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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In the second volume of his monumental Phrynis (Mytilenæus) Oder Satyrischer Componist (1677), Wolfgang Caspar Printz (1641–1717) gives the following definition: “Figura Suspirans is nothing other / than a Figura Corta, which instead of the front long note / has a pause half as long and a note equal to the other two.” “Figura suspirans
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In the second volume of his monumental Phrynis (Mytilenæus) Oder Satyrischer Componist (1677), Wolfgang Caspar Printz (1641–1717) gives the following definition: “Figura Corta consists of three fast notes / of which one is as long as the other two combined.” “Figura Corta besteht aus dreyen geschwinden Noten / deren doch ein so lang ist /
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Clausula cantizans = ⑦–① cadence Clausula altizans = ⑤/④–③ cadence Clausula tenorizans = ②–① cadence Clausula basizans (or bassizans) = ⑤–① cadence Treatises up to and including the first half of the 18th century mostly considered cadences from a melodic and polyphonic point of view. Instead of seeing a cadence in terms of a chord
A Neapolitan sixth chord is a chord on ④ with a minor third and a minor sixth. It typically occurs in minor, although you may occasionally encounter it in major as well. In both modes, the sixth doesn’t belong to the scale but is a chromatically lowered version of ➋, giving its specific flavour to
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