Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Preliminary Remarks
- Introduction
- 1 Giovanni Paisiello, Composer and Teacher
- 2 The Sources
- 3 Instruction at the Conservatories
- 4 Paisiello’s Regole (1782)
- 5 Practical Examples from Paisiello’s Circle
- 6 The Practical Application of Partimenti Today
- Afterword
- Appendix 1 Incipits and Sources for the Partimenti of Giovanni Paisiello
- Appendix 2 Concordance for the Sources of Giovanni Paisiello’s Partimenti
- Appendix 3 Disposizioni à 2 and Disposizioni à 3 on Partimento Gj2319 by Giovanni Paisiello
- Appendix 4 Partimenti from Giovanni Paisiello’s Regole (1782)
- Appendix 5 Historical Realizations of Partimenti by Francesco Durante from The Vessella Manuscript and The Gallipoli Manuscript
- Appendix 6 “Preludio” and “Rondò” in B-flat major by Giovanni Paisiello, Both in the Original Version and in a Suggested Variation by This Author
- Appendix 7 Emanuele Imbimbo: Observations sur l’enseignement mutuel (1821)
- Appendix 8 A Solfeggio Attributed to Giovanni Paisiello in Its Original Version and with a Varied Upper Voice by This Author
- Appendix 9 Giovanni Paisiello, Regole per bene accompagnare il Partimento, St. Petersburg, 1782
- Appendix 10 Newly Discovered Partimenti by Giovanni Paisiello
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Practical Examples from Paisiello’s Circle
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 January 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Preliminary Remarks
- Introduction
- 1 Giovanni Paisiello, Composer and Teacher
- 2 The Sources
- 3 Instruction at the Conservatories
- 4 Paisiello’s Regole (1782)
- 5 Practical Examples from Paisiello’s Circle
- 6 The Practical Application of Partimenti Today
- Afterword
- Appendix 1 Incipits and Sources for the Partimenti of Giovanni Paisiello
- Appendix 2 Concordance for the Sources of Giovanni Paisiello’s Partimenti
- Appendix 3 Disposizioni à 2 and Disposizioni à 3 on Partimento Gj2319 by Giovanni Paisiello
- Appendix 4 Partimenti from Giovanni Paisiello’s Regole (1782)
- Appendix 5 Historical Realizations of Partimenti by Francesco Durante from The Vessella Manuscript and The Gallipoli Manuscript
- Appendix 6 “Preludio” and “Rondò” in B-flat major by Giovanni Paisiello, Both in the Original Version and in a Suggested Variation by This Author
- Appendix 7 Emanuele Imbimbo: Observations sur l’enseignement mutuel (1821)
- Appendix 8 A Solfeggio Attributed to Giovanni Paisiello in Its Original Version and with a Varied Upper Voice by This Author
- Appendix 9 Giovanni Paisiello, Regole per bene accompagnare il Partimento, St. Petersburg, 1782
- Appendix 10 Newly Discovered Partimenti by Giovanni Paisiello
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Durante is the greatest master of harmony in Italy; that is to say: of the world.
—Jean-Jacques RousseauFrancesco Durante—Paisiello’s Teacher
Rousseau’s effulgent praise for Francesco Durante is just one of numerous contemporary proofs of Durante’s reputation as a pedagogue, composer, and all-round musician. He is praised not only in the testimony of his own students but also in the dictionaries of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In many respects, his partimenti may be considered a key to understanding and performing Paisiello’s essays in the genre.
Numerous manuscripts with partimenti by Francesco Durante are held by libraries across Europe today, though not a single autograph is known to have survived. Until recently, a manuscript dated 1762 containing partimenti by Durante was regarded as the earliest such in existence. However, another partimento manuscript was recently discovered in private hands that was in fact copied during Durante’s lifetime: “Regole per imparar di sonare il Cembalo del Sig.r D. Francesco Durante, … Napoli … 13 Aprile 1754.” The scribe in question was a priest, D. Giustino de’ Santi (1711–73), who made this copy for his religious community in Naples, basing it on a source that is no longer extant. Two dates are mentioned in the manuscript: April 13, 1754, on the first page, and April 14, 1754, on the third. The manuscript was written out neatly and carefully. It contains a section with basic rules (scale, cadenze, movimenti di basso), brief partimenti numerate, applying these rules in a practical example immediately after they are stated, followed by thirteen partimenti diminuiti, a partimento fugue, and three intavolature.
A personal note by the copyist at the beginning of the introductory section is intended to encourage the student not to give up too early just because the initial “principles” demand the most time and effort:
Here follow the principles for playing the harpsichord or the organ. These are principles that require more attention in order to learn and comprehend them well: O reader, you have to be sure of what I am telling you now, that however great the confusion might be, and however much it might encumber your mind, be sure, and more than sure, that time will remove all confusion and all tedium, and you will take pleasure in these exercises.
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- Information
- The Partimenti of Giovanni PaisielloPedagogy and Practice, pp. 94 - 120Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2022