A New Treatise on Accompaniment

Saint Lambert's Nouveau traite de l'accompagnement de clavecin, de l'orgue, et des autres instruments of 1707 supplements his earlier harpsichord treatise, Les Principes du clavecin of 1702. The Nouveau traite is a method book specifically designed for the accompanist rather than the solo performer. It offers practical suggestions to help the accompanist play the correct harmony without having to read all the notated parts at the same time. Saint Lambert discusses accompanying from unfigured and partly figured basses, and his was one of the first attempts to codify bass progressions into specific formulas, for which he assigns appropriate harmonies. He describes possible departures from the usual rules of accompaniment and examines performance techniques used by "tasteful" accompanists in order to create not merely a correct but an artistic accompaniment. John Powell presents Saint Lambert's text in a readable English translation with musical examples in modern notation. He compares Saint Lambert's text in a readable English translation with musical examples in modern notation. He compares Saint Lambert's concepts of realization with those of contemporaneous sources and traces the influence of this treatise on later authors.