Combining 2Nd And 3Rd Species Counterpoint - Can This Tone Leap?

Hello

 

I'm a little unsure if the 4th tone of the 3rd species can leap to a different tone if it's consonant with the cantus firmus but dissonant with the 2nd species. For example:

 

 

 

Ignoring the fact that the amount of similar motion isn't very good, Is this leap here ok in terms of handling dissonance? I thought maybe it's acceptable because the 2nd species, the note at this point which is causing the dissonance, is resolved by step?
 

 

Thanks for your time

Edited May 10, 2015 by ansthenia

Thanks.

You also need to regulate the third species voice in relation to the second species voice and the cantus firmus; therefore, you can't have the second species at the interval of a fourth with the bass because that constitutes a dissonance (passing or not) in this combination of the species.

Not true with regards to renaissance repertoire, though; the presence of a faster voice does not make that passing tone any less passing.

This is one small step for man but one giant leap for second species counterpoint.

Best to actually furnish an example from the repertoire than to speak in abstraction. As far as I am aware, there is a clear preference for the minim (note the specific reference to the note value) to be consonant (w.r.t the bass) on the unaccented beats in the duple time works of Palestrina. Obviously, crotchets are treated differently (in relation to quavers).

I based that remark the renaissance counterpoint books by Gauldin (1985) and Schubert (1999) which only mention rules being relaxed when you add more voices and/or species, not further restricted. I went in and checked Jeppesen's treatise (1931) on Palestrina and he seems to fully endorse dissonances with minims, without singling out the bass, and doesn't modify this rule at any point as far as I can tell. It's possible he missed it, since the study is antiquated, and in the repertoire in the book I find that both minims are almost always consonant with a whole note in another voice whenever they occur (which isn't that often if you don't count suspensions), but I did find one example which isn't a passing tone but a lower neighbor (or auxiliary dissonance in Jeppesen's words) against the lowest voice in Palestrina's Ave Maria (page 102 in Jeppesen). Still, you may be right about Palestrina having this preference, but that's still just Palestrina having a preference ; )

 

Edited May 22, 2015 by Monojin

Sorry, I realise I have been very obtuse, but I would like to take it one step further so I can explain my reasoning. I think the thread has served its original purpose anyway.

I'm sure you are well aware that the ultimate aim of species counterpoint in the present context is to write in a style that closely resembles Palestrina (whose works the method is based on).

If the original poster sought to emulate Palestrina, I argue it would probably be due to a historic precedent set by a certain eighteenth century composer (who bastardized the style) rather than a specific appreciation for Palestrina. I don't think a student should be chained down by the limits of a single (particularly limited) composer who happened to be on a pedestal for centuries when there are so many other worlds of polyphony that they may like more. Also, species counterpoint has been used under different nomenclature in treatises by renaissance theorists such as Biancheri and Morley; Peter Schubert uses the species in his modal counterpoint textbook, which is the most practical and historically grounded one to date, and covers repertoire far beyond the sacred music of Palestrina.

I admit I was wrong to blurt out words like repertoire when I don't actually know what the asker is trying to accomplish. I just get zealous whenever I suspect that creativity is being stifled by Fux.

I would be interested to hear your opinion on what I would have said to the original question. My sources told me that each pair of voices should be examined for dissonance treatment as if in a vacuum (except for certain harmonic situations like perfect fourths or suspensions resolving in perfect intervals); therefore, the upper voice would have to be consonant or employ proper dissonance treatment against the second minim in the middle voice, even if that minim is dissonant with the lowest voice. Does this seem correct to you?

Again, sorry for making a big deal out of myself in a simple question thread.

I can see why such a rule would be made (it would account for the Palestrina 'exception' you gave), but it falls apart when you begin to write in an unstylistic way (e.g. A-C-E to A-B-flat-F to E-C-E would be permitted according to those rules, even if it sounds hopelessly wrong). I think it is simply far more beneficial to internalise the style which you are trying to emulate than to try to come up with or follow hard-and-fast rules.

I don't really see what's wrong with this combination that can't be explained with the lower two voices, though? There's an arguably bad-sounding hidden tritone that is condemned by some theorists, and the dissonant lower neighbor would be less pronounced as a passing tone (but that would make parallel fifths with the upper voice) or sped up as quarters (but that would exacerbate the arguably unidiomatic high point on a weak beat in the upper voice). Modifying one pair of voices obviously has consequences for other pairs, if that's what you meant. I don't think the example really sounds that bad; I've certainly heard way worse in (franco-flemmish) repertoire (the excerpt below is from a De Profundis motet, cited by Glarean as an epitome of modal mastery)

Finally, here's an interesting snippet from Zarlino's treatise, wherein he describes "four parts in thirds with one another, with no octave sounding among them", i.e. a 'seventh chord' that is resolved over a stationary 'root note' (the seventh is the E in the second voice and the root note is the F in the lowest voice). There's some trickery needed to make it work: the second voice's note of resolution would clash with the upper voice, so the upper voice has to quickly move to a note that is consonant with both the second and the lowest voices. The second voice also makes a slightly embellished resolution to avoid a parallel fifth with the upper voice. The only pair of voices that is set up to resolve a dissonance is the two that comprise the seventh.

I am sure you can see the difference between the example I

came up with and the (presumably) Josquin you have quoted here (hint:

note values, metrical position and treatment of dissonance).

You did not specify what you thought was incorrect about the example, so I was left guessing ;-) I assumed you meant the treatment of the tritone. Either way, I still don't see how it precludes examining dissonance and voice leading in pairs.

If you could point me to that motet (did you transcribe this?), that would be great.

I'm glad I've piqued your curiosity, so I can at least offer something of interest. I did transcribe that motet, but I'd rather link to the source material as there were some oddities (which I assume to be misprints) where I attempted to copy professional recordings by ear instead. My source was pages 372-375 in Dodecachordon (18-19 in the linked PDF document). It was indeed (possibly mis)attributed to Josquin. Glarean apparently loved the motet for seamlessly combining the dorian and phrygian modes.

http://conquest.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/e/ed/IMSLP77766-PMLP156677-GlareanusHL_Dodekachordon_Basel_1547_10.pdf

The excerpt sounds as nasty as it looks in every recording, though, so I assume it's the same in whatever source they use. Here's the Hilliard Ensemble.

I don't think I quite understand the point that you are trying to make

here (if any).

That modal counterpoint can be more free, varied and wild than it has been treated for the past few centuries, and that restricting it to the (vintage interpretation of) Palestrina curbs creativity for no reason. I took issue with some of your points which I perceived to contain biases from a tonal perspective. It wasn't my point that one ought to blindly follow a bunch of fixed rules (since that is the way of Fux); I wanted to show that more things are possible, not less.

Either way, I love discussing renaissance music theory. My favorite composer is Guillaume Dufay.

even composers as close in time as Lassus and Palestrina have a wealth of difference between them, and obviously you end up with anachronisms if you cherry pick examples from composers in opposite ends of the spectrum (which are fine, as long as they are acknowledged).

Then why did you apply Palestrina's idiom to the original post without acknowledging it as such? Not trying to be standoffish here, I realize it's a sound assumption, but I believe modal counterpoint is enjoying a surge of interest from people that aren't necessarily conservatory students looking for a stepping stone toward Bach or Haydn.

I like treatises because they offer us a glimpse of the compositional process behind the music we love, giving us the tools to understand and use their elements for ourselves rather than remain awestruck and inferior to the composer. Of course, I realize they reflect different ideals, but that gives us more to experiment with. For instance, I choose to disregard Thomas Morley's doctrine on triads (but appreciate the workflow he depicts for "breaking" cantus firmus notes into music, the English way).

Personally, I would like to see learners develop their own style based on common renaissance principles rather than approximating that of a composer. In a sense, that may not be an anachronism, if we accept recent developments in musicology which suggest most sacred music was improvised.

http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.13.19.2/mto.13.19.2.cumming.php

... So who won?

... So who won?

http://xkcd.com/386/

As far as I'm concerned, we all win as long as we learn something new ; )

I think it is difficult to articulate these 'common renaissance principles': it seems to me to be easier and more fruitful to point at a score and compare it to the existing repertoire.

I hesitated replying because I'm just going to end up shilling for one expensive book again, but there is a rising movement in renaissance musicology and pedagogy that is using historical perspectives to make the repertoire and the general practice from that period more accessible and better understood. It uses records like treatises to uncover the ideals that unified many of these musicians and which would be very hard to glean from a score (like Varietas), and then uses that to understanding to illustrate their methods (and their differences). I have delighted online hobbyists several times by referring them to this material, because it let them get to the essence of the repertoire rather than having to analyse scores with no clue as to the composer's ideals or context and only their prior biases to go on (not to mention getting hung up on superficial elements of form, like we have been in this thread). In addition, since most music was improvised, a lot of these treatises offer easy shortcuts to make music quickly, like Montanos' method for canons (in the video below) or Biancheri's "here's some handy rules of thumb in case you suck at counterpoint". Of course I'm not saying they have to reinvent the wheel and research these things themselves; I often recommend Peter Schubert's textbook "Modal Counterpoint: Renaissance Style" because it wraps up historically grounded conventions, stylistic considerations, exercises and select repertoire in a very fun and well-paced package. Part of it is choosing a paradigm of 'rules' that can't be extrapolated to every single composer, but he mitigates this by distinguishing "soft" rules from "hard" rules (and providing examples of those hard rules being broken as well). I wish there were others, but the textbooks immediately before it (mainly Robert Gauldin's "A Practical Approach to Sixteenth Century Counterpoint" and Thomas Benjamin's "The Craft of Modal Counterpoint") don't have a solid basis in the theory yet, and the only other one since that I know of is a disappointing reiteration of Fux.

So if anyone reading this wants to learn about renaissance music but is feeling discouraged by their current methods, I hope I've at least presented a promising alternative.

Yes, I have been very difficult and quite a bit unsporting. Thanks for engaging with me regardless.

Don't need to ask this time