While I was slowly and carefully playing through the last of Bach's English Suites until a few minutes ago, I kept thinking about how many rules of counterpoint Bach breaks, and how often he breaks them. Then it occurred to me that Fux (1660-1741), the guy who wrote the rules of counterpoint as we know them, may have predated Bach by a generation, but he didn't write his Gradus Ad Parnassum until 1725, and by the time Bach could have even gotten his hands on a copy he could no longer see.
I have nothing against Fux. I cut several sets of teeth on Gradus Ad Parnassum. I just had a sudden realization about Bach today, and appreciate his deviations from what is to be expected even more than I did yesterday.
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Elaine Fine I am active as a composer, a violist, a violinist, a recorder player, and as a teacher. I have been keeping this space in the blogosphere alive with assumptions about music (and assorted other things) since 2005.View Profile
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Music is a mystery for people who play it, write it, listen to it, and write about it. The only thing I can really do when I try to say something about music is assume.
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13 comments:
I'd be curious to know some of the instances of rule-breaking you're speaking of; that rarified air between strict counterpoint and "free composition."
It's all over the place, and act of discovery is much of the fun. Mostly it has to do with getting from one place to another harmonically.
. . . also, my main point is that the rules we follow when "doing" counterpoint are rules we have imposed on Bach, not rules that he followed. Bach proves again and again that he was a free thinker.
Though I might disagree that rules are being "broken" "all over the place" in the Suites (or any other of Bach's compositions), his capacity to stretch, suspend, then ultimately satisfy even the most basic and agreed-upon tenets of voice-leading (for his time) can often give the impression of their being 'broken.'
Fux wasn't really addressing harmony (at least not functional harmony) in Gradus, which leaves us to consider what harmony in Bach's music results entirely from contrapuntal impetus vs. vertical (i.e. structural) organization.
For example there are instances of what we would later call augmented sixth chords in Bach's music (being the result of voice-leading), that precede their more vertical conception and implementation in the decades immediately following his death.
It's in the pieces for solo instruments that I find he had some of the hardest choices to make (e.g. implied vs. realized resolutions of tritones and diminished 5ths, etc.), but that he never seems to leave the listener wanting — there is always some implied tone, a cover tone, or an unfolding lurking somewhere to "take care of business" so to speak. :)
Thank you, Sean! You are right about Fux not being about harmony, but harmony always results from counterpoint, whether we want it to or not. I know the solo instrumental music (non keyboard) really well, so I find the keyboard music, which I know far less intimately, a whole new world when it comes from getting from one place to another harmonically.
The supposed domains of linear and horizontal organization of music have seemed to me to be silly, unsupported by an real world view and arbitrary. Any music other than a single line carries both implications, and I cannot think of a single composition which is only "horizontally" organized without some reference to voice leading, i.e. contrapuntal relationships. I recall reading that Bach's advice was that individual voices contribute something to both, and that such lines should have structure and sense in them, irrespective of "rules." Fux wrote a lot of music which I see rarely programmed today, while his "Gradus" seems to be in the hit parade of musicological chit-chat. But I've never played a piece of musicology nor been too motivated to follow rules. Oddly the 20th century's flirtation with dodecaphonic techniques has been too much about rules, as the audiences for ever more serialized music, on the one hand, and aleatoric music, on the other, show audiences wandering off in favor of something else. Rules have seemed like a dead end, while "old fashioned" score study, as is the readying of those Bach suites is, becomes the best instruction, even across centuries. "Strict counterpoint" seems so like a nun with a ruler, and who can point to something absolutely "strict" from Bach forward? Getting from one place to another harmonically? Is that not like getting from one place to another melodically in two or more voices? You are correct, Ms. Musical Assumptions, that "discovery is much of the fun." Dare I say it is all of the fun?
You're right, Anonymous. Discovery is all of the fun. And that's why we keep coming back to Bach every day.
•The supposed domains of linear and horizontal organization of music have seemed to me to be silly, unsupported by an real world view and arbitrary.
I agree there’s something silly going on here, though we’re speaking of two different things...
•Any music other than a single line carries both implications,
Many musics of a single line carry both implications.
•Fux wrote a lot of music which I see rarely programmed today,
Bach wrote a lot of music which I see rarely programmed today. But a composition’s value isn’t determined by the number of people who listen to it.
•while his "Gradus" seems to be in the hit parade of musicological chit-chat.
I’ll skip the condescension here, though it flavors much of your position.
•But I've never played a piece of musicology nor been too motivated to follow rules.
There is nothing more liberating than composing within restrictions.
•Rules have seemed like a dead end, while "old fashioned" score study, as is the readying of those Bach suites is, becomes the best instruction, even across centuries.
To study scores is to study “rules”, so long as you understand that there are no absolute rules of music, instead they are preference rules—the practice of composers passed on through the centuries.
•"Strict counterpoint" seems so like a nun with a ruler, and who can point to something absolutely "strict" from Bach forward?
I can. So can many others. Countless works of music, from great masterpieces to through-composed folk music, are governed by strict counterpoint. But I don’t think your issue is with counterpoint per se, rather in some sense with authority (evidenced in your “nuns” remark) handing down “contrapuntal rules.”
Strict species counterpoint is not the sum total of “allowable” compositional solutions, instead it is a point of departure, the very place from which free composition begins.
•Getting from one place to another harmonically? Is that not like getting from one place to another melodically in two or more voices?
Not necessarily, and since strict species counterpoint does not address motive, the point your attempting doesn’t seem so clear.
•You are correct, Ms. Musical Assumptions, that "discovery is much of the fun." Dare I say it is all of the fun?
Someone will have to explain to me how “discovery”, as it has been expressed here, is seemingly at odds with the study of strict counterpoint (or perhaps I’ve misconstrued something).
•"Strict counterpoint" seems so like a nun with a ruler, and who can point to something absolutely "strict" from Bach forward?
I can.
Then, please do. Perhaps a score available at Petrucci that we may read it together?
"Anonymous", I'm afraid you've missed the [counter]point.
Strict counterpoint is present in the music of the Common Practice Period in ways similar to primary colors being present in, say, the paintings of the Italian Renaissance. The surface hues and highlights of secondary and tertiary colors etc. are elaborations of those primary colors, much in the same way that tonal music of the Common Practice Period is the unfolding and elaboration of the tonic triad. It's not an exact analogy, but knowing that you feel the "linear and horizontal organization of music" (NB: aren't they the same thing?) are "supposed" and "silly", I don't expect you to agree.
The point of me saying that I and many others are able to point to many examples of absolutely strict music from Bach-forward was to suggest that strict species counterpoint is ubiquitous in the structural layers of music from this time period.
There is nothing in your commentary that suggests to me you are likely trained in Schenkerian Analysis, so no amount of analytical sketches will help to illuminate the points I've made. Instead I'll just make a friendly recommendation for you to explore some of the primary sources, including Schenker's "Counterpoint I" and "Free Composition."
If I am mistaken and you are trained in Schenkerian Analysis, I'm not only willing to go over a piece with you, I'll let you choose the one we discuss (from Bach to Brahms).
To sum this all up, I'll share with you something I share with many of my students: the notion that there are "rules" in music seems to get just about everyone in an uproar. But just as there is no such thing as "right" or "wrong" music (no matter how many times some teachers might use those words when going over students' part-writing exercises), the idea of "rules" is just a shortcut; a way of saying "compositional style" or "period compositional practice." We learn strict counterpoint and voice-leading as points of reference, which ultimately become points of departure—as it has been done for centuries.
While it's always fun to see Mozart trying to avoid perfect parallel 5th when he resolves German augmented 6th chords in an Alberti texture, and while it's neat to discover and discuss the occasional melodic diminished 4th in Bach, they're only exceptions to a general set of period compositional preferences. In other words, they didn't become the "rule."
Beethoven is considered a "revolutionary" composer—and rightly so! But it's not because of all the "rules" that he apparently "broke", instead it's because of the ingenious way he chose to solve, honor, and ultimately expand them.
"If I am mistaken and you are trained in Schenkerian Analysis, I'm not only willing to go over a piece with you, I'll let you choose the one we discuss (from Bach to Brahms)."
But earlier: "...and who can point to something absolutely 'strict' from Bach forward? I can."
The assertion was that you "can" name a piece. Lots of words about Schenkerian analysis (or even Salzer and beyond), but not a title of a work evidencing absolutely strict, rule-driven counterpoint.
Please name a piece, because you said you "can." A title, please.
The point "Anonymous" is that they all do: Semper idem, sed non modem modo (all the same, but not in the same way). But without training in counterpoint, it's understandable why these points seem moot to you.
"...who can point to something absolutely "strict" from Bach forward?" Sean wrote, "I can" and then did not.
Ms. Fine remains the authoritative voice with -- "main point is that the rules we follow when 'doing' counterpoint are rules we have imposed on Bach, not rules that he followed. Bach proves again and again that he was a free thinker."
If one reads Fux, one finds in both the Speculativa and the Practica that he speaks of his work as pedagogical methods. (Petrucci only has the work in Latin, German and French.) Ditto for Piston's and Kennan's basic texts to Krenek's 18th century Study to his short but interesting 12 tone Studies, and ditto for as far back as Viadana's Cento Concerti (a decent translation may be found in Arnold's Art of Accompaniment from a Thorough-Bass, volume 1). (These are in my library, suggesting some 'training' though Sean assumed incorrectly that I had none.)
I side with Fine. I can, but then I side with free thinkers over rule administrators, as with composition over pedagogy as the end game and goal.
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