[Smt-talk] Doubling the Tone of Resolution

[Olli Väisälä]

Some comments to Dimitar Ninov:

>
>  I do not want to refer to fine examples created by great masters  
> as “breaking a rule”, but as an “expansion of a principle”.

This is a very Schenkerian way of thinking. Substitute "prolongation"  
for "expansion." (See the illuminating discussion in Joseph Dubiel's  
JMT article, "When you are a Beethoven.")

>
> The problem with Fux’s strict counterpoint would not be so big if  
> some musicians did not take his rules literally, even within the  
> 16th century counterpoint. Palestrina’s music is freer than Fux’s  
> rules.

Actually, it is also "stricter" in many ways concerning melodic  
motions, as Jeppesen describes (although Jeppesen's dissertation  
shows he was well aware that there are exceptions from his textbook  
rules).

> There are numerous cases of free resolution of the dominant seventh  
> chord; a resolution that may affect any of the chord members,  
> including the seventh itself. For instance, the seventh may move  
> upward, or some other chord member may leap in an upper voice.  
> Occasionally, a simultaneous leap of two or even three upper voices  
> may be observed, and the sound is idiomatic (for example,  
> Beethoven, Piano Sonata in f, Op. 2, No.1, second movement, measure  
> 6). In most of these free resolutions, the tonic appears as a sixth  
> chord and covers the exceptional situations.

This is mystifying. Is there really a "scholastic" rule somewhere  
that forbids leaps of of upper voices in a V2–I6 resolution? I had  
not hear of it. In any case, Aldwell & Schachter describe such leaps  
"very characteristic" in the soprano.

>
> Having said that, I know that, usually, students are not taught how  
> to resolve V7 and its inversions freely in a variety of situations  
> that would suggest that. A teacher will penalize the student even  
> if a free resolution has been executed idiomatically. Why would  
> that happen? Because the teacher has not paid attention to such  
> examples and is not aware of them. And since the book says that the  
> dominant seventh must resolve strictly, he/she goes by the book.  
> However, some books do cover aspects of free resolution…but our  
> teacher in question has chosen to use THAT SPECIAL book forever,  
> and it represents the ultimate judgement for him/her.
>

I wonder how common this type of teacher is nowadays. Perhaps I am  
just lucky with not having come across such teachers in the  
institution where I have studied and taught for the last thirty years.

Olli Väisälä
Sibelius Academy
ovaisala at siba.fi