twentieth century counterpoint

J3y the Same ^Author THE MUSIC OF I.ISZT TWENTIETH CENTURY COUNTERPOINT A Guide for Students by HUMPHREY SEARLE NEW YORK John de Graff Inc. Copyright 1954 by Vifilliams and Jforgate Ltd* in Great Britain Printed in Great Britain CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE Vli ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix CHAP. I INTRODUCTION I II THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHROMATIC COUNTERPOINT 7 III STRAVINSKY AND EXPANDED DIATONICISM 22 IV MILHAUD AND POLYTONALTTY 32 V BART6K. AND THE FREE USE OF DISSONANCE 44 VI mNDEMTTH AND DIATONICISED CHROMATICISM 55 VII SCHOENBERG AND TWELVE-TONE COMPOSITION Jl VIII SOME INDEPENDENTS Il8 IX CONCLUSION A NEW HYPOTHESIS 132 POSTSCRIPT, 1954 147 BIBLIOGRAPHY 15! DISCOGRAPHY 153 INDEX 157 [...]... 1954) XII of Schoolboys TWENTIETH CENTURY COUNTERPOINT 4 Ex i anticipates the "Kiss" motive in Die Walkiire, (as Philip Heseltine pointed out in his study of Gesualdo 1); yet each part moves quite simply and naturally, mostly by step, and there is only one diminished interval, of a Here the sequence of chords type allowed in every counterpoint treatise Yet an eighteenth or early igth century composer would... though they may look different and do not usually behave hi the same way as their predecessors I have suggested that X A concise account will be found in Mosco Garner's Century Harmony (London 1942) B A Study of Twentieth- TWENTIETH CENTURY COUNTERPOINT 6 in any case a good many of them arise as the result of contrapuntal movement they can still be related to a tonal centre corresponding to the old keynote.. .TWENTIETH CENTURY COUNTERPOINT 2 today has developed out of some feature of the music of his predecessors It is only by understanding this that one can hope to dissect or analyse the different tendencies in modern music; in fact, before embarking on a study of contemporary counterpoint it is absolutely essential for the student to have... where Strauss introduces themes from some of his earlier works A Ex.7 TL- j; ^-=F=^= >^.i-i 12 TWENTIETH CENTURY COUNTERPOINT Though a number of different themes are most ingeniously combined here (no marks for guessing from which works they come!), the passage does not go beyond the normal rules of diatonic counterpoint, except for the occasional sounding of appoggiaturas simultaneously with their resolutions... 'cello TWENTIETH CENTURY COUNTERPOINT l8 In first string quartets and the increases, is often in a perpetual state of modulation; yet his following works, the first two Chamber Symphony, the chromatic element and the music the tonal framework is still observed, and each part moves naturally and logically in its own way Here is an example from the first string quartet (1905) : DEVELOPMENT OF CHROMATIC COUNTERPOINT. .. and therefore there is naturally an almost continuous use of ostinato There are however occasional imitative passages such as Ex 19 [p 24] Here again the counterpoint is extremely simple, and the ostinato provides a solid background* TWENTIETH CENTURY COUNTERPOINT 24 Ex 18 Ex 19 S en 3 "F" n The r r* chorales in "L'Histoire T T du Soldat" I ' i f (1918) do provide writing; but as they are intended more... harmony and counterpoint up to, say, Wagner's day Where do we go from there? We must first try to place ourselves in perspective with the musical history of the last four hundred years This period may be divided into three great epochs The first, beginning in the fifteenth century, and ending with the death of Bach in 1750, may be called a polyphonic period, in the sense that in general counterpoint. .. effort His style tended to become more polyphonic with the years; whereas *A typical quotation from this will be found in Eric Blom, (Musical Pilgrim series, London 1930) The Rose Cavalier 14 TWENTIETH CENTURY COUNTERPOINT the earlier symphonies are constructed mainly in terms of a theme surrounded by subsidiary parts, in the later ones each individual part tends to greater equality with the others... the vertical In this sense he is the forerunner of the whole modern contrapuntal school survey of this transitional period would not be complete (see for instance the Mosco Garner, A cit p i6 TWENTIETH CENTURY COUNTERPOINT without some discussion of the early works of Schoenberg His music from 1908 onwards (the date when he abandoned tonality), is discussed in Chapter VII, but his earlier compositions,... typical of Bach's harmonic procedure; however chromatic his themes may be, he never loses sight of the basic principles of tonality it is (Compare also the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, which 7 TWENTIETH CENTURY COUNTERPOINT 8 contains some astounding harmonic progressions, and also Bach's harmonisation of the chorale "Es ist genug'VThe fact that the twelve-tone composer Alban Berg was able to introduce . have suggested that X A concise account will be found in Mosco Garner's A Study of Twentieth- Century Harmony (London 1942). B 6 TWENTIETH CENTURY COUNTERPOINT in any case a good many of them arise as the result of contra- puntal movement they can still. on new developments himself. In fact there is no break between modern music and that of the past; every element in every work, written by every composer of 2 TWENTIETH CENTURY COUNTERPOINT today has developed out of some feature of the music of his predecessors. It. Chap. XII of Schoolboys "Structural Functions of Harmony" (London, 1954). 4 TWENTIETH CENTURY COUNTERPOINT Ex. i Here the sequence of chords anticipates the "Kiss" motive