92: Nicoleta Paraschivescu

Nikhil Hogan Show

I’m thrilled to introduce my guest today, Harpischordist and Organist Professor Nicoleta Paraschivescu! She teaches the organ at the Academy of Music in Basel (AMS) and is organist at the church of St. Theodor in Basel.

In 2015 she received her PhD from the University of Leiden for her doctoral dissertation about Giovanni Paisiello’s Partimenti. She was awarded the hibou-Stiftung Prize in 2016 in recognition of her outstanding research on partimenti. She is an expert in partimento realization and has contributed to partimento research. Her latest album is Partimenti napolitani, featuring her realizations of the partimenti of Paisiello, Durante and Doll.

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0:57 When did you start playing the keyboard? 2:42 Do you have Absolute or Perfect Pitch? 2:52 Did you take lessons from the age of 6 all the way to university? 4:14 Did you always improvise in your life? 5:43 What year did you discover partimento? 7:00 How did you teach yourself to realize this music authentically? 8:58 How did you come to choose Giovanni Paisiello as your main focus? 10:25 Paisiello’s high profile professional career 12:38 On Catherine the Great not being really a great lover of music 14:02 Do we have alot of documentation on Paisiello’s life? 16:00 The amazing discovery of a 2nd book of partimenti by Paisiello 18:13 Paisiello’s use of partimenti as counterpoint exercises 21:07 Partimenti as genre types 21:46 What did you mean by the bass line needing to be filled out? 24:25 Does the counterpoint notebook by Talleyrand have evidence of Paisiello himself correcting or giving model answers? 26:52 How extensively were intavolature used at the Neapolitan conservatories? 29:38 On the contrapuntal “mistakes” in the intavolature? 31:13 How should someone start learning partimento? 33:05 What’s good collection of partimenti for beginners? 36:33 What are some common mistakes that you’ve found students make when learning partimento? 37:59 How has been the reaction to your development in improvisation and partimento in the classical world? 41:29 What’s the difference in popularity of partimento today vs when you discovered? 42:48 On her album “Partimento napolitani” 44:31 What is your realization style? 46:28 What’s the best way to learn counterpoint? 47:36 On her recordings of Marianna Martines’ music 49:18 Can you give recommendations of good music that people can listen to 50:59 If you could change music education, how would you change it? 53:37 Do you find that you look at modern music differently now with your partimento training? 56:01 Do you have any use for roman numerals or harmonic functions? 57:22 So you don’t really use roman numerals? 58:14 Wrapping Up