Realization (figured bass)

Realization is the art of creating music, typically an accompaniment, from a figured bass, whether by improvisation in real time, or as a detained exercise in writing.

Competent performers of the era were expected to realize a stylistically appropriate accompaniment from a mere harmonic sketch, called a figured bass, and to do it at sight.

To realize a figured bass by writing down the actual notes to be played was (and is) a traditional exercise for students learning harmony and composition, and is used by music editors to make performing editions.

The realizer, while usually following the harmonic scheme indicated in the figuring, has a choice on such matters as rhythmic effect, chordal spacing, ornamentation, arpeggiation, imitation and counterpoint,[13] limited only by sound judgement and good taste,[14][15] and adherence to the genre's voice leading rules and stylistic conventions — ideally, those of the composer's time and place.

Bach:When the continuo is not doubled by other instruments, and the nature of the piece permits it, the accompanist may make impromptu modifications in the bass line with a view to securing correct and smooth progressions of the inner parts, just as he would modify faulty figuring.

[18] Accompaniments improvised from a figured bass line can be made to suit varying circumstances e.g. tempi, instrumentation, and even the hall acoustics.

An accompanist who can give rhythmic impetus to his part, adapt it to the momentary requirements of balance and sonority, thicken it here and thin it there, and keep every bar alive, can stimulate his colleagues and help to carry the entire ensemble along.

If the tradition of improvisation from a figured bass were not lost, this would not be so serious, but to most people now, until a worked-out edition is available, these cold, unfilled-in lines mean nothing, and the incredible beauty and vitality, and infinite variety of these hundreds of songs go undiscovered.

[30] Keyboard accompaniments (e.g. harpsichord or organ) were meant to be spontaneously realized from the figured bass notation, the performer filling in the harmonic sketch as he went along.

[33] Though keyboards have received most attention in the literature, there is abundant evidence the harmony was often realized by hand-plucked instruments e.g. lute, theorbo, guitar or harp (Exs.

[8] Praetorius recommended a judicious selection of trombones, regals, flutes, violins, cornetts, recorders, "or a boy may sing the top line of all".

This means that an intelligent accompanist does not need figures — and also signifies that no limits are imposed on his harmonic or contrapuntal invention, since it is assumed that he knows his profession and that he has taste and discretion.

[47] The London publisher John Walsh — who sometimes passed off spurious pieces as and for the works of Corelli, Handel or Telemann — routinely issued his productions with figured basses.

"Indeed, the chief consumers of the sonatas of Corelli and his imitators were not professional musicians but rather the gentlemen members of amateur music clubs.

Some amateurs were outstanding, wrote Mary Cyr:David Hennebelle's recent research has shown that the status of 'amateur' was itself a broad one, defined principally as a group of both listeners and practitioners, united by the fact that they did not make their living in musical employment.

[51] For fashionable young ladies who only wanted to acquire the art as a social skill, there were tutors that taught a quick pragmatic way to play a continuo — of sorts.

[62] That year American harpsichordist and musicologist Putnam Aldrich tried to revive the practice at a Pierre Monteux rehearsal of "absolutely authentic" Bach:I began straightaway realizing the figured bass of the opening tutti.

Their 1948 Kingsway Hall concerts were the highlights of the London season; audiences, reported Adolf Aber, felt here, at last, was the music of Bach and Handel as it was meant to be performed.To come straight to the point: the fundamental difference between a Busch performance and a 'normal' modern performance lies in the treatment of that one line, the basso continuo[65] even though it had no pretence to be historically informed[66] — just plain, unobtrusive chords on a grand piano sounded by Rudolf Serkin[67] which may or may not have been written down in advance.

[70] In 1931 Franck Thomas Arnold, who like Dolmetsch was a self-taught scholar,[72] published his pioneeringThe Art of Accompaniment from a Thorough-bass: As Practised in the XVIIth & XVIIIth Centuries.

[73] Highly acclaimed by scholars and critics[74] — Ernest Newman said it was "the finest piece of musicography ever produced" in England[75] — Arnold's book was studied by a new breed of historically informed scholar-performers, including American Ralph Kirkpatrick[76] and Janny van Wering[77] and Ton Koopman[78] in the Netherlands.

[82] Under his direction the Conservatorium van Amsterdam abolished the written paper requiring the realization of a figured bass line, in favour of a practical one.

Towards the end of the Baroque era, wrote Ernio Stipčević the performance of the basso continuo became increasingly demanding with time, [and] the players were expected to possess more and more improvisational competence.

[96] To refute this, in 1870 Chrysander published an edition of Handel songs in which the figured basses were realized by indisputably talented musicians, including Johannes Brahms — one of their supporters.

The contending 'Hegelian' school believed that deep historical laws ensured that art manifested itself in increasingly perfect forms, and so early music ought to be modernised for present-day audiences.

[99] This dichotomy meant that, for generations after its revival, either Bach's music was published without any realizations,[58] — often being performed with no continuo at all, therefore[59] — or else with historically inauthentic realizations, criticised for being "purely fantastic",[100] "strangely unreal",[58] "ruthlessly corrupted",[101] "heavy, pianistic, and with a strangely nineteenth-century flavour", [102] just "a few dull chords",[23] or as conceited, pushy, usurping the composer's function.

Already this dilemma had been faced by Brahms, who believed that "[ideally] each individual realization should be made with a view to a particular performance, taking into account specific forces, instruments, and location.

Bach's pupils were routinely given a single melody line with a figured bass and told to realize a four-part chorale.

)[108] However, after the Baroque era — when basso continuo was employed no longer — the original purpose was lost sight of, since these educational methods had acquired a momentum of their own, carried on anyway by sheer inertia.

[109] Realizing a figured bass was a routine exam question;[109] marks were impartially deducted for academic faults regardless of their artistic significance, if any.

[110] George Bernard Shaw recalled having to do those exercises:"Seventy years ago I filled up the figured basses in Stainer's textbook of harmony[111] quite correctly.