In recommending models for a live fantasia in his Systematische Anleitung zum Fantasieren of 1829 (Vienna: Diabelli), Carl Czerny lists pieces by Mozart, Clementi, Hummel, Kalkbrenner, Beethoven, Dussek and himself. Is this merely a post-classical pianist-composer-teacher gesturing towards esteemed classics and contemporaries? Does Czerny's list show how his period ears listened to improvisation? What can improvisation tell us about continuity and change from late eighteenth-century norms into the early nineteenth century?
Gianmario Borio and Angela Carone's edited volume explores the final chapter of improvisation as a central feature of European art music prior to the age of recording. This final chapter came just before the decline of improvisatory practices, a process explored in detail in Dana Gooley's seminal recent monograph, Fantasies of Improvisation: Free Playing in Nineteenth-Century Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). The present volume demonstrates the usefulness of a synergy of historical research, music analysis and interpretation in speculating on historical improvisation. Though scholars and performance practitioners no longer make naive claims for ‘improvising authentically as Beethoven and Hummel would have’, the documentary traces of improvisation invite colloquies such as the one under review. As the editors’ Introduction states, the boundaries between composition and improvisation were porous in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: this is supported by performance treatises, historical documents (for instance, performers’ written-out embellishments) and compositions in genres including preludes and fantasias. Though improvisatory ‘open forms’ defy classical principles of form typical of fixed compositions, some notated fantasias, such as those of Hummel or Schubert's ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy, intermingle conventional forms and improvisatory freedom: they parallel some of the more ambitious improvisations performed in early nineteenth-century concerts.
In ‘Formal Elements of Instrumental Improvisation: Evidence from Written Documentation, 1770–1840’ Angela Carone surveys such improvisatory practices as preluding, fantasizing, or extemporizing variations and fugues. Carone observes that forms in improvisation became more clearly defined as the make-up of concert audiences shifted from aristocratic to bourgeois: improvisation became a kind of public display, often ending concert programmes. Improvisations that elicited positive critical response developed musical materials as in a sonata or a fugue. (The shifts in concert life and changing audience and critical reactions are explored in detail in Gooley's monograph.) Carone thus introduces several threads for the collection: the difference between ‘true’ improvising and ‘mere’ preluding; Beethoven's partial pre-planning of his improvisations based on an outline also found in several of his compositions; and the mutual influences of composed and improvised genres, represented most famously in Beethoven's sonatas.
Jan Philipp Sprick's ‘Musical Form in Improvisation Treatises in the Age of Beethoven’ opens by revisiting Czerny's famous comments on Beethoven's practice of improvisation. Czerny's description of his teacher's improvised sonata includes a ‘first part’ (exposition), with a Mittelmelodie (= secondary theme), and a ‘second part’ (= development), in which Beethoven developed motives freely and at length. Noting the scarcity of discussions of form in improvisation treatises around 1800, Sprick focuses on treatises by Johann Gottfried Vierling, Carl Gottlieb Hering and Czerny, as well as on a notated fantasia from Czerny's central improvisation treatise (the Systematische Anleitung). Vierling's preluding treatise of 1794, Versuch einer Anleitung zum Präludieren, contains self-sufficient metrically regular pieces that could also count as fantasies, reflecting the increasingly thin boundaries between fantasizing and preluding. Hering's Praktische Präludierschule (1812–1814) presents harmonic models and ways of embellishing them, also listing compositions by Albrechtsberger, Beethoven, Clementi and Dussek for further study. Moreover, Hering presents Beethoven's entire ‘Tempest’ Sonata as an example of fantasizing. Czerny's Systematische Anleitung of 1829 is among the first to give any indications of formal outlines in improvisation. Sprick analyses one of Czerny's notated fantasias on a single theme, highlighting the entry of sonata-form elements into the fantasia. (As a parenthetical comment, I would parse the brief sonata-exposition differently, with a secondary theme starting in bar 20, rather than Sprick's bar 13). Sprick concludes that these treatises communicate implicitly about formal construction through examples. These authors lacked more systematic descriptions of form, even as composition treatises by Koch, Galeazzi and Reicha were developing a more explicit awareness of it. As laconic as improvisation treatises might be from the point of view of present-day taxonomies of form, I believe that they are crucial for understanding the period ears of musicians like Hering or Czerny. If pieces like Beethoven's ‘Tempest’ Sonata or fantasias by Mozart and Hummel sounded like models of improvisation to these authors, they give us a crucial vantage point on the possible sounds of historical improvisation.
In ‘“La solita cadenza?” Vocal Improvisation, Embellishments and Fioriture in Opera from the Late Eighteenth to the First Half of the Nineteenth Century’, Torsten Mario Augenstein examines vocal improvisation through treatises and contemporary descriptions, as well as through manuscript notebooks and annotations. Particularly interesting is his synoptic view of Anna Bolena's cavatina ‘Come, innocente giovane’ in two sources: manuscript Foà Giordano 631 (Università di Torino) and a piano reduction by Luigi Truzzi published after the opera's 1830 premiere. Augenstein stresses that early nineteenth-century singers intervened to a large extent in the written text, reflecting both performer ability and audience appreciation of these embellishments. These practices largely declined in the latter half of the nineteenth century, as opera composers became more adamant about the integrity of their artworks. Augenstein's listing of treatises and sources is a valuable resource in itself, inviting further exploration of documentary traces of operatic improvisation.
Gianmario Borio's chapter, ‘“Free Forms” in German Music Theory and the Romantic Conception of Time’, examines open forms and improvisation through aesthetic writings. Borio investigates romantic notions of freedom, the shifting meanings of the term ‘fantasia’ and the romantic view of reality as unstable, as well as the concept of cyclical time. He does so through analysing descriptions of improvised form in German-language treatises from A. B. Marx to Erwin Ratz. In his conclusion Borio writes: ‘The inclination towards irregularity and unpredictability, which clearly emerges in these fantasias and variations, is no longer simply interpreted as a remnant of the improvisational process but appears to be a clear sign for the creation of autonomous formal structures’ (80). However, he concludes, these sources do not lead to a fully systematic integration of principles of open or improvisatory form into Formenlehre. Borio's chapter could benefit from a narrower focus, for instance on descriptions of the forms of improvisation as they relate to romantic notions of time. As it stands, it is quite difficult – at least for this reviewer – to follow the chapter's multiple layers and strands.
William Caplin's chapter, ‘Fantastical Forms: Formal Functionality in Improvisational Genres of the Classical Era’, uses his influential theory of formal functions to analyse pieces called ‘fantasia’ or ‘capriccio’ by composers from C. P. E. Bach to Hummel. In particular, Caplin is interested in how these improvisatory pieces depart from form-functional norms: he examines instances in which formal functions are omitted, substituted, interpolated, obscured or incipient on various levels, including local phrases and global outlines. Caplin's apparatus allows him to make nuanced observations about the ways in which improvisatory pieces play upon the formal expectations of listeners who are well versed in the style. His case studies include Hummel's Op. 18 and Mozart's k397. Caplin's elegant essay thus demonstrates how theory and analysis can contribute to our assessment of historical improvisation: though notated fantasias are stylized pieces, not actual improvisations, understanding how they manipulate conventional phrase types and formal outlines is a highly valuable complement to the philological study of historical sources.
In his chapter on four fantasias by Hummel, Rohan H. Stewart-MacDonald argues that these pieces are not written-down improvisations, but rather address the ‘subject’ (117) of improvisation and its connections to the compositional practices of the day. (The pieces surveyed are the fantasias Opp. 18, 123, 124 and the Recollections of Paganini, s190/WoO 8.) Musical properties that come into play include motivic work, the function of memory (as when improvising on themes suggested by the audience or recollecting a performance by Paganini), progressive tonality and the exploration of distant tonal centres. This chapter addresses several issues: Ratner's discussion of the fantasia topic (though not later scholarship on fantasia-like topics), social and performative contexts, and connections between Hummel's fantasias and later cyclic techniques. These strands help Stewart-MacDonald to question ‘misleading distinctions such as Hummel the conservative versus Liszt the iconoclast’ (131). Indeed, one might say that beyond Hummel-the-progressive versus Hummel-the-regressive, the work of this highly esteemed improviser-pianist-composer gives us central clues for reimagining improvisation. It is difficult for me to read this chapter – and, indeed, the entire volume, not to mention Gooley's Fantasies of Improvisation or sources like Czerny's Systematische Anleitung – without sensing connections between notated fantasias, descriptions of concert improvisations and famous ‘artworks’ like Schubert's ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy or Liszt's Sonata in B minor. Stewart-MacDonald did well to continue to investigate Hummel and improvisation. His tragic and untimely death is a true loss for our historical-improvisation community.
In ‘A Step to the “Wanderer”: Schubert's Early Fantasia-Sonata in C minor (D. 48)’, Pieter Bergé examines Czerny's discussion of formal types in the Systematische Anleitung. In surveying Czerny's discussion of the formal outline of a sonata-cycle-influenced fantasia, Bergé is puzzled by the fact that a list of pieces provided by the fifth chapter as examples of ‘freer improvisation on several themes’ (‘Vom freieren Fantasieren über mehrere Themas’) does not clearly correspond to his descriptions of formal outlines. A piece that falls clearly within the outline and also resembles Czerny's notated fantasias in certain respects is Schubert's ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy. Using Hepokoski and Darcy's sonata theory, Bergé examines the formal models and motivic techniques used in the ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy and in two early pieces, the Fantasy d48 and String Quartet d46. This exploration of connections between theoretical descriptions and notated fantasias is a crucial methodological step towards reimagining historical improvisation. An interesting project – and perhaps an additional point of enquiry for Bergé – would be to analyse in detail Czerny's lengthy, notated fantasias on single and several themes in the Systematische Anleitung from the perspectives of present-day Formenlehre.
Catherine Coppola's ‘Didacticism and Display in the Capriccio and Prelude for Violin, 1785–1840’ surveys capriccios, etudes and preludes from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Coppola wishes to give a ‘second look’ to a ‘tiny niche of the violin repertoire’ (158) which is not simply dry and didactic but rather reflects improvised practices such as preluding. The chapter would have given readers a clearer sense of these musical practices as they compare to keyboard preluding and vocal improvisation had it included excerpts in music notation showing the types of music-making reflected in the works and treatises of musicians like Paganini, Baillot and de Bériot.
Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen revisits the issue of Beethoven's use of fantasia elements in his sonatas and the associated aesthetic values, such as formal strength versus creative freedom. Analysing the draft and final versions of the much-discussed ‘Tempest’ Sonata (first movement), he argues that the final composition has clearer sonata features than the draft, yet paradoxically gives the impression of spontaneity. (As noted in Sprick's chapter, the entire sonata was given as an example of fantasizing in a period treatise by Hering.) Hinrichsen also revisits the sketches and genesis of the opening movement of Op. 109, which could have developed into a self-standing bagatelle, a fantasia or the unusual sonata movement that it ultimately became. This dense chapter combines sketch studies, analysis and philosophy. While I am guilty of being a ‘philosophically uninformed reader’ (176), ill-equipped to appreciate Adorno's comments on Beethoven with which Hinrichsen concludes, I appreciate the author's contribution to disentangling compositional process and improvisation in two of Beethoven's most obviously improvisatory sonatas.
Marco Targa examines ‘Improvisation Practices in Beethoven's Kleinere Stücke’, focusing on topics, gestures and forms that create a rhetoric of improvisation in notated pieces. As one might expect, Targa names formal freedom and tonal instability as improvisatory features, but he includes others as well: virtuosic display and perpetuum mobile, as well as the search for new musical ideas (as in Beethoven's Opp. 77 and 80 and in the finale of his Ninth Symphony). Targa analyses three neglected pieces, the Polacca, Op. 89, the Rondo a capriccio, Op. 129, and the early Fantasia Biamonti 213, while surveying more briefly the bagatelles Opp. 119 and 126. The author would have done better to change the balance of this chapter in favour of original analysis at the expense of reviewing prior approaches: in particular, his interesting discussion of Biamonti 213 as a precursor to the Op. 27 sonatas invites further reflection.
Scott Burnham's ‘The Fate of the Antepenultimate: Fantasy and Closure in the Classical Style’ pays tribute to a 1934 essay by Hans Joachim Moser, ‘Das Schicksal der Penultima’. Moser includes a concerto cadenza as an instance of a penultimate musical element; for Burnham, though, the cadential six-four that launches the cadenza is an ‘antepenultimate’. He writes: ‘The classical-style cadenza breaks open the most invariant aspect of Classical harmony: the cadential progression, the tight nuclear force of antepenultimate-penultimate-ultimate. In doing so, it unleashes the energy of improvisation, of fantasia (whose spontaneity is either real or feigned)’ (203). The antepenultimate 6/4 can open up an improvisatory space precisely because it is bound to proceed in a predictable way. Paradoxically, what gives the antepenultimate its potential for facilitating improvisation is precisely its constrained harmonic function, as it is bound to resolve to 5/3 and thence to the tonic. Burnham's delightful analysis walks us through several cadenzas by Mozart and Beethoven, among other musical passages and observations about music and even the human condition.
In the final chapter, ‘“Ad arbitrio dei cantanti”: Vocal Cadenzas and Ornamentation in Early Nineteenth-Century Opera’, Giorgio Pagannone explores the relations between notated text, traditional variants of certain operatic passages and the greater degree of flexibility that was available to singers in the period. Using treatises, annotations by singers and even recordings, Pagannone navigates the thorny terrain of substitutions as opposed to interpolations as well as pre-planning as opposed to genuine spontaneity. Pagannone's concluding remark is that in the new age of reproduction and accessibility, ornamentation becomes – again – almost mandatory, as it was in the early nineteenth century. This can prevent ‘routine and homogenisation’ (220) in performance. Indeed, the volume as a whole hints at the many potential implications of historical research for present-day performance practices. Though the voice of practitioners is absent, the chapters are informative for those wishing to reconstruct fantasizing, preluding and embellishments.
The colloquy represented in this edited volume demonstrates the necessarily collaborative nature of historical improvisation. The study of historical sources – notation, treatises and accounts of performances – benefits greatly from its juxtaposition with music analysis and interpretation. This is an ideal meeting place for scholars on either side of the musicology–theory divide, which has to be eroded in order to reimagine historical improvisation. The collection is thus a highly welcome addition to scholarship on historical improvisation. If my review has suggested that some analyses or topics could be explored at greater length, that is merely an indication of what is – in my opinion – a highly productive line of scholarly enquiry, with considerable implications for practice and even teaching. As we continue to rethink and decentre the art music of Europe from past centuries, the perspective of improvisation reminds us that historical notations are not only compositions (or ‘masterworks’) but also documentary traces of a messy musical tradition in which improvisation played a central role. If we wish to destabilize our casual tendency to think about such notations as ‘compositions’, we have to consider in earnest the role of improvisatory practices that both persisted and were transformed in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Europe.
