Le samedi 29 avril 2023
le Conservatoire royal de Bruxelles et sa classe de violoncelle baroque
ont organisé leur premier Symposium sur
La pratique d’exécution de la Basse Continue italienne
au violoncelle au XVIIIe siècle
Modérateur : Marc Vanscheeuwijck
Les communications vidéos du Symposium sont disponibles!
Cliquez sur le nom de l'intervenant pour les visionner
Le symposium s'est clôturé par une table ronde avec les conférenciers du jour
Comment les violoncellistes italiens jouait-ils leur continuo à l’époque baroque et classique ?
Se contentaient-ils, comme c’est le cas aujourd’hui, de jouer les notes de la basse continue telles qu’écrites ? Ont-ils eux aussi cherché à réaliser cette basse continue en tenant compte de leurs propres spécificités instrumentales ? Et si oui, quand et comment le faisaient-ils ?
Avec de nombreux chercheurs violoncellistes, nous avons tenté de faire le point sur cette recherche précise et de donner des réponses à ces questions tant sur l’information historique que sur son application pratique.
Introduction to the conference: thoughts about the importance of understanding a bass line harmonically.
Secco recitative accompaniment practice by cellists today
For the past thirty years, many cellists and musicologists, including several speakers at this conference, have been researching recitative accompaniment and bassline realization practice by cellists in earlier times. This talk discusses the results of a questionnaire sent to 249 professional continuo-playing cellists around the world in 2020, investigating current performance practice of secco recitatives, including issues such as instrumentation, seating plans, rehearsal protocol, and above all, their attitudes about harmonic realization and extemporaneous improvisation. Which cellists today are most likely to play more than the printed bass note, in what settings and how do they approach this task?
“Corelli op5 ‘Violino e violone o cimbalo’?” 25 years on
Researching French cello methods as an undergrad during the 1980s I kept coming across references to the practice of realising figured bass on the cello – something I was struggling to learn on the piano. Soon, for me learning harmony “at the fingerboard” was easier than at the keyboard. Forty years, an Early Music article, and many performances and recordings later, including a "dialogue" with the Bach Suites, I am still promoting this approach and teaching these techniques. Nowadays Nicholas Cook’s ‘composer-improvisor-performer’ paradigm makes this “practice as research”: what is the future for improvised chordal accompaniment on the cello?
Thoroughbass Realization and Improvised Solo Practices on the Cello
One of the most striking characteristics of the earliest cello treatises is that so many of them give instruction in thoroughbass realization. Internationally influential Italian partimento pedagogical practices and popular 18th-century German composition treatises clearly demonstrate that thoroughbass practice served as a foundation of both written composition and improvised solo performance. While these sources were primarily aimed at keyboard players, there is good reason to believe that well-trained musicians would have employed similar techniques when improvising on the cello. In this paper, I will discuss my approaches to re-creating such practices.
Teaching Baroque Music today: How to integrate Basso Continuo Performance in the Pre-academic Curriculum?
Playing a bass line of 17th- or 18th-century music requires several aptitudes. These capacities are mainly taught in academic studies and pre-academic teaching usually follows a curriculum in building, beside the musical development, a traditional instrumental cello technique. Even though the manual capacities are still in progression, I propose with examples from my Cello Method (published in 2017) ways to integrate Basso Continuo Performance into the teaching courses of young students aged 12-16 years.
The Art of Accompaniment on the Cello in Baroque Italy
Today in the continuo section usually polyphonic instruments improvise, while melodic basses strictly follow the line. Some recently discovered specific Neapolitan partimenti for cello show that partimento, at that time often called also ‘the art of accompaniment’, included also cellists. Indications for improvising on low strings can also be found in other various sources concerning the cello, as well as in repertoire for viola da gamba. This survey will trace a specific way of realizing the continuo in a contrapuntal way on the cello, according to the sources.
Listening to Recitative from the Cello
"Giuseppe dall’Oglio, the great violoncellist ... took care, with his beautiful tone, to support the singers with some big chords and, thus, to keep them on pitch." Or, "why I play chords in recitative, how it's not why I started playing chords in recitative, and how I rely on my colleagues to support me." Much of this presentation is concerned with my last question, in particular the composition, placement, and layout of the continuo group. With a few nods to history, I reflect on where my practice is now, what I listen to whilst performing, and why my practice has evolved in this direction.
La réalisation de la basse continue au violoncelle : méthode d'apprentissage et d'enseignement.
Nous proposons, depuis bientôt deux ans au Conservatoire de Bruxelles, une nouvelle approche à l'apprentissage de la basse continue au violoncelle, à partir d'une méthode complète dont j'ai commencé l'écriture en 2020. Cette discussion vise à présenter cette méthode, dont la construction et l'essence systématiques permettent au violoncelliste de réaliser à vue une basse non-chiffrée à deux ou trois voix, et d'y adjoindre une mélodie simple. Nous verrons comment cette méthode va amener à profondément changer la manière dont le violoncelle ancien sera enseigné au Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, en s'inscrivant dans une réflexion globale.
Contact : Marc Vanscheeuwijck : marc.vanscheeuwijck@musiqueancienne.be
Hervé Douchy : herve.douchy@musiqueancienne.be