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<font face="Calibri">Fiona,<br>
<br>
Unfortnuately, I cannot have access to your book just now; but I
read your paper "Arripui hymnarium" in <i>De musica disserenda</i>,
which gave me an idea of your hypothesis. I am very interested
with tonal centricity, which to me is essential to the very notion
of 'modality'. I believe, for instance, that late medieval and
Renaissance polyphony is modal because it evidences tonal
centricity. <br>
I have two questions, however; I am aware that I may find an
answer at least to the first one in your book, which I intend to
read as soon as possible: in that case, don't bother to answer it.<br>
<br>
The first question is: do you think that the leap upward from the
final is somehow a 'natural', unconscious feature of modes, or do
you view it as a conventional way of signaling the tonal center?
On the one hand I fail to see how such feature could result, say,
from the structure of the diatonic system; it is true that most
melodies of the world tend to leap upwards and to descend
stepwise, as I think Curt Sachs already noted, but I don't see why
the leap should be from the final (especially that it would have
to be from an intermediate final). On the other hand I know that
music does make use of conscious signaling, particularly in
ensemble singing, but I don't immediately see the reason for this
in the case of church modes.<br>
<br>
The second question that I have concerns the special case of psalm
antiphons: many of these are too short to include any internal
cadence, or upwards leaps of any kind (unless at the very
beginning, but then not always upwards from the final). On the
other hand, it is in that case that the tonal centre may be of
"vital importance", as you write. I can see your point when
dealing with hymns, but there the question of joining bits of
music does not arise, I think.<br>
<br>
There are many subsidiary questions that immediately arise:<br>
– I thought that the notion of "final" did not appear in medieval
theory before Hucbald, i.e. at a time when the modes were close to
being "turned into scales". Is your hypothesis to be linked with
the interval between final and tenor (reciting tone)? <br>
– The joining of antiphons with psalm verses concerns not only the
end of the antiphon and the beginning of the psalm tone (which
very much involves the final as tonal centre), but also the end of
the tone with the beginning of the antiphon, which depends on the
particular differentia used.<br>
– Did you consider what Jacques de Liège (and others, probably)
had to say of melodies which did not end on their proper final
because of a mistake of the singers, who ended on one of the
affinals? Would these cases concern melodies lacking the upwards
leap that you describe?<br>
– Etc., but these will suffice for the time being.<br>
<br>
I presume that the upwards leaps that you describe could often be
from the final to the reciting note, what may suffice as
justification/explanation, and which may link to the later theory
of fifth and fourth species. But </font><font face="Calibri"><font
face="Calibri">does not this raise a question of chronology
(considering the theory of "cordes mères", of tenor and final at
first not being distinct)?</font> I'd very much like to hear
your opinion about all this.<br>
<br>
Nicolas Meeùs<br>
Université Paris-Sorbonne<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</font>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Le 26/08/2013 10:49, Fiona McAlpine a
écrit :<br>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">Coming
back to Nicolas' earlier point about the 'church' modes
being not just scales but collections of melodic formulae:
in the absence of any harmonic underpinning, these melodic
formulae also had to define the tonal centre in a world
where the tonal centre was of vital importance because most
of your musical activity consisted of joining discrete bits
of music to each other (I'm talking abut monks joining
antiphons to psalm tones, which Nicolas touched on). Those
modes were there, and organised thus in relation to tonal
centre, from perhaps mid-ninth century (Aurelian), long
before they got turned into scales (let's say before the
point of reference for </span>most of the readers </span>of
these pages<span class="Apple-style-span">, Guido in the early
eleventh century). There is a technique by which medieval
musicians achieved this tonal-centredness, given that all
medieval modes used the same diatonic collection: leaps
upwards from the final in an essentially stepwise melodic
world. Forgive the self-puffery, but for further collaboration
see my book
<i>Tonal Consciousness & the Medieval West</i>.
<div>
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