Jose de Torres's Treatise of 1736: General Rules for Accompanying on the Organ, Harpsichord, and the Harp, by Knowing Only How to Sing the Part, or a Bass in Canto Figurado (review)

José de Torres's Treatise of 1736: General Rules for Accompanying on the Organ, Harpsichord, and the Harp, by Knowing Only How to Sing the Part, or a Bass in Canto Figurado. Translated and edited by Paul Murphy. (Publications of the Early Music Institute.) Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. [xxii, 294 p. ISBN 0-253-21385-1. $39.95 (pbk.).]

Paul Murphy's edition and parallel English translation of the first thoroughbass treatise from Spain, José de Torres's four-part General Rules for Accompanying of 1736, is a welcome addition to the few Spanish music treatises available in English. What we know about early Spanish music theory comes largely from Francisco José León Tello's Estudios de historia de la teoría musical and La teoría española de la música en los siglos XVII y XVIII (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Instituto Español de Musicología, 1962 and 1974, respectively); unfortunately, neither has appeared in English translation. Torres (ca. 1665-1738), an organist and composer of some 171 known compositions, was also a publisher in Madrid of music and books on music, including the original edition of his thoroughbass treatise. In the present oblong-format volume, Murphy's transcription of the Spanish text--there is no facsimile edition of this treatise--and the music examples from the 1736 edition (in soprano and bass clefs) appear on the left page of each opening, with the parallel English translation and music examples in modern notation (in treble and bass clefs; occasionally, tenor clef) on the right. Much of the music is in unfigured bass (a feature distinguishing Torres's manual from most thoroughbass treatises from other countries), with figures appearing, when present, above the bass in the original edition and both above and below in the transcription.

The treatise comprises four parts. Part 1 is a review of the fundamentals of music, including simple and compound intervals. The second part teaches thoroughbass according to the intervals appearing between the bass notes (including diminished fourths and fifths) and the direction in which they proceed. Like J. S. Bach, Torres advocates playing three notes in the right hand and one in the bass, doubling the soprano in triads, a procedure resulting in an octave span in the right hand (see my J. S. Bach's Precepts and Principles for Playing the Thoroughbass or Accompanying in Four Parts, Leipzig, 1738, Early Music Series, 16 [Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1994]). Part 3 includes important sections on suspensions (pp. 51- 72), accented and unaccented passing tones (pp. 46-51), glosas (diminutions, pp. 74-76, 118-19), cadences (pp. 76, 89- 93), harmonic sequences (pp. 77-81), and transposition through the use of clefs (pp. 82-88). Part 4 includes the setting of recitatives (pp. 109-12) and acciaccaturas (a type of mordent, pp. 120-21). (In the table of contents, part 4 chapter titles appear out of order.) The summaries of each part are of particular interest. An index and glossary would have been welcome, especially when Spanish terms are retained in the translated text (e.g., compasillo [], proporcioncilla [?], compas mayor [], proporcion minor [], passando a compás mayor []). Also useful would have been a bit of explanation for such concepts as the false intervals--the major second, perfect fourth, minor seventh, and diminished fifth (see p. 38; the latter also called "quinta menor" [p. 29] and "quinta falsa" [p. 37]); the false fourth and false ninth (p. 68); "remiss" cadences (p. 64); sequindello (p. 89; why Torres indicates simple intervals directly in the figured bass is not clear--would not simple intervals normally be inferred?); and Torres's version of...