With Variants, Examples & Advice for Playing & Improvising on any Instrument

Realised by Pascale Boquet & Gérard Rebours

This collection offers a panorama of ostinato basses, songs and dances from the Renaissance and Baroque that circulated from one publication or manuscript to another, from country to country, and which, over the course of decades and even centuries, composers and musicians continually used as basis for variations and improvisation.

Referring to the compilations of ‘standards’ used by jazzmen, here Pascale Boquet and Gérard Rebours present, in some hundred pages of music, fifty pieces in their basic version along with transpositions and a selection of 210 variants and the most significant tunes derived from them.

All this is interspersed with explanations, commentaries, references and historical notes, and preceded by a generous theoretical and practical analysis of improvisation. In addition, there is an informative glossary, list of sources and bibliography.

Arranged progressively, the music proposed here may be used on three levels:

- The beginner will play the tunes, which are often easy, as is.

- The musician somewhat familiarised with the subject will be able to begin writing a few divisions or variations.

- With further experience, he will then be able to start improvising, ‘without a net’, as is proper.

Furthermore, every instrumentalist or instrumental group, whether using period or modern instruments, will be able to tackle this repertoire in which:

- The melodic instruments (flutes, violins, viols, oboes...) will be in charge of playing and varying these songs and dances.

- The polyphonic instruments (keyboards, lutes, guitars, harps) may accompany these pieces in numerous ways starting from the figured bass, as well as realising autonomous versions of them by playing and varying the two parts together.

- The low instruments (bass viol, bassoon, cello...) will execute the bass line without neglecting to also introduce variations and divisions.

Finally, this will provide an opportunity to explore a sizeable part of the basic repertoire of the 16th and 17th centuries and go more deeply into certain harmonic, melodic and stylistic aspects characteristic of each era, every country and even every composer, and broadening one’s approach to early music by introducing this dimension that is not yet sufficiently familiar : improvisation.