In this essay, I will discuss the characteristics of a voice-leading pattern known today as the Monte Romanesca, to which I have added the adjective ‘Leaping’ to distinguish it from the stepwise version, which is dealt with in a separate essay. The term Leaping Monte Romanesca refers to a bass motion that rises a fifth […]
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A term coined by John A. Rice. A Corelli Long Comma is a three-part variant of the Long Comma with a 6/5 sonority above ⑥ and a 9–8 suspension (or a non-essential dissonance) above ①. Since the fifth in the 6/5 sonority –➌– acts as a suspension, it must be prepared. See also Clausulæ. See
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A term coined by Robert O. Gjerdingen. A Long Comma is a variant of the Comma where ⑥ precedes ⑦. Its usual melody is a ➍–➌ or ➎–➍–➌ snippet. In the latter case, ➎ acts as a suspension (or a non-essential dissonance) above ⑥ and must be prepared. See also Clausulæ. See also Comma. See
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A term coined by Robert O. Gjerdingen, after several 18th-century sources. A Comma is a synonym for a clausula cantizans or a ⑦–① cadence. Its usual melody is a ➎–➍–➌ or ➍–➌ snippet. See also Clausulæ. See also Long Comma. See also Corelli Long Comma. Select Bibliography Gjerdingen, Robert O. Music in the Galant Style
An octave displacement is a register switch in which a melodic line is continued an octave higher or lower than expected after a note on a strong beat, often because of a tessitura issue. Example a illustrates how two octave displacements in the upper part of bar 2 ensure that the first and last pitch
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The Monte is a schema widely used in the 17th and 18th centuries and exists in many variants, some of which are discussed in this essay. For the schema’s characteristics see my essay The Monte: The Basics. I will explore five variants of the Monte in this essay: the minor-key Monte ending in v, the
A Jommelli is a variant of a clausula cantizans (also called a ⑦–① cadence or, in Gjerdingen’s term, a Comma (Gjerdingen (2007), p. 155–157)). While ⑦ of a clausula cantizans is usually realized as a sixth chord or 6/5 chord in a variable number of parts, ⑦ of a Jommelli is set in a three-part
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This essay deals with the third verset (i.e. short partimento) in D minor by Stanislao Mattei (1750–1825), which is the 55th verset in the collection and is numbered as such in the Wessmans edition. The versets by Mattei are a remarkable collection of pedagogical pieces intended to be realized in three parts at the keyboard
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Horizontalizing the dissonance means that, instead of writing or playing an on-beat vertical dissonance, both notes of that interval occur successively in one voice.
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Robert Gjerdingen calls a chromatically lowered sixth scale step in a major key (A♭ instead of A(♮) in C major, for instance) a hermaphrodite note, referring to Joseph Riepel (1709–1782), who seems to have associated major with masculine and minor with feminine. A hermaphrodite note is thus the sixth scale step borrowed from the parallel
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