An Extract From . . .

Fedele Fenaroli

Studj, o sia Scuola di contrapunto del Signor Don Fedele Fenaroli per uso de

Ferdinando Sebastiani

Naples: Naples Conservatory Library, MS 22.1.23, pp. 4–5

Fenaroli taught systematically. He was the first to arrange books of partimenti by level of difficulty, the first master in Naples to publish his book of rules, and the first Neapolitan master to have his partimenti published in Paris. When he taught counterpoint, he used the same (or a similar) set of basses and melodies as the given voices against which students would set counterpoints. The set of basses displayed on the following page was used by the student Ferdinando Sebastiani in his studies with Fenaroli or Fenaroli's assistants. Vincenzo Lavigna studied counterpoint first with a Fenaroli assistant and then with the master himself (see Counterpoint>Collections). His lessons were organized along a similar set of movimenti ("bass motions"). These bass motions were cues to contrapuntal schemas that the student would explore while setting several counterpoints against each of the basses.

Rises by a 3rd and falls by a step

Falls by a 3rd and rises by a step

Rises by a 4th and falls by a 3rd

Falls by a 4th and rises by a step

Rises by a 4th and falls by a 5th

Falls by a 5th and rises by a 4th

Rises by a 6th and falls by a 5th

Rises by a 5th and falls by a 4th

Falls by semitone

Rises by semitone

Falls with ties

1.

4.

3.

5.

6

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

2.

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