The Harpsichord in Symphonies

[sbeckmesser]

In line with my original post, I'd maintain:

1. that in later Haydn (Paris symphonies and onwards) and Mozart (his Paris symphony forward), and possibly even before these pieces, there are no "sparsely orchestrated passages" that need "filling in" by any keyboard continuo. (This chronological restriction applies to all the following remarks as well.)
2. that the fundamental purposes of the continuo is not to "fill in" a texture but to audibly complete the harmonic context (its primary purpose in the Baroque era) and to provide audible cues to the rest of the band. My emphasis on audible is to point out that if the other players cannot hear the continuo, it cannot serve either function; whether an audience hears the continuo is secondary. The orchestras in this era could get surprisingly large and in such an ensemble it is impossible for all players to maintian audible contact with any keyboard instrument (again, I speak from experience as an orchestral violinist). It is often not possible for an audience to hear a keyboard at all with even a chamber orchestra. The orchestra that Haydn wrote his Paris symphonies for had 40 violins and 10 double basses, which is large even by Berliozian standards.
3 that fuller-sounding textures in this period were obtained by adjusting the numbers of the lower strings (see the Spitzer/Zaslaw book cited on this, as well as Zaslaw's book on Mozart's symphonies).
4. that these harmonic and ensemble-keeping functions of a keyboard accompaniment are musically redundant by the High Classical period in orchestrations containing substantial numbers of winds (say, at least 2 oboes, 2 horns and bassoon) and are historically redundant with the rise of the concertmaster-as-director (an evolution from Baroque practice) and, ultimately, of the stand-on-a-podium conductor.
5. that those passages that may sound "sparse" to our ears are a deliberate contrasts in texture. Adding a keyboard will reduce the contrast by making all passages sound more like each other and by reducing the dynamic range, especially if the instrument is a harpsichord, will little control of its loudness.
6. that there is ample historical justification (as in the Rellstab quote in my original post) for performance of pieces from this period omitting a keyboard. Otherwise complete collections of parts used in performance in this period often are lacking any that are suitable for use by a continuo instrument (no figures in the bass line, for example). This was one of the justifications for the omission of keyboard continuo in the Hogwood Haydn symphony recordings. And the Concert Spirituel orchestra for which Mozart wrote his Paris symphony contained no keybaord instrument (Zaslaw, Mozart's Symphonies, p. 459).
7. that conductors seeking to do more than paying lip service to "authenticity" in this music would score more points in this regard by omitting a keyboard and paying considerably more attention to string articulation and tone (to compensate for the disappearance of all-gut stringing) and by turning down (or off) the unfortunately now-universal application of texture-clouding and thoroughly inauthentic vibrato. They might also throw in an extra bassoon to double the cello or double-bass lines. Just throwing in a harpsichord is a cop-out.

--Sixtus

[carsonics]

There's a simple answer and a more complicated answer to the original question. Figured bass is a left over technique from the Baroque period obviously, where the harpsichord adds harmonic chordal structure form the written "fiqured bass." Cellos and basses would have played the single line, thus information for all three instruments is provided in an economical short hand. Now the more complicated answer - the aesthetic changes from the two periods, the Baroque and Classical periods, and the previous polyphonic forms are simplified and reduced in favor of more homophonic textures, more space, and the figured bass exits the scene as a relic of older forms, though cello and bass parts still share information. If you look at the bass lines of the classical literature you'll find a much more fluid, melodic, '''string" aspect to the lines with more similarity to the string ensemble texture than part of a Baroque continuo structure, which in many ways is more closely related to contrapuntal writing.