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Partimento has emerged as a significant topic of discussion, contributing to substantial changes in the landscape of music theory over the past few decades, and it is today seen as one of the clearest signs that older rule-based strategies of learning are under revision: they are gradually being replaced by historically informed methods by integrating improvisational strategies of learning into traditionally written subjects, such as Renaissance counterpoint, fugue, and harmony. So, how did we get to this point in the late twentieth century?

The decline of improvisational pedagogy took place in the nineteenth century and can be attributed to several factors, including the rise of the work concept, the popularity of public concerts and concert halls, for a growing centrality for nationalistically oriented musicology, and baroque, classical, and romantic composers in general. This shift also marked a significant transition in music pedagogy: the traditional methods of professional apprenticeship through ear-based and improvisatory methods, learned at the keyboard from an experienced maestro, were gradually replaced by a more scientifically oriented fundamental bass approach taught to skilled amateurs through harmony books in classes at a university or Hochschule. This democratization of music education (yes, this was the positive side of these developments) led to the gradual decline of learning through improvisation. Improvised clichés, once prevalent in eighteenth-century masses and psalm settings for the sacred liturgy, were replaced by new compositional strategies. Worn-out clichés became skillfully disguised into instrumental masterpieces intended for public performance.

These changes had a significant impact on music theory curricula, especially in the twentieth century. Previously, our focus had primarily been on the mechanical labeling of chords in four-part chorales, strict adherence to rule-based harmony textbooks, and the study of counterpoint in line with Fux’s tradition. Times have changed: while the German romantic theory tradition focused on four-part harmony, drawing inspiration from Johann Sebastian Bach’s chorale settings, the more modern approach to integrating improvisatory learning in three-part counterpoint on the keyboard, takes its model in the Corellian trio-sonata style.

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This keynote lecture comments on the implication of these new developments in music theory. The Neapolitan methods of partimento are here explained with the help of photos of partimento manuscripts, and we will reflect upon the question of how improvisatory pedagogy can be integrated into our modern theory classroom.