Counterpoint - Grove
Counterpoint - Grove
Counterpoint - Grove
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Counterpoint
(from Lat. contrapunctus, from contra punctum: against note; Fr. contrepoint; Ger.
Kontrapunkt; It. contrappunto).
A term, first used in the 14th century, to describe the combination of simultaneously
sounding musical lines according to a system of rules. It has also been used to
designate a voice or even an entire composition (e.g. Vincenzo Galilei's Contrapunti a
due voci, 1584, or the contrapuncti of J.S. Bach's Art of Fugue) devised according to
the principles of counterpoint. (See also Polyphony, I.)
1. Discant of the 13th and 14th centuries.
2. Early note-against-note writing.
3. Treatises of the 14th and 15th centuries.
4. Contrapunctus diminutus.
5. Three-part composition in the 15th century.
6. Tinctoris.
7. Composition in four or more parts.
8. 16th-century counterpoint.
9. Zarlino and aspects of dissonance treatment.
10. Galilei and his innovations, 158791.
11. 16thcentury double counterpoint.
12. The term counterpoint after 1600.
13. Theory after 1700.
14. Free style: licentious and harmonic counterpoint.
15. Bach.
16. The Classical and Romantic eras.
17. 20th century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
KURT-JRGN SACHS (111), CARL DAHLHAUS (1217)
Counterpoint
1. Discant of the 13th and 14th centuries.
The theory of counterpoint, which existed by about 1330, developed from the older
theory of discant, but differs from it in ways that a comparison of the two makes clear.
The technique of discant occurs in two distinct forms. Works dealing with interval
succession theory (Klangschritt-Lehre) merely list possible single progressions of an
added voice for all usual successive intervals of the cantus, considering only the
consonances of unison, octave, 5th (and occasionally 4th); for example: If the cantus
ascends by a 2nd and the opposed part begins at the octave, then the opposed part
descends by a 3rd and forms [with the cantus] a 5th, or descends by a 7th and
coincides with the cantus (CoussemakerS, ii, 191). General guidelines on
compositional technique are found only in the work of Franco and his followers, apart
from traditional instructions on contrary motion (see Eggebrecht and Zaminer, 1970;
CoussemakerS, ii, 494; AnnM, v, 1957, 35). Franco was clearly concerned to
emphasize the consonant or dissonant quality of sounds in the formulation of general
statements on compositional technique, but did not go beyond individual aspects
(CSM, xviii, 6973):
Every discant is ordered by consonances Every imperfect dissonance
[major 2nd, major 6th, minor 7th] sounds well immediately before a
consonance The discant begins at the unison, octave, 5th, 4th, or
major or minor 3rd [i.e. on any of the consonances], then proceeds in
consonances and occasionally mixes them at suitable points with
dissonances, so that when the tenor is ascending, the discant is
descending and vice versa. It should be noted that tenor and discant
occasionally ascend or descend simultaneously for the sake of the
beauty of the piece and also that consonances are always used in all
[rhythmic] modes at the beginning of the perfectio [mensural unit].
Anonymus 2 tried (c1300) to analyse the role of imperfect consonances in
composition technique: Imperfect [consonances] are the major and minor 3rd, which
are good in the progression from a 5th to a 5th or from a 5th to a unison and vice
versa; and the major 6th, which is good before an octave (CoussemakerS, i, 311).
Counterpoint
2. Early note-against-note writing.
Early counterpoint diverges clearly from the theories of Franco and Anonymus 2 by
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Music examples from counterpoint treatises may illustrate different features of the
method of composition. In ex.2a contrary motion is dominant; parallel imperfect
consonances are used sparingly; when one part moves by leap the other moves by
step or has a repetition; (the added part, according to some treatises, should be
restricted to the range of a hexachord). In ex.2b, parallels of up to four similar
imperfect consonances are relatively frequent; they usually lead to the adjacent
perfect consonance (as in intervals 6, 9 and 20) but can also lead to one or more
imperfect consonances of another kind (1415); simultaneous skips are not excluded
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(1011, 1516), but involve contrary motion and change of interval type.
Counterpoint
3. Treatises of the 14th and 15th centuries.
From the time of the earliest surviving textbooks on counterpoint, the number of
treatises on composition technique increased markedly and the term contrapunctus
quickly came into use. This was surely a matter of cause and effect; the explanation is
probably to be found in the novelty of the technique designed for note-against-note
composition. There are isolated references to a contraponchamens or
contrapointamens in the brief discussion of musical genres and polyphonic practices
in Peire de Corbiac's Provenal Tesaur (c1250), but there is no mention of the word
contrapunctus in music theoretical writings until its appearance in the new theory of
composition about 1330, since all known authors from Johannes de Garlandia
(c1240) to Jacques de Lige (c1260after 1330) used the general term discantus
when discussing composition technique.
Among the earliest didactic contrapuntal works are probably the brief piece attributed
to Johannes de Muris, Quilibet affectans (CoussemakerS, iii, 5960a), which was
widely read, and the compilation of Petrus frater dictus Palma ociosa, written c1336
(Wolf, 191314). Philippe de Vitry, too, seems to have taught counterpoint even if no
versions of the treatises attributed to him (e.g. CoussemakerS, iii, 237) can be
regarded as authentically his in their surviving form.
Most of the works on counterpoint up to the 15th century are anonymous, and it is not
usually possible to fix their dates or places of origin accurately. Treatises that help
establish a chronology for the development of the theory include Goscalch (1375;
excerpt in Sachs, 1974), Antonius de Leno (c1400; CoussemakerS, iii, 30728),
Prosdocimus de Beldemandis (1412; CoussemakerS, iii, 1939), Ugolino of Orvieto
(c1430; CSM vii/2), Johannes Legrense (c1460; CoussemakerS, iv, 38396),
Johannes Tinctoris (1477; CoussemakerS, iv, 76153), Guilielmus Monachus (c1480;
CSM, xi) and Florentius de Faxolis (between 1484 and 1492; excerpt in Seay, 1963,
p.85). The reliability of the sources increased with the appearance of printed works on
counterpoint, by Ramos de Pareia (Musica practica, 1482), Nicolaus Burtius (Musices
opusculum, 1487), Franchinus Gaffurius (Practica musicae, 1496) and others.
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Counterpoint
4. Contrapunctus diminutus.
The treatise Cum notum sit (probably mid-14th century) contains a definition of
counterpoint as nothing but a setting of note against note (non nisi punctum
contra punctum ponere vel notam contra notam ponere vel facere) and the basis of
discant (fundamentum discantus; CoussemakerS, iii, 60). Discant, the newer form
in this case, denotes the manner of composition whose basis is contrapuntal noteagainst-note composition. The second part of the treatise (De diminutione
contrapuncti) elucidates the relation between the two types of composition: since the
contrapunctus the part added to the tenor, in breves of equal length can be
divided into smaller notes in various ways, the work lists rhythmical possibilities of this
kind and illustrates them with musical examples. The examples (22, according to the
most reliable sources) all have the same tenor, and each follows a rhythmic formula;
they are all based on the same note-against-note composition, whose degree of
diminution increases systematically from example to example for each of the four
basic mensurations, as in ex.4 (the beginning of the examples for tempus perfectum
cum prolatione maiori; cited in Sachs, 1974, p.146). The work illustrates the
technique, known from other treatises, of creating a diminished version of an added
part, by filling out the breve units or by the interpolation of notes, but does not
mention the dissonances (2nds, 4ths and 7ths) that thus occur. The lack of such
comment probably does not mean that dissonance could be used freely but that its
application still lay outside the contrapuntal system. References to the use of
dissonance, however, occasionally occur in 14th- and early 15th-century counterpoint
treatises.
Petrus frater dictus Palma ociosa said that dissonances could appear briefly, by step
in ascent or descent to a consonance. According to Antonius de Leno, who allowed
note against note, two notes against one and three notes against one, the middle of
three short notes of equal length could be dissonant. Another work allows a third of a
semibreve to be dissonant (CoussemakerS, iii, 27) in the so-called cantus fractibilis.
Goscalch, who apparently knew Cum notum sit, went further, and proposed to divide
notes into parts, i.e. to sing several notes in the cantus instead of one. At the same
time he demanded observance of the rules of counterpoint and confirmed the
prohibition of parallel perfect consonances for both immediately consecutive shorter
note values, and for the contrapuntal framework. He considered that having only
consonances was impossible or very difficult and irksome, and thus assumed the
use of dissonance. He allowed dissonance even at the beginning and end of a figural
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unit, if it took up less than half the value of the figure (or, in the case of syncopation,
even as much as half).
In spite of the evident closeness in material and method of note-against-note and
figured composition, the two forms were largely separate in theory and terminology
until Tinctoris's work published in 1477 (see 6 below): most of the treatises do not
mention diminution or dissonance, and there was criticism of the extension of the
meaning of the word contrapunctus which already occasionally meant the setting of
several notes against one (see CoussemakerS, iii, 194; CSM, vii/2, 4).
Counterpoint
5. Three-part composition in the 15th century.
The first works on counterpoint that allow three-part composition were probably
written not earlier than the 15th century; they are not genuine extensions of the theory
(as was the case with contrapunctus diminutus) but simply explanations of how the
rules of two-part note-against-note composition should be applied to an increased
number of voices. Since the intervals between various pairs of parts have to be
considered and coordinated in three-part composition, the theories deal with problems
liable to occur when the norms of two-part composition are applied. Most importantly,
the basic rule of allowing only consonances in note-against-note writing must be
observed, but with two precautions.
First, since two added parts can be mutually dissonant although each must be
consonant with the tenor, thus corresponding to the norms of two-part composition,
the books warn against the 2nd created between two added parts respectively a 5th
and a 6th above the tenor (CoussemakerS, iii, 93), the 9th resulting from 5ths
simultaneously above and below a tenor, and similar combinations (see Sachs, 1974,
p.127). Second, because two added parts, each consonant with the tenor, often form
a 4th, which in two-part note-against-note composition has to be avoided as a
dissonance, treatises indicate the possibility of using the 4th in three-part noteagainst-note composition as long as it remains hidden (Gaffurius, iii, 6) by not
involving the bottom part (CSM, xxii/2, p.27).
Some texts list the possible complementary notes for the contratenor as well as all the
usual consonances of tenor and discant (CoussemakerS, iii, 935, 4656). This
clumsy method, which in the 16th century even stretched to a fourth voice, shows that
general principles of composition had hardly been formulated. Warnings against
unison and octave as equal or equivalent consonances between the added parts
are rare (CoussemakerS, iii, 92), but show that even then there was a preference for
complete sounds.
The rules for the sequence of consonances in two-part composition remained valid for
an increased number of parts. Theory was, however, not consistent about the
prohibition of parallel 5ths. The permitting of 4ths was based on their incidental
creation (between added voices) and this covered parallel 4ths as well (although these
are seldom mentioned, and only in the technique of Fauxbourdon; CSM, xxii/2, p.27;
CSM, xi, 39; Gaffurius, iii, 5). From there it would have been a small step to concede
the analogous parallel 5ths, which could be explained as caused by the inversion of
added parts. Occasionally they were indeed permitted (CoussemakerS, iii, 466; CSM,
xi, 423), and that may justify phrases such as the one in ex.5. But other texts forbid
parallel 5ths (CSM, xxii/2, pp.1478; Sachs, 1974, p.131); this latter position gained
acceptance probably because a difference between primary and secondary
composition, although theoretically useful for chord construction, was subordinate to
the general compositional viewpoint where rules of progression were concerned.
Standards for the melodic structure of the individual parts varied in their strictness:
discant and tenor should avoid leaps of 6ths and 7ths while the contratenor was
allowed not only these but even sometimes a leap of a 9th. The special character of
the contratenor is based on the concept of the successive composition of parts
customary in the 15th century, for which Burtius (ii, 5) gave two possibilities: first
cantus (supranus), then tenor, and lastly contratenor; first tenor (usually as a given
cantus planus), then superius, and lastly contratenor.
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The contratenor, which is thus added to a discant and tenor framework, was in the
first instance a filler (pro replecione sonorum seu vocum; Sachs, 1974, p.131). The
added character of the contratenor is also to be seen in the typical endings (clausulas,
conclusiones) that theorists had fixed for the parts since about 1500. The formulae for
discant and tenor reach the final note (ultima) ascending or descending by step to
produce the 6thoctave progression (ex.6ac). The contratenor, on the other hand,
normally a 5th below the tenor on the penultimate note, moves to one of the possible
perfectly consonant final notes, forming an octave leap (ex.6a), 4th leap (ex.6b), or
falling 5th (ex.6c) cadence. Only when the tenor cadences by descending a semitone
to mi does the contratenor, in order to avoid a diminished 5th, take the 3rd below the
tenor on the penultimate interval and close on the 5th below (ex.6d). The
antepenultimate interval, which contemporary examples also include, varies within
certain limits.
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Counterpoint
6. Tinctoris.
The most tightly knit, comprehensive and important 14th- or 15th-century treatise on
counterpoint is Tinctoris's Liber de arte contrapuncti (1477). Counterpoint is here
described as restrained and thought-out polyphonic composition created by setting
one sound against another (moderatus ac rationabilis concentus per positionem
unius vocis contra aliam effectus; CSM, xxii, 2, p.14). It divides into contrapunctus
simplex (note against note) and diminutus (several notes, of either equal or varying
length, against one), and can be extemporized (mente) or written down (scripto). But
Tinctoris called the improvised form straightforward (absolute) counterpoint (or super
librum cantare), and the written form res facta or cantus compositus (CSM, xxii/2,
pp.105ff). This terminology unknown before Tinctoris and used afterwards only with
reference to him should not be taken to imply that the aim of the theory of
counterpoint was improvisation. Tinctoris seems to have wanted to emphasize
something else: that, particularly in composition for more than two voices, the result of
an improvisation relating several parts contrapuntally to a given tenor (CSM, xxii/2,
p.110) differs from carefully planned composition; the inevitable lack of strictness in
improvisation is a concession, not the aim of counterpoint.
In the first part of his treatise Tinctoris gave a basic description of the consonances
and their relations in contrapunctus simplex. The tenor and the added part both
progress either by step, or in leaps of a 3rd, a perfect 4th and a perfect 5th. The
second part is a survey of the dissonances and their systematic application in
contrapunctus diminutus.
According to Tinctoris, the correct use of a dissonance depends on its rhythmic and
melodic position. The yardstick for the rhythmic position of a dissonance is the note
value determining the basic movement of a musical piece, which Tinctoris called
mensurae directio (or nota, secundum quam cantus mensuratur; CSM, xxii/2,
pp.12438); Adam of Fulda called this value, acting as a pulse or beat, tactus (1490;
GerbertS, iii, 362), and 16th-century Italian theory called it battuta. In prolatio maior
(ex.8, bars 17) it is the minim (transcribed as a crotchet), in prolatio minor (bars 9
11) the semibreve (transcribed as a minim), and in proportions the equivalent of those
values. Tinctoris used the fact that both values are divisible by two in the respective
mensurations to formulate three basic rules for the rhythmic values of dissonances
(ex.9).
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First, if the first part of a mensurae directio () or the beginning of the first and second
parts () is consonant, a dissonance of equal and smaller value can follow. This rule
covers unstressed dissonances, whose maximum length corresponds to the
consonant part of a mensurae directio. Unstressed dissonances can occur anywhere
in the composition, but stressed dissonances (i.e. those falling on the beginning of a
mensurae directio, which appear only as prepared suspensions resolved by stepwise
descent) are for Tinctoris always designed to prepare for an immediately following
final sound (perfectio or conclusio). This is usually restricted to perfect consonances,
unless it concludes an internal section and simultaneously opens a continuation (as in
ex.8 where F appears in parentheses). Because syncopated dissonances are thus
dependent on a cadence, Tinctoris's other rules are both related to properties of the
penultimate note in a phrase of the tenor.
Second, where there is a penultimate note equal in value to two mensurae directio,
consisting either () of a single note or () of two notes identical in pitch and length,
the first part of the first mensura nearly always has a dissonance set against it. Third,
if the penultimate is equal in value to one mensurae directio, then the first part () can
be dissonant, or, when preceded by stepwise descending notes of equal value (),
the first part of each note can be dissonant (ex.9). Since Tinctoris formulated rules of
dissonance according to the greatest permissible value in each case, it is not
surprising to find that the rhythmically short formulae of prolatio maior also occur in
prolatio minor (in parentheses in ex.8).
As regards melodic position, Tinctoris confirmed that each dissonance is preceded by
an adjacent (stepwise) consonance, and the following note will be a 2nd or very
rarely a 3rd away (ex.8, bar 4). When a dissonance is introduced and left by step, one
should not return to the starting note unless the dissonance is so short that one can
hardly hear it (CSM, xxii/2, p.141); thus, in Tinctoriss examples the nota cambiata
usually appears as the fusa, while the passing notes are also minims and
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semiminims. The leap of a 3rd from a dissonance is less rare in Tinctoris's examples,
and in 15th-century music in general, than his book suggests, and it also occurs
descending from a syncopated dissonance. Occasionally the leap of a 4th also occurs
after a dissonance, but usually it is a substitute for a cambiata (ex.8, bar 1: leap to the
3rd above instead of a return to the pitch of the preceding note, which appears in
another part). The eight general rules of the third part of Tinctoris's treatise offer both
traditional norms (but often modified for composition in more than two parts) and more
general recommendations about the wider context of composition (its structure and
varietas); they are neither as concrete nor as important as the dissonance rules,
however, which for the first time make possible an understanding of the period's
compositional techniques.
Counterpoint
7. Composition in four or more parts.
The acceptance into theory of four-part note-against-note composition was another
extension of contrapuntal apportionment: intervals between discant and tenor were
filled out by the addition of two parts. The bottom part takes precedence, since it must
avoid the formation of 4ths (while making them possible between other parts by
supplying a 3rd or a 5th), and it is sometimes more precisely determined (e.g. the
penultimate note is usually a 5th below the tenor). The lists and tables customary
since Aaron (1523), who enumerated possible four-part note formations, usually
follow the order discanttenor, bass, alto; but they illustrate only the process of
contrapuntal disposition of the individual chord. The old method of working out the
parts in succession fell into disuse during the 16th century; as Aaron confirmed, the
moderni considered all the voices simultaneously, thus improving consonance
formation and part-writing, and avoiding unsatisfactory unisons, rests or leaps. The
catalogue of chords strictly avoids secondary dissonances and 4ths in the bottom
part, of course, and favours complete formations (in the sense of full triads).
As early as Cochlaeus (14791552) there are examples showing the typical
concluding formulae of the parts (see ex.6), including the quarta vox (altus); they
show the interchangeability of the formulae between the parts (ex.10). In general, four
was the maximum number of voices in 16th-century contrapuntal theory and four-part
writing was the highest form of compositional technique illustrated by examples of
figural music. Gaffurius mentioned the creation of a fifth part according to the rules of
counterpoint (iii, 11), and Tinctoris used it in an example (CSM, xxii/2, pp.107ff).
Florentius de Faxolis contrasted the two-part counterpoint of the veteres with the
composition of the moderni for three to six or more parts, which he described as
composition, i.e. the contrapuntal method, extended to several voices (Seay, 1963,
p.87). Even though writers discussed instances of going beyond four-part
composition, they did not deduce from them any new aspects of theory.
Counterpoint
8. 16th-century counterpoint.
The development of contrapuntal theory in the 16th century consisted, first, of a
drawing together of contrapunctus simplex, contrapunctus diminutus and composition
for more than two voices, often still separate in the 15th century; second, an
expansion of matters treated to include, particularly, the modes, techniques of
imitation and inversion, and the relation between text and music; and third, improved,
more precise rules for the use of dissonance. This development reached its peak in
the third book and part of the fourth of Zarlino's Le istitutioni harmoniche (1558), the
most comprehensive and influential 16th-century work on counterpoint. It contains the
best and most refined analysis of the composition technique used in sacred music,
particularly at the time of Willaert, Zarlino's teacher; and it surpasses Willaert's other
pupil Nicola Vicentino's ingenious, somewhat earlier but in many respects very similar
L'antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica (1555), both in clarity and in detail.
Almost all the many, usually printed, 16th-century works on counterpoint relate to the
prima prattica style. The first two attempts to incorporate innovations from secular
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vocal music into the theory were thus all the more pioneering: Vicentino used
chromatic madrigals as examples and recognized liberties (in progression, harmony
and mode) justified by text meaning or the affect of the words; and Galilei discussed
and defended freer uses of dissonance.
Counterpoint
9. Zarlino and aspects of dissonance treatment.
The arte del contrapunto as the theory of polyphonic composition was for Zarlino the
centre of musica pratica and at the same time the most comprehensive amalgam of
themes in all music theory. Zarlino not only considered in detail all traditional aspects
of counterpoint but also tried to define additional requirements and conditions of
polyphonic composition. The soggetto, or thematic subject, is composition's point of
departure, without which one can create nothing (iii, 26), and which can consist of a
given or newly created cantus firmus, cantus figuratus or even several imitative parts.
The soggetto influences the choice of church mode, and that in turn affects the
coordination of parts. The mode of the tenor, which determines the tonality of the
composition, is usually shared by the soprano in four-part composition, while the bass
and alto take it over with changed compass (plagal instead of authentic, or vice
versa); and this corresponds to a difference of almost an octave between the ranges
of the two pairs of parts (illustrated in ex.11 on the basis of the combination of
soprano, alto, tenor and bass clefs frequent in Zarlino).
The restrictions on mode and compass affect imitative technique, harmonic structure
and cadence formation. Zarlino divided up the possibilities for imitation according to
whether the leading (guida) and following (conseguente) parts have equal or
differing interval patterns. The former he called fuga (whose entries could be at the
octave, 5th, 4th and unison), the latter imitatione. Both fuga and imitatione could
follow the canon strictly (as legata) or move freely (as sciolta) in its continuation,
and take up either some or all of the parts (iii, 545).
The principle of harmony was to create consonances by combining 3rd and 5th (or
6th), or their equivalents in other octaves, to make a harmonia perfetta, or, in modern
terms, a triad. Zarlino considered the triad with a major 3rd more perfect than that with
a minor 3rd, and declared that, while successions of many triads with major 3rds
were harmless, those with minor 3rds had a very melancholy effect (iii, 31).
Each mode had its own final notes for the normal cadences (iv, 18ff). The breaking up
of a composition by cadences which, like the full stops in a sentence, created
resting-points and marked off the sense, was an important part of the layout (iii, 51).
The cadences, which normally used syncopated dissonances, separated sections of
the text from one another and made possible musical variety and change in the
successive parts of a composition; they could, however, also be deliberately avoided
(fuggir le cadenze) in favour of a larger context if one part avoided by a leap or a rest
the expected (perfect) consonance (as indicated in ex.12a).
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Zarlino's teaching was aimed at four-part composition, which contained all perfection
of harmony. This concept of perfection explains why Zarlino tried to describe the
characters of the parts by comparison with the four elements: the bass, as the earth,
was the deepest voice, often slow-moving, and carried the harmony; the tenor was
the equivalent of water (it surrounded the bass and ruled the composition as
regards the combination of modes); the alto was the air, and mediated between tenor
and soprano (fire), in whose glow it shone; the soprano, as the highest, most stirring
and most powerful voice, was like the life-giving fire of the sun (iii, 58).
Zarlino required that the music should suit the character of the words, and related this
problem to the ordering of modes and to particular affects (iv, 32). For text underlay
he made a set of rules which may be summarized as follows. The length of a syllable
shall be reflected in the corresponding note value or values. Notes with their own
syllable include, always, the first and last note of a piece or a section and the first note
of every ligature, and usually every non-tied note of greater value than a semiminim
or crotchet (exceptionally a semiminim, after a dotted minim), but never notes of
smaller value than a semiminim, or the dot after a note. A change of syllable can
normally occur only after notes of value larger than a semiminim, except that it may
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Zarlino's directions on the rhythmic structure of the composition and of individual parts
are also instructive. The beginning must always be on the downbeat. If a part entered
later, it should be after at least a minim pause (often with a syncopated semibreve).
The rhythmic movement should not be too fast at first so that it could gradually speed
up; it was best for the acceleration to be achieved by transition to the next smaller
note value. The introduction of semiminims after a semibreve should coincide with the
levare, not the battere (iii, 45; ex.13b). In two-part composition with a soggetto in
semibreves Zarlino made a strict distinction between two positions of the dotted minim
and semiminim group: he used the stressed position only at the beginning (ex.13c,
), while the unstressed position is used both in the middle of the piece and, after a
rest, at the beginning ().
The many details on composition technique mentioned by Zarlino are essential for the
examination of prima pratica works; but they are not quite complete. Two figures
should be mentioned, each of which contains a characteristic freedom in the treatment
of dissonance, which in modern terminology is with confusing ambiguity called
cambiata.
The first of these is a five-note group consisting of four semiminims descending by
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step, the second and third of which are dissonant, followed by a step upwards. This
formula is usually part of a cadence and goes with the preparation for a suspension.
What is probably the oldest description of this usage, by G.M. Artusi (L'arte del
contraponto, i, 1586; see ex.14a), stresses its very good effect. It is unlikely that
Stephano Vanneo was referring to this when he prescribed the consonance of the first
and last of four semiminims as the norm (Recanetum de musica aurea, 1533). Berardi
called the irregularly dissonant third note a cambiata (Miscellanea musicale, 1689),
and Jeppesen termed it a relatively stressed passing dissonance.
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Counterpoint
11. 16thcentury double counterpoint.
Within the context of their imitative and canonic techniques, Vicentino and Zarlino also
discussed the systematic transposition of parts in composition to other keys, which
they called contrapunto doppio (Vicentino also used the term compositione doppia, iv,
34). They thus gave out for the first time a method (considerably older, no doubt) of
producing especially artificial forms of counterpoint (Zarlino, iii, 56). This technique
requires an understanding of the harmonies and progressions that can occur in
various forms of composition. The knowledge of the respective complementary
intervals is fundamental: for harmonic intervals of the same kind in the basic (Zarlino:
principale) and in the inverted version (replica) always complement each other to
make the inversion interval. In its simplest form, an octave exchange of the upper
and the lower part, the intervals 3rd and 6th (imperfect consonances), 2nd and 7th
(dissonances) and the unison and octave (both perfect) are paired complementary
intervals. This kind of counterpoint is thus much the most productive and needs no
special theory. The possibilities of transposition at the 12th and 10th are more limited
but can also well be used; Zarlino especially used them, even within the same piece
(see ex.16). The complementary intervals for double counterpoint at the 12th and
10th are easily derived by ensuring that the pairs of figures add up respectively to 13
and 11 (thus a 3rd and a 10th, for example, will form double counterpoint at the 12th).
It is thus possible to deduce the contrapuntal conditions for ex.16a, which may be
inverted in either way: the consonances of unison, 3rd, 5th, octave and 10th (and
12th) remain consonant; in order to avoid unacceptable parallels the piece must
progress in contrary motion or leap consonantly in oblique motion; passing
dissonances are possible, but not suspensions. As a further form the authors also
taught the transposition of both parts in inversion (ex.16d). In this case all the
changes in interval of the principale remain intact in the replica. The restriction on
composition technique consists in the fact that melodic formulae that are persuasive
only in one direction (ascending or descending) are to be avoided.
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Counterpoint
12. The term counterpoint after 1600.
Counterpoint has been used to convey different meanings in literature on music and
music theory from the 17th century to the 20th. The enumeration of these meanings is
essential if confusion is to be avoided. First, the concept of counterpoint has been
equated with the art of strict composition (J.P. Kirnberger, 17719), thus being used
to describe regulated part-writing regardless of whether the style is polyphonic or
homophonic (counterpoint is a technical category, polyphony a stylistic concept).
Second, more narrowly, counterpoint has been taken to refer to the technique of
polyphonic, as distinct from homophonic, writing. Third, still more narrowly, the
concept of counterpoint has been confined to the technique of vocal polyphony before
1600 (and in addition Bach's instrumental polyphony). Fourth, a number of 20thcentury theorists have proposed a distinction between polyphony, the combining of
equal voices, and counterpoint, a type of writing in which the voices are brought into
relief against each other functionally and by virtue of their relative importance.
Generally, however, polyphony has been used to refer to matters of style or
aesthetics, and counterpoint to refer to matters of technique: polyphony is an end,
counterpoint a means.
The assumption that the theory of counterpoint deals with the horizontal and that of
harmony with the vertical dimension of music is as trivial as it is misleading. In the
study of harmony, it is not just the structure of chords but also their progressions that
must be dealt with; and similarly, in the theory of counterpoint it is a question not only
of melodic part-writing but also of the chords formed by the parts. Second, the stylistic
aims of counterpoint which are directed to the simultaneous deployment of
characteristic melodic parts should be distinguished from the technical problems a
composer must solve in order to realize these aims, above all in the regulation of
simultaneities (joining consonances together, manipulating dissonances). It is the
technical rules rather than the stylistic maxims that primarily constitute the subject for
study. (A guide to contrapuntal or polyphonic style, such as that of Kurth, 1917, is not
to be confused with a work of technical instruction.)
The historians' idea that an epoch of counterpoint can be identified as distinct from an
epoch of harmony, with the year 1600 representing the dividing line between the two,
came about through lack of conceptual clarity. If harmony is understood as referring
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rules are formulated to govern dissonances and false relations; the didactic method is
the system of five species. Free style is the later type, originating in the 17th century
and constantly evolving, and typical for chamber or theatre music; it is based on
superposed two-part writing (Hindemith, 1937) between melody and bass, is tonal
and harmonic in character and proceeds from four-part writing, from the chord as the
primary datum; the cohesion of its sounds comes from chord progressions; there are
looser regulations forbidding parallel perfect consonances and governing dissonances
and false relations; didactically, rhythmically differentiated counterpoint is developed
from note-against-note writing by means of figuration.
Although the ideal types of strict and free style are scarcely encountered in their
actual form in the history of music theory most theorists have tried to find some
compromise because, while respecting the tradition of strict writing, they have not
wanted to neglect the apparent requirements of the day the antithetical presentation
is necessary: it serves as a point of reference among the confusion of doctrinal
opinions, and even constitutes a criterion for the assessment of contrapuntal theories,
since logical flaws almost always result from deviations from ideal types. When, for
instance, Albrechtsberger postulated that one should conduct a harmonic and tonal
analysis of a cantus firmus before building a counterpoint on it, it is, strictly speaking,
not understandable why he should have started out from two-part writing, hence from
an incomplete and therefore technically more difficult presentation of the harmony,
instead of beginning with four-part writing as did J.S. Bach and Kirnberger. And when
Dehn held that in strict three-part writing a dissonant suspension was a relationship
not to another note, but to a chord (2/1883), he was led by the bias of 18th- and 19thcentury listening habits to ignore fundamental principles of intervallic writing, and his
mistake has technical consequences.
Strict style contrappunto osservato was codified by Fux in a form whose didactic
merits sufficed to make his Gradus ad Parnassum (1725) a classic textbook for at
least two centuries. If Fux consequently appears as the founder of a pedagogic
tradition, the content of his book represents the inheritance of a tradition reaching
back to Zarlino. The prohibition of hidden parallels, most simply formulated in the
tenet that a perfect consonance must be reached by contrary motions, has been
expressed in the form of four rules (contrary motion from one perfect consonance to
another; unrestricted motion from a perfect consonance to an imperfect consonance;
unrestricted motion from one imperfect consonance to another; and contrary motion
from an imperfect consonance to a perfect consonance) since the time of Diruta
(1609). However, the prohibition held good only for the outer parts, although theorists
often laid down stricter regulations. The classification of the rhythmic relations
between cantus firmus and counterpoint into five species (note against note; two
notes against one; four notes against one; syncopation in the second voice;
contrapunctus floridus) can be found as early as 1610 in Banchieri's Cartella musicale
(1610). This scheme, often criticized and ridiculed as pedantic, has been perpetuated
with a pedagogically motivated tenacity; it is hardly reconcilable with the historical
reality of Palestrina's style, which provides less an example of cantus firmus
composition than a way of writing based on pervasive imitation between textually
characterized, rhythmically differentiated parts. The relatively stressed passing
dissonance lasting a semiminim (crotchet), permissible in certain cadential formulae in
Palestrina's style, was referred to by Berardi (1689) as nota cambiata, since the
consonance and dissonance change their usual places on the stressed and the
unstressed beats (ex.17a). Fux, on the other hand, used the concept of cambiata
(Fux's appoggiatura) to refer to a dissonance that leaps down a 3rd, whose orthodox
resolution, as Jeppesen has it (1925), is immediately retrieved with a rising 2nd
(ex.17b).
The Fux tradition so much predominated in the teaching of strict style during the 18th
and 19th centuries (it constituted the rudiments of the study of composition for Haydn,
Mozart and Beethoven) that other systems can claim any raison d'tre only by virtue
of their departure from his system in certain essential features: at first with
compromises between strict writing and free, then later (from the middle of the 19th
century) with the tendency to historicize. Albrechtsberger (1790) emphasized that
harmonic and tonal examination of the cantus firmus should be undertaken before
counterpoint is written; Cherubini (1835) renounced the church modes; Sechter
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(1854) regarded writing for two or three parts as reductions of four-part writing, which
was his starting-point.
If, in consequence, strict counterpoint moved nearer to free style in the late 18th
century and the early 19th through attempts to assimilate it into the changing
practice of the ecclesiastical style, whose theory was moulded by it the exact
opposite happened during the 19th century when the combination of historical
awareness in contrapuntal theory (Bellermann, 1862) with revivalist endeavours in
compositional practice (Haller, 1891) led to a tendency to see the rules of counterpoint
in a narrower, stricter light. It was desired to re-establish, both in theory and in
practice, the technique of Palestrina, the classical ecclesiastical style, exactly (to
quote Ranke's historiographical dogma) as it actually had been. Traditionalism, with
its unconscious traffic between past and present, yielded to a historicism motivated
partly by philology and partly by aesthetics. In the 20th century, after the decline of
the Cecilian movement, strict style became petrified into musical mental exercises in a
dead language the Latin of musical instruction. The apparently indispensable
didactic considerations cannot always be wholly reconciled with historical endeavours
to give a precise description of Palestrina's style: even Jeppesen's textbook (1930), a
paragon of pedagogic exposition by a historian, results from an (unacknowledged)
compromise.
Counterpoint
14. Free style: licentious and harmonic counterpoint.
In spite of secondary changes, the theory of strict style is essentially that of a narrowly
confined technique of composition, historically speaking, the style of Palestrina;
however one interprets the system of rules as a norm grounded in the very nature of
music, as a body of dogma attaching to a historical style, or as rules of the game for
didactic exercises it is unequivocally certain to which fragment of musical reality it
relates. The concept of free style, on the other hand, is a catchment area for extreme
varieties of style that have primarily in common a negative characteristic, their
departure from the norms of strict style. The usual procedure (in appendixes to
textbooks on counterpoint or in the instructions for part-writing in practical textbooks
on harmony) of describing free style solely in terms of its permitted deviation from
strict style, instead of apprehending it from within, in the form of an ideal type,
according to its own postulates, has arisen for a number of reasons; such description
seems a deficiency, albeit an excusable one. It results, first, from the practice of
isolating harmonic theory from the theory of counterpoint, from the splitting up of the
rudiments of modern compositional technique into two disciplines; second, from the
difficulty of extracting from a conglomerate of styles a single internally (and not simply
in a negative sense) coherent system of rules; third, from the fact that even individual
styles (such as Bach's counterpoint) cannot be so exhaustively, precisely and
synoptically codified as can the technique of Palestrina; and finally, from the
observation that the laws governing the evolution of counterpoint from the 17th
century to the 20th have consisted in counterpoint's progressive emancipation from
the norms of prima pratica. (Compare this with the 15th and 16th centuries, when the
course of development was precisely the opposite: from a less rigorous to a stricter
regulation of composition.)
The stile moderno of the 17th century, which included the monodic, the concertante
and the madrigal styles (as did Monteverdis term seconda pratica), was founded, on
the one hand, as licentious counterpoint, on the transgression of the norms of strict
style a transgression grounded in the tendency to emotional expression and pictorial
or allegorical word-painting. On the other hand, as harmonic counterpoint, it was
distinguished from the prima pratica of the 16th century and from the ecclesiastical
style that preserved that tradition by being rooted in tonal harmony. However,
licentious counterpoint ought not to be equated simply with harmonic counterpoint: not
every deviation from contrappunto osservato is motivated by tonal harmony. The bestknown such deviations the irregularities in Monteverdi's madrigals, abominated by
Artusi, and seen by Ftis as the earliest document of modern tonality arise from
other causes. The downward leap of a dissonant suspension from a 7th to a 3rd (as in
ex.18) is in Monteverdi an expressive figure that owes its pathos to its striking
departure from the rules of strict writing, but this licence cannot be interpreted in terms
of tonal harmony (one cannot speak of movement within the chord). Bernhard
(c1657) explained this figure, which he considered among the tools of musical
rhetoric, as a heterolepsis (a recourse to another melodic part): the upper voice
changes its usual resolution, the 6th, for the 3rd, which really belongs to the middle
voice.
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After its uncertain beginnings in Monteverdi, the use of tonal harmony as a basis for
counterpoint gradually increased from the late 17th century, though it did not become
universal; theoretical signposts in this development include the writings of Masson
(1694) and, particularly, Rameau (1722). The development was never complete: the
belief that in harmonically tonal music every detail was determined by means of tonal
harmony is an exaggeration resulting from over-systematic thinking. In harmonically
tonal writing (and also in contrapuntal writing) harmonies, namely triads and chords of
the 7th, constitute the primary, directly available entities from which the composer
started out. From this basis in harmony there results the distinction between chordal
dissonances, which belong to the harmony (the 7th in the chord of the 7th), and notes
foreign to the harmony, which constitute an external adjunct to it. A chordal
dissonance must be resolved, but need not be prepared; and for its own part, as a
component of the harmony, it can function as the resolution of a note foreign to it. (In
bar 4 of Mozart's Jupiter Symphony even the octave is a note foreign to the harmony,
a suspension leading to the 7th.) Naturally a 7th does not always count as a chordal
dissonance, but only when its resolution coincides with a change of root (as in ex.19a)
and thus when the dissonance is a determining factor in the harmonic development as
represented by the root progression (see Basse fondamentale). Conversely, if the
note to which a dissonance relates remains unmoved (as in ex.19b), then the 7th is to
be understood as a note foreign to the harmony, i.e. a suspension.
Since the later 17th century, composers' use of free counterpoint has been
characterized by the fact that dissonant figures taken from licentious counterpoint
accented passing notes or downward-leaping suspensions have been conceived in
terms of the requirements of harmonic counterpoint, and hence related to triads and
chords of the 7th instead of to individual notes. It is true that contrapuntal theory
admitted harmonically founded phenomena only hesitantly. In Bernhard's attempt to
sketch out a contrapuntal theory of seconda pratica (thus, to codify what is not really
susceptible of codification), the dissonant figures of licentious counterpoint, the stylus
luxurians, are described without regard to their harmonic preconditions or
implications. Phenomena such as the accented passing note (transitus inversus), the
upward- or downward-leaping appoggiatura (superjectio or subsumptio) and the
resolution of a suspension by leap (syncopatio catachrestica) or by a step upwards
(mora) are scarcely problematic; and their nature as exceptions to strict counterpoint,
which is clear from the fact that they are referred back to the norm from which they
deviate, is not open to dispute. However, in a quotation from a recitative (ex.20a),
which Bernhard reduced to a bare skeleton (ex.20b) in order to elucidate its free style
as a paraphrase of a piece of strict counterpoint, thus explaining it as an
agglomeration of licences an ellipsis (e' instead of f'e'), a quaesitio notae (c' d'
instead of d') and an anticipatio (e') there may be doubt as to whether it is not simply
a matter of a broken diminished 7th chord. Hence one may question whether
Bernhard was describing what he heard or whether his musical perception has been
misrepresented in his theory for want of other than contrapuntal terminology.
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In their descriptions of free style, Heinichen (1728) and Mattheson (1739), too, started
out from the categories of licentious counterpoint: in clear contradiction of the listening
habits of their time, and even their own perceptions, they explained as an anticipatio
transitus the unprepared use of the 7th in the dominant 7th chord on a strong beat.
The 7th, which in strict writing should appear only on a weak beat as a passing note,
is interpreted as being anticipated on the strong beat. Kirnberger (17719), who took
over the basic propositions of Rameau's theory of harmony, outlined a theory of free
composition sustained by an awareness of tonal harmonic implications; he took as his
starting-point four-part writing rather than two-part; dissonances are classified either
as essential (dissonant chords) or fortuitous (notes foreign to the harmony); and
embellished or variegated counterpoint proceeds from the figuration of a harmonic
framework.
From a chorale with continuo accompaniment (ex.21a) the seemingly two-part
writing implies four-part writing by the continuo Kirnberger evolved a motivic
counterpoint ( ex.21b). The upper part decorates dissonant chords melodically
(chords of the 2nd, a 6-5 and a 7th) and is to be understood not as an intervallic
progression (as which it would be absurd) but as free movement within the chord, with
anticipatory dissonances, hence notes foreign to the harmony, on every fourth quaver.
The part-writing is justified by the chords that constitute the implicit or (in the continuo)
explicit background to the composition.
Counterpoint
15. Bach.
Alongside the style of Palestrina, the instrumental polyphony of J.S. Bach constitutes
one of the models that have determined contrapuntal theory. Whereas Palestrina's
style allows barely any doubt over its rules, or at least its basic rules, the technique of
Bach's counterpoint has not yet been adequately described and there is some
controversy about the principles on which it is founded.
The habit of defining polyphony as a combination of equal melodic parts, the prestige
of the fugue as a consummate expression of instrumental counterpoint, and a onesided concentration on organ and keyboard music (as in Spitta's thesis of the primacy
of organ style in Bach's output) all contributed to neglect of the fact that another type
of polyphony, borne along by a continuo bass and with the melodic parts not of equal
importance but graded, is not less characteristic of Bach's music than is the fugal
type. To distort the title of a book by Halm (1913), it is possible to speak of two
cultures of counterpoint in Bach.
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The fact that technically, or logically, seen many such movement features result
from the necessity to resolve dissonances, and thus that the energetic impetus
originates in the music's harmony rather than in its linearity, need not however prevent
one from perceiving aesthetically the dissonances as means of reinforcing movement
features. These will thus be accorded aesthetic priority even though, in technical
respects, they represent a resultant: what is logically primary will appear as
aesthetically secondary, and vice versa. (The attempt totally to psychologize the
theory of counterpoint, as an encroachment of a manner of aesthetic perception into
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