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Contrapuntal Direction as a Diagnostic Tool in the Early L'homme armé Mass
- Author(s):
- Tim Daly (see profile)
- Date:
- 2022
- Subject(s):
- Musical analysis, Music theory
- Item Type:
- Conference paper
- Conf. Title:
- Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference
- Conf. Loc.:
- Edinburgh
- Conf. Date:
- July 2020
- Tag(s):
- 15th century counterpoint, Music analysis
- Permanent URL:
- https://doi.org/10.17613/wfw1-jm43
- Abstract:
- The composer and theorist Johannes Tinctoris provided the most rigorous definition of contrapuntal practice available in the second half of the fifteenth century. Buried within his De arte contrapuncti (1477) is a small number of progressions in oblique motion that define a new analytical concept: contrapuntal direction. These few cases share the peculiar quality of identifying the function of each voice in the progression. The contrapuntal voice must always move towards the stationary tenor since Tinctoris does not permit the same sounding result when the tenor moves towards the contrapuntal voice. Contrapuntal direction provides a valuable tool for diagnosing contrapuntal relationships in complex polyphony. In this paper, I employ a series of examples from the early L’homme armé mass repertoire to demonstrate that contrapuntal direction can clarify the compositional structure of late fifteenth-century polyphony, including passages without cantus firmus. I focus special attention on the implications of cases where composers seem not to be following Tinctoris’s teaching. While posing a series of questions for further research, contrapuntal direction provides an important step towards developing a generative theory of fourvoice cantus firmus texture.
- Metadata:
- xml
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 1 year ago
- License:
- All Rights Reserved
- Share this:
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medredinburgh.pdf