ACCOMPANIMENT. The additional in strumental part which, in music written for a solo voice or instrument, gives harmonic and rhythmic support to the solo part or melody: as the pianoforte part in a song. the orchestral part in a concert, etc. An ad libitum DeCOM pa n ment is one that is not a part of the struc ture of the composition, and may therefore be performed or omitted at pleasure. An obligato accompaniment, on the contrary, forms an in tegral part of the music and is indispensable. The accompanist of the present day has an easy task compared with that of his predecessors in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and even later. In the scores of the old masters, especially those of Handel and Bach. the aceom paniments were not written out in full. A single bass part was given, and the accompany ing harmonies were indieated by figures over the notes. This species of musical shorthand be came known as figured or thorough bass, and also basso continua. The accompanist at the
organ or harpsichord translated these figures at sight into their equivalent harmonics, and with them, improvised, with runs, trills. and various ornaments, the sort of aecompaniment that the music needed. The musicians of the time be came very expert at this difficult accomplish ment, both Handel and Bach being renowned for their wonderful polyphonic accompaniments. Many of these old scores have been worked out by skilled musicians, who have tilled out the missing parts and arranged the accompaniment for the modern orchestra. Among the scores to which "additional accompaniments" have been written are those 1Nlozart; Israel in Egypt, by Mendelsohn; and the great edition of Bach's works, by Franz. Consult Apthorp, Musicians and Music Lovers (New York, 189.0.