# The 18th century Neapolitan method: Partimento, Solfeggio and Counterpoint



## nikhilhogan

This is a thread dedicated to the methods of the 18th century Neapolitan conservatories that were famed throughout Europe. These were the most famous musicians in Europe in the 18th century, especially names such as Cimarosa, Paisiello, Farinelli, Pergolesi, Durante and many more. Names that are largely unknown today because they are Italian, not German. Also extremely damaging to their posterity was the fact that the Italians did not write their methods down into elaborate treatises like the Germans. Their training was highly "practical", focused on direct lineage from master to pupil, and intense over a long duration.

List of notable Neapolitan-trained composers:


 *Farinelli* (One of the most celebrated and famous musicians of the 18th century, one of the greatest opera singers)
 *Vincenzo Bellini*
 *Joseph Haydn* (studied composition under Neapolitan *Nicola Porpora*)
 *Niccolò Paganini* (studied with *Alessandro Rolla*, who's teacher *Giovanni Andrea Fioroni* studied with famed Neapolitan *Leonardo Leo*. Also studied with *Ferdinando Paer*, who's teacher was Neapolitan trained *Gasparo Ghiretti*)
 *Giuseppe Verdi* (2nd generation Neapolitan student under Fenaroli student *Vincenzo Lavigna*)
 *Leonardo Leo*
 *Francesco Durante* (Jean-Jacques Rousseau called him the greatest harmonist in the world)
 *Domenico Cimarosa* (Composer of _Il matrimonio segreto_)
 *Domenico Scarlatti* 
 *Alessandro Scarlatti* (founder of the Neapolitan school)
 *Giovanni Paisiello* (So famous he was invited to Russia and stayed there working for Catherine the Great for 8 years. Also Napoleon's favorite composer)
 *Giovanni Battista Pergolesi* (composer of the famous Stabat Mater that was known to composers even as modern as *Richard Wagner*)
 *Vittorio Monti* (composer of _Csárdás_)

In a letter to Padre Martini by Leopold Mozart, he recalled Wolfgang's infamous employer, the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg Hieronymus von Colloredo, taunting his son by saying he knew nothing and should enroll at one of the Naples Conservatories when Wolfgang asked for a raise.

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*Disclaimer:*
There are certain music theory concepts that you will have to abandon when venturing into the curriculum/methods of the Neapolitan conservatories


*Roman Numerals* and *Chord Inversions* - not at all used. They studied counterpoint from basic 2 voice cadences all the way to 4-voice fugues. To them "harmony" was a consequence of counterpoint. They were masters of counterpoint.

*Cadences* - To the Neapolitans there were just 3 kinds: Simple, Compound, Double. These were essentially 5 -> 1 but with progressively longer durations.

*Harmonic Functions* - Not used at all.

*Solfeggio* - No Moveable or Fixed Do. They studied an older 18th century form of Solfeggio that was Hexachordal. Students were not allowed to play an instrument until they completed 3 years of intensive Solfeggio training. Not unsurprisingly, there were no "ear training" classes at the conservatory. They could sightsing 7 clefs (Soprano, Mezzo-soprano, Alto, Tenor, Baritone, Bass and the Violin Treble clef) in all key signatures. There was great importance to knowing the syllables (Do Re Mi Fa Sol La) because one developed an understanding of improvisation and composition by adding extra notes in between the syllables.

*Counterpoint* - While Fux certainly was admired by the Italians, the way the Neapolitans learned counterpoint was not through species counterpoint. They developed a rigorous method of "contrappunto practico", that was practical and entirely musical. There were two schools, the school of Leonardo Leo and the school of Francesco Durante (which became more popular and won out).

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*The Neapolitan Curriculum:*

 Child (orphan) enters around age 7 and studies *18th Century Solfeggio* (Hexachordal) to a high degree of skill (sight singing 7 clefs and all 12 key signatures) for 3 years.
 Student then progresses to Keyboard studies *Intavolatura* (beginner keyboard pieces) and the study of improvised keyboard playing *Partimenti*. 
 Partimenti started off as bass lines with figures that students were supposed to "realize" right hand improvisations. Partimenti would progress in difficulty, becoming unfigured, modulating, introducing bass motions (moti del basso), changes to clef and different time signatures. The end of partimento studies would be partimento fugues. 
 The method to "realizing" partimenti basslines was to first learn the *Rule of the Octave*, and the *3 types of Cadences: Simple, Compound and Double*.
 Students would learn to realize the partimenti first with the correct consonances. Then the 2nd stage would be to master the various dissonances. Finally, the 3rd stage involved the development of imitation.
 Students would also begin written *Counterpoint* studies around the time that they had achieved some fluency in partimento playing (Fenaroli mentions the completion of his book 3 as a good time to start written counterpoint classes).
 Whereas in partimento playing, parallel octaves were accepted between the inner voices, in the written counterpoint classes, parallels were no longer permitted and the counterpoint had to be perfectly strict in all voices. They would start all over again with 2 voice cadences and at the end, they would be working on canons and fugues.
 The whole process would take about 10 years.

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*What could a Neapolitan graduate do?*

 Sing wonderfully
 Fluent on the keyboard: Improvising on partimento fugues.
 Were masters of counterpoint: able to compose fugues and canons.
 Fast composers: Able to complete full operas in a matter of 2-3 weeks
 Some of Europe's most in-demand composers in the 18th century. Most royal courts wanted the best Italian composers, and the Neapolitans were considered the top.
 They became either composers for the church, a royal patron, or composers for the theater.

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*Resources:*

Music in the Galant Style (book) - Robert Gjerdingen
2007 - Book that largely tackles Music Schema but also references the Neapolitan conservatories

The Art of Partimento (book) - Giorgio Sanguinetti
2012 - The first serious scholarly monograph on the subject

Counterpoint and Partimento (book) - Peter van Tour
2015 - Deeply scholarly and illuminating look at the methods by which the Neapolitans studied counterpoint and separated the Neapolitans into 2 schools, the Leonardo Leo school and Francesco Durante school.

Child Composers (book) - Robert Gjerdingen
2020 - A deeper look at the elite composer children of the Neapolitan and Paris Conservatories.

The Solfeggio Tradition (book) - Nicholas Baragwanath (Coming out Oct 2020)
2020 - The first book to look at 18th century hexachordal solfeggio.

Ewald Demeyere (Great Partimento Tutorial Channel)
https://www.youtube.com/user/ewalddemeyere1
One of the few modern players who can play Partimento to a high level.

https://partimenti.org - Robert Gjerdingen's massive web resource for collections of Partimenti and Solfeggi, and Paris Conservatory Materials

The Art of Partimento Facebook Group
Many of the top partimento scholars populate this group including Giorgio Sanguinetti, Peter van Tour, Ewald Demeyere, John Mortensen, Vasili Byros.

The Art of Solfeggio Facebook Group
The official group for Nicholas Baragwanath's research on 18th century hexachordal solfeggio.

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*Final notes*
Also very interestingly, *The Paris Conservatory* was heavily influenced by the Neapolitan conservatories and largely absorbed their curriculum wholly (renaming counterpoint "harmony" and partimento became "practical harmony"). We know that Paris Conservatory teacher *François Bazin* titled his classes "partimenti" and that *Claude Debussy* was said to have practiced "partimenti" as an observation from a peer. There is also a story of Prix de Rome winner *André Caplet* being sent to collect more partimenti manuscripts in Italy.

Note that at the Paris Conservatory, they essentially did not use Rameau's theoretical works and considered themselves more practical. If they had a 400 page treatise on "Harmony", maybe 10-20 pages would be on scales and basic theoretical concepts, and the rest would be 380 pages of counterpoint.

Thank you for reading!


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## millionrainbows

Good post! A couple of questions: does this make Verdi's operas basically different from a non-neopolotan composer of operas? Who would these be, Rossini? Or would you have to leave Italy?

Also, this part:

*



Disclaimer:

Click to expand...

*


> There are certain music theory concepts that you will have to abandon when venturing into the curriculum/methods of the Neapolitan conservatories
> 
> 
> *Roman Numerals* and *Chord Inversions* - not at all used. They studied counterpoint from basic 2 voice cadences all the way to 4-voice fugues. To them "harmony" was a consequence of counterpoint. They were masters of counterpoint.
> *Cadences* - To the Neapolitans there were just 3 kinds: Simple, Compound, Double. These were essentially 5 -> 1 but with progressively longer durations.
> *Harmonic Functions* - Not used at all.


I accept this, but it leaves a harmonic void. I think some attention should be given to explaining how "harmonic thinking" could exist. Harmony doesn't just "disappear" just because counterpoint makes no provision for it. And harmony was inevitable, so I think it was asserting itself even during the era of counterpoint. If you want to call it "using your ear intuitively," that's fine with me, as long as the ear gets credit.

Linear events (counterpoint) are based on time passing, and must happen in time as a sequence.

Harmony is instantaneous to the ear; it is vertical, and its meaning does not depend on the passage of events in time.


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## nikhilhogan

Sorry for the late response! They used the vertical sonorities that come out of the basso continuo tradition.. so essentially the harmony derived from continuo or figured bass practice as it was practiced in the 18th and 17th centuries. 

The rule of the octave was also a solid harmonic framework for stepwise harmonizations. This combined with cadences and then later bass motions/sequences. Layered on top of these existing chords were the handling of dissonances which added color to each type of chord.


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## EdwardBast

Welcome to the forum Nikhil. We had a thread on this topic in October of 2020 which included links to a couple of talks and demonstrations, including one from your show:

Partimento

Excellent material!


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## Roger Knox

nikhilhogan said:


> ... They used the vertical sonorities that come out of the basso continuo tradition.. so essentially the harmony derived from continuo or figured bass practice as it was practiced in the 18th and 17th centuries.


This explanation you have provided of 18th-century Neapolitan methods is very interesting -- thank you. I didn't know Verdi was trained this way, but he did work counterpoint exercises including fugue all his life to stay in form. Also, I didn't know that Joseph Haydn studied with Niccolo Porpora, but that's certainly a significant link between Neapolitan training and Viennese 18th-century musical style.

Dare I say that the distinction between Rameau-based harmonic analysis and the basso continuo tradition -- at least as presented in C.P.E. Bach's _Essay on the True Art of Keyboard Playing_ -- was emphasized in my courses and readings on Schenkerian analysis, which drew on the latter.


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## nikhilhogan

Roger Knox said:


> This explanation you have provided of 18th-century Neapolitan methods is very interesting -- thank you. I didn't know Verdi was trained this way, but he did work counterpoint exercises including fugue all his life to stay in form. Also, I didn't know that Joseph Haydn studied with Niccolo Porpora, but that's certainly a significant link between Neapolitan training and Viennese 18th-century musical style.
> 
> Dare I say that the distinction between Rameau-based harmonic analysis and the basso continuo tradition -- at least as presented in C.P.E. Bach's _Essay on the True Art of Keyboard Playing_ -- was emphasized in my courses and readings on Schenkerian analysis, which drew on the latter.


These are great observations!

I can offer two interviews I have done with Rameau experts that delve into his methods. 
Episode 113: Thomas Christensen 




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?

Episode 97: Professor Ludwig Holtmeier




20:57 Is Rameau one of the most misunderstood music theorists?
22:46 What are people getting wrong about Rameau?

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I believe Verdi was regarded as Neapolitan-trained by virtue that his teacher Vincenzo Lavigna was a student of the master teacher Fedele Fenaroli, who published the most popular collection of partimenti exercises. (http://partimenti.org/partimenti/collections/fenaroli/index.html)

You can actually view Lavigna's counterpoint workbooks with Fenaroli here: http://partimenti.org/counterpoint/collections/lavigna/index.html

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The link with the Viennese style may very well have connections to Italy but there is also concurrently a generalbass/thoroughbass online renaissance that is taking place over the last year that focuses on the german tradition of figured bass practice. There is huge overlap between the French, German and Italian figured bass traditions. (https://www.facebook.com/groups/compositionandimprovisationinjsbachsgermany)

A great resource would be Derek Remeš free PDF's only historic improvisation website. He has been diligently translating all the thoroughbass treatises of the 18th/19th centuries and of special interest might be the Edition and Translation of "E. A. Förster's Practical Examples (1818)" which was very popular and highly regarded.


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