Intavolature and the Techniques of Instruments

Abstract

The notion of multiple voices coming together in harmony was deeply engrained in European ideas of fine music. For little hands playing a harpsichord, to capture the effect of multiple voices required some practice and special techniques. Intavolature were teaching pieces for beginning keyboard players. These pieces both introduced the basics of keyboard technique and demonstrated how to perform the most common schemas. Intavolature also provide us today with models for what the texture and level of difficulty might have been for realizations of partimenti.