[Smt-talk] MISSING THEORY COMPONENT?

[Victor grauer]

Darryl White wrote:

"Victor Grauer and Peter 
Schubert agree that "counterpoint is the father of melody." Perhaps this
 idea also helps explain the omission.

I wonder what those monodic melodists of ancient (and present) times would think of such ideas."

Well, first of all, I was talking about an instructional strategy, not the art of melody writing per se. Secondly, my principal point had to do with the difference between a dialectical and a non-dialectical approach. Fire is obtained by rubbing two sticks together. Babies are made via an analogous process. :-) The melodists of ancient times rubbed tones against texts. 


Victor Grauer
Pittsburgh PA USA






On Sunday, May 25, 2014 6:33 AM, Markus Jans <jans-thorpe at bluewin.ch> wrote:
 

>
>
>There is, however, a very interesting little article by Hans Ulrich Lehmann, a Swiss composer and theory teacher, addressing the issue. He examines the intimate relationship between language-melody as well as text-rhythm and the  Gestalt of  Soggetti. In addition to that, he also addresses the (however discrete) relationship between text-content and melodic Gestalt. He does all this  with examples of Palestrina, but could have taken any other composer of the time. The principles are universe. The article appeared in the „105. Jahresbericht der Musik-Akademie der Stadt Basel“ in  1971/72, pages 51-68. Since most of you will not have easy access to it, I attach the text below.
>Heartily
>Markus Jans
>prof. em. Schola Cantorum Basiliensis
>Hoschule für Alte Musik, Basel
>Schalerstrasse 3
>4054 Basel
>
>Am 24.05.2014 um 21:55 schrieb Peter Schubert, Prof. <peter.schubert at mcgill.ca>:
>
>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
>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>Smt-talk mailing list
>>Smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org
>>http://lists.societymusictheory.org/listinfo.cgi/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Smt-talk mailing list
>Smt-talk at lists.societymusictheory.org
>http://lists.societymusictheory.org/listinfo.cgi/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.societymusictheory.org/pipermail/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org/attachments/20140525/c8d5ddbc/attachment-0002.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Lehmann:Palestrina.PDF
Type: application/pdf
Size: 685098 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.societymusictheory.org/pipermail/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org/attachments/20140525/c8d5ddbc/attachment-0002.pdf>