mass analysis: renaissance theory versus practice in ... · choosing a renaissance composer. corpus...

Massanalysis:RenaissanceTheoryVersusPracticeinPalestrina’sSacredWorks

Claire Arthur, McGill [email protected]

NECMTApril 7, 2018

VS.

Research Question

HowwelldotheoreticaltreatisesaccuratelyreflectmusicalpracticesintheRenaissance?

(Especiallywithregardtocounterpointandvoice-leading)

2

Research Question

…morespecifically:

• Arethemultitudeofspecificrules laidoutbyRenaissancetheoriststrulyconsistentwiththemusicalpracticesofthetime?

• Inhindsight,couldtheseruleshavebeensummarizedbyafewcoreprinciples(muchlikemodernvoice-leadingpedagogy)?

3

Choosing a Renaissance Treatise

Nicola Vicentino:‘Ancient Music Adapted to Modern Practice’ (1555)

• Numerousofexamplesoftwo-partcounterpoint

• Specifiestheminimumnumberofvoicesforeach

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(1511– c.1575)

Vicentino (1558); Book II, Chapter 29, “On Various Steps and LeapsPlaced Above and Below, Ascending and Descending Together.”

5

Narrowing the Scope of “Contrapuntal Practice”

• Onlyexamplesmovingtoperfectintervals

• Anyexampleintwo-partcounterpointwithnorhythmicinterpretationgiven

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• Book II full of similar examples

Vicentino’s Rules7

• Catalogued 54 such rules (excluding “a 2”)


• Rules sorted according to “rule class”


• PalestrinawidelyheldasexemplarofRenaissancecontrapuntalstyle

(massesconvenientlyalreadysymbolicallyencoded!)

11

Choosing a Renaissance Composer

Corpus

• GiovanniPalestrina’scompletesetofmasses:

• 104masses(707movements)• 3-8voices• Eachpart(musically)asinglestream

Palestrina(1525– 1594)

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• Howeachnotegotthere(whatprecededit?)

• Whatcontrapuntalrelationsarehappeningatthesametimeagainstanyothervoice?

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Corpus


• Vertically“slice”themusicatanynewattack(onsetslice)

• Foreachpairofvoicesintexture,lookatasliding2-slicewindowandcalculateallhorizontalandverticalintervals(2-gram)

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Corpus


P5 P5

-P4

-P4

Any2-voicepolyphonic“antecedent-consequent”motioniscaptured(referredtoasa“2-gram”)

Parsing and Querying15

Assumptions

• Compoundverticalintervalsreducedtotheirsimplecounterparts(horizontalintervalswerenot)

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Assumptions

• Compoundverticalintervalsreducedtotheirsimplecounterparts(horizontalintervalswerenot)

• Exampleswrittenwithparticularpitchclassescanbethoughtofasequally‘good/bad’iftransposed(i.e.focusonintervalcontent)

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Cantus

Alto

Tenor

Bass

measures: 1 2 3 4 5

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Exampleof“SalamiSlicing”

2-gram

StringRepresentation:“V1,m1,m2,V2”

(Antecedent)(Consequent)

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Computational Analysis• Each2-gramgetsenteredintoalargetablewiththefollowinginformationattached:

• The 2 voices (parts) participating in the 2-gram

• Pitches that generate the 2-gram

• Mass and movement title

• Beat and measure position

• The resulting type of motion (contrary, oblique, etc.)

• Total number of voices in the texture at each moment

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Vicentino’s VoiceLeadingRulesfor5+voices21

Instancesofsingle“a5”rule:(m3-P8-m3P8)

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Instancesofsingle“a5”rule:m3-P8-m3P8

Nasce laGioia,Benedictus:

Open5th (G-D)

Octaves(allG)

ORegem Coeli,Gloria:

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Dm

Dm

• 8voicetextureallowsforgreaternumberofintervallicrelationshipsthanisaffordedbya3voicetexture• Unevendistributionofvocaltexturesincorpus:

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WhatDoWeNeedtoConsider?

CorpusResultsa

VLPatternsthatneveroccur:

0/10

VLPatternsthatoccuronlyonce:

1/10

28

CorpusResultsa

29

Rulesneverrealized:0/10

Rulesrealizedonlyonce:

1/10

CorpusResultsa

30



1/10

Vicentino’s VoiceLeadingRulesfor8+voices:31

CorpusResultsa


0/10


1/10

32

Corpus Resultsa

33



3/13

CorpusResultsa

34


3/13


2/13

P8,P5,-P4,P1

CorpusResultsa

35


0/6


0/6

(Patternwithlowestnumberof

occurrences:46!)

• IfPalestrina’swritingwasconsistentwithVicentino’s rules,weshouldexpectagraphofhiscompositonal usagetolooksomethinglikethis:

36Corpus Resultsa

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VoiceLeadingPatternsGroupedBy“RuleClass”

Corpus Resultsa

ParallelandDirectPerfectIntervals

• Parallelanddirectperfectintervalsrepresentinstancesofso-called“hard”and“soft”rules,respectively

• Modernformulationsofthisrulevary

• Themostcommonversion:• Twovoicesmustnotmoveinsimilarmotionintoaperfectintervalunlesstheupper-mostvoicemovesbystep.

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Vicentino’s GuidelinesinProse

• Clearprohibitionagainstparalleloctavesandfifths

• Nodirectinstructiononbothvoicesleapingintoperfectinterval.

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ParallelandDirectPerfectIntervals 40

• InstancesofDirectIntervals:

1,609

• InstancesofParallelPerfectIntervals:

154

41ParallelandDirectPerfectIntervals

Summary

• GuidelinesproposedbyVicentino arenotterriblyconsistentwithmusicalpractice;rulesappeartoostrict.• (e.g.,‘a8’progressionsfoundintexturesfor3-7voices)

• Realizationofrulesbecomeincreasinglyrareasnumericlabelincreases.

• “Poorer”progressionsmorelikelytobe“hidden”inthickertextures.

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What’s next?

• Deriveunderlyingprinciplesfromananalysisofseveral“similar”rulesbyVicentino?

43

44

Vicentino: Increasingly “bad” counterpoint (thirds to perfect intervals)

What’s next?

• Deriveunderlyingprinciplesfromananalysisofseveral“similar”rulesbyVicentino?

• ComparisonofVicentino’s “good/bad”voiceleadingtoPalestrina’s“common/rare”usagetouncoverotherrulesorprinciples?

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N=2,073 N=1,658 N=883 N=311 N=147

N=112 N=773 N=1,786 N=1,085 N=124

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Vicentino,Chapter2.1(leavingtheunison)

Palestrina(otherwaysofleavingtheunison)

N=1,290 N=2,994 N=1,603 N=945 N=280 N=48 N=114

ThankYou!

Special thanks to Peter Schubert and Julie Cumming

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WhichPatternsareMost/LeastCommon?• Althoughthereare3,326unique voice-leadingpatterns,450ofthemaccountforthevoice-leadingin90%ofthecorpus

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ExamplesofDirectPerfectIntervals50

CorpusResultsa

51

VoiceLeadingPatternsGroupedBy“RuleClass”

52CorpusResultsaVoiceLeadingPatternsGroupedBy“RuleClass”

Outof1,612totaldirectintervals…

…1,483accountedforbyVicentino’srules

53CorpusResultsaVoiceLeadingPatternsGroupedBy“RuleClass”

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