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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body bgcolor=white lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Nicolas –<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>The copy of Paul Vidal’s basses that has circulated over here was transcribed by Easley Blackwood, one of Nadia Boulanger’s students. It’s been reproduced and distributed privately in various degrees of completeness. A few of us on the list should possess a copy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Best,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>David Kopp<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Boston University<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:windowtext'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:windowtext'> smt-talk-bounces@lists.societymusictheory.org [mailto:smt-talk-bounces@lists.societymusictheory.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Nicolas Meeùs<br><b>Sent:</b> Friday, 17 December 2010 18:29<br><b>To:</b> JONATHAN W BERNARD<br><b>Cc:</b> SMT Talk<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [Smt-talk] Written record of Boulanger pedagogy?<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>It strikes me that Jonathan's description of the purpose (or the lack of purpose) of Vidal's exercises exactly matches what I'd say (here, not in France) of the traditional exercises of the Paris Conservatoire and of the French way of teaching harmony in general. Harmony properly speaking in not taken in account, in so far as there is no attempt made to distinguish good progressions from poor or bad ones. The only concern is to have a correct voice leading, especially in avoiding parallel perfect consonances.<br><br>French "harmony", since Catel's treatise of 1801, probably, is nothing more than a kind of naïve tonal counterpoint, without any real concern for harmonic progressions or (which boils down to the same) for tonality. And, as Jonathan seems to suggest, the figures become mere labels for the chords, to be translated at first sight into chords totally decontextualized. "Making sense" is utterly foreign to this teaching.<br><br>I am afraid to have to say that this, even today, remains the way harmony is taught not only in the French conservatoires (after all, conservatoires are the places where tradition is conserved), but also in universities, and even, <i>horresco referens</i>, in the Sorbonne.<br><br>This all would tend to indicate that Boulanger's harmonic pedagogy, if it was based on these Vidal basses, may not have been very different from the French traditional one (i.e. that of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris), with its odd figures includig +6, +4, etc., or barred 5, etc.<br><br>But let me know: who is the Vidal mentioned here? Is there a publication of his basses? I never heard of these exercises around here. They cannot be worse than some I have had to do during my studies, but I know nothing of them. And as one of my former students is planning a study of this extremely odd French tradition, I'd very much like to know.<br><br>Nicolas Meeùs<br>Université Paris-Sorbonne<br><br><br><br>Le 17/12/2010 04:39, JONATHAN W BERNARD a écrit : <o:p></o:p></p><pre>Hello, Dmitri, and everyone,<o:p></o:p></pre><pre><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre>[...]<o:p></o:p></pre><pre>One caution I'd like to offer here concerns the Vidal basses. Having spent untold hours of my freshman year in college plugging through page after page of these figured-bass exercises, under the tutelage myself of a Boulanger disciple, I have the distinct impression that Vidal designed these quite deliberately not to follow any known rules of harmonic progression. The whole point seemed to be to make progression unpredictable, forcing the student to learn to read the figures mechanically and accurately, to get them right at first sight without any contextual clues (such as what would "make sense" harmonically in a given situation). They are entirely artificial exercises: no upper parts are provided, as would of course be present for real continuo playing. Other veterans/victims of the Vidal regimen may disagree with this assessment; I'd love to hear from them either way.<o:p></o:p></pre><pre><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre>Jonathan Bernard<o:p></o:p></pre><pre>University of Washington<o:p></o:p></pre></div></body></html>