Playing the Partitura Correctly and Well: Basso Continuo Accompaniment
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Playing the partitura correctly and well: Basso continuo accompaniment practices in church music from late eighteenth-century Salzburg Anthony George Abouhamad A thesis submitted to fulfil requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Sydney Conservatorium of Music University of Sydney 2020 Statement of originality I declare that the research presented here is my own original work and has not been submitted to any other institution for the award of a degree. Signature: Name: Date: ii Abstract Scholars have long known that basso continuo accompaniment at the organ was part of standard Austrian church music practice in the late eighteenth century. Despite this, hardly any studies have examined this performance practice. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to our understanding of its performance by examining how court organists in late eighteenth-century Salzburg realised a basso continuo when accompanying church music. Six manuals, written by Salzburg court organists from the time of Georg Muffat to Michael Haydn, contain the foundations of this information. The purpose of this study is to ascertain the method that these organists used to realise an accompaniment from a figured bass, which Austrian musicians called ‘partitura’. As invaluable as the Salzburg manuals are, they contain very little textural commentary. In fact, they mostly consist of illustrations of standardised musical patterns (what Robert Gjerdingen terms ‘schemata’). From an analysis of these schemata, I reconstruct the Salzburg organists’ method for improvising a partitura. Then, I corroborate the findings of this analysis with an examination of the ways in which Salzburg composers commonly notated organ parts for church music compositions. From this study, I conclude that this method involved organists realising schemata from a figured bass in a manner appropriate to the style of composition they were accompanying. I explain this method using four ‘fundamental principles’, labelled ‘disposition’, ‘exchange’, ‘punctuation’ and ‘style’. The first three of these principles are collectively termed ‘construction principles’ as they describe the structure of a partitura and were derived from a structural analysis of the schemata in the manuals. The style principle, on the other hand, examines how the stylistic attributes of a composition dictate the appropriate application of these principles, which is communicated to organists through notational symbols, such as clefs and figuring. The four fundamental principles that outline the Salzburg method for playing a partitura “correctly and well” (an expression Salzburg organists Johann Baptist Samber and Matthäus Gugl use in the titles of their manuals) provide us with insights into the practices of iii professional court organists of a small, yet significant, city on the periphery of the Habsburg Empire. Besides being the home of Wolfgang Mozart, once a Salzburg court organist himself, the city boasted organists of the calibre of Georg Muffat and Michael Haydn. In addition to shining light on their methods of partitura playing, this study shows that Salzburg court organists understood basso continuo in contrapuntal terms. This challenges some of our most basic conceptions of ‘common practice tonality’ and asks us to reassess how we analyse and perform basso continuo, a practice that was integral to eighteenth-century performance and compositional practice. iv Acknowledgments Without the support of many, the burden of completing this task would have been a heavier one. It is an honour and with gratitude that I thank those who have provided encouragement and support throughout my research candidature. I would like to begin by acknowledging the University of Sydney for offering me financial support through the Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) scholarship as well as my supervisor, Dr. Alan Maddox, who tirelessly guided me through the process of writing this PhD. His meticulous attention to detail and professionalism provide a model of scholarship I aspire for. I would also like to extend my appreciation to my auxiliary supervisor, Dr. Neal Peres da Costa, who gave me the opportunity to practise my research, teaching in the Historical Performance division at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. My gratitude also goes to academic staff members Mr. Lewis Cornwell, Dr. Daniel Rojas and Dr. Kathleen Nelson, who have been incredibly supportive and encouraging, and to the indefatigable Dr. Marguerite Foxon for proof-reading my work and making me see reason in moments of doubt. I extend my heartfelt appreciation to the library staff at the Conservatorium, especially Ludwig Sugiri, Dina Komis, Simona McMaster, Wendy Patten, Holly Eades, Cassandra Zielonko and Montse Vigo-Montes. Professional staff at the HDRAC office, Mr. Timothy Crowe and Mr. Yaniv Levy, made sure that both my course details and brain were in order. Thank you both for attending to my panic-stricken telephone calls with grace and kindness. This thesis would still be far from complete without the skills of Luca Warburton, who patiently typeset all my handwritten musical examples with appropriate computer software and Eva Bart, who re-read my final draft and provided feedback with regards to spelling and grammar. It is a pleasure to extend my gratitude to my friends Matt, Mikaela, Anton, Raf, Kiseok, Evan, Meg, Justin, Annie and Theo, to whom I am forever indebted for their kindness. The days always felt shorter when ended at the Courthouse Hotel with the likes of Dan or Harry, v after which I would be ready for another writing session. My sincere affection goes out to my friend and research partner, João Santos, who continues to teach me how to live analysis in performance. Finally, to Kathryn, Alex and Simon, all of whom contributed to the maintenance of my sanity in the casual staff office/postgrad room at various points throughout the working days of semester. Not least of all, I would like to thank my parents, George and Lena, who have always supported my musical and academic pursuits, my siblings and their spouses and our newest addition, my nephew and Godson, George Elias Abouhamad. The aunts, uncles and cousins in my extended family have also provided me with moral support and all take a sincere interest in my work. Lastly, a special thank you to my grandparents, who left their homes in the hope that we would reap the benefits of their sacrifices. vi Note on Translations All foreign language translations of text in this thesis are by the author unless otherwise specified. Translations from other sources are appropriately referenced. If modifications were made to these, the reference includes the additional indication ‘based on a translation by [author’s name] in [name of text]’. The original texts of all translations are provided either in the body with parentheses, for shorter quotations, or in footnotes where the original text is written out in full. Acknowledgements are made where help with translating text was provided. I have endeavoured to render English equivalents for key terms in German- language primary sources. Those terms that have too specific a meaning, however, are adopted as loan words and appear italicised without quotation marks. vii Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................................... v Note on Translations .......................................................................................................................... vii Illustrations ......................................................................................................................................... xii Figures.............................................................................................................................................. xii Examples.......................................................................................................................................... xv Tables ............................................................................................................................................. xvii Abbreviations ................................................................................................................................... xviii 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Current state of research in Austrian basso continuo practices .......................................... 2 1.2 Salzburg as a case study ............................................................................................................ 6 1.3 The Salzburg manuals as case study materials ...................................................................... 8 1.4 Historical context ...................................................................................................................... 12 1.4.1 The contrapuntal paradigm in basso continuo ............................................................. 14 1.5 Generating a Salzburg ‘method’ ............................................................................................ 18 1.5.1 Fundamental principles .................................................................................................... 19 1.5.2 The construction principles: disposition,