Partimento po polsku? Nauka realizacji basso continuo i improwizacji organowej w przemyskim klasztorze benedyktynek

The article is devoted to the fragment of manuscript ms 10 stored in the Archive of the Benedictine Sisters in Przemyśl. The manuscript consists of 70 cards and comes probably from the mid-eighteenth century. The book, intended for the organist, consists of liturgical chants written in the soprano key with an accompanying bass line, exercises based on the bass line and 77 organ works. In addition, on the cards 64V-69V of this manuscript some observations about organ teaching are written. Those observations are subject for this very considerations and the text in the original grammatical and spelling form is attached to this article. The teaching notes from ms 10 are titled Understanding of good and bad consonances and consist of 29 unnumbered points illustrated with musical examples. They provide guidance on the implementation of basso continuo, organ accompaniment for plainchant and polyphonic singing and composing or organ improvisation. It is so far the only known text of this kind in the Polish language dating the eighteenth century. Author and copyist of this text remain unknown, but we can assume that it has been prescribed from another source by a nun-organist, and only in a small part reformulated. Its relationship to a female religious community is indicated by, apart from place of preservation, the endings of verbs appearing in the teaching notes. From the course of argument it can be concluded that the method of teaching included in the Understanding of good and bad consonances refers to the partimento tradition that began in the late seventeenth century in the Italian conservatories, and later, in the eighteenth century and early nineteenth, has been popularized in many parts of Europe through published books. The term partimento determined bassline, with or without numbering, which is the basis for improvising or creating self-composition. While dealing with the bass lines, a student learned at the beginning about the construction of intervals and chords and the way of conducting voices. When it was no longer a problem, he could expand the bass to the accompaniment or to the solo piece.