FIGURED BASS INSTRUCTION AMONG FRANCISCANS IN 18TH- AND 19TH-CENTURY SLOVAKIA

Figured bass instruction, which was fundamental for organ playing, was at a high level among Franciscans in Slovakia in the 19th and 20th centuries. They used authoritative textbooks, whether in translations – the Czech-language, though strongly Slovakized, translation of an older textbook by J. D. Heinichen Neu erfundene und gründliche Anweisung [...] zu volkommener Erlernung des General-Basses (1711), and the Slovak translation of J. G. Albrechtsberger’s textbook Neue vermehrte Auflage der Kurzgefassten Methode den Generalbass zu erlernen (c. 1791) – or their own Latin textbook Praxis Authentica Pulsandi Organum (c. 1768) by P. Pantaleon Roškovský OFM, which he compiled according to handbooks by M. Gugl (1719), J.B. Samber (1704), J.D. Heinichen (1728), as well as J.J. Fux (1725) and other authors.