Species of Spaces
Author: Dusan Bogdanovic
8 pages, 6 musical examples
What skills might support classical improvisation and composition? It is a crucial question, for as Dusan Bogdanovic argues, improvisation and composition are essential if the interpreter is to have a full sense of the life of a work and the traditions from which it comes. This is especially true if the work is Baroque or Classical.
Dusan Bogdanovic begins his study of this question with counterpoint. He advocates the study of species of counterpoint, and shows how the different categories can be put to practical use in writing variation sets. Turning to harmony, he shows how to make different phrases modulate in different ways. All the subjects covered are illustrated with musical examples, and particularly exciting are the two variation sets on Dowland and Handel