Basso continuo

“ The tone of the violin, and also, I may say with no undue partiality, my brother's performance, were so marvellously fine that though our thoughts were elsewhere when, the music commenced, in a few seconds they were wholly engrossed in the melody, and we sat spellbound. It was as if the violin had become suddenly endowed with life, and was singing to us in a mystical language more deep and awful than any human words. Constance was comparatively unused to the figuring of the basso continuo, and found some trouble in reading it accurately, especially in manuscript ”

“ In this work Schein gives up the basso continuo, and goes back to the more purely vocal style of the old madrigal, permitting himself however the bolder harmonic license of the new style of Monteverde and other Italians. Wherever the words seem to justify his doing so, the composer delights in using unprepared discords, and discords without resolution, with perhaps too much straining after passionate expression. ”

“ Viadana however was the first thus to accompany solemn church-compositions, and therefore the first to use the organ for the purpose. He is also the inventor of the name basso continuo. Nor had any one previously thought of writing pieces for a solo voice, or for two or three voices, expressly with the object of their being accompanied by a thorough-bass. [2] The way thus opened by Viadana enabled him to employ a freer and lighter style than his contemporaries of the Roman school. ”

“ After the 3rd Sonata comes a fourth, then a Basso continuo (containing, however, by exception, more [Pg 78] than one suite) , and so on, alternately, until the 14th Sonata is reached. Then follows the last piece in the volume. The superscription, "For one or two cembali," [53] leads us to believe that the preceding Basso continuo numbers were intended for one cembalo. It should be stated that movements in binary form are rare among the sonatas, frequent among the Basso continuo pieces,—another reason for considering the latter suites.
The structure of the 3rd Sonata [54] is extremely simple. ”

“ A complete cembalo had the compass of
to
and two manuals. Each note had four strings producing 4, 8, and 16 ft. tone, two being of 8 ft. The strings were sounded by plectra made of quill, called jacks. The instruments were sometimes also provided with organ pedals. It will be seen at once that a piece played on 16, 8 and 4 ft. stops would sound far fuller than when played on the modern piano with only unison strings.
The cembalo was used to play the basso continuo in all concerted music outside the church; and even in a concerto for clavier, a second cembalo appears to have accompanied. ”

“ The earliest orchestral music for the horn occurs in the operas of Cavalli and Cesti, leaders of the Venetian Opera in the 17th century. Already in 1639 Cavalli in his opera Le Nozze de Tito e Pelei (act i. sc. 1) introduced a short scena, “Chiamata alia Caccia” [55] in C major for four horns on a basso Music. continuo. An examination of the scoring in C clefs on the first, second, third and fourth lines shows, by the use of the note = in the bass part and in the second tenor of the 5th harmonic of the series, that the fundamental could have been no other than the 16-ft. C ”

“ As Freke drew the bow across the G-string, he would bring out tones as deep as the ’cello, while suddenly the sharp cry of the treble would cut into the somber depths of the basso like the shriek of a soul in torment. A melody like a wandering spirit appeared out of the deep harmonies, and lost, yet ever found, would make itself heard with a sweet insistence, only to be swallowed up in a tempest of sound, like a bird lost in a storm. And presently there was an abatement, then a calm, and the music died, literally, amid the twilight dusk and gloom. ”

“ The high, squeaking tones of the violins and flutes, and the growling ground bass of the bassoon are all that I can hear; they follow each other up and down in octaves, which tear the ear, until, at last, like one who is seized with a burning pain, I cry out involuntarily,
“What mad music! Those detestable octaves!”—Near me some one mutters.
“Cursed Fate! Here is another octave-hunter!” I look up and perceive now for the first time that imperceptibly to me a man has taken a place at the same table, who is looking intently at me, and from whom I cannot take my eyes away again. ”

“ THE Primo Basso is to the primo tenore what the draught horse is to the racer; drawing along the heavy business of an opera, whilst the other goes capering and curvetting through whole pages of chromatics, and runs bounding with unerring precision over the most fearful musical intervals. The basso, consequently, to uphold the vast superstructure of song, must be a man furnished with a strong supporting and sustaining voice. ”

“ BASS (the same word as “base,” and so pronounced, but influenced in spelling by the Ital. basso) , deep, low; especially in music, the lower part in the harmony of a composition, the lowest male voice, or the lowest-pitched of a class of instruments, as the bass-clarinet. ”

“ There is the continuous shake, handed on from instrument to instrument, the slashing figure of the upper strings, the kind of basso ostinato, conventionally indicating the galloping of horses, and the chief melody, a mere bugle call, altered by a change of rhythm into a thing of superb strength. The only part of the music that ever so remotely suggests extravagance is the Valkyries’ call ”

“ While the various sections are distinct from each other, it is like a gradation of colors whose harmony arises only from the order of their selection. This series of strokes produces something more than the feeling of continuity, it frees itself of an intensity of expression which is increased at every measure; but the climax is attained with stately chords, in five real parts, the bass emphasizing them by a quarter-note upon each beat. ”

“ The differences of position and light, by their distinct requirements, separate the three styles of relievo, the alto, basso, and mezzo. It is not, as many suppose, that the basso, the lower relief, is less finished than the alto, or high relief; the finish of each is differently placed. "In the highest relief, however decided the shadows may, and must of necessity be, on the plane to which the figure is attached, the light on the figure itself is kept as unbroken as possible ”

“ BASSUS. Some derive this barbarous Latin term from the Italian word basso ; others think with Zarlino, the Italian musical writer, that basis is its root, and that it originally implied the fundamental sounds upon which all harmony, and even melody, is constructed. ”

“ Here you trace one winding and creeping, by soft and subdued steps, through the labyrinth of sweet sounds; then another drops, with delicious trickling falls, from the highest compass to the level of the rest; then one seems at length to extricate itself; then another, in imitative successive cadences; they seem as silver threads that gradually unravel themselves, and then wind round the fine deep-toned bass which has scarcely swerved from its steady dignity during all their modulations, and filling up the magnificent diapason, burst into a swelling final cadence, which has no name upon earth. ”

“ Again, the diatonic major scale is regarded by many musicians as the natural order of intervals on which the [Pg 231] compositions must be founded whenever the art of music has attained to a high degree of development, and which will therefore be universally adopted in the course of time. They form this opinion especially from the laws of Acoustics, since the intervals constituting the diatonic major scale are those which as harmonics stand in the most simple relation to the fundamental tone produced by a vibrating body. ”

“ I have heard, and you doubtless, in a fine concert of viols, extemporary descant upon a thorough bass in the Italian manner, when each performer in turn plays such variety of descant, in concordance to the bass, as his skill and present invention may suggest to him. In this manner of play the consonances invariably fall true upon a given note, and every succeeding note of the ground is met, now in the unison or octave, now in the concords, preserving the melody throughout by the laws of motion and sound. I have thought that this is life. ”

“ The continuo of most of Bach’s cantatas was written out in two keys, to suit the two pitches in use, “Chorton” being a tone higher than “Kammerton.” All chamber music required the accompaniment of a cembalo in figured bass; and even if there were one or more “Cembali” obbligati a separate instrument would be employed for the continuo. In all Bach’s church compositions in which there is an organ obbligato part, there is another organ part for the continuo. The conductor stood near the organist, as may be seen in the frontispiece to Walther’s Lexicon. ”

“ Of the many possible modes only two are used in our present system of music, the major and the minor. There is only one form of the major mode, and it is the one most people recall when they think of the scale. There are three forms of the minor mode, but of these the harmonic is the most frequently used. ”

“ I recognise in the deepest tones of harmony, in the bass, the lowest grades of the objectification of will, unorganised nature, the mass of the planet. It is well known that all the high notes which are easily sounded, and die away more quickly, are produced by the vibration in their vicinity of the deep bass-notes. ”

“ If bass notes traveled faster or slower than soprano notes, or if the delicate tones of the violin traveled faster or slower than the tones of a drum, music would be practically impossible, because at a distance from the source of sound the various tones which should be in unison would be out of time—some arriving late, some early. ”

“ Indeed, even the impure discords, which give no definite interval, may be compared to the monstrous abortions produced by beasts of two species, or by man and beast. But to all these bass and complemental parts which make up the harmony there is wanting that connected progress which belongs only to the high voice singing the melody, and it alone moves quickly and lightly in modulations and runs, while all these others have only a slower movement without a connection in each part for itself. The deep bass moves most slowly, the representative of the crudest mass. ”

“ The C clef, occurring frequently in bassoon music, ought to be well understood. When the learner has a sufficient knowledge of the notes, and can readily call them by their names, it will be advisable to practise the scale. The black dots represent the holes which are to be stopped, and the ciphers those which are to remain open. Great care should be taken to have the reed in good order. An old reed, if sound, is far better than a new one. ”

“ Looked at in the light of modern knowledge, however, we see in the drone an unconscious groping after the truth of the Harmonic Scale, on which all modern harmony rests. We now perceive that either the Tonic or Dominant, or even both together, may with perfect propriety be sounded through any Tonic, Dominant, or Supertonic harmonies, since these must always consist of harmonics generated by the Tonic or its harmonics, and the generator is therefore always a true bass. ”

“ Having acquired the ability to judge a second of time you can go to work with more confidence.
Now, as a matter of fact, in a scale which is equally tempered, no two fifths beat exactly alike, as the lower a fifth, the slower it should beat, and thus the fifths in the bass are hardly perceptibly flat, while those in the treble beat more rapidly. For example, if a certain fifth beat once a second, the fifth an octave higher will beat twice a second, and one that is two octaves higher will beat four times a second, and so on, doubling the number of beats with each ascending octave. ”

“ But since the seventeenth century our conception of music has gradually, from melodic, become harmonic; we hear vertically as well as horizontally; we hear the beauty of all chords as sounded together, and, unconsciously, we fill in the harmonies to every melody we hear. It would have been natural if the keyed instruments had adapted themselves to this altered musical conception, and had resigned the original conception of the scale to make way for harmonic conveniences. ”

“ But before we learn to know the chords, we must see from what they are constructed.
Each chord must consist of at least three notes, sounded together. When we strike only two notes together, it is not a chord, but merely an interval.
There are ten such intervals in music, which here follow; C being always taken as the lower note or root.
With respect to these intervals, the following remarks are to be made:
1st. Any key which we choose to fix upon, may serve as a root or bottom note to all these intervals; and consequently they may take place in all keys and in all octaves. ”

“ How did man reach the conception of fixed scales? Here again opinions differ. Some consider that the extreme notes were fixed by the average compass of the human voice in impassioned speech, the interval being variously divided. Others claim that along with the vocal phase of music there was an instrumental side, and that the mechanical conditions in connection with instruments had bearing in the matter of organizing sounds into a scale; the rude, primitive trumpet of wood or bark, still found among forest tribes in South America and Africa, gives a series of harmonic notes. ”

“ For these ancient octave forms themselves another origin must be sought: we may, perhaps, surmise that they are what may be called the natural precipitates of all simpler melody. That these natural interval orders can be formed by a progression of fifths is a wonderful fact: wonderful, too, it must have been to these primitive theorists to see the generative powers of the fifth progression exhaust themselves in the formation of an interval order of twelve equal semitones. In their eyes the fifth progression became the natural foundation of all music. ”