Minor key series, part 13 (partimento)

This post is the second about partimenti by Francesco Durante. Here was the first one: link.

The progressions I used in the earlier post were short formulas; this is an entire binary-form composition of more than 50 bars. There are four elements: A1, bars 1-15, PAC in E minor; A2, bars 16-28, PAC in E minor; B1, bars 29-42, PAC in A minor; B2, bars 43-54, PAC in A minor.  Here it is on the Monuments of Partimenti website, among a rather large number of examples with first inversion seventh chords (6/5s): link.

In the first section, it is easy to hear a middleground upper voice descending from ^5, interrupted in the cadence:

For my detailed example, I will use the final section (B2, bars 43-54). An almost entirely stepwise melodic line comfortably fits Durante's bass, although I took one liberty in assuming iv6 rather than VI in bar 50:

And that same line can as easily be "re-routed" at the end to achieve a rising line. The only additional digression from Durante's figures is critical, however: F5 becomes F# at the end of bar 51. I don't regard this as an obstacle, as (assuming the transcription is correct) the figures in the partimento are obviously incomplete: the student experienced enough to realize this piece effectively would surely also have the ability to make (presumably small) adjustments in improvisation/performance.

Here are the final five measures realized in three voices.

At first glance, an incomplete line (or what I have elsewhere called a "primitive line") fits with the bass of figure g (that is, i-i6-iiø6/5-V-i), but neither i6 nor iiø6/5 support a tone at the same level as the others.

A better, musically more satisfying solution gives due prominence to the subdominant in both its minor and major forms. Underlying this is a simpler variant of figure b (with IV, not IV followed by ii).

Minor key series, part 7 (progression g and partimento)

Francesco Durante, "an eighteenth-century composer from the J. S. Bach generation, was perhaps the central figure in the partimento tradition" (Robert Gjerdingen in Monuments of Partimenti, entry: Francesco Durante). Link to the Monuments home page: link. For definition, description, and illustration of partimento pedagogy, see this page on the site: link.

Simple cadences include a 4-3 suspension over the dominant. Double cadences add a prior 6/4: see the example below (link to it on the Durante pages).

The force of the three downward resolving suspensions (9-8, 7-6, and 4-#) makes a rising motion in the cadence very difficult indeed, especially in the minor key, as here. A simple realization in four parts might look like this:

Rearranging the parts (alto becomes soprano, soprano becomes tenor) is no better from the standpoint of a rising line:

Still another version, this time in three voices, highlights the problem of the natural-^6: see the bracketed notes.

It must be said that the double cadence seems quite old-fashioned for the 18th century: it was a staple of sacred music in the 16th century (the progression above sounds far more like Palestrina than it does Corelli) and probably survived mostly because of the needs of that genre in the 18th century (which, oddly, was more conservative than it had been through much of the 17th century).

Among Durante's simple cadences is one that looks much more typical of 18th century practice: (link)

A realization of this progression makes a rising line more manageable. In three voices, it's difficult to realize the iiø6/5 -- I've left it as a simple subdominant triad in this version.

Here is another attempt, in which the correct subdominant type does appear. Putting a 6/4 on the first beat of the second bar might make for a bit smoother inner voice.

This last progression above does fit Durante's bass correctly, but neither of my two realizations quite matches figure g (reproduced below). 

Here are two further versions trying to reconcile Durante's bass and figure g, again in three voices. At (a), the awkward tritone (C3 in the bass, then F#4 in the treble) is prominent, but in fact it's not an anomaly in minor-key pieces. I am more concerned about the similar motion in all parts from the D major to E major triad. At (b), that problem is solved, and the "structural alto" for many rising lines "magically" appears: ^3-^-2^1, as C4-B3-A3.

Minor key series, part 1--introduction

The minor key poses obstacles to rising cadence gestures. Not surprisingly, then, I have found only a few compositions with convincing linear ascents in the structural close, and even fewer still with an overarching line of the traditional Schenkerian sort.

A series of posts beginning with this one will examine the problem of the minor key from a mostly traditional Schenkerian point of view and in that small repertoire of compositions that includes 17th and early 18th century music relying on the Dorian octave, two remarkable pieces by François Couperin, and two anomalous 19th century compositions by Beethoven and Hugo Wolf.

The ascending Urlinie is most likely from ^5, and what I should perhaps call the "mirror Urlinie" takes the form ^8 down to ^5 then up again to ^8. Here are versions in both major and minor keys:

The simplest ascending form in the minor key uses the raised ^6 and ^7. With I-V-I only, ^#6 is either part of a ^5-^6 figure over I (as in "a" below) or a passing tone over V (as in "c" below). Example "b" shows how S chords can be introduced by elaboration of the version in "a".

An ascending line with the natural-^6 poses obvious problems:

At "x" the augmented second is prominent; although one can find such scale figures in compositions, positioning in a structural cadence is unlikely. At "y" the augmented second is mitigated by one of the variant forms I discuss in my JMT article (1987), but as "z" shows it is very hard to get rid of the sense of the natural ^6 as a neighbor note rather than a scale step rising to ^#7.

A graphic with fourteen ascending figures may be found here: link.  The series will follow the sequence of these figures, with examples from compositions, though I admit that only a few of them are consequential [the majority are hypothetical--I haven't found them in pieces] and in fact the first set will be counter-examples from Schubert. At the end of the series, I will add posts with a couple additional counter-examples (from Beethoven and Offenbach) and other posts with historical context about the Dorian octave, the examples coming mainly from Praetorius and Eyck.