Individual pages from
Five Sample Baroque Drafts
Notes
Presented here is a set of five individual pdf. sample pages, drawn from a 1966
collection of photocopied pencil and/or ink scores. These pages have been
extracted from class
projects for an upper division Baroque Counterpoint course, offered by the
University of Michigan School of Music's theory department. The first example
begins with four separate iterations of a free four-measure ostinato, written in
three- and four-voice counterpoint; the original score is in pencil and neatly
rendered here, unlike other scores from so called working (i.e. 'rough') copies.
The four other Baroque score pages present specimens of
additional structures: a fugue in three voices, presented in a rough pencil
draft, followed by a derivative version in four voice counterpoint, notated in
a clean hand copied manuscript; a chaconne in four voices (or passacaglia);
and a sinfonia, in this instance a three voice fugue, ending with a four voice three measure
conclusion in frei-stimmigkeit, or 'free voicing'.
.
The music professor who taught the course guided a select gathering of advanced
theory students for a full semester of study. He was a gentle, soft spoken
individual, Dr. Wallace Berry (1928-1991), a music theorist and composer who
served as a member of the university faculty; in later years he taught at the University of
British Columbia.* As a class offering, the assembled students were assigned
sequential formal structures to emulate, one by one, after due study of classic
examples, as found in Johann Sebastian Bach's Two Part Inventions and Three Part
Sinfonias for clavier . . . and elsewhere.
.
.
The 21st Century has outdated hand copied music, but software and electronic
transfer remedies will simplify the process, but they will also present challenges for music copyists
in particular: neither hand nor computer generated scores are prepared without
determination – and also a patient dedication of oneself to a noble challenge.
*See:
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/wallace-berry-emc
Select from
the listings below:
one PDF sample page is provided from each title below
.
→
First sample:
Four 18th Century Baroque Ostinati a 3 & 4 (in a clean copy)
→
Second sample: Fugue
a 3 (in rough draft format),
and a derivative third booklet:
→
Third sample: Fugue
a 4 (in a clean notation)
→
Fourth sample: Chaconne a 4 (in
a clean copy)
→
Fifth sample: Sinfonia a 3
(in a tightly condensed copy)
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