BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute, Vol. 49, No.

2, 2018
Copyright © 2018 Baldwin Wallace University, Berea, OH

175

Thinking in Bach’s Language, Teaching in His Shoes:

How the Thomaskantor Structured My Syllabus as a
Modern-Day Notenbüchlein or Zibaldone

Vasili Byros

I
t is the evening of 18 June 2017. I sit in the Thomaskirche,
listening to the great Mass in B Minor, sorely disappointed.
Bachfest Leipzig 2017 was my first, and though a profoundly
moving experience on the whole, for this Bach lover it regrettably
ended on a sour note. I came in with high expectations of an affecting,
rhetorically expressive, and historically informed performance (HIP) on
original instruments.1 Bach performance in Europe is, after all, nearly
coextensive with HIP, and Bachfest Leipzig itself is at the forefront.
Just two nights earlier, I experienced a sublime performance of the St.
John Passion in the Thomaskirche, by the Freiburg Barockorchester and
the Thomanerchor. That same group performed the Mass in B Minor
at Bachfest 2013.2 But in 2017, the organizers decided to hand the
festival’s grand finale to the modern instruments and performance
practices of the Gewandhausorchester.3 The Gewandhaus itself, fittingly,
is a brutalist East German building that now houses this renowned
Leipzig institution. Meanwhile, Bach’s musical home for over a quarter
century (for some, now a seat of HIP) is a metaphor for the larger
musical home in which the Thomaskantor worked: the customs and
conventions of an earlier time and place—a past musical culture. If the
Freiburg Barockorchester, the Netherlands Bach Society, or the English
Baroque Soloists (under the direction of the president of the Bach-

1
On the importance of rhetoric in baroque expression, see Bruce Haynes, The End
of Early Music: A Period Performer’s History of Music for the Twenty-First Century (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2007), and Bruce Haynes and Geoffrey Burgess, The Pathetick
Musician: Moving an Audience in the Age of Eloquence (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2016).
2
J. S. Bach, Mass in B Minor, with the Leipzig Thomanerchor and the Freiburg
Barockorchester, conducted by Georg Christoph Biller, recorded 12 June 2013, Accentus
ACC 10281, blu-ray disc.
3
J. S. Bach, Mass in B Minor, with the Dresden Chamber Choir and the Leipzig
Gewandhausorchester, conducted by Herbert Blomstedt, recorded June 2017, Accentus
ACC 10415, blu-ray disc.
176 Bach

Archiv himself ) is how you like your Bach, that is, if you like your Bach
to be HIP, the Gewandhaus will not be your cup of tea.
And so I lay my cards on this roundtable. To my mind, teaching
“Bach in the music theory classroom” comes with the same implications
as performing Bach in the Thomas- or Nikolaikirche. I understand it
as representative of a broader “HI” initiative analogous to HIP. In
my attempts to hear past the Gewandhausorchester that evening, I
entered a kind of analytic listening mind-set, to let Bach himself speak
not through but over the performance, as it were—to hear what he
was doing compositionally, with the customs and conventions of his
time. At least my listening could be HI. Allowing the past to speak
over a modern performance in this way is a metaphor for the kind of
musical transformation I try to create for my undergraduates each
year: how to hear, analyze, interpret, and ultimately make historical
music according to historical means and methods, through historically
informed theory (HIT), by allowing musical cultures of the past to
speak for themselves, amid or through all the communicative “noise”
and “distortion” that has accumulated in the intervening centuries.4
And the “static” in matters of listening, analysis, and creative activity
is often the result of the much stronger signal broadcast from the
Tower of Modern Music Theory and its university curricula.
It was in the context of that early summer evening’s focused
listening in Leipzig, still fresh from the academic year, that the idea
first came to me, to bring the Sanctus of the Mass in B Minor into the
classroom, as a way of addressing this ongoing pedagogical challenge:
namely, how to do HIT in today’s university and conservatory settings
for and through period composition. Never mind just changing the
station. Doing so requires the adoption of a different technology
altogether: the technê (craft or practice) of making or doing, not (just)

4
See my “Meyer’s Anvil: Revisiting the Schema Concept,” Music Analysis 31 (2012):
273–346; “Unearthing the Past: Theory and Archaeology in Robert Gjerdingen’s Music in
the Galant Style,” Music Analysis 31 (2012): 112–24; and “Trazom’s Wit: Communicative
Strategies in a ‘Popular’ Yet ‘Difficult’ Sonata,” Eighteenth-Century Music 10 (2013):
213–52. See also Leonard B. Meyer, Music, The Arts, and Ideas: Patterns and Predictions in
Twentieth-Century Culture, reprinted edition, with a new postlude (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1994); George Kubler, The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of
Things (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1962); and Paul Cobley, “Communication
and Verisimilitude in the Eighteenth Century,” in Communication in Eighteenth-Century
Music, ed. Danuta Mirka and Kofi Agawu (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2008), 13–33.
 Byros 177

the epistêmê (theory) of disinterested knowing. The Sanctus, it turns

out, was the missing piece in a puzzle, as I attempted to build and
refine such a pedagogical technê-ology. It became the last component
for an undergraduate mini-curriculum (spanning a single semester
or quarter) that is shaped nearly single-handedly by the music and
pedagogical materials of Leipzig’s beloved Thomaskantor himself,
fashioned together into a modern-day Notenbüchlein, zibaldone, or
florilegium.5
I heard in the Sanctus that evening many of the ideas I had
developed in an article from 2015, published in Music Theory Online:
“Prelude on a Partimento: Invention in the Compositional Pedagogy
of the German States in the Time of J. S. Bach.”6 That article, which
in part began in the classroom, explored how Bach may have taught
free composition from the Langloz manuscript, a multi-authored
collection of preludes and fugues in partimento notation from
Thuringia.7 It proceeded from an observation of common structures
shared by many Langloz preludes and others from the Well-Tempered
Clavier (hereafter WTC). These connections derive from a principle of
composition based on long-range scale harmonizations, spanning one
to four octaves or more, which are produced by various combinations
of smaller thoroughbass patterns or schemata—for short, schema-
combinatorial scale-harmonization (hereafter SC-SH). The argument
was given a historically informed practical demonstration: I turned a
short partimento-prelude of eleven measures, Langloz No. 48 in D
Minor, into a fully worked-out composition, a Prelude in D Minor
lasting nearly seven minutes. In a number of self-evident ways, the
first section of the Sanctus (“Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, Dominus Deus
Sabaoth”) is also structured as a prelude: at the local level, its opening
organ point on the tonic, and, on a larger scale, the subsequent fugue

5
The Notenbüchlein and Clavierbüchlein that Bach prepared for Anna Magdalena
and Wilhelm Friedemann are part of a time-honored tradition of compiling excerpts from
works by masters for a pedagogical end. The Italians called such notebooks zibaldoni.
Florilegium was the original term for such a pedagogical anthology in medieval Europe.
6
Music Theory Online 21, no. 3 (2015).
7
 Partimento notation can vary significantly, but the common thread is the
incomplete notation of a composition on a single staff. This can range from simple
figured and unfigured basses, to complex partimenti containing many clef changes, with
or without figures. See Giorgio Sanguinetti, The Art of Partimento: History, Theory, and
Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 10–14.
178 Bach

(“Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria eius”) to which it is paired.8 But

apart from the obvious, it was a passage in the middle of the number
that caught my renewed attention that evening—how the Sanctus,
too, shares the same structuring principles characteristic of (but not
exclusive to) the prelude genre in the Langloz manuscript and the
WTC.
Bach begins a Romanesca schema (colloquially known as the
Pachelbel sequence), but quickly deviates and modulates down a third
through a clausula cantizans, or soprano cadence (ex. 1, mm. 17–
19).9 From there, the Romanesca is used again, only to deviate and
modulate the same way (mm. 19–21). The whole thing is repeated a
third time, once again down a third (mm. 21–23), before moving on
to a 7–6 sequence and diminuted tenor cadence (mm. 23–24), which
creates a large-scale sentence.10 Throughout all this, the bass gradually
descends stepwise, traversing a tenth, and, despite the local Romanesca
deviations, a larger-scale Romanesca emerges nonetheless: the three
down-a-third transpositions follow a bass pattern that moves down-a-
fourth (filled in stepwise), up-a-step. The Romanesca is turned inside
out.11 The 7–6 sequence plus diminuted tenor cadence in mm. 23–24
is a varied transposition of the same pattern that first appears in mm.
5–6, and the entire large-scale Romanesca is a developed variation
of the same, which functions as a kind of generative model for the
Sanctus prelude as a whole.

8
See George B. Stauffer, Bach: The Mass in B Minor (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2003), 147–50.
9
Robert Gjerdingen, Music in the Galant Style (New York: Oxford University Press),
25–43. Bach uses what Gjerdingen has called a “piquant” variant of the Romanesca (41–
43). On the typology of eighteenth-century cadences and clausulae and their historical
sources, see Byros, “Prelude on a Partimento,” [2.4]–[2.5] and its Appendix; Gjerdingen,
Music in the Galant Style, Chapter 11, 139–76; Sanguinetti, The Art of Partimento, 105–
11; and Heinrich Deppert, Kadenz und Klausel in der Musik von J. S. Bach: Studien zu
Harmonie und Tonart (Tutzing: H. Schneider, 1993).
10
This 7–6 variant of a diminuted tenor cadence is in dialogue with what William
Caplin has called a “Prinner cadence.” See “Harmony and Cadence in Gjerdingen’s
‘Prinner,’” in What Is A Cadence? Theoretical and Analytical Perspectives on Cadences in the
Classical Repertoire (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2015), 17–58.
11
This large-scale Romanesca is a variant of a pattern that I have called the “Fonte-
Romanesca” in “Mozart’s Vintage Corelli: The Microstory of a Fonte-Romanesca,”
Intégral 31 (2017): 63–89.
Example 1. J. S. Bach, Mass in B Minor, Sanctus, mm. 1–47: continuo part, figured by the author

DESC. 7–6 (TENOR. DIM.)

ORGELPUNKT (QUIESCENZA)
ORGELPUNKT (QUIESCENZA) (⇓4)

œ œ œ6r œ 6 œ7T 6 œ œ œ
? ## c œÓ œÓ
D: 1 1
œ Ó ∑ œ œ 7 œ! œ œ Ó œ œ Ó œ6r œ Ó
A: 4 3 2 5 1
ROMANESCA

ASC. 7–6 (CANTIZANS) ROMANESCA ... CANTIZANS

ORGELPUNKT (QUIESCENZA)

10 œ œ œ6r œ
œ œ™ œ6sr œ # œy 6t
? # # ∑ œ 6 œ7 6 7 œ3 œ œ ™ œ œ Ó œÓ œÓ ∑ œ
D: 5 6 7 5 1 1 7 6
œ œ œ œ #œ
A: 1 b: 1 7
Byros 179
Example 1 (con.)

ROMANESCA
180 Bach

ROMANESCA ... CANTIZANS (⇓3) DESC. 7–6 (TEN. DIM.) (⇑2)

ROMANESCA ... CANTIZANS (⇓3)

QUINTFALL

19
6Rd uG h
y t 6 7
œ œy 6t`I œ œ6sr j A œ œ
? # # œ n œ6sr œ œ nœ
b: 1 7 6
œœ œ œ Ó œÓ
b: 4 3 2 5 1 4
œ nœ œ œ œ œ œ #œ œ
G: 1 7 1 7 6
#œ œ nœ
e: 1 7 1 7 D: 2 5

DESC. 7–6 (TEN. DIM.) (⇓5)

9/7⇒8/6-5
QUINTFALL

27

*`7 Ó
? ## œ œ 6 œ7 6 œ7 3 œ œ9u 8y`~t œ9u 8y`~t œ9u 8y`~t œ9u 8y`~t œ9u 8y`~t œ9u 8y`~t œ9 8y œ9uA 8y œ(u 8y # œ7t 6e
D: 4 3 2 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ #œ
G: 5 1 A: 4 5 6 7
Example 1 (con.)

ROMANESCA (⇓4)

ROMANESCA ... CANTIZANS ROMANESCA ... CANTIZANS (⇓3)

ROMANESCA ... CANTIZANS (⇓3) QUINTFALL (⇓4)

35
6 t6 y 6t 7Q
œ œ6sr œ # œ œ œ
? # # œ # œ6sr œ # œyA 6t œ n œ6sr œ œ œ œ Ó œ Ó *`7 Ó

A: 1 7 6 A: 2 5 D: 5
œ #œ œ # œ œ n œ œ œ #œ œ œ œ
f: 1 7 1 7 6 b: 1 7 1
œ
D: 1 7 1 7 6
CANTIZANS

QUINTFALL CAD. DOPPIA

44
^Rd A6t %r 7Q
? # # œ œ œ 7 œ7Q # œ # œ œ7 œ œ 7 7Q œ œ œ œ Q 7 œ n œ
D: 1 A: 2 5 1 4 7
#œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ # œ œ7 œ # œ7 œ œ # œ # œ œ œ œ œ # œ œ œ
f: 6 2 5 1 4 f: 2 5 1 4 7 1 5 5
œ œ
Byros 181
182 Bach

Though polyphonically complex, employing six voices and three

instrumental mini-choirs, at its foundation this “Sanctus” setting is
constructed like many of Bach’s preludes and fantasias.12 Composed
in 1724, shortly after Bach arrived in Leipzig, the Sanctus came on
the heels of the WTC Book I (1722), when Bach revised and extended
four preludes from the Clavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
(1720). Between the before and after, the SC-SH principle may be
observed as the primary means of compositional extension.13 The
Sanctus’s clear connection to the WTC preludes, however, is still but
one part of the story. It also bears a strong connection to the Fantasia
and Fughetta in D Major BWV 908, one of two fantasia and fughetta
pairs in partimento notation attributed to Bach.14 Not only does its
Fantasia exhibit the same SC-SH principle as the Langloz and WTC
preludes, but it also shares with the Sanctus the prominent use of a
particular sequence, ₇⁹ –
– ₆⁸–₅, which is given an individual stamp in Bach’s
hands, a canonic realization that is evident in both. In the Sanctus, this
pattern marks the climactic ascent in the middle of the number (mm.
29–35), and serves to create an ascending stepwise twelfth in the bass.
In BWV 908, the pattern is thematicized something in the manner of
a ritornello, and extended with later repetitions (ex. 2).15
The absence of continuo figures in any extant manuscript for the
Sanctus presented an opportunity to pair it with BWV 908 in a unique
creative activity that allows students to approach the compositional
process independently, from opposite ends of the spectrum, and in a
way that met my main pedagogical objective: to change the mind-set
to HI, in order to shift the focus to a world of schemata, problem-
solving, and creativity, ultimately with the goal of getting students to
think in the language of Bach’s day.16

12
Byros, “Prelude on a Partimento,” [2.3]–[2.14], examples 6–9.
13
Byros, “Prelude on a Partimento,” [4.2]–[4.3], examples 26–29.
14
On the authorship problem, see Maxim Serebrennikov, “Once Again on the
Authorship of BWV 907 and BWV 908,” BACH: Journal of the Riemenschneider Bach
Institute 44, no. 2 (2013): 52–66. The issue is readdressed here below.
15
See my discussion of the D-major Prelude from the WTC Book I: “Prelude on a
Partimento,” [2.13], example 8.
16
See Stauffer, Bach: The Mass in B Minor, 216–20. The only exception is the
autograph for the 1724 version (D-B Mus.ms. Bach P 13, Faszikel 1), which contains
Bach’s figures for mm. 44–45. These figures are reproduced in example 1.
Example 2. J. S. Bach, Fantasia in D Major from BWV 908
LAUFF
œ
# c ≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ?œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
B# œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ j‰
CADENZA LUNGA
œ
9/7⇒8/6-5 CANTIZANS

TENORIZANS CADENZA DOPPIA

3
8y y 9u 8y y 9u t o e
6t
2 7 1
≈œœœœ
2 3 4 6
? # # ≈ œ œ œ œ9u
D: 1 4
≈ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ6t œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
1
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ5 œ œ œ œ
CADENZA LUNGA

9/7⇒8/6-5 CANTIZANS

TENORIZANS SEMPLICE-FINTA CADENZA DOPPIA

6 9uA 8yA #œ œ œnœ A

1
≈8y œ œy œ œ
b: 4 5 6 7 6
? # # ≈ œ œ œ œ9u
4 5 1
≈ œ œy œ œ7 œ6 % ≈6 œ œ7rs œ 6t œ # œ o n œu œ œ6t œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
D: 1 2
Byros 183

œ œ
Example 2 (con.)
CANTIZANS
CANTIZANS (ASC. 7–6) SEMPLICE (9/7–8/6) TENOR. (9/7–8/6)
184 Bach

9
6I
œ œ œy œ œ9u`* 8y œ œ œ # œ7t
8y œ œt œ œu
4
? # # ≈y œ œ œ œ7t œ ≈y œ œy œ o œ ≈y œ œy œ œ9u ≈ ≈ #œ
D: 6 7 1 3 G: 2 3 D: 6 7
œ ≈
5
œ œ

CADENZA DOPPIA

CANTIZANS CANTIZANS CANTIZANS CANTIZANS

12
6t o y 6t œ5r Q
D: 7 1 1 7 1
? # # ≈6t œ œ œ œo ≈i œ œ œ # œ7t`* ≈6t œ œ œ œo ≈i œ n œ œ œ6t œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
e: 7 D: 2 A: 7 1 4 5
œ #œ œ #œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ

LAUFF

16 œ#œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ#œ œ#œ
1
? ## r
œ B œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ? œ œ œ œ œ œ œj ‰
Example 2 (con.)

9/7⇒8/6-5 CADENZA DOPPIA-FINTA

TENORIZANS CANTIZANS SEMPLICE-FINTA SEMPL.-FINTA (⇓4)

[]
18 œ œ œ œœ œœœ
4 1 4 e: 1 4
? # # ≈ œ # œ œ œ9u ≈8Y œ œy œ 9u œ ≈8y œY 9u œ 8y œ œ # œ6t œ œ œ œo œ œe œ œ6t œ œ œ œ œ 7t
A: 1 2 3 7 6
œ œ
D: 6
œ œ œ n œ œ œ5e œ œ œ

9/7⇒8/6-5 CANTIZANS
SEMPL.-FINTA (⇓2) CADENZA DOPPIA
TENORIZANS SEMPLICE-FINTA
CANTIZANS

22

1 4 5
≈
1
œ œ œ œ9uK ≈8yK œ œh œ *`œu9A ≈8yA œ œh œ n œu n œ ≈y œ œ œ
7 6 6
? # # u œ œ œ œI7 œ œ œ œ6t`I œ œ œ œo œ œe œ n œ6t œ œ œ œ œ œ
2 e: 4 5
œ œ œœ œ
D: 2 G: 2
CADENZA DOPPIA 9/7⇒8/6-5 CANTIZANS CANTIZANS

25
i y t 6t
!
# œ œo n œ n œe œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ n œ œ œu œ œ œ œo
6t œ œœ œ œ œo
1 5 1 7
≈ œ n œ œ œ9u ≈7t # œ œ
6 4 7 1
? # # # œ6t œ # œ
7 A: 6 D: 5
œ ≈
Byros 185

1 6
œ œ œ ≈
Example 2 (con.)

QUIESCENZA
186 Bach

CANTIZANS CANTIZANS CANT. TEN. FINTA CANTIZANS CAD. LUNGA

28
6t
7 1
I`u œ ≈y # œ y œ œo i œ n œ œ œ9u
≈ ≈8y œ œ œ
3 e: 7 3
œ
A: 7 1
? # # ≈i œ I`œy œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ6t œ œ œo œ œw œ
œ œ
G: 7 1 D: 2
œ
D: 6 D: 5 1
1 œ
#œ œ œ œ nœ œ œ œ
G: 5
DOPPIA
LAUFF
LUN. CANTIZANS ALTIZANS

32 œ œ œ 6rs
? # # œ7t ≈6t # œ œ œ œo i U ≈i œ œ # œ œ œœœœœœ
œ #œ œ œ œ œ œ œ Jœ ?nœ œ6 œ œ
D: 4 A: 7 D: 4 3
œ œœœ œ B œœ
1
œ
DOPPIA
COMPOSTA LAUFF

35
7e œœœœœœœ œœœœœ œ ? œœ œœ œœœœœœ œ
5
? # # œ5r 6 ‰Œ Ó
1
œ œR B œœœœ œœ œ œœœœœœ
œ œ œj
 Byros 187

I first attempted to describe the proverbial forest that now houses

these trees in “Prelude on a Partimento.” I offered a closing meditation
that outlined some of the differences between past and present forms
of music theory: whereas modern curricula are preoccupied with
“know-what” types of knowledge for musicians who ritualize the
past through repeated performance (or analysis) in a fixed imaginary
museum, historical pedagogies dealt with the “know-how” business
of training composers to, for example, compose a new cantata for an
upcoming Sunday.17 I would now also add that, even when tasking
students with such practical activities within a largely “know-what”
curriculum, their mind-set remains unchanged, because present-day
music theory is essentially a metalanguage. I often liken it to the reading
knowledge of a language one acquires in graduate school. Enough
about its syntax, grammar, and vocabulary is learned to supply a
translation, but without ever acquiring the knowledge and experience
to speak, think, or write in the language itself.18 Score annotations
and analyses, as ends in themselves, are something like metalinguistic
translations of the original. In Bach’s day, on the other hand, music theory
was, fundamentally, part of the business of learning how to speak the
language, on the performance-improvisation-composition continuum
that defined a musician’s world and daily activities. If the partimento
research of recent years has taught us anything, it is that, as a practice,
music was taught self-referentially—through music. As a subset of the
exempla principle that informed Bach’s own teaching and creativity, the
partimento is a preindustrial, nonverbal method for teaching music on
the language’s own terms, through use and immersion.
In this light, the phrase “Bach in the music theory classroom”
becomes synonymous with a “know-how,” HI approach, which can
help bridge the gap between theory (epistêmê) and practice (technê), by
adapting the teaching technologies (exempla, partimenti) and master-
apprentice paradigms of the past to the present-day classroom. But no
sooner does one embark on this difficult journey than one is met with
another, perhaps even greater challenge: while the master-apprentice

17
Byros, “Prelude on a Partimento,” [5.7].
18
Giorgio Sanguinetti compares modern performers of Classical music to a recitation
of an Italian poem, L’infinito, by Dustin Hoffman, in a video for the Italian Department
of Tourism: www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6PNvmZs1gE. The actor, like modern
performers, does not speak the language he is performing. “Editorial,” Eighteenth-Century
Music 11 (2014): 4.
188 Bach

paradigm allowed for, in the case of one of Bach’s pupils, as many as six
hours of instruction per day, university curricula and degree requirements
make such dedicated study nearly impossible.19 A square-peg-round-hole
situation, something akin to the 10,000-hour rule versus diminishing
university course credits, greeted me in the fall of 2013, when I first
implemented a historical music theory track at the Bienen School of
Music of Northwestern University, teaching the sophomore unit to
the same group of, on average, fifteen students throughout each year,
meeting twice a week for eighty minutes.20 The yearlong sequence is both
a practicum and a seminar: composition, analysis, and some research
are oriented to listening, creativity, aesthetics, and meaning, while
covering Bach to Beethoven (with some Brahms) in one year, divided
into three quarters, all under my tutelage. When I first started teaching
the curriculum, my ambition got the better of me: I planned a substantial
composition project for the end of each quarter. But today, the only fully
independent creative work is a fantasia in a late eighteenth-century style,
which takes place two-thirds of the way through the sequence, at the end
of the winter quarter.
For today’s university and conservatory students—many of whom
only associate Bach or Beethoven with their instrument, not their ears, at
least in North America—the act of composition (or improvisation, for that
matter) is only as pedagogically useful as it is a reflection of their thinking
in the language. The first quarter in the sequence, then, is something of
a self-standing mini-curriculum that aims to get students out of music-
theory-as-translation and into this linguistic mind-set, before they write
their own musical short story, a keyboard fantasia, in the winter quarter.21
Musical schemata, the everyday patterns or “musical commonplaces” in
19
Byros, “Prelude on a Partimento,” [5.7].
20
On the 10,000-hour rule, see Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success
(New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008), which is based on K. Anders Ericsson,
Ralf Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Romer, “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the
Acquisition of Expert Performance,” Psychological Review 100 (1993): 363–406.
21
Though compositional assignments continue in the spring quarter, largely
through work on partimento fugue, the emphasis shifts to analysis, criticism, aesthetics,
historiography, and philosophy, with Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge and Beethoven’s Symphony
No. 9 leading the way. The shift is my response to a related challenge in teaching historical
music today: students’ lack of a meaningful relationship with history in general. Spring
quarter is more of a seminar in this regard, which focuses on the cultural contexts and
the agents by and for whom music is created and received, with a particular focus on
the present-day relevance and meanings of canonic works from the Western art music
tradition.
 Byros 189

Bach and his contemporaries’ world, are the means for thinking in the
language, which Felix Diergarten, following Wittgenstein’s lead, has aptly
characterized as an “ancient city”: “a maze of little streets and squares, of
old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods;
and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular
streets and uniform houses.”22 The mechanism for learning schemata in
the curriculum is not a passive one: nearly always they are discovered
and applied in some capacity through creative problem-solving activities,
which govern the curriculum’s philosophy and structure. When a
substantial individual composition eventually does become a new task,
it is but an extension of these activities, one that differs in degree, not in
kind.
My attempts to build a curriculum of problem-solving activities that
teach the language, or impart knowledge of schemata, particularly as they
are used in Bach’s hands, is the context in which “Prelude on a Partimento”
began in the classroom. Much in that article already represents the fall
quarter curriculum of sophomore year. If Bach’s Sanctus and the Fantasia
from BWV 908 are the omega of the fall curriculum, his “Principles
for Playing in Four Parts” (Grundsätze zum Enquatre spielen), from the
Vorschriften und Grundsätze zum vierstimmigen spielen des General-Bass
(1738), are the alpha. In essence, each of these fourteen figured basses
puts a particular pattern on display in three transpositions: C major,
G major, and A minor, followed by a da capo to C major. Together,
they exercise pattern-learning (sequences and cadences), the simple
combination of patterning or schema syntax, the scale-harmonization
principle, stock voice-leading (both within schema variants and across
different patterns), as well as invertible counterpoint in upper parts
(the upper three voices are intended to swap with each transposition, as
seen in example 3). Through a combination of class workshops, group
22
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953), §18.
Diergarten writes: “Wittgenstein’s point is that human language is not a coherent system
based on a single principle, but a set of conventions that has proliferated continuously
over centuries. And the same is true for musical language. In the late eighteenth-century
musical language of Haydn and Mozart, for example, we see elements as old as three
centuries (parallel ⁶₃ chords, series of 7–6 suspensions and the old ‘Romanesca’) next to
elements of two centuries’ age (most cadences and the ascending-fifths sequence, for
example) and those only several decades old (such as ‘galant’ dissonance treatment).
One of the lessons we have learned is that a rich florilegium or zibaldone of musical
commonplaces was (and is) a better resource for an aspiring composer-improviser in
this language than a set of abstract principles.” “Editorial,” Eighteenth-Century Music 14
(2017): 5.
190 Bach

assignments, independent assignments, and peer review, students work

through all fourteen of Bach’s partimenti: the goal is to produce a simple
realization for each, as shown for No. 13 in example 3.23 These then
become the first entries in the students’ Notenbüchlein. Realizing the
Grundsätze is accompanied by study of the four preludes that constitute
a “mini-series” in the WTC: C major, C minor, D major, and E minor,
and their earlier Clavierbüchlein versions.24 Among the main goals here
is to recognize Bach’s use of the same techniques and principles from the
Grundsätze in a richer, more developed and mature manner in the WTC,
where he employs various techniques of schema development, elision,
nesting, extension, and expansion.25 From here, students graduate to the
realization of partimento-preludes from the Langloz manuscript. They
produce simple realizations in the manner of examples 14–18 in “Prelude
on a Partimento.”

Example 3. J. S. Bach, Grundsatz No. 13, from Vorschriften und Grundsätze zum
vierstimmigen spielen des General-Bass (1738); author’s realization
CANTIZANS QUINTFALL (4/2–6) TENOR. COMPOSTA CANTIZANS QUINTFALL (4/2–6)

° ˙ œœ œœ œœ œœ œ
& c ˙˙ œ̇œ œœ œ̇œ œœ œ̇œ œœ œ̇ œœ œ̇ œ ˙˙˙ œ̇ œ œœ̇ œ # œœ̇ œ œœ̇ œ
œ œ œœ œ̇œ œ œœœ œœ œœœœ
œ
˙ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ ˙ #œ œ ˙
?c ˙ œ œ œ œ ‰œ œ œ ‰ œ œ œ
¢ J œ # œJ œ
4w 6 4w 6 4w 6 4w 6 4w 6 4w 6 6r 5e 4w 6 4w 6 4W Q6 4w 6
6
TENOR. (4/2–6) TENOR.

°
COMPOSTA CANTIZANS QUINTFALL COMPOSTA

œ
& # œœ̇ œ œœ̇ # œ œœ œœœ œœœ # œœœ œœ̇ œ ˙˙˙ n œœ̇ œ œœ̇ œ̇ œ̇ œ œ œ̇ # œ̇ œ # œ # œ œœ œœ œœ # œœ ˙
8

œ œ œ œ̇ œ œ œ ˙˙
œ œ œ̇ œ œ
? œœ œ ˙ œ œ˙ œ œ ˙ ‰ œj œ
œ œ ‰ œj œ œ ‰ # œ œ
Da Capo

¢ œ œ œ œ
œ J œ ˙

£
$w 6 4w ^ 6r 6r 5Q 4w 6 4w 6 4w 6 4w 6 $w 6 $w ^
5e 6

The next entries in their Notenbüchlein come directly from class

meetings: I exploit the significant gap between Bach’s Grundsätze and

See also Byros, “Prelude on a Partimento,” [2.8] and example 12.

23

Joel Lester first identified the commonalities among these in “J. S. Bach Teaches
24

Us How to Compose: Four Pattern Preludes of the Well-Tempered Clavier,” College Music

Symposium 38 (1998): 33–46.
25
Byros, “Prelude on a Partimento,” [2.3]–[2.14] and [4.2]–[4.3], examples 6–9
and 26–29.
 Byros 191

the WTC mini-series as a collective opportunity to step into Bach’s shoes

as a teacher. The goal here is to imagine, creatively, how Bach himself
might have bridged this gap: that is, had Bach continued his Grundsätze
partimenti beyond the fourteen, building on them by adding further
layers of complexity, each time inching closer to his prelude constructions,
what might those partimenti have looked like? Answers are to be found
not only in the mini-series itself, but also in its relationship to the
earlier Clavierbüchlein version of the preludes. We proceed by imagining
what new concepts or patterns Bach might introduce and how, while
reinforcing those already learned. One solution, a hypothetical Grundsatz
No. 20, is shown in example 4 as a figured bass.26 It maintains the three
sections of Bach’s fourteen, but each now modulates to the key of the
next. This, in addition to the large Orgelpunkt at the end, constitutes its
large-scale form.
The pedagogical strategies contained in this hypothetical
partimento, what a student would discover through its realization, are
numerous, and placed on the same SC-SH scaffolding. To begin with,
instead of displaying a single pattern, sequences are combined to show
the larger connections among them. This includes the invertibility of
the descending-fifth or Quintfall sequence. The principle of inversion
already implied in the upper parts of Bach’s Grundsätze is here extended
to all four voices: the lines of the ⁶₅––⁴₂ and ⁴₃–7 may be swapped at will
to produce quadruple invertible counterpoint. For example, mm. 6–8.5
are an inverted transposition of mm. 3–5.5 (⁴₃–7 becomes ⁴₂––⁶₅). The bass
of mm. 6–8.5, beginning on G, can be placed in the soprano at m. 3,
transposed to E, and so forth—an extension of the stock voice-leading
principle.27 Another strategy is to illustrate how different sequential
patterns may be combined to produce long chains of structural parallel
tenths or syncopated 2–3 suspensions. The SC-SH principle in the WTC
as well as the Langloz preludes materializes not only in an outer voice, but
often in the soprano and bass simultaneously. In addition to the parallel-
tenths scaffolding, commonalities between schemata are exploited at
their seams, to combine them syntactically through various techniques
26
A complete realization with audio is available at vasilibyros.com/pedagogy.html,
under “J. S. Bach.”
27
The ⁴₃–7 variant is not encountered in eighteenth-century pedagogical sources, to
my knowledge, but is prominently used in Bach’s music. See, for example, mm. 35–37
of the Fugue in F-sharp Minor in the WTC Book I. In the Toccata and Fugue “Dorian”
in D Minor BWV 538, it appears four times, as part of Bach’s exploration of quadruple
invertible counterpoint in the Quintfall sequence: mm. 47–59, 119–21, 172, and 192–93.
Example 4. Hypothetical Grundsatz No. 20, for a continuation of the Vorschriften und Grundsätze; class-composed, 2015–2018

QUINTFALL (4/3–7)
CANTIZANS CADENZA DOPPIA
192 Bach

CANTIZANS TENORIZANS
QUINTFALL (4/2–6/5)

4w 6r 7Q
7 7
w ˙6t ˙ ˙4e ˙ ˙4e ˙ ˙4e ˙
? ˙4w # ˙6t ˙4w ˙6t œ4w b œ ˙7Q ˙5r
C: 1 7 1 7 6
˙
G: 2 1 7 6 5 1

CANTIZANS DESC. 7–6 (LAMENT) CADENZA LUNGA

QUINTFALL (4/2–6/5) QUINTFALL (6/5–9)

10
4w
$w 4w 6t
9 6t 9 6t 9 6t
œ œ
? w # œy ˙u ˙y # ˙u n ˙y # ˙u n w6t
G: 1 7 6 C: 1 7
œ6t b ˙4w w6t #˙ ˙
e: 1 7 6 a: 1 7 1 6 +4 C: 2 7
˙ #˙ ˙ #˙ ˙ ˙
G: 4 F: 4 3 e: -2 7 1
d: 2 7 1
Example 4 (con.)

CAD. DOPPIA DESC. 7–6

DOPPIA-FINTA
CAD. LUNGA CAD. FINTA QUINTFALL (4/3–7)

21
˙7Q ˙u ˙y ˙u ˙y ˙u ˙y ˙u 4e u ˙4e ˙ 6r ˙5r 7e ˙
1
? ˙ ^t ˙8Q 7 ˙Q 6r ˙5r Q œ4E œ b ˙u
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
C: 4 3 2 B : 2 1 C: 6 5 6
e: 6 4 5 1
F: 6 5 4 3
a: 5 1 5 6

CADENZA LUNGA

ORGELPUNKT: QUINTFALL (4/2–6/5) EVITÉE/ALT. ... TENOR. CAD. DOPPIA

32 3i,g 4oh, gm 3i fn 9u db 8y lv 7t
7 #`6r #`7td
? Ó ˙6t w w 4w y 4w 4e 7 6r 5r 7e
4 5
w w w
+4 4 3 2 1 5 1
˙ ™ #œ n˙ ˙ ˙ œ œ w w
Byros 193
194 Bach

of elision. To this may be added the use of schemata to modulate, an

inventory and hierarchy of cadences, and how to use a Quintfall sequence
to build a concluding organ point on the dominant. The overall result
is a more fluid and goal-oriented design than the Grundsätze, one that
approaches Bach’s use of schemata in the WTC preludes. Each year,
(re) composing a hypothetical Grundsatz becomes a six-hour-long lesson
that takes place across two or two-and-a-half weeks. Time permitting,
I add a few more class composition workshops where we compose
extensions of partimento-preludes from the Langloz manuscript, in
the manner described in “Prelude on a Partimento,” while introducing
techniques of elaboration, what I call the second species of compositional
invention: the creative use of musical topics, styles and genres, figurae,
and Manieren.28
Nearing the end of the fall quarter, after these class composition
exercises, I was left with the problem of how to wrap things up. While
this collective stepping into Bach’s shoes as teacher works well as a
series of class workshops, asking students to perform a similar activity
independently would still be too difficult a challenge—at least to
accomplish the task in a way that allowed them the creative space to do
something partly new, while at the same time staying close to our class
model. Another concern was to have students engage with schemata in
the context of real musical textures, not simple thoroughbass realizations.
And though our class composition workshops include an introduction
to these techniques, the second species of invention is all winter quarter
material in the curriculum, and reoriented to the harmonic language and
styles of the later eighteenth century. For a time, then, the fall quarter
was absent a befitting goal, a genuine summa for this mini-curriculum,
in keeping with its gradus structure. I was searching for some problem-
solving activity directly related or applied to Bach’s music. Though I had
devised a number of makeshift solutions, I didn’t quite have an ideal
way of filling the last pages of the students’ Notenbüchlein, so that the
notebook could tell a story of its own, with some kind of denouement.
The Sanctus of the Mass in B Minor, when paired with the Fantasia
in D Major from BWV 908, provided just such a resolution. The final
project in fall 2017, after my Bachfest experience, was to produce both a
continuo part for the Sanctus—for which, as mentioned above, no figures
survive—and a simple thoroughbass realization of BWV 908, with a
scale-degree and schema annotation for both, as shown in examples 1 and
28
Byros, “Prelude on a Partimento,” [3.1]–[3.7].
 Byros 195

2. To build this project in, all that I needed to add by way of analysis and
new schemata was the Pièce d’orgue in G Major BWV 572, and segments
of Bach’s six-part Ricercar from the Musical Offering, both of which make
extensive use of the ₇⁹ –
– ₆⁸–₅ sequence I mentioned above, which figures
prominently in BWV 908 and the Sanctus prelude, and bears the stamp
of Bach. The Ricercar presents it three times, as part of a master pattern
of six voices that combines an ascending 5–6 sequence with an ascending
9–8 and 7–6 (example 5a).29 The left hand, from Bach’s two-stave
autograph, is a complete ascending 5–6 sequence in three voices, with
ascending parallel thirds and passing chromaticism in the 5–6 motion.
The soprano in the right hand adds a 7–6 but does not proceed according
to the typical voice-leading for this sequence, where the sixth moves up
to the octave to prepare the next seventh (examples 5c–d). Instead, the
sixth moves down to a fifth. The ninth is prepared by a doubled third,
which is no mere textural doubling. There are six structural voices at play.
While the left hand has a full three-voice ascending 5–6 sequence, the
upper three voices are in a perpetual canon at the second/seventh. What
allows this canon to emerge is Bach’s addition of the passing fifth after
the sixth, which also produces continuous descending stepwise motion
against the rising bass.30 Examples of the simpler ₇⁹ – – ₆⁸, without the
passing fifth, from treatises by Johann Joseph Fux and Giacomo Tritto,
to cite a few, have a basic realization whose upper voice must always leap
up at some point to prepare a suspension, preventing both the canon
and the continuous descent (examples 5c–d).31 Bach’s solution seamlessly
integrates the suspension preparations into the descending lines of the
three-voice canon. In the Ricercar, the continuously descending canon
is placed against not one but three ascending lines. Three voices move

29
In the BWV 908 Fantasia, the latter two subset patterns are syntactically combined
with their “parent” schema, for example in mm. 10–14 and mm. 29–32.
30
The passing fifth is at times accompanied by a passing seventh in Bach’s
realizations of the sequence, particularly in textures with more than four voices (it
appears in the Sanctus, discussed below). If continued systematically, this passing
seventh will create a different ascending sequence, with its own three-voice canon at the
second/seventh: the ⁹₅ –– ⁸₅– ⁷
₃ –₃ .
31
The Fux example comes from his Gründlicher Unterricht des General Basses (fol.
39v), recently transcribed in Christoph Prendl, “Eine neue Quelle zur Generalbasslehre
von Johann Joseph Fux,” Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie 12 (2015), 179–221.
The Tritto example, from his Partimenti e Regole generali (1816), is cited and realized
in Sanguinetti, The Art of Partimento, 139. Bach uses this version in mm. 33–34 of the
Sanctus prelude.
 196 Bach

up stepwise, while three voices move down stepwise. Removing the two
upper parts (tenors) of the left hand in the Ricercar leaves a standard
four-voice setting of Bach’s ₇⁹ –
– ₆⁸–₅. At the opening of the Gravement
from the Pièce d’orgue BWV 572, this standard four-voice setting is seen
between the right hand and pedal (example 5b). As in BWV 908, BWV
572 treats it thematically, employing it throughout its durezza section.

Example 5. Different realizations of the ₇⁹ –

– ₆⁸[-₅]

a) J. S. Bach, Ricercar a 6 from the Musical Offering, mm. 57–62

° b ˙ ˙Ó̇ œ̇ œ
œ̇ œ Ó̇ ˙˙w ˙˙ ˙™
œ˙ b œ
57

57 b b ˙ ˙œ œ ˙w œ̇ b œ n œœ œœ
°& b ˙ ˙Ó̇ nœ̇ œ œ̇ n œ
œw˙ b œ ˙ œ̇
a) & b b
œ̇˙ œ Ó̇ n ˙ ˙˙w œ̇ n œ ˙œ œ ˙w œ̇ b œ ˙˙ ˙™ n œœ œœ
˙ w ˙ ˙ œw˙ ™n œ œ̇œ œ
a) ? b œ œ ˙ ˙ œww # œ ˙ œww œ ˙ œww n œ
¢ b b œ œw n œ œw˙ ™n œ œœ
? bb œẇ œ Œ˙ nœw n œ ˙ œww # œ ˙ œww œ ˙ œww n œ ˙ œ
¢ b ẇ Œ œ n ww œ
8dn 7lb B 6ekn 5 3ojb B ihn g 9udb #`9 8yn t 7elb B 6kn 5 3ojb B ihn
c c c c c c
8dn 7lb B 6ekn 5 3ojb B ihn g 9udb #`9 8yn t 7elb B 6kn 5 3ojb B ihn
c c c c c c

° #
b)29J. S. Bach, Gravement, Pièce d’orgue in G Major BWV 572, mm. 29–34
Ó ˙ œ œ
& C Ó ˙˙ œw œ œ̇ œ œœw œœ œ̇ œ œœ œœ ˙œ œ œ œ ˙˙ œw œ ˙
° # Ó ˙˙ œw œ œ̇ œ œw œ œw œ ˙ œẇ œ w
29

& C Ó ˙
Ó
œ œ œ œ œ̇ œ wœ œ œ œ ˙
ẇœ œ œ˙ œ œ˙ww™ œ ˙
œ ˙ œ
?# C Ó œ œ ˙ œ ˙ ˙ ˙
˙™
b) ¢? #
b)
œ œ ˙ œ œ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ œ œœ œ œ
¢?#
C Ó
C w w w w w w
?# C w w w w
w w
8td 7el 6k 5 3oj ih g 9ud 8y t 7e 6r 5r e 7
8td 7el 6k 5 3oj ih g 9ud 8y t 7e 6r 5r e 7

c) Johann Joseph Fux, Gründlicher Unterricht des General Basses (n.d.), fol. 39v

°
b c ˙ œ̇ œ œ̇ œ œ œ̇ œ œ
œ œ̇
œ œ œœ œ̇œ œœ œœ œ̇œ œœ œœ œ̇œ œœ œœ
& ˙ œ œœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
˙
c)
?b c ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
¢ ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙

g3i 9ud 8y` 1`0 9ud 8y` 1`0 9ud 8y` 1`0 9ud 8y` 1`0 9ud 8y` 1`0 9ud 8y` 1`0 9ud 8y` 1`0

° w œœ œœ ˙˙ œœ œœ ˙˙ œœ œœ ˙˙ œœ œœ ˙˙ œœ œœ ˙˙ œœw œœ ˙˙ ww
& c ww w w w w w w
d)
? w w w w w
w
 ° œ œ̇ œ œ̇ œ œœ œ̇œ œœ œœ
& b c ˙˙ œ̇œ œœ œœ œ̇œ œœ œœ œ̇œ œœ œœ œ̇œ œœ œ œ œœ œ œ œ
˙
c)
? c ˙ ˙ ˙ ˙
¢ b ˙ ˙ ˙
yros 197
˙
B

Example 5 (con.)
g3i 9ud 8y` 1`0 9ud 8y` 1`0 9ud 8y` 1`0 9ud 8y` 1`0 9ud 8y` 1`0 9ud 8y` 1`0 9ud 8y` 1`0
d) Giacomo Tritto, Partimenti e Regole generali (1816), 3

œœ œœ ˙˙ œœ œœ ˙˙ œœ œœ ˙˙ œœ œœ ˙˙ w
° w œœ œœ ˙˙ œœ œœ ˙˙ w ww
& c ww w w w w w
d)
? c w w w w w w
w w
¢

3i 9u 8y 3i 9u 8y 3i 9u 8y 3i 9u 8y 3i 9u 8y 3i 9u 8y 3i 5
In the Sanctus, the lines of the three-voice canon are divided up and
distributed among the six voices and the oboe and string choirs (with
occasional doubling): alto 1/oboe 1 (m. 29.4), tenor/oboe 3 (m. 30.2),
soprano 2/violin 1 (m. 30.4), alto 2/violin 2 (m. 31.2), bass/viola (m.
31.4), soprano 1/2 (m. 32.2). It is the job of the continuo to play them in
their schematic form.32 For BWV 908, where the ₇⁹ – – ₆⁸–₅ is thematicized
as a generative model, knowledge of the pattern and its canons is a signal
to pair the continuously ascending line in the bass with a continuously
descending stepwise line in the soprano throughout. Among the
pedagogical goals of BWV 908 is to observe the application of the SC-SH
principle not with one or two descending lines in the soprano, the bass,
or both (as in the WTC), but with a continuously descending stepwise
soprano against a bass that predominantly ascends by step.33 Pairing this
simple realization with a Sanctus continuo realization allows students to
engage creatively with schemata in the context of real and rich musical
textures without being directly responsible for their creation. They
experience composition from opposite extremes of the creative process:
compose a thoroughbass realization by “generating” from schemata; and
compose a continuo realization by “reducing” to the schemata.34
Both are supported by the glimpses into Bach’s compositional process
afforded by sketch and autograph study. As Robert Marshall put it:
Several continuation sketches reveal that Bach at times first drafted
the harmonic progression represented by the continuo part. In such

32
This can be seen in the full realization of example 1 at vasilibyros.com/pedagogy.
html, under “J. S. Bach.”
33
A model realization is available at vasilibyros.com/pedagogy.html.
34
Other pedagogical paths are certainly possible. For example, as a class workshop,
one might (re)compose the continuo part in example 1 as if it were a partimento, without
revealing the source to students.
198 Bach

passages the upper parts embellish the harmonic framework defined

by the continuo rather than develop an individual melodic character.
This technique is especially typical of Bach’s homophonic choruses and
elaborately orchestrated movements, in which the upper parts can often
be regarded as written-out thorough bass realizations, characterized by
scale and arpeggio figures, broken chords, and similar rhythmic and
melodic diminutions of the fundamental chord tones.35
Along these lines, producing a continuo part for the Sanctus is less
about selecting notes from the score than it is about understanding their
harmonic and contrapuntal foundation in thoroughbass—the schematic
contexts from which the notes derive in the first place—and giving those
parts a sounding part in the performance. It becomes a product of thinking
in the language, and represents a stage in the compositional process (real
or imagined). It allows for comparison of a rich musical texture with the
schemata underlying it in their simple form, and on creative, problem-
solving terms, not through the distal analysis of epistêmê but through the
immersive practice of technê. In this way, the Sanctus–BWV 908 pairing
is not simply a final assessment or summary, but is itself pedagogical.
To that end, partimento technology offers yet another broad
generalization: the teaching tools of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries require the application of past experience (learned schemata)
while also creating new experiences on the scaffolding of those already-
learned patterns and their uses. As part of, or as a way of gauging, these
experiences, another component of the final project asks students to
assess the authorship problem of BWV 908 in a short paper, on the basis
of what they have learned throughout the quarter and by comparison
with the Sanctus prelude. Though outlining all the details here would
take us too far afield, the various connections discussed above among the
WTC, the Sanctus, BWV 908, the canonic realization of the ₇⁹ – – ₆⁸–₅, and
so forth indirectly constitute evidence of Bach’s authorship of BWV 908
on stylistic grounds. Maxim Serebrennikov has recently argued in the
pages of this journal for Bach’s authorship of both BWV 908 and 907
along similar lines, but specifically with regard to the style and structure
of the partimenti and their notation.36 In more compositional matters,
the same process outlined in my opening description of the Sanctus is
evident in the partimento-fantasia in the same key. For example, phrase
four in BWV 908 (ex. 2, mm. 18.4–23.3) begins as a slightly varied
35
The Compositional Process of J. S. Bach: A Study of the Autograph Scores of the Vocal
Works, vol. 1 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972), 144.
36
Serebrennikov, “Once Again on the Authorship of BWV 907 and BWV 908.”
 Byros 199

transposition of its main paradigm (mm. 3.4–6.3) to the key of the

dominant (mm. 18.4–21.2), but is extended to five measures through
(once again) three successive deviations: a series of feigned or evaded
cadences in A major, E minor, and D major. The deviations here involve
a second species of evaded cadence that Bach’s cousin and close friend
Johann Gottfried Walther defined as follows:
Cadence evitée [sic], feinte (French), cadenza sfuggita, finta (Italian) …
2.] When the bass does indeed make the leap of a fifth or fourth, but
the upper voices do not follow their normal path. Instead of necessarily
observing the major third in a proper cadence, rather a minor [weiche]
third is taken, and instead of a major sixth in a tenor cadence, a minor
sixth.37
The weiche transformations in BWV 908 occur at mm. 21.2, 21.4, and
22.2, with E minor, B minor, and A minor replacing expected dominants
in their respective semplice cadences: each expected leading tone is
“softened” to minor. This threefold repetition of a cadenza semplice-
finta before moving to a cadence is equivalent to the threefold repetition
of a Romanesca-finta, of sorts, in the Sanctus. The BWV 908 phrase
then closes with a transposition of its paradigm’s tail (mm. 5.2–6.3),
now to G major (mm. 22.2–23.3), in the same way that the Sanctus’s
Romanesca passage closes with a transposition of mm. 5–6 to B minor
(ex. 1). Many other examples may be added to this brief observation. But
pedagogically, assessing the authorship of BWV 908 as a final exercise in
the curriculum is my attempt to reinforce that the students’ Notenbüchlein
is a documentation of a virtual study with Bach across the centuries. The
flowers of their florilegium are tended in Bach’s garden.
In the end, “Bach in the music theory classroom” is about
operationalizing history—to view it, as Leo Treitler so eloquently put it,
not as the “pastness of our objects,” but
as a principle of knowledge[,] ... a wider context of practices,
conventions, assumptions, transmissions, receptions—in short a
musical culture, which serves to endow its constituent aspects with
meaning[,] … against the background of norms and models, stylistic
and semiotic codes, expectations and reactions, aesthetic ideals,
circumstances of transmission and reception. Not just the score is

37
Musikalisches Lexicon (Leipzig, 1732), s.v. cadence evitée [sic], table V, figure 3:
“2.] wenn zwar die Grund-Stimme den Quint- oder Quart-Sprung machet; die Ober-
Stimmen aber nicht das ihrige, und bei einer rechten Cadenz nöthige beobachten,
sondern, an statt der scharffen Terz, die weiche, und in tenorisirenden Cadenzen, an statt
der scharffen Sext, die weiche hören lassen.”
200 Bach

evidence for such analysis, but the scores of other music, manuscript
traditions, evidence about performance practice, the writings of
theorists and pedagogues, read in understanding of the nature of their
tasks, their readerships, and the style of their reasoning, critical writing,
chronicles, and more.38
R. G. Collingwood, one of Treitler’s influences, framed the problem in
terms of an “outside” and “inside” that belongs to every historical event:
essentially, the difference between the what and its why, the thing and its
thinking.39 Partimenti and the like, even musical scores for that matter, are
merely facts. They are not yet historical as Treitler might understand the
term. They are not yet artifacts. They are the directly observable “outside,”
in Collingwood’s terms. Teaching an HI curriculum is not about these
“outsides” but the “inside” to be unearthed from them, what Collingwood
deemed the “re-creating” and “re-enactment of past thought” and “past
experience.” For the “outside,” the directly observable, may remain
unchanged and subsist across the centuries, while the “inside” withers away.
Consider how much of Bach’s language may already have been lost
by the nineteenth century: Carl Czerny produced not only an edition of
BWV 907 and 908, but also his own realizations with a texture suitable
for fortepiano.40 Differences of media aside, his realization of the Fantasia
from BWV 908 (ex. 6a) betrays an unfamiliarity with Bach’s ₇⁹ –– ₆⁸–₅. Not
only is the canon absent, but Czerny completely ignores the passing fifth
in the pattern, notated as a sixth in the partimento, for example on the
weak parts of beats 2 and 4 in m. 4, because of the neighbor motion in the
bass. The fortepiano is not the issue here. Example 6b displays a fortepiano
realization (also suitable for clavichord or harpsichord) modeled on Bach’s
canonic treatment of the pattern. Czerny’s, on the other hand, is based on
the default voice-leading of the non-canonic variant (exs. 5c–d). While
the “outside” essentially remains unaltered in his edition of BWV 908,
which seems to be based on copies by C. G. Gerlach (B-Br Fétis 7327 C
Mus, Faszikel 6) and J. P. Kellner (D-B Mus. ms. Bach P 804, Faszikel 26),
elements of the “inside” are absent from Czerny’s realization.41 Similarly,

38
Music and the Historical Imagination (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1989), 47–48.
39
The Idea of History, revised edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
40
Compositions pour le piano-forte: sans et avec accompagnement par Jean Sebastien
Bach, Oeuvres complets Liv. 4 (Leipzig: au Bureau de Musique de C. F. Peters, [1839]),
58–61, 14–21 (Anhang), http://bcul.lib.uni.lodz.pl/dlibra/doccontent?id=826#.
41
On the sources for BWV 907 and 908, see https://www.bach-digital.de/content/
index.xed.
 Byros 201

in the nineteenth-century Bachgesellschaft edition of the continuo part

for the Sanctus of the Mass in B Minor published by Breitkopf and Härtel,
not only the canon of the ₇⁹ –– ₆⁸–₅ but even many of its basic suspensions
are notably absent (for example, the ninths on the downbeats of mm.
31–32).42 Even here, the solution lies not in the directly observable and
fully notated “outside” of the musical text, but in the broader “inside”
from which it derives—in Bach’s musical culture and its schemata.

Example 6. J. S. Bach, Fantasia in D Major from BWV 908, two realizations

a) Czerny (1839)
°3 # #
3

œœ œ œ œœ œ œ œ œ œœ œ œ œ œ œœ œœ œœœ ™ œ œ œ œœ™ j r œœ
° & # # œ. œœ œ™ œ œ œJ ™œ œ œœœ œœ œœœ ™ œ œ Jœ
œ œ rœ œ
a) & œ. œœ œœ œJ ™œ œ œœœcresc.œ œ J œ œ œœ œ œœ™ j œ œœ
œ™ œ œ™ œ œ™ œ J œ œ œ œœ œ r
a) ? # # ≈ œ œ œ œ J œœœœJ ≈œœœ œ œJ œ œ œ œ œ œdim. œ œ œ
dim.

≈ œ œ
¢? # œ œ œœ œœ œ œ œœ œœ œœ œ œœ œœ œœr
≈ œ œ œ œ. ≈ œ œ œ œ . ≈ œ œ œ œœœœœœœ œ œœœ
cresc.
œ
¢ # œ œ. œ. œ œœ
o e
œœ œœœœœœœ œœ
9u t 6t
9u 8y y 9u 8y y o e
6t 9u t 6t
9u 8y y 9u 8y y
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ M œ6t
b)3 author (2018)
° # # œœ œ œ œœ œ œ œ œŸ™ œ ≈ œ œ œ
œ fij œœ œ œ œ œœœ œ œœœ œ œ œ œœœ œ œœœ œ œ œ œœœ œ œ œ œœœ œ œ œ œ M
œfij
3&
° # # œœ œœ œ œ œ œœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œJ Rœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œRœœ œ œŸ™ œ ≈ œ œ œ
& œ œ œ œœ œœ œœ œ œ œ œœ œ œ
Rœ
œ
œ

b) J R
b) ? # # ≈ œ œ œ œ ≈œœœœ ≈œœœ œœœœœœœ œ œœœ
¢ œ œ œ œœ
œœœœœœœ œ œœœ
œœ œœœœœœœœ œ
?# ≈ œ œ œ œ ≈œœœœ ≈œœœ
¢ # œ œ œ œœ œœ œœœœœœœœ œ
9u 8y y 9u 8y y 9u t 6t o e 6t
9u 8y y 9u 8y y 9u t 6t o e 6t

Crafting a curriculum as a modern-day Notenbüchlein is my attempt

to give students a perspective on this “inside.” But the recovery and
operationalization of historical thought does not mean reconstructing
“the” realization of BWV 908, or “the” continuo part for the Sanctus. The
aim is, rather, a solution consistent with the style of Bach’s reasoning—as
Bach or a contemporary who speaks the language might have done it.
To give but one concrete example in the area of performance practice,
which I use with students to draw an analogy with theory, composition,

42
J. S. Bach, Messe, H-Moll: Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe Band 6, ed. Julius Rietz
(Leipzig: Breitkopf and Härtel, 1856). Reprinted by Edwin F. Kalmus (KM A2486).
There are other errors and stylistic inconsistencies: for example, m. 12.1 has a ⁶₅ incorrectly
realized over C#. Not only do the parts have a prominent seventh (B)—whose resolution
is transferred to the subsequent bass A—but that seventh is also part of the ascending
7–6 sequence.
202 Bach

and listening: the issue of whether the dotted rhythms in the Sanctus
are to be played straight or swung as notes inégales. Swinging them to
align with the surrounding triplets is certainly a default historical
interpretation. The dotted-eighth-plus-sixteenth was the standard way to
notate a quarter-plus-eighth rhythm in a triplet subdivision. A different
solution was given in the first HIP recording of the Mass in B Minor
by Nikolaus Harnoncourt in 1968: overdotting.43 Not only is this not a
default solution, but also, as Harnoncourt admits, precluded by Bach’s
slurs—and yet, it is a historically informed one nonetheless.44 To overdot
is to hear something of the stately and regal associations of the French
Overture style in the number, which is already suggested by the written-
out “overdotting” in Bach’s own timpani part—that 32nd note is already
prominently heard in the texture. In terms of topic theory, one might
say that the French Overture is troped, as Robert Hatten might put it,
₁₂
with a contredanse renotated from ₈ to common time.45 Swinging and
overdotting are competing interpretations, but both are HI—both
are historically available options. Philippe Herreweghe’s Collegium
Vocale Ghent swings, while Georg Christoph Biller chose overdotting
for the Freiburg Barockorchester performance at Bachfest 2013.46 Too
many proponents as well as critics of the HIP movement have labored
under a misapprehension, that the goal is to recover “the” way it was
done. In all matters HI, above any one single interpretation is the idea
of reconstructing a context for interpretation, through the customs,
conventions, and “musical commonplaces” of the past as a whole. Where
“Bach in the music theory classroom” is concerned, it’s about guiding
students through the streets of this “ancient city” in the Thomaskantor’s
shoes.
43
J. S. Bach, Mass in B Minor, with Vienna Concentus Musicus, Chorus Viennensis,
and Vienna Boys’ Choir, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, recorded 1968, Teldec Das
Alte Werk, 433468, 2008, compact disc.
44
Liner notes, cited in John Butt, Bach: Mass in B Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991), 40.
45
Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and Interpretation
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 170–71 and Interpreting Musical Gestures,
Topics, and Tropes: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
2004), 68–71.
46
J. S. Bach, Mass in B Minor, with Collegium Vocale Ghent, conducted by Philippe
Herreweghe, recorded 14-17 May 2011, Phi LPH004, 2011, compact disc and J. S. Bach,
Mass in B Minor, with the Leipzig Thomanerchor and the Freiburg Barockorchester,
conducted by Georg Christoph Biller, recorded 12 June 2013, Accentus ACC 10281,
blu-ray disc.
 Byros 203

Abstract
Over the past decade or so, historically informed theory, pedagogy,
and (more recently) composition have emerged fully as outgrowths of the
historically informed performance (HIP) movement, for which Bach’s
music has been instrumental. In this light, “Bach in the music theory
classroom” is a metaphor for a broader HI initiative, one where, in my
own teaching, historically informed theory (HIT) becomes the basis for
structuring a curriculum centered on period composition. In this article,
I discuss the materials, process, rationale, and philosophical implications
for a mini-curriculum that constitutes the first of a three-course HIT
sequence. My aim with this first leg is to change students’ thinking from
the “know-what” types of knowledge characteristic of present-day music
theory curricula to a “know-how” mind-set consistent with eighteenth-
century pedagogy.
The goals of music theory today approximate the reading knowledge
of a language acquired in graduate school. Enough about its syntax,
grammar, and vocabulary is learned to supply a translation, but without
ever acquiring the knowledge and experience to speak, think, or write in
the language itself. Score annotations and analyses, as ends in themselves,
are like metalinguistic translations. In Bach’s day, on the other hand,
music theory was the business of training musicians to speak the language,
on the performance-improvisation-composition continuum that defined
their daily activities. To implement a “know-how” curriculum in an
environment designed for “know-what,” however, is not without its
challenges, not least because of limited time and often resources.
I narrate how Bach himself offered me a solution through his own
music and pedagogical materials. Rather than throwing students into
the proverbial deep end, my mini-curriculum engages them actively and
continuously in creative work. The goal is not to compose a self-standing
composition, but to get students thinking in Bach’s language in terms of
musical schemata, the everyday patterns and conventions of Bach’s day.
I do so through a series of creative problem-solving activities that impart
knowledge of schemata, particularly as they are used in Bach’s hands.
Students are placed in Bach’s shoes as both a teacher and composer,
by exploring the connections and differences among Bach’s figured
basses from the Vorschriften und Grundsätze zum vierstimmigen spielen
des General-Bass, the partimento-preludes of the Langloz manuscript,
and certain preludes from the Well-Tempered Clavier as well as selected
fantasias. Through realization, analysis, and (class) composition exercises,
204 Bach

students encounter a number of recurring schemata as a familiar cast of

characters in these materials, all fashioned together into a modern-day
Notenbüchlein or zibaldone (musical notebook), which tells a story about
Bach’s schema usage—his compositional strategies employing schema
development, elision, nesting, extension, and expansion.
The story culminates with Bach’s unique canonic treatment of a
particular sequence, the ₇⁹ –
– ₆⁸–₅. After ten weeks, students are able to
realize a complex Bach partimento (BWV 908) and compose a continuo
part for the Sanctus of the Mass in B Minor, for which no figures survive.
These advanced creative problem-solving activities fill the last pages of
the students’ Notenbüchlein, which is organized nearly single-handedly
by Leipzig’s beloved Thomaskantor himself.