rare ligature

i read in a texbook by Sergei Taneyev that a ligature of 7-8 in a lower voice is prohibited in the old style of voice leading, but i found examples of it in works (very few though)

did anyone here who reads old works find this ligature in practical use?

i can list the findings I made but I think I can only remember exact partsong in one example

do you know from study or maybe you were thought in a class, is this a prohibited ligature? 🤔

(obviously i can only recommend Sergei Taneyev textbook but it's not unimaginable that someone living in the time this master was living in didn't have a chance to get their hands on all the works we have the privilege of having access to today)

I'm curious, what examples have you found?

first one I can offer the work name of: "missa mi-mi" Johannes Ockeghem, Credo, m 171

this one is slightly less "problematic"

but still applies, others are much more straightforward

they include examples from Jean Mouton, Obrecht, Isaac...

what is the reason behind your curiosity? (if any, like I suppose surely this isn't just chatting? 😮)

I wanted to know what examples you have, as I couldn't imagine under what circumstances this voice-leading problem could occur in actual compositions. Reading your initial post, I first thought of Palestrina's technique of counterpoint (as well as its bastardized version we nowadays call Fuxian counterpoint), as this is what 19th-century theorists generally referred to as 'old style.'

Thanks for clarifying that you actually mean pre-Palestrina style. The rules of counterpoint were not yet as developed and unified during Ockeghem's time; voice leading was more free in this regard. Jeppesen's book might shed some light on the matter you inquired about, I’ll have to look it up.

2 hours ago, Fermata said:

I wanted to know what examples you have, as I couldn't imagine under what circumstances this voice-leading problem could occur in actual compositions. Reading your initial post, I first thought of Palestrina's technique of counterpoint (as well as its bastardized version we nowadays call Fuxian counterpoint), as this is what 19th-century theorists generally referred to as 'old style.'

Thanks for clarifying that you actually mean pre-Palestrina style. The rules of counterpoint were not yet as developed and unified during Ockeghem's time; voice leading was more free in this regard. Jeppesen's book might shed some light on the matter you inquired about, I’ll have to look it up.

 

bastardized version > haha that's funny! but I guess some of it is music "rules" changing/advancing, that's actually an interesting topic... (more and more I see "other side" of that thing, like some baroque period leap tendencies actually not being that "poor" or difficult vocally as theorists like Jeppesen would "have you believe")

I don't recall anything from Jeppesen book (the counterpoint i don't have the one specializing in Palestrina) on this issue, if you find something I would love if you can remind us here...

rules of counterpoint were not yet as developed > I don't know if i would agree with your statement in a strict/complete sense, but i understand your point here! the pre roman school guidelines being more relaxed from our view...

this book i mentioned doesn't make any distinction between Flemish (Netherlandish, Burgundian w/e ppl call them) and Roman "periods" in terms of rules, that might be why i didn't clarify 

Jean Mouton may be the closest to our time? but even he is somewhere between these two... 

cheers for taking time and interest in solving the issue!

all the best!

under what circumstances > i forgot to reply to this

the example i gave by name: it's near a cadence, the values are more rapid at this point, it's figured out a bit "sneaky" (in a sense that maybe ears of someone not accustomed to the usual things might not even register it), but u can see the score yourself on choral wiki: cpdl dot org

others are not so, they appear as regular (any other type of common) ligature, but I can't name them all from the top of my head

also I only found like 6-8 of these...

Btw. I checked the PDF of the score available on cpdl. Maybe I'm too tired at the end of the day or blind, but I don't see anything suspicious in m. 171 of the Credo that matches your description. Did you mean m. 170 instead?

I gave u a misleading numbering, the numbering I have on my pdf is so I can have as many examples in one file (reasons are related to DAW it's not relevant), so I count measures differently 🤦‍♂️

the relation is between outer voices, m 175-176

disregard my numbers u can just count from 173

sorry about that I was replying to you too quickly...

I was replying to you too quickly > I don't have much time to look up every example, to try and find the source work... I do not have the source works as text because that would be just too much information to store in any sort of helpful manner... names of composers of the works I already gave you...

I can post examples as midi, I may be able to tell you more names of source works over the coming few days...

if you're suspicious of me, which I only offer because of my previous experiences on the forum, nothing to do with you, I would encourage you in persisting, for my sake...

but for yours to reconsider: why would I try to invent something like this and what motive would it serve?

all the best!

PS another thing that "masks" the ligature well is that, as you can see, it forms a cambiata where "return or recovery is larger than a 2 (secunda) or absent" which is used by this particular composer very often (but a fair number of others as well)

(here I'm just purely speaking "melodically", second tone of the cambiata figure is actually consonant with one voice but has a "genuine dissonant ""function"" of the cambiata figure's second tone" in relation to another...)

as I said it's nearing a cadence so the relations get a bit less straightforward, as I'm sure you know is common...

again, others are much more "plain" / easy to spot 

There is in fact a passage in Jeppesen's book on cp which, among other things, deals with suspended 7ths in the lower voice resolving to the 8ve under certain conditions. It's *not* exactly the same situation as in the Ockeghem mass, but quite similar nevertheless. See example b) below.

sweet, I think I've read this but I totally forgot! 

so basically, as long the suspension is good (in terms of what is good in 2 voice textures) against a 3rd voice, 7>8 is not controversial at all?

haha this is kind warping my brain but i think i'm beginning to see the logic... it's actually perfectly consistent to the examples I have, idk why the rule from the other textbook stuck with me so much...

PS i found the page u shared, thanks!

11 minutes ago, Display said:

so basically, as long the suspension is good (in terms of what is good in 2 voice textures) against a 3rd voice, 7>8 is not controversial at all?

Yes, it seems so, as far as Renaissance counterpoint is concerned. But it's definitely a big no-no in the tonal counterpoint of the later centuries.

2 minutes ago, Fermata said:

Yes, it seems so, as far as Renaissance counterpoint is concerned. But it's definitely a big no-no in the tonal counterpoint of the later centuries.

 

ah, I didn't know this about tonal style!

thank you again, excellent reminder!