Channels, Spring 2017

23 Channels • 2017 • Volume 1 • Number 2 Page The Partimento Tradition in the Shadow of Enlightenment Thought Deborah Longnecker Music and Worship — Cedarville University Introduction n the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, thoroughbass, musical shorthand used to notate chords, served as a foundational component of musical practice, theory, and pedagogy. In the Neapolitan music conservatories, music composition pedagogy was intertwined with the process of realizing figured or unfigured basses. Eighteenth- century music theory across Europe often arose from the behavior of thoroughbass in practice. However, as the Enlightenment progressed throughout Europe, some theoretical and pedagogical approaches gained popularity while others declined. Such was the case for the pedagogical method of teaching music composition through partimento, in which practice held first importance and theory remained implicit. Because the Enlightenment called for clear systematization and knowledge equally attainable by all, the pedagocial method was soon overshadowed by the rise of Rameau’s explicitly presented harmonic theory. The Neapolitan Conservatories and Partimento The sixteenth century saw the emergence of Italian music conservatories, which were originally charity schools for orphans. Port cities such as Naples contained more orphanages because of the higher populations of prostitutes and illegitimate children. In addition, toward the middle of the sixteenth century, some of these orphanages decided to specialize in teaching music to provide the orphans with a viable skill. Music lessons also provided orphanages with extra income earned from the childrens’ performances. 1,2 Not all students at the conservatories were orphans, however; in the early seventeenth century, the conservatories began to accept paying students as well. 3 In the conservatories, 1. Giorgio Sanguinetti, The Art of Partimento: History, Theory, and Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 31-32. 2. Rosa Cafiero, “Conservatories and the Neapolitan School: A European Model at the End of the Eighteenth Century?” in Music Education in Europe (1770-1914): Compositional, Institutional and Political Challenges , vol. 1, ed. M. Fend and M. Noiray (Berlin: BWV Berlin Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2005), 16-17. 3. Sanguinetti, The Art of Partimento , 38. I