124: Massimiliano Guido

I’m delighted to introduce my guest today, Professor Massimiliano Guido, he is an expert in the fields of historical performance practice and improvisation. He is the editor of the book "Studies in Historical Improvisation: From Cantare Super Librum to Partimento" and he is going to talk to me today about a wide range of topics including counterpoint, partimento, music theory, music history, and much more!

0:43 What is your background? 2:46 Did you improvise at the beginning? 6:06 Did you learn any theory on the way to being a performer? 7:36 When did you switch to more historically informed methods? 9:01 What was the theoretical basis to Professor Bellotti’s approach? 10:51 Girolamo Diruta 15:04 Claudio Merulo 18:46 How did think about keys, modes and tonality back then? 23:17 Is it fixed that certain modes fit to certain points in the Catholic Mass? 28:20 The massive amount of melodies in the Liber Usualis 29:46 What is a vesper? 30:48 What do you mean by Seicento? 33:17 How have these older, historical methods of counterpoint instructed affected your students? 38:20 How difficult did the counterpoint go in terms of singing? 39:40 What skills do you get out of learning these older methods that can be applied to today? 41:48 H.A.B. Crawford’s trenchant quote 44:23 How would free composition been taught historically? 48:26 What are steps someone should take toward learning to improvise canons and fugues? 52:34 Do I have to know the terms like Tenorizans and Cantizans? 53:24 Bernardo Pasquini 54:22 What do you mean by Frescobaldi pushing the system to it’s limits 57:41 William Porter 1:00:34 Giorgio Sanguinetti and Partimento 1:02:17 Do these traditional methods stem out of the Catholic Church rather than Nationalism? 1:04:26 How did the Reformation and Counter-reformation affect the music of the period? 1:08:23 Who are your favorite composers for keyboard and organ from the late Renaissance? 1:12:25 Are there any composers that have been unjustly ignored but should be really known better? 1:16:41 Who are some historically informed performers that you like? 1:19:36 What tuning and temperaments do you feel are appropriate for the late Renaissance? 1:22:17 What do you make of Tonal Harmony, Chordal invertibility, Roman Numerals and function theory? 1:26:10 Future Projects 1:27:59 Wrapping Up