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Continuo: the bass line of Baroque music and the group that plays it — a chord instrument realising the figured bass with a melodic bass instrument; in later directions also an adjective, “continuing”.
Labels the bass staff of Baroque scores — Continuo, Basso continuo, B.c., Cont. — usually with figures above or below the notes. One staff serves several players: a keyboard or lute realises the harmony from the figures while a cello, bassoon or violone plays the line; tasto solo tells the keyboard to play the bass alone. In later music continuo can also be an adjective, “continuing”, inside a direction.
Abbreviations: Cont., Cont, B.c.
The continuo is the harmonic engine of Baroque music: you write the bass and, where needed, figures, and the players supply the chords. Choose the chord instrument for the setting — organ in church music, harpsichord in the theatre and chamber, lute or theorbo for intimate songs — and keep the bass line strong, since everything rests on it. In a modern piece, figures alone are a historical idiom; write out the realisation unless you know your players read figured bass.
Bach, Mass in B minor, BWV 232, “Crucifixus”, staff label: “Continuo” — the staff that carries the movement’s repeated chromatic ground bass beneath the four-part chorus.
Continuo is one of 1755 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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