Next, Will addressed my queries about the advisability of elaborate figurations in the continuo accompaniment, and the impression often created in contemporary re-constructions of a comment on the action from outside the stage world:

“Second, we have a lot of evidence in the how-to books—really a lot—about what those guys were playing (keyboard and supporting strings alike). Written-out ‘Here’s what a good accompanist would play’ stuff. None of it is about guiding the drama from outside the stage world. All that ‘ornamental doodling’ is not about ornamental expression, it is about making sure the singers don’t drift in and out of key, making sure the one who’s about to enter can find his note, following the pace and dynamics being proposed from the stage, and keeping out of the way.  (‘Don’t arpeggiate if they’re going fast in a comic scene and nobody’s lost,’ that kind of thing.) [My italics, see below–CLO.]

“I have gone through this stuff forever, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen every example anybody in the modern world has dug up. It is all about helping the singers do their thing. There is only one known example that suggests ‘interpretative’ participation. It’s from Don G itself, published in  the 1840s or 1850s by some one whose recollections went back to the 1810s, and it’s a bit of  romantic-sounding arpeggiation in the pauses where the Don says ‘Per la mano essa allora mi prende’ . . . [doodle] . . .  Leporello: ‘Ancora meglio‘ . . . [doodle] . . . D.G.:  ‘M’accarezza,’  . . . [doodle] . . .  m’abbraccia ,‘ etc. ^(I) The tone of the description is informative in itself—’plain Chords, played arpeggiando.’ Admittedly it is offered as an example of the style of Linley and Dragonetti (they were the joint recit accompanists for some 50 years at the Italian Opera in London, cello and bass, playing at the same desk), so one assumes they did similar things elsewhere. But . . . nobody else describes this, and the London team was working in a unique environment.”

[We do not have the musical example here, but trust me, although Will’s source (William Rockstro in the Second Edition of Grove’s, 1883), offers it as an instance of elaboration on the normal practice of this esteemed pair, his characterization of it as minimal is accurate. As he observes, “If this is elaborate, then simple must have been really simple.” Kind of like Bruno Walter at the piano? Will continues:]

“So I would say that even the most liberal interpretation suggests, at most, that maybe in certain moments the continuo steps into an intermediate zone and improvises ‘participation’ of the sort built in by composers when they are using the orchestra in an ‘accompagnato.‘ And I’d say that if the moments are chosen with good judgment, that’s not offensive. But the constant ‘running commentary from an eavesdropper’ stuff simply does not find support in the historical record, and history shouldn’t be used as an excuse for it.