A term used by Adriano Banchieri in Ecclesiastiche sinfonie … per sonare et cantare et sopra un basso seguente op.16 (Venice, 1607) to describe the work’s Continuo bass part, which was drawn from whichever part in the ensemble was the lowest at any one moment. In the third edition of Cartella (Venice, 1614 as Cartella musicale), Banchieri offered the term barittono as an equivalent, thereby pinpointing the wide range of such a bass part. The Cartella also suggests that a basso seguente part is by definition unbarred (? i.e. unbroken or seguente) and therefore less useful to an organist directing an ensemble than a barred bass part or bassi continui spartiti. The use of the term in a restricted sense is essentially a theorist’s, and such a composer as G. Piccioni does not appear to have intended any strict distinction between it and basso continuo when he published his Concerti ecclesiastici for voices con il suo basso seguito (Venice, 1610). However, the notion of a ‘bass’ line played by one or other continuo instrument and incorporating whatever notes or phrases in the ensemble happened to be lowest – for instance, the opening treble theme of a fugue – was one to live well into the second half of the 18th century, especially in Italian and italianate music. Theorists from Praetorius to Quantz and later generally called it the bassetto or bassetgen part, and it is one of the unsolved questions in figured bass playing – to know when composers no longer expected continuo players to double themes and answers in a fugal exposition.
PETER WILLIAMS/DAVID LEDBETTER