Colloquium: December 2nd, 4:30–6:30pm - Cornell University, Lincoln Hall 101B
Workshop: December 3rd, 9:30–11:30am - Cornell University, TBA

The immense popularity of Corelli’s opus 5 (1700) and Vivaldi’s opus 3 L’estro armonico (1711) served to make harmonic major-minor tonality and the Italian “violinistic” idiom the musical lingua franca of Europe. This seminar and practicum will explore how a thoroughbass orientation to harmony (chords, movimenti) and a purely instrumental motivic language (figurae, etc.) interacted with traditional methods of contrapuntal improvisation. If in the seventeenth the vocal motet was the principal model for instrumental counterpoint, by 1700 counterpoint had been “naturalized” as an instrumental idiom (the cantabile aria now being quintessentially “vocal”). Italian violin language and partimento pedagogy provided new means to develop counterpoint in a modern figural style.

Repertoire: Corelli, Pasquini, Bach
Theorists: Durante, Pasquini, Langloz MS

Literature:
[These volumes will be available on reserve in the Sidney Cox Music Library at Lincoln Hall.]

Paul Everett, The Four Seasons and other concertos, Op. 8, Cambridge University Press 1996
Chapter 3: Ritornello Forms (pp. 26-49)

Giorgio Sanguinetti, The Art of Partimento, Oxford University Press 2012
Chapter 2: What are Partimenti (pp. 9-18)
Chapter 3: The partimento in Italy (19-28)
Chapter 5: Teaching Methods in the Neapolitan Conservatories (41-46)

*Campus locations and rooms subject to final confirmation. E-mail info@westfield.org if you are interested in this session, and we will add you to the notifications e-list. Please also email us your questions and suggestions on repertoire and literature.