COUNTERPOINT

art of combining different melodic lines in a musical composition. It is the most characteristic element in Western music and a major distinguishing feature between the music of the West and that of the Orient and of primitive peoples. The word counterpoint is frequently used interchangeably with polyphony. This is not properly correct since polyphony refers generally to music consisting of two or more distinct melodic lines, while counterpoint refers to the compositional technique involved in the handling of these melodic lines. Good counterpoint requires two qualities: (1) a meaningful or harmonious relationship between the lines (a vertical considerationi.e., dealing with harmony), and (2) some degree of independence or individuality within the lines themselves (a horizontal consideration, dealing with melody). Musical theorists have tended to emphasize the vertical aspects of counterpoint, defining the combinations of notes that are consonances and dissonances, and prescribing where consonances and dissonances should occur in the strong and weak beats of musical metre. In contrast, composers, especially the great ones, have shown more interest in the horizontal aspects: the movement of the individual melodic lines and long-range relationships of musical design and texture, the balance between vertical and horizontal forces, existing between these lines. The freedoms taken by composers have in turn influenced theorists to revise their laws. The word counterpoint is occasionally used by ethnomusicologists to describe aspects of heterophonyduplication of a basic melodic line, with certain differences of detail or of decoration, by the various performers. This usage is not entirely appropriate, for such instances as the singing of a single melody at parallel intervals (e.g., one performer beginning on C, the other on G) lack the truly distinct or separate voice parts found in true polyphony and in counterpoint. Finally, contemporary theorists generally use the word counterpoint in a narrow sense for musical styles resembling those of Palestrina or Bach and emphasizing clear melodic relationships (e.g., melodic imitation) between the voice parts. Counterpoint can be considered more broadly, however, as an essential element in many styles within Western music. Composers in different periods have used counterpoint differently: in the Middle Ages they used it for the superimposing of different rhythmic groupings; in the Renaissance for melodic imitation; in the Baroque for contrasts between groups of instruments or voices; in the Classical period in conjunction with tonality, the organization of music in terms of key; in the Romantic in the combining of leitmotifs, or short melodic fragments; and in 20th-century music in the arrangement of isolated components of sound. in musical composition, art of combining two or more melodic strands according to certain technical and aesthetic criteria. It is a Western phenomenon and does not occur in the music of the Orient or in that of the so-called nonliterate cultures. Counterpoint and harmony are commonly equated, respectively, with the horizontal and vertical aspects of music, the former evident mainly in imitative, canonic, or fugal textures, and the latter in chordal writing, where vertically conceived harmonies provide support for a single melodic line. Counterpoint, however, is not simply the antithesis of harmony. In practice, patterns of interwoven melodic lines, however complex, almost inevitably postulate underlying harmonic schemes, while primarily chordal structures (such as the chorale harmonizations of J.S. Bach) frequently display, through the independence of their part-writing, much of the essential character of counterpoint. The distinction between counterpoint and harmony depends, therefore, not solely upon the amount of obvious linearity within a composition but also upon the degree of internal tension and contrast that it containsmelodic, rhythmic, and harmonic. The word contrapunctus, which was first used in the 14th century, was derived from the Latin punctus contra punctum (point against point), signifying originally a rudimentary harmonic process whereby a second vocal or instrumental line was added to a section of plainsong, moving in step with it, and usually in parallel consonances. From this modest beginning there ensued, over several centuries, an extended evolution through which counterpoint gradually acquired the supple, multilinear features that are typical of its mature forms. The first major climax to this development was reached in the late 16th century in the polyphonic vocal works of such composers as the Italian Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, the Fleming Orlando di Lasso, the Englishman William Byrd, and the Spaniard Toms Luis de Victoria. During this period, also, the first significant theoretical writings on counterpoint began to appear, by such authors as the Fleming Johannes Tinctoris (Liber de arte contrapuncti, 1477), the Italian Nicola Vicentino (L'antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica, 1555), and, most notably, the Venetian Gioseffo Zarlino (Le istitutioni harmoniche, 1558). After 1600 the emergence of a continuo-based monodic style radically affected the status of counterpoint. Deprived of its former role as the basis of a common musical language, the traditional technique became the preserve of church musicians and learned theoreticians. Composers of the newly developing theatre and chamber genres at first shunned counterpoint entirely but later readmitted it in various altered forms, most of which showed the invigorating influence of contemporary instrumental idioms. The crowning point of this development was reached in the vocal and instrumental works of Bach. Early in the 18th century, in a reaction against the supposedly unnatural complexity of the Bach style, the contrapuntal tendency began again to lose ground. Nevertheless, the ancient polyphonic medium, appropriately updated, retained a foothold in church music, and its technical principles, codified by the Austrian composer Johann Joseph Fux, in his Gradus ad Parnassum (1725), continued to provide an important element in the teaching of composition. It required, however, the genius of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to rescue counterpoint from the constraints of academicism and to reveal its vast new potentialities when joined with the dramatic sonata style. Subsequently, counterpoint became closely equated with strenuous intellectual endeavour, with the expression of reason and logic, and even, in some cases (such as the late works of Ludwig van Beethoven), with philosophical speculation. Thus the technique, in one form or another, was rarely absent for long from the most exalted branches of musical composition throughout the Classical and Romantic periods. During the 20th century, with tonal harmony decreasing in influence, counterpoint achieved new significance. Particular importance was attached to dissonant linear styles of writing, propelled by rhythmically energetic individual strands, which featured prominently in the works of the Hungarian Bla Bartk, the Russian-born Igor Stravinsky, the Austrian Arnold Schoenberg, the German Paul Hindemith, and the Englishman Sir Michael Tippett. Notable among more recent developments was the aleatoric (random) counterpoint of the Pole Witold Lutoslawski, involving a complex of freely metred melodic patterns, controlled only by the intermittent downbeat of a conductor to indicate moments of coincidence. Additional reading General studies of counterpoint include Hugo Riemann, History of Music Theory, trans. by Raymond Haggh (1962), rather outdated but still the most thorough summary of medieval and Renaissance theoretical studies on counterpoint; Knud Jeppesen, Outline History of Contrapuntal Theory, in Counterpoint, pp. 353 (1939), the main theoretical views on the subject; Gustave Reese, Fourscore Classics of Music Literature (1957), a synopsis of 80 theoretical sources, many of which deal with counterpoint; Oliver Strunk, Source Readings in Music History (1950), numerous excerpts from musical theorists on the subject of counterpoint.Historical treatises on counterpoint include Johannes Tinctoris, Liber de arte contrapuncti (1477; trans. by Albert Seay, The Art of Counterpoint, 1961), a famous landmark, the first extensive outline of contrapuntal principles; Gioseffo Zarlino, Le istitutioni harmoniche (1558; pt. 3 trans. by Guy Marco and Claude Palisca as The Art of Counterpoint, 1968); Thomas Morley, Treating of Descant, A Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical Music, pt. 2 (1597; new ed. by R. Alec Harman, 1952), a pupil-master discussion that offers firsthand information concerning the 16th-century approach to counterpoint; Lodovico Zacconi, Prattica di musica, pt. 2 (1622), one of the first presentations of the five species as a means of teaching counterpoint; Johann Fux, Gradus ad Parnassum (1725; trans. by Alfred Mann and John Edmunds, Steps to Parnassus, 1943), probably the most celebrated of all books on this subject, mainly concerned with the problems encountered in writing counterpoint.