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I have been assigned the Trio sonata from Bach's Musical Offering for a chamber music workshop. I've never played from figured bass and I'm really excited about the opportunity to learn it, but I'm also a little worried about doing this right, having a short time to prepare it. I'm wondering if anyone with experience in continuo playing has advice about the best way to start, or possibly good resources to turn to. It would really help. Thank you!

If I might reccoomend a great book: "Essay on the True Art of Playing Keybaord Instruments" by C.P.E. Bach. This is a great book on the playing of any keyboard instruments, discussing fingering, ornaments, dynamics, etc., especially from the Baroque point of view.

It depends on what your background is/what you already know.

If you are not yet confident with chords/harmony, you might try writing out small parts of the work to get an idea of what you are going for.

If you are already able to figure out chords straight of of the continuo, then you might want to try picking a short section and realizing the figured bass several times at the keyboard, in a slightly different way each time. This will develop your understanding of the range of possibilities.

Of course, listen to the piece you have been assigned (and others of you want) and hear the style/texture that the continuo player is using, paying attention to how their sound supports everything else without being at all overpowering.

If you need a resource to help you, there are many books about continuo playing and keyboard harmony you could use.

Good luck!

Here are a few books that will give you great tips on your continuo-ing.

Arnold Dolmetsch: Interpretation of the Music of the 17th and 18th Centuries
F.T. Arnold: The Art of Accompaniment from a Thorough-Bass (2 vol.)
R.O. Morris: Figured Harmony at the Keyboard

The most important thing to remember is that although there are all sorts of "rules" when figuring bass, you can break them! The important thing is that it sounds good. Depending on how your reading is, you might want to go through and write pop symbols for each chord (they come fast and heavy in the Musical Offering Sonata!) to facilitate reading, or you could write the entire thing out (very time consuming).

Just for fun, you might want to check out James R. Gaines' "Evening in the Palace of Reason," a VERY entertaining book on the composition of the Musical Offering, tracing the parallel lives of "Old Bach" and Frederick the Great.

Enjoy!
Rick M.

Thank you for your help! I really appreciate it.
I'll try to get hold of some books that will help, and I'm also doing a lot of listening to music of the same style.
Rick: I remember a counterpoint teacher talking about "Evening in the Palace of Reason"! I'm glad I know the name of the book now:) I'll get a copy! Thank you.

any edition should give figures for the bass, so if you know what it all means, and it doesn't mean that much, it's quite easy to find the right chords, oh, and BTW, if you play on the harpsichord, one hardly notices that you play a wrong note, haha