[Smt-talk] MISSING THEORY COMPONENT?

[Peter Schubert, Prof.]

I always found it ironic that Palestrina is the model for general principles of melody writing. This has been the case since Jeppesen, a scholar who admired Palestrina's tunes for their Wagnerian qualities, and who had no idea how counterpoint works.

I would like to be a fly on the wall of the present-day counterpoint classrooms where this type of writing is taught—is it just recycled Jeppesen? It's for sure not any historical source: no treatise in the Renaissance addresses "good melody writing" (except for the most obvious errors). Palestrina, like everybody else, stole, modeled, recycled, and wrote brilliant tunes, but there was no theory of melody in his day.

All that said, I agree with Victor Grauer that melodies are formed in context, and that IS supported by at least one theorist then: Juan Bermudo, who says “counterpoint is the father of melody.”

Peter Schubert
Schulich School of Music
McGill University
555 Sherbrooke St. W.
Montreal, QC  H3A 1E3
(514) 398-4535 x00281

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