Cantare Super Librum - improvisation on existing melody
Think about the concept of improvisation in Western music, the first thought possibly is jazz or a cadenza in concerto (although lots of late romantic composers wrote out the cadenza.) The practice of notation has been solid for centuries. The notation has been developed into more and more sophisticated. The general impression of western is all written out elaborately and has little room for performers to interpret. This contributed to the rise of the independent identity of "composer". The composer as the central figure of a piece has all the explicit control of all the details. Traced back to the Renaissance period, the score is definitely cleaner and did not offer so much detail that we would expect today. The role of a composer in that period was a musical material provider. In many cases, the role of composer and performer were hard to separate. Speaking of improvisation, there are different levels of it. How many materials provide for the performers? How much is the un...