Some (Dis)Assembly Required

Abstract

In 2010, researchers at the Bach-Archiv Leipzig rediscovered a manuscript treatise by the central German organist and theorist Jacob Adlung titled “Anweisung zum Fantasieren” (Instruction in Improvisation), dating from c. 1726–27. The treatise, which is investigated here for the first time in print, contains twenty-eight typical baroque voice-leading patterns. Although Adlung demonstrates the variation of these patterns in detail, he remains largely silent regarding their concatenation into larger structures. Two publications by Adlung’s south-German contemporary Johann Vallade represent the ideal complement to Adlung’s treatise, since both authors rely on the principle of modularity, but in a reciprocal manner: Adlung demonstrates and varies individual patterns (a bottom-up approach), while Vallade begins with complete pieces and breaks them into smaller parts (a top-down approach). Thus I suggest that Vallade’s pieces can be productively understood as models for the concatenation of Adlung’s patterns—a sort of missing appendix to Adlung’s instruction. By viewing these authors’ methods as complementary, we gain a more complete picture of how keyboard improvisation and composition were taught in the eighteenth century, which has important implications for historically informed analysis.