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Counterpoint is the "huge topic" that crowns the Neapolitan method and the Paris Conservatoire tradition—and yet it's often taught today in ways that leave students confused, discouraged, and musically disconnected.

In this Counterpoint Panel, I'm joined by:

• Robert O. Gjerdingen (Author of "Music in the Galant Style", "Child Composers")

• Peter van Tour (Author of "Counterpoint and Partimento")

• Job IJzerman (Author of "Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento")

We talk about how counterpoint was introduced to each of them, why modern harmony courses often set students up for failure, and why "rules on paper" don't work without singing, playing, and real stylistic vocabulary.

We also tackle:

• Why counterpoint matters (and what it actually trains)

• The truth about Fux and why the "species-only" pipeline so often collapses

• Why asking students to "write like Bach" can be a disaster—and what to use instead

• Whether everyone needs to write a fugue

• What "written counterpoint" training should look like when students already have practical skills

• Counterpoint's future: horizontality, melody-making, and creative freedom

• If you teach, study, or care about the old training paths (solfeggio → partimento → counterpoint), this episode completes the trilogy. Subscribe for more interviews & deep dives into partimento, improvisation, historical pedagogy, and musicianship.

Today I speak to cellist and viola da gamba player Giovanna Barbati, whose repertoire extends from early to contemporary music and who has a special interest in improvisation. She appears frequently as a soloist, she plays her own music and has given the first performance of a number of works for solo cello. She has recently recorded the complete works for cello by Francesco Supriani (Da Vinci CD) with the ensemble Les amies Partimentistes. We discuss improvisation upon a ground, Francesco Supriani's diminution technique works, partimento and the cello, music theory/composition, and more!

Professor Sietze de Vries, famed for his mastery in classical improvisation, joins the show to talk about his education, training, approach to music, music education, and demonstrates classical improvisation in multiple styles, and time periods.

Professor Nicholas Baragwanath, author of the groundbreaking "Solfeggio Tradition" (published by Oxford University Press), returns to the show to talk about Hexachordal Italian Solfeggio. This was the method of solfege instruction that was employed at the famed 18th-century Neapolitan Conservatories, using 6-note overlapping hexachords, instead of the usual 7-note systems we use today. Professor Baragwanath answers popular questions and demonstrates solfeggio in numerous settings, from beginner lessons to more advanced examples.

Professor Ewald Demeyere returns on the show to discuss his critical edition of Fenaroli's partimenti collection and discusses Fenaroli's approach to pedagogy and partimento realization.

In this episode, I am joined by eminent professors Robert O. Gjerdingen, Giorgio Sanguinetti, Peter van Tour, and Rosa Cafiero, in a special panel session about the subject of partimento. We discuss the history of its modern research, the definition of partimento, why partimento died out, the problem with modern harmony instruction in conservatories today, the practical applicability of partimento in modern times, the future of partimento, and more.

Today we have a special episode dedicated to Solfeggio, featuring Professors Nicholas Baragwanath, Job IJzerman, Robert O. Gjerdingen, and Peter van Tour. The famed students of the 18th-century Neapolitan conservatories undertook an extensive 3-year course of hexachordal solmisation using guidonian syllables before they were allowed to touch an instrument. This excellent training preceded partimento and written counterpoint studies. We discuss all aspects of this pedagogy, whether it is worth learning today, its benefits, and answer numerous audience questions.

I'm delighted to share this interview recorded yesterday with the great Professor Robert O. Gjerdingen, focusing greatly on Music Schema Theory as revealed in his groundbreaking 2007 monograph "Music in the Galant Style". In addition, we discuss Roman Numeral Analysis, Harmonic Function Theory, Hugo Riemann, Tonality, Dahlhaus, and Schenker, and he answers numerous audience questions, enjoy!

0:00 Intro

0:36 Start

1:59 St. Pius X's Motu Proprio "Tra Le Sollecitudini"

5:16 How did the Council of Trent affect Gregorian chant?

5:54 What do you think of Organum and composers like Léonin and Pérotin?

6:45 Johann Joseph Fux

14:53 Knud Jeppesen

26:54 Did Palestrina improvise or play the organ?

28:39 Bach played on the accordion

30:36 The Lute

31:44 Exultate iusti by Viadana, sung by the Sistine Chapel in 1925

36:34 Historically Informed Performance Practice

39:33 Has improvised counterpoint pedagogy become more prevalent in today's university music curriculums?

41:29 Professor Schubert's YouTube Channel/s

43:07 19th century counterpoint

47:03 Nadia Boulanger

50:07 Counterpoint for modern composition

52:59 Wrapping Up

53:20 Outro

0:00 Intro

0:36 Start

1:29 Refinements in approach to teaching with "Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento" since last interview

6:21 Understanding the patterns in the book as "pure sounds"

9:59 Domenico Scarlatti: Sonata K. 82

10:25 Thinking of cadences as schema and things that are polyphonic rather than modern terminology like PAC or IAC

16:58 Joseph Haydn: "Surprise" Symphony No. 94

18:41 Thinking of 3-part harmony as complete instead of 4-part harmony missing a voice?

26:52 Antonio Vivaldi: La Primavera

39:32 Where do you typically take your musical examples from in the book?

41:08 Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 43 ("Mercury"), 4th mvt

47:09 How does someone learn the different ways to accompany a melody line?

50:16 Francesco Durante partimento

52:28 Francesco Durante partimento realized as a duo live example

55:35 Arcangelo Corelli: tempo di gavotta

56:41 Arcangelo Corelli: tempo di gavotta, live example

1:01:16 In the early 18th-century, nobody spoke of "half cadences", which was a term that didn't exist

1:03:39 Did they think in terms of modes in the early 18th-century for composition?

1:04:43 The Discant Cadence

1:06:43 Job plays Bach BWV928 excerpt live

1:10:47 On the fluidity of voices dropping in and out versus strictly having 4-voices SATB "chorale-style"

1:13:13 Richard Wagner: Tristan Vorspiel

1:18:58 Richard Wagner was a musical great-grandchild of Padre Martini

1:24:13 Robert Schumann

1:25:29 Johannes Brahms

 1:26:47 Tchaikovsky

1:29:52 How do new conservatory students react to your method?

1:32:29 How have other colleagues and professors reacted to your method?

1:34:20 Some conservatories have taken HCP as a compulsory book for 1st and 2nd year students

1:36:55 EXCLUSIVE: New Renaissance Counterpoint Book announced!

1:39:07 Wrapping Up

1:39:35 Outro

0:00 Intro

0:36 Start

1:26 When did you start your YouTube channel, and when did you shift from recording performances to research into Whole Beat?

6:22 Which composers used the clavichord?

9:01 Did playing the Clavichord change the way you played Organ?

11:06 What is the Clavichord's touch like?

12:55 Piano vs Clavichord

18:21 What if we had to reconstruct jazz without having access to any sound recordings but rely only on written transcriptions

30:21 Weren't there musical mechanical clocks during Haydn's time that captured authentic 18th-century musical performance practice?

34:22 What is the Whole Beat Metronome Principle (WBMP)?

36:45 Wim responds to people playing Czerny at single beat tempo

47:18 If Whole Beat is true, why do students and eye-witnesses of the great composers play so fast?

54:31 Was Beethoven's metronome broken?

57:56 Don't the flyers and concert bills that advertise the concerts of these composers invalidate Whole Beat because the concerts would be too long as opposed to their actual advertised length?

1:03:11 What has been the general response to your research overall?

1:08:57 Injuries: The unspoken dark side of performance careers in Classical music

1:14:55 Beethoven recording gets canned because the musicians' careers got threatened

 1:15:48 The most powerful classical music agent Ronald Wilford wouldn't allow Cyprien Katsaris to record/perform piano transcriptions if under contract

1:16:22 What does Wim think of partimento and classical improvisation?

1:20:46 Wim's favorite composers

1:23:13 Great compositions sound great slowed down, maybe even better than how they are typically played fast today

1:30:46 Whole Beat can't work because vocal music is impossible if singers have to hold notes that long

1:38:42 Carl Czerny: Whole Beat or Single Beat?

1:38:46 Beethoven: Whole Beat or Single Beat?

1:38:50 Mozart: Whole Beat or Single Beat?

1:39:04 Franz Liszt: Whole Beat or Single Beat?

1:39:14 Did Paris Conservatory graduates historically think in terms of Whole Beat?

1:39:28 Alkan: Whole Beat or Single Beat?

1:39:39 Tchaikovsky: Whole Beat or Single Beat?

1:39:49 Rachmaninoff: Whole Beat or Single Beat?

1:40:54 Debussy and Ravel: Whole Beat or Single Beat?

1:43:50 Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky: Whole Beat or Single Beat?

1:44:13 What tempo should people play Bach?

1:45:23 Wrapping Up

1:47:10 Outro

PETER SEIVEWRIGHT has received a Special Judges' Citation in The American Prize Ernst Bacon Award for the Performance of American Music competition, in the professional solo artist division. Peter Seivewright, honored for "Championing American Piano Music," was selected from applications reviewed recently from all across the United States and the United Kingdom, and the citation awarded for his Divine Art album 'American Piano Sonatas'. Peter Seivewright has performed extensively as a recitalist and as Piano Concerto soloist with leading professional Orchestras throughout Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Austria, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Denmark (eight recital tours), Latvia, Estonia, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Australia (four recital tours), China, India, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Trinidad and Tobago, the United States of America, Russia, and the Donetsk People's Republic.

Peter Seivewright's CD discography is extensive and includes: The Complete Piano Music of Carl Nielsen (2CDs – Naxos), Contemporary Scottish Piano Music, (Merlin), the major piano works by the Danish Romantic composer Victor Bendix (1851-1926) (Rondo Records, Copenhagen), and several CDs issued by The Divine Art Recordings Group, for whom he now records exclusively.

Peter is working through a series of CDs for Divine Art featuring the complete Piano Sonatas of Baldassare Galuppi (1706-1785), the last great composer of the independent Venetian Republic. In 2007 Divine Art released a double CD comprising the major piano works of the Danish composer Louis Glass (1864-1936).Other Divine Art recordings include a disc of J.S.Bach Piano Concertos and a CD featuring American Piano Sonatas, which was exceptionally critically well-received, and which is currently a finalist for the Ernst Bacon Award in THE AMERICAN PRIZE 2018. Future recording plans include several more sets of American Piano Sonatas, more J.S.Bach and music by Reger, Cyril Scott, and Olivier Messiaen.

0:00 Start 
1:34 How has the book, "The Solfeggio Tradition", been received? 6:43 Italian solfeggio explained in 4 minutes 
11:41 Should children delay singing solfeggio until their voice has broken? 
14:15 Did 18th-century plainsong sound more like galant music rather than medieval music? 
16:10 What about Palestrina? 
19:35 An example of a lesson in Italian solfeggio 
22:33 How do you learn to accompany a melody line by sight with the correct harmony? 
28:00 How do you follow the rules of counterpoint when switching between hexachords? 
32:33 How do you know when there is a change of syllable vs a continuation of a melisma? 
34:57 Does the appoggiatura take the target note's syllable or have its own? 
36:20 Up 4th Down 5th Bass Motion in Italian Solfeggio 
37:19 Mozart improvisation solfeggio lesson (K. 545) 
41:19 Notation is the curse of the modern musician 
48:02 Did Mozart know Italian solfeggio? 
51:10 Why did the Germans complain about the Italians keeping solfeggio as a trade secret? 
53:11 Were violinists like Paganini, Corelli and Vivaldi familiar with Italian solfeggio? 
57:11 Did the Italian Maestros abandon teaching solfeggio syllables if the students struggled with pitch? 
59:11 Did Italian solfeggio completely die out in the 19th-century? 
1:00:49 Did Italian musicians think of the bass in terms of solfeggio syllables? 
1:05:56 What was the 18th-century Italian understanding of Keys and Tonality? 
1:09:02 What are good solfeggio manuscripts to practice to with and how much proportion of time is spent worrying about syllable placement vs actual singing? 
1:12:10 Do we have access to 18th-century plainchant that doesn't sound like medieval music? 
1:17:19 Is there any value to practicing solfeggi exercises with "Ah" even if we don't know which syllables to use? 
1:18:45 What are your favorite solfeggi collections? 
1:19:46 What's your opinion on Johann Fux and his method of teaching counterpoint? 
1:21:19 What do you think of Nicola Sala's counterpoint treatise? 
1:22:39 How does your solfeggio expertise inform the way you would teach partimento? 
1:25:08 Are those manuals of singing by maestros who changed to Fixed Do still useful for learning diminution? 
1:25:57 What's the state of Italian solfeggio research today?

0:00 Intro

0:36 Start

1:58 What made you want to analyze Bach's 48 preludes?

4:26 Every prelude in the book has been transposed to C or Am

6:22 Is there one perfect analysis of Bach's compositions?

8:30 "The Walled Park of Closely Related Keys"

12:11 Would Bach go from C major directly to E minor?

12:42 Bach's use of closely related keys in the preludes

14:35 Looking at an example from the book 17:23 Talking about the nature of modulations in the 18th-century

22:02 Is Bach a galant musician, old school, or a transitional figure?

25:30 Do Heinichen and CPE Bach share any similarities in their systems of thoroughbass?

35:42 What is Bach's typical behavior in employing satzmodelle (schema theory)?

40:31 Is there anything controversial about your analysis of these preludes?

42:57 What would you say to someone who analyzes music with roman numerals and harmonic function theory about your book?

47:23 Which of the 48 preludes was the hardest to analyze?

58:23 What's the best way to realizing figures correctly?

1:04:40 How do you memorize all these rules of thoroughbass?

1:09:54 Reading Furno and learning that music is composed of consonances and dissonances

1:11:53 Does your interpretation of repertoire change from knowing thoroughbass?

1:16:24 What is the state of music theory in music education, how has it changed?

1:22:17 What future research would be good for thoroughbass?

Professor Peter Schubert from McGill University returns to the show to discuss the republication of a new edition of his book, "Baroque Counterpoint."

I'm very excited to welcome two very special guests to the program, Professor Robert Gjerdingen and Professor Giorgio Sanguinetti. Professor Gjerdingen is the author of Music in the Galant Style and Child Composers, while Professor Sanguinetti is the author of The Art of Partimento". They join me today for a group table discussion on partimento, music education, music history, and much more.

My guest today is conductor, harpsichordist, and organist, Professor Patrick Ayrton. He currently teaches thoroughbass, chamber music, and improvisation at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague.

Harpsichordist and Composer, Jonathan Salamon, joins the show to discuss his article on the Leo Schema.

Professor Johannes Menke joins the podcast to discuss the French Baroque Style, Satzmodelle in 17th-century French music, and more.

I'm very happy to introduce my guest today, Pianist, Composer, Teacher, and Music Scholar, Nicole DiPaolo! She is an online Adjunct Lecturer in Music at Indiana University, a faculty member at a Cleveland-area multi-teacher music studio, the Principal Theory Teacher at Liberty Park Music, an online-only video subscription-based music school, and a sought-after online instructor of piano, music theory, and composition.

My guest today is Musicologist and Music Theorist, Professor Adem Merter Birson! He is an adjunct assistant professor of music at Hofstra University. His primary research deals with the relationship between chromaticism and form in the string quartets of Joseph Haydn. We will talk about Haydn, partimento, sonata form and even get a little into some classical Turkish music.

I have the huge honor to welcome back to the program, the esteemed Professor Robert Gjerdingen, he is the author of the groundbreaking 2007 "Music in the Galant Style" which won the Wallace Berry award from the Society of Music Theory in 2009. He followed up that book with the excellent 2020 book "Child Composers in the Old Conservatories" and he frequently updates the great website partimenti.org which if you are interested in partimento, need to have that website bookmarked because it has a ton of great material and is constantly being updated.

I'm so happy to introduce my guest today, Musicologist and musician, Riccardo Castagnetti. We are going to be talking about his research in 18th-century music education pedagogy, focusing on the methods of Andrea Basili.

I'm delighted to introduce my guest today, Professor Massimiliano Guido, he is an expert in the fields of historical performance practice and improvisation. He is the editor of the book "Studies in Historical Improvisation: From Cantare Super Librum to Partimento" and he is going to talk to me today about a wide range of topics including counterpoint, partimento, music theory, music history, and much more!

0:43 What is your background?
2:46 Did you improvise at the beginning?
6:06 Did you learn any theory on the way to being a performer?
7:36 When did you switch to more historically informed methods?
9:01 What was the theoretical basis to Professor Bellotti's approach?
10:51 Girolamo Diruta
15:04 Claudio Merulo
18:46 How did think about keys, modes and tonality back then?
23:17 Is it fixed that certain modes fit to certain points in the Catholic Mass?
28:20 The massive amount of melodies in the Liber Usualis
29:46 What is a vesper?
30:48 What do you mean by Seicento?
33:17 How have these older, historical methods of counterpoint instructed affected your students?
38:20 How difficult did the counterpoint go in terms of singing?
39:40 What skills do you get out of learning these older methods that can be applied to today?
41:48 H.A.B. Crawford's trenchant quote
44:23 How would free composition been taught historically?
48:26 What are steps someone should take toward learning to improvise canons and fugues?
52:34 Do I have to know the terms like Tenorizans and Cantizans?
53:24 Bernardo Pasquini
54:22 What do you mean by Frescobaldi pushing the system to it's limits
57:41 William Porter
1:00:34 Giorgio Sanguinetti and Partimento
1:02:17 Do these traditional methods stem out of the Catholic Church rather than Nationalism?
1:04:26 How did the Reformation and Counter-reformation affect the music of the period?
1:08:23 Who are your favorite composers for keyboard and organ from the late Renaissance?
1:12:25 Are there any composers that have been unjustly ignored but should be really known better?
1:16:41 Who are some historically informed performers that you like?
1:19:36 What tuning and temperaments do you feel are appropriate for the late Renaissance?
1:22:17 What do you make of Tonal Harmony, Chordal invertibility, Roman Numerals and function theory?
1:26:10 Future Projects
1:27:59 Wrapping Up

I'm very thrilled to speak to my guest today, guitarist, Nicola Pignatiello. He teaches at the Liceo Giordano Bruno in Rome and also at CESMI. This is the episode that all my guitarist audience members have been waiting for, and we will be diving deep into the topic of partimento on the guitar. He has recorded some really beautiful partimento realizations on the guitar that have received very positive responses from the partimento community and we will talk further about realizing partimenti on the guitar.

0:46 Background
1:41 Did you start with Classical Guitar?
2:07 Joining the conservatory at 15
3:08 What were your musical influences while growing up?
4:10 Was it 10 years of Conservatory?
4:25 Did you see yourself as a concert artist?
5:04 When did you discover Partimento?
5:50 Why did you take lessons with Enrico Baiano?
6:39 What recordings of Baiano did you like?
7:13 What happened in the lessons with Enrico Baiano?
8:01 What year was it when you discovered Partimento?
8:52 What made you think about combining partimento with the guitar?
10:53 How did you begin your development in partimento in 2005-2012?
13:47 When did people start playing 6-string guitars?
15:15 When in the 18th century did the 6-string guitar appear?
15:56 Fernando Sor, Mauro Giuliani and Ferdinando Carulli as representative of the 18th century style
17:35 What are the similarities between the Lute and the Guitar?
19:31 Were people realizing basso continuo on the baroque guitar or lute with strumming?
20:37 Why did you pick Giuliani and Carulli as models for partimento?
22:25 Solfeggi
22:48 What was in Giuliani's style that had traces of the partimento lineage?
24:38 Mauro Giuliani outselling Beethoven's piano sonatas
26:57 Does counterpoint easy to realize on the guitar?
28:41 Do you have to compensate when doing the Rule of the Octave on guitar?
30:15 How should someone start learning partimento on the guitar?
31:24 How similar are the different Rule of Octave versions among the 18th century guitar treatises
32:12 On having to transpose partimenti into more guitaristic keys
33:29 How do you prevent bad counterpoint on the guitar?
34:25 Cadences on the guitar?
36:14 When realizing figured bass, did the baroque guitar strum or using 3 voice textures?
36:51 Is that the same on the Classical guitar?
37:15 Learning with chord symbols on the guitar
39:00 Where Chord symbols originated from
40:26 Did they tolerate parallelism in guitar-type instruments because of the way they are constructed?
42:04 Did Fernando Sor have a method book?
42:52 What about dissonances on the guitar in partimento?
43:58 Bass Motions on the guitar
45:29 Nicola plays more Bass Motion examples
46:19 Bass Motions - Up a 4th down a 5th
47:06 Why is the guitar notated in treble clef?
48:00 What are some good treatises and manuscripts that would be relevant for partimento on the guitar?
48:43 Should we keep it to 2 voices on the guitar?
50:27 Is it heresy to try all these things on a non-classical guitar?
51:14 Can partimento be improvised on the guitar?
52:46 Free improvisation and composition on the guitar
53:52 How would you teach a young kid in the partimento-style of music education on guitar?
55:23 What about reading chords on the guitar in terms of Figured bass?
56:35 What about improvising on a very simple bass, how does that sound on the guitar?
59:24 How many ways can I color a simple progression on the guitar?
1:00:40 How do you development diminution on the guitar?
1:02:58 On the partimento bass lines being too difficult to realize on the guitar
1:04:41 How have your classical guitar colleagues reacted to your partimento realizations on the guitar?
1:05:51 What do you make of the rise in popularity in partimento over the last 2 years?
1:06:52 What do you think about South American classical guitar?
1:09:20 How do you analyze classical guitar literature?
1:10:59 Do you write figures or arabic numerals in circles when analyzing?
1:11:16 On the lack of historic models in realizing partimento on the guitar unlike the keyboard and the general difficulty
1:13:21 Felix Horetzky
1:13:57 Can you recommend any historically-informed classical guitarists?
1:15:47 On the passing of Julian Bream
1:17:06 Flamenco Guitar
1:18:21 Discussing Chord symbols and their related hand shapes
1:25:03 Wrapping Up

My guest today is Pianist, Improviser, and Composer, Professor Noam Sivan! He is Professor of Piano Improvisation at the HMDK Stuttgart, and we will talk about his remarkable journey, his method to his improvisational craft, his new exciting Master's degree programme in classical piano improvisation that he has created, and much more!

0:35 What's your musical background?
1:21 Did you naturally improvise as a child?
1:56 Mother's influence on creativity
3:25 Tell me about your formal music training in university
4:10 The influence of formal composition study in your undergraduate studies
6:16 Examples of apply a compositional technique in different musical languages
8:26 Did you face any pressure to become a modernist composer
10:00 What was your dream, to be a composer or performing pianist?
13:00 Masters degree
15:27 Studying with Carl Schachter
16:39 An example of Carl Schacter's lessons in improvisation
17:42 What did your professors and peers think of improvisation during your student years?
20:25 Improvising cadenzas
21:06 Meeting Robert Levin
21:31 What did Robert Levin say about your improvising at the time?
23:17 What were the technical things that you worked on to take your improvisation to the next level?
26:30 What is your operating system behind your method of improvisation?
28:18 How did you choose the notes for your right hand improvisation?
30:03 How do you make sure your right hand is not creating contrapuntal mistakes when improvising?
32:55 What's a good way to learn figured bass?
34:35 Do you need to study modern harmony to do what you are doing?
37:24 Studying with Milton Babbitt
40:34 Was the culture at Juilliard supportive of improvisation in Classical music?
41:24 Were the students you taught at the time completely new to classical improvisation?
42:33 What did Milton Babbitt think of improvisation and what you were doing?
43:37 Anecdotes of responses to your improvisations and classes in the early days
45:33 Did you receive negative feedback to improvisation?
48:17 Does being a composer and improviser give you an additional insight into interpretation of repertoire
50:03 Do you any comment on academic or competition style interpretations of repertoire?
52:47 When you have change your system of improvisation to accomodate more modern or contemporary styles of improvisation?
54:34 Do you still maintain the consonance/dissonance framework in a contemporary setting?
56:52 What is anchoring your contemporary improvisations, is it keys or the progression?
58:00 Are you thinking of intervals?
58:19 What tips can you give to more traditional improvisers to broaden their tonal palette into modern music?
1:01:43 Vincent Persichetti's 20th Century Harmony textbook
1:03:44 How does a music educator grade student musical improvisations?
1:08:43 Professor Sivan's new Masters degree programme on classical piano improvisation
1:11:19 How's the reception to the Masters programme?
1:13:07 Do you require incoming students to have a background in improvisation?
1:14:38 How has the culture around classical improvisation now changed compared to when you began?
1:17:49 Professor's Sivan album "Ambiro's Journey"
1:18:48 What's a good ratio for a modern performer's recital pieces for improvised music, original compositions and traditional repertoire?
1:21:30 A memorable experience from your solo improvised piano recitals
1:24:21 Up to this point, what has been your proudest musical moment?
1:27:11 How are you different as an improviser today vs 10 years ago and how do you see yourself grow in the next 10 years?
1:31:31 Wrapping Up

My guest today is Music Scholar and Pianist, Professor Gaetano Stella! An expert on the subject of partimento, particularly partimento in the 19th century. We talk about the partimento tradition in the 19th century and his methods for teaching partimento in the classroom today.

What an honor to speak with my guest today, Harpsichordist, Organist, Keyboardist, Conductor, Composer and Improviser, Matteo Messori! He is the founder of the Cappella Augustana Ensemble and His latest recording is the complete harpsichord and organ works by Johann Kaspar Kerll, a new 3CD Box. We discuss the Bologna tradition, basso continuo, partimento, Padre Martini and Mattei, counterpoint, his partimento teaching method and much more!

I'm so pleased to introduce my guest today, composer, improviser, harpsichordist, and organist Nicola Canzano! He is the composer of his "First Book of Partimenti: Preludes, Fugues, Rondeaus, and Puzzles, Twenty Four in total through all key signatures". He is also the founder of the upcoming NEw York and Montreal based group Nuova Practica, which focuses on composing and improvising in baroque and early adjacent music.

I am very thrilled to speak with my guest today, Academy and Emmy Award winning Film Composer and Conductor, Bill Conti! He is best known for his film scores including Rocky, The Karate Kid, For Your Eyes Only, Dynasty and the Right Stuff which earned him an Academy Award for Best Original Score. He was music director at the Academy Awards a record nineteen times. It was announced in June 2020 that Conti had donated his original scores to Louisiana State University.

My guest today is Professor Job IJzerman! He teaches at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. He is known for his popular book, "Harmony, Counterpoint, Partimento" Published by Oxford University Press in 2018.

0:38 Background
1:50 Did you improvise or compose growing up?
2:12 Did you have any experience with thoroughbass or basso continuo?
2:36 Two anecdotes that highlighted the need for harmony pedagogy reform at the conservatory for IJzerman
7:07 Being introduced to Robert Gjerdingen's work and partimento in 2007
9:09 What steps did you take to put the partimento theory into practice
10:31 Can Partimento be applied to other styles than the Galant style?
12:33 How was the reception to your new method among students?
16:55 Where did you take your partimenti and solfeggi exercises from?
19:57 What duration is the course of study in your book designed to encompass?
20:43 From your observation, how does your new method compare with the standard conservatory method instruction in harmony?
24:27 Do you examples of students who studied harmony in a different but have converted to your new method?
25:57 How have your peers in the faculty responded to the method?
28:10 Do you receive emails from professors around the world about the book and what has been the reception?
30:23 Karst de Jong
31:22 Peter van Tour
32:16 Do you separate the study of Harmony and Counterpoint?
34:57 Should musicians who are learning music of the Common Practice Era study Renaissance music?
35:54 What are the differences and overlap among the Italian Partimento, and German and French Thoroughbass traditions?
38:01 German Thoroughbass and Italian Partimento
39:19 Music Schemata Theory and Partimento
44:46 Hexachordal 18th century Italian Solfeggio
48:30 How did you jump from the 16th century hexachordal solfeggio method to the updated 18th century version?
49:33 Mutating up vs down being different
50:10 Differences and overlap with Move-able Do and 18th century Italian Solfeggio
51:36 How should someone start learning 18th century Italian Solfeggio
54:30 What's the way to learn how to mutate between Hexachords correctly?
55:43 Understanding which syllables are part of a melisma and long diminutions
57:32 When accidentals appear in the bass and the Solfeggio changes key, do you have to change all the notes of the hexachords on the spot?
59:14 Do you use the original names of the keys like C-solfaut?
59:34 Can you navigate through a Solfeggio with the correct syllables on a first read through?
1:01:58 What is the best way to learn Partimento?
1:05:53 Job IJzerman demonstrating some patterns at the piano
1:07:40 What's the best way to learn Counterpoint?
1:08:26 Should you sing and play music extensively first before embarking on written counterpoint?
1:09:40 IJzerman's method of teaching Counterpoint
1:11:29 Does this lead into 18th century and 19th century Counterpoint?
1:12:21 Should we learn music at the beginning with 2 voices or 4 voices?
1:16:38 Is Partimento practice and theory useful for learning and analysing the music of later styles?
1:19:42 Wrapping Up

I am so honored to be speaking to a great guest today, Professor Thomas Christensen. Professor Christensen is the Avalon Foundation Professor of Music and Humanities at the University of Chicago. His scholarly research focuses on the history of music theory and his most recent book is "Tonality in the Age of François-Joseph Fetis" published by the University of Chicago Press in 2019.

0:39 What's your background?
1:41 What was the state of research in the history of music theory when you began?
2:52 How did you come to focus on Thoroughbass in your research?
4:30 What was the perception of Thoroughbass in the 70s-90s?
5:36 The different schools of Thoroughbass
7:01 What key differences are there among the French, German or Italian Thoroughbass traditions?
8:57 JS Bach and his views on Thoroughbass' importance
10:17 When Thoroughbass first appeared on the scene, was the initial criticism of it justified?
12:40 Did Thoroughbass having nothing to say about melody like Mattheson says?
13:44 How should we view Rameau beyond his cartoonish image as the Fundamental Bass guy?
15:49 Did he separate his scientific, theoretical views on music with his practical side?
17:59 Rameau's pedagogical heuristic to help students simply the total mass of chords into fundamental types
20:03 Fundamental chords being slower to mental analyze than simply reading from the given bass
21:27 Rameau's practical nature as a musician
22:32 Why were CPE Bach and Kirnberger so hostile to Rameau?
24:56 Did chord invertibility originate with Rameau or earlier?
27:03 Was the rise of lots of new harmonies and chords naturally yield to a need to categorize chords into fundamental types?
29:20 Did Rameau speak of counterpoint in his treatises?
31:17 Rameau trying to reconcile his theories with the Rule of the Octave
33:07 The chord on the 6th scale degree connecting to the 7th scale degree being a problem for Rameau
34:15 Rameau's influence in Italy
35:44 Were Rameau's theories appealing because they were considered more scientific than counterpoint?
38:20 Why did you select François-Joseph Fetis as a subject of study?
40:24 Did Fetis teach according to Catel's methods?
42:13 Fetis vs Berlioz
43:56 Did they have valid opinions in their dispute?
46:31 Fetis' influence on later theorists and his key contributions
49:02 Some people say thinking in terms of Roman Numerals is vertically oriented but isn't Thoroughbass practice the same?
51:07 Are Rimsky-Korsakov and Schoenberg correct when they say that the study of Thoroughbass is no longer needed?
53:37 Did Nadia Boulanger bring out modern tonality despite teaching older methods like partimenti and thoroughbass?
55:28 What do you think of your important research being influential for future partimento and thoroughbass enthusiasts?
59:10 Can we apply Thoroughbass to music like jazz and popular music without any issue?
1:01:13 On Letters and Chord Symbols being harder to calculate vs reading figures
1:04:39 What's the best way to learn Thoroughbass?
1:06:05 Are there any Thoroughbass treatises that you recommend?
1:08:43 Wrapping Up

It's a huge honor to have the great Professor Giorgio Sanguinetti return to the program for his 2nd appearance. He is the author of the award-winning book "The Art of Partimento" which was published in 2012 which won the Wallace Berry Award from the Society of Music Theory and today we will talk his new book "Le Sonate per pianoforte di Beethoven. Genere, forma, espressione" published by Libreria Musicale Italiana.

0:51 Why did you pick the subject of the piano sonatas of Beethoven for this book?
2:26 Did you play many of the piano sonatas yourself over your career?
3:38 Introduction to Beethoven's piano sonatas
7:03 Did Beethoven play the sonatas live for audiences? or was it more for sale for private use?
11:35 What is the paradigm shift that took place?
15:29 How were the pianos in Beethoven time?
18:42 What should someone do to get better at sight-reading?
19:46 How did Beethoven play his own sonatas?
22:29 Did the Italians ever talk about form, how did they teach it?
23:38 How would Beethoven have thought about the form of his piano sonatas?
28:04 Beethoven and Adolph Bernhard Marx
31:01 Marx's radical view of music theory
32:09 What were Beethoven's politics?
33:52 The rise and decline of Formenlehre
37:36 What was the criticism of Formenlehre?
39:34 Edward T. Cone and the Sonata Principle
40:32 What were the essential differences between William Caplin and Hepokoski/Darcy's theories?
42:45 What about Hepokoski and Darcy's theory?
45:59 Hermeneutics
49:38 Religion and Hermeneutics
51:20 Topic Theory
54:13 Did Beethoven ever write introductory explanations about his sonatas?
55:50 Schemas
1:00:10 Beethoven's metronome markings
1:02:26 Werktreue
1:05:22 Should performers today play the score of these piano sonatas with complete faithfulness to the intention of the composer?
1:07:01 How do you feel about the great surge in interest in partimento recently?
1:08:33 What's the best way to learn partimento?
1:10:11 Is there a best starting collection of partimenti that beginners should start with?
1:12:12 How should someone learn written counterpoint?
1:13:31 Is partimento useful in the modern age with newer contemporary styles?
1:16:55 How should partimento be integrated into music education? Can it complement other theories or should it be taught on it's own?
1:18:38 On Partimento not having to be an opposing method to other methods of analysis and music education
1:19:56 Wrapping up and upcoming events/projects

I am extremely thrilled to introduce my guest today, Professor of Music L. Poundie Burstein. He is a Professor at Hunter College College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and he is here today to talk to me about his excellent new book which has been getting rave reviews, "Journeys Through Galant Expositions".

0:40 Background
6:38 Why was Form not a big area of interest in the 1st half of the 18 century?
7:50 When did the shift happen towards an interest in Form in history?
9:21 Do discussions of Form refer to all types of compositions?
9:50 Is there a lot difference in Form between types of instrumental music?
11:04 Who else influenced you in the study of Form?
12:02 What made you decide on the Galant period?
13:03 Joseph Riepel
17:08 Did Riepel's work influence composers in the 18th century?
18:27 Would modern analysts of Form find mistakes in Riepel's work?
20:49 Did the Italians talk about Form?
21:44 What reasons brought about the change in interest in Form in the 18th century?
23:03 Was Form influenced by Rhetoric?
24:00 How did improvisers in the 18th century think of Form?
28:38 Did the 18th century conception of Form relate more to Resting Points rather than formal containers or key areas?
32:31 How did musicians in the 18th century think about key areas vs today?
34:23 Does melody influence Form?
37:16 Heinrich Christoph Koch
40:16 What was the difference between Koch and Riepel?
41:11 Was Koch representative of a typical 18th century music theorist?
41:58 What other differences are there between the 18th century and today?
43:37 Koch changing his mind on punctuated V chords
46:13 How do Harmony and Counterpoint influence Form?
47:01 What is the trimodular block in Sonata theory and can you elaborate on your commentary of it?
51:12 Haydn's Symphony No. 14 Mvt 1
53:24 How does your theoretical work help approach challenges in other styles of music?
56:43 Top 3 Galant Composers
57:32 What's the weirdest Galant composition you've ever encountered?
58:45 If you could sit down with any theorist or composer in history, who would it be and what would you talk about?
1:00:13 Name 3 Galant compositions that you talk about in your book that you find really interesting
1:02:07 Upcoming projects
1:03:24 Wrapping Up

I'm extremely pleased to introduce my guest today, Emmy Award Winning TV and Film Composer, Bruce Broughton. He is the composer for films such as Silverado, Tombstone, The Rescuers Down Under, and written memorable TV themes including The Orville, JAG, Spielberg's Tiny Toon adventures and Dinosaurs. He has been nominated 24 times for the Emmy and has won a record 10 times. His score to the movie Silverado was nominated for an Academy Award and his score to Young Sherlock Holmes was nominated for a Grammy.

My guest today is Harpsichordist and Fortepianist Professor Enrico Baiano. An award-winning international performer, Baiano has extensively recorded works by JS Bach, Johann Jakob Froberger, and Domenico Scarlatti to name a few.

He has published a method for the Harpsichord in 2010 and with Marco Moiraghi, published a book called "The sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti" in 2014.

00:48 Beginnings
2:25 When did you start playing keyboard instruments?
2:53 What made you decide to make music your career?
3:41 Did you get a teacher to learn the harpsichord?
6:57 How long did you study the harpsichord at the beginning?
7:37 What age were you while studying composition?
7:51 How did you learn composition? Was it the old tradition or new?
11:26 Did you listen to other styles of music growing up?
12:41 How you learned contrasted with the partimento approach
14:30 How extensively did you study with this older teacher?
14:53 Were these private lessons or at the conservatory?
15:43 Did you learn the modern methods of analysis like function theory and roman numerals?
17:09 Were you one of the few students improvising?
18:10 When did you get acquainted with partimento?
19:39 Italians not feeling proud of their heritage
20:36 Learn Fenaroli in 1982
21:49 Was there anything new in the partimento that you didn't already know?
22:59 Are you able to distill music in the repertoire down to their basic forms?
24:24 Did you work on written counterpoint in your studies?
27:20 What is the difference between harmony and counterpoint?
28:46 What's the difference between learning composition today vs back in the 18th century?
33:15 On the concern about the listen-ability of modern, contemporary music
36:35 the link between older music like Domenico Scarlatti and later composers like Brahms
38:56 Beethoven being very familiar with Scarlatti
43:35 What do you think about hexachordal Italian solfeggio system?
45:33 How should someone learn partimento?
46:33 On Durante, Zingarelli and others, having more difficult partimenti than Fenaroli
47:37 How should someone learn counterpoint?
48:34 What do you mean by Fux being "too late"?
51:17 Do you need a teacher to learn counterpoint?
51:42 Is figured bass still relevant in the modern age?
54:03 Chord Invertibility/Fundamental bass vs Counterpoint
57:45 On the question of certain chordal inversions not being equal
59:02 What do you think of Glenn Gould's interpretations?
1:03:42 What's the balance between learning repertoire and improvisation/composition?
1:05:50 What do you make of the amazing surge of interest in partimento and other older methods of learning music?
1:09:29 Do you use these older methods when looking at music like Ravel or Debussy?
1:13:07 Top 3 Pianists
1:13:32 Top 3 Partimenti composers
1:14:00 Top 3 Domenico Scarlatti Sonatas
1:16:59 Top 3 Pieces from Bach's WTC
1:19:59 If you could meet any musician from history, who would it be and what would you talk about?
1:20:38 Do you play non-classical music for fun?
1:21:58 Upcoming projects and Wrapping up

My guest today is the famed virtuoso concert pianist and composer, Cyprien Katsaris. One of the most renowned concert pianists of both the 20th and 21st centuries, Katsaris has performed with the world's greatest orchestras and recorded extensively over his storied career. We talk about his transcriptions, compositions, playing the Cziffra Flight of Bumblee live in front of Cziffra on TV, being told by the world's most powerful classical music agent not to play transcriptions, his famed sightreading prowess, and much more!

0:41 Did you always improvise, even when you were young?
2:32 Are you saying anyone can learn to improvise?
4:05 Chick Corea finding it harder to play his written music vs improvising
4:56 Studying at the Paris Conservatory
7:09 His teacher Monique de la Bruchollerie being the first western female to play Rach 3 in 1945
8:56 Would you consider yourself a musical great-grandchild of Alkan and Liszt?
11:26 Did you study with György Cziffra?
11:59 Cziffra being a great jazz improviser
16:22 Did you meet Cziffra personally?
19:45 Recording Cziffra's transcription of the Flight of the Bumblebee
24:05 What did Cziffra think of your playing?
26:06 What motivated you to become a concert pianist who created your own transcriptions?
28:17 Did you ever face any pushback from attempting to play transcriptions?
32:13 The most powerful classical music agent in the world telling you not to play transcriptions
34:17 Why was there such a negative attitude towards transcriptions in the 20th century?
35:59 What is the difference between the modern, academic way of playing vs the traditional, older way?
39:39 Why do you dislike piano competitions?
44:19 Koji Attwood's anecdote of your incredible sight-reading feat
48:23 How important is the metronome in practice?
49:47 How do you think about music theory?
52:04 What is your compositional process?
54:43 Does your ability to play any style come from absorbing it from playing repertoire?
55:50 What is your proudest musical moment?
56:22 If you could step into a time machine and meet any great composer from history, who would it be?
56:46 What are the 3 hardest things you've ever had to play?
57:03 What are the hardest concertos for you to play?
57:18 Do you play any other instruments apart from the piano?
57:33 Have you ever dabbled on the harpsichord, organ or electric keyboard?
57:57 If you could have done it all over again, what would you have changed about your career?
58:31 At what age did you feel that you had your mature conception as an artist?
59:25 Who are the top 3 greatest composers?
59:36 Name me your top 3 recordings that you feel most proud of
59:48 If someone wanted to hear your music, which 3 albums would you recommend?
1:01:32 Name me your 3 most important compositions
1:02:57 Do you listen to or play jazz?
1:03:47 How does Scientology influence your music or life?
1:05:15 Who are the top 3 pianists of the 20th century?
1:05:28 Wrapping Up

0:38 What is your background and how did you come to your present areas of research?
4:40 Who was Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmerman?
5:55 Did he have any famous pupils?
7:27 What was Zimmerman's training?
9:17 Was he a victim of the cult of genius?
10:41 Was Zimmerman consigned to historical oblivion before your research?
12:55 Partimento and Zimmerman
14:21 Zimmerman's holistic approach to teaching music
17:00 How was Zimmerman different from someone like Fenaroli?
18:10 Zimmerman's recommendation of solfege
19:23 Needing to read 7 clefs right at the beginning with Zimmerman
20:33 How long does it take to be acquainted with 7 clefs?
21:23 Zimmerman calling pianists who have no knowledge of harmony, "schoolboys"
22:37 Cherubini giving Liszt and Berlioz a hard time
23:05 Zimmerman rejecting Louis Moreau Gottschalk from entering the Paris Conservatory
24:09 Did Zimmerman teach the Rule of the Octave and Moti del basso?
24:35 Were these 19th century versions of these things?
26:23 Zimmerman's method leading to free composition and counterpoint
29:00 Are Zimmerman's technical piano teachings comparable to someone like Hanon?
30:56 Frederic Chopin, how did he learn music?
32:19 What's the evidence for the claim that Josef Elsner's curriculum was modeled after the Paris Conservatory?
33:27 Chopin studying 6 hours a week of counterpoint with Elsner
34:06 Chopin and the cult of the genius
34:51 Could he be considered a formally trained musician instead of self-taught?
35:47 Were these all treatises that Elsner used to teach Chopin?
36:14 Did Chopin know the Rule of the Octave?
36:43 What about Chopin and Partimento?
39:05 What was Henri Reber's lineage of teaching music theory?
39:46 Were Henri Reber and Chopin good friends?
40:27 Chopin's plan to write his own piano method
41:35 Why would Chopin ask a music theorist/composer to help him with his piano method
42:33 Was Chopin 100% focused on completing his method?
43:14 Chopin being very musically opinionated and yet asking several friends to finish his piano method
44:42 Friedrich Kalkbrenner's negative image
47:33 People dismissing great composers as "inferior"
48:57 How would Chopin analyze his own music?
52:10 Francis Plante's video recordings of Chopin Etudes at age 90
53:26 Ragtime - Do we have any evidence that Scott Joplin and Tom Turpin had any formal music training?
55:06 Do we know for sure that Scott Joplin had a counterpoint treatise in his possession?
58:32 The Leipzig Conservatory and Generalbass
59:13 Roman Numerals, Harmonic Function Theory, Generalbass and Counterpoint - a Nuanced take
1:01:34 Were Leipzig Conservatory students learning Stufentheorie and Generalbass at the same time?
1:02:45 Joplin's counterpoint treatise containing many notes and annotations
1:03:56 On counterpoint being something that takes years to study
1:05:34 If you study counterpoint already, what's the need for Stufentheorie or Roman Numerals?
1:07:30 Is Wagner influenced by the German theories of music?
1:10:33 Counterpoint vs chord invertibility
1:14:17 Wrapping Up

My guest today is Concert Pianist, Composer, and Music Educator Rami Bar-Niv. Rami Bar-Niv made history by being the first, and so far the only, Israeli artist to perform in Egypt following the Begin/Sadat Peace Treaty. Praised as "Effective and Flamboyant" by the New York Times and "An Original major talent" by the Boston Globe, Bar-Niv is an international concert performer who has written two books, the first is the "Art of Piano Fingering" and the second his autobiography "Blood, Sweat, and Tours: Notes from the Diary of a Concert Pianist".

0:55 Playing by ear, Improvising, and composing from age 5
3:38 What music did you listen to growing up?
5:46 Parents teaching their own children vs having a stranger
6:43 Were you a good practicer?
7:47 Studying harmony, counterpoint and theory at the conservatory
8:37 What is your theoretical approach to composition?
9:55 What was your education in counterpoint?
10:21 Did you use Hindemith's textbook?
11:14 Did you take ideas from repertoire and absorb them into your compositional process?
12:22 Theoretical studies with Carl Schachter
13:06 How long did you study with Schachter and what's your perspective on Schenkerian analysis?
14:11 Do you think of theory when composing?
16:05 Does your pianistic ability inform your composing?
18:27 What was your personal relationship with Carl Schachter?
19:04 Did you always improvise?
21:31 Improvisation vs Interpretation
23:59 Do hum when you play?
24:56 Do you have an interested in Jazz?
25:48 What the names of jazz pianists that you enjoy?
26:06 How would you teach improvisation to someone?
30:04 What is your method of teaching composition?
32:57 What do you mean by "knowing" a piece of music?
33:28 Did you face any professional or cultural pressure not to improvise in your career?
35:45 What is your position on cadenzas in piano concertos?
38:54 How did you come to creating your compositional voice?
40:40 The Art of Piano Fingering
43:12 Do you distinguishing between old fingering and new modern fingering systems?
45:06 Do some great composers like Beethoven write bad, non-idiomatic piano music despite being great composers?
47:38 Why is Opera the height of everything?
48:26 Would you consider yourself a self-taught composer?
49:44 How important is family to you?
50:45 Wrapping Up

My guest today is Professor Peter Schubert. He holds a Ph.D. in musicology from Columbia University and is currently an Associate Professor at the McGill University Faculty of Music. He is the author of the textbook, "Modal Counterpoint: Renaissance Style" (Oxford University Press, 1999). and with colleague Christoph Neidhoefer he also co-authored "Baroque Counterpoint" (Prentice-Hall, 2005). He is known for teaching improvised vocal counterpoint in his classes.

My Guest today is Professor David Mesquita, he teaches ear training, sightsinging, Historical satzlehre Renaissance through to the Romantic at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. His research focuses on Spanish Music and music theory, as well as improvised counterpoint.

0:30 What is your background?
1:31 On learning both Fixed Do and Moveable Do growing up at the same time
2:19 Do you have Absolute or Perfect Pitch?
2:49 What repertoire did you use when studying solfege?
4:05 Students who have to solmize but were raised on Fixed Do?
4:32 Can you comment on the Kodaly method?
5:20 What do you think about Hexachordal solfeggio solmization?
6:54 Do you have a preference for a type of solmization?
8:31 How do you teach ear training?
11:36 Is all all aural or is sight singing involved as well?
13:19 How does someone develop their vocabulary in order to improvise counterpoint?
15:54 Does this take years to master?
17:01 How long are the example that you use in the classroom?
17:41 How would you teach a student who begins with zero knowledge?
19:43 What does Contrappunto alla mente mean?
21:48 Was Lusitano a theorist from Spain?
22:34 The Spanish Golden Age - Siglo de Oro
23:53 Is the Spanish Style very different from the Italian style?
25:37 What are the stylistic differences between the Spanish Style and others?
27:33 Were the writers like Soriano Fuertes writing from a perspective of Nationalism?
29:19 Did the Spanish Style go extinct like the partimento tradition?
30:51 Is Renaissance counterpoint useful or applicable for more modern styles of music?
32:01 What commonalities exist between Renaissance counterpoint and later styles?
33:02 Using Renaissance counterpoint as a good base for studying all tonal music
35:28 What are the different levels of expertise in improvised counterpoint and ear training?
36:50 What are the 6 levels of expertise?
38:07 Is improvised counterpoint a separate subject from written counterpoint?
38:39 What's your opinion on Harmony and Counterpoint, are they two separate subjects?
41:33 Are Harmony and Counterpoint merging in some way today?
41:58 Is there any difficulty applying your process to later Romantic music?
43:58 Do you use different temperaments for different styles of music?
45:48 Do you have a particular frequency that you favor?
46:46 Do you get a physical sensation or awareness of playing in different tunings?
47:48 Does a keyboard in equal temperament sound out of tune for you?
49:04 talking about contrapunto.ch, a website to help practicing improvised counterpoint?
52:08 How do you use the website?
53:28 What's the best way to learn counterpoint?
54:01 Is there more than 2 voices?
55:35 Available resources, links and teachers to learn counterpoint
57:29 How would you reform music education?
1:00:08 What remaining mysteries about the Spanish style remain for you?
1:02:17 Wrapping Up

My guest today is Music Theorist, Organist and Composer, Derek Remeš. He is known for his research into the pedagogy behind Johann Sebastian's Bach method of composition and improvisation. He also is the admin for Facebook group that he started,"Composition and Improvisation in J.S. Bach's Germany".

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0:36 What is your musical background?
2:37 Has anyone in Bach research looked at his craft of improvisation?
4:47 Do all organists have to improvise?
5:47 Did you have a background in improvisation before learning the organ?
6:45 The terminology of thoroughbass
7:49 Would Bach have used the term thoroughbass?
7:58 What do we know of Bach the teacher? Did he have many students and how long did he teach in his career?
10:09 How does thoroughbass relate to Counterpoint and did they talk about Counterpoint much?
15:18 CPE Bach mentioning that JS Bach avoided the "dry" exercises of species counterpoint
16:43 LM 4665, the anonymous manuscript that contained thoroughbass fugues
19:04 How did Bach begin teaching new students?
19:53 Did Bach expect strict counterpoint in thoroughbass?
21:06 How about parallel movement in the middle voices?
22:40 Did he stay with 4 voices or did he eventually shrink down to 3 or 2 voices?
25:17 Was there any instruction in how to write melodies? Like how the Italians practiced Solfeggio.
26:49 The Italian partimenti eventually had no figures, was that the same for Bach?
28:27 Did Heinichen, Niedt and Bach share the same conception of thoroughbass?
31:51 Heinichen updated treatise, after his trip to Italy and the connection to Bach
33:07 What are the differences between Heinichen's first treatise and his later updated version?
39:35 Is Heinichen an innovator?
42:03 After thoroughbass, the student moves on to chorales
43:40 The same melody in chorales but multiple, different basses with figures
45:37 Did they use solfeggio syllables like Do, Re Mi, Fa Sol, La?
49:01 Modes vs Major/Minor
49:35 What temperament are we supposed to play Bach's music in?
50:44 Going from chorales to fugues, when does the study of imitation happen?
53:56 Does being good at thoroughbass prepare you well for fugues?
54:51 Do you find that the study of thoroughbass has helped you in understanding tonal music of other eras?
56:09 What's the best way in your opinion, to learn counterpoint?
57:46 How would you reform music education?
1:02:22 On the modern use of "tonal" as a flippant, pejorative
1:03:43 Wrapping Up

What a great thrill to be joined by a very special guest, Professor Rosa Cafiero of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, the department of History, Archaeology and Art History. She is here to talk about her latest book La didattica del partimento (a collection of nine essays, revisited and adjourned for the digital era). She is one of the great, early pioneers of Partimento research!

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0:55 The word for department in Italian is dipartimento
1:23 On being a graduate of the San Pietro a Majella, Naples
1:56 Was the training there similar to the 18th century version of the conservatory?
3:16 Was partimento extinct?
3:59 Did you still get to learn partimenti in any way?
4:48 When did you get interested in exploring the Neapolitan methods?
5:46 Describe the history of Partimento research in the 20th century
8:39 How many documents and manuscripts were there in the library?
9:54 Have all the manuscripts been researched?
10:51 Are these expensive paper manuscripts free from mistakes?
12:44 What does sulla fortuna mean?
13:11 How did you revise your 1993 Carlo Cotumacci article?
14:30 Who was Carlo Cotumacci and why is he important?
16:48 How is Cotumacci's "3rd Way" different from Leo and Durante?
17:31 The regole del contrappunto by Nicola Sala
19:37 On Nicola's legacy and his reputation in counterpoint but also some criticism about his melodic ability
20:22 Francesco Durante's harmonic theories
21:35 How did you revise the essay?
21:55 How hard was it to get these manuscripts today vs previous years
23:37 "Music of a new kind, music composed without rules" - Fenaroli
25:40 Did Fenaroli complain about mistakes in his publications
26:17 Was Naples aware of musical developments in other continents, such as the popularity of Haydn
27:56 Do we full biographies of these Neapolitans or do we just have scraps of information
29:35 How about letters?
31:04 Emmanuele Imbimbo in Paris
33:27 What does Practica mean?
35:10 But wasn't Zarlino a theorist? How does that relate to practica?
36:32 Bianchi's treatise on harmony
38:45 Was his treatise like Fenaroli's regole?
40:45 How did Bianchi teach young children?
41:17 The criticisms of the Neapolitan school in the 19th century
43:49 The Neapolitan method vs the 20th century vertical approach to harmony
47:40 Are Harmony and Counterpoint two separate subjects?
48:30 Is the Neapolitan method only for the 18th century, or can the principles be applied to modern settings?
49:33 What mysteries still remain that interest you about this field of research?
51:10 Do you have a favorite composer from this period?
52:48 What's your reaction to surge in interest in partimento today?
53:30 How about among your colleagues and peers?
55:04 Wrapping Up
55:52 When is the english version of your book coming out?

My guest today is Professor Mark Ferraguto, he is an Associate Professor of Musicology at Penn State University. He will talk to us about his very interesting book "Beethoven 1806", which was published by Oxford University Press in 2019.

0:30 Can you describe your musical background?
1:36 What were the things that bothered you about the way Beethoven was discussed?
3:08 Was Beethoven himself to blame for this because of the way he marketed himself?
4:27 The bust of Beethoven in a Liszt painting
4:53 Beethoven anecdote arguing with a violinist
5:36 How did you come to choosing 1806 for research?
6:20 What are the 3 periods of Beethoven?
7:16 How do these non-heroic works of 1806 appear in his middle period?
8:34 Career-wise, how was Beethoven doing in 1806
9:37 What was Beethoven's music education?
11:22 Was Beethoven a child prodigy?
12:16 Could Beethoven play the complete Bach Well Tempered Clavier as a child?
12:55 Was Beethoven aware of the growing culture of Romanticism around him?
14:05 Leonore Overture
15:13 Was Opera not really his thing?
15:47 How did Luigi Cherubini affect Fidelio and Beethoven?
16:50 Did Beethoven have good things to say about his contemporaries and what did he think of Cherubini?
18:00 Is there an Italian connection with Beethoven?
19:03 The 4th Piano Concerto and Violin Concerto and the terminology of the term "Virtuoso"
20:46 What are these new sources that might be of interest to Beethoven scholars?
22:17 How did the French Érard Piano affect the composition of the 4th piano concerto?
23:55 Is the Violin concerto a virtuoso piece?
25:11 What are the distinctive musical features of the 4th piano concerto?
27:25 Did the public want the virtuosity or something else?
29:13 Was Beethoven making fun of Russians with his Razumovsky String Quartets?
30:27 Were the criticisms of the string quartets modern or contemporary?
32:53 What does the learned style or approach mean and what is it contrasted with?
34:25 Were the terms stile antico used in the 18th century?
35:27 How famous was Joseph Haydn in 1806?
36:48 Is the 4th symphony a regression as compared to the 3rd symphony?
37:39 How did the French Érard piano lead to the composition of the 32 variations in C minor?
40:34 Is there an evolution in piano writing in these variations compared to his previous variations?
42:19 The Coriolan overture as a return to the Heroic
44:20 What's the significance of the playwright and the Corialan overture?
45:25 What do you mean by the term Everyday Beethoven?
46:26 What were the most surprising things about your research?
47:38 How has Beethoven research changed over the last couple of decades?
49:17 Was Beethoven actually not deaf?
51:19 Can you recommend any sections from Beethoven's music that people should listen to?
54:19 Wrapping Up

My guest today is the great Professor Ludwig Holtmeier, who is a music theorist, musicologist, pianist and the president of the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg!

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0:23 What's your musical background?
3:37 Did you have a typical classical training or did you ever improvise as a young musician?
4:18 Do you have perfect or absolute pitch?
4:29 Did you learn music theory and counterpoint as a young musician?
4:59 Moving to Freiburg
7:37 When did you discover partimento?
10:10 How did you break away from Riemannian theory?
12:36 How did you find these older methods?
13:24 Were a lot of treatises lost during WWII?
14:02 What was inside that library of note?
14:45 Continuing the story of how he discovered Fenaroli
15:50 Was it the Fenaroli Regole?
16:10 What date was that manuscript of Fenaroli?
17:12 Why did no one want to teach music theory at the piano at the University of Freiburg?
18:10 How did you fill in the gaps of information in Fenaroli's regole?
20:57 Is Rameau one of the most misunderstood music theorists?
22:46 What are people getting wrong about Rameau?
27:01 How do you integrate partimento theory with the modern curriculum?
28:08 Is it based around Fenaroli or other teachers as well?
28:43 Do most students come to you not knowing anything about partimento?
29:21 What are some of the best exercises you use?
31:50 Are there theories that you exclude at the University?
33:31 How do you balance partimento with other theories in analysis?
34:42 How would you analyze the music of Wagner?
37:08 What do you mean by arabic numerals?
37:52 What is your perspective on Riemann?
43:22 How about Heinrich Schenker?
45:18 What's the best way to learn counterpoint?
47:41 Should Harmony be separated from counterpoint? Should they be 2 separate subjects?
48:50 Do you have a preference for Fixed Do, Moveable Do or Hexachordal Solfeggio?
50:16 On Music Schema
53:46 What is the importance of David Heinichen in music theory in the 18th century?
54:46 Did he codify the methods of the Italians?
55:34 Did Bach use Heinichen's treatise?
57:08 The intriguing unity of the methods of the 18th century
1:00:25 Can partimento and 18th century pedagogy help us understand newer composers like Rachmaninoff, Debussy and Ravel?
1:01:40 What is your advice for parents who will start music lessons for their children?
1:02:49 How can people find you and your work?
1:03:45 Wrapping Up

I'm so pleased to introduce my guest today, a real expert on early music, Harpsichordist, composer and singer, Dr. Elam Rotem.

In 2014, Rotem established the award winning resources website Early Music Sources. In 2016, he finished his PhD thesis with distinction ("Early Basso Continuo Practice: Implicit Evidence in the Music of Emilio de' Cavalieri"), within a new collaborative program between the Schola Cantorum in Basel and the University of Würzburg, Germany. He is the founder and director of Profeti della Quinta. His most recent composition is the Lamentations of David, available on YouTube.

0:58 What was music scene like in the 16th century?
1:27 Who were the most famous musicians in the 16th century?
1:48 Were they so well known that everyone was copying their music?
2:25 Is Italy the main focus of interest?
3:19 What are madrigals?
3:59 Is an Italian madrigal different?
4:19 When was the Renaissance?
4:41 What was the standard form of counterpoint in 1600? Did any a significant theorist shape it?
6:17 Are treatises written often looking backwards?
7:20 How would have composers back then learned music?
8:20 Was their training more focused on improvisation and composition?
9:06 Hexachordal Solfeggio
10:44 Did they use more clefs?
11:36 Locating Fa on Fa Clefs
12:30 Did these think about cadences differently?
13:41 In any of the treatises did they talk about vertical chords?
14:56 What do prima pratica and seconda practica mean?
15:43 What were Artusi's complaints with Monteverdi?
16:12 How did Artusi get copies of Monteverdi's music before they were published?
16:47 How did Basso Continuo have an effect on composition when it came on the scene?
18:51 Did anyone criticize Basso Continuo when it appeared for the first time?
19:16 Do we distinguish between accompaniment and counterpoint?
19:50 Did Basso Continue subsequently explode in popularity?
20:25 If there were no figures, how did they interpret scores correctly?
21:03 Do we know how these musicians learned counterpoint?
22:33 Are there any historical counterpoint workbooks available?
23:45 Why was the major 6th considered the harshest interval in the renaissance?
26:28 If someone had absolute pitch, how would that work in the Renaissance?
27:23 Did you have to tune instruments on the fly if you had tunes in different keys?
27:50 Could you give examples of instruments not being able to match the flexibility of the voice in transposition?
28:26 Modes
29:58 Were these composers really only thinking horizontally and with consonances and dissonances?
30:35 What are some remaining mysteries of music in the Renaissance?
32:12 What are common questions you get about your work and research?
32:49 Is music of this period mainly vocal?
33:10 What pieces of music are required to know in order to get handle of the music of the 16th and 17th century and develop your counterpoint?
33:57 Are you singing syllables or just the notes?
35:25 What do you mean by compositional situations?
36:03 Should students study counterpoint rules from treatises?
36:57 How about the Thomas de Santa Maria treatise?
37:27 Can you learn faster with a master composer?
38:04 Has the art of counterpoint watered down with newer styles?
38:54 Do you feel that there's different languages of counterpoint for different styles of music?
39:55 How did you compose the Lamentations of David?
40:53 How long did it take you to compose it?
41:24 Were you always a composer?
42:07 Can you describe your experience studying at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis?
43:34 Wrapping Up

My guest today is Professor John Mortensen, a leading performer, scholar and teacher in classical or historic improvisation, Steinway Artist, Fulbright Scholar, and is a professor of Music at Cedarville University.

His new book is "The Pianist's guide to Historic Improvisation", published by Oxford University Press.

Kate Boyd, Professor of Music at Butler University reviewed the book by saying,

"This book fills an important niche in the world of piano and keyboard pedagogy. In each of the chapters Mortensen encourages the reader's creativity, simultaneously exposing the musical building blocks used by some of the great composers and allowing the reader to apply those same compositional techniques to improvising in a stylistically-appropriate way."

Noam Sivan, Professor of Piano Improvisation, Hochschule of Music and Performing Arts, Stuttgart reviewed the book saying,
"Any language study based solely on reading without speaking, would be incomplete. Similarly, the study of improvisation is indispensable for learning music. In this important book John Mortensen wonderfully demystifies the creative process and presents a clear and gradual method for learning to speak the language of J. S. Bach and his contemporaries. Highly recommended!"

It debuted at #1 on Amazon's Piano and Music Instruction category.

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1:41 What was the landscape for books on classical improvisation before the publishing of his book
3:35 How long did it take you to write the book, and did you have to revise the book as new information kept coming out?
4:22 Who is the book written for?
5:37 Does the book lean Italian or German in it's approach?
7:12 What prerequisites do you need to create a figuration prelude?
8:12 What harmonies do you need to know to start your figuration prelude?
10:01 How do you break up the chord and how many types of figurations that you can come up with?
10:46 The effectiveness of figuration preludes in getting newcomers to creating music right away
11:29 Why is Toccata chapter 2?
12:56 What's the amount of harmonic knowledge you need to improvise Toccatas?
13:37 Do you teach cadences in the book?
13:57 The Rule of the Octave and how important it is?
16:08 Which version of the Rule of the Octave do you want students to start with?
17:50 CPE Bach's multitude of Rule of Octave versions
18:51 Diminutions
21:19 What about 16th notes?
22:14 How do you avoid contrapuntal mistakes in improvisation?
23:37 Do you encourage students look at the piano literature and steal ideas?
24:23 Variations
27:48 What's the way to develop melodic lyricism?
31:42 How do I finger all these examples in the book?
32:36 Friedrich Erhard Niedt and the suite
35:52 Imitation
38:30 Counterpoint
39:57 Is Counterpoint not being taught correctly?
40:57 Partimento
42:27 The benefits of partimento with regular music students
45:09 The overwhelming positive feedback to classical improvisation
46:00 How does the scene compare to 10 years ago?
48:17 Schemata
50:00 Interest in traditional Irish music?
50:51 The parallels between Celtic improvisation and Classical improvisation
52:28 On being denied visiting a University because the top professor could not improvise
53:44 Is a classical improvisation renaissance happening?
54:20 Publishing with Oxford University Press?
55:52 What are your thoughts on hexachordal solfeggio practiced by the Neapolitans as researched by Nicholas Baragwanath?
58:57 Wrapping Up

So privileged to introduced my guest today one of the greats, pianist, musicologist and educator Professor Tibor Szasz.

He has given over 1000 solo, concerto, and chamber music performances all over the world. His recordings of Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Bartók have been issued in the United States and Germany.

Tibor Szász holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in piano performance from the University of Michigan, and is a Tenured professor of piano at the Hoshschule fur Music Freiburg in Germany.

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0:48 How old were you when you started playing the piano
1:42 Was it a weekly lesson or multiple times a week?
2:18 How many hours a day did you practice?
3:08 What kind of music did you play growing up?
4:25 Do you have Absolute or Perfect Pitch?
6:20 Did you get rid of your perfect pitch?
6:59 What do you make of different tunings?
10:31 Is there a difference between 440Hz and 432Hz?
11:31 What is your perspective of equal temperament vs other tunings?
16:57 Did you improvise as a child growing up?
19:49 Was there a prejudice against improvisation in your career?
23:04 Touring with Béla Bartók's son in 1977
28:22 Was his son much older than you at the time?
34:11 Carnegie Hall debut in 1977
35:57 Did you meet Vladimir Horowitz?
37:49 What did Horowitz think about your performance of the Liszt Sonata?
40:09 Enraging Horowitz at a Q&A
41:07 Does being Hungarian give you greater insight into Liszt's music?
42:32 Beethoven article about basso continuo in the Emperor Concerto
47:25 Did Beethoven abolish improvising cadenzas in concertos?
49:25 The disappearance of continuo in the Romantic concerto
51:55 Robert Levin's reaction to your Continuo article and your relationship with him
52:20 Were there other concert pianists who could read figure bass?
55:31 CPE Bach who said that the Harpsichord's absence could be felt if it didn't play continuo
56:31 Do find that most pianists do not realize continuo notation in concertos in the modern age?
57:27 Isn't Urtext supposed to be THE authentic musical text of the composition?
1:00:57 What is the definition of Il Filo?
1:02:49 What are these building blocks in Il Filo?
1:03:43 How do you get better at developing Il Filo?
1:05:27 How does a student learn basso continuo?
1:07:06 How would you reform music education?
1:10:07 Wrapping Up
1:10:47 Where can people find you?

We're joined today by a great guest, Dorico Product Marketing Manager Daniel Spreadbury, to talk about the new release of Dorico, version 3.5 and the new Figured Bass feature.

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0:22 The new feature: figured bass in Dorico 3.5
1:05 How is Dorico figured bass different in implementation compared to Sibelius, Finale, and other notation software?
4:38 On the greatness of the letter G being reserved for figured bass
6:14 Was figured bass a feature that was greatly requested?
9:30 F.T. Arnold as a reference for research for the Dorico team
9:46 Will the smart figured bass system work with other theoretical systems that don't relate to fundamental bass
11:30 Can a jazz musician's chords be converted into figured bass?
12:46 Do higher intervals like a 13th be shown?
13:39 Can you customize how the accidentals appear?
14:12 Would you be able to spell out voicings?
14:34 Is that a feature that might come out in a later version?
15:23 Are the French, Italian and German traditions of figured bass represented in Dorico?
17:10 When is the next release of Dorico?
19:34 Have you heard about Professor Nicholas Baragwanath's upcoming book,"The Solfeggio Tradition"?
20:10 Wrapping Up