Dear Lex,
I merely tried to secure the nub of what you (and/or Dean) was saying
which is why I earlier tried to obtain an unequivocal statement by
saying to you
I can't agree - I think the thesis that they fitted tunes to
alfabeto rather than the other way round is, if I may say, rather
putting the cart before the horse.
Your response seemed, to me, to say that you did indeed think that an
alfabeto asequence was created to which tunes (and bass) were later
added. If I now understand you, yopu do not think this was the case and
agree with me that in these light airs the tune would have generally
come first to which harmony was later added.
Rehgarding Il Verno - yes I am sure. A hemiola in just the upper part
is by no means unkown in the Italian repertoire (vocal and
instrumental) of the period. Look at Bounamente, Falconierio et al. It
also works very well in practice. We should not always aim to smooth
out these passing things as the 19th/20th century arrangers sometimes
attempted
rgds
Martyn
--- On Sun, 24/4/11, Lex Eisenhardt <eisenha...@planet.nl> wrote:
From: Lex Eisenhardt <eisenha...@planet.nl>
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Composition of short songs in early 17th
century Italy - was Marini - was Grenerin
To: "Vihuela Dmth" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>, "Martyn Hodgson"
<hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Sunday, 24 April, 2011, 10:55
Dear Martyn,
I feel the confusion was mainly caused by what you assumed me to say,
and not by my actual assertions. And probably my poor English has
mislead you.
I referred to Dean's thesis, in which there are comparable ideas,
because I understood you had read it.
> 1. I'm very pleased you now make it clear that ' I never suggested
(or
> meant to suggest) that that (first chords then the melody) was the
way
> these songs were normally composed.' .However I must say that this
> position is far from clear from what you wrote earlier and it would
> have saved us both a deal of time if you've have said this earlier.
Even if you don't agree with it, I still think my ideas were formulated
reasonably clear:
> [Again you] Another scenario would be that the composer finds good
> harmonies to
> melodic fragments. The harmony implies a bass (or is implied by a
> bass). There are different possible harmonizations/ bass lines,
from
> which the composer makes his choice. Step by step the whole melody
and
> harmony are shaped, altered, and
> the bass or/and the melody will be adapted until the perfect shape
of
> the
> composition is found.
> The f '
> and c' of the melody would not work well, together with all the c's
in
> the G major (4-3) of the guitar. However, if we play the alfabeto
> chords exactly where they are placed at the melody a beautiful
> pre-cadential hemiola comes to light. C minor - F major - G 4-#3 -
C
> major. Perhaps even better than the basso continuo.'
> Any reasonably competant continuo player would immediately spot
this as
> a hemiola..... and the 65 chord......
Are you sure? The rhythm of the bass is not hemiolic, and the F major
harmony (or rather D minor, as you remarked earlier) is implied for one
beat only. The F major is somewhat ambiguous indeed, with the melody
note d'. It can be argued here that alfabeto was always 'licentious'
with regard to counterpoint. I would say that the placement of the
alfabeto implies two (not one) beats F (IV) two beats V (4-3). Only if
bass and alfabeto would be performed together there would be a clash of
which we don't really know if it would be intentional. When we would
play a D minor chord (for one beat) at the bass note F there would be
no hemiola.
best wishes, Lex
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