CJ Replay: When Basso-Continuo was New

 

       During the first half of the seventeenth century, composers created enormous quantities of vocal music employing the new basso-continuo method. Inherent in this new method was a flexibility of instrumentation. Composers rarely specified which instruments were to be used in the performance of the basso continuo, because they and their contemporaries were familial- with the conventions of continuo instrumentation. Modem musicians, until recently, have lacked that first-hand knowledge, and have had much less upon which to rely when making instrumentation choices. Recent research, however is beginning to shed light on the continuo practices of the early Baroque era, and can provide important guidelines for modem choral performances of this repertoire.

       A useful place to begin discussing continuo instrumentation is with Agostino Agazzari's Del sonore sopra iI basso (1607), by far the most informative treatise on continuo instrumentation in early seventeenth-century Italy. In it, Agazzari lists a rich variety of continuo instruments, describes the manner of playing them, and suggests ways in which they might be used. Agazzari classified instruments as either "foundation" or "ornamental." Foundation instruments are those that "guide and support the whole body of the voices and instruments of the consort: the organ, harpsichord, etc.," while ornamental instruments are "those, which in a playful and contrapuntal fashion, make the harmony more agreeable and sonorous, namely the lute, the harp, lirone, etera, spinet, chitorrino, violin, pandora, and the like." In other words, foundation instruments are chord-playing instruments that provide harmonic support for the other voices, while ornamental instruments are mainly melodic instruments that are capable of melodic ornamentation and harmonic filler.

 

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