PARTIMENTO FUGUE IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY GERMANY: A BRIDGE BETWEEN THOROUGHBASS LESSONS AND FUGAL COMPOSITION

Abstract

The pervasiveness of thoroughbass in eighteenth-century German musical pedagogy is illustrated by the way that it extends from continuo realization exercises and chorale harmonizations to complete fugues. This article seeks to demonstrate how partimento fugue can be construed as the missing link between thoroughbass exercises and fully fledged keyboard fugues, by expanding on ideas first advanced by William Renwick. Through an examination of partimento fugues from J. S. Bach’s Precepts and Principles, Handel’s Lessons for Princess Anne, the Langloz manuscript and Heinichen’s Der General-Bass in der Composition, this study outlines a progression from basic realization exercises, in which the emphasis lies on the recognition and execution of continuo figures, to advanced recomposition assignments in which the performer is expected to project a rich contrapuntal texture from a simple figured-bass line, a task which is crucially dependent on the ability to memorize and reuse thematic material. The pedagogical value of partimento fugues also hinges on the acquisition of commonplace patterns such as the scalar descent and the harmonization of a chromatic line in alternating thirds and sixths. Although these patterns are often merely implied, they are found repeatedly in specific musical contexts, suggesting that they may function as generative melodic lines from which the composer derived both the harmonic progression and the underlying bass line, in a striking reversal of the standard compositional paradigm proposed by eighteenth-century theorists such as Niedt. Finally, the occurrence of these formulas in thoroughbass exercises, as well as in masterpieces such as J. S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, points to their ubiquitous character and demonstrates that they were part of a common language shared by many German composers of the period, thus emphasizing the need for an increased familiarity with the German partimento repertory and its conventions.