Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
1
HANDEL’S ORGANO AD LIBITUM:
A STUDY OF ADAGIOS IN HIS ORGAN CONCERTOS
________________________
A Doctoral Essay
Presented to
The Faculty of Moores School of Music
University of Houston
________________________
In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Musical Arts
By
HyeHyun Sung
May, 2016
2
HANDEL’S ORGANO AD LIBITUM:
A STUDY OF ADAGIOS IN HIS ORGAN CONCERTOS
________________________
An Abstract of a Doctoral Essay
Presented to
The Faculty of Moores School of Music
University of Houston
________________________
In Partial Fulfillment
Of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Musical Arts
By
HyeHyun Sung
May, 2016
3
ABSTRACT
This study seeks to discover Handel’s likely improvisational process, specifically in
the adagio ad libitum sections of his organ concertos. Handel indicated organo ad libitum in
twelve adagio movements in the fifteen organ concertos, offering extensive opportunities for
extemporaneous performance. The study helps today’s organists understand Handel’s
improvisational process and create their own improvisations in the adagio sections of his
organ concertos.
Chapter One explains the historical concepts needed to understand the scant notation
in Handel’s adagios. A Baroque musician read the indication “adagio” not as a mere tempo
marking but as a genre requiring improvisation. Handel’s music education included the
development of improvisational skills requiring the memorization of musical formulas that
he could retrieve at the moment of performance. The steps involved in the improvisational
process can be labeled with rhetorical terms from Baroque education: dispositio (the
underlying large-scale framework), elaboratio (voice-leading), and decoratio (surface-level
ornamentation). Understanding such concepts is a preliminary step towards creating one’s
own adagio ad libitum improvisations in a style befitting a Handel organ concerto.
Chapter Two describes the improvisational process as applied to Handel’s scores. The
primary material that Handel left becomes a starting point in the construction-deconstruction-
reconstruction cycle, a process borrowed from Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra. The underlying
harmonic framework and voice-leading progressions of Handel’s complete adagios are
studied and analyzed, along with the surface-level ornamentation. The analysis reveals
musical formulas employed by Handel. These formulas are then used to generate two newly
composed adagios, which can easily be performed as though they were improvisations.
4
Baroque treatises that might have influenced Handel’s formation as a young musician are
also investigated in order to understand conventional Baroque improvisational practices. The
study includes musical examples from treatises by Wolfgang Gaspar Printz, Johann Moritz
Vogt, Friedrich Niedt, Johann Joachim Quantz, and Michael Wiedeburg. Handel’s own
music and theoretical sources help modern organists create improvisations for the adagio ad
libitum sections of his organ concertos.
5
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Figures ................................................................................................................... vii
Introduction to the Study .....................................................................................................1
Chapter One: Historical Background
Introduction to the Baroque Adagio: Genre and Organo ad Libitum ......................7
Rhetorical Categories and Improvisational Memory ...............................................8
Handel’s Education and Pedagogy ........................................................................10
Chapter Two: Handel’s Dispositio, Elaboratio, and Decoratio in the Adagios ................15
Deconstruction from Decoratio to Elaboratio .......................................................21
Reconstruction from Elaboratio to Decoratio .......................................................24
Reconstructing Decoratio from Dispositio ............................................................33
Examination of Handel’s Elaboratio and Decoratio .............................................36
Conclusion .........................................................................................................................39
Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………..42
6
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Construction-deconstruction-reconstruction cycle of improvisation…………….….5
Figure 2. Adagios marked organo ad libitum.......................................................................... 15
Figure 3. Adagio from Concerto No. 11, HWV 310: Handel’s disposition………………….17 Figure 4. Adagio from Concerto No. 15, HWV 304: Handel’s elaboratio…………………..18 Figure 5. Adagio from Concerto No. 1, HWV 289: Handel’s decoratio................................. 19 Figure 6. Adagio from Concerto No. 10, HWV 309: Handel’s decoratio…………………... 20 Figure 7(a). Adagio in Concerto No. 10, HWV 309: Handel’s decoratio………………...… 21 Figure 7(b). Adagio in Concerto No. 10, HWV 309: Author’s elaboratio…………………..21 Figure 8(a). Adagio e Staccato from Concerto No. 2, HWV 290: Handel’s decoratio……... 23 Figure 8(b). Adagio e Staccato from Concerto No. 2, HWV 290: Author’s elaboratio……..23 Figure 9. Grave from Concerto No. 14, HWV 296a: Handel’s elaboratio…………………..24 Figure 10. Wolfgang Gaspar Printz, Phrynidis Mytilenaei oder Satyrischen Componisten (1696): Melodic figures………………………………………………………………………26 Figure 11. Moritz Vogt, Conclave Thesauri Artis Musicae (1719): Sequential melodies…...27 Figure 12. Friedrich Niedt, Musicalische Handlung (1721): Diminutions above a figured bass ………………………………………………………………………………………………..28 Figure 13. Grave from Concerto No. 14, HWV 296a: Author’s decoratio (simple diminution) above Handel’s elaboratio…………………………………………………………………... 29 Figure 14. Michael Wiedeburg, Der Sich Selbst Infromirende Clavierspieler: (a) Schleifer, (b) Doppelschlag, (c) Schneller……………………………………………………....………30 Figure 15. Johann Joachim Quantz, Versuch einer Anweisung die Floete traversiere zu spielen (1752): Embellishing a three-note progression………………………………………31 Figure 16. Grave from Concerto No. 14, HWV 296a: Author’s decoratio (complex)……… 32 Figure 17(a). Adagio from Concerto No. 11, HWV 310: Handel’s disposition…………….. 34
7
Figure 17(b). Adagio from Concerto No. 11, HWV 310: Author’s elaboratio........................34 Figure 17(c). Adagio from Concerto No. 11, HWV 310: Author’s decoratio (simple)……...34 Figure 17(d). Adagio from Concerto No. 11, HWV 310: Author’s decoratio (complex)...….35 Figure 18. Adagio from Harpsichord Suite, No. 2 in F Major, Book I, HWV 427…………..37
8
INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY
Handel’s improvisational skills as an organist played an important role in his career.
Several colorful accounts attest to his fame as a keyboard improviser, including reports from
competitions with Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) at the Palazzo della Cancelleria in
Rome,1 and with Johann Mattheson (1681-1764) during a performance of Mattheson’s opera
Cleopatra in 1704.2 Another report says Maurice Green, Handel’s friend and organist at St.
Paul’s Cathedral in London, often offered to act as the “organ-blower” simply to hear Handel
at his organ.3 According to the British historian Charles Burney (1726-1814), two musicians,
Michael Christian Festing (1705-1752) and Thomas Augustine Arne (1710-1778), reported
to him after attending the performance of Handel’s oratorio Athalia and hearing Handel
improvise on the organ in Oxford in 1733: “[they] assured me, that neither themselves, nor
anyone else of their acquaintance, had ever before heard such extempore, or such
premeditated playing, on that or any other instrument.”4
The organ was the principal instrument in Handel’s oratorio performances in
England. According to Newburgh Hamilton (1691-1761) in his preface to his libretto for
Samson, Handel “so happily introduc’d here Oratorios, a musical Drama, whose Subject
must be Scriptural, and in which the Solemnity of Church-Musick is agreeably united with
1 Donald Burrows, Handel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 592. According to Mainwaring, Handel’s first biographer, Handel and Scarlatti had a ‘trial of skill’ on the harpsichord and the organ at Cardinal Ottoboni’s court. 2 Ibid., 24-25. A power struggle took place when Handel refused to give up the harpsichord bench despite Mattheson’s wish. 3 Stanley Sadie, BBC Music Guides: Handel Concertos (London: BBC Publications, 1972), 21. 4 Charles Burney, An Account of the Musical Performances in Westminster-Abbey (New York: Da capo Press, 1785, 1979), “The Sketch of the Life of Handel,” 23.
9
the most pleasing Airs of the Stage.”5 Handel achieved the solemn quality of church music
by incorporating the English choral sound of professional male singers and organ
accompaniment. While conducting and playing from the organ bench, Handel was able to
display his improvisational skills as a virtuoso. Improvisation became a regular feature at his
oratorio performances, as the advertisement “with a Concerto on the Organ” continued to
appear from 1735 onwards.
Burney mentioned that Handel improvised “an extempore fugue, a diapason piece,
[and] an adagio” in the performance of Handel’s organ concertos.6 Regarding the “diapason
piece,” another great British historian, John Hawkins (1719-1789), recorded that Handel
“introduced [his organ concertos] with a voluntary movement on the Diapasons [Open and
Stopped Diapasons], which stole on the ear in a slow and solemn progression.”7 Hawkins
lauded “the fullness of [Handel’s] harmony, the grandeur and dignity of his style, the
copiousness of his imagination, and the fertility of his invention.”8 Handel’s inventive
contrasts of various styles and genres, such as fugues, voluntaries, and adagios, shaped the
standard movements of his organ concertos, Op. 4 (1738). A later collection, Op. 7
(published posthumously in 1761) included even more diverse styles, including chaconne,
overture, variations, and dances.
The true essence of Handel’s improvisation, however, was in his adagios. During
Handel’s time, concertgoers esteemed a well-improvised adagio as entertainment par
5 Otto Erich Deutsch, Handel: A Documentary Bibliography (New York: W. W. Norton, 1955), 559. 6 Burney, An Account of the Musical Performances in Westminster-Abbey, “The Sketch of the Life of Handel,” 23. 7 John Hawkins, A General History of the Science and Practice of Music (London: Novello, 1776, 1853), 912. 8 Ibid.
10
excellence. Burney claimed, “the talent of executing an adagio well, in which performers of
great powers of execution often fail, is a merit of the highest class which a musician can
possess.”9 A soloist’s improvisations allowed a concertgoer to enjoy multiple performances
of the same work. The concertgoer witnessed—with each new adagio—the inexhaustible
imaginations of superior performers such as Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773) and
Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713). In his treatise On Playing the Flute (1752), Quantz discussed
adagio improvisation in depth in the chapter “Of the Manner of Playing the Adagio.”10 Soon
after Corelli published his Violin Sonatas, Op. 5, in Rome (1700), Corelli’s students and
followers produced and circulated well over two dozen sets of embellishments for the slow
movements, which indicates an overwhelming interest in improvised adagio movements.11 In
response to popular demand, Estienne Roger published an ornamented edition in 1710,
supposedly as Corelli himself performed at a concert and with his approval. The intention
was only pedagogical, as his improvisations were not to be reproduced for performances:
The Roger edition of Corelli’s Opus 5 contains “essential graces” more by chance and as an exception. It was much more concerned with showing how Corelli played his own works (“comme il les joue”) and not how others were supposed to play them. Only thus can we understand why Corelli’s pupils Veracini and Geminiani, and indeed later their pupil Dubourgh as well were able to go public with their own new versions of the violin part. Behind their efforts lay no lack of respect for the master’s works, but instead a conception of the works in which they knew the value of the performer, his spiritual commitment and his manual capabilities.12
9 Abraham Rees, ed., The New Cyclopaedia, or, Universal Dictionary of the Arts and Science (London: Longman, 1802-20), s.v. “Adagio.” The entry was written by Charles Burney. 10 Johann Joachim Quantz, On Playing the Flute, ed. Edward Reilly (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2001), 162-78. 11 Neal Zaslaw, “Ornaments for Corelli’s Violin Sonatas, Op. 5,” Early Music 24, no. 1 (February 1996): 95-116. 12 Arcangelo Corelli, Sonatas for Violin and Basso Continuo, Op. 5, ed. Reinhard Goebel (Vienna: Wiener Urtext Edition, 2003), xvi.
11
The historical context of Handel’s organ concertos—in his oratorio performances—
helps understand one reason why they were significant: the genre was a breakthrough for the
instrument and for organists because it promoted them to the role of soloists in concerts
outside the walls of a sacred space. This paper concentrates on the adagio improvisations in
Handel’s organ concertos, specifically in the ad libitum sections, in part because this
represents the pinnacle of Handel’s performance as a keyboard artist.
Performing the adagio ad libitum sections of Handel’s organ concertos might be a
daunting task for some of today’s organists who do not have training in Baroque
improvisation practice. Primary written sources give little information about how Handel
improvised these sections or how he learned this skill. By studying existing compositions by
Handel, however, it is possible to speculate on the process by which he learned to improvise.
By extension, today’s organists can learn from the same process. One can also learn about
Baroque improvisational practice from written accounts and treatises that were available
during Handel’s formative years. For this purpose, treatises by Wolfgang Gaspar Printz,
Johann Moritz Vogt, Friedrich Niedt, Johann Joachim Quantz, and Michael Wiedeburg will
be discussed. The study of Handel’s compositions includes analyses of his adagios, which
reveal inventive formulas that he may have utilized in improvisation. Those formulas will be
combined to produce new ones that may be applied in one’s own improvisations today. After
creating such improvisations, one may revisit Handel’s existing compositions or the previous
analytical stages to refine the improvisations. Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra described exactly this
process with three terms: construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction. The visual image
below helps one understand this cycle:
12
Figure 1. Construction-deconstruction-reconstruction cycle of improvisation13
The goal of this study is to help today’s organists understand Handel’s likely
improvisational process and then create their own improvisations in the adagio ad libitum
sections of his concertos. This study encourages them to write out new realizations or even
extemporaneously improvise in Handel’s style. The primary material that Handel left is used
as a starting point in the construction-deconstruction-reconstruction cycle. This essay is
structured according to this step-by-step pedagogical and creative process. The realizations
created in each step will lead to the ultimate written-out “improvisation” of two adagio
movements. These realizations are flexible models and do not pretend to be the only
solutions to the performance of these adagios.
This paper attempts to help modern organists understand and recapture Handel’s
adagio improvisational process. To do so, an organist first needs to understand what
improvisation of adagios meant and entailed during Handel’s lifetime. The first chapter
defines and contextualizes the problem. It defines the Baroque adagio as a genre and the
13 Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra, Bach and the Art of Improvisation (Ann Arbor: CHI Press, 2011), 11.
13
related term organo ad libitum. It also explains classical rhetorical terms and the role of
improvisational memory as organists in Handel’s time used them. To that end, Handel’s
education and pedagogy must be discussed.
Narrowing down the focus from context to the specific written-out improvisations of
Handel himself, the second chapter examines Handel’s written-out improvisations as they
appear in his organ concertos. The paper’s analysis of his written-out improvisations consists
of what Ruiter-Feenstra calls “deconstruction.” Because Handel left only a handful of fully
written-out adagios in his concertos, modern organists may need more guidance, as a
practical matter. So the second chapter also draws on practical treatises from Handel’s era.
All the acquired information ultimately leads to two adagios “reconstructed” for use in
performance. Then Handel’s other existing compositions are studied for even further
refinement of modern attempts to improvise in a style like Handel’s own.
14
CHAPTER ONE: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Introduction to the Baroque Adagio: Genre and Organo ad Libitum
For Baroque musicians, adagio meant more than a tempo indication. Originating from
an Italian word meaning “at ease” or “leisurely,” a Baroque adagio was a specific genre of
slow movement that had the potential of being constantly refreshed by adding idiomatic
embellishments to the melody. Burney noted the following: “an adagio in a song or solo is,
generally … little more than an outline left to the performer’s abilities to colour”; therefore,
“the performer who is not enabled to interest an audience by the tone of his voice or
instrument, and by taste and expression, should never be trusted with slow notes.”14 A
Baroque adagio left room for a capable soloist to join in creative collaboration with the
composer. Handel expressly encouraged the organist to improvise his adagios by adding the
marking organo ad libitum above his written-out music. Twelve adagio movements in the
fifteen authentic organ concertos are marked organo ad libitum.15
These occur in three different types of adagio. The first type is a short cadenza at the
final cadence of a movement. Quantz defined it in this way: “Those embellishments
commonly introduced on the last note but one ... [are] the productions of the momentary
invention of the performer.”16 He further explained that such cadenzas are not performed in
strict time and must have a judiciously moderate length. Good examples occur at the end of
Corelli’s Op. 5 sonatas and concerto grosso movements, where the composer often added
14 Rees, ed., The New Cyclopaedia, s.v. “Adagio.” 15 This study is based on the fifteen organ concertos from the critical edition of Hallische Händel Ausgabe (Bärenreiter), series IV, vol. 2 (2001), edited by Terence Best and William D. Gudger, and series IV, vol. 8 (1989) edited by Siegfried Stockmeier Flesch, Eva Wolfgang Gerlach, and Inge Schneider. 16 Quantz, On Playing the Flute, 22.
15
flourishes immediately before the cadential trills. Handel followed this basic procedure, but
instead of limiting himself to a single embellished note, he extended the ornamentation to as
many as four.
The second type consists of a walking bass line accompanying a long cantabile
melody. This includes the adagio features for which Corelli’s sonatas were famous. Corelli’s
adagios as well as Handel’s involve a florid ornamentation of the melody, a common time
signature, and a slow-moving bass line mostly in eighth notes.17
The last type occurs in organ solo episodes between orchestral ritornellos. Burney
reports that for Handel’s organ concerto performances, he gave the orchestra only the music
for the ritornello. Then he “played all the solo parts extempore, while the other instruments
left him, ad libitum; waiting for [his] signal ... before they played [the ritornello] as they
found in their books.”18 In addition to the marking ad libitum, Handel’s own solo scores
include rests and fermatas on the rests. In this way, he took the freedom to improvise as long
as he wanted, whereas he wrote all the notes for the orchestra.
Rhetorical Categories and Improvisational Memory
Handel’s adagio ad libitum movements display varying degrees of compositional
completeness. For Handel, who was both the composer and performer of the organ concertos,
improvisation was extemporaneous composition. In order to glean Handel’s likely
improvisational process, this essay uses a system recently devised by Michael Callahan in his
17 David Ledbetter, “On the Manner of Playing the Adagio: Neglected Features of a Genre,” Early Music 29, no. 1 (February 2001): 15-26. 18 Kazlitt Arvine, ed., The Cyclopaedia of Anecdotes of Literature and the Fine Arts (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1856), s.v. “Handel.”
16
dissertation Techniques of Keyboard Improvisation in the German Baroque.19 Callahan
borrows three terms from classical rhetoric, dispositio, elaboratio, and decoratio. This essay
uses these terms to identify Handel’s improvisational and compositional stages, which range
from the simplest to the most intricate levels of completeness. Dispositio contains the
simplest structure, with the large-scale framework identified with cadences. Elaboratio
displays harmonic structure, including smaller-scale formulas and voice-leading
progressions. Decoratio shows the most developed level of the three, comprising surface-
level rhythmic and melodic diminutions as well as ornamentation. Handel’s written-out
adagios show these three stages and thus hint at his improvisational as well as compositional
process—for his improvisations were in fact extemporaneous compositions.
In the context of this process, William Porter explains that improvisation required a
special sort of memory for Baroque organists. Instead of preserving information, the function
of improvisational memory was to generate new formulas by the improviser using flexible
combinations and applications:
It should perhaps be underscored here that the references to memory … before the eighteenth century could not be understood in the same way as we commonly speak of memory today. For us, the notion of memorizing music normally has the connotation of rote memorization, culminating in a performance that reproduces every memorized detail. From the perspective of the improviser in the 16th and 17th centuries, this modern practice may well represent a debasement of the earlier concept of memory. Traditionally, the role of memory in rhetoric as well as in musical performance was not to reproduce in exact detail a pre-existing work or even a portion of a pre-existing work, but rather to serve the process of imprinting and internalizing images or structures in the mind, which would be brought to bear upon the creative process at the moment of performance.20
19 Michael Callahan, “Techniques of Keyboard Improvisation in the German Baroque and their Implications for Today’s Pedagogy” (Ph.D. diss., University of Rochester, 2010). 20 William Porter, “Reconstructing 17th-Century North German Improvisational Practice,” in Goart Research Reports, vol. 2, ed. Sverker Jullander (Göteburg: Göteburg Organ Art Center, 2000), 29.
17
Callahan’s concept of the three terms—dispositio, elaboratio, and decoratio—can be
understood in the light of this generative and flexible improvisational memory.
A hierarchical conception allows existing musical material to be digested on several levels simultaneously; an improviser can consider its large-scale organization, its more local generating principles, and its surface-level realization independently, and commit the music hierarchically to memory. As a result, the improviser can reproduce some aspects of the memorized music while varying others—applying its motivic content to a different set of skeletal voice-leading progressions (i.e., preserving elaboratio while varying decoratio), or rendering its same underlying voice-leading by means of different diminution formulas (i.e., vice versa).21
Handel’s Education and Pedagogy
How would Handel have learned to improvise on the organ? His improvisational
skills no doubt rested on the strong foundation of the education he received in the Latin
school under the Cathedral Cantor, Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow (1663-1712). During
Handel’s formative years in Halle, an influx of Calvinists discouraged any music in church
other than songs of penitence and prayers of thanksgiving sung by the entire congregation.
Consequently Handel and many other young musicians performed mostly secular music,
such as comedies, tragedies, and sung operas, in secular venues and private homes.22
At the Latin school, students studied the new Italian style and counterpoint based on
figured-bass harmony. Around the time when Handel studied with Zachow in Halle, the new
Italian style emerged, and students at the Latin school learned about the new stylistic
concepts by studying widely circulated treatises. They knew Wolfgang Mylius’s Rudimenta
musices (Mühlhausen, 1685), which thoroughly explained the new style of singing and its
21 Callahan, “Techniques of Keyboard Improvisation,” 57. 22 John Butt, “Germany—Education and Apprenticeship,” in The Cambridge Companion to Handel, ed. Donald Burrows (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 18.
18
detailed repertory of ornaments. Then they applied the new techniques in their performances
of comedies, tragedies, and opera. They also studied Georg Daniel Speer’s Grundrichtiger
Unterricht der musikalischen Kunst (1697), which explains how to work from figured bass
using numerals as part of keyboard practice. Figured bass theory, according to Speer, forms
the basis for counterpoint.23
According to the modern scholar John Butt, Handel would have been familiar with
both the older compositional theory of Wolfgang Gaspar Printz (1641-1717) and the new
compositional style advocated by Friedrich Erhard Niedt (1674-1717). Printz’s treatise
begins with a study of intervals and classifies numerous ornamental figures from which
students could develop variations and even new themes; the treatise ends with the
explanation of figured bass. Unlike Printz, Niedt addresses figured bass first and counterpoint
proper only at the end; for him, counterpoint is a mere refinement of figured-bass realization
rather than a separate, new task. Both authors offer a glossary of ornaments. Butt believes
that Handel probably knew at least some of these books directly or indirectly, because of his
study with Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow (1663-1712), who taught the same arts of
ornamentation, counterpoint, and figured-bass realization.24
Handel’s first biographer, John Mainwaring (1724-1807), summarized Handel’s study
with Zachow in Halle:
The first object of his attention was to ground him thoroughly in the principles of harmony. His next care was to cultivate his imagination, and form his taste. … He frequently gave him subjects to work, and made him copy, and play, and compose in his stead. Thus he had more exercise, and more experience than usually falls to the share of any learner at his years.25
This account demonstrates two important elements in the application of traditional German 23 Ibid., 18-21. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid., 19.
19
pedagogy. The first element is that composition was considered a craft that could be taught
and learned. In his treatise, Quantz urged composers to master the technical skills:
Why do the finished products of every good composer show a great improvement over his first sketches? Is this to be attributed to pure natural ability, or to ability and skill combined? Natural ability is innate, while technical skill is learned through good instruction and diligent inquiry, and both are necessary to a good composer.26
Under the tutelage of Zachow, young Handel earnestly studied the rules and imitated the
work of established masters.27 Likewise, J. S. Bach credited his accomplishments to
education and practice, saying, “I had to work hard; anyone who is as industrious, can
achieve the same level.”28 As part of their method, students at this time memorized, analyzed,
applied, varied, combined, and internalized the skills they learned. Such internalization
equipped them with improvisational skills that were generative and analytical. Improvisation
was a learnable, generative process.
The second element is that the study of composition was based on the “principles of
harmony.” This is reflected in the adagios of Handel’s organ concertos, which typically
include figured bass. This is also reflected in Handel’s own teaching. In his only pedagogical
writing, the tutorial exercises for the daughters of King George II, one can gain a glimpse of
his teaching. Between 1724 and the mid-1730s, Handel devised these exercises to teach the
royal children, using a graded approach founded entirely on figured bass.29 The book
26 Quantz, On Playing the Flute, 20. 27 Händel-Handbuch, Vol. 4: Dokumente zu Leben und Schaffen (Kassel and Leipzig, 1985), 17. Dated 1698, a musical notebook with Handel’s initials was found, including the keyboard music by the most important 17th-Century German composers, such as Zachow, Alberti, Froberger, Krieger, Kerll, Ebner, and Strungk. 28 Dietrich Bartel, Musica Poetica: Musical-Rhetorical Figures in German Baroque Music (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 64. 29 David Ledbetter, Continuo Playing According to Handel: His Figured Bass Exercises (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 1-3.
20
includes the essential formulas for figured-bass playing: root-position chords, seventh chords,
inversions, suspensions, and finally fugal writing. An understanding of harmony through the
study of figured bass formed the foundation of Handel’s pedagogy.
Another important element, not discussed by Mainwaring, is the study of rhetoric.
Baroque teachers such as Zachow and J. S. Bach taught Latin grammar and rhetoric in
addition to music. Therefore German students naturally learned how to combine the
disciplines of music and rhetoric, which was called musicus poeticus. They practiced how to
order the musical structure eloquently, a different priority from the rhetorical focus that
Italian pedagogy placed on music’s dramatic performance.30 Although no records have been
found to show that Handel completed the liberal arts curriculum, he probably knew or was at
least familiar with the basic concepts of rhetoric from his surroundings. And he might have
studied his contemporaries’ treatises about the popular subject, musicus poeticus.
Johann Mattheson (1681-1764) created a five-part hierarchical process in rhetoric,
using the Latin terms inventio, dispositio, elaboratio, decoratio, and executio.31 Heinrich
Christoph Koch (1749-1816) created a three-part process, using the German terms Anlage,
Ausführung, and Ausarbeitung;32 Koch’s three-part process parallels Mattheson’s three
middle levels.33 By using rhetorical terminology, such theorists viewed compositions
hierarchically. Students began at the bottom of this hierarchy using figured bass and built
upward to the more complex levels. Dispositio or Anlage, as Mattheson and Koch
respectively named them, required a structural plan, including the key and cadence.
Elaboratio or Ausführung consisted of elaborating the plan with voice-leading progressions.
30 Bartel, Musica Poetica, 64. 31 Ibid., 78. 32 Callahan, “Techniques of Keyboard Improvisation,” 51. 33 Ibid.
21
Decoratio or Ausarbeitung included embellishment with surface-level rhythmic and melodic
diminutions. In short, this approach includes three steps: (1) the construction of a simple
structure including key and cadence, (2) the production of a voice-leading progression in two
voices, and (3) the creation of embellishments with surface-level diminutions.
It is interesting that Koch omitted Mattheson’s first step, inventio, or the creative
spark.34 This may indicate that Koch understood improvisation as a learned skill, not one of
spontaneous creation. Improvisers studied musical patterns and memorized them ahead of
time so that they could combine, apply, and vary these in their extemporaneous
performances.
34 Ibid., 54.
22
CHAPTER TWO: HANDEL’S DISPOSITIO, ELABORATIO, AND DECORATIO IN THE ADAGIOS
To create a process similar to the one that Handel employed for his improvisations,
the first step is to study his written-out adagios. The amount of detail in Handel’s written-out
adagios varies. They can be divided into the three rhetorical categories. Figure 2 lists all
twelve adagios marked organo ad libitum.35 Three are written as dispositio, four as
elaboratio, and five as decoratio. Two of the decoratio movements are moderately
ornamented, and the other three are heavily ornamented. Some adagios are placed between
fast movements or sections, while others are not. A few concertos include more than one
adagio ad libitum section or movement. Concerto No. 11 includes two cadenzas at the
dispositio level. Concerto No. 14 contains two adagios at the elaboratio level, one solo
episode in an andante movement and a cadenza between andante and allegro movements.
Figure 2. Adagios marked organo ad libitum
1. Rhetorical Category: Dispositio
Concerto No. HWV Placement Type of Adagio Length 7 306 At end of allegro mvt. Cadenza 2 bars
11 310 At end of allegro mvt. Cadenza 5 bars
11 310 At end of andante mvt. Cadenza 5 bars
35 For the scope of this paper, the author has excluded the sections between movements where Handel indicated organo ad libitum but did not provide any score. Handel did not mark these sections adagio.
23
2. Rhetorical Category: Elaboratio Concerto
No. HWV Placement Type of
Adagio Length
1 289 After initial ritornello in larghetto e staccato mvt.
Solo episode
4 bars
14 296a After initial ritornello in andante mvt.
Solo episode
2 bars; fermatas on rests in each bar
14 296a Between andante and allegro mvts. Cadenza 6 bars 15 304 After initial ritornello in andante
mvt. Solo
episode 8 bars
3. Rhetorical Category: Decoratio (a) Moderate ornamentation Concerto
No. HWV Placement Type of Adagio Length
1 289 Between allegro and andante mvt. Cantabile mvt. 10 bars 4 292 Between andante and allegro mvt. Cantabile mvt. 9 bars
(b) Heavy ornamentation Concerto
No. HWV Placement Type of
Adagio Length
2 290 Between two allegro mvts. Cadenza 6 bars 7 303 Before final ritornello in adagio mvt. Cadenza 6 ½ bars
10 309 Before final ritornello in adagio mvt. Solo episode 6 ½ bars
Figure 3 shows an adagio at the dispositio level. This level contains the least amount
of music from the composer himself and reveals only a large-scale structure. The structural
plan includes the key of G minor and a Phrygian cadence concluding the section. The
measures in the middle with whole rests are to be invented ex nihilo during the performance.
24
Figure 3. Adagio from Concerto No. 11, HWV 310: Handel’s dispositio
Figure 4 is a passage showing Handel’s use of elaboratio. This includes not only the
key and cadence but also a right-hand melody. Following the conclusion of the ritornello,
beginning at measure 4, the two-voice texture suggests the harmonic progression. In the last
three measures before the return of the ritornello a third voice completes the harmony. In the
middle of this Andante movement, Handel assigned this solo section the Adagio indication in
order to allow himself maximum freedom for improvisation.
�
�
�
�������������
����
����
���
�������������
����������
�������
������
� � � � �
�
�
�
�
�
�
�
�
� � � � �
��
�
� � � � �
�
�
�
������������ �
� �
�
�
�� �
�
�
�� � � � �
��
�
�
�
��
25
Figure 4. Adagio from Concerto No. 15, HWV 304: Handel’s elaboratio36
Figure 5 is a passage at the decoratio level with a moderate amount of ornamentation.
This particular movement demonstrates Handel’s cantabile writing with relatively few
ornamental gestures. Both the treble and bass lines are sufficient to be performed as they are.
Based on contemporary accounts of Handel’s exceptional improvisational skills, however, he
probably used such simple lines as a springboard for further embellishment.
36 Stemming of the middle voice in measures 18-20 matches the critical edition published by Bärenreiter.
26
Figure 5. Adagio from Concerto No. 1, HWV 289: Handel’s decoratio
Figure 6 represents the most developed ornamentation at the decoratio level. The
composer himself decorates the melodic outline with detailed rhythmic and virtuosic flair.
Handel wrote out the flourishes with extensive beaming to indicate complex rhythms, with
thirty-second notes being the shortest. The passage includes scales and trills, as well as
melodic and rhythmic sequences. A Phrygian cadence concludes the solo episode on the
downbeat of measure 41; then the organist plays the head motive of the ritornello to signal
the orchestra’s return. According to Burney, the orchestra had only the ritornellos written in
their scores.
27
Figure 6. Adagio from Concerto No. 10, HWV 309: Handel’s decoratio
The previous four examples reveal the various degrees of Handel’s compositional completion
within dispositio, elaboratio, and decoratio levels. The rhetorical hierarchy shows the
composer started with a structural plan or dispositio, then fleshed out the harmonic
progressions as elaboratio, and finally developed it further as decoratio with surface-level
diminutions.
28
Deconstruction from Decoratio to Elaboratio
With this understanding of the differences among three levels of writing, the next step
is to deconstruct a decoratio section. By simplifying a score by Handel from the decoratio to
the elaboratio level, one can compare the two and discover Handel’s inventive tools.
Figure 7(a) shows the organ solo of Handel’s decoratio in Concerto No. 10. Figure
7(b) is a rhythmic and harmonic simplification, or elaboratio derived from Handel’s
decoratio.
Figure 7. Adagio in Concerto No. 10, HWV 309:
(a) Handel’s decoratio
(b) Author’s elaboratio
A comparison of the elaboratio in 7(b) to the decoratio in 7(a) reveals how Handel
constructed his flourishes. Harmonically, he created a repeating pattern of chromatic
semitones all resolving on the downbeat. The elaboratio shows an ascending scale of half
steps and whole steps embedded in the melody, with resolutions of the half steps occurring
on the downbeats. For example, the E on the third beat of measure 36 resolves to F on the
29
downbeat of measure 37. (The E on the third beat of measure 39 also resolves to F, but in the
bass.) In measures 40 and 41, the section concludes with a Phrygian cadence; the upper
leading tone D resolves down to C-sharp, while the upper leading tone B-flat resolves down
to A. Although the treble line is well developed at the decoratio level, the bass line is simple,
offering harmonic punctuation; it thus remains unchanged at the elaboratio level.
Rhythmically, Handel grouped the flourishes into beats, dividing them into various note
values, including thirty-seconds, triplet sixteenths, dotted eighths, and quick trills. He
maintained the harmonic rhythm of two half notes per measure and placed relatively long
note values on the first and the third beats of each measure, thus emphasizing the harmonic
progression. He created fast moving scales in his decoratio, usually to ornament an upbeat
resolving to the downbeat or the third beat of the measure.
A similar harmonic progression appears in an adagio movement from Concerto No. 2.
Figure 8(a) shows the original decoratio by Handel; 8(b) shows an elaboratio created by the
author for comparison. This adagio, interestingly, contains a similar harmonic pattern to that
found in Figure 7. But now the ascending scale of half and whole steps lies in the bass voice
and moves at half the pace.
30
Figure 8. Adagio e Staccato from Concerto No.2, HWV 290: (a) Handel’s decoratio
(b) Author’s elaboratio
The harmonic rhythm is at the whole note level, providing one harmony per measure until the
cadence occurs. Rhythmically, Handel again places flourishes on the upbeat before each
resolution on the downbeat, which emphasizes the harmonic pattern. The ascending scale
appears in the bass, while the treble voice is developed and ornamented. The bass notes again
31
remain unchanged and offer harmonic punctuation.
By studying the decoratio passages given in figures 7(a) and 8(a), certain principles
can be inferred. Only the treble line is embellished. The bass line functions as a harmonic and
rhythmic punctuation. Ascending scales occur either in the treble or bass, and chromatic
semitones resolve on the strong beats. Both adagios conclude with a Phrygian cadence (iv6-
V). The principles drawn from Handel’s examples of the decoratio level will soon be applied
to his less-developed elaboratio passages.
Reconstruction from Elaboratio to Decoratio
Figure 9 is a grave movement from Concerto No. 14, in which Handel himself
provided the elaboratio.
Figure 9. Grave from Concerto No. 14, HWV 296a: Handel’s elaboratio
The treble line consists of the familiar scale using chromatic semitones with resolutions. The
harmonic rhythm is at the half note level, and each semitone beginning in the middle of the
measure resolves on the first beat of the next measure. The adagio section concludes with a
Phrygian cadence (iv6-V).
32
The next step, according to the principles learned above, is to decorate the treble
voice of this example while maintaining the bass line’s function as a harmonic and rhythmic
punctuation. In order to know exactly how to embellish such an elaboratio, it is important to
study Baroque diminution techniques. Diminution is a melodic embellishment technique
whereby an improviser transforms one long note into a melodic figure of several shorter
ones. The diminution technique met audiences’ expectations for a stylish adagio with
virtuosic display. Baroque authors included tables of diminution figures for common
intervals. The purpose was to provide multiple, flexible formulas that can be combined and
applied to generate new improvisations. Five treatises written during Handel’s time offer
particularly valuable information on this topic. These were written by Wolfgang Caspar
Printz , Moritz Vogt, Friedrich Niedt, Michael Wiedeburg, and Johann Joachim Quantz.
Figure 10 shows common melodic figures by their basic shape with names given by
Printz. The first line shows figures for simple stepwise motion and leaps. Groppo and circulo
mezzo are simple figures that change directions. Tirata mezza does not change direction.
Salto semplice has a leap formed by just two notes. Salti compositi has three leaps formed by
four notes. The second line shows compound figures. Circulo is the name for compound
circular figures. Tirata is for compound linear figures that do not change directions. If
stepwise and leaping figures mix, Printz calls this passagio.
33
Figure 10. Wolfgang Gaspar Printz, Phrynidis Mytilenaei oder Satyrischen Componisten (1696):
Melodic figures37
In figure 11, Vogt demonstrates various melodic diminutions drawn from a simple
melodic sequence, sometimes using the same figures. The top line shows the melodic
sequence, and the lower three lines provide various ways of making diminutions. The top line
with long notes consists of rising fourths and falling fifths. The second line shows passagi
including leaps; the third uses tirata and groppo figures; the fourth uses tirata and circulo
figures.
37 Callahan, “Techniques of Keyboard Improvisation,” 110.
110
specify only a number of notes and not the size of the leaps; the Salto Semplice refers
to two notes forming one leap, and the Salti Composti to four notes forming three
leaps. The mixed (vermengt) figures specify only rhythmic guidelines: the Figura
Corta consists of three notes with any one as long as the other two, the Messanza of
four rhythmically equal notes, and the Figura Suspirans of three rhythmically equal
notes that begin after a beat. Others are quite general, such as the repeated-note
stationary (bleibend) figures, or obvious, such as the oscillating (schwebend) trills,
and the Pausa, a silent (schweigend) figure (!).22
Figure 3.7. Selected Figures from Printz (1696)
Immediately after introducing these isolated figures, Printz dedicates the
seventh chapter of his sixth section to developing the notion of the Schematoid, a
conceptual method for seeing identical melodic patterns with non-identical rhythms
as nonetheless related. “A Schematoid is a Module [Modulus] equivalent to some
figure in its intervals, but distinct from the figure in its rhythm [Prolatione] or in the
way it is applied.”23 Two pairs of Figur and Schematoid appear below; the first
34
Figure 11. Moritz Vogt, Conclave Thesauri Artis Musicae (1719): Sequential melodies38
In figure 12, Niedt demonstrates diminutions above a realized figured-bass. Niedt’s
diminution distills chords into a single-voice melody. The pitches of the top line come from
the realization of the figured-bass in the middle line. Harmonic progressions anchor the
improviser’s diminution, keeping him or her from careless meandering.
38 Ibid., 115.
115
of figures on the surface, yielding a number of possible melodies that all share the
same voice-leading pedigree. Since all of the phantasia simplex skeletons consist of
sequentially repeated melodic intervals, his presentation is limited to melodies with
this built-in repetition; this, along with the fact that Vogt invariably keeps the
structural pitches of the phantasia simplex on the beat in his realizations, limits the
sophistication and creativity of his approach. Nonetheless, he is significant for his
keen awareness of the hierarchical relationship of elaboratio to decoratio; crucially,
he explicitly demonstrates how one voice-leading structure can accept a wide variety
of surface figures, a concept to which the melodic sequence is pedagogically well-
suited. For example, a phantasia of rising fourths and falling fifths is shown below
with three different sets of melodic figures applied to it: The first one uses
messanzae, the second alternates between tirata and groppo, and the last alternates
between curta and circolo:27
Figure 3.11. Demonstration of Vogt’s Phantasia Simplex (1719)
Another set of two variations appears below, these based upon a phantasia of
alternating falling thirds and rising seconds. The first decoratio consists of
alternating groppo and messanza, and the second entirely of messanzae:
35
Figure 12. Friedrich Niedt, Musicalische Handlung (1721): Diminutions above a figured bass39
Figures 10-12 can help the improviser transition from elaboratio to decoratio levels
in several of Handel’s ad libitum sections. Printz demonstrates melodic figures. Vogt
demonstrates how figures can be combined and applied for embellishing melodic sequences.
Niedt shows how to use the figures in a way that would preserve the harmonic progression.
This grants the improviser some satisfaction: a two-voice texture can sound harmonically
complete, and one voice per hand makes virtuosic display possible.
Figure 13 shows how this transformation can be achieved. Here a newly constructed
decoratio (simple diminution) is placed over Handel’s original elaboratio, given earlier in
Figure 9. The diminution techniques include Printz’s melodic figures, Vogt’s melodic
sequences, and Niedt’s distillation of the figured-bass harmonization into a single line. At the
same time, the integrity of Handel’s voice-leading progressions from his elaboratio is
39 Callahan, “Techniques of Keyboard Improvisation,” 123.
36
preserved.
Figure 13. Grave from Concerto No. 14, HWV 296a: Author’s decoratio (simple diminution) above Handel’s elaboratio
Before moving on to the complex decoratio level, the writings of two more authors
should be consulted. Figure 14, by Wiedeburg, demonstrates how to connect two consecutive
pitches, moving directly from one to the other. The diminution of the elaboratio thus
becomes goal-oriented. Three of the more important figures mentioned by Wiedeburg are the
slide or Schleifer, a turn figure called Doppelschlag, and a double-neighbor figure called
Schneller. Figure 14 shows these within the context of just two notes, D and B, marked by
arrows.
37
Figure 14. Michael Wiedeburg, Der Sich Selbst Infromirende Clavierspieler: (a) Schleifer, (b) Doppelschlag, and (c) Schneller40
The last treatise is by Quantz. In Figure 15, he shows how to add rhythmic and
intervallic variety to display the improviser’s virtuosity. Quantz offers a multitude of
rhythmic and intervallic possibilities. The first measure shows a given three-note ascending
pattern, consisting of a whole step followed by a half step. In the second measure, he
harmonizes these three notes. Brackets indicate the chords when these notes are in the bass.
Quantz then demonstrates how a single-line embellishment can be drawn from this
underlying harmonic progression. Many of his embellishments resemble decoratio passages
by Handel. Note that these embellishments of ascending whole and half steps will be useful
for decorating Handel’s elaboratio passages, which feature ascending scales using semitones.
The example includes the resolution of the semitone from F-sharp to G, with D major treated
as a cadential chord resolving to G major. For this reason, Quantz treats the second note with
cadential gestures. When leaps are present, sometimes as large as a tenth (q), the notes are
taken from the implied harmony. Quantz utilizes a variety of rhythms, such as Lombardic (l
and t), triplets (u), and rhythmic values as short as thirty-seconds (l, t, and w).
40 Callahan, “Techniques of Keyboard Improvisation,” 133.
ê ê ê ê
38
Figure 15. Johann Joachim Quantz, Versuch einer Anweisung die Floete traversiere zu spielen (1752):
Embellishing a three-note progression41
By using Wiedeburg’s examples of intervallic relationships and Quantz’s examples of
rhythmic and intervallic variety, a complex decoratio can be created for a final performance.
Figure 16 shows the newly created realization of a complex decoratio above Handel’s
elaboratio. The letters in parenthesis show the relationships to Figure 15 by Quantz.
41 Quantz, On Playing the Flute, 185.
39
Figure 16. Grave from Concerto No. 14, HWV 296a: Author’s decoratio (complex)
Following Handel’s voice-leading progressions in the elaboratio, the new decoratio keeps
Handel’s rhythmic and melodic sequences. The harmonic rhythm is at the half-note level,
and the flourishes mostly occur during the upbeat leading to the resolution on the first and the
third beats of the measure. Longer note values correspond to moments of resolution. As the
scale in the elaboratio ascends, the smaller groups of scales in the decoratio also ascend.
Although the melodic line becomes far more complex, the bass line remains unchanged, thus
offering the necessary harmonic and melodic punctuation.
40
Reconstructing Decoratio from Dispositio
After having studied how a decoratio can be created from an elaboratio, the
improviser is encouraged to go one step further. A decoratio can be generated even from a
simple dispositio, which contains the least amount of music from the composer and reveals
only a structural plan. The improviser may work from Handel’s dispositio to create an
elaboratio and then decoratio.
Figure 17(a) is Handel’s dispositio, which reveals the large-scale structure. The key
of G minor is indicated by the key signature and bass note with figured bass. The harmonic
progression to a Phrygian cadence concludes the section. In order to develop this dispositio
to an elaboratio, one must determine the harmonic structure and create voice-leading
progressions for the treble and bass. One could make use of an ascending scale in either the
treble or bass, which is favored by Handel in the previous adagios. His harmonic pattern
often includes chromatic semitones with a strong tendency to resolve them on the strong
beats. One could create a scale in the right hand and leave the left hand to punctuate it
rhythmically and harmonically. An example of an elaboratio is in 17(b), followed by a
simple decoratio in 17(c), and complex decoratio in 17(d) using various diminution
techniques.
41
Figure 17. Adagio from Concerto No. 11, HWV 310:
(a) Handel’s dispositio
(b) Author’s elaboratio
(c) Author’s decoratio (simple)
42
(d) Author’s decoratio (complex)
43
Examination of Handel’s Elaboratio and Decoratio
After reconstruction at the decoratio level, the improviser may wish to study
Handel’s written-out decoratio compositions in order to refine the final product. This last
step of revisiting existing compositions helps the improviser journey through the entire cycle
of the construction-deconstruction-reconstruction process in order to strengthen his or her
own improvisations.
Figure 18 is from Handel’s opening Adagio of his Harpsichord Suite No. 2. This
Bärenreiter edition preserves the different note sizes from the first edition published in 1720
under Handel’s supervision. The principal notes are shown with large note heads, which
distinguish them from the diminutions. By comparing the principal notes (elaboratio) to the
added embellishments (decoratio), one finds two different types of ornaments defined by
Quantz, who recognized them as French and Italian. He called the single-note French
ornaments agréments or wesentliche Manieren (essential graces), which have a “limited
compass and relatively fixed form.” These include appoggiaturas, turns, mordents, and
shakes.42 He called the elaborate Italian passagework willkürliche Veränderungen
(extempore variations), which have “no fixed melodic form and were created for each
composition by the performer.”43 The second type helps the improviser create unlimited
numbers of varied decorations.
In Figure 18, Handel used both types. Some ornaments are indicated with French
signs, including a mordent (measure 1, beat 1), a trill (measure 1, beat 2), and an
appoggiatura (measure 2, beat 2). Other ornaments consist of Italian passagework. Using
Printz’s terms (see Figure 10), these include a downward groppo (measure 1, beat 2), a leap
42 Quantz, On Playing the Flute, 91-108. 43 Ibid., 136-61.
44
or salto semplice (measure 2, beat 1), a downward tirata mezza (measure 2, beat 3), and an
upward circulo mezzo (measure 5, beat 1). These ornaments are placed within varied
rhythmic contexts, including dotted notes, triplets, and note values as short as thirty-
seconds.44
Figure 18. Adagio from Harpsichord Suite No. 2 in F Major, Book I, HWV 42745
44 An analysis similar to the one given here may also be found in Charlotte Mattax Moersch, “Keyboard Improvisation in the Baroque Period” in Musical Improvisation, ed. Gabriel Solis and Bruno Nettl (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 155-57. 45 George Frideric Handel, Keyboard Works I, First Set of 1720, ed. Terence Best (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2000), 10.
45
The placement of these ornaments is also noteworthy. Flourishes often occur on
upbeats leading to downbeat resolutions, as for example in measure 1, where the harmonic
rhythm is at the half note level. Longer note values often correspond to moments of
resolution, where Handel sometimes added agréments for emphasis. The same practice was
shown in Figures 16 and 17(d). Handel’s use of a scale in measure 4, beat 3, is also
noteworthy: a large upward leap leads to a note in the same harmony, followed by a scale in
the opposite direction.
Although these embellishments are valuable to modern organists who are eager to
learn Baroque improvisation, at least one Baroque critic was not in favor of writing out such
ornaments. The publisher of Der Critische Musikus, Johann Adolfe Scheibe (1708-1776), did
not approve of J. S. Bach’s practice. He claimed that J. S. Bach wrote out “all
embellishments and all little graces,” which “not only deprives his pieces of beauty and
harmony but makes the melodic line utterly unclear.”46 While Bach wrote out much of the
desired ornamentation, Handel normally allowed keyboard performers to improvise the
diminutions. Figure 18 is an exception, however, perhaps intended as a model for
pedagogical purposes. But even when the composer wrote out ornamentation, modern
organists have opportunities to add a personal touch. Indeed, Corelli’s pupils and faithful
followers produced dozens of ornamented versions of his sonatas, even after publication of
the 1710 edition, which contains the composer’s own ornamentation.
46 Moersch, “Keyboard Improvisation in the Baroque Period,” 157.
46
Conclusion
Handel’s organ concertos placed the organ on truly equal terms with orchestral
instruments. These works became an effective method for drawing audiences to oratorio
performances, adding exceptional improvisatory skill and virtuosity to the concerts.47
Although the concertos can still excite audiences today, the improvisation of the scarcely
notated adagio ad libitum sections continues to be a challenge to modern organists. Several
of the adagios contain only a bare harmonic outline; others contain only a bass line and an
unornamented melody.
This paper began by examining the historical context of adagio improvisation. The
very indication “adagio” necessitates melodic embellishment. But when Handel included the
words organo ad libitum in his scores, he added extra responsibilities. The solo organist must
realize the figured bass harmony, create two-voice texture with proper voice-leading, and
also embellish the melody. Handel left many tasks to the soloist, but at the same time he gave
him or her considerable latitude and freedom.
Handel’s adagio ad libitum sections are categorized into three levels of compositional
completeness: dispositio, elaboratio, and decoratio. His compositional and improvisational
process is hierarchical, always stemming from figured bass. Handel’s organ teacher, Zachow,
taught a compositional process that always started with the figured bass, building from the
ground up. Handel’s ad libitum sections reflect the same practice, which is harmonically and
hierarchically driven.
This compositional process proves valuable for reasons both theoretical and practical.
47 Sadie, BBC Music Guides: Handel Concertos, 22. Sadie claimed that Handel’s organ concertos were created partially “to supply an element of virtuosity, which was something conspicuously lacking in English oratorio performances as compared with those of Italian opera.”
47
By studying two of Handel’s most developed adagios and then deconstructing them, today’s
organist can gain some comprehension of Handel’s process. This understanding is reinforced
by the notational traces left by Handel, the treatises his contemporaries wrote, and the
realizations created by the author.
To reconstruct Handel’s elaboratio into decoratio, the study of Baroque treatises and
examples from Handel’s time in Germany has been helpful. Printz’s examples demonstrated
melodic figures. Vogt’s showed melodic sequences. Niedt’s method explained how to distill
the figured-bass harmonization into a single line. Wiedeburg’s examples displayed how two
pitches can be connected by adding figures. Quantz’s examples taught how to add rhythmic
and intervallic variety to display the improviser’s virtuosity. Taken together, these offer
significant guidance in the art of improvisation.
Deconstructing Handel’s adagio ad libitum sections has revealed the composer’s
building blocks and constructive processes. This allows organists to reconstruct and arrange
the essential formulas for their own improvisations. Like the music students of the Latin
school, today’s organists can examine Baroque musical formulas and memorize diminution
techniques offered in Baroque treatises, internalizing them so new formulas can be generated
and applied at the moment of performance. After creating new realizations or
extemporaneous improvisations, the improviser can also revisit existing compositions to
refine his or her final improvisation.
Finally, it is hoped that this essay provides a springboard for future study of the organ
repertoire. Ornamentation is part of virtually every keyboard composition in the Baroque
period. By studying Handel’s improvisational process as well as the relevant Baroque
treatises, the performer can better distinguish structural notes from surface-level
48
ornamentation. Modern organists will thus be able to express the subtle nuances of lavish
diminutions in their performances, create their own ornaments, and alter written-out
ornaments with personal touches.
49
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arvine, Kazlitt, ed. The Cyclopaedia of Anecdotes of Literature and the Fine Arts. Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1856.
Bartel, Dietrich. Musica Poetica: Musical-Rhetorical Figures in German Baroque Music.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. Best, Terence, ed. Händel: Keyboard Works I, First Set of 1720. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2000. Bowlin, Ellen Heinz. “A Comprehensive Performance Project in Organ Literature with an
Essay on Elaboration and Improvisation in the Organ Concerto, Opus 7, No. 4, by George Frideric Handel.” DMA Diss., University of Iowa, 1980.
Buelow, George J. Thorough-Bass Accompaniment According to Johann David Heinichen.
Rev. ed. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1986. Burney, Charles. A General History of Music from the Earliest Ages to the Present Period
(1789) with Critical and Historical Notes by Frank Mercer. New York: Dover Publications, 1957.
_______. An Account of the Musical Performances in Westminster Abbey. New York: Da
Capo Press, 1785, 1979. Burrows, Donald. Handel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. _______. The Cambridge Companion to Handel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1997. Butt, John. “Towards a Genealogy of the Keyboard Concerto.” In The Keyboard in Baroque
Europe, edited by Christopher Hogwood, 93-110. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
_______. Music Education and the Art of Performance in the German Baroque. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994. _______. “Germany – Education and Apprenticeship.” In The Cambridge Companion to
Handel, edited by Donald Burrows, 9-23. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Callahan, Michael Richard. “Techniques of Keyboard Improvisation in the German Baroque
and Their Implications for Today’s Pedagogy.” Ph.D. Diss., University of Rochester, 2010.
Corelli, Arcangelo. Sonatas for Violin and Basso Continuo, Op. 5. Edited by Reinhard
Goebel. Vienna: Wiener Urtext Edition, 2003.
50
Deutsch, Otto Erich. Handel: A Documentary Biography. New York: W. W. Norton, 1955, 1974.
D’Agostino, Gregory. “George Frideric Handel’s Concerto for Organ and Orchestra in D
Minor, Op. 7, Nr. 4: A Guide to Extempore Playing.” DMA Diss., Juilliard School, 1986.
Farley, Charles Edward. “The Organ Concerti of George Frideric Handel.” Ph.D. Diss., The
Florida State University, 1962. Gjerdigen, Robert O. “Partimento, que me veux-tu?” Journal of Music Theory 51, no.1
(Spring 2007): 85-136. Gudger, William D. “Handel and the Organ Concerto: What We Know 250 Years Later.” In
Handel Tercentenary Collection, edited by Stanley Sadie and Anthony Hicks, 271-78. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1987.
_______. “George Frideric Handel’s 1749 Letter to Charles Jennens.” In Music History from
Primary Sources: A Guide to the Moldenhauer Archives, edited by Jon Newsom and Alfred Mann, 228-38. Washington D.C.: Library of Congress, 2000.
Hawkins, John. A General History of the Science and Practice of Music. London: Novello,
1853. Hogwood, Christopher. Handel. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1984. Ledbetter, David. Continuo Playing According to Handel: His Figured Bass Exercises.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. _______. “On the Manner of Playing the Adagio: Neglected Features of a Genre.” Early
Music 29, no. 1 (February 2001): 15-26. Lestler, Joel. “Koch: A Comprehensive Approach to Structure.” In Compositional Theory in
the Eighteenth Century, edited by Joel Lestler, 273-99. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992.
Lynan, Peter Robert. “The English Keyboard Concerto in the Eighteenth Century.” PhD
Diss., University of Oxford, 1997. Mann, Alfred. “Bach and Handel.” In Theory and Practice: The Great Composer as Student
and Teacher. New York: Dover Publications, 1987. _______. “Bach and Handel as Teachers of Through Bass.” In Bach, Handel, Scarlatti
Tercentenary Essays, edited by Peter Williams, 245-57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
51
Moersch, Charlotte Mattax. “Keyboard Improvisation in the Baroque Period.” In Musical Improvisation: Art, Education, and Society, edited by Gabriel Solis and Bruno Nettl, 150-70. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009.
Porter, William. “Reconstructing 17th-Century North German Improvisational Practice.” In Goart Research Reports, edited by Sverker Jullander, 25-39. Göteburg: Göteburg Organ Art Center, 2000. Quantz, Johann Joachim. On the Playing the Flute. Translated by Edward R. Reilly. Boston:
Northeastern University Press, 2001. Rees, Abraham, ed. The New Cyclopaedia, or, Universal Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences.
London: Longman, 1802-20. Rogers, Patrick J. Continuo Realization in Handel’s Vocal Music. Ann Arbor: UMI Research
Press, 1989. Ruiter-Feenstra, Pamela. Bach and the Art of Improvisation. Ann Arbor: CHI Press, 2011. Schulenberg, David. “Composition and Improvisation in the School of J. S. Bach.” In Bach
Perspectives. Vol. 1, edited by Russell Stinson, 1-41. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.
Sadie, Stanley. BBC Music Guides: Handel Concertos. London: BBC Publications, 1972. Stauffer, George B. “J. S. Bach as Organ Pedagogue.” In The Organist as Scholar: Essays in
Memory of Russell Saunders, edited by Kerala J. Snyder, 25-44. Stuyvesant: Pendragon Press, 1994.
Williams, Peter. “Figurae in the Keyboard Works of Scarlatti, Handel, and Bach: An
Introduction.” In Bach, Handel, Scarlatti: Tercentenary Essays, edited by Peter Williams, 327-46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Yearsley, David. “The Concerto in Northern Europe to c.1770.” In The Cambridge
Companion to the Concerto, edited by Simon P. Keefe, 53-69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Zaslaw, Neal. “Ornaments for Corelli’s Violin Sonatas, Op. 5.” Early Music 24, no. 1
(February 1996): 95-116.
