Romanesca

Examples

A Romanesca in the galant style with a Prinner riposte. See also Ex. 2.23 in Music in the Galant Style (Gjerdingen 2007, 41).

J. C. Bach, Opus 5, no. 3, mvt. 1, Allegro, m. 63 (London, 1766)

Repeated Romanescas in the galant style.

J. C. Bach, Opus 17, no. 1, mvt. 1, Allegro, m. 7 (Paris, 1773–74)

Variants

A leaping type, in which the bass alternately leaps down a fourth and steps up a second, all with 5/3 sonorities (the fourth of which was minor). (Gjerdingen 2007, 454)

An incomplete leaping Romanesca. Truncating the schema after four events and using ➄ instead of ➂ in the fourth event causes the schema to modulate to the dominant. Because of this modulation, the fourth event lacks minor sonorities.

J. C. Bach, Opus 5, no. 2, mvt. 1, Allegro di molto, m. 9 (London, 1766)

A complete leaping Romanesca. The keyboard plays 5/3 sonorities in the metrically weak events.

W. A. Mozart, KV 107 I, mvt. 1, Allegro, m. 9 (Salzburg, 1770–72)

A stepwise type, in which the bass descends entirely by step, with alternating 5/3 and 6/3 sonorities. (Gjerdingen 2007, 454)

A Romanesca with a stepwise bass with a Prinner riposte. Arguably the first measure of the Prinner constitutes the third measure of the Romanesca and thus the schemata overlap.

J. C. Bach, Opus 5, no. 3, mvt. 2, Allegretto, m. 33 (London, 1766)