Counterpoint

[Larry Rinkel]

Today i just listened to 6 hours straight of Renaissance polyphony (sprinkled with some Romantic stuff). I must be crazy or something, hu?

Not at all. Good for you, for exploring this less-travelled area.

[Larry Rinkel]

In fact, any time you have more than one note sounding at the same time, you have counterpoint.

Maybe so, but there are distinctions in the way counterpoint has been used within various periods and compositional styles; and there's a significant difference between two or more independent voices as found in a Bach invention and a subsidiary inner voice in a Chopin nocturne.

[Larry Rinkel]

I come to wonder if its important for me to learn any of this stuff. When I am fully immersed in a piece of music, I don't think to myself 1st theme 2nd theme development section...Im just following every note mentally. I know the development section is different but I don't really care about comparing it to the exposition, nor if the recap happens to be different.

It is not obligatory to "learn any of this stuff," but it can be wonderfully illuminating if you take the time and effort. Why do you feel so incurious as to not want to learn any of this stuff?

[Larry Rinkel]

admit it people, counterpoint sucks! who would want to listen to 20 minutes of counterpoint? utterly pointless, it's no accident that it went out of the fashion.

but, i don't mind composers using a little contrapuntal stuff in their symphonies though.

It never went out of fashion. It is essential to almost all music.

[Larry Rinkel]

Upper melody line  D   Db   C   Bb   A   Bb
Harmony              Bb  Bb   G   Eb   Eb  D
                          G    G    C   C     C   Bb
Bass melody line   D    Eb   E   F     F§  G
Pedal                   D    D    D   D    D   D

or the following rather bitter resolution to Db major (R.H part):
                          Dd        C    Bb    Ab    Gb   F      Eb Db
                          Ab     DbF EbC Db D Bb G AbGGbCGb F   

Is this from an actual piece?

[FideLeo]

Bach scorned those he called the "Knights of the Keyboard," who composed only on the keyboard (harpsichord, in his day) without any understanding of harmony that comes from the study of vocal music and counterpoint.

Which composers were the "Knights of the Keyboard" in Bach's day?  Evidence of Bach's "scorn" for them?

[Grazioso]

who doesnt like rich harmonies? Bach believed harmony was a gift from God.

Bach's counterpoint was a fluid, expressive harmony, rooted in the contrapuntal tradition, that brings us as close to the divine as art can. That's the big difference between Bach and stuff that followed, the aspirations and ideals had changed. Its was never about an ego centric expression, pomp, bombast, being grandious, blatent emotionalism, self pity set to music, frivolous, calculated & overt dramatic displays etc...for the most part music after Bach aspired to only earthly greatness, and lacks the deep understanding and meaning we find in Bach. Even at the end of his life, Bach went out of fashion in favor for more simpler & artifical forms like the minuet, even his sons embraced the simpler Classical style...but Bach wasnt bothered by this change because he didnt write music for people, he wrote it for a much higher ideal. Bach's glory comes from the fact that he was the only great instrumentalist to arise out of a vocal tradition of harmony and to preserve the great understanding and respect for the fluidity of vocal harmony that comes from the knowledge of counterpoint. This is why Bach's music can be transposed and set on many different instruments. ...Bach scorned those he called the "Knights of the Keyboard," who composed only on the keyboard (harpsichord, in his day) without any understanding of harmony that comes from the study of vocal music and counterpoint. Beethoven for instance, began to write for the orchestra and for the piano in a way that Bach never really did, regardless of how technically difficult his writing may ever have become. Beethoven composed music for the piano that would be very difficult to perform on other instruments, because he began to write for the piano's needs instead of for the music's. Subtlety in harmony was lost. And Beethoven (and all other great composers) greatly appreciated the depth of Bach's harmony but never aspired to that himself. Despite this & more importantly, however, Bach also aspired to capture the divine in his work. Above many of his scores is written, Soli Deo Gloria, To God alone be the glory.

Bruckner?

It would seem that in your haste to generalize about post-Bach composers, you may be selling some of their ideals and motivations short. One mountain, many paths to the top. Different people strive for and express their experience of the divine in different ways. (And surely a spiritual person can find the divine in all things.) You seem to be saying more about yourself here than about Bach or other composers.

Recall, too, that Bach composed plenty of secular works for secular patrons and displayed notable interest in secular Italianate instrumental music.

The fact that other composers wrote more for specific instruments (or instrumental groupings) in no way implies any loss of harmonic richness. If anything, the specific blending of certain tone colors can amplify the effects of harmonies.

[Bonehelm]

Bruckner?

It would seem that in your haste to generalize about post-Bach composers, you may be selling some of their ideals and motivations short. One mountain, many paths to the top. Different people strive for and express their experience of the divine in different ways. (And surely a spiritual person can find the divine in all things.) You seem to be saying more about yourself here than about Bach or other composers.

Recall, too, that Bach composed plenty of secular works for secular patrons and displayed notable interest in secular Italianate instrumental music.

The fact that other composers wrote more for specific instruments (or instrumental groupings) in no way implies any loss of harmonic richness. If anything, the specific blending of certain tone colors can amplify the effects of harmonies.

Bruckner does sound more "divine" than Bach, IMO.

[Mozart]

It is not obligatory to "learn any of this stuff," but it can be wonderfully illuminating if you take the time and effort. Why do you feel so incurious as to not want to learn any of this stuff?

If I wasn't curious, I wouldn't have started the topic. 

[Ten thumbs]

Is this from an actual piece?

My examples are from two actual pieces, written 1843 and 1846. The first is Fanny Hensel's Allegro agitato in g minor from Ms86 and the second her posthumously published Op8 no3 (subtitled Lenau).
My dictionary defines homophony as music in which the individual lines making up the harmony have no independent significance, that is, for most purposes chordal. This is not true for most Romantic music but neither is it polyphonic. I'm not certain of the term for melody generated music but it is a style that certainly includes plenty of counterpoint. It should be noted that even broken chord figuration in this period is usually full of significant melodic elements.

[paul]

That's true. The Vienese classic era gave pretty much up baroque counterpoint in order to simplify the music.

There was no simplification of the music, just a different emphasis on the homophonic aspect of music. To better understand the reactions against the baroque style (including the way counterpoint was used), one must understand that the classical style was an attempt to inject a form of worldy naturalness into music instead of what the time period viewed as overbloated romanticism in the baroque style.

[jochanaan]

...I'm not certain of the term for melody generated music...

Monody refers to music in which a single line predominates over a rhythmic-harmonic background.  But there isn't much purely monodic music; often the bass line or one of the other "subservient" voices is almost equal to the "melody" in melodic interest.  That's why I always emphasize that counterpoint isn't limited to Bach-like imitative counterpoint.

Mozart, believe it or not, I actually LIKE--I'd even go so far as to say I LOVE--imitative counterpoint!  I love the way a Bach fugue starts simple and builds step by step, entrance by entrance, into a joyous torrent of sheer music.  And by the way, so did your namesake; just look at the imitative counterpoint in the Jupiter symphony or the Requiem or the Fantasy for Mechanical Organ.

[Ten thumbs]

By 'melody generated music' I mean where most if not all the notes relate to melodic incipits. One composer who notably upheld this principal was Medtner. Most lieder is not monodic because there are at least two streams of melody.

[jochanaan]

By 'melody generated music' I mean where most if not all the notes relate to melodic incipits...

Say again?  In a good composition every note is related to every other note...

If you have harmony at all, you have counterpoint.  In some compositions one of the "melodies" dominates; but it is never the only thing of interest.  (Even in Bach's unaccompanied sonatas and partitas for violin and flute there is much implied harmony and some imitative counterpoint.)  Maybe I'm more aware of this because I play an instrument, the oboe, that has both melodic and harmonic parts assigned to it--or maybe it's because my first favorite composer was JSB--but it's there in all music whether the composer, performers, or listeners are aware of it.  Every part is potentially dominant.

Look at a score by Mozart or Beethoven.  It is not only the melody, or the first violin part, that's perfectly constructed; all the inner parts show the same perfection and might stand on their own as melodies.  This is both harmony and counterpoint, and it is why, in a sense, all great composers are masters of counterpoint.  (Unless they choose to write unaccompanied solos exclusively. )

[karlhenning]

Most lieder is not monodic because there are at least two streams of melody.

You are confusing monody with monophony.

[Montpellier]

Sorry, but that's wrong.

Have to agree.  Who could claim that Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht doesn't contain counterpoint? 

[Ten thumbs]

Say again?  In a good composition every note is related to every other note...

Clearly so. All I meant was that all notes are melodic and not merely harmonic. Therefore the music is not homophonic. Neither is it polyphonic, monodic or monophonic. I was merely querying whether or not there was a term for this.

[greg]

i didn't see a link on here, for this, so i might as well put it up:

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/wtc.html

The ULTIMATE counterpoint site, anyone interested has to check it out

[greg]

Beethoven, Mahler and Mozart had written counterpoint on par with Bach.

on par..... well...... if you define "on par" as being "good/to your liking/enjoyable" then it's possible. But I don't think anyone has ever done the things Bach has done with counterpoint, his is definetely the most complex. And then after him, in terms of complexity, Webern and maybe Hindemith?

[jochanaan]

Clearly so. All I meant was that all notes are melodic and not merely harmonic. Therefore the music is not homophonic. Neither is it polyphonic, monodic or monophonic. I was merely querying whether or not there was a term for this.

I had a point to my teasing comments, and that was to shine a light on the way distinctions in music tend to be indistinct.  Textures change fast, sometimes several times in a measure.  I know of almost no composition that's exclusively monodic, or homophonic, or contrapuntal, or any other texture.  (Even fugues usually start with one voice--monophonic for the first few measures! )