A P P E N D I X B: PARTIMENTI 467

The best match for ending A is the cadenza co mpo sta, with the partimento's octave
leap from upper to lower ® aligning with the similar leap in the model. Note that even
though the meter of A differs from the model, the upper parts of the model can easily be
mapped onto the partimento. The best match for ending B is the cadenza semplice. And
the best match for ending C is the cadenza do ppia, with its four beats on (D aligning with
the model's whole-note ® and the four chords above it. Even for children, the matching
would be "child's play ." A more advanced student might recognize, for example, that end-
ing B includes two instances of the cadenza lunga or "Long cadence" of Sala, with the first
one likely to have some form of evasion in the melody . But a beginner, lacking perhaps
that broader understanding, could still perform the passage correctly by mapping onto it
two instances of the cadenza semplice.
The recognition of a best match depends on a holistic evaluation of all the musical
features. For instance, in a fast tempo, the bass of example 6.3 matches the cadenza sem-
plice with the standard (D-®-®-® bass. But in a slow tempo none of the three basic
cadences would be a good fit. Instead, the passage would match the descending form of
the "Rule of the Octave."

EX. B . 3
The Rule of the Octave
Presto O cadenza semplice; Largo <5> Rule of the Octave

Robert Gjerdingen
Music in the Galant Style (2007)

The Rule of the Octave for a y oung musician, like the Rule of St. Benedict for a
monastic novice, was really a collection of rules woven together into a code of conduct.
The many component parts of the Rule of the Octave had diverse histories, and Heinichen
(1711), as mentioned in chapter i, treated what he called this "schema" for the major or
minor modes as a combination of several two-note contexts. The Rule itself could vary
when taught by different maestros in different cities and decades. So to avoid a level of
detail better treated in specialist studies, 2 1 present below a sy nchronic, sy stematized, and
slightly idealized exposition of the Rule, conforming in the main to what students in the
Neapolitan conservatories would have absorbed from their teachers.
The diagram below (fig. B.i) shows an abstraction of how eighteenth-century musi-
cians may have conceptualized the relative stability or instability of the different scale
degrees across an octave in the bass. The dark boxes represent positions deemed stable
points of arrival, and the light circles indicate positions felt to be unstable and more
468 MUSIC IN THE GALANT STYLE

mobile. As a first approximation of the Rule of the Octave, we can assign the stable scale
degrees 5/3 chords (i.e., play simple triads on (D and (D) and the unstable degrees some
form of a chord with a 6, perhaps 6/3 . This simplified version highlights the great conti-
nuity in the traditions of Western European poly phonic music, inasmuch as the associa-
tion of an "imperfect" sixth with instability and a "perfect" fifth with stability was a central
feature of fifteenth-century traditions of improvised fauxbo urdo n singing in cathedrals, a
tradition believed to have survived until at least the seventeenth century .

F I G U R E B.I A first approximation of the Rule of the Octave

Like the melodic minor scale, the Rule of the Octave is not quite the same ascending
and descending. So for a closer approximation to real practice, let us examine movement
up and down separately . Figure B.2 shows the ascending version. Dissonances (the starred
clashes between an adjacent "6" and "5") were added to the scale degrees that precede
the stable positions. So as one ascends the scale in the bass, maximum instability comes
just before a return to stability :

F I G U R E B.2 A second approximation—the Rule ascending

The same general principle of maximum instability coming just before the return to
stability applies when descending, though the dissonances are now between a "4" and a
"3 " (see fig. 6.3 ). In the descent from © to ®, the tone corresponding to the "6" above ®
is raised a half step to create a leading tone (Ftf in a C-major context) to the stable octave
above (D, thus giving scale degrees ® and © the same sonority .
 APPENDIX B: PARTIMENTI 469

F I G U R E 8.3 A second approximation —the Rule descending

There is still one more complication. The third scale degree was deemed partly sta-
ble, partly mobile. Following the principle of dissonance preceding stability , musicians
often added a "4/3 " dissonance to a rising (D, and almost alway s added a "4/2" dissonance
to a <D passing in descent between ® and ® (see fig. 8.4). The Rule of the Octave is thus
not a fixed set of chords, but rather a summary of central tendencies in the fluid and highly
contingent practices of eighteenth-century musicians.

F I G U R E 8.4 A third approximation —the approach to (D

The Neapolitan maestro Giovanni Furno (1748-183 7), in a discussion titled Rego le
delle co rdi del to no [The Rules of Scale Steps],3 detailed further, more particular contin-
gencies relating to departures from scalar movement. Example 6.4 on the following page
shows one of Furno's partimenti for the rank beginner. As y ou can see, cadences and scalar
passages account for all but the opening gesture. I have marked with asterisks three depar-
tures from the normal Rule of the Octave. For the first ty pe (cf. m. 5), Furno recom-
mended a 5/3 chord where ® has not continued a descent from (D. This adjustment
matches the Prinner. For the second ty pe (cf. m. 6), he recommended a 5/3 chord where
® does not descend to ®. This matches the cadenza lunga ("Long cadence"). And for the
third ty pe (cf. m. 7), he recommended a 5/3 chord where ® does not ascend to ®. This
matches the cadenza finta ("deceptive cadence"). In his treatise Furno never mentions
these larger contexts, though his partimenti suggest that knowledge of them was assumed.
I present one of the many possible realizations of this small partimento in example 6.5.