In music, voice crossing is the intersection of melodic lines in a composition, leaving a lower voice on a higher pitch than a higher voice (and vice versa). Because this can cause registral confusion and reduce the independence of the voices, [1] it is sometimes avoided in composition and pedagogical exercises.
Voice crossing appears in free organum, with examples appearing as early as John Cotton's treatise De musica (1100). [2] Voice crossing is inherent in voice exchange, which became an important compositional technique in the 12th and 13th centuries. Later, as different voices were thought of occupying more distinct vocal ranges, crossing is less frequent. In the 15th-century English discant style, such as in the Old Hall manuscript, the three voices rarely cross. [3] In the three-part music of Guillaume Dufay, a special use of voice crossing at the cadence involves a Landini cadence but has lower voice crossing to give a bass progression as in the modern dominant-tonic cadence. [4] As four-part music became more established by the time of Johannes Ockeghem, the top and bottom parts were less likely to cross, but the inner voices continued to cross frequently. [5]
Voice crossing appears frequently in 16th-century music, to such a degree that Knud Jeppesen, in his analysis of Renaissance polyphony, said that without voice crossing "no real polyphony is possible." [6] Voice crossing is less common when it involves the lowest voice, as it creates a new bass line for the calculation of the upper voices, though still it is by no means uncommon. [7] Though it is common in the repertoire, voice crossing is sometimes avoided in strict counterpoint pedagogical exercises, especially when involving few voices. [8] It's not always avoided, however; Gradus ad Parnassum (1725), probably the most famous species counterpoint instruction book, includes an example using crossed voices early in the text. [9]
In 18th-century contrapuntal writing, voices may cross freely, especially among voices in the same pitch location. [10] It is, however, quite restricted in invertible counterpoint, since it makes the crossing in the inversion impossible. [11] Canons at small harmonic intervals usually necessitate considerable voice crossing, [12] and in a crab canon it is inevitable at the midpoint. [13] For this reason, many authors find that canons sound better when performed by voices of different timbre. [14] In four-part chorale writing, voice crossing is infrequent, and again the most frequently crossed voices are the alto and tenor. [15] Voice crossing is usually forbidden in pedagogical exercises in common practice chorale-style voice-leading, especially when involving an outer voice. [1]
An early example of medieval voice-crossing can be found in what Richard Taruskin (2009, p. 394) calls “English twinsongs.” “These songs, among the earliest polyphonic vernacular settings to survive in any language, employ a more sophisticated sort of voice-leading, through contrary motion and voice crossings.” [16]
Further examples of voice crossing can be found in music of the fifteenth century, where “the voices overlap constantly.”: [17]
The early seventeenth century, as in this canon by Michael Praetorius:
The eighteenth century, as in Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins:
And the late nineteenth century , in the finale of Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony “which begins with a composite melody that is shattered among the whole string section (no single instrumental group plays the tune you actually hear, an amazing, pre-modernist idea)” [18]
As Tom Service points out, Tchaikovsky's approach to instrumentation here was indeed prophetic. Some nineteen years after the première of the "Pathétique" symphony, Arnold Schoenberg was exploring a similar voice crossing technique involving flute, clarinet and violin in "Ein Blasse Wascherin", a movement from his seminal melodrama Pierrot Lunaire (1912). Jonathan Dunsby cites this as an early example of Klangfarbenmelodie (sound–colour melody). [19]
A related phenomenon is "voice overlapping," where the voices do not cross per se, but they move together, and the lower voice passes where the upper voice was (or vice versa). For example, if two voices sound G and B, and move up to C and E. The overlapping occurs because the second note (C) in the lower voice is higher than the first note (B) in the upper voice. It leads to ambiguity, as the ear interprets the step from B to C in one voice, and is fairly consistently avoided in contrapuntal writing. [20] Voice overlaps are common in Bach chorales, but again are discouraged or forbidden by most theory texts. In keyboard works, however, voice overlapping is considered appropriate. [21]
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradition, strongly developing during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period, especially in the Baroque period. The term originates from the Latin punctus contra punctum meaning "point against point", i.e. "note against note".
In music, a fugue is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and which recurs frequently in the course of the composition. It is not to be confused with a fuguing tune, which is a style of song popularized by and mostly limited to early American music and West Gallery music. A fugue usually has three main sections: an exposition, a development and a final entry that contains the return of the subject in the fugue's tonic key. Some fugues have a recapitulation.
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian composer of late Renaissance music. The central representative of the Roman School, with Orlande de Lassus and Tomás Luis de Victoria, Palestrina is considered the leading composer of late 16th-century Europe.
A fourth is a musical interval encompassing four staff positions in the music notation of Western culture, and a perfect fourth is the fourth spanning five semitones. For example, the ascending interval from C to the next F is a perfect fourth, because the note F is the fifth semitone above C, and there are four staff positions between C and F. Diminished and augmented fourths span the same number of staff positions, but consist of a different number of semitones.
Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds "Pierrot lunaire", commonly known simply as Pierrot lunaire, Op. 21, is a melodrama by Arnold Schoenberg. It is a setting of 21 selected poems from Albert Giraud's cycle of the same name as translated into German by Otto Erich Hartleben. The work is written for reciter who delivers the poems in the Sprechstimme style accompanied by a small instrumental ensemble. Schoenberg had previously used a combination of spoken text with instrumental accompaniment, called "melodrama", in the summer-wind narrative of the Gurre-Lieder, which was a fashionable musical style popular at the end of the nineteenth century. Though the music is atonal, it does not employ Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, which he did not use until 1921.
In Western musical theory, a cadence is the end of a phrase in which the melody or harmony creates a sense of full or partial resolution, especially in music of the 16th century onwards. A harmonic cadence is a progression of two or more chords that concludes a phrase, section, or piece of music. A rhythmic cadence is a characteristic rhythmic pattern that indicates the end of a phrase. A cadence can be labeled "weak" or "strong" depending on the impression of finality it gives. While cadences are usually classified by specific chord or melodic progressions, the use of such progressions does not necessarily constitute a cadence—there must be a sense of closure, as at the end of a phrase. Harmonic rhythm plays an important part in determining where a cadence occurs.
Giovanni Maria Artusi was an Italian theorist, composer, and writer.
In music, a cantus firmus is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition.
Johann Joseph Fux was an Austrian composer, music theorist and pedagogue of the late Baroque era. His most enduring work is not a musical composition but his treatise on counterpoint, Gradus ad Parnassum, which has become the single most influential book on the Palestrinian style of Renaissance polyphony.
In music, a chorale prelude or chorale setting is a short liturgical composition for organ using a chorale tune as its basis. It was a predominant style of the German Baroque era and reached its culmination in the works of J.S. Bach, who wrote 46 examples of the form in his Orgelbüchlein, along with multiple other works of the type in other collections.
Sergey Ivanovich Taneyev was a Russian composer, pianist, teacher of composition, music theorist and author.
Counterpoint is the second volume of Heinrich Schenker's New Musical Theories and Fantasies. It is divided into two "Books", the first published in 1910, and the second in 1922.
The modern state of Italy did not come into being until 1861, though the roots of music on the Italian Peninsula can be traced back to the music of ancient Rome. However, the underpinnings of much modern Italian music come from the Middle Ages.
Musical historicism signifies the use in classical music of historical materials, structures, styles, techniques, media, conceptual content, etc., whether by a single composer or those associated with a particular school, movement, or period.
The Micrologus is a treatise on Medieval music written by Guido of Arezzo, dating to approximately 1026. It was dedicated to Tedald, Bishop of Arezzo. This treatise outlines singing and teaching practice for Gregorian chant, and has considerable discussion of the composition of polyphonic music.
Missa Papae Marcelli, or Pope Marcellus Mass, is a mass sine nomine by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. It is his best-known mass, and is regarded as an archetypal example of the complex polyphony championed by Palestrina. It was sung at the papal coronation Masses.
In music, especially Schenkerian analysis, a voice exchange is the repetition of a contrapuntal passage with the voices' parts exchanged; for instance, the melody of one part appears in a second part and vice versa. It differs from invertible counterpoint in that there is no octave displacement; therefore it always involves some voice crossing. If scored for equal instruments or voices, it may be indistinguishable from a repeat, although because a repeat does not appear in any of the parts, it may make the music more interesting for the musicians. It is a characteristic feature of rounds, although not usually called such.
A part generally refers to a single strand or melody or harmony of music within a larger ensemble or a polyphonic musical composition. There are several senses in which the word is often used:
A melodic line that is the reverse of a previously or simultaneously stated line is said to be its retrograde or cancrizans. An exact retrograde includes both the pitches and rhythms in reverse. An even more exact retrograde reverses the physical contour of the notes themselves, though this is possible only in electronic music. Some composers choose to subject just the pitches of a musical line to retrograde, or just the rhythms. In twelve-tone music, reversal of the pitch classes alone—regardless of the melodic contour created by their registral placement—is regarded as a retrograde.
Geistliches Lied, Op. 30, by Johannes Brahms is an 1856 work for four-part mixed chorus accompanied by organ or piano. The composition is in the form of a double canon set to text by Paul Flemming. It was written as part of an exchange of contrapuntal exercises between Brahms and Joseph Joachim, and it was eventually published in 1864.
