> Angelo Pagan asked for some figured bass symbols for
> ``transitus irregularis''
>
> The ``transitus irregularis'' is an ``accented passing note'' and
> is really quite a common beast. Chapter XIX of Arnold's
> ``Art of Accompaniment from a Thorough-Bass'' discusses them,
> and has examples of all the signs that Angelo mentioned.
Before leaving home I quickly checked three books on the tr.irr.
First of all, I feel I should defend Mozart's knowledge of Latin:
In his book "Kurzgefasste Generalbass-Schule" he says on page 38:
"Ein gerader Strich nach den Ziffern beduetet, dass der Accord,
aber nicht allezeit der ganze, in der rechten Hand liegen bleiben
muss, so lange, bis eine andere Bezifferung folgt,
oder bis die bestrichelten Noten ein End haben. (Don's 0-figure,
the Macro \Cont)
--> Ein schreger Strich von der linken zur rechte hinauf / bedeutet,
dass der Bass eine Wechselnote (oder transitum irregularem) habe,
und dass ueber solche bezeichnetet Noten der ganze Accord der folgenden
Note muesse gespielet werden. Zum Beispiel:"
[four examples following]
So, according to my education we note Mozart using the accusative of
the "transitus irregularis" because he is actually using it as the
(direct) object in the sentence. German authors of earlier times
did that of course, *nowadays* they would *not* do, because they
probably they lack the knowledge ... :-)
So all the honours back to Mozart ..., ;-)
Angelo, I hope I could make your doubts towards Mozarts abilities
dissappear ... :-)
Mattheson quotes the tr.irr. on page 413 in his "Grosse Generalbassschule",
in his 19th exercise.
Carl Philipp quotes it several times:
II.39.�1 ("Von den Wechselnoten")
II.12.�5
II.10.�7
and II.1.�75-77: Here actually you find the four symbols Angelo was
referring to: the "o", "/", "\smile" and "\mathfrak{m}",
the last one looking like a trill symbol, but not quite
as wavy, but a little bit more shaky ... ;-)
C.Ph.Em. says: "Das Zeichen mit dem schraegen Strich
bei Numer (2) ist das beste."
So he prefers the slash.
>From my experience of playing bc -- which is of course "finite",
so quite limited --
I would say that the slash is not very common
but it is in fact the most common symbol for the tr.irr.
JSB prefers (as I pointed out) the figures 7/4/2, 5/4/2 etc.
To me the problem seems similar to the case of the "Telemannischer Bogen":
In pedagogical treatments most authors would
it and assert how useful it is. But in praxi it is
almost never used. C.Ph.Em., too, invents a number of symbols for the
convenience of the player, to differentiate between different cases of the
same figure (e.g. the 6/5 without the 3 but doubled bass note),
but outside the pedagogical treatments you will hardly meet them.
That was it,
forgive me, if I bored you,
just use the skip-button ...
Eckart
