Tonalité grégorienne: Musica recta as Prescriptive Harmony

Late nineteenth-century organist-composers wrote liturgical music dans la tonalité grégorienne based on Niedermeyer and d'Ortigue's chant-accompaniment treatise Traité théorique et pratique de l'accompagnement du plain-chant (1857). The resulting music contained no musica ficta —, especially not raised leading tones in minor—a watershed moment in the nineteenth-century re-emergence of diatonic modality. Focusing on modes 1 and 2 (the Dorian modes) as a case study, part 1 of the essay discusses the historical background of Niedermeyer's treatise, part 2 examines features and theoretical implications therein, part 3 details large modal collections such as Guilmant's Soixante interludes dans la tonalité grégorienne, and part 4 analyses two Dorian marches: one from Guilmant's L'Organiste pratique and one from Gigout's Cent pièces brèves dans la tonalité du plain-chant.

Musica Vera and Musica Ficta

Chapter 13 is a succinct chapter, designed to reduce the complex topic of musica ficta to very practical guidelines for its application in three settings: at cadences, in correction of forbidden intervals, and to enable transposition. Examples are given for each instance.

Choral Monuments

This book provides extensive and in-depth material about eleven epoch-making choral masterworks that span the history of Western culture from the Renaissance to the modern era. Included are Missa Pange lingua (Josquin Desprez); Missa Papae Marcelli (G. P. da Palestrina); B Minor Mass (J. S. Bach); Messiah (G. F. Handel); The Creation (Joseph Haydn); Symphony no. 9 (Ludwig van Beethoven); St. Paul (Felix Mendelssohn); Ein deutsches Requiem (Johannes Brahms); Messa da Requiem (Giuseppe Verdi); Mass (Igor Stravinsky); and War Requiem (Benjamin Britten). The works are presented in separate chapters, with each chapter divided into three basic sections—history, analysis, and performance practice. Discussions of history include biographical information about composers related to the work at hand, historical perspectives, and text sources. Analyses are focused on formal and musical structures, salient compositional techniques, and elements of music particular to the work being discussed, including parody and motivic organization. The discussion of performance practices includes primary source quotations about a wide range of topics, from performing forces, tempo, and phrasing of each work to specific issues such as tactus, text underlay, musica ficta, metric accentuation, rhythmic alteration, recitative, fermatas, and ornamentation. Musical examples and primary source quotes illuminate the material.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina – Missa Papae Marcelli

The chapter begins with a biographical and compositional overview, including discussions of Palestrina’s various positions in and outside of Rome; his compositional output that numbered 104 Masses, approximately 500 motets, and approximately 140 madrigals; the nature of his Masses, many of which are based on previously composed models; the papacy and the Counter-Reformation; and mandates of the Council of Trent. Musical discussion in this chapter focuses on unique characteristics of the Missa Papae Marcelli and its legacy. Performance practices include: pitch and performing forces; meter and tactus, with considerable focus on syncopation; the importance of oratorical phrasing; tempo and its variability; and musica ficta.

Josquin Desprez – Missa Pange Lingua

The historical portion of this chapter presents material about Josquin’s artistic status during the Renaissance, including testimonies by Martin Luther, Hans Ott, and Heinrich Glareanus. Included also is an overview of Josquin’s Masses, with focus on his final Mass—the Missa Pange lingua, composed sometime after 1515 but not published until 1539, after Josquin’s death. However, numerous copies of the Mass existed during and shortly after Josquin’s lifetime. The analysis portion of the chapter discusses Josquin’s imitative technique, extensive use of ostinatos, and paraphrase of Gregorian chant. Performance practices include numbers, types, and placements of singers; meter, tactus, and tempo; text underlay; and musica ficta and music recta.

Musica Ficta e Recta em Magnum Haereditatis Mysterium: Análise do Moteto de Willaert por Hexacordes

Como extensão de um trabalho anterior, a análise de inflexões ficta e recta em Magnum haereditatis mysterium de Willaert foi realizada com base em convenções de clausulae cadenciais, causa necessitatis e causa pulchritudines sobre publicações de época em manuscritos e impressos editados em livros de parte e de côro e em tablatura, além de uma edição moderna por Zenck. Tanto a natureza das ocorrências de inflexões ficta e recta bem como as discrepâncias de atribuição entre a tablatura de Gintzler e a edição de Zenck foram esclarecidas, porém em oposição à idéia geral de que tablaturas sejam fontes seguras para a interpretação por deductio, uma vez observados hexacordes molle e durum concomitantes no exemplar estudado.

Issues of Counterpoint in Gombert’s Missa Tempore paschali

Creating a new edition of the Missa Tempore paschali forces one to confront the extensive parallelisms found in the collected works edition and to consider a set of questions that are comparable to those raised by musica ficta in Gombert’s music: is an aggressive editorial stance justifiable when stylistic norms are exceeded, or might the composer have intended these unusual patterns? Answers emerge from the dense eight-voice Credo and twelve-voice Agnus dei II that both maintain our preconceptions about the style, and challenge them deeply. A new source for the Agnus dei II enriches our understanding of the editorial issues, the connection with Brumel's “Earthquake” mass, and our appreciation of the mass as a whole.

Reflexión sobre algunos problemas de semitonía subintelecta (musica ficta) en la música de Cabezón a partir de las fuentes vihuelísticas

Las antiguas fuentes españolas para tecla no siempre indican con precisión las alteraciones accidentales, bien por omisión, bien por responder a la práctica habitual de no indicarlas, dejándolas al juicio del intérprete (semitonía subintelecta). Para resolver el consiguiente problema para la práctica interpretativa, se propone examinar situaciones similares en las obras contemporáneas para vihuela, pues la tablatura de este instrumento refleja la altura precisa de las notas.