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The English term for the discipline of figured-bass realization. A composer or keyboardist trained in thoroughbass can read a figured bass line and produce the implied harmony in real time, voicing the upper parts smoothly above the given bass.
Thoroughbass is not just a notation system — it is a way of thinking about harmony from the bass up, the foundational training every Baroque musician received. The great pedagogical sources of the eighteenth century — Heinichen, Mattheson, C.P.E. Bach's Versuch, Handel's Lessons for Princess Anne, Insanguine's Neapolitan partimenti — all teach harmony through thoroughbass exercises rather than through chord-symbol theory. Even into the nineteenth century, thoroughbass remained the standard preparation for composers (Brahms studied it intensively).
Handel's Lessons for Princess Anne (1724–1734), preserved at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, are a graded course in thoroughbass: twenty-four exercises moving from triads in root position through suspension chains and pedal points, followed by six fugue assignments built on the same harmonic foundation.
Thoroughbass is one of 228 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary, where every definition is written around how composers actually use the word.
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