Classical Improvisation: How It Works, Why It Died, and What Happens Next

Dr. John MortensenFulbright SpecialistProfessor of Piano

(Ohio, USA)

Introduction

It is truly a delight to visit your beautiful nation and work with you in this famous, excellent institution. I also wish to thank the Baltic American Freedom Foundation of the US Department of State.

My journey into improvisation began with jazz. I was trained in the strict classical piano tradition, but in secret, for fear of my professors’ disapproval, I always loved the freedom and risk of jazz. The notion of a kind of music that starts without quite knowing how it will unfold — this fascinated me. I grew up listening to Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert. How, I wondered, could he walk on stage, imitate the bell that tells the audience to sit, and then spin out from that unpromising theme a full concert of vast emotional expansiveness? Was it just a mysterious gift that Jarrett had and I did not?

I began to ask these same questions about classical music. I marveled at stories of Bach astonishing his listeners by improvising miraculous polyphonic works of genius. Again, I thought he did this by means of superpowers, and that it was as amazing and inexplicable in his day as in ours.

Only later did I learn that it was not so. In Bach’s day, any self-respecting and decently-trained musician could improvise, just as today any mechanic can change a tire. Bach was exceptionally good at something that almost everyone could do adequately. The miracle was not that he could do it, but that he could do it so darn well.

Recent scholarship has revealed that the robust musicianship of the 18th century was rooted in the premise that every musician was simultaneously composer, performer, and improviser. I propose a return to some version of this flexible and powerful model, reimagined for the modern world. In order to undertake such a project, we must first understand how improvisation worked in the 18th century, why it vanished from the “classical” music world,

what is happening now in the discipline, how interested persons may begin learn it and pass it on to students.

How It Worked Back Then

The common-practice music tradition grew from a pedagogical system in which improvisation, composition, and performance were intertwined. For instance, almost no 18th century keyboard accompaniments were fully written-out, but were derived from figured bass and solved in real time. The requirement to invent and solve (not merely recite) during live performance partially explains the remarkable fluency of early common-practice musicians.

Jan Dismas Zelenka, Miserere. Figured bass accompaniment.

Performances were often partially improvised, and many compositions were written-down improvisations with a bit of editing. Most importantly, the three elements orbited around the central concept of bass motions.

Bass motions are the generative force lying beneath all common practice music. Almost every musical utterance from 1600 to 1880 arises from a specific bass motion, whether stepwise, falling fifths, alternating thirds, chromatic, and so on. The reason old-timey musicians were so fluent is that they memorized and practiced many variations on every bass motion, such that (ideally, anyway) there was nothing that could happen in music that they had not already thought about and mastered. Their command of the musical language of their time was complete.

The simplest bass motion is the V — I cadence, where the bass drops from the fifth to the first scale degree, and both bass notes take what we call root position triads but what they called chords of the fifth. Spiridion a Monte Carmelo was a 17th century monk who wrote an instruction manual for keyboard players.

Example from Spiridion’s instructional manual.

In the first chapter he began by teaching a V — I cadence in G. He then required his students to memorize no less than seventy-two ways to play that cadence, with a dizzying array of passagework, ornaments, and clever shifting inner voices. Then, of course, the student would have to transpose all this material into every other key.

Upon completion of this arduous chapter the student would subsequently encounter every V — I cadence as an irresistible chance to display any one of dozens of cool, impressive, and musically satisfying solutions, on the spot, in real time, in front of people. This knowledge of V — I cadences would then become the source material for both composition and realization of figured bass. No wonder their figured bass realizations were so much more than perfunctory chords! No wonder they could compose so much music so fast!

Partimenti

Bass motions were taught universally through the use of partimenti. The largest and most influential collections of partimenti seem to come from the conservatories of Napoli, although everyone, (including Bach and Händel) used them.

Fedele Fenaroli. A partimento for beginners.

Fedele Fenaroli. An advanced partimento.

A partimento is a pedagogical bass line encoding a potential complete piece. Some have figures here and there, but for the most part they consist of bass notes only. Eduardo Bellotti of the Eastman School of Music told me that figures were a compromise for amateurs; real musicians didn’t even need them.

A student presented with a partimento would scan the bass line for recognizable bass motions. Two whole notes on ˆ5 and ˆ1 is obviously a cadence. ˆ4 —ˆ5 —ˆ1 isn’t much harder. But what about a complete ascending or descending scale? What about dropping chromatically from ˆ1 down to ˆ5? What about up a fourth, down a third, up a fourth, down a third?

As it turns out, all possible bass motions had one or more stylistically correct voice-leading solutions. An ascending scale, for example, has approximately eight solutions, depending how you count. They are Fauxbourdon, Rule of the Octave, Ascending 5-6, Ascending 8-7-6, Ascending 10-9-8, the previous two combined, the Corelli Leapfrog, and the Paralique. (This last term I made up.)

Aside from these eight solutions, there is no other way to harmonize an ascending scale in the 18th century style. If one knows these eight things, one has complete command of the language of the ascending diatonic bass line.

So if a student playing a partimento encountered an ascending scale, the requirement would be to choose one of the solutions and applying the appropriate voice-leading in the upper voices, taking into account the meter, tempo, thematic unity, and other parameters.

The simplest partimenti have fairly obvious solutions. The advanced ones use shorter bass motions — the scale might start but quickly breaks off into some other motion — so one needs a greater variety of solutions, applied in rapid succession. Modulation further complicates things, as you can imagine.

Fenaroli

Fedele Fenaroli (1730-1818) is one of the most influential teachers of the partimento tradition. His treatise Regole musicali per i principianti di cembalo (1775) lays out recommended solutions for bass motions. We will look at a few.

Fenaroli rules for the 5-6 Ascending progression. Source: http://faculty-web.at.northwestern.edu/music/gjerdingen/partimenti/collections/Fenaroli/Regole/regoleP0.htm

Ascending 5-6

The Ascending 5-6 allows one to creep up the scale without writing parallel fifths. Every fifth must expand to a sixth. Then the bass catches up and you have a fifth again. A third voice moves in parallel thirds or tenths with the bass. Because of the precise pattern of movement, the Ascending 5-6 can be realized as a true sequence.

Fenaroli’s rules for Rule of the Octave. Source: http://faculty-web.at.northwestern.edu/music/gjerdingen/partimenti/collections/Fenaroli/Regole/regoleP0.htm

Rule of the Octave

The Rule of the Octave exists in several versions. At its simplest, ˆ1 and ˆ5 take root position chords (or as they said back then, chords of the fifth), and every other bass note takes a first inversion chord (chord of the sixth).

Diminutions

Now that we have an array of solutions for every bass motion, how do we make something that sounds like music and not like exercises? The answer is diminutions. Diminutions are small connective notes between the main structural pitches that determine voice leading. Again, we can look to an existing pedagogical system from the 18th century for help. Michael Wiedeburg’s 1775 treatise on this subject teaches that any structural interval may transform into a florid and pleasing line of solved with a correct diminution.

Chart of diminutions covering various intervals.

Let us now put together the concepts of bass motion and diminution by harmonizing a scale with the Ascending 5-6 and connecting some of the voices with diminutions.

& 42 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

&8 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

&14 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

&20 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

&27 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

&34 œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

Unison Ascending 2nd

Ascending 3rd

Ascending 4th Ascending 5th

Ascending 6th Descending 2nd

Descending 3rd Descending 4th

Descending 5th Descending 6th

Ascending 5-6 with diminutions.

In a similar fashion, one may elaborate the underlying structural voice-leading with non-harmonic tones. The important thing here is to follow the rules. In the 18th century, non-harmonic tones were like love potions: powerful and desirable but disastrous if badly managed. So when they tell us that suspensions must be prepared by common tone and resolved by step, this is not merely pedantry but a way of protecting the integrity of the music. Unprepared dissonance instantly destroys the sound and logic of the 18th century language.

We may apply any appropriate non-harmonic tones to any harmonized bass motion. Let us return to the Ascending 5-6, this time using various neighboring tones and suspensions.

I hope it is evident that bass motions plus harmonization plus diminutions plus non-harmonic tones are the meat and potatoes and gravy and coffee of 18th century harmonic language.

Why It Died

To my knowledge no one has studied, with systematic precision, the decline of improvisation in classical music. Nevertheless common sense would suggest that the confluence of several historical forces wiped it out. As a beginning I would cite the following:

1. The rise of a sizable middle class that wanted to play music at a moderately advanced level but who would not quite develop to the level of being able to improvise, and consequently the non-improvisatory teaching methods necessary to serve these amateurs. In the 19th century Europe had 2000 music periodicals in regular publication and America had 500 piano manufacturers cranking out instruments. Hearing and playing music was no longer the province of the aristocracy but a signifier of middle class respectability. Thus, all these folks

buying pianos and reading periodicals and attending concerts and taking lessons needed all the notes written out.

2. The composer as artist, not artisan. The composer’s status rose very nearly to that of prophet. Just read Schumann’s article introducing Brahms in the Neue Zeitschrift if you need an example. Incidentally, this is why so much classical music study is taken up with delving into the authoritative score and discerning the composer’s intentions.

3. Specialization and fragmentation in music schools. We have separate departments for performance, history, theory, pedagogy, education, and everything else. I am very happy to learn that Cork School of Music takes extraordinary steps to get these departments talking and working together. But sadly this is not the case at many schools in my country, where the disciplines are fragmented and sometimes the personal relationships, as well. (It is hard to get scholars to work together when they don’t even like each other.) Improvisation calls upon the disciplines of performance, pedagogy, theory, and history; indeed, it cannot thrive without all of them operating in harmony.

4. A shift from “musicking” to “masterpiecing”. Christopher Small, in his 1998 book Musicking, described the extended social activity surrounding music — playing it, talking about it, listening closely or casually, dancing, or watching someone dance. He asserted that everyone within the orbit of the music is somehow participating; indeed, that all people do musicking to some extent. The venerable practice in Ireland of traditional music in pubs and kitchens is a perfect example of musicking. The composer’s intentions (if there was a composer at all) and the precise execution of the piece are less important than the social bonds and community tradition that are made manifest when people gather for the purpose of musicking.

Masterpiecing (my invented word), by contrast, places the composer in a supreme role, the performer as valuable but secondary servant of the composer, and listeners as absolutely passive spectators, to the point that interrupting the masterpiece by such guacheries as clapping between movements is cause for social disapprobation. Recently a hapless man went to the New York Philharmonic and his phone went off. He had to publish an effusive letter of apology in the New York Times to atone for his offense against the masterpiece.

If composers have provided authoritative masterpieces, why on earth would anyone listen to the uninformed improvisational ramblings of some presumptuous pianist?

Current Happenings

A few promising activities are underway on both sides of the Atlantic. Perhaps we may even speak of a revival of classical improvisation.

Dr. Charles Limb, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University, conducted an experiment in which he monitored the brain activity of musicians who played both memorized and improvised music while inside a functional magnetic resonance image machine. Tantalizingly, his preliminary findings suggest that completely different parts of the brain manage memorization and improvisation. What’s more (and this is terrible to contemplate), the part responsible for memorized music also handles self-monitoring and self-criticism. The part activated in improvising is the center of creativity and self-expression.

A study at Guildhall in London claims to demonstrate that audiences listen more intently, and are more engaged with the music, when players improvise.

One should accept these studies only with caution — in both cases, the experimenters surely wanted improvisation to come out looking good. But still.

The College Music Society, the largest association of music professors in the USA, has issued a report (often called a manifesto) calling for improvisation to permeate the college music curriculum. They aren’t sure how to do it, but they sense that something is missing and have tried to work on a remedy.

Contemporary composer Patrick Zimmerli has written music in a minimalistic style — so, within the classical tradition, broadly understood — that requires the performers to improvise in a harmonically knowledgeable way. I expect that once word gets out that improvising classical musicians are available, more composers will pursue this path.

And of course, we are here today.

Ways Forward

Where does one begin? When I teach this subject, I take care that students are not overwhelmed by too many variables. The essential difference between improvising and performing composed music is that as difficult as repertoire may be, the pathway through it is linear. This happens, then this happens, then that happens. Always the same way. Improvisation leaves open the order of events, and what the events are at all.

Because classical musicians have spent their lives in this linear mode of learning, the very notion of multiple pathways that branch, then branch again and again, often causes the players to freeze in uncertainty. For this reason, a place to begin is with exercises that limit the number of unknown elements. I will mention just two.

A draft of the first prelude of the WTC, a figuration prelude.

Figuration Preludes

I always begin improvisation courses with figuration preludes because they have so few unknowns. In their simplest manifestation they are merely chord progressions animated by consistent keyboard figuration. The first prelude of the Well-Tempered Clavier is a figuration prelude. I use its opening four measures, which I call the Page One progression, and ask

students to invent their own figuration instead of using Bach’s. They are not responsible any complexities, but only to scramble the notes of each chord into a different pattern.

From this simple beginning each advancing step is not intimidating. At no point is the student suddenly overwhelmed with a vast amount of new information or variables.

Minuet Templates

Another point of entry into improvisation is the use of “minuet templates.”

The minuet is short and predictable, with minimal harmonic intricacy. Students can learn quickly to fill in the prompts with basic musical ideas. In the example shown, only knowledge of primary triads is necessary. Absolute beginners are able to pick up on minuet templates and improvise coherent, impressive tunes within a short time.

Conclusion

18th century pedagogy was rooted in improvisation and resulted in musicians with a complete command of the language of their day. As current practices of classical music morph and merge with pop, jazz, and global influences, this kind of comprehensive “knowledge from the inside” makes sense once again.