SUMMARY OF COUNTERPOINT RULES: 1100-1530

 

 

Ad organum faciendum (ca. 1100)

  1. Initial interval is either a unison or octave (= mode 1), or fourth or fifth (= mode 2)
  2. Intermediate notes are fourths and fifths in alternation (= mode 3), occasionally a non-cadential unison or octave, i.e. not coinciding with a new syllable (= mode 4)
  3. Conclude with unison, octave, or fifth (examples show 4-1, 4-5, 5-8, 6-8) in note-against-note style, though occasionally with a melisma in the organal voice (= mode 5)

 

Monpellier Organum Treatise (early 1100s)

  1. Start by writing the intervals for the last two notes of the cantus in a phrase (no further specifications but examples show endings of M3-1, P4-1, and m6-8)
  2. Begin with unison, octave, or fifth, sometimes third or sixth, never the second or seventh, “because it sounds bad.”
  3. After initiating the organum, continue with a fifth, third, or sixth, but “more often” with fourth or fifth “because it sounds better.”
  4. Maximum phrase length is eight notes

 

La Fage’s Anonymous, Chapter 15 (late 1100s, ca. 1175-1200)

  1. Begin on a unison, fourth, fifth, or octave (= perfect consonances)
  2. Strive for contrary motion
  3. Use note-against-note style (= “discant”) except, possibly, at a cadence, where a melisma is possible on the penultimate note (= “organum”)
  4. Added voice should remain within one octave of the chant, above or below
  5. Conclude (“closings,” “clausula”) with a unison or octave

 

Franco of Cologne, “Ars cantus mensurabilis” (ca. 1260)

  1. Begin on 1,m3,M3, P4,P5,P8
  2. Continue primarily with concords (perfect:  1,8; intermediate:  P4,P5; imperfect:  M3,m3)
  3. Use discords incidentally, in connection with contrary motion

 

Anonymous IV, Part II, “Concerning Organum” and Discant (late 1200s, after 1272)

  1. Begin on a “natural harmony” (1,4,5,8,M3,m3)
  2. Conclude on a unison, fifth, or octave, rarely on a fourth, except in three or voices, but not on a major or minor third, “although some terminate in these sounds” [!].
  3. In discant, begin on 1, m3, M3, P4, P5, or P8
  4. Every odd-numbered note, which is long in duration, “must concord with the tenor” (i.e. one of the consonances), while the even-numbered notes “may be chosen indiscriminately.”

“Ars contrapuncti secundum Johannes de Muris” (mid-1300s)

  1. Begin with a perfect consonance (1,5,8,12) [begin with what is “complete and absolute,” not with what is “broken and divided”]
  2. No parallel perfect consonances [dissimilar perfect consonances may follow one another, but best to interpolate an imperfect consonance]
  3. Maximum of four successive imperfect consonances
  4. Strive for contrary motion
  5. No repeated notes in discant voice [because it will then start to sound like the tenor]
  6. Avoid tritones (mi contra fa)
  7. Penultimate interval should be an imperfect consonance
  8. Final interval must be a perfect consonance

 

Prosdocimus de Beldemandis, “Tractatus de contrapunto” (1412)

  1. No dissonance allowed, period
  2. Begin and end only on a perfect consonance (no P4 or M/m3)
  3. No parallel perfect consonances
  4. Mix perfect with imperfect consonances
  5. Never use a tritone (mi contra fa)
  6. Approach perfect consonances via an imperfect one

 

Johannes Tinctoris, Liber de arte contrapuncti, Book 3, Chaps. 1-8 (1477)

  1. Begin and end with a perfect consonance.  Possible to begin on an imperfect consonance if the first beat is a rest.  In improvised counterpoint (“super librum”), may end on an imperfect consonance (see also Rule 5)
  2. No parallel perfect consonances, even if a rest intervenes.  Parallel imperfect consonances are allowed
  3. Repeated perfect and imperfect consonances is allowed
  4. Strive for stepwise (“orderly”) motion (“counterpoint ought to be made as near and as orderly as can be”)
  5. No cadences on foreign modal degrees.  Intermediate cadences on imperfect consonances is permitted
  6. Avoid repeating notes
  7. Avoid two successive cadences on the same degree
  8. Strive for variety (varied prolations, proportions, melodic movement, but no specific mention of contrary motion)

 

Franchinus Gafurius, Practica musicae, Book 3 (1496)

  1. Begin with a perfect consonance.  Possible to begin with an imperfect consonance, even without a preceding rest.  The rule about beginning with a perfect consonance is “not essential but arbitrary, since perfection in all things is attributed to the end, not to the beginning” (Aristotle, Metaphysics: “The things which have attaned their end, this being good, are called complete; for things are complete in virtue of having attend their end.”)
  2. Prohibition of parallel perfect consonances
  3. Separate perfect consonances with one or more similar or dissimilar imperfect consonances
  4. Successive imperfect consonances are allowed
  5. Anti-parallel perfect consonances (those taken by contrary motion) are allowed
  6. Strive for contrary motion
  7. Approach perfect consonances by contrary motion via the nearest imperfect consonance
  8. Conclude with a perfect consonance

 

Pietro Aaron, Toscanello de la musica, Book 2, Chapter 13 (1523, 1529)

  1. Beginning with a perfect consonance is optional (chapter 17)
  2. Prohibition of parallel perfect consonances.  Repeated perfect consonances and a succession of dissimilar perfect consonances are allowed (chapter 14)
  3. Separate two similar perfect consonances with one or more imperfect consonances (chapter 14)
  4. Successive imperfect consonances are allowed, but not successions involving two major imperfect consonances of the same size (chapter 15)
  5. Anti-parallel perfect consonances are allowed  (a succession of identical perfect consonances taken by contrary motion) (chapter 14)
  6. No tritones allowed (chapter 14)
  7. Approach perfect consonances by nearest imperfect consonance (chapter 14)
  8. End with a perfect consonance (obligatory) (cites Aristotle, as did Gafurius) (chapter 17)