Group Courses
Unfortunately, there are no open courses at the moment. You can check past editions below:
[CLOSED] Introduction to Partimento and Historical Improvisation (1st semester of 2025)
Held entirely online during the first semester of 2025, this course was aimed at Portuguese-speaking keyboardists and included students from Brazil and Portugal. Throughout the course, students practiced various patterns characteristic of partimento and basso continuo, and engaged in the improvisation of genres such as two-voice inventions, minuets, fugues, and romantic preludes. The full syllabus can be viewed below:
Course Syllabus
Objectives and Methodology
The course aims to present a practical introduction to the pedagogical approach of partimenti through the study of contrapuntal schemata fundamental to the musical language of the 18th and 19th centuries. It seeks to develop the students’ abilities to: realize partimenti independently; improvise and compose short pieces using schemata; recognize the studied patterns by ear and identify them in the repertoire; and build a vocabulary useful for musical analysis.
Our methodology is historically inspired and emphasizes hands-on engagement with the content, through the assimilation of schemata by listening and imitation; encouraging the creation of diminutions and variations on the patterns; realization in class of partimenti drawn from historical sources and original examples; improvisation based on pre-existing structures; and creative exercises involving student interaction.
Program Content
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Figured bass/partimento notation
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Basic principles for partimento realization
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Consonances and dissonances in the 18th- and 19th-century context
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Counterpoint in 3rds and 6ths
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Melodic cadences (cantizans, tenorizans, basizans, altizans) and their contrapuntal properties
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Partimento cadences: simple, compound, double, and deceptive
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Sequential bass motions: Romanesca, 7–6 and 2–3 sequences, circle of fifths, etc.
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Other schemata patterns: Prinner, Fonte, Monte, Do-Re-Mi, etc.
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The Rule of the Octave and its cadential modules
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Patterns of double and imitative counterpoint
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Improvisation of simple two-voice minuets
Instructors: