An Alternate History of European Music:
Working notes on the translation of Ernst Ferand's Improvisation in Music
Photograph from the late 1920s (?) -
Ferand is on the far right
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The book
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Ferand at the piano (1930)
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In 1938, the scholar and music teacher Ernst Ferand (1887-1972) released a book written in German called simply Die Improvisation in der Musik (Improvisation in Music). This book was the first (and still today, is the only) comprehensive historical study of improvisation in European music. Ferand not only lays out a compelling alternate history of music rooted in improvisational forms, he also proposes the existence of a fundamental human "improvisation drive," and suggests new approaches to music education rooted in this insight. Nearly a hundred years after its appearance, his book harbors radical implications for how we understand, teach, and make music.
I am engaged in a multi-year project of producing an English translation of this book, which will be published by Routledge as part of their series Classic European Studies in the Science of Music. On this page I will post updates, highlights, and research notes on this project as it unfolds.
A Little Bit about the Book (June 27, 2024)
What exactly is this book? I have described it as a "history of improvisation in European music," and that is indeed the easiest way to sum it up. But that's not all. As suggested by the book's subtitle, "A Historical and Psychological Study," Ferand was very interested in questions that went beyond history. In the intellectual context of the early 20th century, music psychology was less concerned with empirical studies and more with phenomenological approaches and speculation about musical universals. History and psychology are counterparts, in this sense, representing the particular and the general in a comprehensive understanding of music.
Another peculiarity is the fact that Ferand makes an effort to integrate the findings of comparative musicology (what we would now call ethnomusicology) into his study of improvisation. The second chapter of the book compares examples of improvisation in contexts outside of Western music, and Ferand is keen to draw cross-cultural connections between forms of improvisation in various world musical cultures, although the focus of the book remains on European music history. This kind of approach was much more common in the time he was writing.
Finally, there is the curious fact that the historical survey in Ferand's book ends quite abruptly around the year 1600-- that is, at the beginning of what music historians think of as the Baroque period. In other words, this history stops short of the so-called "common practice" period, which corresponds to the music of the European tradition that most people are familiar with. This means the examples of improvisation he talks about are not things like cadenzas and piano fantasies, but much earlier forms such as organum, fauxbourdon, troubadour songs, and instrumental dance music. Rather than addressing the question of why improvisation disappeared from classical music sometime in the 19th century, Ferand explores how improvisational practices were integral to what we understand as the tradition of European music.
What exactly is this book? I have described it as a "history of improvisation in European music," and that is indeed the easiest way to sum it up. But that's not all. As suggested by the book's subtitle, "A Historical and Psychological Study," Ferand was very interested in questions that went beyond history. In the intellectual context of the early 20th century, music psychology was less concerned with empirical studies and more with phenomenological approaches and speculation about musical universals. History and psychology are counterparts, in this sense, representing the particular and the general in a comprehensive understanding of music.
Another peculiarity is the fact that Ferand makes an effort to integrate the findings of comparative musicology (what we would now call ethnomusicology) into his study of improvisation. The second chapter of the book compares examples of improvisation in contexts outside of Western music, and Ferand is keen to draw cross-cultural connections between forms of improvisation in various world musical cultures, although the focus of the book remains on European music history. This kind of approach was much more common in the time he was writing.
Finally, there is the curious fact that the historical survey in Ferand's book ends quite abruptly around the year 1600-- that is, at the beginning of what music historians think of as the Baroque period. In other words, this history stops short of the so-called "common practice" period, which corresponds to the music of the European tradition that most people are familiar with. This means the examples of improvisation he talks about are not things like cadenzas and piano fantasies, but much earlier forms such as organum, fauxbourdon, troubadour songs, and instrumental dance music. Rather than addressing the question of why improvisation disappeared from classical music sometime in the 19th century, Ferand explores how improvisational practices were integral to what we understand as the tradition of European music.
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Improvised medieval counterpoint (October 11, 2024)
This remarkable image is reproduced from a 13th-century treatise by Elias Salomon, discussed at some length in Chapter 4 of Ferand's book. It is a schematic illustration of an improvised performance by four singers. The rules provided do not accord great freedom to the performers: the resulting texture closely resembles that of the early polyphonic genre of organum, in which the upper voices move in parallel fifths, octaves, and twelfths above the bass, which sings a plainchant cantus firmus. But the singers would have been expected to decorate their parts within this framework, as suggested by the author's warning against "ostentatious or vain ornamentation" (vanos punctos). That this was a challenging undertaking for the singers is indicated by the consoling advice: "When you experience trouble, you begin again as soon as you are able... Sometimes, out of necessity this must be done." |
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Contrappunti all'improviso in the Renaissance (October 27, 2025)
When people think about improvisation in the history of European music, it is usually not difficult for them to wrap their minds around the prospect of, say, a troubadour creating a melody on the spot, or plainchant evolving through an essentially performance-based process of gradual modifications to an oral tradition. But the idea of improvising counterpoint often boggles the mind.
But this was done, not only on a primarily oral and non-notated basis, as in early European polyphony and in various forms of traditional music from around the world, but also well after the advent of staff notation circa 1000 CE. In other words, notation could be used not to replace improvisation, but to formalize its teaching methods. Of course, as Ferand unfolds over the course of his book, the more improvisation is rationalized and "written up," in the history of European music the more it is subjected to rules and norms as it is absorbed into an increasingly literate musical culture.
Here you see the title page of Antonio Brunelli's treatise Regole et dichiataroni di alcuni contrappunti doppii, published in Florence in 1610. As the lengthy subtitle proclaims, this is a handbook in contrappunti all'improviso: improvised counterpoint. Brunelli's book contains seven chapters of exercises illustrating all manner of exercises for two, three, and four voices, all above the same cantus firmus.
When people think about improvisation in the history of European music, it is usually not difficult for them to wrap their minds around the prospect of, say, a troubadour creating a melody on the spot, or plainchant evolving through an essentially performance-based process of gradual modifications to an oral tradition. But the idea of improvising counterpoint often boggles the mind.
But this was done, not only on a primarily oral and non-notated basis, as in early European polyphony and in various forms of traditional music from around the world, but also well after the advent of staff notation circa 1000 CE. In other words, notation could be used not to replace improvisation, but to formalize its teaching methods. Of course, as Ferand unfolds over the course of his book, the more improvisation is rationalized and "written up," in the history of European music the more it is subjected to rules and norms as it is absorbed into an increasingly literate musical culture.
Here you see the title page of Antonio Brunelli's treatise Regole et dichiataroni di alcuni contrappunti doppii, published in Florence in 1610. As the lengthy subtitle proclaims, this is a handbook in contrappunti all'improviso: improvised counterpoint. Brunelli's book contains seven chapters of exercises illustrating all manner of exercises for two, three, and four voices, all above the same cantus firmus.
