BMus 2 Harmony & Counterpoint — Harmonic procedures from Peter Allsop ‘Arcangelo Corelli New Orpheus of Our Times’ 8! 5. THE FREE SONATAS 4 3 (1) 6 This reliance on relatively few harmonic formulas-as basic compositional devices allowed {for ready classification and codification into a consistent harmonic system, which could then be easily imparted. Such a systemization was undertaken by Francesco Gasparini in his influential treatise L’armonico pratico al cimbalo, published in Rome in 1708, @ work of direct relevance to Corelli's own teaching, for it describes the harmonic practice of his master’s works ‘This is practised by good modern composers and it is found particularly in the most delightful Sinfonias of Arcangelo Corelli, greatest virtuoso of the violin, true Orpheus of our times, who with so much art~ fulness, diligence, and delight, moves and harmonises his bases with similar ligatures and dissonances so ‘well regulated and resolved, and so well intertwined with a variety of subjects, that one may well say thathe invented the perfection ofa harmony that enraptures. Much could be said here ifit did not divert ‘our purpose, or if | might not be blamed for having but little intelligence, advancing myself to speak of him who is so greatly celebrated by reputation and by his most diligent work. He who however will take to exercise himself above the basses of his compositions will take from them a notable profit and he will receive the greatest practice in every sort of accompaniment.2* Gasparini’s practical manual identifies the elementary harmonic procedures that underlie much of Corelli's Op. 1, which while remarkably few in number offer endless potentiality for elaboration. Chief of these are: 1. 7-6 suspensions over a descending scale in the bass “When descending stepwise in white notes, give the first a fifth and then a sixth, and to all the others a seventh resolved with the natural sixth, but last must always be a major sixth’ (. ggB 26) 2. $/3-6/3 chords over a rising scale in the bass “When notes ascend by step, seeing that two perfect consonances of the same kind are pro- hibited in parallel motion, one can play a sixth after each fifth, thus avoiding the progres sion of two fifths” (p. 26). 3. 6/5—5/3 over a bass falling a third and rising a second Gasparini, ex. 85. 4. Consecutive sevenths over a bass of rising fourths and falling fifths “fall except the first, which begins the series of leaps, and the last, which terminates them have the seventh added, it will be very effective” (p. 33). 5. 4/2 chords ‘when the bass is tied or syncopated’ (p. 49) 6. Ninth suspensions over a bass rising either a second or a fourth Gasparini, ex. 108. 7. Stereotyped cadential patterns Gasparini, ch. VI, ‘How to Make Cadences of all Kinds’. In Op. 1, procedures 1-3 predominate, whereas in later collections procedures 4-6 become increasingly important. The example of Corellis works, together with the theoretical expo- sitions of Gasparini, provided the basic harmonic method of ensuing generations. Despite Hawkins’s disparaging remark that Corelli's Op. 1 was ‘but an essay towards the perfection to which he afterwards arrived; there is but little art and Jess invention in it’,?? its 2% Fac. eda (New Vouk 967); ane FS Sullifnd DL: Burows 8 The Pata Harmon at he Keyboard (NewHaven 1989) 2 A Gana Hi of he Sie an Pate of Ter ed C-Cusbworth (New Yoo 1963): 477