Belborn Sarge

It's bearable as long as you never type in a piece that isn't finished...

I really like the pacing of that tune, and it makes sense as a whole even if I don't always understand individual notes. Tonality certainly breaks to the surface every now and then, eg. around 1:45-2:00.

I use Lilypond to hammer little needles under my fingernails... I mean, to assemble tidied drafts out of manuscript jottings. It's truly a write-only language.

It wasn't slow for, say, a tango. I liked it. Don't misinterpret earlier comments—consider the "dance music" of Astor Piazzolla, which was even bolder with both percussive chords and dissonance to great effect.

Luigi Nono - "No hay caminos, hay que caminar...Andrei Tarkovskij" Miloslav Kabel

4a, 4b: yes, because in a musical context a sound is consonant or dissonant first and foremost in relation to other sounds.

How about Shostakovich's late song sets? The Captain Lebyadkin songs and the settings of Michelangelo Buonarroti are with piano accompaniment. I think the Lebyadkin was his last work and it's pretty grim.

Well, such associations are subjective, but these suggest things like that to me: Scriabin, tenth sonata Feldman, Triadic Memories Messiaen, Vingt regards sur l'enfant J

Oh well. You may observe that my own mastery of species counterpoint is no quite waterproof. You're right about m. 16 and the cambiata—I didn't remember its being an exception to dissonance handling. Depending on who one is to believe, you may also right about third-note dissonances—Jeppesen says this about dissonances in the third species: (my quick translation) "On the first and third note only consonance is allowed. Fux adds to this rule the remark that on occasion the third note may be dissonant, but only if the second and fourth are consonant." He then goes on to question the validity of Fux's addendum... so the two theorists derived slightly different rules from the same music. But regarding the upward leaps from accented notes: one of Jeppesen's main criticisms of Fux is that sometimes his examples contradict the style being taught. As I recall, he shows a couple of canti firmi given by Fux that move in broken chords. That's why I've never dared read Fux myself.

I'd like to participate too.

I see a couple of dissonances in accented positions (B against F in measure 3, F against G in m.7, Bb against A in m.16, A against Bb in m.17) and a couple of forbidden leaps (upward leap from accented note in m.7, dissonant notes being approached or exited by leap in m.11, 16 and 17). Otherwise it looks fine. (caveat: my edumacation is based only on Jeppesen; his version of the rules differs from Fux's in some details but I don't know which details)

I asked about K

When he discusses doubled thirds he means specifically the third of the triad, reason being that it's the most conspicuous constituent tone in the triad and therefore the least in need of reinforcement by doubling. (Page 36 of my paperback copy.) So it's not about thirds in general. I don't remember anything about the sustained thirds, though, but I'm intermittently going through these sections myself so maybe I'll run into it at some point. Edit: I see you gave a page number, and I looked it up. I think what he means is that if you run into a situation where you're sustaining a doubled tone (which isn't the third) into the next chord (in which it is the third), you should see if you can make the doubling note move instead of sustaining. Second edit: Look on page 72, the third and fourth example of I6 - III.

Thanks. I found the first volume—it does look very goo.

I want a dead-tree edition of Beethoven's piano sonatas for study. There are two grillion of them. Which one would you recommend? Acid-free (non-yellowing) paper and a binding that doesn't fall apart are much preferred.