oa Lasso’s Two-Part Fantasies as a Didactic Tool for Solmization

Although in the past many scholars have mentioned the fact that bicinia were designed to train basic solmization skills, nobody has examined in detail what can actually be learned from the process. Close examination of Lasso’s fantasies indicates that they offer a progressive education in solmization, with a gradual expansion of skills and increase in difficulty. Practising solmization with these contrapuntal gems not only trains our sight-singing skills, but also brings out the structure of the compositions, thus enabling us to cultivate our ability to hear and understand the imitation in the works. Solmization thus reveals itself as being not only a tool for learning sight-singing, but also as a reflection of how music was understood at the time.