Arianna Radaelli
COURSE OPEN TO ALL LEVELS
LESSON TIMETABLE: 9 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Programme:
The course is open both to beginner students and to more advanced students who wish to deepen their knowledge of stylistic, technical and historical aspects related to the performance practice and interpretation of basso continuo.
Students are asked to indicate their level of preparation:
- Beginner
- Intermediate / advanced
Each student will receive individual one-to-one lessons and will also be able to attend the lessons of the other participants as an observer, regardless of level.
According to each student’s specific needs, the course may be personalised, either by adopting a theoretical and historical approach—supported by the study of sources and targeted exercises—or by focusing on repertoire chosen by the student, possibly with the participation of other instrumentalists and/or singers (students are encouraged to get in touch with participants from the other courses).
The course is open not only to keyboard players (harpsichordists, organists and pianists), but also to conductors and to musicians involved in the realisation of the basso continuo, such as cello, viola da gamba, lute, harp, etc. Knowledge of national styles and harmonic and contrapuntal awareness are in fact among the essential skills for a musician who wishes to acquire solid foundations not only for playing in ensemble and orchestral contexts, but also for approaching solo repertoire with greater stylistic and analytical awareness.
Enrolled students will receive a bibliography of treatises and methods, whose reading—at least in part—is recommended before the beginning of the course.
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Some of the topics that may be covered within the course are:
Beginner group:
- Knowledge of intervals, consonances, cadences, chords.
- Figuring simple chords: complete and essential figuration, symbols and abbreviations.
- Study methods: How to achieve naturalness and ease in reading numbers.
- Performance of practical and targeted exercises aimed at developing the ability to recognise intervals, analyse them and figure the movements of an unfigured bass line.
- Learning and recognition of the most important ostinato bass models.
- Approach to improvisation on simple patterns or short partimenti.
- The rule of the octave: in which styles and how to apply it.
- Realisation of simple pieces from the instrumental and/or vocal repertoire.
Intermediate / advanced level
- Figuring complex bass lines.
- Realisation of partimenti of medium to high difficulty.
- Mastery of four-part accompaniments and full realisations.
- Reading in historical clefs and transposition.
- Enriching the accompaniment with dissonances and non-harmonic tones: acciaccaturas and mordents.
- Voice leading and distribution of the parts between the two hands.
- The dynamic basso continuo: how to manage range, increase or reduce the number of parts, and shape the form and agogics of arpeggiation.
- Imitation of the bass line or of other instruments / voices: when and to what extent should this be done?
- Between improvisation and composition, towards the obbligato keyboard sonata: how elaborate can or should an accompaniment be?
- Practising the realisation of basso continuo at sight.
- Mastery of styles: what are the idiomatic features of an “Italian”, “French”, “German”, etc. basso continuo?
- Practical considerations concerning the nature of the instruments or voices being accompanied: range, number of filling voices, doubling of the solo part, temperaments.
- Harpsichord, organ, fortepiano: how does the accompaniment change on different types of keyboard instruments?
- Maestro/Maestra al cembalo: how to lead an ensemble from the continuo.
Arianna Radaelli, born in Milan in 1995, studied piano with Silvia Rumi and Paolo Bordoni and graduated at the Milan Conservatory (2015). Her encounter with Emilia Fadini and her first years of studying historical keyboards led her—after completing classical studies in high school—to earn a Master’s Degree in Harpsichord at the Conservatorio di Como under Giovanni Togni (2017). She continued her education at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where she completed both a Master of Arts in Performance and a Master in Pedagogy with highest marks, studying with Francesco Corti and Andrea Marcon (2019, 2021). In the following years, she studied choral conducting with Massimo Mazza and Jörn Andresen and orchestral conducting with Gilberto Serembe at the Italian Conducting Academy.
She is winner of the XIX “Paola Bernardi” International Harpsichord Competition in Bologna.
From 2021 to 2023 she taught basso continuo at the Mozarteum University Salzburg; since 2023 she has been teaching harpsichord and basso continuo at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart, where she has been leading the Early Music Department since 2024. Since 2023, Arianna has also been teaching basso continuo at the Early Music courses of Urbino Musica Antica (FIMA).
Arianna has an active concert career, performing both as a soloist on harpsichord and fortepiano and as a continuo player with renowned baroque orchestras, including Il Pomo d’Oro, La Cetra Barockorchester, Ensemble Zefiro, Café Zimmermann, Gaechinger Cantorey Stuttgart, Balthasar-Neumann Orchestra, and Les Musiciennes du Concert de Nations.
In the operatic field, Arianna has worked as musical assistant for productions of baroque operas at the Internationale Händel-Festspiele Göttingen, Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik, Teatro Real in Madrid, Theater an der Wien, and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, gaining the opportunity to work alongside conductors such as Andrea Marcon (Dido, Königin von Carthago by C. Graupner – 2024), Francesco Corti (Alcina by G.F. Handel – 2024), Luca Quintavalle (L’amazzone corsara by C. Pallavicino – 2022), Gernot Sahler (L’incoronazione di Poppea by C. Monteverdi – 2022), and Fabrizio Ventura (Ottone by G.F. Handel – 2019).
With her ensemble La Filarete she recorded her first solo album, Wonder in Venice, released by Arcana (Outhere) in 2025. The album received numerous awards from the international press, including the prestigious Diapason d’Or.
