on those of the child Mozart. Eckert recreates elements of Riepel's original dialogue between student and teacher in the modern-day classroom. Guido and Schubert's (2014) dialogue likewise creates a lively conversation about improvisation, historical treatises, and musical practice for a repertoire not usually covered in theory curricula. Silberman's (2012) article provides insights on the use of idiomatic accompaniment patterns to enliven students' work in model composition.[1.3] These sources demonstrate the growing interest in model composition, historical sources, and their significance to the pedagogy of music theory. Of course, there exists a substantial modern literature on model composition as an end in itself, going back as far as Jeppesen 1927 or, if you will, Fux 1725. Recent counterpoint textbooks by Schubert (2007) and Schubert and Neidhofer (2006) contain specific instructions for improvised activities alongside written work in counterpoint. Ruiter-Feenstra's (2011) large volume utilizes works by J. S. Bach and his contemporaries to teach essential Baroque improvisation skills; her book is oriented towards historical keyboard players, but many of the proposed activities are adaptable to the realm of theory pedagogy.[1.4] Given the growing interest in model composition and improvisation, there is much room to develop and evaluate modern-day applications of the historical pedagogies studied by Gjerdingen and Sanguinetti. Our project proposes a pedagogical application of partimenti and galant schemata in teaching modern-day conservatory students to improvise, and incorporates transcriptions of selected student performances from a recent research study. By reflecting on these improvisations, we will highlight the potential benefits as well as challenges of using such activities in today's classroom. …