automatic translation,
may not be accurate
may not be accurate
What are Quantz’s Solfeggi?
At first glance, Quantz’s Solfeggi may look like a collection of exercises for the traverso. They are much more than that. As Walter Kurt Kreyszig has shown, they preserve material associated with Johann Joachim Quantz’s teaching of Frederick the Great, and another important student of his, Augustin Neuff, presumably in the 1730's, and offer a rare glimpse into eighteenth-century flute pedagogy — a world in which technique and musical expression were closely connected. The actual collection was put together ("manus krupt", i.e. manuscript) between 1775 and 1782.
The Solfeggi are neither a method book nor a conventional set of études. They are better understood as a practical training laboratory, where technical patterns, articulation, dance rhythms, repertoire fragments and performance instructions are woven together. Bach, Telemann, Graun, Tartini, Quantz and others appear throughout, rooting practice in real musical language rather than abstract exercises.
The Solfeggi are neither a method book nor a conventional set of études. They are better understood as a practical training laboratory, where technical patterns, articulation, dance rhythms, repertoire fragments and performance instructions are woven together. Bach, Telemann, Graun, Tartini, Quantz and others appear throughout, rooting practice in real musical language rather than abstract exercises.
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For today’s traverso players, this makes the collection remarkably useful. Articulation, ornamentation, phrasing, breath, transposition and stylistic awareness can all be explored within short musical examples. Even Quantz’s articulation syllables — ti, di, ri, di'dl — belong to a broader language through which the flute learns to speak and sing.
This Practice Pill is designed to make that wealth of material easier to explore: choose a practice focus, find relevant passages in the Solfeggi, and use them to create your own path through the collection. Page references throughout follow the printed numbering of the Amadeus edition (1978). |
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A fresh look at the Solfeggi
This Practice Pill also grows out of a new project by Anna Reichhold, who is currently exploring the Solfeggi from a complementary perspective: through performance.
Anna’s aim is to record the complete collection in a freely accessible video series, bringing the music off the page while investigating one of the source’s most fascinating features — its many handwritten annotations in historical German. These often highly specialized notes touch on articulation, tempo, affect, ornamentation and other aspects of performance, offering unusually direct evidence of how the music may have been taught and understood.
As part of our collaboration, Anna has contributed recorded examples from selected pages of the Solfeggi. You will find them directly inside the Navigator, alongside the corresponding exercises. They are not intended as definitive interpretations, but as another way into the material: an opportunity to hear how these short studies can become music, and to connect the written instructions with actual sound.
Together, the Navigator and Anna’s project offer two complementary ways of rediscovering the Solfeggi: by mapping what they teach, and by listening to what they can become in performance.
Anna’s aim is to record the complete collection in a freely accessible video series, bringing the music off the page while investigating one of the source’s most fascinating features — its many handwritten annotations in historical German. These often highly specialized notes touch on articulation, tempo, affect, ornamentation and other aspects of performance, offering unusually direct evidence of how the music may have been taught and understood.
As part of our collaboration, Anna has contributed recorded examples from selected pages of the Solfeggi. You will find them directly inside the Navigator, alongside the corresponding exercises. They are not intended as definitive interpretations, but as another way into the material: an opportunity to hear how these short studies can become music, and to connect the written instructions with actual sound.
Together, the Navigator and Anna’s project offer two complementary ways of rediscovering the Solfeggi: by mapping what they teach, and by listening to what they can become in performance.
Find Your Practice Path
Pick a technique or musical focus, or leave the selction on “All”.
Focus
All — Show all pages in the Navigator.
All · 94 pages
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How to use this in practice
Choose a focus. Select a tag and browse the suggested pages. Pick a fragment. One short passage — even just a few notes — is enough. Experiment with it. Repeat it several times, changing one thing at a time: articulation, tempo, weight, breath, fingering, or phrasing. Listen and follow. Notice what changes. Stay with the fragment, move to another page, or choose a new focus. The aim is not to complete the Solfeggi, but to use them to build your own practice paths. |
What you’ll find in the Solfeggi
Articulation shapes the music Markings such as marqué (marked), stark (strong), nicht (not), schwach (weak) give notes weight and direction, shaping how a phrase speaks. Technique grows from patterns Repeated figures and chains of notes become flexible practice material: slow them down, change the articulation, reverse them, or move them to another key. Style is already there Bach, Telemann, Graun, Hasse, and many more; dances, duets, trios, and ore musical forms; different national styles: real musical language that connects practice directly to repertoire. |
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👉 Tried the map? Pop over to the Facebook post and tell us how it went.
Even a tiny observation or tiny confusion is valuable, as we learn from each other — and it helps the whole community see how the method works in real practice. |
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