Classical improvization (harpsichord/piano)

[Jonah]

We had a few discussions here about classical improvization, historical methods and so on.

So I decided to post here a link to my friend's improvization recitle he did recently (on his youtube chanell there are a couple of more videos of improvizations as well as some recording of his compositions).

I also want to say a few words about him. I know him since he was about 16 (so for 20 years or so) he never really practiced anything (neither technique on keyboards - he does not consider himself a top-notch pianist, nor improvizational methods or technique), he was always deep into music, when we met he could spend a whole day listneing all the Symphonies of Bruckner or Sibelius in a row during one day. He always composed. And of course played a lot and a lot of music.
Today he works as an organist at church where he also mostly improvizes during the service.
He of course has formal education but it seemed to me that he never actually studied at those institutions and it was more formal (though his harpsichord teacher was quite famous harpsichordist). He usually discovered things in his own way.
He teaches and he is ectremely good about analyzing and explaining music in my opinion.

But I think the first of all he has really geniuine gift for improvization. He does not take any pre-composed ideas, does not consiously follow any rules, and does not set any style as a purpose (unless it is necessary to demosntstrate the style - he can of course improvize in different classical styles 'after Handel' or 'after Schubert sonata' etc.) but in these recitles he just involves all the apparatus he has on the intuition level (styles, genres, language - whatever is there - work as a material to create meanings on spot).
During past years (under my influence)) he got interested in jazz but even there he mostly plays his own 'standards' - often improvized - that have interesting combination of traditional jazz language with more complex classical form thinking.

I put it all down here just for the purpose to explain the background as on the forum we often discuss what is behind improvization.

I also think that the true character of improvizational music is that it should exist in the moment (and percieved this way), which does not mean necessarily 'right now' but 'now' in this case is extended to the frames of the music performed and its integrity (time is stopped in other words - I notices that with a good performer I often percieve music not as flow but rather as building that I can look at from different sides and that mys perception is not subject to time flow really) true improvization is a complex process where the performer takes risks but at the same time he sometimes can rely on his expereinece and through trodden paths (maybe not conciously again) to come up to something interesting and challenging.
Classical improvization is more vulnarable when it is recorded in my opinion (than jazz) because once recorded it can be re-listened and thus it inevitably gets into the area where a listener compares it (even unconciously) with a huge scope of exisisting pre-composed music. (Which is actually not quite fair in my opinion). I put it down here not as an excuse for my friend's performance, he does not need it. But rather to express my personal idea on improvization as practice.
And it especially concerns classical improvization because the performer improvizes the form and 'thinks' in terms of creating of form (and in traditional jazz the improvization is over the given form).

[Christian Miller]

I thought Michael Koch made some nice points here about classical improv as having its own aesthetic in terms of the scrunchy harmony and so on. You can hear this echoed in Couperin etc?

(analysing this performance)

your friends video seems to me to have a lot of this quality, it feels like improv in a good way. Very open and creative. I wonder if Michael knows your friends work? I’m sure he’d love it.

[Jonah]

Thank you for your response and links!

Both Passacaglia and video about are very interesting.

I think that Passacaglia as any 'ground' bass form is basicall a variation form (and that puts it much closer to jazz improvization).
As any variation form it is much more pre-determined though at the same time gives a lot of freedom too.

After all I think it is all about the semantics of the form and how a composer/improvizer can interprete it artistically.
The conception of variation form is generally 'endless' repeat, eternal return and at the same time it is possible to build up an integral form of all the variations with development, climax, diversions, conclusions etc.
Thus it combines two dimensions of time flow simaltaneously: evergoing roll of the pattern, matterial, essence given at the beginning and the broad breath of the overall composition.

I think French baroque Rondeau is very intersting form. It is not variation of course, it is a repetitive form with refrain. But the idea of endless returns of refrain with contrasting in semantics often unstable sections in between also creates the feeling of something rolling non-stop but at the same time an integral thread pierces all the composition and forms its overall meaning.

Rondeau - sonata in classical and later period is probably the extreme development of the idea when we have both rondaeu refraine and absolotely opposite in its semantics Sonata allegro combined together.

Nevertherless I think that improvization and composition on 'ground bass' were already out of time more or less in baroque ear. The semantics of the form responded to aesthetical demands of that period in some cases and it was still common and recognizable but mostly it was used by composers for particular semantic effect within a cycle or opera/concerto/cantata (Bach made some really sophisticated use of it in his cantatas) etc. Besides it was probably easy to improvize on for amateurs.
And I am sure for the contemporaries it was still very common and popular.
Chaconna or Passacaglia were common for concluding a cycle of Sonatas (like Marcell recorder sonatas, or Zamboni lute sonatas)
Though at the same time we have exraordinary examples like Bach's Chaconna and Passacaglia. And outstanding challenging works like Biber's violine Passacaglia.

But truly I think Passacaglia and Chaconna time of flourishing was very early baroque, variations were very common for late rennaissance instrumentsl music and I think the ground bass variation is what responded perfectly some aspects of early baroque aesthetics (be it famous masterpieces of Monteverdi like Laments della Ninfa and Zeffiro torna or many instrumental Passacaglias of different level in lute books of the day).

It also seemd to echo some conceptions (very different though) in English and French baroque as it was used there extensively much longer than in Italy.

Germany came in as brand new start and German composers used it realtively rarely and it seems when they use it it is almost always has the meaning of something exceptional.

I probably focused too much on it. B
ut I did that because I thought that the improvization in other forms (or totally open forms like some preludes or toccatas and fantasias) would be much more typical for high baroque music (at least for Germany and Italy in my opinion). And it is to a great degree very different approach than variation on the ground bass.

[Christian Miller]

When I think of C17 chaconne (or ciacona) specifically I generally think of a band or a guitarist jamming. I mean Purcell didn’t even bother to write any music for ‘Danse, a gitters chaconny’ in Dido. It’s just what guitarists did back then, I guess. Like Free Bird.

While this might not be an exact written out improvisation, I feel that the nature of the violin part over the continuo strongly suggests to me ‘solo on vamp’. The bass is short - almost montuno like - and the melody often seems to ‘generalise’ the underlying harmony.

Otoh a lot of Bertali’s pieces are built on ground bass, and Purcell’s famous ground bass compositions represent (along with the Monteverdi) an archetype of what many people mean by chaconne/passacaglia.

And there are loads of C17 feels and variations of bassline all of which have the same ‘jam on a vamp’ organisation. Tarantella is a favourite! I suppose going back further you have Romanesca and passamezzo antico.

obviously the ground bass is a useful skeleton to hang a solo improv on. Bach’s chaconnes are advanced examples needless to say. Obviously the longer the ground bass the less obvious it becomes, with the Goldberg variations demonstrating an expansion of a typical German baroque style chaconne/passacaglia into a much longer bass (the A section is similar to Kellner’s bass in his Chaconne for lute). Bach certainly exemplifies a technique where the bass is not etched in stone but open to variation too, for instance in the composition of the doubles in his suites.

A rondeau would also suit itself well to improv, although I haven’t tried it, starting with a pre composed refrain maybe. Theme and variations also lends itself well either from the bass or the melody.

I’m starting to see the roadmap of how one could eventually learn to improvise fughetto by working from versettos (exposition-episode-cadence). Many many partimenti use this form and you can see it really clearly in Guiliani’s fughetta, as well as in a more sophisticated form, Bachs two part inventions and so on. One can then move into fully fledged fugues. (Bearing in mind that improvising fugue does not mean ‘improvise a Bach fugue’ as Mortensen points out lol)

Presumably people must also improvise in rounded binary form which I would assume is a precondition for improvising sonatas. How do they do this? Do they just do it without repeats?

[Jonah]

Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen by Bach
The choire (at about 2:30) is a true passacaglia but the harmonic changes are such that at particular moment it even sounds like two different keys together

[Christian Miller]

Yeah it’s crazy how he can do that. Of course the Crucifixus too (which is derived from this one isn’t it?)

the strict ground is used here for very specific emotional and rhetorical effect obviously.

Technically it reminds me of CPE Bach’s page of suggested ways to harmonise a scale bass. Some of them take you away from the basic key in fascinating ways.

[Jonah]

2 Finale's by Vivaldi (see 3rd movement of these concertos).

I cannot truly identify what it is... Folia, fast Passacaglia, Chaconna? Folia usually has quite definitive bass/harmony sequence. Passacaglia and Chaconna are often mixed up and and hard to indentify one from another.
Anyway it is derived from ground bass variation

This one also sounds like a Tarantella a bit (modern HIPP orchestras sometimes use in this movement guitars and even castanets and make some fancy meter/rhythm changes which I do not really like but I understand that some HIPP players want to make things hip.

[Christian Miller]

Loving those Vivaldi examples. The older I get the more I appreciate his music. Deceptive simplicity - directness - and earthiness. Those guys play with fire and swagger!

I don’t know if it is truly errr… HIPP or just hip.. but I feel early bands have taken in a lot of the feel of non classical ensembles for inspiration with the feel. I was feel there’s a lot of folk music influence in the groups. Maybe a bit of jazz too.

I can hear guitar strumming away in the second concerto

[Jonah]

About Vivaldi... I always loved his music but I also begin to appriciate it more and more with years (probably my affection for Venice during past 15 years also had its impact).
With all his cliches (conventional or personal) he is still very fascinating. He is very recognizable even among his Venetian contemporaries and it is not common for that era, Corelli or Bendetto Marcello or Lotti are recognizable too but one should be really deep in the language to indentify nuances that will help to identify the style.
Vivaldi has very obvious personal style, yes, his 'signature' cliches are often simple and straightfoward, he does not have the complexity of vocabulary but they are still his own but it is quite surprising that he seems to be alone to use it.
Also his diatonic 'naturalism' has something irrational in it - it reminds me American minimalists a little.

And he has true masterpieces - Four Seasons are astonishing in the way he treats the form to express the contents.

I also think that he is much influenced by early baroque violine school of Venice, his free extremely contratisng virtuosity reminds of the early baroque violine sonatas.

As for the hip HIPP)
I think it is about culture. As you said modern players often come from specific musical and cultural background.
this is one of the issues with HIPP in general for me (not always of course).
People try to overcome academism and imply generally pop music idioms to early music to make it 'lively'.
But I think even when there are references to folk traditions in early music and that acdemism really chould be overcome in many cases - there was still very high and subtle culture and the distance between country dance and its use in a violine concerto was very indentifidble and very important for the society of those days.
We live in the days of 'democratic art' - that envitably brings down the general level. Look at the baroque period movies, mostly the characters behave like perverted punks dressed for the constume party. Yes, it makes it close to the modern audience but I am sure it has nothing to do what it really was.

Anyway I like how Savall uses percussions - he uses it a lot and often where you would not expect it but in most cases it works pefrectly, I suppose it is because of Pedro Estevan, his long time collaborator and the leader of the percussion group in his orchestras.

[Jonah]

Interesting...

Pingo, gemo, sospiro e peno (Weinen, klagen, zagen, sorgen)...
and both are Passacaglias... (though Vivaldi's setting is more similar to the bass line from Crucifixus)
Passacaglia could be a more or less conventional choice for such lyrics but I am not knwledgeable enough to say for sure if the lyrics was typical enough to be a coincidence. But it seems there is no common source for this (I mean like Bible or something like that). Besides, Vivaldi's cantata's text can be also secular... or at least it is not quite definite. But I think most of his cantatas had had secualr plot at least formally.
I cannot find any information about it and it also seems very short, those cantatas I heard usually had a few movements (at least two) (probably it was a section of a bigger work?)