Howard,
--- howard posner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> There is one published source (Mertel's Hortus
> Musicalus Novus) and
> one manuscript source in the
> Cambridge Library. Both end in major. All of
> Dowland's minor-mode
> fantasies end in major.
>
..as is standard practice in the Renaissance. It was
a rule that all minor pieces end with a major third or
tierce de picardie ("Picardy Third") when there was a
third present at the final clausula vera (some pieces,
such as bicinia, might have no third at all). The
major third might not even be written in, but was
expected to be supplied via ficta. Even in Gesualdo's
"experimentally" chromatic madrigals, not one ends
with a minor chord. The presence of a major chord at
the end of minor pieces persisted as a general
compositional rule in most places throughout the
baroque and beyond.
However, the French in the baroque did NOT write
the major chord at the end of their minor-key pieces
and a minor chord was in fact intended. This
eventually spread beyond France until it became
standard practice all over the place to end minor
pieces with a minor chord while the Picardy Third,
occasionally still in use, turned into a seldom-heard
special effect.
How are we to know that regional stylistic
practices utilizing a final minor chord didn't pop up
in the later renaissance (i.e. Dowland's time)? In
other words, is it possible that some late-ren chap
playing Forelorn Hope might have bucked the majority
trend and felt justified to play a last minor chord
instead of the printed major one because "that's the
way we do things here."?
Chris
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