Baroque sheet music

What the composer left out

Baroque notation records less than modern notation. Dynamics are sparse or absent, articulation is often unmarked, ornaments are indicated by symbols whose realisation was a matter of local convention, and the keyboard accompaniment is written as a bass line with figures rather than as notes.

Every edition therefore makes decisions. An urtext presents the source and leaves you to make them. A performance edition supplies ornaments, dynamics and a written-out continuo realisation. Nineteenth-century editions — which is what most free scans are — supply a great deal and reflect performance practice that has since been thoroughly revised.

Figured bass and continuo

A continuo part is a bass line with numbers indicating the harmony above it, historically improvised at a keyboard with a cello or bassoon doubling the bass. Modern editions usually print a realisation: a written-out keyboard part. If you are not able to improvise from figures, check the edition includes one, because a good many scholarly editions deliberately do not.

Pitch, and why your edition may be in the wrong key

Baroque pitch was lower than modern concert pitch and varied by city. Editions intended for period instruments are sometimes transposed accordingly, and recordings on period instruments will sound roughly a semitone below a modern edition. This surprises people playing along with a recording.