Counterpoint
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Recent papers in Counterpoint
This article follows on the heels of one by Holly Watkins, who argues that music, “a subsystem of the social system of communication,” can evoke the organic (the bodily and the psychic) not by forming a self-contained unity of parts and... more
Following the ideology proposed by the Motion Bank Community – i.e. using an interdisciplinary methodological approach that puts in dialogue theory, practice, science and new digital technologies – this text suggests the reading of the... more
Complete transcription and reconstruction of the canon a13 for Christ and his Twelve Disciples on the Apostles Creed. This piece is found in both the Eton Choirbook and the Baldwin Manuscript. This edition contained both the fully... more
Introduces basic principles of Taneyev's vertical- and horizontal-shifting counterpoint and assesses their application to Bach's keyboard repertoire. Considers Taneyev's alternative solutions to some of Bach's contrapuntal combinations.
""Counterpoint is a structural form in music which, in the high modernist era was mapped onto literature with differing degrees of success. It has also been the basis for a model of theoretical criticism, as critics such as Bakhtin and... more
A transcription of Leonin's "Viderunt Omnes" (c. mid to late 12th century), showing excerpts of the original two sources with comparative variations and a modern transcription. For a recording and score-video see the link below:... more
First attempt to translate this magnificent study of Counterpoint by The great Master Johann Joseph Fux. Only 2-part counterpoint section have been translated so far...
A Prolation Canon for three voices by Johannes Ciconia (c. 1370 – 1412). this piece is a unique example of irregular prolation from the French Ars Subtilior. Utilizing a 4:3:1 proportion, this piece creates an interesting rhythmic phasing... more
A critical and performance edition of Alexander Agricola's chanson "De tous biens plaine" for three voices. The cantus firmus of the tenor is extracted from Hayne Van Ghizeghem's (c. 1445 – 1476 to 1497) eponymous chanson. The text of... more
Curator, researcher and lecturer, Helena Bonett, focuses on significant themes in Barbara Hepworth’s work, particularly drawing out the influences of music and dance.
Questo volume nasce da un’esigenza: fare il punto della situazione dello stato degli studi musicologici sulla didattica del partimento (la cui pratica discorsiva è oggi assodata e consolidata) e più in generale della composizione in... more
Read online to see the complete examples: https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.20.26.3/mto.20.26.3.remes.html ABSTRACT: This article provides the first English translation of a little-known manuscript treatise by the central-German composer... more
A non-barred critical transcription of Alexander Agricola's motet-chanson "Belles sur toutes - Tota pulchra es" from Florence, Bibliotea del Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini, MS 2439 ff. 63v-64r. For a recording of the music with a... more
The following text outlines a particular developement of contrapuntal thinking in Scriabins compositions that I call ›metamorphosis‹ of counterpoint. As common practice counterpoint depends on the preference of vertical conditions... more
Performance score of Francesco Landini's madrigal, " Musica Son - Già Furon - Ciascun Vuol" transcribed from the Squarcialupi Codex (121v-122r). For a video of the score with a performance see the link below.... more
This is a threefold transcription of Baude Cordier's "circle canon," two versions in rondeau form and one in perpetual canon. Included with the music transcriptions are full translations from Medieval French to English of all the... more
For a complete performance recording and video see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZQWsroyKj0 This is a work for organ based on the open motiv of the medieval chant "Tantum Ergo." The work is in four sections, which may be played as... more
This is a comparative manuscript edition of Gherardello da Firenze's (c. 1350) caccia "Tosto che l'alba". Herein you can see the difference between the piece's three available sources listed below. For a performable realization of this... more
A pedagogical transcription of Richard Sampson's (attr.) motet in double canon, "Salve radix," written to celebrate the union of Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon and the birth of their daughter, Mary. For a video with recording... more
Two entries for the Cambridge Haydn Encyclopedia on Haydn's Counterpoint and Compositional Process
The year 2014 saw the fortieth anniversary of a groundbreaking – and by now classic – study on medieval counterpoint: Klaus-Jürgen Sachs’s Der Contrapunctus im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert. In his study, Sachs set out to verify thoroughly a... more
This is a performance edition of Gherardello da Firenze's (c. 1350) caccia, "Tosto che l'alba." This edition is a combination of the three available sources for this piece, selecting those options which are optimal when differences arise... more
Contrapunto en el estilo de Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
https://theleupoldfoundation.org/product/remes-derek-the-art-of-preluding-deconstructing-and-reconstructing-the-preludes-in-j-s-bachs-well-tempered-clavier-volume-i-ii/ According to J. S. Bach, the fundamental principles of composition... more
(Full article now available in Theoria, Volume 28) Around 1763, shortly after he began his decades-long tenure as Kapellmeister to the Esterházy princes, Haydn experimented with learned counterpoint in the finales of four early... more
Transcription of Johann Pachelbel's chorale fugue and fantasia on "Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her" for pipe organ.
As observers within the field of music theory will have noticed, our understanding of the subjects of counterpoint and harmony are in a period of slow but steady change. Recent research into the history of contrapuntal and compositional... more
INVESTIGACIÓN REALIZADA ENTRE 1972-74 CON EL ING. JORGE GIL MENDIETA (IIMAS-UNAM), SOBRE LA RELACIÓN ENTRE LA ESCALA DIATÓNICA Y LA ESTRUCTURA DE GRUPO DEL CUBO (IIES-UNAM 1984). COMPRENDE UNA INTRODUCCIÓN A LA TEORÍA DE GRUPOS, A LAS... more
For an audio-video animation of the manuscript with the modern transcription see the link below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO56v7qltNo An edition of the anonymous labyrinthine ballade on three canons, "En la maison Dedalus" (In the... more
In his autobiographical sketch Joseph Haydn claims to have learned the ‘true fundamentals of composition’ from Nicola Porpora. Porpora (1686–1768) was a student of Gaetano Greco at the Conservatorio dei Poveri in Naples and later himself... more
This study situates theories of movable counterpoint by the Russian composer and theorist Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev (1856–1915) against current scholarship on Renaissance music. Analytical approaches that draw upon Taneyev’s theories can... more
This paper evolved from a Graduate Seminar directed by Margaret Bent at Princeton University during the Fall of 1988, thus owing something to both her scholarship and her provocative insights into the thorny subject being covered. It is... more
A transcription of a lesser known masterpiece from the early 16th century. The only known work by composer Johannes Mittner, this Mass, and particularly its Sanctus movement, demonstrates one of the largest mensuration canons from the... more
Schenker's theory has its roots in the theoretical traditions of the eighteenth century , specifically in species counterpoint and in the practice of thoroughbass: for him, these disciplines formed the basis of the " true theory, as... more
A critical transcription of the three-voice Caça (“chace” or canon) known as “O Virgo Splendens” (“O splendorous virgin”), the first in the small collection of music from the Llibre Vermell. It is perhaps the oddest of the set, being the... more
A scroll edition of Pierre de la Rue's "Agnus dei II" from his "Missa l'Homme arme" featuring his famous 4-voiced prolation canon.
For a recording and score-video of the piece see the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrTtLNfq0x0
For a recording and score-video of the piece see the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrTtLNfq0x0
In diesem kompakten Band über die Kompositionstechnik des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts – als »Prima prattica«, »Stile antico« oder »Stylus gravis« bezeichnet – wird erklärt, wie Josquin, di Lasso, Palestrina u.a. komponiert haben und was die... more
Jakob Adlung’s recently rediscovered manuscript treatise, ‘Anweisung zum Fantasiren’ (‘Instruction in improvisation’, c.1725–7), proves definitively that some 18th-century musicians understood improvisation modularly in terms of stock... more
A modern edition of Nathaniel Giles (1558 - 1633/34) mensural bicinia, "Miserere," on 38 rhythmic proportions from the "Baldwin Commonplace Book" (1594). For a recording and animated score-video see this link:... more
During the second half of the eighteenth century, the city of Naples had three music conservatories: the Conservatorio di Santa Maria di Onofrio, the Conservatorio di Santa Maria di Loreto and the Conservatorio di Santa Maria della Pietà... more
Part 1 of my Doctor of Music Thesis (University of Alberta, Canada, 1999). Intended for those less familiar with the theories behind central Renaissance "Musica Ficta".