The Ascending 7-6 Sequence in Mozart

By Ian Campbell

Welcome to Try This! Your weekly look at a partimenti rule. This week we are looking at an example of a rule from the reperetoire.

Last week we looked at the ascending 7-6 sequence. If you haven’t worked that through, you can find it here.

Check out how Mozart uses the ascending 7-6 sequence in Sextet No 19 “Riconosci in questo amplesso” from Le Nozze di Figaro.

Below is the piano reduction. Here’s a recording. The ascending 7-6 sequence is in the second line.

Go to your instrument and try this!

Play just the bassline, watch out for the arpeggiation! The bassline in the second line is a whole note D then a whole note E then a half note F.
Play just the melody in the vocal part. Notice how Mozart is using the 7th then 6th then 8v as the melody.
Play just the melody and bass, no chord or inner voices. If you play a single-line instrument heres two ideas for you 1) try playing the bass note in a comfortable, but lower, register then follow that with the melody in a higher register, or 2) record yourself playing the bassline (you can also put a metronome on, somehow rhythm the whole notes, or count out-loud to help yourself later) then put some headphones on and play the upper voice against the bassline.

Are you up for a challenge?

Here are some things to try:

There are two and a half iterations of this sequence, try to keep it going! See if you can go for a whole octave so your bass ends up back on D.
Change the meter, try adapting Mozart’s melody to 3/4 or 6/8.
Try adding some embellishment to the melody while keeping it’s structure intact. Try doing this in one of the other meters you have adapted the sequence into.

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