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
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On Compositional Process in the
Fifteenth Century
BY BONNIE J. BLACKBURN
Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons*
H 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
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 1946). His prime
theoretical witness for the recognition of simultaneous conception was Pietro Aaron, who, in his Libri tres de institutione harmonica of 1516, 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 transformation and eventual disappearance
of the cantusfirmus technique," 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 trecento madrigal 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 Liber de 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 1986 in a session
chaired by Margaret Bent, 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
the successive conception of the single voices to the simultaneous conception of the polyphonic complex," and he outlined different forms of simultaneous conception-the imitative style, in which "the several parts are not actually conceived as one, but each is calculated
and conceived in its relation to the others," the homophonic style, that
"cannot have been conceived otherwise than simultaneously in the literal sense of the word," and a mixed form, exemplified by the frottola, where "soprano and bass are simultaneously conceived while the alto and tenor are later additions" (1948, 20 and 21, n. 20). In a
recent article he modified his view of the development of simultaneous
conception to embrace canonic compositions, particularly those with
canons at close intervals-Ockeghem's Missa Prolationum being a
special and telling example-and works in which the new harmonic style, based primarily on root-position triads, comes to the fore. As
the first substantial example of this style he proposed Dufay's Nuper rosarum flores, written for the dedication of the Cathedral of Florence
on 25 March 1436. In this work he saw "a combination of successive and simultaneous conception, in which the simultaneous dimension
decisively outweighs the successive part" (1981 I, 191).
In the present article I propose to confirm that the phenomenon
called "simultaneous conception" arose early in the fifteenth century
and that it existed side by side with successive composition not only
throughout this century but also the next. It was, however, viewed by contemporaries from a different angle and described in a manner that
accommodates both kinds of simultaneous conception, imitative and homophonic. The term that most closely agrees with contemporary
theoretical thought is "harmonic composition." I believe that the new process of composition was the foundation for Tinctoris's delineation of an ars nova, and it was Tinctoris himself who first described it in technical terms. That this has not been recognized heretofore is due to
two obstacles: a misunderstanding of what Tinctoris meant by res facta, and the widespread acceptance of the terms "simultaneous
conception" or "simultaneous composition" to describe the enon. Crucial to our understanding is a determination of what the
theorists meant by the term "harmony" and how they viewed the use
of dissonance. Only by a close reading of the texts will we come to a clear comprehension of the compositional process involved. Technical
terms used by fifteenth-century theorists do not necessarily have the
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 institutione harmonica with 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,
deque locis ad conficiendam
modulationem secundum naturalem
ordinem necessariis, non modo secundum morem veterum, sed etiam secundum praesentis saeculi consuetudinem praecepta trademus,
quibus quidem tantum studium
adhibebimus, Flaminius vero nitorem sermonis, et claritatem, ut
studiosus artis huiusce, qui ea
diligenter legerit, et memori? mendaverit, nihil ultra sibi quaerendum putet.Now we shall teach the precepts
concerning the methods of ing and the places necessary for structing a composition according to the natural order, not only according to the older usage, but also according to present-day practice, to which we shall indeed bring to bear such
oughness-while Flaminio will bring the elegance and clarity of style2
that the student of this art who will
study it diligently and have
mended it to memory will find ing more to 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
' See Margaret Bent's exposition of the difficulties in translating terms such as
sonus, vox, corda, nota, clavis, littera, punctus, locus, situs, gradus, phthongus, psophos in
Bent 1984,
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 (1983, 61-63). 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 (1466-1536), the translator of
terminanda" ("How a composition should be begun and where ended,
according to older composers"), we reach the passage quoted by
Lowinsky in which Aaron alludes to the two methods of composition, successive and simultaneous. Because this chapter lends itself to more than one interpretation, I shall give it in its entirety:Modulatio quidem secundum
veterum morem et institutionem
primum quidem a cantu inchoanda
est. Subsequi Tenor debet. Tertio loco Bassus. Quarto demum, qui
dicitur Altus. Sed quia saepenumero
accidit: ut partes he quattuor in quinque in sex etiam augeantur:
Nam tenor: aut pars alia geminari
solet: id cum fiet: liberum
ponenti est: postquam sua praedictis
ordinariis partibus assignaverit loca:
reliquas, ut ipsi commodius
bitur, et melius: atque uti libuerit, disponere. Nostri tamen temporis
compositores facile deprehenduntur:
hanc non servare veterum
suetudinem: ut partes, quas diximus: quattuor tali semper ordine
ent: quod nos quoque crebro
facimus: summos in arte viros imitati
praecipuae vero losquinum. Obret.
Isaac. et Agricolam: quibus cum mihi Florentiae familiaritas: et
consuetudo summa fuit. Quod nos quidem in tantum probamus: ut firmemus, ea ratione modulationem ipsam fieri concinniorem. Verum, quoniam ita facere difficilis
um res est: et longo usu et
citatione indiget, veterum morem et
ordinem: quo sit facilior ad
ponendum via, sequemur.
According to the practice and method
of older composers, a composition
must first begin with the cantus. Then the tenor should follow, the bass third,
and finally the fourth, called alto. But since it often happens that these four parts are increased to five or even
for the tenor or another part is usually doubled-when this occurs the
poser is free, once he has assigned the
positions to the aforesaid regular parts,
to arrange the others as seems fit (or better, as he pleases to use them). It is
easily observed, however, that the
composers of our time do not follow the custom of older composers to put
these four parts together always in
this order, which we ourselves often
do, having imitated the most standing men in this art, especially
Josquin, Obrecht, Isaac, and
Agricola, with whom I had the
est friendship and familiarity in
Florence. Indeed, we approve of it so
much that we assert that writing a
composition in this manner makes it
more harmonious. But since it is
quite difficult to do it this way and
requires considerable practice and
experience, we shall follow the method and order of the older
posers, in which the way to 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
the tenor.3 After these four voices are composed, any doubled parts are to be added. Aaron then observes that modern composers do not
follow this order, but he does not explain what their method is, aside from the judgment that it produces a more harmonious composition.
It would seem that a sentence is missing at this point. "Tali semper ordine" can only refer to the order of the older composers, just described. It makes no sense therefore for Aaron to immediately say
"which we ourselves often do," for his point is that modern composers
do not do it this way. Lowinsky translated the passage as follows:
"However, it is easy to observe that modern composers do not follow
this traditional manner. They conceive the four above-mentioned
parts always in such order together. I myself work often in this way"
(1946, 67). It is by translating concinnent as "they conceive ...
together" that Lowinsky arrived at the term "simultaneous
tion." Aaron said no more than that the older composers put the parts
together in the order soprano, tenor, bass, alto. I believe that
Lowinsky inadvertently translated concinnent as if it came from concino,
-ere, meaning "to sing, play or sound together, in concert or
niously" or "to cause to sound together . . . to make concordant
sounds" (Harper's Latin Dictionary). This is understandable, ing the musical context. The word Aaron (or rather Flaminio) used,
however, is the subjunctive of concinno, -are, "to join fitly together, to
order, to arrange appropriately." We can only guess at the Italian word used by Aaron. I suppose it was "componere." But he would have used a different word toward the end of the chapter, where Flaminio has "concinniorem." Here I believe he might have written
"con piui harmonia." Flaminio could have translated both these terms with concinno, knowing that it comes from the Greek harmozo, which means both "to fit together" and "to harmonize."4 But Aaron does not
make clear in this passage just how the modern composers proceed.
Yet Lowinsky was not wrong in clarifying Aaron's elliptical
statement, for he was guided by the later description in his Toscanello(Venice, 1523; I quote from the edition of 1529), Book 2, chapter 16,
3Cf., for example, the anonymous counterpoint treatise in Tiibingen,
Universititsbibliothek, MS. Mc. 48 (second half I5th century, Germany), quoted in Sachs 1974, 126: "Nona regula . . . de compositione vera et regulari trium chorum insimul scilicet tenoris, medij et discantus . . . primo debet tenor componi a prima nota ad ultimam" (fol. 65). At least one writer, however, makes a distinction between sacred and secular music-in the former the tenor is to be written first, in the latter
the discant; the source, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS. 410, is quoted in
Bukofzer 1952, 38, n.
"Come il compositore possi dare principio al suo canto" ("How the composer may begin a composition"):
La imaginatione di molti compositori
fii, che prima il canto si dovessi
fabricare, da poi il tenore, et doppo esso tenore il controbasso. Et questo avenne perche mancorno del ordine
et cognitione di quello che si richiede
nel far del controalto: et per6
facevano assai inconvenienti ne le
loro compositioni: perche bisognava per lo incommodo che vi ponessino
unisoni, pause, salti ascendenti et
discendenti, difficili al cantore overo pronontiante: in modo che detti canti
restavano con poca soavith et
harmonia: perche facendo prima ilcanto over soprano, di poi il tenore,
quando e fatto detto tenore, manca alcuna volta il luogo al controbasso:
et fatto detto controbasso: assai note
del contro alto non hanno luogo: per
la qual cosa considerando solamente parte per parte, cioe quando si fa il tenore, se tu attendi solo ad cordare esso tenore, et cosi il simile del controbasso, conviene che cuna parte de gli luoghi concordanti patisca. Onde gli moderni in questo
meglio hanno considerato: come e
manifesto per le compositioni da essi
a quatro a cinque a sei, et a pid voci
fatte: de le quali ciascuna tiene luogo
commodo facile et grato: perche
considerano insieme tutte le parti et
non secondo come di sopra e detto. Et se a te piace componere prima il canto, tenore o controbasso, tal modo et regola a te resti arbitraria:
come da alcuni al presente si osserva:
che molte fiate danno principio al controbasso, alcuna volta al tenore,
et alcuna volta al contro alto. Ma
perch6 questo a te sarebbe nel
principio mal agevole et incommodo,
a parte per parte comincierai: non dimeno di poi che ne la pratica sarai alquanto esercitato, seguirai I'ordine
et modo inanzi detto.
Many composers were of the opinion that the soprano should be composed first, then the tenor, and after the
tenor the bass. This happened
cause they lacked the order and derstanding of what was necessary to
compose the alto. Thus they had
many awkward places in their positions because they had to insert unisons, pauses, and ascending and
descending leaps that were difficult for the singer or performer, so that
those works had little sweetness and
harmony. For in composing the
prano first and then the tenor, once
the tenor was made there was
times no room for the bass, and once
the bass was made, there was no
place for many notes in the alto.
Therefore, in considering only part by part, that is when the tenor is
being composed, if you pay attention only to harmonizing this tenor [with the soprano], and the same with the
bass, it is inevitable that each part
will suffer where they come
gether. Therefore the modern
posers had a better idea, which is
apparent from their compositions in
four, five, six, and more voices, in which each part has a comfortable,
easy and agreeable place, because
they take all the parts into
ation at once and not as described
above. And if you prefer to compose the soprano, tenor, or bass first, you are free to follow that method and
rule, as some at present do, who
often begin with the bass, sometimes with the tenor, and sometimes with the alto. But because this will be awkward and uncomfortable for you at first, you will begin part by part;
nevertheless, once you have gained
some experience, you will follow the
"Considerano insieme tutte le parti," "they take all the parts into consideration at once," is the phrase that is missing in Aaron's De institutione harmonica before the phrase "quod nos quoque crebro
facimus." It is a matter of regret that Aaron had his treatise translated
into Latin, and by a non-musician at that, for it led to a number of errors and oversights. In a lengthy preface to the De institutione,
Flaminio records the conversation between himself and Aaron that resulted in the decision to collaborate on a translation of the treatise.
Aaron had held back from publishing the book in the vernacular because he knew "how much authority, weight, and grace the Latin language could add," and he confessed that his own Latin was not adequate to the task.s In an errata sheet inserted into some copies of
the treatise, Aaron thanks an unnamed reader for kindly pointing out
certain obscure passages in the treatise, some of which Aaron
attributes to the carelessness of the printer's proofreader.6 It is likely that part of the blame should be laid at Aaron's doorstep for his "smallLatin." Nor is his Toscanello free of ambiguities. In the passage just
quoted, surely the last two sentences should be exchanged, for
"questo" in the last sentence refers to the modem method, not the older method discussed in the penultimate sentence.
In his preface, Flaminio refers to Aaron's decision to expand his treatise and include "many of the secret chambers of this art, never heretofore revealed,"7 and indeed the book is studded with
tions that one does not normally find in theoretical treatises. Aaron's
distinction between the older and newer practices is certainly one of them. But is he actually describing a method of simultaneous position? He speaks of "considering all the parts together" in the
context of laying out a work, in which each part should have its own
s ," 'Scio ... quantam illius autoritatem, pondus, et gratiam latina oratio potuerit
addere.' Tunc ego [Flaminio] 'non ne,' inquam, 'latinos facere poteras?' 'Poteram,'
inquis, 'sed neque mihi plene, neque tui similibus facturus eram satis' " (Aaron 15 i6, fol. 5v). The book is dedicated to Girolamo San Pietro, eques, but Aaron might have had the patronage of Leo X in mind; in the dedication of his Toscanello he speaks of
certain efforts he undertook in the hope of reward that came to naught because of the death of Leo X.
6 "Quaedam lector humanissime in nostris institutionibus obscuriora quibusdam
videbantur: quedam vero incuria correctoris cui impressoris errores corrigendos
tradidi." See the facsimile edition (Aaron 1976), after fol. 62.
7 "te adiecturum plurima ex intimis artis penetralibus, quae a nullo ad huc vulgata fuissent" (fol. 7).
"comfortable, easy and agreeable place."' Such a disposition could
also result from successive composition, if the composer keeps in mind that he must leave space for the parts still to be composed. Indeed, in
chapter 31, "Ordine di comporre a piti di quatro voci" ("How to
compose for more than four voices"), Aaron makes this point ically:... volendo aggiungere una parte
quinta, sesta o settima a uno canto di quatro voci, molti inconvenienti mente si troverranno: et questo nasce
quando il compositore non ha
siderato piui di quatro voci: perche non
lascia luogo che sia commodo a l'altre
parti. Adunque quando tu penserai
comporre un canto a cinque, sei 6 piui
voci, fa che tu t'acorga di non fare una
parte che prima non consideri se tutto
il resto pub havere conmodo luogo:
acioch6 non incappi in pause, unisoni
et inconvenienti: come e manifesto nel
capitolo xvi di questo libro secondo.
S. . wishing to add a fifth, sixth or seventh voice to a four-part sition, one will easily run into
culties when the composer did not
have in mind more than four voices,
because he leaves no room to
modate the other parts. Therefore
when you set out to write a sition in five, six, or more voices, be
careful not to write a part without considering whether the remainder
can have a comfortable place, so you
don't run into pauses, unisons, and
awkward places, as shown in chapter
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 institutione that he will "follow the older method" in teaching composition and when he tells the budding composition student in the Toscanello to "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 institutione harmonica we
catch a glimpse of simultaneous composition. Unlike his century predecessors, Aaron does not begin with two-part 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 Carl Dahlhaus used this passage to support his contention that the pedagogical
habit of separating counterpoint and harmony has led to an artificial opposition of the
concepts of "modaler Kontrapunkt, Intervallsatz, Tenorbezug und tion der Stimmen" to the concepts of "tonale Harmonik, Akkordsatz, Bassbezug und
Simultankonzeption der Stimmen." But, he points out, simultaneous conception "impliziert nicht Bassbezug, Bassbezug nicht Akkordsatz und Akkordsatz nicht
tonale Harmonik"; Aaron rejects successive conception because of difficulties tered in adding the last voices (Dahlhaus 1968, 85-86).
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 parallel thirds or tenths (chapters 26-3 i) 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 takesup cadences. Starting with the soprano clausula fa 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 imitatio or fugatio (ch.
52). Imitation, of course, entails working on two parts
neously.
In the 1523 Toscanello Aaron 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 appear with regularity in treatises from
the 1490os on. Helen E. Bush surveyed a number of them, from 9 The more surprising is it to read that "Hugo Riemann has characterized Aaron's work as the best introduction to counterpoint available from that time" in Bergquist
1967, ioi. 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).
Ornithoparchus (i517) to Morley (i597), in an article in 1946.10 In Aaron's Toscanello she 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
cluded that "enough irregular spacing 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 agreeable place" and the composerdoes not have to resort to unisons and pauses to escape difficult situations.
For the student, however, the gap between Aaron's music examples and his verbal precepts must have been bewildering. What is comfortable about an alto that lies a thirteenth below the soprano and tenor or a bass
that rises a tenth above the alto?'" These 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 1516
treatise is omitted in the Toscanello: how to move from one chord to
another. 12 We know that Aaron's De institutione was severely criticized
10 Her earliest witness, the Ars discantus secundumJohannem de Muris, 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
i974, i79-80, and Michels 1970, 42-50.
" Aaron's examples are given in Bush (1946, 243), and also in Riemann (1962,
302-3). Pitches were specified only in the De institutione harmonica; 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 institutione in her
by Gaffurio. 3 I 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 Practica musicae of 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 publishing it since I know that the effort and expense would be wasted because most musicians and singers no longer observe the rules and teachings handed down by venerable scholars. Your Excellency is
perfectly aware that in our time the signs established by the men of old
are held in little regard; only 0 is used, and of the proportions only
sesquialtera. And even without studying the precepts of counterpoint everyone is a master of composing harmony.14 (emphasis added)
study-but she thought that the inclusion of "cadential formulas undoubtedly
pointed the way towards a better understanding of 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 1964, 30-33. Bergquist discovered an exchange of letters
between Gaffurio and Flaminio in March and May of 1517 (see pp. 504-1o). 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 acrimonious tone of his critique of Gaffurio's De harmonia musicorum
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 1517 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. 53I8, 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 piui intra musici et cantori non se observano li
Spataro had a sharp eye for the contemporary scene. Then
entering his eighth decade, he was nostalgic for the music of his youthwith its complicated canons and proportions. Yet he too was infected
by the growing interest in "ancient music as applied to contemporary
practice" and the search for new sonorities. To prove to a skeptical
friend that the octave b-b' could be divided harmonically by using "the third chromatic note, F#," Spataro wrote a composition that included
a B major chord."1 But he was firm in his belief that the study of
two-part counterpoint was an essential first step in the training of a
composer. Aaron's two treatises confirmed what he viewed as a
dangerous tendency in contemporary practice, to by-pass the rules ofvoice-leading and compose successions of chords that the ear found pleasing.
Spataro's remarks flatly contradict a view of the compositional process of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century music that has been embraced in the last three decades in opposition to the attempt to
uncover the roots of tonal harmony in fifteenth-century music. I quote
one of the "few cautious voices" that espouses this position: "in the
musical conception of the I8th century, harmony was held to govern
musical structures on all levels, while in that of the I5th and I6th centuries, the possibilities for vertical combination were, on the contrary, subordinate to the character and direction of the melodic motion, and . . . therein lies the fundamental distinction between
them." In this view, the intervallic nature of counterpoint is revealed in "the structural framework of two voices that was the legacy of the discant treatises of previous centuries. Time and again a pair of voices
will close a phrase cadentially while the remaining line or lines serve rather to maintain the forward motion of the composition."
quently, it is possible and perhaps even necessary to consider the bass
progressions that are fundamental to cadential structures in tonal
music as nonstructural and nonessential in the cadence formulas that were contrapuntally conceived." Reduced to its essentials, this theory holds that "the basic principles of structural order were melodic rather
canoni et regolari precepti da la docta antiquitai 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 ?, 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.
143-143v). The letter will be published as no. 17 in Blackburn et al.
"5 The motet, Ave gratia plena, survives in the Spataro correspondence, attached
to an undated letter Spataro sent Aaron in August or September 1532 (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS. Vat. lat. 53 8, fols. 244-45), no. 46 in Blackburn et al.
than harmonic."16
It is a curious phenomenon that proponents of this theory
monly urge "an investigation of the conceptual matrix from which the
composer was actually working at the time: a search for the zational principles and compositional procedures that he may have
employed, on a conscious level, in determining the structural plan of
a musical work" (Perkins 1973, 191), and just as commonly they stop
short of examining the writings of theorists who cast some light on
this problem. In a thought-provoking article published in 1962,
Richard Crocker persuasively outlined the development oftal theory in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, showing the changing concept of consonance and dissonance and how the
ples of contrary motion developed into the functional progressions of major sixth to octave, minor sixth to fifth, major third to fifth, and minor third to unison, which, Crocker said, "leads us to the center of
14th-century discant, and ultimately to the foundations of triadic harmony" (1962, 11). Indeed, "the counterpoint treatises of the I4th and early I5th centuries" do "provide a wealth of material and a fascinating variety of detail" (Crocker 1962, I5-I6) on contrapuntal
practice, and it is true that many of the rules handed down by these theorists are to be found in the writings of fifteenth- and
century theorists, but Crocker does great injustice to an important contemporary witness when he continues: "Tinctoris's rules, for example, reveal no basic novelty when compared to earlier sources. The most important difference is the insistence on variety, with urgent prohibitions against repetition. This seems to be related to a
greater number of imperfect concords, and a relaxation of the
procedures governing their use" (p. 16). On the contrary, as will be demonstrated below, Tinctoris's rules show a very different attitude toward the "art of counterpoint," and the most novel aspect has not been mentioned by Crocker.
Leeman Perkins too considered it reasonable to search for the
"elusive principles of structural order" in treatises on counterpoint
but, in accepting Crocker's declaration that "the contrapuntal doctrine of the late 15th or early i6th century does not differ in its essentials
from the discant treatises of earlier centuries," he doubted whether "such attempts are likely to be fruitful" (Perkins I973, I92-93). He
cited Tinctoris's Liber de arte contrapuncti as a model: "In the first book
16 Perkins 1973, 196, I94, I95, and I90. The notion that one's presumed
knowledge of the compositional process should affect the way in which a composition
he defines and explains the acceptable consonances and shows how they may be used; in the second book the same is done for
nances; and in the third he gives eight general rules to further regulate
contrapuntal combinations" (p. 193, n. 12). According to Perkins,
"nowhere [in the 'contrapuntal doctrine of the late I5th or early I6th century'] is there definition of the goals toward which the voices being combined should flow or discussion of the manner in which the direction and termination of internal divisions could be made to relate
to the conclusion of a composition or to one another" (p. 193).
Believing that the structure is determined melodically, Perkins turnedto treatises on the modes in search of melodic principles. Indeed, he saw "in the proliferation of theoretical writings on the modes yet another indication of the increasingly melodic orientation of
phonic music in the course of the 15th and i6th centuries." As pieces became more complex, "the musicians of the period turned more and more to modal theory and to its embodiment in the chant in a search for principles of order and coherence capable of binding together their
more extensive compositions" (p. 198).
The insistence on the melodic and linear aspects of composition in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the desire to avoid at all costs the application of "the tenets and terminology of tonal harmony" for
fear of "distorting or obfuscating to some extent the patterns of history" (Perkins 1973, 192) runs the danger of leading to greater
distortion when one ignores the clear evidence of harmonic thinking to be found in the writings of theorists as well as in the music of the time.
Perkins ignores Aaron's distinction between the old and new ways of
writing a composition and the numerous theoretical prescriptions for
constructing chords just as he does music that is clearly not built on a two-voice framework.17 Tonal harmony having been discounted,
harmony itself is barely mentioned, and for good reason. If we accept
the position that calling a conventional cadence by the Roman
numerals "V-I" results in "a distortion of the compositional process by which it was obtained,"'8 we are left with only the most tial way to describe fifteenth-century cadences if we do not want to17 Lowinsky I98I demonstrated the harmonic orientation of a number of fifteenth-century compositions.
18 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 1971, 79-82). Perkins classified the cadences in Josquin's Masses (Table 2,
pp. 203-20) in the following manner: "Where the structural framework of 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).
take the extreme position of ignoring the bass as "nonstructural and 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 approach to composition are not
willing to recognize harmony, the contemporary theorists were. Let
us return to Spataro's remark: "Even without studying the precepts of counterpoint everyone is a master of composing harmony." What did Spataro mean by harmony? Richard Crocker maintains that "the rists," having discovered that the harmonic mean applied to the octave produces a pleasing sound of a fifth-octave chord, "reserved the term
'harmony' for a chord of three pitches; chords of two pitches were
concords or discords" (1962, 18).19 For Spataro, "harmony" was entirely different. He discusses it in his Honesta defensio of i491 in the context of a reply to the "insipid words" of Nicol6 Burzio in the latter's Musices opusculum (also called Florum libellus), written "against a certain Spanish prevaricator of the truth," Spataro's teacher, Bartolom6 Ramos, 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."20 Spataro counters:
Secundo questo che tu dici, quando si canta un canto a dui over si sona, non e harmonia ma consonantia, se
non come tu dici a tri o vero a quatro.
Questa e una falsiti evidente et in
questo mostri quel che sai, perche tu
dei sapere che consonantia e'
solamente a considerare lo intervallo che e da una voce grave a un'altra
acuta et per lo contrario. Ma
harmonia se dice considerando il
According to you, when one sings or plays a work for two voices, it is not
harmony but consonance, unless, as
you say, it has three or four voices. This is a patent falsehood and in this
you show what you know, because you ought to know that consonance
is only the consideration of the
val between a low and a high note and vice versa, but it is called
mony when considering the process
19 The 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 1491, fol. E III). Burzio had defined harmony as "diversarum vocum 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
concordando: perche se non se
moveno, bench siano quatro, non si dice harmonia ma consonantie, equesto intende Lactantio nel capitulo
xvi de opificio dei dicendo li musici
dicono la harmonia essere intensione
di voce in integri modi senza alcuna
offensione di consonantie: quasi dicat
finche e finita la cantilena. ... 21 Harmonia sie la mistura che si fa nel
canto de consonantie e dissonantie,
perche 1'e ben vero che ii boni
compositori se affaticano per fare le
dissonantie nella harmonia maravigliosamente consonare. Ma
non voglio per6 che altri intendano
quello che tu ignorante intendi, cio[e]
che queste siano la terza mazor e minore e la sexta similmente cum le sue composite: perch6 quelle da si medesime sonano benissimo. Ma io
dico lo tono e lo semitonio e la quarta
e lo tritono e la septima mazore e
minore. E questa tale e chiamata
bona mistura e bona harmonia (149i,
fol. EIII-IIIv).
they make by concording together,
because if they do not move, even if there are four voices, it is not called
harmony but consonances, and this is what Lactantius, in chapter 16 of De opificio Dei, means when he says
"Musicians say that harmony is a
tension of voice in perfect measures
without any blunders in
nances," as if he said until the end of
the song. .. ." Harmony is the
ture of consonances and dissonances
in a composition, because it is quite
true that good composers exert
selves to make dissonances
ously consonant in harmony. But I
don't want others to understand that
which you ignoramus understand, that is that these are the major and minor sixth and their compounds, because these sound very good by
themselves. But I mean the tone and semitone and the fourth and tritone
and major and minor seventh. That
is called good mixture and good
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
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 mony is a principle, not a system of chordal analysis, and it can exist21 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" (1975, 74). In the 1471 edition that I examined, Lactantius gives nervorum instead 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, i6). 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
in music that is contrapuntally or chordally conceived. If Spataro's failure to mention triads disappoints a number of scholars, it should
not; Spataro (as all his contemporaries) simply took them for granted.
Spataro's definition of harmony is valuable because it puts into technical terms a concept that had theretofore been treated rather generally. Tinctoris defined armonia as "a certain pleasantness caused
by a combining of sound,""23 and he equated it with euphony (eufonia
idem est quod armonia).24 Ramos sharpened the definition by guishing between harmony and music:
Harmoniam atque musicam idem
esse multi credunt, verum nos longe aliter sentimus. Ex quorundam enim
musicorum sententiis longa
investigatione collegimus niam concordium vocum esse mixtionem, musicam vero ipsius
concordiae rationem sive perpensam et subtilem cum ratione indaginem (Ramos I901, 3).25
Many believe that harmony and
sic are the same, but we have a far different opinion. From the
ments of certain musicians through
long investigation we deduce that harmony is the mixture of
dant voices, music however the sideration of these concords or a
careful and subtle investigation by
means of reason.
Ramos distinguishes between music as sound and music as scientia in
a parallel to the distinction between cantor and musicus.
Later writers, such as Burzio and Gaffurio, add their own shades
of meaning to harmony. Had he not regarded Gaffurio as his
opponent, Spataro might have seized upon Gaffurio's "Harmonia est discordia concors" as the epitome of his theory, although Gaffurio
23 "Armonia est amenitas quedam ex convenienti sono causata," in his Terminorum
musicae ddifnitorium.
24 He also equated melody with harmony (melodia idem est quod armonia; melos idem 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, "Euphonia bei 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 cally and melodically a certain proportional character" and Tinctoris may have made this equation by basing himself on the phenomenon of proportion. Kurt von Fischer
noted that symphonia est harmonia goes 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 1981, 625.
25 Spataro accused Burzio of stealing this quotation from Ramos and crediting it
to Boethius (1491, fol. E IIIv). Indeed Ramos has clearly modeled his definition of music after Boethius's definition of a musician.
used it only in the general musical and philosophical sense.26 Nicola
Vicentino follows Burzio in believing that harmony can only be
produced by three or more voices, for "a duo is deprived of
mony."27 But the general concept of harmony as the perfect ordering of elements continues to be used throughout the succeeding century,
and indeed until today. The multiplicity of definitions developed
when theorists began to read Greek sources in translation, for in them
they discovered different meanings of harmonia, one of the most problematic terms in Greek music as well, having both a general and a technical meaning.28 Perhaps the discussion of musical harmony
began even earlier in the century, on the initiative of early humanists.
Willem Elders, during the Symposium on "Humanism and Music" at
the 1977 Berkeley Congress, suggested that Dufay's ceremonial motet Supremum est mortalibus, composed for the signing of a peace treaty
between Pope Eugenius IV and the Emperor Sigismundus in 1433,
shows the influence of rhetorical thought in its clear text setting and the fauxbourdon passages, which he links with "the possible influence
of ancient philosophy, in particular that of Plutarch" (Elders I981,
886). He referred to moral texts, the Moralia, the Coniugalia praecepta, the De amicorum multitudine, and the De tranquillitate animi, in all of
which Plutarch uses harmony as a philosophical concept. Thomas Mathiesen, at the same occasion, suggested that a more significant source might be pseudo-Plutarch's De musica, which treats music in
technical as well as philosophical terms. The treatise (considered
authentic at the time) exists in a number of fourteenth- andcentury manuscripts, although not, as far as we know, in a Latin
translation before 1507 (Mathiesen 1981, 89o-9i). One can well
imagine that the humanists were eager to discuss these matters with
26 The motto appears in a banderole over Gaffurio's head in the woodcut gracing his De harmonia musicorum instrumentorum of 1518. 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, 17).
27 "Si d& 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 1976. On the impact of the newly discovered Greek sources on Renaissance theorists, see Palisca 1985, esp. chapter 8, "Harmonies and
educated musicians such as Dufay and Ciconia and curious to know what possible parallels there were with contemporary music.29 4. Zarlino's Theory of Harmony
Spataro's inclusion of dissonance in the concept of harmony must have puzzled many; for a long time this novel idea, stated in 1491,
seems to have had no consequence. It is only when we come to
Zarlino that we find the first substantial theory of harmony in sixteenth-century music. In chapter I2 of Book II of his Istitutioni harmoniche, entitled "Quel che sia Consonanza, Dissonanza, Harmonia & Melodia," Zarlino sets forth his ideas:
Ne solamente si ritrovano due suoni
tra loro distanti per il grave et per
l'acuto, che consuonino; ma tali anco si
odono molte fiate tramezati da altri
suoni, che rendeno soave concento,
come e manifesto; et sono contenuti da
pii proportioni; perb li Musici
chiamano tal compositione Harmonia. Onde si de avertire, che l'Harmonia si
ritrova di due sorti: l'una delle quali
chiamaremo Propia, et I'altra Non
propia. La Propia 6 quella, che
descrive Lattantio Firmiano, in quello
dell'Opera di Dio dicendo: I Musici
nominano propiamente Harmonia il concento di chorde, o di voci
consonanti nelli lor modi, senza offesa alcuna delle orecchie; intendendo per
questa il concento, che nasce dalle
modulationi, che fanno le parti di
ciascuna cantilena, per fino a tanto che
siano pervenute al fine. Harmonia propia adunque e mistura di suoni gravi, et di acuti, tramezati, o non
Nor do we find only two sounds
distinguished by high and low that sound together, but we often hear
them mediated by other sounds,
sulting in a sweet concord, as is
manifest, and they are comprised of
several proportions. Therefore the
musicians call this arrangement mony." It should be noted that there are two kinds of harmony: "proper"
and "not proper." Proper is the one described by Lactantius Firmianus
in his De opificio Dei as follows:
sicians call harmony properly the
concord of strings or voices that are consonant in their measures, without any offense of the ears," meaning by this the concord that arises from the
movements that the parts of each
song make until they reach the end. Proper harmony is therefore a
ture of high and low sounds,
ated or unmediated, that strikes the
29 Mathiesen suggests that Leonardo Bruni, who made extensive translations from Plutarch, could have introduced the De musica to Dufay; three fourteenth- and several fifteenth-century manuscripts containing the treatise are still in Florence (1981, 891). On the translation of the De musica, by Carlo Valgulio, see Palisca 1985, i6-i7, 88, and 105-10. 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 percuote soavemente il senso; et nasce dalle parti di ciascuna
cantilena, per il proceder che fanno
accordandosi insieme fino a tanto, che siano pervenute al fine; et ha possanza di dispor l'animo a diverse passioni. Et questa Harmonia non solamente nasce dalle consonanze; ma dalle dissonanze
ancora: percioche i buoni Musici
pongono ogni studio di fare, che nelle Harmonie le dissonanze accordino, et che con maraviglioso effetto
nino; Di maniera che noi la potemo
considerare in due modi, cioZ Perfetta,
et Imperfetta: La Perfetta, quando si ritrovano molte parti in una cantilena, che vadino cantando insieme, di modo che le parti estreme siano tramezate
dall'altre, et la Imperfetta, quando solamente due parti vanno cantando insieme, senza esser tramezate da
alcun'altra parte. La Non propia e
quella, che h6 dichiarato di sopra,30 la quale pidi presto si pu6 chiamare
moniosa consonanza, che Harmonia:
conciosia che non contiene in se alcuna
modulatione; ancora che habbia gli
estremi tramezati da altri suoni: et non
ha possanza alcuna di dispor l'animo a
diverse passioni, come l'Harmonia
detta Propia, la quale di molte
monie Non propie si compone (p. 8o).
sense of hearing sweetly, and it sults from the parts of each song
through the proceeding they make in
accord with each other until they arrive at the end, and it has the power to move the soul to various
passions. And this harmony not only
arises from consonances, but also from dissonances, because good
sicians strive to make the dissonances
accord in the harmonies, and that
they sound together with marvelous effect. Thus we can consider it in
two ways, perfect and imperfect:
perfect when there are many parts in a song that go together in such a way that the outer parts are mediated by the others, and imperfect when only two parts sing together, with no
diating part. "Not proper" is that
described above,30 which could more readily be called "harmonious
nance" than harmony, since it tains no movement in itself, even though the extreme sounds are
diated by other sounds, and it has no
power at all to dispose the soul to
various passions, as does proper
mony, which is composed of many
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
renders with the term modulatione. He then recasts the same definition in sixteenth-century terms. Proper harmony consists of a mixture of
high and low sounds, mediated or unmediated, consonant and
dissonant, as they progress from the beginning to the end.31 If there are three or more parts, the harmony is perfect (here Zarlino agrees with Burzio and Vicentino). If there are only two parts, there is still harmony, but it is imperfect (thus embracing Spataro's definition ofharmony). Not-proper harmony is single consonances, whether
ple or mediated, and might better be called "harmonious consonance." It is not proper harmony because there is no movement.32
Zarlino is chary in citing contemporaneous theorists, a trait he has
in common with most of his colleagues. This does not mean that he
did not read them. I believe it can be demonstrated that the preceding
31 In view of this passage, I do not understand how Carl Dahlhaus can claim that "Die Dissonanz wurde im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert nicht 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" (Jeppesen's term for syncopation dissonances) until the end of the sixteenth century ("Die
Dissonanzen erwahnt er nicht; sie wurden erst im spiten 16. und im 17. Jahrhundert als 'primires' Phanomen des Kontrapunkts begriffen"; ibid., p. I14). As theoretical
support for his contention Dahlhaus quotes Giovanni Maria Bononcini: "II
Contrapunto e una artificiosa disposizione 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 rationalization of its presence, not a characterization of its effect. As soon as theorists begin to describe syncopation dissonances and their proper placement, dissonance is truly viewed as a "contrast and
opposition." I believe that Knud Jeppesen was correct in viewing syncopation dissonance as a primary phenomenon dating back to around 14oo and passing
dissonance as a secondary one originating earlier (Jeppesen 1946, 94-95).
The real innovation in dissonance treatment, forcefully stated in Galilei's
counterpoint treatise of 1590, 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 1980, 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" (1962, 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.)
COMPOSITIONAL PROCESS IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 231I passage was written with a copy of Spataro's Honesta defensio under his
eyes. The quotation from Lactantius could have been taken from Burzio as well as Spataro (he has, however, consulted the original),
but Zarlino has incorporated in his recasting of Lactantius's definition
a phrase added by Spataro-"quasi dicat finche e finita la cantilena." Even more telling is the following passage, in which each theorist
stresses the importance of dissonance to harmony:
Spataro Zarlino
Harmonia sie la mistura che si fa nel Et questa Harmonia non solamente canto de consonantie e dissonantie, nasce dalle consonanze; ma dalle
perche 1'e ben vero che ii boni sonanze ancora: percioche i buoni Musici pongono ogni studio di fare,
compositori se affaticano per fare le che nelle harmonie le dissonanze dissonantie nella harmonia maravi- cordino, et che con maraviglioso
gliosamente consonare. fetto consuonino.
And further, in distinguishing harmony from consonance:
Spataro Zarlino
harmonia se dice considerando il la Non propia [harmonia] ... piu'
procedere che fanno inseme concor- presto si pub chiamare Harmoniosa consonanza, che Harmonia:
dando: perch se non se moveno, sia che non contiene in se alcuna benche siano quatro, non si dice modulatione; ancora che habbia gli harmonia ma consonantie. estremi tramezati da altri suoni.
If Spataro was a voice crying in the wilderness, Zarlino heard it and gave his ideas consequence.33 In chapter 27 of the third book of
the Istitutioni harmoniche, 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] harmony is composed principally of consonances.
theless, for greater beauty and charm dissonances are used, incidentally and secondarily. Although these dissonances are not pleasing in isolation, when they are properly placed according to the precepts to be given, the ear not only endures them but derives great pleasure and 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 Honesta defensio in 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
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 ...
quasi dello 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 stood very well the function of dissonance.35
Let us go back once more to Spataro's remark, "And even without
studying the precepts of counterpoint everyone is a master of 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 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
34 The 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 1968, 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.
15 Claude Palisca has provided a thoughtful explanation of Zarlino's terminology in the Introduction to The Art 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 "improper harmony" 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 harmonia propria 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. Modulatione is a term even more problematic than harmonia, especially in the sixteenth century. Zarlino defines it as "un movimento fatto da un suono all'altro per 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
