On Compositional Process in The Fifteenth Century PDF

American Musicological Society
On Compositional Process in the Fifteenth Century

Author(s): Bonnie J. Blackburn
Source: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Summer, 1987), pp. 210
-284
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/831517
Accessed: 15/04/2009 13:05
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucal.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the
scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that
promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
University of California Press and American Musicological Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,
preserve and extend access to Journal of the American Musicological Society.
http://www.jstor.org
On CompositionalProcess in the
Fifteenth Century
BY BONNIEJ. BLACKBURN
Scribendi
rectesapereestetprincipium
etfons*
ardly any development in the history of music has been more

vital and fateful than the change from "successive composition"
to "simultaneous conception." In a seminal article written more than
forty years ago, Edward Lowinsky used these words to describe a
transformation in the manner of composition analogous to the devel-
opment of the theory of perspective in art, and he placed it in the
historical context of the increasing understanding of physical space in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (Lowinsky I946). His prime
theoretical witness for the recognition of simultaneous conception was
Pietro Aaron, who, in his Libri tres de institutioneharmonicaof I516,
differentiated between the compositional method of older composers
and that of the younger generation, in which he included himself,
Josquin, Obrecht, Isaac and Agricola.
Lowinsky linked "the new simultaneous concept of a polyphonic
whole" with "the gradual transformationand eventual disappearance
of the cantusfirmustechnique," and he posited that "it was the small
and simple forms of Italian music, such as the frottola or lauda, in
which the simultaneous manner of composition was first practised,"
although he suggested that it might have "predecessors in the small
forms of the trecentomadrigal or the conductus" (1946, 69 and 70). In
a subsequent article on early scores, Lowinsky proposed that "this
change in the method of writing music down coincides with a
momentous change in the technique of composition-the change from
*
"Understanding is both the first principle and the source of sound writing";
Horace, Ars poetica, 309, quoted by Tinctoris in the dedication of his Liberde arte
contrapuncti.
A greatly condensed version of this paper was read at the Annual Meeting of the
American Musicological Society in Cleveland on 8 November I986 in a session
chaired by MargaretBent, who also was a respondent. This study is dedicated to the
memory of Edward E. Lowinsky, who encouraged its beginning but did not live to
see its end.
COMPOSITIONALPROCESSIN THE FIFTEENTHCENTURY 211
the successive conceptionof the single voices to the simultaneous

conception of the polyphonic complex,"and he outlined different
formsof simultaneousconception-the imitativestyle, in which "the
severalpartsare not actuallyconceivedas one, but each is calculated
andconceivedin its relationto the others,"the homophonicstyle, that
"cannothave been conceivedotherwisethan simultaneouslyin the
literal sense of the word," and a mixed form, exemplifiedby the
frottola,where"sopranoand bassaresimultaneouslyconceivedwhile
the alto and tenor are later additions" (1948, 20 and 21, n. 20). In a
recentarticlehe modifiedhis view of the developmentof simultaneous
conceptionto embracecanoniccompositions,particularlythose with
canons at close intervals-Ockeghem'sMissaProlationumbeing a
specialand telling example-and worksin which the new harmonic
style, based primarilyon root-positiontriads,comes to the fore. As
the first substantialexampleof this style he proposedDufay'sNuper
rosarumflores, writtenfor the dedicationof the Cathedralof Florence
on 25 March 1436. In this workhe saw "acombinationof successive
and simultaneousconception,in which the simultaneousdimension
decisivelyoutweighsthe successivepart"(i981, 19I).
In the presentarticleI proposeto confirmthat the phenomenon
called "simultaneousconception"aroseearly in the fifteenthcentury
and that it existedside by side with successivecompositionnot only
throughoutthis centurybut alsothe next. It was, however,viewedby
contemporariesfroma differentangleand describedin a mannerthat
accommodatesboth kinds of simultaneousconception,imitativeand
homophonic.The term that most closely agreeswith contemporary
theoreticalthoughtis "harmoniccomposition."I believethat the new
processof compositionwas the foundationfor Tinctoris'sdelineation
of an arsnova,and it was Tinctorishimselfwho first describedit in
technicalterms.That this hasnot beenrecognizedheretoforeis due to
two obstacles:a misunderstandingof what Tinctoris meant by res
facta, and the widespreadacceptanceof the terms "simultaneous
conception"or "simultaneouscomposition"to describethe phenom-
enon. Crucialto our understandingis a determinationof what the
theoristsmeantby the term"harmony" and how they viewedthe use
of dissonance.Only by a close readingof the texts will we come to a
clearcomprehensionof the compositionalprocessinvolved.Technical
termsused by fifteenth-centurytheoristsdo not necessarilyhave the
meaningwe ascribeto them today;some termshaveno equivalentin
212 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL
SOCIETY
current usage, and there was even disagreement at the time over what
certain terms meant.
I. Aaron's View of "Simultaneous Conception"
Aaron begins Book III of his De institutioneharmonicawith a

definition of counterpoint, followed by a list of the consonances and
dissonances. In chapter 7, "De modo componendi praefatio,"he turns
to composition, promising that he will treat the method used by the
older composers as well as that of the newer ones:
Nunc igitur de modis componendi, Now we shall teach the precepts
deque locis ad conficiendam concerningthe methodsof compos-
modulationemsecundumnaturalem ing and the placesnecessaryfor con-
ordinem necessariis, non modo structinga compositionaccordingto
secundum morem veterum, sed the naturalorder,not only according
etiam secundum praesentissaeculi to the olderusage,but alsoaccording
consuetudinempraeceptatrademus, to present-daypractice,to which we
quibus quidem tantum studium shallindeedbringto bearsuch thor-
adhibebimus, Flaminius vero oughness-while Flaminiowill bring
nitorem sermonis, et claritatem,ut the eleganceand clarity of style2-
studiosus artis huiusce, qui ea that the studentof this art who will
diligenterlegerit, et memoriecom- study it diligently and have com-
mendaverit, nihil ultra sibi mendedit to memorywill find noth-
quaerendumputet. ing moreto be desired.
Aaron then proceeds to name the four parts of composition, Cantus,
Tenor, Bassus and Altus-this is what he means by "the places
necessary for constructing a composition"-(ch. 8) and to discuss the
number of voices that a composition may have-up to eleven, without
exceeding normal ranges (ch. 9). In chapter io, with the heading
"Unde etiam secundum veteres inchoanda sit modulatio et ubi
1 See
Margaret Bent's exposition of the difficulties in translating terms such as
sonus, vox, corda,nota, clavis, littera, punctus, locus,situs, gradus,phthongus,psophosin
Bent I984, 1-3.
Anyone interested in the problems of translation, especially from Greek and
Latin, should read the interesting note on the translation in Thomas J. Mathiesen's
edition of Aristides (I983, 6I-63). Mathiesen had to give considerable thought to
finding suitable English equivalents for Greek words that are used in many different
contexts; to have chosen "a different English word or phrase to transL -e a Greek word
already used and translated in a specific sense in a technical passage"would, he felt,
have spoiled the design and structure of the treatise, in which Aristides's method of
exposition is intimately connected with his terminology. Professor Mathiesen was
kind enough to put his expertise at my disposal by reading the present paper and
making a number of proposals for refining my translations. For these and other
suggestions I wish to thank him warmly.
2 The humanist Giovanni Antonio Flaminio (I466-I536), the translator of
Aaron's treatise. He was the father of the more famous poet Marco Antonio Flaminio.
COMPOSITIONALPROCESSIN THE FIFTEENTHCENTURY 21 3
terminanda" ("Howa compositionshouldbe begunandwhereended,
accordingto older composers"),we reach the passage quoted by
Lowinskyin which Aaronalludesto the two methodsof composition,
successiveand simultaneous.Becausethis chapterlends itself to more
than one interpretation,I shall give it in its entirety:
Modulatio quidem secundum According to the practiceand method
veterum morem et institutionem of older composers, a composition
primum quidem a cantu inchoanda must first begin with the cantus. Then
est. Subsequi Tenor debet. Tertio the tenor should follow, the bass third,
loco Bassus. Quarto demum, qui and finally the fourth, called alto. But
dicitur Altus. Sed quia saepenumero since it often happens that these four
accidit: ut partes hV quattuor in partsare increasedto five or even six-
quinque in sex etiam augeantur: for the tenor or anotherpart is usually
Nam tenor: aut pars alia geminari doubled-when this occurs the com-
solet: id cum fiet: liberum composer is free, once he has assigned the
ponenti est: postquam sua praedictis positionsto the aforesaidregularparts,
ordinariis partibus assignaverit loca: to arrangethe others as seems fit (or
reliquas, ut ipsi commodius vide- better, as he pleases to use them). It is
bitur, et melius: atque uti libuerit, easily observed, however, that the
disponere. Nostri tamen temporis composers of our time do not follow
compositores facile deprehenduntur: the custom of older composers to put
hanc non servare veterum con- these four parts together always in
suetudinem: ut partes, quas diximus: this order, which we ourselves often
quattuor tali semper ordine concinn- do, having imitated the most out-
ent: quod nos quoque crebro standing men in this art, especially
facimus: summos in arte viros imitati Josquin, Obrecht, Isaac, and
praecipuae vero Iosquinum. Obret. Agricola, with whom I had the great-
Isaac. et Agricolam: quibus cum est friendship and familiarity in
mihi Florentiae familiaritas: et Florence. Indeed, we approve of it so
consuetudo summa fuit. Quod nos much that we assert that writing a
quidem in tantum probamus: ut af- composition in this manner makes it
firmemus, ea ratione modulationem more harmonious. But since it is
ipsam fieri concinniorem. Verum, quite difficult to do it this way and
quoniam ita facere difficilis admod- requires considerable practice and
um res est: et longo usu et exer- experience, we shall follow the
citatione indiget, veterum morem et method and order of the older com-
ordinem: quo sit facilior ad composers, in which the way to compos-
ponendum via, sequemur. ing is easier.
At first blush, it seems that Aaron begins by describing the
customary order of entry of voices. Such an interpretation, however,
does not agree with contemporary practice and would presuppose a
composition with an imitative beginning. Rather, Aaron is describing
the order in which the older composers wrote the voices. That he
specifies the soprano as the starting point probably reflects his Italian
background;a northern composer would most likely have started with
SOCIETY
the tenor.3After these four voices are composed,any doubledparts

are to be added. Aaronthen observesthat moderncomposersdo not
follow this order,but he does not explainwhat theirmethodis, aside
from the judgmentthat it producesa moreharmoniouscomposition.
It would seem that a sentenceis missingat this point. "Tali semper
ordine" can only refer to the order of the older composers, just
described.It makesno sense thereforefor Aaronto immediatelysay
"whichwe ourselvesoftendo,"for his pointis thatmoderncomposers
do not do it this way. Lowinskytranslatedthe passageas follows:
"However,it is easy to observethatmoderncomposersdo not follow
this traditionalmanner. They conceive the four above-mentioned
partsalways in such ordertogether. I myself workoften in this way"
(1946, 67). It is by translatingconcinnent as "they conceive ...
together" that Lowinsky arrivedat the term "simultaneousconcep-
tion."Aaronsaidno morethanthatthe oldercomposersput the parts
together in the order soprano, tenor, bass, alto. I believe that
Lowinskyinadvertentlytranslatedconcinnent as if it camefromconcino,
-ere,meaning"to sing, play or sound together,in concertor harmo-
niously" or "to cause to sound together ... to make concordant
sounds"(Harper's LatinDictionary).
This is understandable,consider-
ing the musical context. The word Aaron(or ratherFlaminio)used,
however, is the of
subjunctive concinno, -are,"tojoin fitly together,to
to
order, arrangeappropriately." We can only guess at the Italian
word used by Aaron. I supposeit was "componere."But he would
have used a differentword toward the end of the chapter, where
Flaminiohas "concinniorem." Here I believehe might have written
"conpiiuharmonia."Flaminiocould havetranslatedboth these terms
with concinno, knowingthat it comes fromthe Greekharmozo,which
meansboth "tofit together"and "toharmonize."4 But Aarondoes not
makeclearin this passagejust how the moderncomposersproceed.
Yet Lowinsky was not wrong in clarifying Aaron's elliptical
statement,for he was guidedby the laterdescriptionin his Toscanello
(Venice, 1523;I quote fromthe editionof 1529), Book 2, chapterI6,
3Cf., for example, the anonymous counterpoint treatise in Tiibingen,

MS. Mc. 48 (secondhalf i5th century,Germany),quotedin
Universitatsbibliothek,
Sachs I974, i26: "Nona regula . . . de compositione vera et regulari trium chorum
insimulscilicettenoris,medijet discantus. . . primodebet tenorcomponia prima
notaad ultimam"(fol. 65). At leastone writer,however,makesa distinctionbetween
sacredand secularmusic-in the formerthe tenoris to be writtenfirst, in the latter
the discant;the source,Cambridge,CorpusChristiCollege,MS. 410, is quotedin
Bukofzer 1952, 38, n. 25.
4
I owe this observationto ProfessorMathiesen.
COMPOSITIONALPROCESSIN THE FIFTEENTHCENTURY 2I 5
"Comeil compositorepossi dare principioal suo canto"("How the
composermay begin a composition"):
La imaginatione di molti compositori Many composers were of the opinion
fu, che prima il canto si dovessi that the soprano should be composed
fabricare, da poi il tenore, et doppo first, then the tenor, and after the
esso tenore il controbasso. Et questo tenor the bass. This happened be-
avenne perche mancorno del ordine cause they lacked the order and un-
et cognitione di quello che si richiede derstandingof what was necessary to
nel far del controalto: et pero compose the alto. Thus they had
facevano assai inconvenienti ne le many awkward places in their com-
loro compositioni: perche bisognava positions because they had to insert
per lo incommodo che vi ponessino unisons, pauses, and ascending and
unisoni, pause, salti ascendenti et descending leaps that were difficult
discendenti, difficili al cantore overo for the singer or performer, so that
pronontiante: in modo che detti canti those works had little sweetness and
restavano con poca soavita et harmony. For in composing the so-
harmonia: perche facendo prima il prano first and then the tenor, once
canto over soprano, di poi il tenore, the tenor was made there was some-
quando e fatto detto tenore, manca times no room for the bass, and once
alcuna volta il luogo al controbasso: the bass was made, there was no
et fatto detto controbasso: assai note place for many notes in the alto.
del contro alto non hanno luogo: per Therefore, in considering only part
la qual cosa considerando solamente by part, that is when the tenor is
parte per parte, cioe quando si fa il being composed, if you pay attention
tenore, se tu attendi solo ad ac- only to harmonizing this tenor [with
cordare esso tenore, et cosi il simile the soprano], and the same with the
del controbasso, conviene che cias- bass, it is inevitable that each part
cuna parte de gli luoghi concordanti will suffer where they come to-
patisca. Onde gli moderni in questo gether. Therefore the modern com-
meglio hanno considerato: come e posers had a better idea, which is
manifesto per le compositioni da essi apparent from their compositions in
a quatro a cinque a sei, et a pii voci four, five, six, and more voices, in
fatte: de le quali ciascuna tiene luogo which each part has a comfortable,
commodo facile et grato: perche easy and agreeable place, because
considerano insieme tutte le parti et they take all the parts into consider-
non secondo come di sopra e detto. ation at once and not as described
Et se a te piace componere prima il above. And if you prefer to compose
canto, tenore o controbasso, tal the soprano, tenor, or bass first, you
modo et regola a te resti arbitraria: are free to follow that method and
come da alcuni al presente si osserva: rule, as some at present do, who
che molte fiate danno principio al often begin with the bass, sometimes
controbasso, alcuna volta al tenore, with the tenor, and sometimes with
et alcuna volta al contro alto. Ma the alto. But because this will be
perche questo a te sarebbe nel awkward and uncomfortable for you
principio mal agevole et incommodo, at first, you will begin part by part;
a parte per parte comincierai: non nevertheless, once you have gained
dimeno di poi che ne la pratica sarai some experience, you will follow the
alquanto esercitato, seguirai l'ordine order and method described before.
et modo inanzi detto.
2I6 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL
SOCIETY
"Consideranoinsiemetutte le parti,""theytakeall the partsinto

considerationat once," is the phrasethat is missing in Aaron'sDe
institutioneharmonicabefore the phrase "quod nos quoque crebro
facimus."It is a matterof regretthatAaronhad his treatisetranslated
into Latin, and by a non-musicianat that, for it led to a numberof
errors and oversights. In a lengthy preface to the De institutione,
Flaminiorecordsthe conversationbetween himself and Aaron that
resultedin the decisionto collaborateon a translationof the treatise.
Aaron had held back from publishingthe book in the vernacular
becausehe knew "howmuch authority,weight, and gracethe Latin
languagecould add," and he confessedthat his own Latin was not
adequateto the task.5In an erratasheet insertedinto some copies of
the treatise,Aaronthanksan unnamedreaderfor kindlypointingout
certain obscure passages in the treatise, some of which Aaron
attributesto the carelessnessof the printer'sproofreader.6It is likely
thatpartof the blameshouldbe laidat Aaron'sdoorstepfor his "small
Latin."Nor is his Toscanello free of ambiguities.In the passagejust
quoted, surely the last two sentences should be exchanged, for
"questo" in the last sentencerefersto the modem method, not the
older methoddiscussedin the penultimatesentence.
In his preface,Flaminiorefersto Aaron'sdecisionto expandhis
treatiseand include "manyof the secretchambersof this art, never
heretoforerevealed,"7and indeed the book is studdedwith observa-
tions that one does not normallyfind in theoreticaltreatises.Aaron's
distinctionbetweenthe older and newer practicesis certainlyone of
them. But is he actuallydescribinga methodof simultaneouscom-
position? He speaks of "consideringall the parts together"in the
contextof layingout a work, in which eachpartshouldhave its own
5
" 'Scio . .. quantam illius autoritatem, pondus, et gratiam latina oratio potuerit
addere.'Tunc ego [Flaminio]'non ne,' inquam,'latinosfacerepoteras?''Poteram,'
inquis,'sednequemihiplene,nequetui similibusfacturuseramsatis'"(Aaron15 6,
fol. 5V).The bookis dedicatedto GirolamoSan Pietro,eques,but Aaronmighthave
had the patronageof Leo X in mind;in the dedicationof his Toscanello
he speaksof
certaineffortshe undertookin the hopeof rewardthatcameto naughtbecauseof the
deathof Leo X.
6 "Quaedam lectorhumanissimein nostrisinstitutionibusobscurioraquibusdam
videbantur:quedam vero incuria correctoriscui impressoriserrores corrigendos
tradidi." See the facsimile edition (Aaron 1976), after fol. 62.
7 "teadiecturum
plurimaex intimisartispenetralibus,quaea nulload huc vulgata
fuissent"(fol. 7).
COMPOSITIONALPROCESSIN THE FIFTEENTHCENTURY 2 I7
"comfortable,easy and agreeableplace."8Such a dispositioncould

alsoresultfromsuccessivecomposition,if the composerkeepsin mind
that he must leavespacefor the partsstill to be composed.Indeed,in
chapter 31, "Ordinedi comporrea piu di quatro voci" ("How to
composefor more than four voices"),Aaronmakesthis point specif-
ically:
... volendo aggiungere una parte . . wishing to add a fifth, sixth or
quinta,sestao settimaa uno cantodi seventhvoice to a four-partcompo-
quatro voci, molti inconvenientifacil- sition, one will easily run into diffi-
mentesi troverranno: et questonasce culties when the composerdid not
quando il compositorenon ha con- havein mind morethan four voices,
sideratopiu di quatrovoci:perchenon becausehe leavesno roomto accom-
lascialuogoche sia commodoa l'altre modate the other parts. Therefore
parti. Adunque quandotu penserai when you set out to write a compo-
comporreun canto a cinque, sei o piu sitionin five, six, or morevoices, be
voci, fa che tu t'acorgadi nonfareuna carefulnot to write a part without
parteche primanon considerise tutto consideringwhether the remainder
il resto puo havereconmodoluogo: can havea comfortableplace, so you
aciochenon incappiin pause,unisoni don't run into pauses, unisons, and
et inconvenienti: comee manifestonel awkwardplaces,as shownin chapter
capitolo xvi di questolibrosecondo. 16 above.
Aaron is indeed talking about a "new simultaneous concept of a
polyphonic whole," but this concept does not necessarily embrace
"simultaneous composition"-the two terms are not interchangeable,
although they have often been so treated. Nevertheless, Aaron hints
at the process of simultaneous composition of the modern composers
when he says in the De institutionethat he will "follow the older
method" in teaching composition and when he tells the budding
composition student in the Toscanelloto "begin part by part." The
student, however, is advised to follow the modem practice of leaving
adequate space for each part.
In the course of the third book of the De institutioneharmonicawe
catch a glimpse of simultaneous composition. Unlike his fifteenth-
century predecessors, Aaron does not begin with two-part counter-
point. Instead he starts with chords, following the formula "If the
soprano and tenor form a certain interval, then the bass can be on this
8 CarlDahlhausused this
passageto supporthis contentionthat the pedagogical
habitof separatingcounterpointandharmonyhasled to an artificialoppositionof the
conceptsof "modalerKontrapunkt,Intervallsatz,Tenorbezugund Sukzessivkonzep-
tion der Stimmen"to the conceptsof "tonaleHarmonik,Akkordsatz,Bassbezugund
Simultankonzeption der Stimmen."But, he points out, simultaneousconception
"impliziertnicht Bassbezug,Bassbezugnicht Akkordsatzund Akkordsatznicht
tonaleHarmonik"; Aaronrejectssuccessiveconceptionbecauseof difficultiesencoun-
tered in adding the last voices (Dahlhaus 1968, 85-86).
2I8 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL
SOCIETY
or that note and the alto on these notes" (chapters 17-23). Next.he
takes up chord progressions, explaining the voice-leading of bass and
alto if the soprano and tenor move in parallelthirds or tenths (chapters
26-3 ) and how to handle an octave, fourth and fifth between soprano
and tenor (chapter 32). (Aaron's explanations are handicapped by the
absence of music examples; evidently his Bolognese printer,
Benedetto Ettore de Faellis, had no music type-a defect Aaron
corrects in his Toscanello,which was printed in Venice.) Next he takes
up cadences. Starting with the soprano clausulafa mifa, he explains
how to write the tenor, then how to add the bass. Several chapters
later he shows where to place the alto. He ends with a description of
how to write simple imitative passages, called imitatioorfugatio (ch.
52). Imitation, of course, entails working on two parts simulta-
neously.
In the 1523 ToscanelloAaron modified his method, placing more
emphasis on two-part counterpoint. Here he not only lists the
consonances but gives them in musical examples, treating permissible
progressions of perfect intervals, with advice on the rule of the closest
approach to perfect consonances and the avoidance of mi contrafa, and
finally he demonstrates the use of parallel thirds and sixths (Book 2,
chapters 13-15). Still, all this is very sketchy and cannot really be
called a method of counterpoint.9 It is clear that Aaron has not been
trained in the tradition of northern counterpoint-he never mentions
with whom he studied-and that he is not interested in it. As soon as
he can, he turns to the vertical aspects of composition, taking up
cadences, with music examples in four parts. As in the 1516 treatise,
the main emphasis is on chord formation, distilled into ten precepts
which are then summarized in a table (chapters 21-30).
Consonance tables begin to appearwith regularity in treatises from
the I49os on. Helen E. Bush surveyed a number of them, from
9 The more
surprising is it to read that "Hugo Riemann has characterizedAaron's
work as the best introduction to counterpoint available from that time" in Bergquist
I967, o10. Riemann in fact was speaking not of counterpoint but of "Aron's
instructions for four-part writing [that] seem in actuality very prudent and complete;
for his time, one could not expect any which would be better" (Riemann 1962, 303;
1921, 357). Riemann's enthusiasm was engendered by his discovery that "around
1523 theory also began really to understand the significance of the triad; musicians
had advanced this far in practice almost a hundred years before" (ibid.; in the
German, "Bedeutung des Dreiklangs" is italicized). This paragraph follows
Riemann's translation of Aaron's consonance tables into music examples. Bergquist
himself recognizes that Aaron's "discussions of counterpoint are based largely on
Tinctoris and Gafori and expand on them only slightly" (1967, ioi).
COMPOSITIONALPROCESSIN THE FIFTEENTHCENTURY 2I9
Ornithoparchus (I5I7) to Morley (i597), in an article in 1946.10 In

Aaron's Toscanelloshe discovered the greatest variety of chords. She
found that in general the theorists agree that a chord should have a
third; 90% of the examples contain one (p. 238). Doubling of voices
was quite haphazard, and the spacing of voices surprisingly different
from the disposition codified in later harmonic practice. Bush con-
cluded that "enough irregularspacing is sanctioned to make it evident
that although chordal consciousness had developed by the middle of
the i6th century, the functional importance of each note within the
chord was not fully recognized or the idea developed until the
following century" (pp. 239-40). But are we justified in looking at
these tables as a series of chords? They seem rather to be tables of
consonances, a schematic way of showing what notes are available to
fill in a given simultaneity. I do not believe they were intended to
facilitate chordal writing per se, and therefore no conclusions should
be drawn about their prescriptive nature.
In many of Aaron's examples the alto lies above the cantus; it can
even be placed beneath the tenor and the bass. In view of this
disposition, it is clear why Aaron lays so much weight on seeing that
each part has a "comfortable,easy and agreeableplace"and the composer
does not have to resortto unisonsand pausesto escapedifficultsituations.
For the student, however, the gap between Aaron'smusic examples and
his verbal precepts must have been bewildering. What is comfortable
about an alto that lies a thirteenthbelow the sopranoand tenor or a bass
that rises a tenth above the alto?11These dispositions must have been
included for the sake of completeness, to be used only as a last resort.
2. Counterpoint and Harmony
Curiously, one of the most innovative aspects of Aaron's I516

treatise is omitted in the Toscanello:how to move from one chord to
another. 12 We know that Aaron'sDe institutionewas severely criticized
10Her earliest
witness, the Ars discantussecundumJohannem deMuris, which led her
to place the beginnings of chordal formation into the first half of the fourteenth
century, actually dates from at least the middle of the fifteenth century; see Sachs
1974, I79-80, and Michels I970, 42-50.
1 Aaron's examples are given in Bush (1946, 243), and also in Riemann (1962,
302-3). Pitches were specified only in the De institutioneharmonica;the consonance
tables of the Toscanello
give only the relative distances between the parts. Riemann did
not make it clear that he added a clef when he transcribed the chart from the latter
into musical examples.
12 Bush remarked that "no
theory book prior to the middle of the i6th century
gives any information about it directly"-she did not include the De institutionein her
SOCIETY
by Gaffurio.13I suspect that Aaron's discussion of counterpoint and

composition motivated a large share of this criticism. Gaffurio was
trained in the northern tradition by Johannes Bonadies, a Fleming,
and his exposition of counterpoint in the Practicamusicaeof 1496 is
thorough, with numerous music examples. He must have viewed
Aaron's sketchy and unsystematic treatment of counterpoint with
dismay. The attempt to instruct the beginner in chord progressions
must have struck him at the least as premature.
The new emphasis on the vertical aspects of composition in the
early sixteenth century and the devaluation of counterpoint did not
escape the critical notice of Giovanni Spataro, whose comments on
the state of musical instruction in 1529 are enlightening. In a letter to
Giovanni del Lago of 4 January of that year, replying to del Lago's
suggestion that he publish a treatise on counterpoint, Spataro says:
I have written a great deal about counterpoint. ... But I care very little
about publishingit since I know that the effortand expensewould be
wasted becausemost musiciansand singersno longerobservethe rules
and teachingshandeddown by venerablescholars.Your Excellencyis
perfectlyawarethat in our time the signs establishedby the men of old
are held in little regard;only ( is used, and of the proportionsonly
sesquialtera. And evenwithoutstudyingthepreceptsof counterpoint
everyoneis
a masterof composing harmony.14(emphasis added)
study-but she thought that the inclusion of "cadential formulas undoubtedly

pointed the way towards a better understandingof chordal relations"(p. 242). Bush's
comparative survey of what several generations of theorists have had to say about one
aspect of composition retains its value today, and her method could be applied
fruitfully to a number of other topics.
13 See Bergquist I964, 30-33. Bergquist discovered an
exchange of letters
between Gaffurio and Flaminio in March and May of 1517 (see pp. 504-10). Gaffurio
admired Flaminio's Latin style but lambasted Aaron's musical knowledge ("Ego
libellum libentissime perlegi admiratus scilicet latini sermonis curam et elegantiam;
verum quae ad artem Musicam pertinent, tot tantisque sunt involuta erratis, ut auctor
operis tam difficillima quaeque, quam ipsa quoque Musices elementa nescisse
videatur"; p. 504). The specific criticisms were directed to Spataro, since it was
Spataro who had sent him the treatise with a request for his opinion. Unfortunately,
this letter is lost. In his reply, Flaminio says that Spataro reviewed and criticized the
treatise before it was translated. This put Spataro on the spot, and it may have
contributed to the acrimonioustone of his critique of Gaffurio'sDe harmoniamusicorum
instrumentorum, published in the following year. Spataro did his best to conceal his
role in advising Aaron before publication; in a letter to Marco Antonio Cavazzoni of
i August 5 17 he blandly says that "uno Petro Aron fiorentino ha fatto stampare qui
in Bologna una opera la quale non laudo ne vitupero," adding that it contains "certi
errori"(Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS. Vat. lat. 53 8, fol. 240). The letter will
be published as no. 2 in Blackburn et al.
14 "De contrapuncto io ancora ho
scripto molto in longo. . . . Et ancora poco et
quasi nula curo che siano impresse, perche certamente io comprehendo che la fatica
et la spesa seria getata via, perche pii intra musici et cantori non se observano li
Spataro had a sharp eye for the contemporaryscene. Then

enteringhis eighthdecade,he was nostalgicfor the musicof his youth
with its complicatedcanonsand proportions.Yet he too was infected
by the growinginterestin "ancientmusicas appliedto contemporary
practice"and the searchfor new sonorities.To prove to a skeptical
friendthatthe octaveb-b'couldbe dividedharmonicallyby using"the
thirdchromaticnote, F#," Spatarowrotea compositionthat included
a B majorchord.15But he was firm in his belief that the study of
two-partcounterpointwas an essentialfirst step in the trainingof a
composer. Aaron's two treatises confirmedwhat he viewed as a
dangeroustendencyin contemporarypractice,to by-passthe rulesof
voice-leadingand composesuccessionsof chordsthat the ear found
pleasing.
Spataro'sremarksflatly contradicta view of the compositional
process of fifteenth- and sixteenth-centurymusic that has been
embracedin the last three decadesin oppositionto the attempt to
uncoverthe rootsof tonalharmonyin fifteenth-century music. I quote
one of the "few cautiousvoices"that espousesthis position:"in the
musicalconceptionof the I8th century,harmonywas held to govern
musical structureson all levels, while in that of the I5th and i6th
centuries, the possibilities for vertical combinationwere, on the
contrary,subordinateto the characterand directionof the melodic
motion, and . . . therein lies the fundamentaldistinctionbetween
them."In this view, the intervallicnatureof counterpointis revealed
in "thestructuralframeworkof two voicesthat was the legacyof the
discanttreatisesof previouscenturies.Time andagaina pairof voices
will close a phrasecadentiallywhile the remainingline or lines serve
ratherto maintainthe forwardmotionof the composition.""Conse-
quently, it is possibleandperhapseven necessaryto considerthe bass
progressionsthat are fundamentalto cadentialstructuresin tonal
music as nonstructuraland nonessentialin the cadenceformulasthat
were contrapuntallyconceived."Reducedto its essentials,this theory
holds that "thebasicprinciplesof structuralorderwere melodic rather
canoni et regolari precepti da la docta antiquita ordinati. Vostra Excellentia vede bene
che a tempi nostri li signi ordinati da li antiqui sono tenuti in poco pretio et
existimatione, et che solo usano questo signo e,et de le proportione solo uxano la
sesqualtera. Et etiam senza studiare li precepti de contrapuncto, ciascuno e maestro de
componere la harmonia" (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS. Vat. lat. 5318, fols.
I43-I43v). The letter will be published as no. 17 in Blackburn et al.
15 The motet,
Avegratia plena, survives in the Spataro correspondence, attached
to an undated letter Spataro sent Aaron in August or September I532 (Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana, MS. Vat. lat. 5318, fols. 244-45), no. 46 in Blackburn et al.
SOCIETY
than harmonic."16
It is a curiousphenomenonthat proponentsof this theory com-
monly urge"aninvestigationof the conceptualmatrixfromwhich the
composerwas actuallyworkingat the time: a searchfor the organi-
zationalprinciplesand compositionalproceduresthat he may have
employed,on a consciouslevel, in determiningthe structuralplan of
a musicalwork"(Perkins 1973,191), and just as commonlythey stop
short of examiningthe writingsof theoristswho cast some light on
this problem. In a thought-provokingarticle published in 1962,
RichardCrockerpersuasivelyoutlinedthe developmentof contrapun-
tal theory in the thirteenthand fourteenthcenturies, showing the
changingconceptof consonanceand dissonanceand how the princi-
ples of contrarymotiondevelopedinto the functionalprogressionsof
majorsixth to octave, minor sixth to fifth, majorthird to fifth, and
minorthirdto unison, which, Crockersaid, "leadsus to the centerof
14th-centurydiscant, and ultimately to the foundationsof triadic
harmony"(1962, i ). Indeed, "thecounterpointtreatisesof the I4th
and early I5th centuries"do "providea wealth of materialand a
fascinatingvarietyof detail"(Crocker1962, 15-I6) on contrapuntal
practice,and it is true that many of the ruleshandeddown by these
theoristsare to be found in the writingsof fifteenth-and sixteenth-
century theorists, but Crockerdoes great injusticeto an important
contemporarywitness when he continues: "Tinctoris'srules, for
example,revealno basic novelty when comparedto earliersources.
The most importantdifferenceis the insistence on variety, with
urgentprohibitionsagainstrepetition.This seems to be relatedto a
greater number of imperfect concords, and a relaxation of the
proceduresgoverningtheir use"(p. 16). On the contrary,as will be
demonstratedbelow, Tinctoris'srules show a very differentattitude
towardthe "artof counterpoint,"and the most novel aspecthas not
been mentionedby Crocker.
Leeman Perkins too consideredit reasonableto search for the
"elusiveprinciplesof structuralorder"in treatiseson counterpoint
but, in acceptingCrocker'sdeclarationthat"thecontrapuntaldoctrine
of the late I5th or early i6th centurydoes not differin its essentials
from the discanttreatisesof earliercenturies,"he doubted whether
"suchattemptsare likely to be fruitful"(Perkins1973, I92-93). He
cited Tinctoris's Liberdearte contrapuncti
as a model: "In the first book
16 Perkins
1973, i96, 194, 195, and I90. The notion that one's presumed
knowledge of the compositional process should affect the way in which a composition
may be heard has been dealt with by Edward Lowinsky (1981, I84).
he defines and explainsthe acceptableconsonancesand shows how

they may be used; in the second book the same is done for disso-
nances;and in the thirdhe giveseightgeneralrulesto furtherregulate
contrapuntalcombinations"(p. 193, n. I2). Accordingto Perkins,
"nowhere[in the 'contrapuntaldoctrineof the late I5th or early i6th
century']is theredefinitionof the goalstowardwhichthe voicesbeing
combined should flow or discussion of the manner in which the
directionandterminationof internaldivisionscouldbe madeto relate
to the conclusion of a compositionor to one another"(p. 193).
Believingthatthe structureis determinedmelodically,Perkinsturned
to treatiseson the modes in searchof melodicprinciples.Indeed, he
saw "in the proliferationof theoreticalwritings on the modes yet
another indicationof the increasinglymelodic orientationof poly-
phonicmusicin the courseof the I5th and i6th centuries."As pieces
becamemorecomplex,"themusiciansof the periodturnedmoreand
moreto modaltheoryand to its embodimentin the chantin a search
for principlesof orderandcoherencecapableof bindingtogethertheir
more extensivecompositions"(p. I98).
The insistenceon the melodicandlinearaspectsof compositionin
the fifteenthand sixteenthcenturiesandthe desireto avoidat all costs
the applicationof "thetenets and terminologyof tonal harmony"for
fear of "distortingor obfuscatingto some extent the patterns of
history"(Perkins 1973, 192) runs the dangerof leading to greater
distortionwhen one ignoresthe clearevidenceof harmonicthinkingto
be foundin the writingsof theoristsas well as in the musicof the time.
PerkinsignoresAaron'sdistinctionbetweenthe old and new ways of
writinga compositionand the numeroustheoreticalprescriptionsfor
constructingchordsjust as he does music that is clearlynot built on
a two-voice framework.17 Tonal harmonyhaving been discounted,
harmony itself is barelymentioned, andfor good reason.If we accept
the position that calling a conventionalcadence by the Roman
numerals"V-I"resultsin "adistortionof the compositionalprocessby
which it was obtained,"18 we are left with only the most circumstan-
tial way to describefifteenth-centurycadencesif we do not want to
17Lowinsky 1981 demonstrated the harmonic orientation of a number of

fifteenth-century
18
compositions.
Perkins 1973, 195, n. 23. This is Perkins' argument against Don Randel's
proposal to use V-I as a shorthand to describe the relation of two root-position triads
(Randel I971, 79-82). Perkins classified the cadences in Josquin's Masses (Table 2,
pp. 203-20) in the following manner: "Wherethe structuralframeworkof the cadence
is the contrapuntal progression of sixth to octave, the pitch in octave duplication was
taken to be the cadential goal even when another pitch is written below; otherwise the
lowest note of the terminating combination was given that distinction" (p. 227).
SOCIETY
take the extreme position of ignoring the bass as "nonstructuraland

nonessential." I see no problem in using Roman numerals for root
position chords as purely descriptive labels. More important for
fifteenth-century music is whether these chords contain a third or
exhibit a suspension dissonance (this will be discussed below).
3. Spataro's View of Harmony
If proponents of the linear-melodic approachto composition are not

willing to recognize harmony, the contemporary theorists were. Let
us return to Spataro'sremark:"Even without studying the precepts of
counterpoint everyone is a master of composing harmony." What did
Spataromean by harmony? Richard Crockermaintainsthat "the theo-
rists," having discovered that the harmonicmean applied to the octave
produces a pleasing sound of a fifth-octavechord, "reservedthe term
'harmony' for a chord of three pitches; chords of two pitches were
concords or discords"(1962, I8).19 For Spataro,"harmony"was entirely
different. He discusses it in his Honestadefensioof 1491 in the context of
a reply to the "insipid words" of Nicolo Burzio in the latter'sMusices
opusculum (also called Florumlibellus),written "againsta certain Spanish
prevaricatorof the truth," Spataro'steacher, BartolomeRamos, in 1487.
Spataro quotes Burzio as having written: "When two strings of the
instrument are plucked so that one goes higher, the other lower, this is
not called harmony but consonance."20Spatarocounters:
Secundoquesto che tu dici, quando Accordingto you, when one singsor
si cantaun canto a dui over si sona, plays a workfor two voices, it is not
non e harmoniama consonantia,se harmonybut consonance,unless, as
non cometu dici a tri o veroa quatro. you say, it has threeor four voices.
Questa e una falsita evidente et in This is a patentfalsehoodand in this
questomostriquel che sai, perchetu you show what you know, because
dei sapere che consonantia e you ought to know that consonance
solamentea considerarelo intervallo is only the considerationof the inter-
che e da una voce grave a un'altra val between a low and a high note
acuta et per lo contrario. Ma and vice versa, but it is called har-
harmonia se dice considerandoil mony when consideringthe process
19The only theorist before Zarlino cited for this opinion is Gaffurio.
20
"Quando lo instrumento se tocca in dui nervi per tal modo che uno va alli lochi
alti e l'altro alli bassi non se dice harmonia ma consonantia"(Spataro 149I, fol. E III).
Burzio had defined harmony as "diversarumvocum apta coadunatio vel est modulatio
vocis et concordia plurium sonorum, quod in cantu figurato latissime patet maxime
dum cantus triplici concordia vel quadruplici cantamus" (Burzio 1975, 74-75) ("the
appropriate union of different tones. Or it is a vocal modulation and a concord of
many sounds, as is very evident in figured song, especially when we sing in three or
four concordant parts"; Burzio 1983, 41).
procedere che fanno inseme they make by concording together,

concordando: perche se non se because if they do not move, even if
moveno, benche siano quatro, non si there are four voices, it is not called
dice harmonia ma consonantie, e harmony but consonances, and this
questo intende Lactantio nel capitulo is what Lactantius, in chapter i6 of
xvi de opificio dei dicendo li musici De opificioDei, means when he says
dicono la harmonia essere intensione "Musicians say that harmony is a
di voce in integri modi senza alcuna tension of voice in perfect measures
offensione di consonantie: quasi dicat without any blunders in conso-
finche e finita la cantilena...21 nances," as if he said until the end of
Harmonia sie la mistura che si fa nel the song. . ..2 Harmony is the mix-
canto de consonantie e dissonantie, ture of consonances and dissonances
perche l'e ben vero che li boni in a composition, because it is quite
compositori se affaticano per fare le true that good composers exert them-
dissonantie nella harmonia
selves to make dissonances marvel-
maravigliosamente consonare. Ma
non voglio perb che altri intendano ously consonant in harmony. But I
don't want others to understand that
quello che tu ignorante intendi, cio[e] which you ignoramus understand,
che queste siano la terza mazor e
minore e la sexta similmente cum le that is that these are the major and
sue composite: perche quelle da si minor sixth and their compounds,
medesime sonano benissimo. Ma io because these sound very good by
dico lo tono e lo semitonio e la quarta themselves. But I mean the tone and
e lo tritono e la septima mazore e semitone and the fourth and tritone
minore. E questa tale e chiamata and major and minor seventh. That
bona mistura e bona harmonia(I491, is called good mixture and good har-
fol. EIII-IIIv). mony.
For Spataro, harmony is a process of consonance and dissonance,
whether two, three, four, or more voices are involved. A series of
unconnected consonant chords is not harmony. These chords must
move in a logical progression, with dissonances resolving into conso-
nances ("fare le dissonantie nella harmonia maravigliosamente
consonare").Without using the terms triad, tonic, or cadence, Spataro
is describing functional harmony in sixteenth-century terms.22 Har-
mony is a principle, not a system of chordal analysis, and it can exist
21 Burzio had quoted Lactantius at the beginning of his chapter on harmony:

"Harmoniam musici intentionem concentumque vocum in integros modos sine ulla
offensione consonantium vocant. Hoc Lactantius, libro De opificio Dei, capitulo
decimo sexto" (I975, 74). In the 1471 edition that I examined, Lactantius gives
nervoruminstead of vocum.
22 Richard Crocker, in his discussion of discant, proposed that "we can proceed
cautiously to speak of functions between two-note entities instead of between triads"
(1962, 16). The same principle of movement from dissonance (or, in discant, lesser
consonance) to consonance is at work here; only the number of voices has changed.
Spataro alludes to earlier discant treatises (and also to Burzio's own terminology-see
n. 36 below) when he cautions the reader against believing that what he means by
dissonances are thirds and sixths.
SOCIETY
in music that is contrapuntallyor chordallyconceived. If Spataro's

failureto mentiontriadsdisappointsa numberof scholars,it should
not; Spataro(as all his contemporaries)
simplytookthem for granted.
Spataro's definition of harmony valuablebecauseit puts into
is
technical terms a concept that had theretoforebeen treated rather
generally.Tinctorisdefinedarmoniaas "acertainpleasantnesscaused
by a combiningof sound,"23and he equatedit with euphony(eufonia
idemest quodarmonia).24 Ramos sharpenedthe definitionby distin-
guishing between harmonyand music:
Harmoniamatque musicamidem Manybelievethatharmonyandmu-
essemulticredunt,verumnoslonge sic arethe same,but we havea far
alitersentimus.Exquorundam enim differentopinion.From the state-
musicorum sententiis longa mentsof certainmusiciansthrough
investigationecollegimus harmo- long investigation we deducethat
niamconcordium vocumesse com- harmonyis the mixtureof concor-
mixtionem,musicamvero ipsius dantvoices,musichoweverthecon-
concordiae rationemsiveperpensam siderationof these concordsor a
et subtilemcum rationeindaginem carefuland subtleinvestigationby
(Ramos1901, 3).25 meansof reason.
Ramosdistinguishesbetweenmusic as soundand music as scientiain
a parallelto the distinctionbetweencantorand musicus.
Laterwriters,such as Burzioand Gaffurio,add their own shades
of meaning to harmony. Had he not regarded Gaffurio as his
opponent, Spataromight have seizedupon Gaffurio's"Harmoniaest
discordiaconcors"as the epitome of his theory, althoughGaffurio
23 "Armoniaest amenitas
quedam ex convenienti sono causata,"in his Terminorum
musicaediJinitorium.
24 He also equated melody with harmony (melodiaidemest
quodarmonia;melosidem
est quod armonia), a definition that seems surprising only as long as we consider
"harmony"in the modern sense. For Tinctoris, melody could very well be defined as
"a certain pleasantness caused by a combining of sound." At the discussion following
Martin Staehelin's presentation, "Euphoniabei Tinctoris," in the session on "Euphony
in the Fifteenth Century" at the I977 Congress of the International Musicological
Society, Edward Lowinsky suggested that single consonances have "both harmoni-
cally and melodically a certain proportionalcharacter"and Tinctoris may have made
this equation by basing himself on the phenomenon of proportion. Kurt von Fischer
noted that symphoniaestharmoniagoes back to classical antiquity and "applies both for
simultaneous and for successive tones," and Walter Wiora confirmed that melody
retained this meaning throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. See
Staehelin I981, 625.
25 Spataro accused Burzio of stealing this quotation from Ramos and crediting it
to Boethius (I491, fol. E IIIv). Indeed Ramos has clearly modeled his definition of
music after Boethius's definition of a musician.
used it only in the generalmusicaland philosophicalsense.26Nicola

Vicentino follows Burzio in believing that harmony can only be
producedby three or more voices, for "a duo is deprived of har-
mony."27But the generalconceptof harmonyas the perfectordering
of elementscontinuesto be used throughoutthe succeedingcentury,
and indeed until today. The multiplicityof definitionsdeveloped
when theoristsbeganto readGreeksourcesin translation,for in them
they discovereddifferent meanings of harmonia,one of the most
problematictermsin Greekmusic as well, havingboth a generaland
a technicalmeaning.28Perhapsthe discussionof musical harmony
beganeven earlierin the century,on the initiativeof earlyhumanists.
WillemElders,duringthe Symposiumon "Humanismand Music"at
the 1977BerkeleyCongress,suggestedthatDufay'sceremonialmotet
Supremum est mortalibus,composedfor the signing of a peace treaty
between Pope EugeniusIV and the EmperorSigismundusin I433,
shows the influenceof rhetoricalthoughtin its cleartext setting and
the fauxbourdonpassages,whichhe linkswith "thepossibleinfluence
of ancient philosophy, in particularthat of Plutarch"(Elders 1981,
886). He referredto moraltexts, the Moralia,the Coniugaliapraecepta,
the De amicorum and the De tranquillitate
multitudine, animi,in all of
which Plutarchuses harmonyas a philosophicalconcept. Thomas
Mathiesen,at the same occasion, suggestedthat a more significant
source might be pseudo-Plutarch's De musica,which treats music in
technical as well as philosophicalterms. The treatise (considered
authenticat the time)exists in a numberof fourteenth-and fifteenth-
century manuscripts,althoughnot, as far as we know, in a Latin
translation before 1507 (Mathiesen 1981, 89o-9i). One can well
imaginethat the humanistswere eagerto discussthese matterswith
26
The motto appears in a banderole over Gaffurio's head in the woodcut gracing
his De harmoniamusicoruminstrumentorum of 15 8. Claude V. Palisca interprets it to
symbolize, in the practical domain, "the union of diverse voices, pitches, rhythms,
tempos and instruments in polyphonic music," but, "of greater significance," he says,
"is that it epitomizes the harmony that reigns in the universe, that exists, optimally,
between man and cosmos, between the faculties of the human soul and the parts of
the body, and between the body and soul" (1985, I7).
27 "Si de
pensare, che il Duo e privo di Armonia, et di compagnia, et che ogni
consonanza mal ordinata, et mal posta molto si sente"; Vicentino 1555, Book 4, ch. 23
[recte 24], fol. 83v (misnumbered 80).
28 Mathiesen I976. On the
impact of the newly discovered Greek sources on
Renaissance theorists, see Palisca 1985, esp. chapter 8, "Harmonies and Disharmo-
nies of the Spheres."
SOCIETY
educatedmusicianssuch as Dufay and Ciconiaand curiousto know

what possible parallels there were with contemporary music.29
4. Zarlino'sTheory of Harmony
Spataro'sinclusionof dissonancein the conceptof harmonymust

have puzzled many; for a long time this novel idea, stated in I491,
seems to have had no consequence.It is only when we come to
Zarlino that we find the first substantialtheory of harmony in
sixteenth-centurymusic. In chapter 12 of Book II of his Istitutioni
harmoniche,entitled"Quelche sia Consonanza,Dissonanza,Harmonia
& Melodia,"Zarlinosets forth his ideas:
Ne solamente si ritrovano due suoni Nor do we find only two sounds
tra loro distanti per il grave et per distinguished by high and low that
l'acuto,che consuonino;ma tali anco si sound together, but we often hear
odono molte fiate tramezati da altri them mediated by other sounds, re-
suoni, che rendeno soave concento, sulting in a sweet concord, as is
come e manifesto;et sono contenuti da manifest, and they are comprised of
piiu proportioni; pero li Musici several proportions. Therefore the
chiamanotal compositioneHarmonia. musicians call this arrangement"har-
Onde si de avertire,che l'Harmoniasi
ritrova di due sorti: l'una delle quali mony." It should be noted that there
are two kinds of harmony: "proper"
chiamaremo Propia, et l'altra Non
and "not proper." Proper is the one
propia. La Propia e quella, che described by Lactantius Firmianus
descrive LattantioFirmiano, in quello
in his De opificioDei as follows: "Mu-
dell'Opera di Dio dicendo: I Musici sicians call harmony properly the
nominano propiamente Harmonia il
concento di chorde, o di voci concord of strings or voices that are
consonanti nelli lor modi, senza offesa consonant in their measures, without
alcuna delle orecchie; intendendo per any offense of the ears," meaning by
questa il concento, che nasce dalle this the concord that arises from the
modulationi, che fanno le parti di movements that the parts of each
ciascunacantilena,per fino a tanto che song make until they reach the end.
siano pervenute al fine. Harmonia Proper harmony is therefore a mix-
propia adunque e mistura di suoni ture of high and low sounds, medi-
gravi, et di acuti, tramezati, o non ated or unmediated, that strikes the
29 Mathiesen
suggests that Leonardo Bruni, who made extensive translationsfrom
Plutarch, could have introduced the De musicato Dufay; three fourteenth- and several
fifteenth-century manuscripts containing the treatise are still in Florence (I981, 891).
On the translation of the De musica,by Carlo Valgulio, see Palisca 1985, 16-17, 88,
and Io5-io. I believe that Elders overstates his case when he tries to make a direct
connection between Plutarch and fauxbourdon. Starting from the premise that Dufay
wanted the text of his motet, an ode to peace, to be understood, fauxbourdon not only
permits the voices to declaim the text simultaneously but is better suited acoustically
to the large space in which the piece must have been performed.
tramezati,la qual percuotesoavemente sense of hearing sweetly, and it re-

il senso; et nasce dalle partidi ciascuna sults from the parts of each song
cantilena, per il proceder che fanno through the proceeding they make in
accordandosiinsieme fino a tanto, che accord with each other until they
siano pervenute al fine; et ha possanza arrive at the end, and it has the
di dispor l'animoa diversepassioni. Et power to move the soul to various
questa Harmonianon solamentenasce passions. And this harmony not only
dalle consonanze;ma dalle dissonanze arises from consonances, but also
ancora: percioche i buoni Musici from dissonances, because good mu-
pongono ogni studio di fare, che nelle sicians strive to make the dissonances
Harmonie le dissonanze accordino, et accord in the harmonies, and that
che con maraviglioso effetto consuo-
they sound together with marvelous
nino; Di maniera che noi la potemo effect. Thus we can consider it in
considerarein due modi, cioe Perfetta,
et Imperfetta:La Perfetta, quando si two ways, perfect and imperfect:
ritrovanomolte parti in una cantilena, perfect when there are many parts in
che vadino cantandoinsieme, di modo a song that go together in such a way
che le parti estreme siano tramezate that the outer parts are mediated by
dall'altre, et la Imperfetta, quando the others, and imperfect when only
solamente due parti vanno cantando two parts sing together, with no me-
insieme, senza esser tramezate da diating part. "Not proper" is that
alcun'altra parte. La Non propia e described above,3?which could more
quella, che ho dichiaratodi sopra,30la readily be called "harmoniousconso-
quale piu presto si puo chiamareHar- nance" than harmony, since it con-
moniosa consonanza, che Harmonia:
tains no movement in itself, even
conciosiache non contiene in se alcuna
modulatione; ancora che habbia gli though the extreme sounds are me-
estremi tramezatida altri suoni:et non diated by other sounds, and it has no
ha possanzaalcuna di dispor l'animoa power at all to dispose the soul to
diverse passioni, come l'Harmonia various passions, as does proper har-
detta Propia, la quale di molte Har- mony, which is composed of many
monie Non propie si compone (p. 80). not-proper harmonies.
Zarlino's theory of harmony embraces not only the general
concept of harmony derived from Greek philosophical thought but
also the ideas of earlier theorists, categorizing the various elements as
proper, not proper, perfect, and imperfect. Proper harmony is that
described by Lactantius, though Zarlino has translated the quotation
with considerable liberty (see n. 21). Even so, he felt it did not convey
a clear meaning, so he added the explanatory words, "the concord
(concento)that arises from the movements that the parts of each song
make until they reach the end." I believe he added this explanation
because Lactantius's "in integros modos" ("nelli lor modi") does not
express sufficiently clearly the idea of movement, which Zarlino
30 At the beginning of the passage cited, where Zarlino is defining consonance.

SOCIETY
renderswith the termmodulatione. He then recaststhe samedefinition

in sixteenth-centuryterms. Properharmonyconsistsof a mixtureof
high and low sounds, mediated or unmediated, consonant and
dissonant,as they progressfrom the beginningto the end.31If there
are three or more parts, the harmonyis perfect(hereZarlinoagrees
with Burzioand Vicentino).If thereare only two parts,there is still
harmony,but it is imperfect(thus embracingSpataro'sdefinitionof
harmony).Not-properharmonyis single consonances,whethersim-
ple or mediated,andmightbetterbe called"harmonious consonance."
It is not properharmonybecausethere is no movement.32
Zarlinois charyin citingcontemporaneous theorists,a traithe has
in commonwith most of his colleagues.This does not mean that he
did not readthem. I believeit can be demonstratedthatthe preceding
31 In view of this
passage, I do not understand how Carl Dahlhaus can claim that
"Die Dissonanz wurde im 15. und i6. Jahrhundertnicht als Kontrast und Widerpart
zur Konsonanz, sondern als eine kaum merkliche Unterbrechung der
Konsonanzenfolge aufgefasst" (1968, 113), and specifically that Zarlino does not
mention dissonances, which do not become a "primary phenomenon" (eppesen's
term for syncopation dissonances) until the end of the sixteenth century ("Die
Dissonanzen erwahnt er nicht; sie wurden erst im spaten 16. und im I7. Jahrhundert
als 'primares' Phanomen des Kontrapunkts begriffen";ibid., p. I I4). As theoretical
support for his contention Dahlhaus quotes Giovanni Maria Bononcini: "I1
Contrapunto e una artificiosadisposizione di consonanze, e dissonanze insieme." The
same statement can be found not only in Zarlino but also in Spataro, nearly seventy
years before him. If Zarlino (in another passage) and earlier theorists excuse
dissonance because it passes so quickly, this is only a rationalizationof its presence,
not a characterizationof its effect. As soon as theorists begin to describe syncopation
dissonances and their proper placement, dissonance is truly viewed as a "contrastand
opposition." I believe that Knud Jeppesen was correct in viewing syncopation
dissonance as a primary phenomenon dating back to around 1400 and passing
dissonance as a secondary one originating earlier (Jeppesen I946, 94-95).
The real innovation in dissonance treatment, forcefully stated in Galilei's
counterpoint treatise of I 590, is the acceptance of dissonances for their own sake and
the great loosening of restrictions on their resolution. As Galilei puts it: "In the use
of these [the dissonances] I have not sought that which Zarlino (Istit. II, xii) says
practical musicians desire, namely that the dissonances blend in harmony with
wonderful effects; but rather that the sense become satisfied with them, not because
they harmonize, as I said, but because of the gentle mixture of the sweet and strong"
(quoted after Palisca 1956, 87). See Galilei I980, 39.
32 Richard Crocker believes that Zarlino's "theory of harmony analyzes the nature
of three-part sonorities. This theory of harmony does not treat, in principle, the
progression from one harmony to the next; the harmonic triads have no systematic
relation, and therefore no function, one to another. His theory is about harmony, but
not about functional harmony" (I962, 20). Crocker did not take into account the
above-quoted passage. While Zarlino does not treat the progression of specific
harmonies, his insistence on movement shows that he clearly viewed "proper
harmony" as functional. (I should perhaps make clear that Zarlino's "theory of
harmony" embraces both the speculative and practical aspects, but it is the former
that has received nearly all the attention to date.)
passagewas writtenwith a copy of Spataro'sHonestadefensio underhis
eyes. The quotation from Lactantius could have been taken from
Burzio as well as Spataro(he has, however, consultedthe original),
but Zarlinohas incorporatedin his recastingof Lactantius'sdefinition
a phraseaddedby Spataro-"quasidicatfinchee finitala cantilena."
Even more telling is the following passage, in which each theorist
stressesthe importanceof dissonanceto harmony:
Spataro Zarlino
Harmoniasie la misturache si fa nel Et questa Harmonianon solamente
canto de consonantiee dissonantie, nascedalleconsonanze;ma dalledis-
sonanze ancora:percioche i buoni
perche l'e ben vero che li boni Musici pongonoogni studio di fare,
compositorise affaticanoper fare le che nelle harmoniele dissonanzeac-
dissonantienella harmoniamaravi- cordino,et che con maravigliosoef-
gliosamenteconsonare. fetto consuonino.
And further, in distinguishing harmony from consonance:
Spataro Zarlino
harmonia se dice considerandoil la Non propia [harmonia] ... piui
si chiamareHarmoniosa
procedereche fanno insemeconcor- presto puoche Harmonia:concio-
consonanza,
dando: perche se non se moveno, sia
che non contiene in se alcuna
benche siano quatro, non si dice modulatione;ancorache habbia
gli
harmoniama consonantie. estremitramezatida altri suoni.
If Spataro was a voice crying in the wilderness, Zarlino heard it
and gave his ideas consequence.33In chapter 27 of the third book of
the Istitutioniharmoniche,on counterpoint, Zarlino takes up the role
that dissonance plays in harmony:
As I have said, every composition,counterpoint,or [to put it in one

word, every]harmonyis composedprincipallyof consonances.Never-
theless, for greaterbeautyand charmdissonancesare used, incidentally
andsecondarily.Althoughthesedissonancesarenot pleasingin isolation,
when they areproperlyplacedaccordingto the preceptsto be given, the
ear not only enduresthem but derivesgreatpleasureand delight from
33 Not that he would have admitted it. Toward the end of Book 3 of his Istitutioni
harmoniche,Zarlino dismisses books like Spataro's Honestadefensioin the following
language: "There are also many tracts and apologies, written by certain musicians
against others, which, were one to read them a thousand times, the reading,
rereading, and study would reveal nothing but vulgarities and slander rather than
anything good, and they would leave one appalled" (Zarlino 1968, 266). In fact, by
using the words "vulgarities and slander," he may very well be referring to this
treatise, which is astonishing in its invective.
SOCIETY
them. They are of double utility to the musician (in addition to other uses
of no small value). The first has been mentioned: with their aid we may
pass from one consonance to another. The second is that a dissonance
causes the consonance which follows it to sound more agreeable. The ear
then grasps and appreciates the consonance with greater pleasure (1968,
53).34
For Zarlino, dissonance adds "beauty and charm"; works composed

without dissonance would be "somehow imperfect" (haverebbeno . . .
quasidello imperfetto).He comes close to, but stops short of saying that
dissonance plays a role in the forward movement of a piece by creating
tension that calls for resolution. Yet his insistence that it is movement
that distinguishes harmony from consonance shows us that he under-
stood very well the function of dissonance.35
Let us go back once more to Spataro'sremark, "And even without
studying the precepts of counterpoint everyone is a master of com-
posing harmony." He meant it ironically, for without counterpoint,
who could learn how to lead the voices in logical progressions to create
dissonances and resolve them properly? Those who took their ready-
made chords from consonance tables or put together pleasing chords
by strumming a lute or experimenting at the keyboard were not true
composers. Composition was hard work, requiring talent and prac-
34The words in brackets were omitted in the translation. I have restored them to
show that Zarlino also used "harmony"as a comprehensive term for a work of music.
He employed it in the sense of mode as well. In the fifth requirement for composition,
a work "must be ordered under a prescribed and determined [harmony], mode, or
tone, as we like to call it" (Zarlino I968, 52; again, the bracketed word has been
omitted in the translation). One sympathizes with the translators, who would prefer
to have the author use a term in only one way, but such omissions impair our
understanding.
35Claude Palisca has provided a thoughtful explanation of Zarlino's
terminology
in the Introduction to TheArt of Counterpoint (Zarlino 1968, xxii-xxiii). This is a task
that should be a sine qua non of any translation of a theoretical treatise. I believe he
misses an essential point, however, by defining "proper harmony" as one "in which
two or more melodies are combined" and "improperharmony"as one "in which there
is consonance but no melody" (p. xxii) and by stating that modulatione"clearly
emphasizes the horizontal aspect of a polyphonic texture as opposed to harmonia,
which emphasizes the vertical. Also modulatione is a process, whereas harmoniapropria
is the end result" (p. xxiii). As shown above, harmoniapropia (this is Zarlino's spelling)
is a process also, and it emphasizes the vertical only insofar as it requires at least two
voices. Modulationeis a term even more problematic than harmonia,especially in the
sixteenth century. Zarlino defines it as "un movimento fatto da un suono all'altroper
diversi intervalli" (II.xiv), but prefers to apply it to polyphonic music. Since one can
have modulatione"senza l'harmonia propia, et senza alcuna consonanza, et senza la
melodia," it is a more general term than harmonia.On the history and use of the term
modulatio,see Blumroder I983.
tice, and a knowledge of counterpoint was an indispensable prere-
quisite.
If it is true that theory lags behind practice, Spataro is applying
the term "harmony" to a phenomenon that was well established by
1491. The question then arises, how did earlier theorists describe it?
If we look for "definition of the goals toward which the voices being
combined should flow" in terms of eighteenth-century tonal harmony,
we will not find it. But if we look in terms of fifteenth-century
functional harmony, we will. A great deal of ink has been consumed
over the question of tonal harmony in early music. We can place an
individual piece on a continuum that stretches from purely modal to
purely tonal music; we can analyze it, at least in part, in tonal terms,
and this analysis will be useful for us in understanding the piece. But
a theorist such as Spataro did not conceive harmony in terms of
tonality-or modality, even though he could assign a mode to a
composition. He viewed it on the level of the relations between
successive simultaneities, defined as consonances and dissonances.
Accordingly, it behooves us to examine the writings of earlier
theorists with regard to consonance and especially to dissonance.
5. The Theory of Dissonance
Counterpoint treatises commonly start out by listing the "species,"

that is the intervals to be used, and then categorize them as perfect or
imperfect.36Few treatises mention dissonances, simply because they
have no place in note-against-note writing.37 The author of the
Quatuorprincipalia states flatly: "Having observed the abovenamed
concords and discords, it is necessary to consider how one goes about
using perfect and imperfect concords in discant, always avoiding
36 See the
chronological table illustrating the changing classificationof consonance
in Crocker 1962, 7, and the expanded table in Sachs 1974, 60. Some authors use
different terms for imperfect consonances. Johannes Gallicus calls them "dissonantiae
compassibiles"(i876, 385);his pupil Nicolo Burzio follows him, although he also uses
the Greek term, emmeles(1975, I17). Ugolino of Orvieto uses two sets of terminology:
perfectaeet imperfectae
consonantiaeand consonantiae et dissonantiae.
The latter he considers
less appropriate, but says it is current usage: "licet non ita proprie eis competat
diffinitio, tamen commune nomen ita hodierno tempore sortitae sunt" (I959-62, 2:7).
On other treatises that follow this terminology, most of them unedited, see Sachs
1974, 85.
37 Not so before this
period, as Franco of Cologne's prescriptions for part-writing
make clear: "Be it also known that immediately before a concord any imperfect
discord [tone, major sixth, minor seventh] concords well. . . . The discant begins ...
proceeding then by concords, sometimes introducing discords in suitable places"
(Strunk 1950, I53 and I55).
SOCIETY
dissonances."38It is not until the later fourteenth century that

theorists, while still teaching only note-against-notecounterpoint,
concedethatdissonancehas a legitimateplacein music. The authorof
the counterpointtreatiseVolentibus introduci,supposedlyfollowingthe
of
teachings Philippe de Vitry, lists dissonances along with the
consonancesand says "Becauseof theirdiscordwe do not use them in
counterpoint,but we do in floridwriting in smallernote values, as
when a semibreveor breve is dividedinto severalnotes, that is into
three parts;then one of these threepartscan be one of the dissonant
species."39 Anotherversionof the treatisespecifiesthatit is the middle
note that can be dissonant.40
One of the most perceptiveobserversof musicalpracticeof the
time is the authorof the Berkeleytreatiseof 1375,calledGoscalcusin
a concordantsource. Unlike many authors,he goes beyondthe mere
specificationof progressionsof intervals;afterhavingdispatchedthe
rulesof counterpoint,he turnsto the "useful"and "pleasant"knowl-
edge of how to makea discantin note valuessmallerthanthose of the
tenor. This majorsourcehas recentlybeen edited and translatedby
Oliver B. Ellsworthand the section on divided notes (contrapunctus
diminutus) has been commentedon extensivelyby Klaus-JurgenSachs
(I974, 145, I48-53). It bearsreexaminationhere, however, because
the translationof the relevantpassageobscuresGoscalcus'smeaning
and the commentaryhas not entirely succeeded in clarifying his
thought.Neither authorattemptedto searchfor examplesin contem-
poraneousmusic that would illustrateGoscalcus'sprescriptionsfor
the use of dissonance.Whilethe emphasisis on discanting,for which
Goscalcus uses the word "verbulare,"he insists that the rules of
counterpointbe followed, and those who wish to sing "magistraliter"
must not produce the parallelfifths and octaves that some allow
(Goscalcus1984, 130).Thereforethe prescriptionsshouldbe equally
valid for composition.
Goscalcusbeginshis discussionof dissonancetreatmentas follows:
38"Visis concordantiis et discordantiis

supradictis, considerandum est qualiter
cum concordantiis perfectis et imperfectis in discantu operandum est, dissonantiis
semper evitatis" (Anonymous 1876, 281).
9 "Et
propter earum discordantiam ipsis non utimur in contrapuncto, sed bene
eis utimur in cantu fractibili in minoribus notis, ut quando semibrevis vel tempus in
pluribus notis dividitur, id est in tribus partibus; tunc una illarum trium partium
potest esse in specie discordanti"(Anonymous I869b, 27; this is the treatise published
by Coussemaker as Ars ContrapunctussecundumPhilippumde Vitriaco that begins
Volentibusintroduci).On this treatise, another version of which goes under the name
of Johannes de Garlandia, see Sachs I974, 170-79.
40 Pisa, Biblioteca Universitaria, MS.
606, p. 50; see Sachs 1974, I73.
Item notandum est, quod quia It must be noted that since it would
impossibile, vel maxime difficile et be impossible or very difficult (and
tediosum eciam esset nimis, omnes also exceedingly tedious) to situate
voces in concordanciis situare all syllables in concord with various
vocibus diversis, licitum est earum other syllables,41 it is possible to
aliquas ponere dissonantes, sic tamen place some of them dissonant, as
quod maior pars vel saltem equalis sit long as the greater part, or at least
consonans. half, are consonant.42
"Vel saltem equalis sit consonans" would be more accurately ren-
dered, I believe, with "or at least the equivalent is consonant." Since
Goscalcus uses the word equalis elsewhere only with the meaning of
"equal," Ellsworth's "half" is an interpretation rather than a transla-
tion. If Goscalcus believed that only half needed to be consonant, then
there was no point in mentioning "the greater part." Sachs accepts
"equalis" as "equal," but wonders what "pars" refers to, one being
larger, the other equal. He supposes it to be a semibreve, and usually
the first part, the value specified in Volentibus introduci (Sachs I974,
148). The question is whether dissonance is considered in the
aggregate-i.e., more notes in the composition must be consonant
than dissonant, as Ellsworth's translation implies-or whether
Goscalcus is referring to the amount of dissonance allowed over a
single note of the tenor, as Sachs surmises. I believe he means the
latter, because he continues with a discussion of how the consonance
41 The translationof voxas "syllable"resultsfromthe editor'sstatedpolicy(p. 27)
that "thesametermwill receivethe sametranslationeachtime it occurs,unlessthere
is a clear differencein meaningthat requiresa differentterm in English." Vox
frequentlymeanssolmizationsyllableandis used in this sensein the firsttreatise,on
modes. But in the secondtreatiseit has the more generalmeaningof "sound."For
example,when the authorsaysthata majorsixthcan be followedby a majortenthif
the tenor"descenditad quartamvocem"or by a majorthirdif the tenor"ascenditad
quintamvocem"(p. 112), he is talkingnot about solmizationsyllablesbut relative
pitches,i.e. when the tenordescendsa fourthor ascendsa fifth,producingtwo tones
an octave apart. Since no pitch is specified, solmizationsyllables do not enter.
Solmizationsyllableswere introducedas a guide for the singerin determiningthe
locationof the semitone,but they arenot essentialto the music. In one of his letters,
Spatarorails againstthe notionthat solmizationsyllablesare anythingmorethan a
convenience;they are purely arbitrary,and all that mattersis that the tones and
semitonesfall in the right places(MS. Vat. lat. 53I8, fol. i49v; letter no. 29 in
Blackburnet al.). In the presentcontext,voxis a tone consideredfromthe point of
view of sound, the reasonwhy it can also be used for solmizationsyllables,which
representsoundin context.Nota,notula,orfiguraareused to describethe rhythmic
shape of a note. The differencebetween the two terms was stated succinctlyby
Tinctoris two hundred years later: Voxestsonusnaturaliteraut artificialiterprolatus;Nota
est signumvociscerti vel incertivaloris(Diffinitorium).This is a useful distinction, but
unfortunatelyone that has becomeblurredin present-dayEnglish, though not in
German.(WhenDowlandtranslatedOrnithoparchus, he renderedvoxwith "voyce,"
nota with "note.").
42 Goscalcus
I984, 132-33. Hereafter the translations are my own.
SOCIETY
of an individualnote is to be labeled,using againthe words "maior

pars":
Item notandum est, quod in It shouldbe notedthat, when divid-
dividendo voces concordancia, ing sounds, some say the concor-
secundum aliquos, denominatura danceshouldbe namedaccordingto
maioriparte. Et, secundumaliquos, the largerpart;otherssay according
a prima nota consonante, seu in to the firstconsonantnote or the first
consonancia existente. Et [si] tot noteappearingin consonance.And if
fuerint voces secundumvaloremin there are as many sounds according
uno loco quot in reliquo, tune talis to their value in one place as in the
consonanciamixta dicitur seu com- rest, then sucha consonanceis called
munis.43 mixedor common.
Here our understanding of Goscalcus hinges on the distinction he
makes between concordantiaand consonantia.He defines neither; the
difference can only be discerned from the context.44As Sachs points
out, consonantiarefers not to consonant notes (for which Goscalcus
uses the word concordantia)but to the group of divided notes that
sound together (con-sonare) with one tenor note, some of which can be
dissonant. If there are two notes, both equally consonant, then the
"consonance"is called mixed or common. Maiorpars, then, refers to
the amount of consonance required over one note of the tenor, and not
to the number of notes in a composition that must be consonant. Since
there is no appropriatenoun in English for "sounding together," I will
place "consonance"in quotation marks and retain Goscalcus's "con-
cordance" as the antonym of dissonance.
The central passage on dissonance treatment in Goscalcus now
follows:
Item notandum est quod licet It should be noted that any "conso-
quamlibetconsonanciama voce dis- nance"can begin or end with a dis-
sonanteincipereet finire,dumtamen sonantsound, as long as that sound
illa vox sit minorisvalorismedietate
has less than half the value of that
illius consonancie;potest tamenesse
"consonance";however it can be
equalis in sincopando. Unde equal when syncopating(I call syn-
sincopari dico quando reducciones copationwhen separatenotes, sepa-
aliquarumnotarum diversarumab
invicem et distancium ab invicem
43 Goscalcus i984, I32; si has been supplied from the two concordant sources.
Here again I feel that Ellsworth has made an interpretationnot warranted by the text:
"And it must be noted that, according to some, in dividing syllables, concord
predominates for the greater part; according to others, the first note is consonant-or
in consonance."
44 Curiously, the version of the treatise in the Catania manuscript (dating about
one hundred years later) reverses the two terms, but not consistently.
fiunt earum perfecciones compu- rated from each other, are drawn
tando.45 together in counting perfections).
Sachs interprets "equal"in this context as equal to half the value of the
tenor note ("potest esse tamen equalis [namlich: valoris medietate] in
sincopando," I974, 149). On the face of it, a dissonant note as long as
the note of the tenor seems suspect, and yet if Goscalcus had meant
what Sachs believes, he should have said medietatisvalorisrather than
equalis.
If Goscalcus had accompanied his statements with music exam-
ples, his explanation of the use of dissonance in cantusfractus would
have been clear. He does give a set of verbula(what English writers
would later call "divisions")in the various mensurations, but without
pitch and without a tenor, leaving the student to add his own-this
method being, as he says, briefer and more instructive.46However, if
we examine the chanson following his counterpoint treatise,
Souviengnevousdestrinera 3,47 we can find an illustration of the various
types of dissonance allowed (Ex. i).
First it must be noted that the ratio of concordance to dissonance
is not dependent on a fixed note value, as Sachs surmised, but rather
on the length of the tenor note. Earlier, Goscalcus had explained how
to lay out a tenor in semibreves, breves, or a mixture of both (1984,
I20). In the first four measures of Souviengnevousthe tenor moves in
perfect breves, and therefore each "consonance"comprises one mea-
sure, more than half of which must consist of concordance. Measure
45 Goscalcus I984, 132. Ellsworth translates "minoris valoris medietate illius

consonancie" as "a smaller value by half than the consonance"; this however
contradicts Goscalcus's first statement, that the greater part of a group of divided
notes must be consonant.
46 "non intendo voces aliquas nominare, neque clavem aliquam apponere, quod
facio causa brevitatis, et ut quilibet in concordando ipsa verbula diversis vocibus eque
speculando pocius sit intentus" (Goscalcus 1984, 34). Goscalcus did not spoon-feed
his students but left them to work out the examples on their own. The examples are
found on pp. 36-45. They look as if they were meant to be for two voices, each set
of verbulabeing followed by an ascending ligature; but, as Sachs reports, there is no
way they can be transcribed polyphonically (see his comments, 1974, 150-51).
Inexplicably, Ellsworth did not transcribethe verbulain modern notation, nor does he
offer any explanation of them.
47 See Crocker 1967, i67-68, from which Ex. i, the first half of the rondeau, is
taken. A facsimile may be found facing p. 164, which permitted correction of an error
in the discant, m. 4. The rondeau is also transcribedin Apel 1970-72, vol. 3, no. 280.
Ellsworth omitted this and a second chanson from his edition on the grounds that "the
author makes no attempt to integrate either composition into his theoretical material,
although they apparently were copied at the same time as the rest of the manuscript"
(Goscalcus I984, 13). While Goscalcus does not refer to the chanson, it is legitimate
to suppose that it conforms to his compositional prescriptions, especially because it is
placed close after them.
SOCIETY
Example i
Anon., Souviengnevous, mm. 1-26 (Berkeley MS. 744, p. 36)
. I
; - ,rI
. i . J.JJ; 1 ,
Sou-
So
Contratenor
. - 1 $r ir r '
r f 8' r r '"):r
Tenor
^. ar f r r
viengne vous de- stri- ner
Iv: r r r r r r r
f ?I~I /0~Ioi I
^-Jvo-,?. streRa-R '?mant -

ma dou-
r ~ m
ce a r I r' ri r
ce a- mour qui mon cuer
i
rC r r- r r r'
COMPOSITIONAL PROCESS IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 239
20
J
t-^
pour
J 4
e- stri-
J j jJ LJ
>X f J . j X J -
" : 'r r r' r r'

'
25
ne.
I f
:, 7~V r f " C" - r"']
3, discant, shows the "maior pars" concordant with the tenor.

Measure4 showswhat I believeGoscalcusmeansby equalisin his first
rule: the concordantnotes are divided (A and F), but equivalentin
value to the "maiorpars." The differing opinions about naming
concordancesmay be illustratedin measure22: some would say the
concordanceis a', the larger part, others that it is f', the first
consonant note. A mixed consonance is found between the
contratenorand tenor in measuresI and 3.
For the remainderof Goscalcus'sprescriptionswe will examine
"consonances" wherethe tenoris an imperfectbreveor semibreve.In
Souviengne thereis only one exampleof a "consonance"
vous thatbegins
with a dissonance,in measure12, but there are many in the second
chansonin theBerkeleymanuscript, EnlamaisonDaedalus,48forexample:
Example 2
Anon., En la maisonDaedalus,three measures beginning with a dissonance (Berkeley
MS. 744, p. 62)
m. 14 m. 21
2i:8)
r J: .- C J.
48 See Crocker 1967, i69-70, for a transcription.
SOCIETY
The sharpest dissonances are reserved for cadences, a common

feature.The most usualplacefor dissonancein a "consonance"
is the
end; see, e.g., Souviengnevous, discant, mm. I, 2, 3, 4, 23, and
contratenor, m. 23.
Finally, we must look for examplesof syncopationdissonancein
the hope that they will show us whetherGoscalcusmeant that the
dissonantsyncopatednote could be equalto the valueof the "conso-
nance" or equal to only half its value. In Souviengnevous only
semibreves are syncopated, and they are dissonant only against
semibrevesin the tenor (see discant,m. 6, and contratenor,m. 1).
Syncopations against a larger note are always consonant. These
examplesshow us that the dissonantsyncopatednote is indeedequal
in value to the tenornote. The dissonanceitself, however,lasts only
for halfthe valuebecauseit resolvesagainstthe succeedingnote of the
tenor. Throughoutthe piece the contratenoris moreconsonantwith
the tenor than is the discant, but there is a strongdissonanceat the
cadence in measures 9-IO. In terms of the mensuration, the
contratenoris not syncopated,but the composerhas treatedit as such
(cf. also m. I2), makingthe dissonantnote, an imperfectbreve,equal
in length to the note value of the tenor. This example confirms
Goscalcus'sobservationwith regardto syncopationdissonance.
Goscalcus, like Tinctoris one hundredyears later, provides us
with a valuableframeof referencefor examiningthe musicof his time
with regardto consonanceand dissonance.In severalways he was
aheadof his time, for prescriptionsfor the use of dissonanceare rare
even in treatisesof the first half of the fifteenthcentury, and none
match the detail of Goscalcus'sdescription.The lack of theoretical
commentis especiallydisappointingbecausethe treatmentof disso-
nance changedso decisivelyduringthis period. When dissonanceis
allowed, theoristsusually excuse it on the groundsthat it passes so
rapidlythatit does not offendthe ear.49Laterin the centurywe begin
to find psychological explanationsof the effect of dissonance.
GuilielmusMonachus'seighth rule of counterpointstatesthat
eventhoughwe haveestablishedtwelveconsonances,
perfectas wellas
imperfect,simpleas well as compound,nevertheless,accordingto
49 Cf. Beldomandi 1984, 58: "usitanturtamen in cantu fractibili, eo

quod in ipso
propter velocitatem vocum earum non sentiuntur dissonantie," and Anonymous XI:
"Notandum de dissonanciis quod dissonanciae in omni cantu ab omni autore
prohibitae sunt, et dari non debent nisi in cantu figurativo deutero in minima vel
semiminima aut fusa; quibus notis dissonancia minus percipitur, seu percipi potest,
racione parvae morae seu velocitatis in pronunciando .. ." (1973, 138).
COMPOSITIONALPROCESSIN THE FIFTEENTHCENTURY 24I
modernusage,dissonancesoccasionallygratifyus, as the dissonanceof a
secondgives sweetnessto a lowerthird,the dissonanceof a seventhgives
sweetnessto a sixth,the dissonanceof a fourthgivessweetnessto a higher
third, and that third gives sweetnessto a fifth, and this accordingto
modernusage.50
For the first time, dissonance is described as functional; it enhances

the following consonance.s1 This is what Spataro has in mind when
he speaks of making dissonances marvelously consonant in harmony.
Except for the last, Guilielmus is describing suspension dissonances,
which create a desire for resolution and produce the movement that is
integral to Spataro'sconcept of harmony. The dissonances described
by Prosdocimus and most other writers are passing dissonances,
which have a different effect. Goscalcus's syncopation dissonances lie
in the middle, for they can be dissonant on the first beat (like a
suspension) or on the second.
The movement from dissonance to consonance in cantusfractusof
two voices and in polyphonic music parallels and develops out of the
movement from imperfect to perfect consonance prescribed in coun-
terpoint treatises. Both were viewed in terms of process-in a word,
functionality. Like Guilielmus, fourteenth-century theorists com-
mented on the psychological need for one type of sound to resolve to
another. According to the author of Cum notasit, if the contrapuntal
voice were to end on an imperfect consonance, one's spirit would
remain in suspense, which would not be satisfied until resolution
occurred on a perfect consonance-nor, he adds, would one be able to
tell that the piece had come to an end.52Moreover, in the words of one
50
"Octava regula talis est, quod quamquam posuerimus duodecim consonantias
tam perfectas quam imperfectas, tam simplices quam compositas, non obstante,
secundum usum modernum consonantiae dissonantes aliquotiens nobis serviunt,
sicut dissonantia secundae dat dulcedinem tertiae bassae, dissonantia vero septimae
dat dulcedinem sextae, dissonantia quartae dat dulcedinem tertiae altae, et illa tertia
dat dulcedinem quintae et hoc secundum usum modernum" (Guilielmus 1965, 35).
51 This explanation was not universally accepted; Tinctoris ridiculed it in the
Liberde arte contrapuncti,asking whether vice should be practiced to lend virtue more
resplendence, or inept words inserted in speech to make the others seem more elegant
(1975, 2:140). Zarlino, however, accepted it (see above).
"2Nona conclusio est quod sicut contrapunctus incipit per perfectam, sic etiam
debet finire. Ratio potest esse, quia, si fineretur cantus per imperfectam, tunc
remaneret animus suspensus, nec adhuc quiesceret cum non audiret perfectum
sonum, nec per consequens indicatur ibi finem esse cantus" (Anonymous i869a, 62).
The same observation is made by Guillermus de Podio, Ars musicorum,Book VI,
chap. 9: "[Species imperfectae] suspensam enim natura generant in animo auditoris
modulationem. Unde quamquam supra modum illum delectent, numquam tamen
donec ad perfectam declinaverint, quietum reddunt" (1978, 5).
SOCIETY
anonymousfifteenth-centuryobserver,counterpointwithout a mix-
ture of perfectand imperfectconsonanceswould yield no harmony:
The procedureof counterpointis not just in continuousperfectconso-

nancesn6frin imperfectones, but imperfectconsonancesmust be mixed
in with perfectones, and perfectconsonancesincludedwith imperfect
ones, becausesuch a procedurewould not be a composingof harmony,
in which musicshines, it would even resultin harshnessand roughness,
which music flees.53
6. Tinctorison Dissonance
Havingbrieflysurveyedthe placeof dissonancein fourteenth-and

fifteenth-centurywritings,we arenow in a positionto appreciatethe
truenoveltyof Tinctoris'scounterpointbook:dissonancesarenot just
mentionedin passing,they aregivena bookof theirown, andit is in this
second book that Tinctoriselaborateshis preceptsof counterpoint,
reservingBookIII for the eightgeneralrules.Tinctorisdiscussesboth
consonanceand dissonancebecausewhile "counterpoint is primarily
composed of concords, discordshowever arepermittednow and then."54
He repeatsthis statementas an introductionto chapter19 of Book11,
where he first takesup counterpoint,as opposedto the expositionof
intervals.All of the examplesof floridcounterpoint
demonstrate the use
of dissonance,but Tinctorisdoesnot beginto discussit untilchapter23.
He now setsforthan elaboratesystemof placingdissonances,whichhas
been admirably elucidated by Klaus-Jiirgen Sachs (1974, I54-69, and
condensed in I980), who rightly notes that Tinctoris's rules for disso-
nances "forthe first time make possible an understandingof the period's
compositionaltechniques"(I980, 839).
That the novelty and importance of Tinctoris's discussion of
dissonance treatment have escaped notice so far is due to two
circumstances. In the first place Tinctoris's rules are very condensed
and are couched in language that is difficult for us to understand since
the theoretical framework is the mensural system, which is no longer
53 "El
procedere del contraponto non e continuamente de sole consonantie
perfecte ne ancho imperfecte ma ale perfecte se de interponere de l'imperfecte et al[e]
imperfecte interponere le perfecte perche tal procedere non saria compositione de
armonia, de la quale la musica resplende, ancho sarebe incorere in duritia et asperita,
la quale la musica fuge" (Regulede contrapunctoin Florence, Biblioteca Medicea
Laurenziana, Conv. Soppr. 388, fols. 29-34; ed. in Anonymous 1977, 5).
54 "in
contrapuncto principaliter concordantiae praecipiuntur, discordantiae vero
interdum permittuntur"(I.i.6 [2:14]). The Latin text in all quotations from Tinctoris
is taken from the edition by Albert Seay (Tinctoris 1975); numbers in brackets
following chapter citations refer to the volume and page number in Seay's edition.
secondnatureto us. In the secondplace, Coussemaker,in editingthe
Liberdeartecontrapuncti, did not scorethe extendedmusic examples,
which illustrateTinctoris's precepts in precise pedagogicalorder.
Even so sharp a theoreticalmind as Knud Jeppesen, whose monu-
mentalstudy of dissonancetreatmentin the sixteenthcentury-based
not only on the worksof Palestrina-hasdoneso muchto advanceour
knowledge,did not appreciatethe contributionmade by Tinctoris.55
I will of necessity make only the most cursory exposition of
Tinctoris'ssystem;the twelvechaptersin which he distillshis theory
(Liberdeartecontrapuncti II.xxiii-xxxiv)deservea separatestudy.
WhereasGoscalcustied dissonanceto the lengthof the tenornote,
Tinctoris places it in a more circumscribedcontext, both rhythmic
and melodic.The unit of measure(mensurae directio)-minimin major
prolation,semibrevein minorprolation-determinesthe lengthof the
dissonance.Unstresseddissonancesoccur on the second half of the
unit, following a consonance;they may be the same length as or
shorterthan the consonance.Stresseddissonances,in the form of
step-wiseresolvingsuspensions,are reservedfor cadences.Tinctoris
refers to a cadence with the words descensus in aliquamperfectionem,
meaning that one voice the
(usually tenor) descends at least one step
into a perfection. "Perfection"is understoodin two ways: as the
beginningof a mensuralunit andas a chordconsistingonly of perfect
intervals.His practicemay be verifiedin the music examples.The
examplefor chapter23, SalvemartyrvirgoqueBarbara(used as para-
digm in Sachs 1980) has 29 measures.Suspensiondissonancescreate
cadences concluding in measures 3, 5, 7, II, I4, I6, i8, 20, 22, 23, 26,
and 29. The initialsonorityin all but one of these measuresconsists
of an octave, a fifth-octavechord, or a chord with doubledfifth; in
measure 16 a deceptivecadenceoccurs, with the bass moving up a
step instead of a fourth. All of the non-cadentialmeasures(except
measure9, which is the beginningof a new section)have a third or
55Jeppesen quotes only Tinctoris's rules on melodic (i.e. unaccented

passing)
dissonance (1946, 107-8). Even in his book Counterpoint:ThePolyphonicVocalStyle of
theSixteenthCentury,where he devotes pp. 8- 3 to Tinctoris's treatise, he was capable
of stating: "we might now [afterthe listing of dissonances] expect Tinctoris to explain
clearly, as he did with the consonances, how dissonances can be used with
consonances and what combinations are available. But he does not discuss this point
at all-apparently because he finds dissonances so unessential that such a careful
presentation would be superfluous at this point" (p. I I). Jeppesen's first theoretical
witness for the syncopation dissonance is Guilielmus Monachus (pp. 15-16), who is
far less specific than Tinctoris. If Coussemaker had scored his examples, scholars
might have taken the trouble to figure out what Tinctoris was saying. But they are not
easily transcribed; many of them involve complicated proportions, which even
experienced editors have difficulty with; see Blackburn 1981, 42-45.
SOCIETY
tenth on the first beat except for measures 13 and 19, in which the
tenor does not descend a step and the superius is tied over the barline.
Cadences are handled differently according to the length of the
penultimate note in the tenor; if it is double the unit of measurement,
it usually receives a suspension dissonance. If it is one unit long, the
first part may receive a dissonance, and so may the preceding tenor
note if the counterpoint consists of a descending line. From a melodic
point of view, the dissonance is approached by step and left by step
or, more rarely, the leap of a third.
Although he appears to have given no name to his theory of
dissonance, subsuming it under the rubric of "counterpoint,"what is
Tinctoris describing if not Spataro'sconcept of harmony: "harmonyis
the mixture of consonances and dissonances in a composition . . ;
good composers exert themselves to make dissonances marvelously
consonant in harmony"? But whereas Spataro was not specific about
the placement of dissonance, Tinctoris is. The sharpest dissonances
are reserved for cadences. Cadences are characterizednot only by the
customary expansion of two voices to an octave or contraction to a
unison but also by the behavior of the other voices, which ordinarily
refrain from touching a third or a sixth in the final chord.56 Do we not
see here the "definition of the goals toward which the voices being
combined should flow," and are not the "basic principles of the
structural order" harmonic as well as melodic?57No voice can be
considered "nonstructural"since the voices behave in a different way
in cadential and non-cadential passages. For Tinctoris the suspension
dissonance has the same function as the dominant in tonal harmony,
and in many cases it not only behaves like a dominant but sounds like
one. 58That these progressions are not necessarily tonal does not mean
56 I do not mean to claim that all cadences of this

period should be or are handled
this way, merely to point out that what Tinctoris says-as is so often the case-is
literally true. It holds for every one of his three-voice examples except for deceptive
cadences (all of which, interestingly, are cadences on A). But every rule has its
exception (this is the leitmotiv of the third book); see below, after Ex. 3, and Ex. 4.
Moreover, the five-voice example in chapter 20, Deo gratias, does have thirds in
cadences approached by suspension dissonances.
57 See above, pp. 221-223. Starting from the theorists' prescriptions that a
composition must close on a perfect consonance and be preceded by the closest
imperfect consonance, Don Randel has shown that when a major sixth is used, there
are only two locations possible for a third voice, a third above or a fifth below; the
latter produces a V-I cadence (197I, 78).
58 In studying Josquin's Benediciteomnia
operaDomini, Edward Lowinsky singled
out the use of dominant and secondary seventh chords to sharpen the focus on the
tonic, remarkingon "the composer's awareness that dissonance was an indispensable
element in endowing harmonic progressions with greater drive toward, and sharper
definition of, the tonic" (I96I, 20).
that the composer did not hear and plan his vertical sonorities as a
harmonic unit rather than solely being led where his melodic lines
took him. 59 The two aspects carry equal weight; according to Spataro,
one cannot compose harmony without a knowledge of counterpoint.60
For Tinctoris, cadences are to be shaped by harmonic consider-
ations. That these considerations are sometimes related to the mode of
the composition is made clear by the fifth general rule of Book III:
"On no note at all, whether high, middle, or low, should a perfection
be made through which a modal dislocation of the composition might
occur."61He gives the following example:
59 Cf. the
perceptive remarksin Dahlhaus 1980: "The assumption that the theory
of counterpoint deals with the horizontal and that of harmony with the vertical
dimension of music is as trivial as it is misleading. In the study of harmony, it is not
just the structure of chords but also their progressions that must be dealt with; and
similarly, in the theory of counterpoint, it is a question not only of melodic
part-writing but also of the chords formed by the parts"(p. 843) and: "If harmony is
understood as referring to a regulated joining together of simultaneities-and there is
nothing to justify the restriction of the concept of harmony simply to tonal, chordal
harmony-then music before i6oo also bears a harmonic imprint, even if of a
different kind from that of later music" (p. 844).
60 It would be interesting to know how Tinctoris's contemporaries reacted to his
harmonically-oriented counterpoint instruction. We may catch a glimpse of it,
perhaps, in Gaffurio's treatment of counterpoint in Book III of his Practicamusicae
(Milan, 1496). One would expect enthusiastic agreement from this native of Italy, the
land of harmony. Not so. After categorizing the consonant intervals, Gaffurio
dismisses dissonances in the following words: "The remaining intervals, the second,
fourth, seventh, and their octaves, offend the ears when they are played together.
They do not belong to the elements of counterpoint, since they have no stable place
in songs except in a very rapid passage" (Gaffurio I968, I24). In his third rule he
reiterates the prohibition of dissonance in note-against-note counterpoint. Then he
apparently bethought himself and included a chapter on "When and where disso-
nances are allowed in counterpoint," in which he says "a dissonance is admitted in
counterpoint if it is concealed as a suspension (sincopa)or as a quick passing tone" (p.
129). His example (in three parts) shows how "a suspended dissonance is hidden and
does not offend the ears." It also shows what Jeppesen calls relatively accented passing
dissonance-a minim on the strong beat-and an unaccented fourth over the held
tenor. These Gaffurio characterizes as "a very clear dissonance" which he would
rarely allow, although it is found in works by Dunstable, Binchois, Dufay, and
Brassart. Aside from saying that a dissonance frequently precedes a perfect conso-
nance, Gaffurio indicates nothing about the metrical placement of dissonance. One
could hardly imagine an approach more different from that of Tinctoris, although
their rules of counterpoint are very similar. But Gaffurio neither defined harmony nor
considered it in the way that Spataro did, who followed the school of Tinctoris.
61
"Quinta regula est quod supra nullam prorsus notam sive media, sive superior
sive inferior fuit, perfectio constitui debet per quam cantus distonatio contingere
possit" (III.v.2 [2:1 50]). Jeppesen (followed by Gustave Reese) understood this rule to
prohibit introduction of a cadence "if it interferes with the development of the
melody" (Jeppesen 1939, I2; Reese I959, 144). Distonatiois not a classical word. Its
probable derivation from dis- and tonus, Tinctoris's word for mode, makes a
connection with the mode more cogent.
SOCIETY
Example 3
Tinctoris, example to rule concerning modal dislocation (Liberde arte contrapunctiIII.
v [2:150])
Contrapunctus
Tenor
J J J
, .I . , , , i I g
tu w
r
J
r J
o
^ J J f-
'r J J o.
In the places marked with a sign, especially the last two, the tenor
might be tempted to raise the note in a subsemitoniummodicadence, but
the counterpoint does not make the corresponding "descent into a
perfection"; the tenor notes should therefore be left uninflected. In a
second example Tinctoris shows that the perfection on which a
cadence occurs does not necessarily have to be a fifth-octave chord; it
can occasionally (interdum)contain a third (mm. 6 and 8), or be
deceptive, with the contratenor a third beneath the tenor (m. 9).
7. Tinctoris on Counterpoint, Resfacta, and singing Superlibrum
If we view Tinctoris's Liber de arte contrapunctias a manual of

harmony as well as counterpoint,62 the question arises of how
62
Edward E. Lowinsky made this point in his discussion of "The Nature of the
New" (i966, 14I-48). The fifteenth century saw the development of "modern
Tinctoris himself composed-did he follow the successive method of
"the older generation," or did he belong to the modems who,
according to Pietro Aaron, "take all the parts into consideration at
once"?
The answer to this question lies not in any statement Tinctoris
makes but in his definition and use of the terms contrapunctus and res
facta. Long before Ernest T. Ferand raised the question, "What is Res
Facta?" (1957) scholars had essayed various explanations. Most re-
cently Margaret Bent has re-examined the question in "Resfactaand
CantareSuperLibrum"(I983). I will not attempt here to summarize the
history of this inquiry, for which I refer the reader to Ferand's article,
but will pose the problem as Ferand saw it, discuss his solution and
Margaret Bent's views, and then propose a different interpretation.
Ferand perceived a conflict between the description of resfacta in
Tinctoris's Liberde arte contrapunctiof 1477 and the definition in his
earlier Difinitorium, where one finds what amounts to a cross refer-
ence to the entry "cantus compositus": "Res facta idem est quod
cantus compositus." He translated the two passages as follows:
Porro tam simplexquam diminutus Counterpoint, whether simple or
contrapunctusdupliciterfit, hoc est florid, is of two kinds: written or
aut scriptoaut mente.Contrapunctus mental. Written counterpoint is
qui scriptofit communiterres facta commonly called resfacta[one word];
nominatur.At istumquemmentaliter but that which is mentally conceived
conficimus absolute contrapunctum we call counterpoint absolutely, and
vocamus,et hunc qui faciuntsuper those who make it are vulgaritersaid
librumcantarevulgariterdicuntur. to 'sing upon the book.'
Cantus compositusest ille qui per Cantuscompositus

is that which results
relationem notarum unius partis ad from the various relations of the note
alteram multipliciter est aeditus: qui values of one voice to those of an-
refacta vulgariter appellatur. other, and it is commonly called
refacta[sic](I957, I42).
And he described the conflict as follows:
resfacta . .. may mean either a written contrapuntal composition, plain

or florid, as distinguished from improvised counterpoint, again either
simple or florid; or it may mean florid, in contradistinction to simple,
harmony," "the art of concord based on the triad," and "modern counterpoint," "the
art of combining two, three, four, five, and more voices in such a manner that the
greatest melodic and rhythmic freedom of each single voice may be obtained in a
carefully regulated harmonic sound texture." Tinctoris's "treatise on counterpoint is
the classic document of the new harmonic art and the new treatment of dissonance,
and should be more properly called a treatise on harmony and counterpoint" (1966,
142 and 143).
SOCIETY
counterpoint, whether written or improvised-depending on which

Tinctoris we believe, the authorof the Ars contrapuncti
or that of the
Diffinitorium(I957, i43).
Ferand investigated later references to resfacta in the hope that they

might clarify the seeming contradiction. The term itself, he believed,
"was the result of a confusion with cantusfractus,because of the similar
sound of the Latin terms" (p. 150) and he cited one (late) source in
which it is spelled resfracta (p. I49). But he was forced to conclude
that "the term resfacta had two different meanings. It signified a
written, not improvised, composition in plain or florid counterpoint.
And it signified also florid, not plain, counterpoint, whether written
or improvised" (p. I50). Thus, he was left with the contradiction.
As Margaret Bent points out, Ferand's inquiry was unsuccessful
because he failed to question his own presumptions. Once he had
translated the two definitions, he did not examine in what contexts
Tinctoris used the terms in his treatises. Nor did he take into account
Tinctoris's distinction between res facta and counterpoint and his
comments on singing superlibrum.
Margaret Bent remedied this approach by first setting forth, in
Latin and in translation,the twentieth chapterof Book II of Tinctoris's
Liberdeartecontrapuncti, in which he treatsthe differencebetween resfacta
and counterpoint and gives advice about singing superlibrum.She then
examined Tinctoris's definitions of counterpoint(simplx and diminutus)
and cantus (simplex,simplexplanus,simplexfiguratus,and compositus), and
finally she investigated the referencesto singing superlibrum. When we
deal with an interpretationof an author'sstatements,this is the only way
to proceed, and I shall follow her example by presenting the crucial
chapter here, departingfrom her translationin a few details:
Tinctoris, Liberde arte contrapuncti(1477), II.xx [2:Io7-IO]63

i. [Chapter heading:] Quod tam That counterpoint, both simple
simplex quam diminutus and diminished, is made in two
contrapunctusdupliciterfit, hoc est ways, that is, in writing or in the
scriptovel mente, et in quo res facta mind, and how resfactadiffersfrom
a contrapunctodiffert. counterpoint.
2. Porro tam simplex quam Furthermore, counterpoint, both
diminutus contrapunctus dupliciter simple and diminished, is made in two
fit, hoc est aut scripto aut mente. ways, either in writing or in the mind.
63 I
incorporatethe correctionmadeby Bentof "cantaverint" (a mistakethatgoes
backto Coussemaker) to "evitaverint,"
foundin all the sources,at the end of sentence
8. Bent writesresfactaas one word, afterthese sources.I preferto retaintwo words,
since both are inflected.
3. Contrapunctus qui scripto fit com- Counterpoint that is written is
muniter res facta nominatur. commonly called resfacta.
4. At istum quem mentaliter But that which we accomplishmen-
conficimus absolute contrapunctum tally we call counterpointin the abso-
vocamus, et hunc qui faciunt super lute [sense], and they who do this are
librum cantare vulgariter dicuntur. said vulgariterto sing upon the book.
5. In hoc autem res facta a However, res facta differs from
contrapuncto potissimum differt, counterpoint above all in this re-
quod omnes partes rei factae sive tres spect, that all the parts [=voices] of a
sive quatuor sive plures sint, sibi resfacta,be they three, four, or more,
mutuo obligentur, ita quod ordo should be mutually bound to each
lexque concordantiarum cuiuslibet other, so that the order and law of
partiserga singulaset omnes observari concords of any part should be ob-
debeat, ut satis patet in hoc exemplo served with respect to each single
quinque partium existenti, quarum- and all [parts], as is amply evident in
quidem partium tres primo, deinde this example in five parts, of which
quatuor ac postremo omnes quinque first three sound [=sing] together,
concinunt. then four, then finally all five.
[follows example, Deogratias a 5]

6. Sed duobus aut tribus, quatuor But with two or three, four or more
aut pluribus super librum conci- singing together upon the book, one
nentibus alter alteri non subiicitur. is not subject to the other.
7. Enimvero cuilibet eorum circa ea For indeed, it suffices that each of
quae ad legem ordinationemque them64sound together with the tenor
concordantiarum pertinent, tenori with respect to those [matters] that
consonare sufficit. pertain to the law and ordering of
concords.
8. Non tamen vituperabile immo I do not however judge it blame-
plurimum laudabile censeo si con- worthy but rather very laudable if
cinentes similitudinem assumptionis those singing together should pru-
ordinationisque concordantiarumin- dently avoid similarity between each
ter se prudenter evitaverint. other in the choice and ordering of
concords.
9. Sic enim concentum eorum multo Thus indeed they shall make their
repletiorum suavioremque efficient. singing together much more full and
suave.
Bent sees the root of the problemin Ferand'swidely-accepted
belief that cantaresuperlibrumis equivalentto improvisation."Mente"
(sentence 2), however, she notes, can equally well apply to the
"thinkingout" that precedes the writing down of a composition.
Moreover, the notion of improvisation is incompatible with
64 Bent:
"any of them [each?]." All the contrapuntal voices must be concordant
with the tenor; the conflicts arise between the added voices themselves. Tinctoris
addresses this problem in the next sentence.
SOCIETY
Tinctoris's definition of counterpointas being a "moderatedand

rational sounding together"(moderatus ac rationabilis and
concentus),
Tinctorishimselfsays that those singingsuperlibrummust follow the
rulesof consonanceandwould do betterto agreeaboutwhat they are
going to sing (sentences7-8). Rather,she sees "unwrittenandwritten
compositionor counterpointas stages in a continuousline of en-
deavor"(p. 378). When Tinctoris says that written counterpointis
"commonlycalledresfacta" (sentence3), he distanceshimselffromthis
description; it is common usage that applies this term improperly.
Thereforeresfacta"isneithernecessarilywritten,nor is it the sameas
counterpoint,though both confusionsare 'common"'(p. 380). She
concludesthat
is composition,usuallybut not necessarilywritten, a completed

resfacta
pieceresultingfromapplication of, andchoicesbetween,the rulesof
counterpoint [andin which"theparts. . . are'mutuallyobliged'with
respectto the law and orderingof consonances"].65 The successive
constructionof thosepartswillstillusuallybeperceptible in thefinished
product. Cantare superlibrumis the of
singing counterpoint, following
strictrulesof intervalcombinations in relationto a tenorand, with
experienceand skill, to otherpre-existing partsas well. It requires
careful,successive Resfacta
preparation. andsingingsuper librum therefore
differbutdo notcontrastin principle,andindeedtheirresultsmaybe so
closetogetheras to defydiagnosis.Tinctoriscanno longerbe regarded
as an authorityfor improvisatory practices,and severalassumptions
aboutthe natureof earlyimprovisation will needto be re-examined (p.
39I).
I believe that by removinga distinctionbetween unwrittenand

written music and denying the improvisatorynatureof singingsuper
librum,MargaretBent succeeds in obscuringratherthan clarifying
Tinctoris'sthought. Tinctoris employs the distinction"scriptovel
mente"or "mentaliter" threetimesin chapter20 (sentencesi, 2, 4); he
must haveconsideredit significant.Moreover,a numberof questions
remain:How does resfactadifferfromcounterpoint?In the definition
of cantuscompositus,what does multipliciter
mean?Why did Tinctoris
think it improperto call written counterpoint"res facta"?In what
sense do the singerssing "uponthe book"?Whatwas the normalway
of singingsuperlibrumthat Tinctorisimplicitlycriticizes?Are there
any writtenexamplesof singingsuperlibrum?Does singingsuperlibrum
requiresuccessivepreparationin orderfor the singersto agreeto avoid
65
This important qualification, missing here, has been supplied from Bent's
discussion on p. 390.
similarity? What does Tinctoris mean when he uses the words
communiterand vulgariterin connection with resfactaand singing super
librum?
The key to comprehending Tinctoris's concept of resfactalies in a
correct understanding of what the word "counterpoint"meant to him.
The confusion over resfacta has come about only because we have
failed to realize that when Tinctoris uses the word contrapunctus he
does not mean what "counterpoint" signifies to us today, "the
combination into a single musical fabric of lines or parts which have
distinctive melodic significance"(Apel I947, I89) or "the combination
of simultaneously sounding musical lines according to a system of
rules" (Sachs 1980, 833). In interpreting the ideas of any writer, and
especially one removed from us by generations as well as language, no
term must pass unexamined. Sometimes, as in the present case, the
definition must be read in the light of an author's mental outlook.
Tinctoris gives the following two definitions of counterpoint, the
first in the Diffinitorium,the second in chapter I of the Liberde arte
contrapuncti:
Contrapunctus est cantus per Counterpointis a melody66brought
positionemunius vocis contraaliam about through the placing of one
punctuatimeffectus. soundpunctuallyagainstanother.
Contrapunctusitaqueest moderatus Thereforecounterpointis a moder-

ac rationabilis concentus per ated and rationalsoundingtogether
positionemunius vocis contraaliam broughtaboutthroughthe placingof
effectus, diciturquecontrapunctusa one sound againstanother,and it is
contraet punctus. called counterpointfrom "counter"
and "point."
The main difference between the two definitions is that the first
considers counterpoint a melody, the second a sounding together (he
sharpens the definition by saying that it should be "rational").But in
66 After some hesitation, I decided to translate cantusin this context as
"melody"
rather than "song," which, I feel, carries an implication of a fixed composition and
overtones of polyphony. (In other contexts, however, cantusclearly means a poly-
phonic composition; see note 77 and below, p. 254.) Tinctoris defines cantus as
"multitudo ex unisonis constituta," a "multitude constructed out of single sounds." It
would seem that a word is missing here-a multitude of what? That word is vocum,
which is found in the Reguleflorummusices(Florence, 151O) of Pietro Canuzio: "Cantus
est multitudo vocum ex unisonis constituta"(fol. a4v). Canuzio's rules are, as he says
on the title page, "collecte ex visceribus multorum doctorum," including Tinctoris. In
fact, he swallowed the Difinitorium whole. Whether the word vocumwas added by
Canuzio or comes from a manuscript copy of the Difinitoriumthat is independent of
the print remains to be determined. Tinctoris gives two definitions for unisonus;one
is a sound ("quasi unus sonus")-the meaning he uses here-the other a concord
("quasi una id est simul sonans").
SOCIETY
both only two voices are specified, one sound (vox)being placed
against the other.67A second or third contrapuntalvoice can be
added, but it is set only againstthe tenor. One must always read
Tinctoris very literally. A man who insisted that the term
"semiminima"was wrong because the "minima,"by virtue of its
name, is the "least"of the note values,68a man who could not bring
himselfto believein the musicof the spheres(see the prologueto the
counterpointtreatise),a manwho trustedthe judgmentof his ears69-
such a man means exactly what he says. The definitiondoes not
concernthe total numberof voices involvedbut the relationof each
voice to the tenor;the latteris "given,"the formeradded.One sound
is placedagainstanotherthat alreadyexists. This is borneout by the
examples in the counterpointtreatise in which the given voice is
labeled "tenor," the added voice contrapunctus.70
Counterpoint, then,
is successivecomposition,one voice addedto anotherexistingvoice.
It can be simple, strictlynote-against-notein the sametime values,71
or diminished,in which severalnotes, of differentor the samevalue,
can be placedagainstone note.72Eitherkindcan be accomplishedin
writing or in the mind (the meaningof mentewill be takenup later).
Resfactadiffersfromcounterpointin thatit consistsof "three,four,
or more parts"(there is one exceptionto this) and these parts are
mutually bound to eachotheraccordingto the "law and order of
concords,"that is, each part must follow the rules of counterpoint
with respectto eachotherpart, which is not true of counterpoint,in
which the added voice or voices need only be consonantwith the
tenor. Since Tinctorishad specified"three,four, or more parts,"he
composedan examplein which three voices begin, laterjoinedby a
fourth, and finally by a fifth voice. There are two exceptionsin res
67 Sachs
places the beginning of the distinction between two-part counterpoint, in
which the counterpoint is considered a "Gegenstimme," and counterpoint in more
than two voices, or composition,which is recognized as a "Satzprinzip," in the late
fifteenth century (1974, 54-55). He states that Tinctoris uses it mostly in the sense of
Gegenstimme, but refers to Satz in the sentence quoted in note 54 above (Sachs, p. 55).
However, this sentence can apply to (two-part) counterpoint when it is diminutus;it
is only with the smaller note values that dissonances can be used in counterpoint.
68 He got around the problem by
calling semiminims "minims in proportiodupla";
see Blackburn 1981, 41.
69
On the novelty of this position, see Lowinsky I966, I36-38.
70
Or, as Tinctoris says (I.ii.38 [2:18]), when the voices are not labeled, the void
notes indicate the tenor, the black notes the counterpoint.
71 Diffnitorium: "Contrapunctus simplex est dum nota vocis quae contra aliam
ponitur est eiusdem valoris cum illa."
72
Diffnitorium:"Contrapunctusdiminutus est dum plures notae contra unam per
proportionem aequalitatis aut inaequalitatis ponuntur, qui a quibusdam floridus
nominatur."
facta to following the rules for counterpointlaid out in Book I. Both show
that what is prohibited in two-part music may be allowed in three-part
music. One is the ability to use a fourth between two upper voices, as
long as they are supportedby anothervoice a third, fifth, tenth or twelfth
lower.73 Indeed, such a procedure (producing a sixth chord or a
fifth-octave chord) makes the composition "dulcior."74The second
exception is in the use of sixths. Tinctoris says that they used to be
considered as dissonances, and that, in isolation, they still strike his ear
as somewhat harsh.75Therefore he advises, when writing or singing
counterpoint,to place severalof them in a row and move immediatelyto
an octave or tenth, giving examples with sixths above and beneath the
tenor. At the end of this chapter he makes an important qualification:
these rules apply only to sixths used in counterpointand in resfactaof
only two parts; a sixth is always sweet if a third or a tenth is added
beneath it, but much sweeter if a fifth or a twelfth. Such sixths can
resolve to a third, fifth, anothersixth, an octave, tenth or twelfth.76
In this last paragraph we come across the expression res facta
duarumpartium tantum, which represents an exception to the norm.
Certainly resfactain two parts must follow the rules of counterpoint,
73Liberde arte contrapunctiI.v.5-6, 9 [2:26-27], on the diatessaron:"Concordantia
non est . . . unde fit ut a contrapuncto reiiciatur. .... In re facta vero per complura
loca assumitur quarta, ei non solum quinta vel tertia, sed etiam decima ac duodecima
supposita."
74 A number of years ago, Charles Warren Fox discovered a compositional
principle in fifteenth-century music that he dubbed "non-quartal harmony" (Fox
1945). In these works essential fourths are not found between any pair of voices (they
are allowed as passing notes, suspensions, and ornamental notes). The style is found
in works by composers of the post-Dufay generation, and Fox estimates it to appear
in 25% of the secular works of the period ca. I460 to I500 (p. 38). An easy way of
producing it is to have the bass move in tenths with the superius, which is described
as "a very famous procedure"by Gaffurio (ibid., 42). For understandablereasons, the
style is restricted to three-part compositions, and mainly to those in which the
contratenor lies above the tenor, as is the case in the example given by Tinctoris. In
his own three-part compositions, however, the contratenor lies beneath the tenor. In
this disposition, assuming that the superius-tenor duet is written first, no essential
fourths can appear unless the contratenor rises above the tenor, and Tinctoris tends
to avoid them except in major cadences (for a notable exception, see his Difficilesalios,
2.p., mm. io- i, in Blackburn i981, I o).
75 "Porro omnis sexta, sive
perfecta sive imperfecta, sive superior sive inferior
fuit, apud antiquos discordantia reputabatur, et ut vera fatear, aurium mearum
iudicio per se audita, hoc est sola, plus habet asperitatis quam dulcedinis" (I.vii.6
[2:33]).
76 "Et hic nota quod omnia praedicta tantummodo sunt intelligenda de
ordinatione sextae in contrapuncto vel re facta duarum partium tantum fienda. Nam
semper et ubique sexta suavis est si ei tertia vel decima supponatur, sed multo suavior
si quinta vel duodecima, ut hic probatur [follows example]. Potest igitur quaelibet
sexta post se habere modis licet variis tertiam, quintam, sextam aliam, octavam,
decimam atque duodecimam" (I.vii. 12-i4 [2:34-35]).
SOCIETY
but how then can it differfromcounterpoint,andwhy does Tinctoris

makea distinction?The differencelies not in the numberof voicesand
not in the rules to be followed but in the compositionalprocedure.
Counterpointis successive.The voicesof a resfactamay be composed
simultaneouslyor successively,but in the lattercasethe partsmust be
adjustedso thatno contrapuntalfaultappearsbetweenthem. Resfacta
duarum partiumis not counterpointbut a "duo,"in which both voices
are newly composed,in conjunctionwith each other. This is not an
interpretation;Tinctoris gives the definitionin his Difinitorium:"A
duo is a compositionof two voicesonly, composedin relationto each
other."77
As so often with Tinctoris,the wordsthemselvesgive us a clue to
the way he understandsthem. Forcounterpoint,the centralwordsare
"placing against" (per positionem . . . contra); for resfacta the word is
"composed" (cantuscompositus).78The parts are "put together" in a
certainrelationship:
Cantuscompositusest ille qui per A composedwork is one that is
relationem notarumuniuspartisad produced throughtherelationof the
alterammultipliciterest aeditus. notesof onepartto anotherin mul-
tipleways.
This is the definitionof the Diffinitorium. Even though Tinctoris
normally uses the word cantusto mean a melodyor singleline, cantus
compositus denotes a polyphoniccomposition.He himself seems to
have taken note of the inherentcontradictionin this term; in later
treatises he uses it infrequently,preferringresfacta and compositio;
these arethe earliestinstanceswherecompositio meansa finishedwork,
a composition,not the act of composing.79
What does the word multipliciterin the definition of cantus
compositus mean? Ferandconnectedit with "relation":"the various
relationsof the note valuesof one voiceto thoseof another,"which led
him to thinkthat resfactawas equivalentto floridcounterpoint(i957,
142). Bent firstgave "multiplerelationship of the notes of one partto
77 "Duo est cantus duarum tantum

partium relatione ad invicem compositus." On
the translation of cantus,see above, note 66.
78 Not all writers make this distinction.
Anonymous XI, for example, says "omnis
contrapunctus debet componi ex pluribus variis speciebus prescriptis" (Anonymous
XI I869, 464).
79 "quando missa
aliqua vel cantilena vel quaevis alia compositio . ." (Liberde
natura et proprietatetonorumxxiv.3 [I:85]), and "ubi compositio trium aut plurium
partium fit" (Liberde arte contrapunctiIII.ii. 3 [2:147]). On this point, see Sachs I974,
138-39.
another," then "the relating of the notes of one part to [those of]
another in multiple ways" (1983, 379). Believing that multiplex"sug-
gests that mensural relationships are meant here" (p. 380), since mutuo
takes care of the harmonic relationships, she concluded that "Com-
position is characterized by mutual relationships between the parts
with respect to consonance (C[ontrapunctusJ) and by multiple relation-
ships between the parts with respect to mensuration
(D[iffinitoriumJ)... (p. 381). However, when Tinctoris refers to
."
mensural relationships between the parts, he uses the term proportio.
Contrapunctusdiminutus, for example, is produced "nunc per
proportionem aequalitatis, nunc inaequalitatis."80Both scholars trans-
lated the definition as if only two voices were involved. But resfacta
normally has at least three voices; therefore multiplexindicates the
multiple relationships between the respective parts: superius with
tenor, superius with contratenor, contratenor with tenor, for exam-
ple. The more voices, the more relationships involved, which is why
Tinctoris uses the word multipliciter.
There remains one last problem regardingresfacta:How are we to
understand Tinctoris's assertion that "Counterpoint that is written is
commonly called resfacta"? As Margaret Bent suspected, this is a
definition he distances himself from; the common people call any
written work resfacta, no matter how it was composed. The reason is
that counterpoint was better known as a performer's art, and that is
why Tinctoris connects counterpoint with singing superlibrum. He
continues: "But that which we accomplish mentally is called counter-
point in the absolute sense,81 and those who do this are said vulgariter
to sing upon the book."
Singing superlibrumis a form of counterpoint, and it is in this type
that Tinctoris shows that counterpoint can be made in more than two
parts. The main qualification of counterpoint is not the number of
voices involved but how those voices are added to a cantusfirmus.The
singer or singers stand in front of a book open to a tenor and mentally
devise one or more contrapuntallines over that tenor. The tenor may
be taken from plainchant and measured in various ways,82 or it may
80 Liberde arte contrapunctiII.xix.5 [2:o06].

81 Cf. Tinctoris's use of absolutewhen he is asked to give the mode of a piece:
"siquis peteret absolute cuius toni talis compositio esset, interrogatus debet absolute
respondere secundum qualitatem tenoris" (Liberde naturaet proprietatetonorumxxiv. 3
[I:85-86]).
2The examples in chapters 2 1-22 of Book II of the counterpoint treatise show six
different ways of casting the tenor into a mensural pattern. One (II.xxii. 3 [2:1I9-20])
is said to follow the note forms of the chant-long, breve, and semibreve. The first
SOCIETY
be takenfroma voiceof a resfacta,whichis muchmoredifficultto sing

over becausethe note values are not in a regularpattern. Some are
even able to sing over two voices from a resfacta. This kind of
counterpoint, says Tinctoris, "requiresa great deal of art and
experience.Hence if it is done sweetly and knowledgeably,the more
difficult it is, the more praiseworthyit is."83Singing superlibrum
differsfromresfactain thatthe addedvoicesneed only relateproperly
to the tenor. In practice this could lead to disagreeableclashes
between the upper voices, for examplewhen one singer producesa
fifth over the tenor while another one sings a sixth. Tinctoris
specificallywarns againstsinging a sixth and its compoundswhen
many are singing superlibrum.84It is his delicate ears that are
responsiblefor the restof his adviceon singingsuperlibrum:"I do not
however judge it blameworthybut rather very laudable if those
singingtogethershouldprudentlyavoidsimilaritybetweeneachother
in the choice and orderingof concords."This wordingindicatesthat
there are some who think singingsuperlibrumshould be completely
spontaneous,a kind of musicalbrinksmanship and absoluteimprovi-
sation. But if the singers do not agree beforehandon different
compatiblecounterpoints,they might all end up singing the same
countermelody,at leastin somepassages,and the concentus would not
be "full and suave."85
Singingsuperlibrumis a performer'sart, much as is the singingof
musicaficta.It is a procedure, which is why there is no noun for it.86
Thereforeit is not surprisingthat written exampleshave not come
down to us. However, Tinctorisdoes give one example,showingan
exception to his fourth generalrule, that "counterpointshould be
made as stepwise and orderly as possible."Many who sing super
seventeen measures of the tenor agree with the first phrase of the Alleluia. Concaluitcor
meum(LiberUsualis, p. 1473); the rest differs.
83
"Talique contrapunctus plurimum artis et usus requirit. Hinc si dulciter ac
scientifice fiat, tanto est laudabilior quanto difficilior"(II.xxii.5-6 [2:120]).
84 See the
85
example in III.i [2:146].
I believe Margaret Bent is mistaken when she concludes that "singing super
librum is a carefully-structured procedure in which only one part at a time can be
added to what is already worked out, whether written or not" (I983, 387). Tinctoris
advises collaboration, but never suggests that one part be worked out first, let alone
written out.
86 Bent noted that in discussing singing
superlibrum, Tinctoris gives as related
nouns only "the singers or the act of singing, not the resulting song" (I983, 382). But
the diagram she constructed on p. 383 to explain the relationship of the various types
of counterpoint and cantus,which she believes Tinctoris had "trouble expressing," is
not clear because it treats counterpoint as an object rather than a procedure.
librum, in order to vary the counterpoint, use larger intervals, in the
manner of composers (Ex. 4).87
Example4
Tinctoris, example of cantussuperlibrum(Liberde arte contrapunctiIII. iv [2:149])
Contrapunctus
A oS
Contrapunctus
$
|Fr or to or I
.
Tenor
oJ j J J J
J j
I'
,I
O
_ f r - J
I
r
I
r JI o
If any doubt remains that this is an example of singing superlibrum,
the measured tenor and the two voices, both labeled "contrapunctus,"
should dispel it. The voice labels for res facta are Supremus (or
nothing) and Contratenor.88The example shows that experienced
singers were capable of a very high level of skill. This is a virtuoso
piece, especially since the tenor moves in semibreves; improvisation
over long note values would be much easier. Singers probably had a
87
"Quique pluribus super librum canentibus ut contrapunctum diversificent,
eum cum moderatione instar quodammodo compositorum longinquum efficiunt"
(III.iv.4 [2:149]).
88 Cf.
Dffinitorium: "Supremum est illa pars cantus compositi quae altitudine
caeteras excedit"; "Contratenorest pars illa cantus compositi. ..." Bent noticed this
difference in labeling voices, which allows one to "diagnose" undesignated music
examples as counterpoint or resfacta, but felt that it did not help "to draw Tinctoris's
line between composition and counterpoint on grounds of written or unwritten,
measured or florid" (I983, 384).
258 JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY
stock set of figurationsthat would fit every conceivablemelodic

intervalof the tenor.89The figurationsin Tinctoris'sexamplearevery
complex.It is possibleto discerna basicmelodicskeletonunderneath
them and to see where the top voice narrowlyavoidedconsecutive
octaveswith the tenor (m. 4). The two upper voices skirt similarity
very cleverly over notes 5-7 of the tenor. In an earlierversion, the
singersmighthavediscoveredthatthey were singingparalleloctaves.
As Tinctoriscounsels,all fourthsabovethe tenor(exceptpassingones
of a semiminimor less) are avoided.
Tinctoris nowhere says that what is sung superlibrumis ever
written down. Contrapunctusachieved mentaliteris no different in
terminologyor in executionthanin the sixteenthcentury,where it is
called contrappunto
alla mentein Italian sources. I see no difficulty in
callingthis mannerof performance"improvisation," no matterif it has
been rehearsedor even partiallycommittedto memory.It is hardto
believe that any musicalresult could be obtainedif one insists that
improvisation be "spontaneous, unpremeditated"(Bent I983, 374);90
no action can be accomplished without some mental signal. Not all
scholars agree with the restricted concept of improvisation adhered to
by Margaret Bent; witness the more general definition in the New
Grove:"The creation of a musical work, or the final form of a musical
work, as it is being performed."9' If we conceive of singing super
librumas analogous to realizing a basso continuo, it will not seem so
mysterious and difficult to us. Nor is it irrelevant to think of the
sophisticated improvisations of jazz musicians in our day. The more
experience one has, the more musical the result. And we must not
forget that singing super librum has a long and venerable history,
beginning with parallel organum and continuing through discant and
fauxbourdon.92 Singing superlibrum, as Tinctoris knew it, was the
89
There is a set of these in Bologna,CivicoMuseoBibliograficoMusicale,MS.
A 7I, pp. 232-35; see Blackburn I98I, 50. This manuscript includes a number of
duos from Tinctoris'sLiberde artecontrapuncti.The verbulaprovidedby Goscalcus
(seeabove,p. 23 7) werespecificallydesignedforcantusfractus.
Forotherexamples,see
Sachs 1974, 146-47.
90 These wordsarehers, not thoseof the definitionshe
quotesfromthe Harvard
of Music:"The art of performingmusic spontaneously,withoutthe aid of
Dictionary
manuscript,sketches, or memory."There is a considerabledifferencebetween
memory and premeditation.
91
"Improvisation," New Grove Dictionary (London, I980), 9:31.
92 For an overview, based on theoretical sources, see Sachs 1983. In a postscript
Sachstakesnote of MargaretBent'sarticle.He remainsunconvincedby her attempt
to see menteand scriptoas a continuumapplicableboth to resfactaand singingsuper
librumandviewsTinctoris'sspecificadviceto thosesingingsuperlibrumas underlining
pinnacle of achievement in the art of improvisation, and it continued
right on through the sixteenth century, to the admiration of many,93
the despair of others,94 and the disgust of some, who could not
tolerate the crudeness of less skilled singers.95
Up until Tinctoris's time, counterpoint was generally thought of
as having only two voices, a tenor and a counterpoint. As early as
Gaffurio we can discern the change to a wider application, not so
much from his definition of counterpoint ("counterpoint is the art of
forming melodious sounds with appropriate intervals and temporal
values") as from his use of the word counterpoint in describing
composition: "A counterpoint of songs composed of three or four
consonant parts .. " (III.xi) or "in
counterpoint the voices of a song,
namely, the tenor, cantus, and contratenor, ought to move in contrary
the improvisatory nature of the performance, in which a certain lack of strictness is

unavoidable, although the ideal is to approach resfacta as far as possible.
93 See Bermudo
I555, V.xv: "Counterpoint is an improvised arrangement over a
plainchant with different melodies. There are men so expert in it, so full of reckoning
and erudition, that they so do it for many voices, and so properly and in imitation,
that it seems to be the most skilful composition in the world" ("El contrapunto es una
ordenacion improvisa sobre canto llano, con diversas melodias. Ay hombres en ello
tan expertos, de tanta cuenta, y erudicion: que assi lo hechan a muchas bozes, y tan
acertado, y fugado, que parece composicion sobre todo el estudio del mundo"; fol.
128). Bermudo praises in particular the singers of the late Archbishop of Toledo,
whose counterpoint, if written down, "se vendiera por buena composicion," and the
experts in the royal chapel of Granada, whose music surpasses his powers of
description ("que otros oydos mas delicados que los mios eran menester para
comprehenderlas, y otra pluma para explicarlas").
94 Nicola Vicentino
says, with some exasperation, that in singing "allamente" one
would do much better to write it down, and even then it would be difficult to keep
out errors ("il vero contrapunto, 6 per dir meglio la vera compositione sopra il canto
fermo sara che tutte le parti, che si cantano alla mente, siano scritte, et anchora il
Compositore che comporra quello, non havra poca fatica a far quella compositione,
corretta, et senza errori"; Vicentino I555, IV.xxiii, fol. 83, misnumbered 80). He
criticizes three current methods of contrappunto alla mente:alternatingfifths and sixths
against an ascending or descending line ("che fa brutto sentire");the soprano singing
parallel tenths with the tenor and a middle voice filling in, which he judges rather
tedious; and the singing of ostinato passages, which is so distracting that one hears
nothing but the passaggi and no harmony results at all. For examples of what
Vicentino is criticizing, see Ferand 1956, I47-51.
95
Coclico, who insisted that the sine qua non of a good composer was that he
could sing counterpoint extemporaneously ("ut contrapunctum ex tempore canere
sciat. Quo sine nullus erit"), remarkedthat this practice was rare in Germany, "and
if anyone mentions counterpoint, and demands it in a perfect musician, they unleash
on him their rabid hostility, impudently affirming that many irregular and corrupt
intervals occur that offend the ears and have no place in compositions" ("Ac si quis
contrapuncti mentionem faciat, ac in perfecto Musico requirat, hunc odio plusquam
canino lacerant, impudenter affirmantes, in contrapuncto multas pravas et corruptas
species occurrere, quae aures offendant, et in compositionibus locum non habent");
Coclico 1552, fols. L2v and 14.
SOCIETY
motion . . ." (III.iii) (Gaffurio 1968, 117, 140, 127). By the time he
published his Angelicumac divinum opus musice(Milan, I508), his
definition of counterpoint (IV.i) clearly reflected this new orientation:
El concentooveromodulationee uno The concento or many-voicedworkis
certo corpo quale ha in se diverse a certainorganismthat containsdif-
parte accommodatea la cantilena ferentpartsadaptedfor singing and
piart.accom.
disposita
m.
tra voce
vo
disposita lacsantilnadisposed
distante per
betweenvoicesdistancedin
per commensurableintervals. 1 This is
intervallicommensurabili.Et questo what the singers call counterpoint
e dicto da cantoriContrapuncto. (Lowinsky1946, 72).
In his article on "The Concept of Physical and Musical Space,"
Edward Lowinsky contrasted Tinctoris's definition of counterpoint,
the successive method, and Gaffurio's, which he rightly said "is new
and corresponds to the simultaneous manner of composition and the
newly achieved capacity to think in harmonies"(1946, 72).96 I would
only add that the definition also fits Tinctoris's concept of resfacta.
8. A Hypothesis on the Origin of the Term Resfacta
I have consistently left one term used by Tinctoris untranslated:

vulgariter.As MargaretBent noted, he seems to use it interchangeably
with communiter.But does he simply find res facta "a serviceable
synonym for cantuscompositus (albeit 'vulgar'), just as he likewise uses
cantaresuper librum despite the 'vulgar' qualification given it" (Bent
1983, 379-80)? Do we achieve the right tone by translating it as
"vulgar," with its connotations of "plebeian, boorish, coarse"? If we
examine all the uses of communiterand vulgariter in Tinctoris's
writings we find that he uses these qualifying adverbs whenever he
writes a word that is a substitute for a technical term in music. He
even explains his procedure in the Liberde arte contrapuncti (I.ii. 33-34
[2:17]). After naming the 22 concords used in counterpoint, he
remarks: "before going any further, I intend to translate them into
more common [vulgarioribus] terms, according to which, to make our
instruction easier, we shall proceed. Thus the semiditone is com-
monly [communiter]called an imperfect third, the ditone a perfect
third," and so on.97 In the description of every interval in the
counterpoint treatise he first gives the technical term, then the word
96
Gaffurio'sdefinitionwas takenover by Aaronand Zarlino;see Sachs 1982,
III.2.b.
97 He makesa similarremarkin the Liberdenaturaet tonorum of a year
proprietate
earlier, but, curiously, at the very end of the treatise(chapter51), in which he
otherwiseuses the Greek-Latinterms exclusively.Could this chapterhave been
addedafterhe wrote the counterpointtreatise?
commonly used, qualifying it as vulgariteror communiter. In the

apotomeis called "semitoniummaius vulgariter";the
Diffinitorium,
punctusindicatinga moraor pause"punctusorganivulgariterdicitur."
In the Tractatusde notisetpausis(II.v.4 [I:I19]) the pause of a minim is
called "vulgaritersuspirium."Every time Tinctoris uses the words
communiterandvulgariter we canguessthatthesearewordscommonly
used in place of technicalmusicalterms. But in what language?I
believethat Tinctorismeans"in the vernacular"-aregularmeaning
of vulgariter-but that he has translatedthese vernacularterms into
Latin.98Unfortunately, there are almost no vernaculartreatises extant
in which we could discover the original terms. Some writers, how-
ever, are willing to slip vernacular words into their Latin treatises.
The treatise ascribed to Philippus de Caserta (1869, I23) mentions
syncopation with red notes, "quod dicitur secundum illos de Francia
vulgariter trayn vel traynour."Egidius Carlerius (d. I473), in his
Tractatusde laude et utilitate musicae,likens musicamorata to musica
"morosaet temperata, quae a plerisque vocatur gallice a point d'orgue,
ab aliis, ut hic supple Cameraci, de longues"(p. I ).99
Ferand already guessed that Tinctoris's "repeateduse of the words
communiterand vulgariter"in connection with resfactamight "indicate
that we have to look for the corresponding term in the colloquial
language of the practical musicians, that is, in the vernacular"(1957,
98 See in particularthe chapters on musical instruments in his De inventioneet usu
musicae: "tibia que vulgo celimela nuncupatur . . .; tibiarum . . . alii tenor, quem
vulgo bombardam vocant. . .; Quid sit lyra populariterleutum dicta. .. [and others
derived from it:] utpote (juxta linguam vulgarem) viola, rebecum, ghiterra, cetula, et
tambura . . .; quasdam elevationes ligneas quas populariter tastas appellant"
(Tinctoris i96i, 36, 37, 40, 42). Only once, where Tinctoris has to distinguish
between the vernacular word in two different languages, does he give a non-Latin
version: "ea tuba quam superius tromponem ab Italis, et sacque-boute a gallicis
appellaridiximus" (p. 37). Parts of these chapters have been translated in Baines 1950.
9 This description lends more weight to interpretingpunctusorgani, in the late
fifteenth century at any rate, as held-out notes, a point of view that has been disputed
by Charles W. Warren. He translates punctus organi as "point of organum" and
considers it exclusively as vocal music, calling for ornamentation (1976). But the
French expression seems ratherto indicate either direct involvement of the organ (the
term "organ point" exists to this day), or performance in the manner of an organ. In
this connection it is interesting that Carlerius says the term in Cambrai was "of
longs";the Cathedralof Cambraihad no organ. Curiously, in later centuries, the term
"point d'orgue" again came to indicate an ornamental cadenza (Fuller I980, 784-85).
Warren interpreted the alternate name for cantuscoronatus,"cardinalis,"as "the
chief or principal thing, or the point around which something turns or hinges," after
cardo. But Anonymous XII quite clearly says that the fermata sign is called
"cardinalis"because it resembles a cardinal'sskullcap ("quiaformatur ad modum pilei
cardinalis";see note i i of his article). A new edition and translation of Anonymous
XII by Jill Maree Palmer, based on her M.A. thesis at Brigham Young University
(i975), will be published in Corpus scriptorum de musica.
SOCIETY
I44). He found several instances of the term "chose faite" or "choses

faites," none earlier than I496, but he considered it probable that res
facta was "the learned theorist's version of a popular expression" (p.
149). Since then new references have surfaced. Eloy d'Amerval, after
enumerating the famous musicians of his day in his long poem, Le livre
de la deablerie(Paris, I508), praises the singers of cathedrals and
collegiate churches for their talent to "Bien prononcer, bien gringoter
/ Choses faictes & sur le livre" (pp. 226-27).100 In a passion play
performed in Angers in 1486, Mary Magdalene shows her worldliness
by singing "de choses faites a plaisance."10' Recently Martin Staehelin
has brought to light the earliest instance known so far: in the I477
inventory of the library of Charles the Bold appears the following
item: "Ung livre de chansons et choses faictes" (Staehelin 1983,
102
20I).
I should like to propose a hypothesis as to the origin of the term
chosefaite. Just as the writer of a composition was known as a
compositor,103so was the poet in medieval France known as afaiseuror
facteur, and what he wrote was called fais, chosesrimees,compositions,
ouvrages,ditz, or ditiers,and occasionallypoetrie.104 Faiseurmay also be
applied to a poet-composer; in a poem addressed to Machaut's
Peronne after the master's death, Eustache Deschamps, his pupil,
calls him "Noble poete et faiseur renomme" (Lowinsky 1984, 70), and
100As
Eloy says, he knew whereof he spoke ("Jeme congnois bien en telz pas");
he was also a composer. For the list of musicians, see Reese I959, 263.
101 Quoted in Pirro 1940,
I27. Ferand cited Pirro for a reference to angels singing
"choses faites" in a mystery play of 1496 (p. 125), but missed this one two pages later.
On the source of Pirro's reference and the tradition of portraying Mary Magdalene as
a musician, see Slim I98i and the literature cited there.
102 Staehelin sees in Tinctoris's use of res
facta a forerunner of Listenius's
expression opusperfectum et absolutum(1537), and he investigated three examples where
one scribe copied the same piece twice to determine whether the scribes respected the
notion of an opusperfectumet absolutum.The examples (ranging from ca. 1420 to 1540)
show remarkableunanimity, but they are, as Staehelin admits, a small sample, and
there are plenty of other examples where scribes have altered compositions, some-
times drastically.
103 In the Difinitorium Tinctoris
says: "Compositor est alicuius novi cantus
aeditor."
104 See
Langlois 1902. This is a collection of seven treatises on poetic theory and
practice, ranging from Jacques Legrand (d. ca. 1425), Des rimes, to the anonymous
L'Art et sciencede rhetoriquevulgaireof ca. 1524-25. Fais and chosesrimeesoccur in Les
reglesdelaseconderhetorique,datable between 141I and 1442 (see pp. 14, I I, and xxviii),
compositionsin the last treatise. Diz or ditz is by far the most common word for poetry.
Choserimeealso turns up in the setting of Puis queje sui fumeux by Johannes Simon
Hasprois, although in a different grammatical form: "J'ay en fumant mainte chose
rimee" (Apel I970-72, I:IV.)
his lament on the death of Machaut, set to music by Andrieu,105
contains the lines "clers, musicans et fayseurs en francoys" and "O
Guillame, mondains diex d'armonie, / Apres vos fais, qui obtiendra le
choys / Sur tous fayseurs?" The count of Flanders, Louis de Male,
included in his entourage the faiseurHennequin d'Oudenarde who, in
another document, is called "menestrelde bouche." He is listed in Les
reglesde la seconderhetoriquealong with Machaut, Jean Vaillant, and
Jean Tapissier (Wright 1979, 20). Since these authors were poets as
well as musicians, there can be some question about the applicability
offaiseur to a composer who did not write his own texts. It is dispelled
however by the discovery of "maker"in fifteenth-century English in
a context that allows no doubt. It is found in the first line of the
discant treatise by Lyonel Power: "This Tretis is contrivid upon the
gamme for hem that will be syngers or makers or techers" (Carter
196I, 256). 106 We have noted that the word "composition," denoting
an individual work, does not seem to have been used before the later
i470s (see above, p. 254). Before this time, such works were designated
by their texts-rondeau, ballade,virelaiand so forth-or more generally
as missa, motetum,cantilenaor carmen,the generic term for which,
according to Tinctoris's dictionary, was cantus. Cantus alone, how-
ever, does not necessarily mean a polyphonic work. One had to add a
qualifying adjective-cantus mensuratus,cantusfiguratus(both of which
could be applied to monophonic lines), and especially cantuscompositus.
But there was no term that would embrace individual works written
in different genres (in the Liberde arte contrapunctiIII.viii.6 [2:155]
Tinctoris uses the word operaas well as resfacta).What then should the
product of the maker be called if not "the thing made," or that of the
faiseur if not "chose faite"? As yet I have discovered no concrete
evidence to support this hypothesis. 107 The missing link might be the
use of "choses faites" to indicate "poems."
"Maker"and "faiseur"have a common etymological origin; both
are translations of the Greek word Trol'rTTi (the maker, the inventor,
105The double ballade Armesamours/

Oflourdesflours(Apel 1970-72, 1:2-3, and,
for the text, p. xlv).
106 Carter cites a number of instances of the verb "maken"in Chaucer and others
where it seems likely that "to make" refers to the creation of music. The other
references to "makers"are less compelling; they might well be poets.
107 "Faict" and "chose" do turn up in fifteenth-century documents concerning
music. The chronicler Olivier de la Marche reported that Charles the Bold "fist le
chant de plusieurs chanssons bien faictes et bien notees" (quoted in Kenney I964, 15).
The two adjectives emphasize that the music was composed and written down. A
music book bought for Philip the Good's chapel in 1446 contained "nouvelles
chanteries comme messes, mottes et plusieurs autres choses" (ibid., 37-38).
SOCIETY
the author; Latin poeta), derived from 1TOLEt,to make. The eleventh-
century grammarianPapias defined poetaas follows: "A poet is called
a contriver, from the Greek -roLC,which means to make, to contrive,
such as a contriver of song. His poetical work is called a poem."108
During the Middle Ages, it was considered that poets "made" their
works but did not "create"them, because only God could create. As
St. Thomas Aquinas put it: "To create means to produce something
out of nothing."'09Beginning in the late fifteenth century, however,
the writing of poetry came to be seen as halfway between creating and
making. Cristoforo Landino, a professor of rhetoric and poetics at the
Studium of Florence, described it thus in the proemio to his com-
mentary on Dante's Divine Comedy, published in 1481:
The Greeksderive"poet"fromthis wordpiin, whichis halfwaybetween

"creating,"which is properto God when He producessomethingout of
nothing, and "making,"which is proper to men in every art when they
compose out of material and form. 11
Landino uses the verb "componere,"which emphasizes the poet's

re-working of pre-existing materials. Although the word "poet"
occurs in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it seems to have been
reserved for those who were especially talented. The author of Les
reglesde la seconderhetoriquesingles out Jehan Le Fevre, who "pour les
bonnes menieres qui furent en li est apelez poetes" (Langlois 1902,
I 3). 111 What seems to be an odd plural is in fact a transliterationof the
108"Poeta dicitur fictor a TOL)

graeco: quod est facere fingere quasi fictor
carminis. Opus huius poema vocatur poeticum" (Papias I476).
109 On the implicationsof this attitudefor medievalmusic, see LowinskyI964,
476-78.
110"Ete
grecidixonopoetada questoverbopiin:el qualee in mezotracreareche
e propriodi dio quandodi nienteproducein esserealchunachosa:Et fareche e de
gl'huominiin ciaschunaartequandodi materiaet di formacompongono"; quotedin
Tigerstedt 1968, 458. The high esteem in which the art of poetry was held led
Landinoto assert that "God is the supremepoet and the world is His poem."
Tigerstedtnotes(p. 461) thatthis notionhadalreadybeenformulatedby Plotinusin
his Enneads,without, however,makingany claimfor the poet'screativepowers.
1I Peter Dembowskihas pointedout that EustacheDeschamps'sdescriptionof
Machautas "noblepoete"is one of the earliestuses of this termin Frenchpoetry;see
Lowinsky 1984, 70, n. 144. The first occurrence of poemein French is generally
thoughtto be found in Nicole Oresme'stranslationof Aristotle,Ethics,of ca. I350.
However, ProfessorDembowskitrackeddown an even earlierusage in the anony-
mouscompilationandtranslationLeFetdesRomains of 1214.There, aftermentioning
various"ecriz"and"livres,"the authorspeaksof"unautrepoeme"("l'Aler"), so called
from "l'aler de Rome en Espaigne" (Anonymous I935, 1:724). This is not to be
understood,ProfessorDembowskipointsout, as a poemin the modernsense, but as
Greek word. Angelo Decembrio (ca. 1415-ca. 1466), in his Politia
literaria, written in 1462 but not published until 1540, says "We call
the best ones, not all kinds, 'poets,' whence the name of poet is justly
given to those writing the most learned verse, called 'maker' or
'author' and commonly 'of the first rank,' and this poem is called 'a
thing made' or 'work,' and we often call God Himself by the Greek
word TrovT)l's, that is poet, even though, for the sake of custom and
the sound, we translate it more often into Latin as factor."ll2 The
Greek poematoo can be translated as "a thing made."113Decembrio's
statement that a poem is called "a thing made" (factum), although
written in Italy, suggests that the French too may have considered a
poem a "chose faite."
It is perhaps significant that so many instances of the vernacular
term occur in the plural. Tinctoris uses resfacta both as a term for a
specific method of composing and as a synonym for individual works
written in that style (in rebusfactis).He is the first theorist to describe
the difference between making counterpoint and composing. I believe
that he took over a vernacular term for written polyphony that was
commonly used during the period of his youth, that he examined the
works it covered, determined their method of composition, and then
characterized it in a more theoretically correct manner as cantus
compositus,and finally that he accepted the term compositio as the most
logical and to
proper way designate what Listenius would later call an
opusperfectum et absolutum.
9. Resfacta and "Simultaneous Conception"
Margaret Bent briefly considered that "the 'mutual obligation' of

the parts in refacta almost suggests that we might find here a
statement about simultaneous conception, fifty years earlier than the
"a work of literature written by a Roman." I am grateful to Professor Dembowski for
his trouble in tracing the reference.
112
"Dicimus autem meliores non omnis generis poetas unde merito eruditissima
carmina, scribentibus poete nominum inditum est, quod factorem vel auctorem, et
fere primarium indicat, et ipsum poema factum vel opus, ac ipsum deum graeco
vocabulo Trol'riTTssaepe nominamus, hoc est, poetam, quanvis pro more sonoque
magis latine factorem interpretamur"(fol. V). Tigerstedt discusses this passage in
"The Poet as Creator," p. 469. Humanists were quite aware that the Greek poet was
a poet-musician. Aristides Quintilianus includes "poesy" (poesis)within his classifica-
tion of the art of music, and his ideas were transmitted in the late fifteenth century by
Giorgio Valla. The ideal of the poet-musician was revived in practice as well as in
theory in the Renaissance; for a survey, see chap. 13, "The Poetics of Music," in
Palisca I985.
113 Professor Mathiesen
kindly informed me that Plato used it in this sense in
Phaedo6oD and Lysis22iD.
SOCIETY
first unequivocal testimony to this way of composing in Aron's

Toscanello,"but she rejected this notion because "none of Tinctoris's
examples of re(factagives us a good justificationfor claiming that they
have broken with the successive principles that so clearly apply to his
'pure' counterpoint" (1983, 387). It is my contention that Aaron and
Tinctoris are indeed describing the same compositional method, but
that this method is not properly characterized by the term "simulta-
neous conception." At the beginning of this paper I attempted to show
that Aaron's main qualification of the modern technique is that the
composers "take all the parts into consideration at once." This does
not necessarily mean that they compose chord by chord or even
passage by passage, although the latter is surely the preferred manner
of composition in works in pervading imitation, when we can truly
begin to talk about simultaneous conception. What Aaron is saying is
the same as what Tinctoris said more specifically fifty years earlier:in
resfacta"all the parts . .. should be mutually bound to each other, so
that the order and law of concords of any part should be observed
with respect to each single and all parts." No matter how the parts are
put together, they must be carefully adjusted so that no improper
dissonances appear between any of the voices. Tinctoris went beyond
Aaron in showing that dissonance itself is allowed under very specific
circumstances, with special rules for cadential dissonance. This
compositional process is more properly called "harmonic composi-
tion," not only because it lays emphasis on the vertical sonorities, but
mainly because it coincides with contemporary descriptions of har-
mony as a process of dissonance resolving into consonance.
Counterpoint and resfacta therefore represent two different com-
positional processes, the first successive, in which different voices are
added independently to a given part, the second harmonic, in which
all voices are composed in relation to each other.114 As Tinctoris says,
counterpoint can be produced in writing or in singing (cantaresuper
librum). But resfacta can only be made in writing because the parts
have to be "put together." Since counterpoint was mainly a singer's
art, common people tended to call anything written a resfacta,but this
is not a proper usage of the term.
114
Gaffurio describes this method without giving it a name or contrasting it with
counterpoint in his Practica musicae III.xi: "From the preceding examples and
explanations it is evident that each part in a composition is related to other parts in
various ways according to the rules and elements of counterpoint, so that one melodic
part will be concordant with every other part and will never make a full dissonance,
except a fourth, which sounds well between middle and upper parts"(Gaffurio I968,
I42).
If counterpointis a successiveprocessandcompositiona harmonic
one, how is one to understanda work with a cantusfirmus? Since we
are no longer obliged to accept harmonic composition as being
"simultaneous,"a piece with a cantusfirmuscould be written either
way. Some might object that since the cantusfirmusis "given,"it
cannot meet the requirementof "mutualobligationof the parts,"
which impliesthatany one partmay be changedto fit the otherparts.
But a composerhas considerablelatitudein shapinghis cantusfirmus
rhythmically,and this freedom allows him to adjust the tenor if
necessary,unlessit is isorhythmic.Isorhythm,which reacheda peak
in the earlypartof the fifteenthcentury,beganto go out of fashionat
the time when harmoniccompositionwas gainingfavor.The relation-
ship may be causal. None of Tinctoris's"moderncomposers"used
isorhythm.15
We shouldbe able to tell whethera compositionhas been written
successivelyor harmonicallyby the composer'streatmentof disso-
nance. If there are secondsand seventhsbetween the upper voices,
they were written successivelyagainst the tenor. If there are no
contrapuntalfaults between the voices, then the compositionwas
most likely written harmonically.If the upper voices form fourths
with the tenor we can be sure that the composerwas proceeding
harmonically-assumingthat a lower voice turns those fourthsinto
consonances.Whereno cantusfirmus is involved,composersprobably
worked out two voices in relationto each other, then added other
voicescontrapuntallyto whatwas alreadywritten,but comparedeach
voice againsteachothervoiceto eliminateirregulardissonances.Thus
the processcould beginwith simultaneousconception,continuewith
successive composition, and finally be refined harmonically.The
introductoryduos to Dufay'sisorhythmicmotets, with their comple-
mentaryrhythms, are surely a productof simultaneousconception.
As the centuryprogressedand composersgainedmorepractice,they
were able to write threevoices in relationto each other. It would be
very difficultindeedto writea three-partpiece in pervadingimitation
without constantlyadjustingone voice to another.When composers
beganto write in this mannerwe can confidentlysay that they were
not only consideringall voices together, they were conceiving all
voices in relationto eachother. And it was at this time, as Lowinsky
115 Dammann
1953 stretches the concept so far that it loses its meaning. To be
sure, the proportionalreduction of a tenor is an outgrowth of isorhythm, but it allows
a composer considerably more freedom. Works with a proportionalcantusfirmuswere
probably composed harmonically to the extent possible, that is the other voices were
adjusted between themselves and the tenor.
SOCIETY
has shown, that a new tool for composing came into being, the score
(I948). As long as composers wrote music successively, there was no
need of a score; they could write "upon the book," that is, look at one
line of music and write another, in the same way that they could "sing
upon the book."116But when a composer had to obligate each voice to
every other voice, the task of checking the relationships between the
voices "multipliciter" was difficult and time-consuming. If essential
fourths were found between the upper two voices, the parallel spot in
the lowest voice had to be located to make sure it supported the
fourth. A score was a great help. It is not necessary to believe that the
composer's score looked like Lampadius'sexample. It was probably an
erasable slate, with ruled staves but no barlines, that allowed the
composer to juxtapose the voices of each passage, without necessarily
barring or even aligning them.117
io. Tinctoris and the "New Art"
There is no more fitting opening for a book on music in the

Renaissance than the famous statement made by Tinctoris in his Liber
de arte contrapuncti:
116
I am in agreement with Margaret Bent that there was no need for a score to
compose music in the fifteenth century (that is, I would add, up until the time when
pervading imitation became the preferred style), but I would lay more emphasis on
composing in writing, with aural verificationleft until the composition was complete.
She proposes the following scenario: "We can surely accept that a 15th-century
composer could handle a three-part song in his head. The discant-tenor duet can be
invented, and then notated in separate parts. The contratenor can be thought out in
knowledge of this duet and in turn written down. For longer compositions, weaker
memories or weaker musicians we can put it in terms of the composer-singer-most
5th-century composers being employed as singers. He invents and writes down his
melody, handing it or teaching it to a colleague who sings it while he improvises and
empirically refines a tenor, which he then writes down. Another colleague then sings
the tenor with the discant while he improvises, refines and writes down a
contratenor" (1981, 626).
A written example of a composition in statu nascendiis preserved among some legal
papers dating beween 1440 and I457 emanating from the Cathedral of Cambrai; see
Wright 1976, PI. XIV and p. I82 (transcription).The tenor is written across the top
of the page on one line. Beneath it is the superius, which nearly fits on one line. Then
follows the contratenor. A perusal of the transcription quickly shows that this work
was never verified aurally, either as a whole or in pairs of voices. A correction seems
to have been made at m. 21 in the contratenor, with the result that the next five
measures are displaced by a semibreve. Aside from these measures, the contratenor
fits the tenor, but there are noticeable clashes with the superius.
117 Jessie Ann Owens has
recently investigated the known references to the use of
a score, especially those referring to a cartella, in connection with an autograph
manuscript of Rore that shows corrections in the composer's hand (I984). Some
questions about the nature of composer's scores will be answered by the publication
of the Spataro Correspondence.
Althoughit seems beyond belief, there does not exist a single piece of
music, not composedwithinthe last forty years, that is regardedby the
learnedas worth hearing.118
In the sentence that precedes this one, Tinctoris states: "I have had in
my hands certain old songs, called apocrypha, of unknown origin, so
ineptly, so stupidly composed that they rather offended than pleased
the ear." By his twice referring to the sense of hearing, we know that
Tinctoris was judging these pieces from a point of view of their
dissonance technique.ll9 Indeed, in another place he says "I will
bypass the compositions of old musicians in which there were more
discords than concords" (Liber de arte contrapuncti II.xxiii. 3 [2:12 i]).
The new art, he claims, had its "fount and origin . . . among the
English, of whom Dunstable stood forth as chief. Contemporary with
him in France were Dufay and Binchoys."'20How did Tinctoris set
the date after which one could listen to music with pleasure? It begins
more than ten years after Dufay started composing, so it would not
include all of Dufay's oeuvre, and yet many compositions by other
composers that would not have pleased Tinctoris's ears fall within that
period. I believe he chose a date of ca. 1437 based on one firmly dated
and well known work of Dufay, Nuperrosarumflores, written for the
consecration of the Cathedral of Florence on 25 March 1436.
Nuper rosarumfloresis indeed an epoch-making work. It has been
analyzed many times in musical scholarship.'2' With one exception,
these descriptions have concentrated almost exclusively on the struc-
ture. Recently, Edward Lowinsky has analyzed the aspect of Nuper
rosarumfloresthat drew forth an ecstatic paean from a contemporary
witness, Gianozzo Manetti: the sheer magnificence of the sound
(1981, I89-94). The four "lengthy sections for full choir consist of
harmonies in triadic structure with the root in the bass. . . . Dufay's
bold thought reaches forward to tonal conception. . . . The basis of
harmony is not yet identical with the bass part. Nevertheless, the
sonorous effect is the same" (p. 190). Lowinsky wondered whether
Dufay used a successive or simultaneous method in composing Nuper
118
Strunk 1950, I99. Howard M. Brown chose this sentence for the opening of
the first chapter of his book, Musicin the Renaissance
(p. 7).
119Heinrich Besseler believed that Tinctoris was
referring to the development of
the new fauxbourdon style (1974, 157). Besseler's masterful study, so rich in insights,
is perhaps a little asymmetrical in its emphasis on "Vollklang" and
"Harmoniegefiihl." It is revealing that the index of his book lists only one reference
under "Dissonanz."
120 From the dedication of his
Proportionalemusices(Strunk 1950, 195).
121 For the literature, see Fallows 1982, 292, n. 24.
SOCIETY
rosarum flores. He posited that the duos "have undoubtedly been
projectedsimultaneously" (p. I90), andthatthe "sectionsfor full choir
must havebeenconceivedin a mixtureof simultaneousandsuccessive
procedures"(p. I9I). He suggestedthat the harmonicplan was laid
out first in the two tenors and motetus, and that "the triplum,
althoughsurelypresentin the composer'smindin outline,couldhave
been formulatedin detail only afterthe harmonicplan was realized.
We encounterhere a combinationof successiveand simultaneous
conception, in which the simultaneousdimension decisively out-
weighs the successivepart"(p. 191).
While one might harbordoubtsas to the extent of "simultaneous
conception"in Nuperrosarum, thereis no problemin consideringit as
harmonically conceived.Indeed,if we look at it froma point of view
of Tinctoris'sprescriptionsfor dissonancetreatment,we find almost
no deviations.The few exceptionsbear examination(see Ex. 5).122
Example 5
Dufay, Nuperrosarumflores,passages deviating from Tinctoris's dissonance rules (after
OperaOmnia, ed. Besseler, I:70-75)
(a) m ?r
*
(b) m ?ra *
~~i~~LLA44-~~~~
il.j 3
~i~is_
Triplum
III.j-/,_J
KJ~
i
\lotetus
b~~~~~~~~~
I ~~~~~~~~~
I
I
I ~~~~~~~~~
I
Tenors ~?fi) 11. I
(d)
(c) Q, * m. i61 *
^4i) j A r^Y-^i j , j J Fri

o=.Js
)o - J ()X J J
J IJ.
For the edition, see Dufay, Operaomnia, :7-7. The sources are ModB and
122 For the edition,see Dufay, Operaomnia,I:70-75. The sourcesareModBand
Trent 92. I leave aside cadential dissonances, which are sharper in Dufay since the
dissonance is usually freshly sounded rather than suspended. Tinctoris makes no
In (a)the dissonanceis resolvedimproperly;it shouldnot returnto the
samenote.123This is the sameerrorthatearnedOckeghemTinctoris's
reproval.However,Tinctorishimselfmadeit on occasion.24(b)would
seemto provethatDufaycomposedthe partssuccessively,becauseeach
fits againstthe tenor.However,the d' in the motetusis a misprint;the
manuscripts readc'. 25(c)showsa stresseddissonanceon thefirstbeatof
the measure,soundingan eleventhover the tenor.In the criticalnotes
Besselerremarksthatthe notesb '-a'occurin ModBas a dottedminim
and semiminim;he changedthe rhythmto a dotted semibreveand
minim, followingTrent 92. This is the only errorBesselerfound in
ModB.However,I believetheerrorgoesbackto a sourceor sourcesused
by the scribesof ModB and Trent 92 and that it has been emended
incorrectlyby the Trentscribe.If we supposethatthe errorin rhythm
derivesfromthe precedingpause,whichcouldbe a breveinsteadof a
semibreve,the passageemergeswithoutfault(Ex. 6):
Example 6
Proposed emendation of Nuperrosarumflores, mm. 85-86
A . rI - E _, _ t
&L 1I
'i
i -X; I -
J
\ --- ---
Jfb/4A o? -0 0
CDt4f_--- o0
distinction between the two, but the suspended dissonance is the only one he uses.
The three-note cambiata figure is ubiquitous in this motet. The second note is
frequently dissonant. Tinctoris allows such a dissonance to resolve with the leap of a
third, but rarissime(Liber de arte contrapunctiII.xxxii.3 [2:141]); judging from
Tinctoris's own music, "rarissime"is to be taken relatively. When he uses the figure,
he almost always gives it in a dotted pattern; Dufay prefers it undotted.
123
"Itaque si ab uno loco ascendaturvel descendatur per aliquam discordantiam,
ad eundem continuo non est revertendum, nisi ipsa discordantiaadeo parva sit, ut vix
exaudiatur" (II.xxxii.4 [2:141]). The "parva"discord that is allowed is a fusa. In
Besseler's edition no dissonance is apparent because the motetus is erroneously given
as c'.
124 See, for
example, his MissaSinenomineNo. i in Tinctoris, Operaomnia,Gloria,
m. 904 (p. 8), Credo, m. ioo2, i035, io84 (p. 18), the MissaSinenomineNo. 2, Osanna,
m. 635 (p. 5i), etc. All of these are semiminims, however; Ockeghem's note was a
minim.
125 It was a
charming dissonance, and I shall miss it. Other misprints are:
motetus, m. 30, breve rest missing; motetus, m. 1394, a should beg; triplum, m. 158,
second F should be a quarter note.
SOCIETY
Example(d)is harderto explain.Theg in the motetusmust be wrong

becauseit forms a fourthunder the tenor. The c" in m. I62 of the
triplumis dissonanton the firstbeatagainstboth the motetusand the
tenor. Trent agreeswith ModB in this passage,except that the first
note of the motetusis a. However,the custos at the end of the previous
staffindicatesthatit shouldbef. If we readthe next two notesa third
lower we would solve the problemof the essentialfourth but then
createparallelfifthsin the next measure.Clearly,the sourcefor both
manuscriptshadan errorhere. Examinationof the parallelpassagesin
the other full-choirsections(Ex. 7) will help to suggest an emenda-
tion.
Example 7
Dufay, Nuperrosarumflores, passages parallel to Ex. 5d

m. 41
Triplum
Tenor J r r
^)$i
r r r
Motetus r
m. 97
7 I I I i~ I I
) j I. I 1J - ,
_t Af
':(-: r o
m. 133
(I):. rJ - r J
r)-la 4I F --
I l
First of all, the melodic contour of the motetus is correct, but the
rhythm must be changed so that a coincides with c' in the tenor.
Secondly, the triplum in m. 162 should read b'-g'. Thirdly, the g' on
the third beat of the triplumin m. 161 shouldbe changed.I suggest
the followingemendation(Ex. 8):
Example 8
Proposed emendation of Nuperrosarumflores,mm. 16 -62
Triplumja ( L2) J f- i r
d) -
Tenor
Motetus A.4 C) C,.
In addition to the discriminating dissonance technique, Nuper
rosarumflores shows other signs of harmonic composition. In several
places the triplum forms a fourth with the tenor (mm. 29, 41, 47, 99,
I33, 136, and final cadence). Each time, the motetus drops beneath
the tenor and supplies a sixth or, more usually, an octave to the
superius. Often one of the "Klangzusatznoten,"the divided notes that
appear frequently in the motetus, sounds a third to make a full triad.
That these divided notes are not an afterthought but part of the
original conception is suggested by m. 149, in a duo section; without
the divided note the triplum and motetus would sound a bare
fourth. 126
Nuperrosarumflores,as Lowinsky observed, was ahead of its time.
He referred to the sonorous effect of the harmonies in root position.
But it was ahead of its time in dissonance treatment as well. The real
innovators in dissonance treatment in the early fifteenth century were
the English, and particularly Dunstable, as Tinctoris recognized.
Manfred Bukofzer has characterized Dunstable's harmonic style as
distinguishedby an unusuallyliberalsupply of perpetuallyconsonant

progressions,vergingat times on monotony .... The purgingof disso-
nancesfromthe harmonyis a turning-pointin the historyof dissonance
treatmentand indeed of contrapuntalwriting in general. Dunstable's
innovationwas thereforenot the introductionof the Englishidiom for
which he has been undeservedlypraised, but its purificationfrom
dissonances. It was unquestionablythe new concordantstyle that
accountedfor the noveltyof Dunstable'smusicandfor the enthusiasmit
aroused (I960, I85).
While Tinctoris gave credit to Dunstable for the founding of the

"new art," he declined to count any Englishmen among the modems
126For a tabulation of divided notes in the Trent Codices, see Mixter I98I,
640-43.
274 SOCIETY
JOURNALOF THE AMERICANMUSICOLOGICAL
who succeeded Dunstable, Dufay, and Binchois on the grounds that

they "use one and the same style of composition," a sign, he says, of
"a terrible lack of talent."127The style was, perhaps, too consonant.
Tinctoris was progressive in restricting the use of dissonance, but he
did not want to eliminate it; some of his contemporaries, he remarks,
are even more fastidious than he (II.xxix [2:139]). A panconsonant
style is not harmonic, in the sense that harmony was understood by
Spataro and Zarlino. The latter observed that
Musiciansof oldertimes held that compositionsshouldincludenot only
perfectandimperfectconsonances,but alsodissonances;forthey realized
that their work would achievemore beautyand charmwith them than
without them. Had they composedsolely with consonance,they might
have produced agreeableeffects, but nonethelesstheir compositions
(beingunmixedwith dissonance)would have been somehowimperfect;
andthis fromthe standpointof singingas well as of composition,for they
would have lackedthe great grace that stems from these dissonances
(Zarlino 1968, 54).
While Tinctoris viewed the "contenanceangloise"as a breathof fresh air

after the dissonant style of the fourteenthcentury, the "concordances"
that once seemed so "frisque"had lost their charm by mid-century. In
the newer style, a regulated dissonance treatment that gave special
distinction to cadences produced a more harmoniouscomposition.
I I. Resfacta and Musicapoetica
The art of composition, called resfacta by Tinctoris and later

writers who borrowed the term from him, became known in Ger-
many in the sixteenth century as musicapoetica. In I537 Listenius
distinguishes between musicatheorica,musicapractica,in which music is
produced but not preserved ("nullo tamen post actum reliquo opere,
cuius finis est agere"), and musicapoetica:
Poetica [musicaest] quae neque rei Poetic is that which is content nei-
cognitione, neque solo exercitio ther with the understandingof the
contenta, sed aliquid post laborem matternor practicealone, but after
relinquit operis, veluti cum a effortleavesbehinda work, such as
quopiamMusica aut Musicumcar- when music or a musical song is
menconscribitur,cuiusfinisest opus composed, the goal of which is a
consumatumet effectum. Consistit perfect and completedwork, for it
enimin faciendosive fabricando,hoc consists in making or fabricating,
est, in laboretali, qui post se, etiam that is, in such exertionthat, even
127
Prologue to the Proportionale; see Lowinsky I966, 133.
artifice mortuo, opus perfectumet after the death of the maker,there
absolutumrelinquat(fol. a3v).128 remainsa perfectand finishedwork.
The distinction goes back to Aristotle, who divided philosophy into
"theoretical," "practical," and "poietic," praxis involving human ac-
tion, poiesis "making" (Curtius 1953, 146). By using the words faciendo
and fabricando,Listenius makes a direct connection with the Greek
and also, perhaps, an indirect connection with resfacta.His immediate
source is probably Quintilian, whose wording is very similar: "...
aliae [artes] in agendo, quarum in hoc finis est et ipso actu perficitur
nihilque post actum operis relinquit. . .; aliae in effectu, quae operis,
quod oculis subiicitur, consummatione finem accipiunt" (Institutio
oratoria II.xviii).129
From Listenius in 1537 to Mattheson in 1739, German music
theorists used the term musica poetica as synonymous with
"Kompositionslehre" (Dahlhaus 1966, 1I3-15) 130In this they differed
sharply from their Italian contemporaries of the first half of the
sixteenth century, who believed that only counterpoint could be
taught; composition required a certain natural instinct (an analogy
with the topos poeta nasciturnonfit). 31 Spataro put it thus in a letter
to Pietro Aaron dated 6 May 1524:
Venerablescholars(so thoughtlesslycriticizedby you) did not ignore

anythingpertinentto two-partcounterpoint,but they did not go beyond
the firstprinciplesbecausethey knewthatthe artandgraceof composing
harmonycannotbe taught,for composersmust be bornjust as poets are
born. Thus they taughthow to composein two-partcounterpoint,first
note-against-note,then they showed how to diminishthe note values.
Whoeverwanted to proceedbeyond that needed (with the help of a
teacher)to be aidedby heavenlyinclinationand divinegrace.132
128
Curiously, Heinrich Faber, after quoting Listenius'sdefinitionof musica
poetica, proceeds to divide it into sortisatio(improvisation)and compositio.See Gurlitt
1942, 202.
129 See Dahlhaus 1966, I I 3. Dahlhaus alludes to Quintilian's division but does not
remark on the similarity in Listenius's wording.
130Dahlhaus shows that after i8oo musicapoeticacame to refer to that part of
composition that could not be taught.
11See Lowinsky 1964, 479-93, who quotes a number of contemporary observa-
tions on this subject.
132 "la docta
antiquita da vui (cosi senza consideratione)reprehesa non ha ignorato
cosa alcuna pertinente al contrapuncto facto a due voce, scilicet a nota contra nota,
perche da loro non e stato temptato piu ultra che li rudi principii, perche essa docta
antiquita sapeva che l'arte et la gratia del componere la harmonia non se po insignare,
perche el bisogna che li compositori nascano cosi come nascono li poeti. Pertanto
primamente da loro era dato el modo de componere a due voce, scilicet a nota contra
nota, et da poi demonstravano de minuire el tempo. Chi da poi piu ultra voleva
SOCIETY
The difficultyof teachingcomposition,as opposed to counter-

point, is a theme running through sixteenth-centurytreatises. It
shapes the remarksof Lampadius,who was the first to say that
composersused scoresfor composing.Likeningthe composerto the
poet, who is moved by "acertainnaturalimpulse,"he says:
the composermustfirstcontrivein his mindthe best melodiesand must
weighthesejudiciously,lest one singlenotevitiatethe wholemelodyand
tire his listeners.Then he must proceedto the working-out-that is, he
mustdistributethe contrivedmelodiesin a certainorder,usingthosethat
seem most suitable.133
In a recent article, Jessie Ann Owens characterizedLampadius's

discussion of compositionas "quitevague," and she wondered "if
Lampadiuswas writingaboutsomethingthat he did not completely
understand"(1984, 296-97). Lampadiusunderstoodvery well what
he was writingabout, but his purposewas not to set forth a method
of composition.He describeschords,andhe givesadviceaboutmodes
and ranges,with examples(mostlyin two parts).He has a paragraph
on composingin two parts,with a lengthyexample,whichis followed
by the laconicremark"And three partsof a compositionshould be
workedout in the same manner."It is at this point that the student
asksaboutthe "tabulacompositoria."Lampadiuspresentsit as a tool
that makes it easier for composers to "distributethe contrived
melodies in a certain order," and he specificallycalls it an "ordo
distribuendivoces sive cantilenarumpartes."But he gives no further
instructionin how to composefor threeor morevoices;his bookis, as
he says, an elementarymanualfor children.
Theorists' remarks on the difficulty of teaching composition
should alert us to the fallacy of equatingcontrapuntaltheory with
compositionalpractice,which has led to the almostuniversalassump-
tion that Renaissancemusic is built on a two-voice framework,
whetherof the superiusand tenoror the superiusand bass, and even
thatone may tracea wanderingGerustsatz, likea migrantcantusfirmus,
when the examplerunsafoulof the assumption.134This skeletalview
procedere bisognava che (mediante lo aiuto del preceptore) el fusse prima aiutato da
qualche sua optima inclinatione celeste et gratia divina"(MS. Vat. lat. 5318, fol. 2 I );
no. iI in Blackburn et al.
Josquin, too, according to Coclico, took this attitude in teaching; see Lowinsky
1964, 491-92.
133 Compendium musices(Bern, 537); quoted in Lowinsky 1964, 489.
134 Even sixteenth-century writers were capable of confusing contrapuntal theory
with compositional practice. In one of his review letters criticizing Aaron's Toscanello,
of music is not in accordwith the theoryor practiceof composition.
As soon as composersbegan writing harmonically,whatever may
have been conceivedinitiallyas a contrapuntalpair was now subject
to alterationon harmonicgrounds. Composersmay have changed
their harmoniesconsiderablybefore they consideredthe work fin-
ished, the res "facta."The bass and alto cannot be regarded as
"nonessentialand nonstructural."As soon as pervadingimitation
becamethe normit was necessaryto workwith morethantwo voices
at the same time. The historyof the growingability to integratethe
texture of multiple voices while preserving good harmony is a
fascinatingone. It is not fully appreciatedhow difficultit was for
composers to write four voices in pervading imitation when they had
been used to writing only three. One can see the struggle with the alto
in the full-voice sections of Josquin's Ave Maria .. . virgoserena.And
just because a voice does not fit very well is no reason to declare it a
later addition; one has to view the whole composition in its historical
context.135 It was a real compositional problem, for example, to
convert a cantusfirmusinto a fifth imitative voice in the early decades
of the sixteenth century, and one can see more and less successful
stages in this process.136
No matter whether theorists felt that composition could or could
not be taught, they all recognized that there was a difference between
Spataropoints out that the rule that a compositionshould begin and end with a
perfectconsonancewas intendedfor the beginnerin two-partcounterpoint,not for
the maturecomposer.Aaronwas willingto allowan exceptionfor the beginning,but
not the end, followingthe Aristotelianmaxim,"perfectionin all thingsis foundin the
end." Spatarodenies the applicabilityof this conceptto music;moreover,he says,
Aaron'sopiniondoes not agreewith "modernpractice,"wherecompositionsin four
or morepartscommonlyincludea thirdin the finalchord.See the lettercitedin note
132 above.
135 Of coursetherearecompositions in which one voice is a lateraddition,often
by anothercomposer.As Aaronremarked(see above,p. 217), this is a difficulttask.
My pointis thatin a periodof stylistictransitionit is not so easyto determinewhether
an awkwardvoice was addedby anotherpersonor by the composerhimself,either
during the initial period of compositionor sometimeafterwards.It is certainly
arguablewhetherthe sixthvoicein Josquin'sHucmesydereo is "anobviousadditionto
the originaltexture,"asJeremyNoble claims(1980, 722). If it "tendsto muddythe
work'stransparenttexture"(see programnotesto the recordingby the Pro Cantione
Antiqua,London,underthe directionof BrunoTurner,Archiv2533 360), how do
we knowthatJosquinwantedto havea transparent texture?Manyvoice partscould
be omittedusingthis criterion.The problemseemsto be especiallyacutein Josquin's
five-part chansons. Jaap van Benthem, in spite of having demonstratedthe
unthematicandwanderingcharacterof the quintaparsin a numberof them, proposed
omitting the quintaparsfrom En nonsaichanton the very same grounds (1970, 171-74).
136 I havemadethis pointin discussingthe last two motetsof the MediciCodex
in Blackburn 1970, I56-58 and 227. See also Blackburn I976, 38-39.
SOCIETY
music that was achieved haphazardly and music that was a "perfect
and finished work." The old division between theorists and practi-
tioners, the musicusand cantor,was redrawn:there were now theorists,
practitioners, and composers.137 With a correct understandingof what
Tinctoris meant by resfacta, we can now push back the origin of this
distinction to the fifteenth century. The practitioners are those who
sing superlibrumor write their music successively. The composers are
those who write music harmonically by relating each voice to every
other voice and thereby produce a res facta, an opusperfectumet
absolutum.
Chicago, Illinois
LIST OF WORKS CITED
Primary Sources
Aaron, Pietro. De institutioneharmonicalibri tres. Bologna, 1516. Facsimile

edition. New York, I976.
. Thoscanello de la musica. Bologna, I523 (cited after 1529 edition,
Toscanelloin musica).
Anonymous I869a. Cum notumsit. Ed. E. de Coussemaker. Scriptorumde
musicamediiaevi, 3:60-62. Paris, I869.
Anonymous I869b. Volentibusintroduci. Ed. E. de Coussemaker as Ars
Contrapunctus secundumPhilippumde Vitriaco.Scriptorumde musicamedii
aevi, 3:23-27. Paris, i869.
Anonymous I876. Quatuorprincipalia musicae. Ed. E. de Coussemaker.
Scriptorumde musicamediiaevi, 4:20I-98. Paris, 1876.
Anonymous 1935. Le Fet desRomains.Ed. L.-F. Flutre and K. Sneyders de
Vogel. Paris, 1935.
Anonymous 1977. Regule de contrapuncto.In Anonymous(i5th-Century),
quatuortractatuliitalicidecontrapuncto.
Ed. Albert Seay. Colorado College
Music Press Critical Texts, no. 3. Colorado Springs, I977.
Anonymous XI. Tractatusde musicaplana et mensurabili.Ed. E. de Cous-
semaker. Scriptorumde musica medii aevi, 3:4I6-75. Paris, 1869. Ed.
RichardJoseph Wingell. Ph.D. diss., University of Southern California,
I973.
Aristides Quintilianus. OnMusicin ThreeBooks.Trans. Thomas J. Mathiesen.
Music Theory Translation Series. New Haven, I983.
137
Coclico's strange division into theorici,mathematici,musicipraestantissimiand
musicipoetici (1552, fols. B3v-B4v) is based partly on historical, partly on technical
grounds. Josquin is listed among the musicipraestantissimi.The musicipoetici(none of
whom is named) were trained in the school of the latter; they excel not only in
composition but also in singing, especially over plainchant. The only basis for
distinction between the two latter groups seems to be that Coclico knew the former
composers only from written compositions, whereas he heard the latter sing as well.
Beldomandi, Prosdocimo de'. Contrapunctus. Edited by Jan Herlinger. Greek
and Latin Music Theory, no. i. Lincoln, Nebraska, 1984.
Bermudo, Juan. Declaracionde instrumentos musicales.Ossuna, 1555. Facsimile
edition by Macario Santiago Kastner. Documenta musicologica, no. 11.
Kassel, 1957.
Burzio, Nicolo. Florum libellus. Ed. Giuseppe Massera. Historiae musicae
cultores biblioteca, no. 28. Florence, 1975.
. Musicesopusculum.Trans. Clement A. Miller. Musicological Studies
and Documents, no. 37. Neuhausen-Stuttgart, 1983. (Florumlibellusand
Musicesopusculumare two names for the same treatise.)
Canuzio, Pietro. Reguleforum musices.Florence, 1510o.
Carlerius, Egidius. Tractatusde laudeet utilitate musicae.In EgidiusCarlerius,
Duo TractatulideMusica.Ed. Albert Seay. Colorado College Music Press
Critical Texts, no. 7. Colorado Springs, I977.
Coclico, Adrian Petit. Compendiummusices.Nuremberg, 1552. Facsimile
edition by Manfred F. Bukofzer. Documenta musicologica, no. 9.
Kassel, 1954.
Decembrio, Angelo. Politiae literariae. . libri septem.Augsburg, 1540.
Dufay, Guillaume. Opera omnia, 6. Ed. Heinrich Besseler. Corpus
mensurabilis musicae, no. i. [Rome], 1966.
Eloy d'Amerval. Le livre de la deablerie.Ed. Charles Frederick Ward.
University of Iowa Humanistic Studies, no. 2/2. Iowa City, 1923.
Gaffurio, Franchino. Practica musicae. Milan, I496. Trans. Clement A.
Miller. Musicological Studies and Documents, no. 20. [Rome], 1968.
. De harmoniamusicoruminstrumentorum opus.Milan, I518.
Galilei, Vincenzo. Die Kontrapunkttraktate VincenzoGalileis. Ed. Frieder
Rempp. Veroffentlichungen des Staatlichen Instituts fur
Musikforschung Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Cologne, 1980.
Gallicus, Johannes. De ritu canendivetustissimoet novo. Ed. E. de Cous-
semaker. Scriptorumde musicamedii aevi, 4:298-42 1. Paris, 1876.
Goscalcus [attr.]. [Tractatussecundus].The BerkeleyManuscript,Universityof
CaliforniaMusic Library,MS. 744. Ed. and trans. Oliver B. Ellsworth.
Greek and Latin Music Theory, no. 2. Lincoln, Nebraska, 1984.
Guilielmus Monachus. De preceptisartis musicae.Ed. Albert Seay. Corpus
scriptorum de musica, no. i . [Rome], I965.
Lactantius. De opificioDei. In De divinis institutionibus.N.p., 1471.
Lampadius, Auctor. Compendium musices.Bern, 1537.
Listenius, Nicolaus. Musica. Nuremberg, 1537. Facsimile of 1549 edition by
Georg Schunemann. Berlin, I927.
Papias. Vocabularium. Milan, 1476.
Philippus de Caserta. Tractatusde diversisfiguris. Ed. E. de Coussemaker.
Scriptorumde musicamediiaevi, 3:I8-24. Paris, 1869.
Podio, Guillermus de. Ars musicorum.Valencia, 1495. Books VI and VII ed.
Albert Seay. Colorado College Music Press Critical Texts, no. 8.
Colorado Springs, 1978.
Ramos, Bartolome. Musica practica. Bologna 1482. Ed. Johannes Wolf.
Leipzig, 19go.
Spataro, Giovanni. Honesta defensioin Nicolai Burtii parmensisopusculum.
Bologna, 1491.
SOCIETY
Tinctoris, Johannes. De inventioneet usu musicae.Ed. Karl Weinmann. In

JohannesTinctorisundseinunbekannter Traktat"Deinventioneet usumusicae,"
ed. Wilhelm Fischer. Tutzing, 1961.
Operatheoretica.2 vols. Ed. Albert Seay. Corpus scriptorum de
musica, no. 22. [Rome], 1975.
. Operaomnia. Ed. William Melin. Corpus mensurabilis musicae, no.
I8. [Rome], I976.
. Terminorummusicaedifflnitorium.[Treviso, ca. 1495].
Ugolino of Orvieto. Declaratiomusicaedisciplinae.Ed. Albert Seay. 3 vols.
Corpus scriptorum de musica, no. 7. Rome, I959-62.
Vicentino, Nicola. L'anticamusicaridottaalla modernaprattica. Rome, I555.
Facsimile edition by Edward E. Lowinsky. Documenta musicologica,
no. I7. Kassel, 1959.
Zarlino, Gioseffo. Le istitutioniharmoniche.Venice, 1558.
. The Art of Counterpoint.Trans. Guy A. Marco and Claude V.
Palisca. New Haven, 1968.
Secondary Literature
Apel, Willi. HarvardDictionaryof Music. Cambridge, Mass., I947.

. FrenchSecularCompositionsof the FourteenthCentury. 3 vols. Corpus
mensurabilis musicae, no. 53. [Rome], 1970-72.
Baines, Anthony. "Fifteenth-century Instruments in Tinctoris's De
Inventioneet Usu Musicae."GalpinSocietyJournal 3 (I950): I9-26.
Bent, Margaret. "Some Factors in the Control of Consonance and Sonority:
Successive Composition and the Solus Tenor." In Reportof the Twelfth
Congress,Berkeley,1977, ed. Daniel Heartz and Bonnie Wade, 625-33.
Kassel, I981.
"Resfactaand Cantare Super Librum." This JOURNAL 36 (1983): 37-91.
. "Diatonicficta." Early MusicHistory4 (1984): I-48.
Benthem, Jaap van. "Zur Struktur und Authentizitat der Chansons a 5 & 6
von Josquin des Prez." Tijdschriftvan de Verenigingvoor Nederlandse
Muziekgeschiedenis21 (1970): 170-88.
Bergquist, Ed Peter, Jr. "The Theoretical Writings of Pietro Aaron." Ph.D.
diss., Columbia University, I964.
Bergquist, Peter. "Mode and Polyphony around 1500."MusicForumI (1967):
99-161.
Besseler, Heinrich. Bourdonund Fauxbourdon.2d ed. Leipzig, 1974.
Blackburn, Bonnie J. "The Lupus Problem." Ph.D. diss., University of
Chicago, I970.
. "Josquin'sChansons: Ignored and Lost Sources." This JOURNAL
29
(1976): 30-76.
. "A Lost Guide to Tinctoris's Teachings Recovered." Early Music
History i (1981): 29-I 6.
Blackburn, Bonnie J., Edward E. Lowinsky, and Clement A. Miller, eds. A
Correspondence of Renaissance
Musicians(forthcoming).
Blumroder, Christoph von. "Modulatio" (1983). Handworterbuchder
musikalischen Terminologie.Ed. Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht. Wiesbaden,
I972-
Brown, Howard M. Music in the Renaissance.Englewood Cliffs, I976.
Bukofzer, Manfred F. "FauxbourdonRevisited." MusicalQuarterly38 (1952):

22-47.
."English Church Music of the Fifteenth Century." New Oxford
Historyof Music, 3:I65-2 3. London, I960.
Bush, Helen E. "The Recognition of Chordal Formation by Early Music
Theorists." Musical Quarterly 32 (1946): 227-43.
Carter, Henry Holland. A Dictionaryof MiddleEnglishMusicalTerms.Bloom-
ington, Ind., 1961.
Crocker, Richard L. "Discant, Counterpoint, and Harmony." This JOURNAL
15 (1962): I-2I.
. "A New Source for Medieval Music Theory." Acta musicologica39
(1967): I6I-71.
Curtius, Ernst Robert. EuropeanLiteratureand the Latin MiddleAges. Trans.
Willard R. Trask. New York, 1953.
Dahlhaus, Carl. "Musica poetica und musikalische Poesie." Archiv fur
Musikwissenschaft23 (1966): 10-24.
. Untersuchungenuber die Entstehung der harmonischenTonalitat.
Saarbricker Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, no. 2. Kassel, 1968.
. "Counterpoint."New GroveDictionary.London, I980.
Dammann, Rolf. "Spatformen der isorhythmischen Motette im i6.
Jahrhundert."Archivfir Musikwissenschaft 10 (1953): 6-40.
Elders, Willem. "Humanism and Early-Renaissance Music: A Study of
Ceremonial Music by Ciconia and Dufay." Tijdschriftvan de Vereniging
voorNederlandseMuziekgeschiedenis27 (1977): 65-101.
. "Humanism and Music in the Early Renaissance." In International
Musicological Society, Reportof the TwelfthCongress,Berkeley,1977, ed.
Daniel Heartz and Bonnie Wade, 883-87. Kassel, I981.
Fallows, David. Dufay. London, 1982.
Ferand, Ernest T. "ImprovisedVocal Counterpoint in the Late Renaissance
and Early Baroque." Annalesmusicologiques 4 (1956): 129-74.
"What is Res Facta?" This JOURNALIO (1957): I41-50.
Fox, Charles Warren. "Non-quartal Harmony in the Renaissance." Musical
Quarterly 31 (1945): 33-53.
Fuller, David. "Organ Point." New GroveDictionary.London, 1980.
Gurlitt, Wilibald. "Der Begriff der sortisatio in der deutschen
Kompositionslehre des i6. Jahrhunderts." Tijdschriftder Vereenigingvoor
NederlandscheMuziekgeschiedenis16 (1940-46): I94-2 I1.
Jeppesen, Knud. Counterpoint:The PolyphonicVocal Style of the Sixteenth
Century.Transl. Glen Haydon. New York, 1939.
. The Style of Palestrinaand the Dissonance.2d ed. Copenhagen and
London, 1946.
Kenney, Sylvia. WalterFrye and the Countenance Angloise.Yale Studies in the
History of Music, no. 3. New Haven, I964.
Langlois, Ernest, ed. Recueild'artsde seconderhetorique.Collection de Docu-
ments inedits sur l'histoire de la France. Paris, 1902.
Lowinsky, Edward E. "The Concept of Physical and Musical Space in the
Renaissance." Papersof theAmericanMusicological Society,Annual Meeting,
1941 (1946): 57-84?
. "On the Use of Scores by Sixteenth-Century Musicians." This
JOURNAL (1948): 17-23.
SOCIETY
. Tonalityand Atonality in Sixteenth-Century

Music. Berkeley and Los
Angeles, 196 .
. "Musical Genius-Evolution and Origins of a Concept." Musical
Quarterly 50 (1964): 32I-40, 476-95.
. "Music of the Renaissance as Viewed by RenaissanceMusicians." In
TheRenaissance Imageof Man and the World,ed. Bernard O'Kelly, 129-77.
[Columbus, Ohio], 1966.
. "Canon Technique and Simultaneous Conception in Fifteenth-
century Music: A Comparisonof North and South." In Essayson theMusic
ofJ.S. Bachand OtherDiversSubjects:A Tributeto GerhardHerz, ed. Robert
L. Weaver, 181-222. Louisville, I98I.
. "Janvan Eyck's Tymotheos: Sculptor or Musician?"Studi musicali13
(1984), 33-IO5.
Mathiesen, Thomas J. "Problemsof Terminology in Ancient Greek Theory:
'APMONIA." In Festival Essaysfor Pauline Alderman:A Musicological
Tribute,ed. Burton L. Karson, 3-I7. Provo, I976.
. Remarksat Round Table on Humanism and Music. In International
Musicological Society, Reportof the Twelfth Congress,Berkeley1977, ed.
Daniel Heartz and Bonnie Wade, 89o-91. Kassel, I981.
Michels, Ulrich. Die Musiktraktate
desJohannesdeMuris. Beihefte zum Archiv
fur Musikwissenschaft, no. 8. Wiesbaden, I970.
Mixter, Keith E. "Divided Notes in the Manuscriptsof the I 5th Century and
a Developing Taste for Euphony." In International Musicological Soci-
ety, Reportof the TwelfthCongress,Berkeley,1977, ed. Daniel Heartz and
Bonnie Wade, 640-43. Kassel, I98 .
Noble, Jeremy. "Josquin Desprez." New GroveDictionary.London, I980.
Owens, Jessie Ann. "The Milan Partbooks:Evidence of Cipriano de Rore's
Compositional Process." This JOURNAL 37 (1984): 270-98.
Palisca, Claude V. "Vincenzo Galilei's Counterpoint Treatise: A Code for
the SecondaPratica."This JOURNAL 9 (1956): 8I-96.
. Humanismin Italian Renaissance
MusicalThought.New Haven, I985.
Perkins, Leeman L. "Mode and Structure in the Masses of Josquin." This
JOURNAL26 (1973): I89-239.
Pirro, Andre. Histoirede la musiquede lafin duXIVesieclea lafin du XVIe. Paris,
I940.
Randel, Don. "Emerging Triadic Tonality in the Fifteenth Century."
MusicalQuarterly57 (197 ): 73-86.
Reese, Gustave. Musicin the Renaissance.Rev. ed. New York, 1959.
Riemann, Hugo. Geschichte der Musiktheorieim IX.-XIX. Jahrhundert.2d ed.
Berlin, 192 1. Trans. Raymond H. Haggh as Historyof MusicTheory,Books
I and II. Lincoln, I962.
Sachs, Klaus-Jurgen. Der Contrapunctusim 14. und 15. Jahrhundert.
zum Terminus,zur Lehreund zu denQuellen.Beihefte zum
Untersuchungen
Archiv fur Musikwissenschaft, no. 13. Wiesbaden, I974.
"Counterpoint."New GroveDictionary.London, I980.
"Contrapunctus/Kontrapunkt" (1982). Handworterbuch der
musikalischen
Terminologie.Ed. Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht. Wiesbaden,
1972- .
"Arten improvisierterMehrstimmigkeit nach Lehrtexten des 14. bis
i6. Jahrhunderts." BaslerJahrbuchfur historischeMusikpraxis7 (1983):
166-83.
Slim, H. Colin. "Mary Magdalene, mondainemusicale."In International
Musicological Society, Reportof the TwelfthCongress,Berkeley,I977, ed.
Daniel Heartz and Bonnie Wade, 816-24. Kassel, i98I.
Staehelin, Martin. "Euphoniabei Tinctoris." In International Musicological
Society, Reportof the TwelfthCongress,Berkeley,1977, ed. Daniel Heartz
and Bonnie Wade, 621-25. Kassel, 1981.
. "Bemerkungenzum Verhaltnis von Werkcharakterund Filiation in
zur Musik der Renaissance,2:
der Musik der Renaissance." Quellenstudien
I99-215. Ed. Ludwig Finscher. Wolfenbiittler Forschungen, no. 26.
Wiesbaden, I983.
Strunk, Oliver. SourceReadingsin MusicHistory. New York, 1950.
Tigerstedt, E. N. "The Poet as Creator:Origins of a Metaphor." Comparative
LiteratureStudies5 (1968): 455-88.
Warren, Charles W. "Punctus organi and cantus coronatus in the music of
Dufay." In PapersReadat theDufayQuincentenary ed. Allan W.
Conference,
Atlas, I28-43. Brooklyn, 1976.
Wright, Craig. "An Example of Musical Inversion from the Circle of
Dufay." In PapersReadat theDufayQuincentenary ed. Allan W.
Conference,
Atlas, I44-48. Brooklyn, 1976.
__.Music at the Court of Burgundy1364-1419: A DocumentaryHistory.
Musicological Studies, no. 28. Henryville, Ottawa, Biningen, 1979.
ABSTRACT
The change from "successive composition" to "simultaneousconception"

is one of the great turning points in the history of music. The latter term,
derived from Pietro Aaron's allusion to the method of composition used by
modern composers, does not correctly convey Aaron's meaning. He said that
modern composers "take all the parts into consideration at once," disposing
them in different ranges and thus allowing the avoidance of awkward clashes
between the inner voices. This more harmonic orientation finds confirmation
in the writings of Giovanni Spataro, whose theory of harmony, later
developed by Zarlino, contradicts a current view of fifteenth-century music
as purely intervallic counterpoint founded on a superius-tenor framework in
which the bass is nonstructural and nonessential. The theory is grounded in
the functional role of dissonance, adumbrateda century earlier in the treatise
by Goscalcus.
Discussion of the new compositional process can already be found fifty
years earlier in the writings of Johannes Tinctoris. That this has not been
recognized is due to persistent confusion over the term resfacta. The key to
comprehending this term lies in a correct understanding of what Tinctoris
meant by counterpoint: it is not what we today call counterpoint but
successive composition. Resfactadiffers from counterpoint in that each voice
must be related to every other voice so that no improper dissonances appear
between them. This method, "harmonic composition," could be quasi-
simultaneous or successive; the criterion is the ultimate result-the finished
SOCIETY
work of art. Resfactais both a method of composition and a term that denotes
a work composed in this manner, analogous to Listenius's opusperfectumet
absolutum.The musicapoeticaof the sixteenth century is the legacy of resfacta,
and the two terms are indirectly connected. The new process of composition
is the foundation for Tinctoris's delineation of an ars nova beginning about
I437, a date that may have been chosen in recognition of its first great
representation in Dufay's Nuperrosarum flores.

On Compositional Process in The Fifteenth Century PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

On Compositional Process in The Fifteenth Century PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

American Musicological Society

On Compositional Process in the Fifteenth Century

ardly any development in the history of music has been more

the successive conceptionof the single voices to the simultaneous

I. Aaron's View of "Simultaneous Conception"

Aaron begins Book III of his De institutioneharmonicawith a

the tenor.3After these four voices are composed,any doubledparts

3Cf., for example, the anonymous counterpoint treatise in Tiibingen,

"Consideranoinsiemetutte le parti,""theytakeall the partsinto

"comfortable,easy and agreeableplace."8Such a dispositioncould

Ornithoparchus (I5I7) to Morley (i597), in an article in 1946.10 In

2. Counterpoint and Harmony

Curiously, one of the most innovative aspects of Aaron's I516

by Gaffurio.13I suspect that Aaron's discussion of counterpoint and

study-but she thought that the inclusion of "cadential formulas undoubtedly

Spataro had a sharp eye for the contemporaryscene. Then

he defines and explainsthe acceptableconsonancesand shows how

17Lowinsky 1981 demonstrated the harmonic orientation of a number of

take the extreme position of ignoring the bass as "nonstructuraland

3. Spataro's View of Harmony

If proponents of the linear-melodic approachto composition are not

procedere che fanno inseme they make by concording together,

21 Burzio had quoted Lactantius at the beginning of his chapter on harmony:

in music that is contrapuntallyor chordallyconceived. If Spataro's

used it only in the generalmusicaland philosophicalsense.26Nicola

educatedmusicianssuch as Dufay and Ciconiaand curiousto know

Spataro'sinclusionof dissonancein the conceptof harmonymust

tramezati,la qual percuotesoavemente sense of hearing sweetly, and it re-

30 At the beginning of the passage cited, where Zarlino is defining consonance.

renderswith the termmodulatione. He then recaststhe samedefinition

As I have said, every composition,counterpoint,or [to put it in one

For Zarlino, dissonance adds "beauty and charm"; works composed

5. The Theory of Dissonance

Counterpoint treatises commonly start out by listing the "species,"

dissonances."38It is not until the later fourteenth century that

38"Visis concordantiis et discordantiis

of an individualnote is to be labeled,using againthe words "maior

45 Goscalcus I984, 132. Ellsworth translates "minoris valoris medietate illius

viengne vous de- stri- ner

^-Jvo-,?. streRa-R '?mant -

" : 'r r r' r r'

:, 7~V r f " C" - r"']

3, discant, shows the "maior pars" concordant with the tenor.

The sharpest dissonances are reserved for cadences, a common

49 Cf. Beldomandi 1984, 58: "usitanturtamen in cantu fractibili, eo

For the first time, dissonance is described as functional; it enhances

The procedureof counterpointis not just in continuousperfectconso-

Havingbrieflysurveyedthe placeof dissonancein fourteenth-and

55Jeppesen quotes only Tinctoris's rules on melodic (i.e. unaccented

56 I do not mean to claim that all cadences of this

7. Tinctoris on Counterpoint, Resfacta, and singing Superlibrum

If we view Tinctoris's Liber de arte contrapunctias a manual of

Cantus compositusest ille qui per Cantuscompositus

resfacta . .. may mean either a written contrapuntal composition, plain

counterpoint, whether written or improvised-depending on which

Ferand investigated later references to resfacta in the hope that they

Tinctoris, Liberde arte contrapuncti(1477), II.xx [2:Io7-IO]63

[follows example, Deogratias a 5]

Tinctoris's definition of counterpointas being a "moderatedand

is composition,usuallybut not necessarilywritten, a completed

I believe that by removinga distinctionbetween unwrittenand

Contrapunctusitaqueest moderatus Thereforecounterpointis a moder-

but how then can it differfromcounterpoint,andwhy does Tinctoris