DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

The Langloz Manuscript

Fugal Improvisation through Figured Bass

William Renwick author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:15th Mar '01

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The Langloz Manuscript cover

What sorts of processes were going through the mind of J.S. Bach as he improvised a fugue in three, four, or even six parts? And what sort of training equipped an organist of the early eighteenth century to practise the art of accompaniment and improvisation successfully? The practical method which linked keyboard technique, improvisation, performance, and composition in a continuum was the thoroughbass, the centre of the Baroque musicians art. The Langloz Manuscript, originating in the era and proximity of Bach's region of activity, and containing the largest extant collection of figured bass fugues, provides a window into this very process, and demonstrates more clearly than any words can the method by which the art of thoroughbass provided a foundation for extemporised fugue. The present edition is the first publication of this manuscript.

William Renwick has edited these pieces as scrupulously as one could wish, and supplied them with a very sensible commentary * Music and Letters *
Renwick accompanies a clear, well-laid out edition with a scholarly introductory essay * Early Music Today *
Four excellent introductory chapters ... The book is a valuable scholarly document, but it also has its use in the practical teaching of baroque keyboard playing * Early Music Review *

ISBN: 9780198167297

Dimensions: 254mm x 195mm x 17mm

Weight: 606g

208 pages