Exploring Counterpoint on the Guitar and Its Challenges

I’m very thrilled to speak to my guest today, guitarist, Nicola Pignatiello. He teaches at the Liceo Giordano Bruno in Rome and also at CESMI. This is the episode that all my guitarist audience members have been waiting for, and we will be diving deep into the topic of partimento on the guitar. He has recorded some really beautiful partimento realizations on the guitar that have received very positive responses from the partimento community and we will talk further about realizing partimenti on the guitar.

0:46 Background 1:41 Did you start with Classical Guitar? 2:07 Joining the conservatory at 15 3:08 What were your musical influences while growing up? 4:10 Was it 10 years of Conservatory? 4:25 Did you see yourself as a concert artist? 5:04 When did you discover Partimento? 5:50 Why did you take lessons with Enrico Baiano? 6:39 What recordings of Baiano did you like? 7:13 What happened in the lessons with Enrico Baiano? 8:01 What year was it when you discovered Partimento? 8:52 What made you think about combining partimento with the guitar? 10:53 How did you begin your development in partimento in 2005-2012? 13:47 When did people start playing 6-string guitars? 15:15 When in the 18th century did the 6-string guitar appear? 15:56 Fernando Sor, Mauro Giuliani and Ferdinando Carulli as representative of the 18th century style 17:35 What are the similarities between the Lute and the Guitar? 19:31 Were people realizing basso continuo on the baroque guitar or lute with strumming? 20:37 Why did you pick Giuliani and Carulli as models for partimento? 22:25 Solfeggi 22:48 What was in Giuliani’s style that had traces of the partimento lineage? 24:38 Mauro Giuliani outselling Beethoven’s piano sonatas 26:57 Does counterpoint easy to realize on the guitar? 28:41 Do you have to compensate when doing the Rule of the Octave on guitar? 30:15 How should someone start learning partimento on the guitar? 31:24 How similar are the different Rule of Octave versions among the 18th century guitar treatises 32:12 On having to transpose partimenti into more guitaristic keys 33:29 How do you prevent bad counterpoint on the guitar? 34:25 Cadences on the guitar? 36:14 When realizing figured bass, did the baroque guitar strum or using 3 voice textures? 36:51 Is that the same on the Classical guitar? 37:15 Learning with chord symbols on the guitar 39:00 Where Chord symbols originated from 40:26 Did they tolerate parallelism in guitar-type instruments because of the way they are constructed? 42:04 Did Fernando Sor have a method book? 42:52 What about dissonances on the guitar in partimento? 43:58 Bass Motions on the guitar 45:29 Nicola plays more Bass Motion examples 46:19 Bass Motions - Up a 4th down a 5th 47:06 Why is the guitar notated in treble clef? 48:00 What are some good treatises and manuscripts that would be relevant for partimento on the guitar? 48:43 Should we keep it to 2 voices on the guitar? 50:27 Is it heresy to try all these things on a non-classical guitar? 51:14 Can partimento be improvised on the guitar? 52:46 Free improvisation and composition on the guitar 53:52 How would you teach a young kid in the partimento-style of music education on guitar? 55:23 What about reading chords on the guitar in terms of Figured bass? 56:35 What about improvising on a very simple bass, how does that sound on the guitar? 59:24 How many ways can I color a simple progression on the guitar? 1:00:40 How do you development diminution on the guitar? 1:02:58 On the partimento bass lines being too difficult to realize on the guitar 1:04:41 How have your classical guitar colleagues reacted to your partimento realizations on the guitar? 1:05:51 What do you make of the rise in popularity in partimento over the last 2 years? 1:06:52 What do you think about South American classical guitar? 1:09:20 How do you analyze classical guitar literature? 1:10:59 Do you write figures or arabic numerals in circles when analyzing? 1:11:16 On the lack of historic models in realizing partimento on the guitar unlike the keyboard and the general difficulty 1:13:21 Felix Horetzky 1:13:57 Can you recommend any historically-informed classical guitarists? 1:15:47 On the passing of Julian Bream 1:17:06 Flamenco Guitar 1:18:21 Discussing Chord symbols and their related hand shapes 1:25:03 Wrapping Up