The Craft of Modal Counterpoint

Thomas Benjamin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9780415971713
• eBook ISBN: 9781135874384
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

"The Craft of Modal Counterpoint" is the companion book to Benjamin's "The Craft of Tonal Counterpoint," recently republished in a second edition by Routledge. Modal counterpoint is the style of composition that was employed until the "tonal" revolution pioneered by Bach; it is the basis for most Early Music.
Benjamin, a composer and pedagogue, offers a complete analysis of this important musical style. He begins by covering general aspects of the style, then covers in detail two, three, and four-part counterpoint. The Motet, an important form of vocal composition in this period, is studied separately. The book concludes with a brief anthology of key scores, 15 in all, for the student to study further. Also includes 132 musical examples.

1 General Stylistic Aspects

DOI: 10.4324/9780203997208-1

The polyphonic style of Palestrina and his contemporaries is one of the most purely vocal styles in the history of music. No purely instrumental idioms intrude on the smooth surface. This music is not dance-dominated, as is some secular vocal music of the time, and its feeling of meter comes not from the explicit placement of accent in each line, but through subtler means. Its melodies are primarily conjunct, avoiding the large skips and triadic figures more proper to instrumental music. Above all, it is subtle, achieving its expressive effects in unobtrusive ways.

Example 1

Translation: A holy day has dawned for us. Come, people, and praise the Lord, for today has a great light fallen upon the earth. This day has the Lord made; let us rejoice and be joyful in it.

Texture

As you have noticed in the previous music, the music of Palestrina is linear in emphasis. It has no “accompaniment;” each voice is a living, independent line. Even the bass voice, while exhibiting in cadences and homophonic passages the encroachments of functional tonality, is linearly conceived and leaps only slightly more than the upper voices. Harmony results from the interaction of individual voices; it does not serve as a primary organizing force, as it often does in later music. Little ornamentation per se exists in this music, although certain ornamental figures typically occur at cadence points, and evidence shows that ornaments may have been performed by singers at the time. The texture is homogeneous; it has little of the treble or tenor domination that characterizes some earlier music. All the voices have about the same amount of thematic material, and in imitative passages they actually have the same material. Compared to many other styles, this style is highly economical in its means, is consistent in sonority and technique, and has a restrained feeling for expression. One searches in vain here for the kind of striking dramatic effects typical of other schools and periods.

Two main textural types were employed: a contrapuntal texture, usually imitative, and a more homophonic texture, known as the stile familiare or familiar style. Although these two are mixed freely in many works, the linear (contrapuntal) texture is more germane to the present study; we will treat the chordal (homophonic) style under four-voice texture.

The vocal ranges employed were roughly those shown in the following example. The normal range is shown as R, and the tessitura (the heart of the range, its most useable portion) as T.

Example 2

Throughout the text we will be using the arrangement of clefs shown in the example. Extremes of range are avoided as being awkward or obtrusive. The contrast of very high and very low is foreign to the style, as are large gaps in the middle of the texture. Adjacent voices are rarely far apart and will occasionally cross. The thick, weighty sound of the Ockeghem school is not found here, nor is the polar texture (melody versus bass) of the Baroque. The key word in this style is homogeneity.

Text Setting

Study the setting of the text in the motet Dies sanctificatus. Notice that the setting is more leisurely and drawn out than in many other kinds of music. Find the text repetitions and notice how both major and minor subdivisions of the text are articulated musically. How is accentuation achieved? How are the principal words in the text emphasized? Which note values can carry a syllable? After which note values do syllables change? Are there instances where several notes are used to set one syllable? Where does the final syllable of each section fall metrically?

An examination of text setting in late sixteenth-century sacred vocal music reveals the following:

• Accent. The music generally follows the accentuation of the Latin text. The important words are emphasized musically. Accent and emphasis are achieved through metric placement, the height and length of the note, and melismatic setting (see third bullet). Notes approached by a leap, especially an ascending one, tend to sound accented.
• Placement of text on various note values. Any white note can carry a syllable, unless it immediately follows a series of black notes. A single (♩) does not carry a syllable unless it is part of the figure
  
  . A new syllable wi...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 General Stylistic Aspects
• Chapter 2 Two-Voice Counterpoint
• Chapter 3 Three-Voice Counterpoint
• Chapter 4 Counterpoint in Four Voices
• Chapter 5 The Motet
• Suggestions for Further Study
• Appendix: An Anthology of Complete Works
• Bibliography
• Discography
• Index