Teaching Creative Interpretations of Baroque Repertoire

A number of years ago, I wrote a social media post seeking anyone that was teaching baroque style and making improvisation an integral part of the process.  The responses were varied and interesting, but fell short of finding any evidence that this is happening very often, if at all.

I took some time to approach the idea with my students, but I discovered that they lacked the background in harmonic-melodic theory to make good stylistic choices, but more importantly, they simply weren't familiar enough with the style to actually improvise in a meaningful way.  Much in the way that young musicians have difficulty making their improvisations sound like authentic jazz, it is impossible to be creative in the baroque style without having a deep knowledge that can only come from extensive critical listening and analysis.  With a little work, I was able to get a student to add a couple of his own ornaments on a Telemann sonata, but it wasn't exactly the level of creativity that I was aiming for.

Realizing that they key is listening, which should have been obvious to me from the beginning, I set out to find creative recordings of baroque flutists.  I became quite smitten with Mario Folena's virtuosic work with Festina Lente, so I decided to carefully study his recordings.  Their work on Giovani Platti's sonatas is particular creative.  You can find it here:

https://www.amazon.com/Platti-Sonate-flauto-traversiere-continuo/dp/B00DI653V4

In the same way that I have studied jazz recordings, I spent many hours listening and transcribing.  I also listened to many other recordings of Platti and made notes on different interpretations, ornamentations, etc.  After several years, I felt ready to work up a new piece and apply some of things that I had learned.  I decided to learn the famous A minor Sonata for Unaccompanied Flute by C.P.E. Bach.  Of course, he is really associated with the Classical period, but I felt like this was a good vehicle for a creative interpretation, and I have always enjoyed hearing the piece performed by student flutists at James Madison University, where I teach.

Undoubtedly, so-called purists will criticize what I have done here, but I am pleased with this performance.  From an interpretative perspective, I purposely took some risks and threw caution to the wind.  For my purposes, this would only work if I allowed myself to be a little reckless, so I went for it.  Playing music that predates the invention of an instrument essentially negates an "authentic" performance anyway, so I tried to say something that relates to my musical experiences as a saxophonist. Rather than to drone on, you can listen to the third movement here:

Performing this in public gave me the confidence to begin teaching my students to approach this kind of repertoire with much greater responsibility in listening to authentic recordings on period instruments.  Student saxophonists have a tendency to only listen to other saxophone recordings, and the pitch differences in period instruments make the process even more challenging than with more modern music.  Nonetheless, I strongly believe that this is the only way to unlock a personal approach to any style:  developing a deep knowledge from extensive listening and analysis.

Although I am only in the very earliest stages of this new approach to teaching, the results from even a single semester were dramatic.  My excellent student Tim DeSimone performed a Platti sonata on his recent jury.  He made his own decisions about ornamentations, and he even improvised a few.  What made his performance so compelling, from my viewpoint as his teacher, is that it was never obvious that he was improvising.  He played very well within the style.

I plan to continue this experiment and will post again with updates.  I am hopeful that this will grow into a regular part of my teaching, which will also require that I continue performing works of this nature.  Practice well!