Classical Improvisation for Students

(and Their Teachers)

John Mortensen, DMA, NCTM

Steinway Artist & Ohio Artist on Tour

Professor of Piano, Cedarville University

Download the notes for this presentation at www.johnmortensen.com

WAYS TO IMPROVISE(FROM HARDEST

TO EASIEST)

Fugue

What is provided: A subject.

What you have to make up: Exposition, Episodes,

Modulations, Presentations.

Fugue

• The performer needs to create spontaneous invertible counterpoint, episodes, modulations, presentations in various voices, sequences, cadences, etc.

• Level: Highly Advanced.

The Dance Suite

What is provided: A bass line.

What you have to make up: Harmonies and stylistic elements of each dance.

Dance Suite

• The performer uses an established bass line to extrapolate harmonies, and then overlay the characteristic elements of each dance (meter, figurations, polyphonic motions, etc.

• Level: Advanced.

Toccata or Fantasia

What is provided: A key.

What you have to make up: Everything. But it can be very episodic and loose.

Toccata/Fantasia

• The performer must “string together” a series of stylistically appropriate elements, but may pause between each statement. The musical texture need not be seamless. Modulation is possible but not necessary.

• Level: Moderately Advanced.

Variations Chaconne Passacaglia

What is provided: A looping progression.

What you have to make up: Continuous new variations.

Variations/Chaconne/Passacaglia

• The performer must invent variations on an existing progression. Because the meter and harmony and provided, the performer is only responsible for surface elements such as texture, figuration, and ornamentation.

• Level: Moderate

The Figuration Prelude

What is provided: The chords.

What you have to make up: The pattern.

Figuration Prelude

• The performer is responsible to follow a given chord pattern and create consistent elaboration upon it. The performer’s only job is to create figuration.

• Level: Moderately easy.

The Unmeasured

Arpeggio Prelude

What is provided: The notes.

What you have to make up: The pacing and rhetoric.

Unmeasured Arpeggio Prelude

• The performer can play only the written notes, but most imbue them with compelling rhetorical sweep and direction.

• Level: Easy.

Further Resources

Erhardt, Martin. Upon a Ground - Improvisation on Ostinato Basses from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries. Magdeburg: Verlag Franz Biersack, 2013.

Gjerdingen, Robert O. Music in the Galant Style. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Mortensen, John. The Pianist’s Guide to Classical Improvisation. Forthcoming in 2018.

Sanguinetti, Giorgio. The Art of Partimento: History, Theory, and Practice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

www.johnmortensen.com