Podcast appearances and mentions of nicholas baragwanath

Professor Nicholas Baragwanath, author of the groundbreaking "Solfeggio Tradition" (published by Oxford University Press), returns to the show to talk about Hexachordal Italian Solfeggio. This was the method of solfege instruction that was employed at the famed 18th-century Neapolitan Conservatories, using 6-note overlapping hexachords, instead of the usual 7-note systems we use today. Professor Baragwanath answers popular questions and demonstrates solfeggio in numerous settings, from beginner lessons to more advanced examples.

0:00 Start  1:34 How has the book, "The Solfeggio Tradition", been received? 6:43 Italian solfeggio explained in 4 minutes  11:41 Should children delay singing solfeggio until their voice has broken?  14:15 Did 18th-century plainsong sound more like galant music rather than medieval music?  16:10 What about Palestrina?  19:35 An example of a lesson in Italian solfeggio  22:33 How do you learn to accompany a melody line by sight with the correct harmony?  28:00 How do you follow the rules of counterpoint when switching between hexachords?  32:33 How do you know when there is a change of syllable vs a continuation of a melisma?  34:57 Does the appoggiatura take the target note's syllable or have its own?  36:20 Up 4th Down 5th Bass Motion in Italian Solfeggio  37:19 Mozart improvisation solfeggio lesson (K. 545)  41:19 Notation is the curse of the modern musician  48:02 Did Mozart know Italian solfeggio?  51:10 Why did the Germans complain about the Italians keeping solfeggio as a trade secret?  53:11 Were violinists like Paganini, Corelli and Vivaldi familiar with Italian solfeggio?  57:11 Did the Italian Maestros abandon teaching solfeggio syllables if the students struggled with pitch?  59:11 Did Italian solfeggio completely die out in the 19th-century?  1:00:49 Did Italian musicians think of the bass in terms of solfeggio syllables?  1:05:56 What was the 18th-century Italian understanding of Keys and Tonality?  1:09:02 What are good solfeggio manuscripts to practice to with and how much proportion of time is spent worrying about syllable placement vs actual singing?  1:12:10 Do we have access to 18th-century plainchant that doesn't sound like medieval music?  1:17:19 Is there any value to practicing solfeggi exercises with "Ah" even if we don't know which syllables to use?  1:18:45 What are your favorite solfeggi collections?  1:19:46 What's your opinion on Johann Fux and his method of teaching counterpoint?  1:21:19 What do you think of Nicola Sala's counterpoint treatise?  1:22:39 How does your solfeggio expertise inform the way you would teach partimento?  1:25:08 Are those manuals of singing by maestros who changed to Fixed Do still useful for learning diminution?  1:25:57 What's the state of Italian solfeggio research today?

Nicholas Baragwanath recommends recordings of Tchaikovsky's best-loved opera, Eugene Onegin

My guest today is Professor John Mortensen, a leading performer, scholar and teacher in classical or historic improvisation, Steinway Artist, Fulbright Scholar, and is a professor of Music at Cedarville University. His new book is “The Pianist's guide to Historic Improvisation”, published by Oxford University Press. Kate Boyd, Professor of Music at Butler University reviewed the book by saying, "This book fills an important niche in the world of piano and keyboard pedagogy. In each of the chapters Mortensen encourages the reader's creativity, simultaneously exposing the musical building blocks used by some of the great composers and allowing the reader to apply those same compositional techniques to improvising in a stylistically-appropriate way.” Noam Sivan, Professor of Piano Improvisation, Hochschule of Music and Performing Arts, Stuttgart reviewed the book saying, "Any language study based solely on reading without speaking, would be incomplete. Similarly, the study of improvisation is indispensable for learning music. In this important book John Mortensen wonderfully demystifies the creative process and presents a clear and gradual method for learning to speak the language of J. S. Bach and his contemporaries. Highly recommended!” It debuted at #1 on Amazon's Piano and Music Instruction category. ------- 1:41 What was the landscape for books on classical improvisation before the publishing of his book 3:35 How long did it take you to write the book, and did you have to revise the book as new information kept coming out? 4:22 Who is the book written for? 5:37 Does the book lean Italian or German in it's approach? 7:12 What prerequisites do you need to create a figuration prelude? 8:12 What harmonies do you need to know to start your figuration prelude? 10:01 How do you break up the chord and how many types of figurations that you can come up with? 10:46 The effectiveness of figuration preludes in getting newcomers to creating music right away 11:29 Why is Toccata chapter 2? 12:56 What's the amount of harmonic knowledge you need to improvise Toccatas? 13:37 Do you teach cadences in the book? 13:57 The Rule of the Octave and how important it is? 16:08 Which version of the Rule of the Octave do you want students to start with? 17:50 CPE Bach's multitude of Rule of Octave versions 18:51 Diminutions 21:19 What about 16th notes? 22:14 How do you avoid contrapuntal mistakes in improvisation? 23:37 Do you encourage students look at the piano literature and steal ideas? 24:23 Variations 27:48 What's the way to develop melodic lyricism? 31:42 How do I finger all these examples in the book? 32:36 Friedrich Erhard Niedt and the suite 35:52 Imitation 38:30 Counterpoint 39:57 Is Counterpoint not being taught correctly? 40:57 Partimento 42:27 The benefits of partimento with regular music students 45:09 The overwhelming positive feedback to classical improvisation 46:00 How does the scene compare to 10 years ago? 48:17 Schemata 50:00 Interest in traditional Irish music? 50:51 The parallels between Celtic improvisation and Classical improvisation 52:28 On being denied visiting a University because the top professor could not improvise 53:44 Is a classical improvisation renaissance happening? 54:20 Publishing with Oxford University Press? 55:52 What are your thoughts on hexachordal solfeggio practiced by the Neapolitans as researched by Nicholas Baragwanath? 58:57 Wrapping Up

I'm so pleased to introduce my guest today: Professor of Music Theory and History, Professor Nicholas Baragwanath! His book “The Italian Traditions and Puccini”, a major study of compositional theory and practice in 19th-century Italy, was published in 2011 by Indiana University Press. It surveys the once commonplace fundamentals, methods, and formulas that were taught at Italian music conservatories, and explores their significance for composition through case studies from Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti to Verdi, Boito, and Puccini. His upcoming book, "The Solfeggio Tradition: A Forgotten art of melody in the long 18th century", will be released in the summer of 2020, published by Oxford University Press. ----- 1:17 What is your musical background? 1:35 What was your area of research in academia? 2:32 How did you end up researching solfeggio? 4:14 Authentic partimenti realizations tend to be rare but are solfeggi manuscripts complete by comparison? 5:16 Are there historical treatises on how to do Solfeggio? 8:03 Did they use “Ut” instead of “Do”? 9:49 What do you mean by 84, aren't there just 7 clefs? 10:23 Would someone with absolute or perfect be bothered by this Italian solfeggio? 11:24 So does Italian solfeggio have similarities to moveable do? 11:36 If hexachord means six notes, where did that 7th note Si or Ti come from? 13:31 Are modes (like Aeolian or Dorian) relevant to solfeggio? 14:44 What are key differences between 17th, 18th and 19th century solfeggi? 16:20 Is solfeggio always tied with a bass? 16:59 How did students learn counterpoint and composition through solfeggio? 19:34 Talking about Solfèges d'Italie and how a single syllable could yield multiple notes of different pitches 20:49 Adding extra notes to Do and Re 22:05 Did the Neapolitan students study singing for 3 years or 6 years? 22:19 What is the difference between basic Lettura or note reading and l'arte del canto: Solfeggio cantato meant with graces? 25:32 Would these Neapolitan students be familiar with Music Schema like the Prinner? 26:28 Would you have to look at a lot of solfeggi examples to build that vocabulary? 27:21 What was the trickiest thing for you to learn, when you started doing solfeggio? 30:09 How should one start solfeggio training from the very beginning? 33:41 As a trained pianist, do you look at your old music scores differently with this solfeggio insight? 35:18 What's the difference in style between the strict style solfeggi and the more popular style solfeggi? 36:37 Did you have choral training in your musical background? 37:05 What was the contemporary reception of Italian solfeggio? 38:12 Have you collaborated with people in historical performance regarding your research in solfeggio? 39:56 To prepare for your book, what should interested musicians and students practice and have prepared? 41:03 Going back to perfect pitch, would pitch matching be erased if someone learned the italian solfeggio way because of the similarities to moveable do? 42:06 Did they use “Do” or the letter “C”? 42:48 It's a very moveable-doish sort of perception? 43:10 Is Italian solfeggio robust enough a system to tackle “progressive” 19th and 20th century music? 44:48 How does solfeggio tackle dissonance? 46:17 How did solfeggio die out? 47:43 You seem to have cracked the mastery of solfeggio.. are there more mysteries left to be uncovered? 50:46 What does it mean: singing the wrong pitch to the right syllable? 51:46 What musical tools and skills did you “discard”, as you've evolved as a musician? 53:38 Upcoming events 54:33 Wrapping Up

Nicholas Baragwanath recommends recordings of Mahler's Symphony No.4 in G major

Nicholas Baragwanath recommends a recorded version of Berlioz's Damnation of Faust.

Building a Library on Schoenberg's epic cantata Gurrelieder. Nicholas Baragwanath guides us through this gargantuan late flowering of 19th-century Romanticism in which Schoenberg wove together a sumptuous score that can be surprising to people accustomed to the more astringent sound world of his later works.

Nicholas Baragwanath recommends a version of Beethoven's 5th Symphony

Nicholas Baragwanath recommends a recorded version of Wagner's Die Meistersinger

Nicholas Baragwanath makes a recommendation from the available recordings of Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death

A guide to Verdi's opera Don Carlos featuring the voices of opera historian Sarah Lenton, Verdi experts Flora Willson and Nicholas Baragwanath, as well as conductors Antonio Pappano and Semyon Bychkov and tenor Rolando Villazón.

A guide to Wagner's opera Rienzi featuring the voices of of Wagner experts Nicholas Baragwanath and John Deathridge, Barbara Eichner.

A guide to Wagner's opera Lohengrin featuring the voices of Wagner experts Nicholas Baragwanath and John Deathridge, singer Petra Lang, critic Fiona Maddocks and conductor Semyon Bychkov.

A guide to Wagner's opera The Flying Dutchman featuring the voices of Wagner expert Nicholas Baragwanath, singers Bryn Terfel and Anja Kampe, director Tim Albery and conductor Jeffrey Tate.

A guide to Verdi's opera La Traviata featuring the voices of opera historian Sarah Lenton and soprano Ailyn Perez, as well as Verdi experts Flora Willson and Nicholas Baragwanath.

A guide to Verdi's opera I Masnadieri featuring the voices of opera historian Sarah Lenton as well as Verdi experts Flora Willson and Nicholas Baragwanath.

A guide to Verdi's opera La Forza del Destino featuring the voices of opera historian Sarah Lenton, Verdi experts Flora Willson and Nicholas Baragwanath, as well as conductor Antonio Pappano.

A guide to Verdi's opera Giovanna d'Arco featuring the voices of opera historian Sarah Lenton and Verdi experts Roger Parker, Nicholas Baragwanath and Susan Rutherford.

A guide to Verdi's opera Il Trovatore featuring the voices of opera historian Sarah Lenton and Verdi experts Roger Parker, Nicholas Baragwanath and Susan Rutherford.

A guide to Verdi's opera Simon Boccanegra featuring the voices of Placido Domingo, opera historian Sarah Lenton and Verdi experts Roger Parker, Nicholas Baragwanath and Susan Rutherford.

A guide to Verdi's opera I Vespri Siciliani featuring the voices of opera historian Sarah Lenton and Verdi experts Roger Parker, Nicholas Baragwanath and Susan Rutherford.

A guide to Verdi's opera I Lombardi featuring the voices of opera historian Sarah Lenton and Verdi experts Roger Parker, Nicholas Baragwanath and Susan Rutherford.