Tonality and Atonality in Sixteenth-Century Music [2nd printing, Reprint 2020 ed.] 9780520335257

Citation preview

Tonality and zAtonality in Sixteenth-Qentury zJiitusic

EDWARD E. L O W I N S K Y

Tonality and ^tonality in Sixteenth - Qentury JMusic With a Foreword

by IGOR S T R A V I N S K Y

U N I V E R S I T Y OF C A L I F O R N I A Berkeley and Los Angeles 1962

PRESS

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California Cambridge University Press London, England © 1961 by The Regents of the University of California Second Printing, 1962 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 61-7529 Manufactured in the United States of America Designed by Adrian Wilson The illustration on the cover and title page is from the Trattato della natura et cognitione di tutti gli tuoni by Pietro Aron ( Venice, Bernardino de Vitali, 152$), by courtesy of Frank de Bellis.

the ^hCemory of z.Alfred Einstein

Foreword is a study in the harmonic logic of those sixteenth-century maestri whose musical explorations led them beyond the confines of modality and to the discovery of the "free" harmonic world, which, however cut and patterned, is still the harmonic field of the composer today. Professor Lowinsky's book is also a study of the emergence and growth of modern—eighteenth-century major and minor mode—"tonality," of the devices that support the great suspension bridge forms of classical sonata music. "Cadence tonality" is examined, of course, and its extension backwards, so to speak, to corresponding points of harmonic rest. The frottola and the villancico are studied for their role in the development of "tonality" (Professor Lowinsky shows the Spanish form to have been more flexible than the Italian, incidentally). But to me the most interesting point in Professor Lowinsky's exposition is that the development of tonality is allied with the development of dance music, that is, with instrumental forms. The musical examples indicate that as early as 1500 certain forms of dance music required the repetition of the cadence "key" at other points in the form. "Repetition and symmetry may or may not occur in modal music, but they are part and parcel of tonality," Professor Lowinsky concludes. "Together with regular accentuation they are, of course, an integral part of the art of dance . . ." (May I suggest a comparison PROFESSOR L O W I N S K Y ' S N E W BOOK

viii

Foreword

with my own use of tonality repetition in ballet scores, versus my development, in Threni, for example, of a kind of "triadic atonality"?) Professor Lowinsky's new book continues his by now well-known arguments in favor of a practical use of equal semi-tone temperament allowing for enharmonic exchanges in the early sixteenth century (an entirely convincing argument to me). It also continues his arguments concerning the association of text and music in the rise of chromaticism. (I am fascinated myself by the whole subject of "tonal images": thus, for example, requited love called for the major mode and unrequited love for the minor in later tonal music, whereas at the beginning of the tonal era such associations were never so certainly fixed. Nevertheless, they were not rigid: Schubert could be unhappy in G major for half an hour with no trouble at all. Incidentally, I have used such images myself, for example, in the false relation of the tritone at falsus pater in Oedipus Rex.) New to me is the discussion of statistics, but I agree absolutely with Professor Lowinsky's conclusion: "As long as it can be shown that the trend was significant at its own time and pregnant with the seed of future developments, it does not seem to me a matter of decisive importance whether it represents, say ten, fifteen, or twenty per cent." Or, indeed, a smaller per cent still. Professor Lowinsky betrays Hegelian tendencies in asserting that "modality" stands for an essentially stable, tonality for an essentially dynamic, view of the world." (And Schonbergian "atonality," the point of view of the flux?) But his cultural-geographic delineations are an important part of the book. He demonstrates that the Flemings were inclined to stick to counterpoint and modality, whereas "the creative im. petus for the new harmonic language and for modern tonality came from Italy . . ." He refers to the well-known French taste for the "wanton" Ionian mode (noticed at least as early as 1529) and comparing German and English virginal literature he concludes that the English is "on a much higher level of artistic ambition." "The English moved in a territory between the old and the new modes and the curious amalgamation of

Foreword

ix

modal and tonal thinking lends the Elizabethan virginal music a richness and fascination all its own." The subject matter of Professor Lowinsky's study is for me perhaps the most exciting in the history of music, his method is the only kind of "writing about music" that I value. IGOR STRAVINSKY

Hollywood, January 27, 1961

Preface not repeat itself, but patterns of historical constellations recur. Part of the fascination of the sixteenth century for the twentieth-century student is the similarity of certain fundamental constellations in two otherwise very dissimilar epochs. The break-up of the one Western Church and the ensuing life and death struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism in the sixteenth century have a resemblance to and a bearing on the East-West conflict of the twentieth century. The crisis of modality in sixteenth-century music resembles in many ways the crisis of tonality in the music of the present. That in both cases political, ideological, and artistic crises are inextricably tied together, is a thesis that can only be suggested here; it must await demonstration in a larger work. H I S T O R Y DOES

Few musical concepts are more open to debate than the terms "tonality" and "atonality." The inherent difficulty in defining concepts so large and so complex is increased by the dispute on the propriety of one of them. Arnold Schonberg considered "atonality" a misnomer, Igor Stravinsky called it an "abusive term." If I, nevertheless, chose this term, I did so not only because it is commonly used and provides, together with the term "tonality," a framework of initial orientation, but also because I know of no other phenomena in the history of music that can more pertinently be compared with modern atonality than those of

xii

Preface

the sixteenth century described here by the paradoxical term "triadic atonality." Moreover, as long as an attempt is made to define the terms used, the choice of terms is of secondary importance. It is entirely legitimate for the theorist to define the terms of his art as fixed conceptual entities. The historian, however, tends to regard them as living things with embryonic beginnings and a slow and often surprising evolution—evolution in the sense of a clarification and maturation of artistic principles rather than in that of a development from the simple to the complex and the sophisticated. Indeed, in certain obvious ways, modality is much richer in resources than is the major-minor system. The terms "tonality" and "atonality" then will be treated not as rigid concepts but as principles of musical organization that reveal themselves "progressively"—again no value judgment is implied—in their application to the problems of form and style of succeeding generations. Basically, "tonality" stands for a tonally centered organization, "atonality" for a tonally acentric organization of music, "floating tonality" for an area between these two poles, neither prevailingly centric nor acentric, but mixing both tendencies in fusions of varying proportions and felicitousness. A glance at the entry "tonality" in the index may be instructive of the variety of view points from which this concept will be explored. This study is an outgrowth of a paper on "Awareness of Tonality in the Sixteenth Century" commissioned by and written for the Congress of the International Musicological Society scheduled to meet in N e w York in the fall of 1961. Since I felt unable to do justice to the topic in the confines of a Congress paper, I yielded to the temptation to abandon work on a larger project in favor of clarifying the issues provoked by the intensely interesting subject assigned to me by the program committee of the Congress. I am indebted to the chairman of that committee, Professor Donald Grout of Cornell University, for his encouragement to elaborate on the subject in a monograph and for his permission to incorporate in it the results of my paper. This essay was conceived and written at one go, so that it might be published before the international meeting. A generous grant from the Bollingen Foundation enabled me to write without interruption—a rare

Preface

xiii

privilege for the academic scholar and one for which I am profoundly grateful. M y colleagues, Professor Lawrence Moe and Daniel Heartz aided me liberally, the latter by sharing with me the burden of proofreading and by making various helpful suggestions, the former by putting his transcriptions of Italian lute music at my disposal (examples 45, 46, 47 are his transcriptions). Monsieur Michel Podolski of Brussels favored me with his transcription of Dalza's pavane (ex. 44). Miss Sylvia Kramer gave selflessly of her time and skills and prepared the music examples with such care that they could be used for photographic reproduction, although they were not originally intended for that purpose. The University of California Press, and in particular Miss Lucie E. N . Dobbie, its energetic and resourceful Executive Editor, are responsible for having this study published in time for the Congress and for giving it an attractive format. Mr. Frank de Bellis of San Francisco put a number of sixteenth-century treatises from his magnificent library freely and generously at my disposal. My wife, perennial collaborator in all my scholarly enterprises, prepared the typescript and helped me in ways too numerous to mention. T o all of them I wish to convey my sincere gratitude. E. E. L. Berkeley, December 21,

i960

Çontents Introduction I Frottola and Villancico II From Dunstable to Josquin and Palestrina

i 3 15

III The Theorist's View

33

IV Floating Tonality and Atonality in Sixteenth-Century Music

38

V Consolidation of Tonality in Balletto and Lute Ayre VI Tonality in Dance Music VII Tonality and Statistics

51 62 72

Conclusion

75

Notes

79

Addendum

95

Index

97

Introduction

of the sixteenth century was for the greatest part conceived within the framework of the church modes. In it we find neither tonality nor atonality in the later sense of the terms. Yet we meet with phenomena—indeed, with whole repertories—which do not fit into the traditional system of the eight modes but show, often in an astonishing manner, préfigurations of tonal, and even atonal, thinking. It is the purpose of this study to examine these two strands in the texture of musical thought and practice in the sixteenth century. T H E MUSIC

The three traditions cannot always be neatly separated. The idea that polyphonic composition was ever conceived within terms of "pure modality" is sheer fiction. The written image of polyphonic music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance conceals the inroads of a nascent feeling of tonality upon the modal structure. For these inroads were made largely in performance through observation of rules of musica ficta, which were an integral part of the treatment of cantus figuratus in the textbooks dealing with the practice of composition and performance. The subsemitone at cadence point 1 changing a whole tone to a leading tone in Dorian and Mixolydian cadences, the B-flat in the Lydian mode resulting from the prohibition of the tritone, the flattening of the sixth degree in the Dorian mode according to the rule una nota supra la semper est i

2

Introduction

canendum fa, the raising of the third in final cadences—these are various ways in which modal purity yielded to the blandishments of an emerging feeling for tonality. Dorian came closer to minor, Lydian and Mixolydian approached major.

I

Frottola and Villancico

of melodic changes of modal degrees by musica ficta was powerfully supported by the emerging sense of harmony as the basis of polyphonic composition. Successive invention of voices gave place to simultaneous conception of triadic harmony with the root in the bass.1 Early illustrations can be found in the Italian polyphonic lauda, the falsobordone, and the frottola; in the Spanish villancico; and in works of Netherlanders living in Italy. The musical definition of the mode is given through the cadence.2 The rules of musica ficta operate with particular force in the cadence, which is the place in which the inroads of tonal thinking upon modal practice can be most conveniently studied. A favorite cadence is the one in which the subtonic takes the place of subdominant: V I I b - V I I I - V - I . This cadence appears in a major version (Mixolydian, ex. i, a) and in a minor version (Dorian, ex. i , b ) . 3 THE

i, a.

f 4 r\. o J

EFFECT

Mixolydian cadence *

o o -e-

i ,b.

J %

o

o —

©

—

y' X»

Dorian cadence — % -

& S—

-ea o

#

-8— o o

-Ooo

4 Frottola and Villancico It is to be found in Dufay's motet Nuper rosarum * written for the dedication of the cathedral dome in Florence in 1436; there it is the second part, the contratenor, which is the actual bass. But in the Missa L'homme armé,6 written about twenty years later, most movements end in the minor version of the cadence in the normal four-part order of voices. A feeling for tonality manifests itself first in the consolidation of a tonic. The cadence is the cradle of tonality. The smaller a musical form is, the more important the cadence is in creating a feeling of tonal definition. If we take the Dorian cadence and repeat it, we get the strongest possible concentration on a tonic within the smallest musical form (ex. 2, a). The sense of logical conclusion is strengthened when the second cadence has greater force than the first one. This can be realized by inserting a subdominant into the last measure (ex. 2, b). The phrase is still rather monotonous owing to the unrelieved repetition, but if one single chord in the second phrase is replaced—an F major chord substituted for the D minor in measure five—the phrase gains in fluency (ex. 3). What we i,a.

Dorian cadence extended

-0*— —

rv.

g

* •

\

m S ' MS

j f = i

m

m

—é—-- b 1

£

H H —j—

0.

= H

2,

C c

•

b.

i 3. Passamezzo anttco E Z2n

r

5

Frottola and Villancico

now have is the famous passamezzo antico bass, and the evolution outlined here reflects the actual historical development.8 Otto Gombosi has shown the immense effect of this simple bass pattern upon the flourishing dance literature of Italy, Germany, and France. The passamezzo antico bass was, according to his brilliant analysis, the matrix of Romanesca and folia, and Italy was the home of all ostinato patterns.7 The point I wish to make here is this: the passamezzo antico has its origin in the four-chord Dorian cadence described above; it is, in fact, nothing but a repeated cadence—the repeat being slightly varied. If the cadence may be regarded as the cradle of tonality, the ostinato patterns can be considered the playground in which it grew strong and self-confident. Recent research has attempted to show that these bass patterns originated not in Italy but in Spain and are at least one generation older than Gombosi realized. Georg Reichert quotes the Spanish song set to the folia bass, the Gíiárdame las vacas8 from Salinas' De música. He adduces the Spanish theorist as authority for the statement that the Italians took over Spanish melodies for certain of their dances.® But it remained for John Ward to show that the Cancionero musical de Palacio contained no fewer than seventeen compositions based on some variant of the passamezzo antico.10 This was a surprising discovery. It may be possible to add at least five,11 perhaps even seven,12 pieces to this repertory. The Cancionero includes an even greater number of pieces written over simple bass patterns such as Ponce's Allá se me ponga el sol13 (ex. 4). 4. Ponce, Allá

se me ponga el sol

If 2"i ¿ ¡ ¿MiMirj 5 T y4 L0— ' — — p A--lid Antes

se me pon-qael sol aun. mf. mii.-rie cr n Don--de mn ¡tatenqo el a-

—

mor.

J

n

,or

-

Fin

m /7> Si/

A—llá se Do misa

me pu--sie mo— res vie

m JLJL o

—

?

se

00 i —o *

—

De.

6

Frottola and Villancico

Such pieces—and the example given is representative—demonstrate the closeness of Dorian to modern minor 14 and the composer's interest in elaborating a clear tonic. Part of this advanced attitude is the surprisingly free treatment of dissonance: a five-six chord set against the tonic (measure 2), and the dominant chord likewise set against the tonic in the bass (measure 8). Such procedures illustrate the composer's interest in chordal progressions that receive their sanction not from laws of intervallic counterpoint but from a harmonic sense based on an astonishingly early feeling for tonal logic. Viewed within this framework, the ostinato bass patterns become an organic part of the emergence of harmony and of tonality. This is why it seems to me unlikely that a direct bond can be discovered between the basse dance of the fifteenth and ostinato patterns of the sixteenth century. The basse dance, written in black notes of equal duration, was a skeleton tune which, in polyphonic arrangements, functioned as a cantus firmus in the tenor. In its monodic use it was realized in diverging rhythmic patterns according to the choreographic requirements of the various dance forms. The ostinato patterns in the bass could not be used as monodic tunes, they either appeared in association with a specific discant tune or gave rise to a variety of melodies, but they always functioned as harmonic basses. The basse dance and the ostinato patterns are representatives of fifteenth-century cantus firmus and sixteenth-century harmonic practice. Any similarity found between the two types could be only marginal and coincidental, since the character and function of the two types differ radically. The question whether the ostinato patterns originated in Spain or in Italy should be studied in the larger perspective of the rise of harmony and tonality. The real problem of the originality of the villancico seems to me to lie less in the Franco-Flemish 15 than in the Italian influence on the Spanish form. Barbieri has established four concordances of the Cancionero with Ottaviano Petrucci's frottole prints.16 Knud Jeppesen 17 and Walter Rubsamen 18 found three more concordances with Petrucci and one frottola without concordance. This adds up to eight frottole in the Spanish collection. In addition, Isabel Pope discovered

Frottola and Villancico

7

the fascinating example of a Spanish contrafactum of an Italian secular song. Her thesis that the three-part version of the Montecassino manuscript 19 precedes the four-part elaboration in the Cancionero20 is completely convincing. The Petrucci prints contain no similar concordances with the Spanish repertory. Johannes Urrede's Nunca fué pena mayor with which the Cancionero musical de Palacio opens is included in Petrucci's Odhecaton.21 But, far from representing a typical villancico, this composition shows a Netherlandish physiognomy in every respect. This is not surprising in view of the fact that the composer, although chapel master of King Ferdinand, was a native of Bruges.22 The one typically Spanish piece in Petrucci's sixth book of frottole, the anonymous Venimos en romería,23 has no concordances with the Spanish repertory and has been ascribed tentatively to a Spanish composer at the Papal Chapel in Rome, Juan Escribano.24 Although both frottola and villancico have their own unmistakable national individuality,25 there is an undeniable relationship between the two, which was already observed in passing by Hugo Riemann 28 and, in more detail, by Walter Rubsamen.27 Indeed, the Italian frottole contain many pieces written over simple bass patterns similar to those used in the villancicos mentioned above. Compare the bass melody of Escobar's Las mis penas, madre (Anglés, no. 59) with Michael's Sempre le come esser sole (Petrucci, Libro I, no. 35, Cesari, p. 28) (ex. 5). The bass patterns of the frottola are as a rule less 5, a. Escobar, Las mis penas, madre ¿V!

V

v >

b ?, — "i

•

*

^

? 7 i—f

7

y

»•

9-

•

P

s

».

—,±=t= P

1

r-¡h

—Ir*-;

-t

1—E

4

Frottola and j, b. O:

Villancico

Michael [Pesenti], Sempre le come esser sole f?—

a1 » — 1 — • # 1

f

—

c

C

'

—f —

£

P

e

5

ry-— / b •

1

r

c

r , 1 < i— £J 1

r r

p

—

~\r •

•

a

10 b

tf

i

g 15

i»—^

ig—Í 20

f

T

r

•—*

N

mm frozen than their Spanish counterparts. A sonnet by N . P. in Petrucci's fourth book of frottole28 has the variant of a passamezzo antico shown in example 6. In the first book 2 9 a simpler variant is given (ex. 7). The 6. N.[icolo] P.[ifaro], Sonetto: Pensa donna, chel tempo S > 1

O'C

£

« 15

i

9 -T—J Tenor

Q

II «N

—1

if 0 - J—f-|—1—6 / j r 1d r

0

JO I

40 0

-j 0—

1—p 1J r

a

fbz^j

0

.

0——0—J—U 0 1 f M ^ * „ " r~—J—s— * f -Í

Frottola and Villancico

9

beginning of the frottola by Don Michael Vicentino Che farala che dirala30 is set over a bass that outspokenly resembles the passamezzo antico pattern (ex. 8). A lute arrangement of the song is given in Capirola's lute book.31 MS Perugia 431 ( G 20) of the late fifteenth century contains a strambotto by Serafino Aquilano, "celebrated improvisator of popular verse," 32 set to music in a simple homophonic style. The bass of Sufferir so[n] disposto (fols. i2 5 v -i2 6T) shows an early Italian variant of the folia (ex. 9). T w o laude of the Perugia manuscript (Stabat 7.

Marcus Cara Vero[nensis], Ohnè el cor oimè la testa

=F=l=f

O

ÌEEE

O

10

o

¥

^

?

O

0

a

a

o if

p-

9—&

m

o

O

20

£

a

o

o

a Tenor

8. D.[on] Michael V.[icentin 5

Q: $

O

? iO

'7

r

m m

i

a

a

£

if

f

r 20

25

0

£

STS

30

—

I?

Tenor

io

Frottola and Villancico T

maria dolorosa, fol. i2 6 , and O lux immensa, fol. 129*) are also based on folia variants; so is a frottola by Jac. [Giacomo] Fogliano of 1515, La non vuol esser più mia (ex. io). 33 Another example of a frottola based 10.

Jac. [omo] Fogliano, La non vuol esser più mia

—f - - .¿1- B

-r—^-f-

9

—

f-'

•

f—f 10 C

—1—

r

0

—

--p—j

on a folia variant is Bartolomeo Tromboncino's Chi se po slegar from the Frottole de Misser Bortolomio Tro[m]bo[n]cino et de Misser 3 Marcheto Carra * (see chap, v, n. 9). The passamezzo antico bass affording a harmonic progression close to modern minor had its counterpart in the passamezzo moderno bass (ex. 1 1 , « ) yielding harmonic progressions in a clear tonal major, whereas the related "Zefiro (ex. 1 1 , b) is a hybrid between a tonal and a modal 11,«.

^ y ¿j *

o>

Passamezzo moderno

O' 11 ,b.

¿X; j 9 *