In the abstract counterpoint exercises that were derived from 16th century music, the potential for rising cadential figures was, ironically perhaps, much greater than it had been in the actual repertoires those exercises were trying to model. There were two reasons for this: (1) the separation of figures into "species" served to isolate suspensions into a single type of exercise; (2) in two-voice instruction, it was routine to write one exercise with the ground or cantus above, then another with the ground below, a situation that guaranteed trading off the 3-1 and 6-8 cadences.
Beethoven studied strict counterpoint with Johann Albrechtsberger while Haydn was away in London. And it is here that the potential of a rising melodic gesture in counterpoint exercises came to fruition in music. Beethoven was apparently one of the first dance composers to make direct use of a rising cadence (but see below for a precedent from Mozart). Beethoven's 12 Deutsche Tänze, WoO8, were composed only three months after he finished his counterpoint studies with Albrechtsberger, but the first dance in the set follows an unexpected trajectory. It begins with a stepwise ascent from ^1 to ^3, elaborated and harmonized with an 8-10-10 voice-leading figure with the bass—this is one of the conventional figures of the partimento tradition. The second strain leads the melody in a determined way upward to ^8. The first dance in a set such as this one—like the menuets in WoO7, these waltzes were for a public ball—was often used as a refrain, so that Beethoven would have had incentive to make it memorable.
As it happens, Mozart had anticipated Beethoven by twenty years. His set of 12 menuets, K 176, opens with a similar promenade/refrain, and it uses virtually the same opening and closing figures.
