Celtic series, part 4

This is the final entry in the Celtic series, which offers a preview of a documentation essay I am preparing now and hope to publish by the end of April.    [17 May 2017: see this entry--link--for an abstract and a link to the published essay.]

Of the four categories, the third is represented here with one more tune: "long" cadences where the lower and upper registers are connected by a stepwise sequence. The others are in category 4: modal tunes, or tunes showing a modal heritage.

"The Ruins of Killmallock" differs from the tunes discussed yesterday in that its B-section is concerned throughout with scaling the octave, down and up, rather than keeping the upper and lower registers separate until the run to the cadence. The result is a clear unfolding of the 6-8 clausula vera figure (see the final two bars).

Modal tunes are difficult to assess on a number of counts, not least being reliability of the transcriptions. If the tunes are as old as their modal turns suggest, then there is also the likelihood of multiple regional or individual variants, only one of which would have been captured in the particular published version. In the two dozen sources I am using for the documentary essay, only a small number of modal tunes appear, almost all of them in two volumes of Irish melodies.

The "Kerry Jig"--in two versions from different sources--is the easiest to read. Beginning in A minor, it closes in C major with a simple rising line, C: ^5-^6-^7-^8.

"The Oyster Wives Rant" is a reel, a Dorian melody (on A) assuming the i-VII-i harmony one associates with Celtic music nowadays. The boxes block out the fifths frame: A4-E5, G4-D5, E5-A4. I haven't marked the possible lines involved, but A4-G4-(A4)-B4-A4 is possible in the lower voices, and a modal primitive line E5-(D5)-E5-G5-(A5) in the upper.

"Thou fair pulse of my heart" is a slow ballad, not a dance tune. Although it is a song, it makes interesting use of lower and upper registers in a manner similar to the fiddle tunes. At the beginning G4-D5 is unfolded, then D5 is extended with a neighbor note Eb5. In the continuation phrase a scale (boxed) moves directly up to F4 and the close is on ^8. In section B, the registral order is reversed—as we've seen several times already in the fiddle tunes—with the upper one first (see directional arrows beginning in bar 9). The slow-moving cadence in the lowest register (boxed at the end) is a surprise.

Minor key series, part 14 (Dorian and Aeolian octaves), continued (2)

Here are the third and fourth of four dances from Michael Praetorius's collection Terpsichore. The four are ns104, 147, 148, and 295, and all have been discussed elsewhere on this blog.

(3) Here is my comment on n148 from the earlier blog post:

n148 is in once-transposed Dorian; it has three strains but none is marked with a repeat sign. The final cadence is unusual in the uppermost voices in its string of parallel sixths. These help us to separate the ground notes from the diminutions in the cantus. (link)

The play of "major/minor" (B/Bb) in the first strain is striking (though, I observe once more, not uncommon in the era), and the small clash of E natural/Eb in the cadence is of interest.

(4) Here is my comment on n295 from the earlier blog post:

. . . one of the pieces where the melody is of uncertain authorship. Here is a highly profiled motive with a scalar ascent and an unusual stepwise drop after a falling fourth (circled), something that would be frowned on in a 16th century counterpoint class. It's repeated, transposed, in bar 3, then at the original level in bar 5, and finally the scale is realized as a complete ascending octave. The second strain (not shown) is unusually short: four bars of a repeated chord plus cadence. The final strain "fixes" the motive (circled) with a third rather than a fourth and moving by step within the interval. Even stronger scalar figures follow to end with an unusual, direct [Dorian] ^6-^#7-^8.

To finish this appendix on modes, I return to two more pieces I have written about earlier: the courantes from the D minor suite by Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre: link 1; link 2. In both pieces we can see the full flowering of minor-key focus (despite the Dorian signature) but at the same time -- in courante n1 -- vestiges of modal chromatic practice in the approach to the final cadence. In the first section of n2 (below), Bb is used strictly throughout, with the only exception a passing B-natural in the left hand in the penultimate bar. In the second strain, the same applies, the exception this time being the "raised" ^6 in the right hand in the final cadence.

In courante n1, the play of Bb/B-natural and C-natural/C# in the final bars reminds one of music from 60 or 70 years earlier. (The two courantes were published in La Guerre's first collection of keyboard pieces, 1687. She was 19 at the time; a prodigy, she was already a decade into her professional career.)

With this, the minor key series is concluded.

Minor key series, part 14 (Dorian and Aeolian octaves), continued (1)

Johann Walther's ATB setting of the Easter chorale Jesus Christus, unser Heiland (from 1524) shows the relatively rare case of conflicting signatures: once-transposed Dorian in alto and tenor, twice-transposed Aeolian in the bass. The chorale, in the tenor (boxed below) avoids the Dorian ^6, using all other scale degrees within the octave G3-G4. Against this, alto and bass engage in a play of chromatic cross-relations, which, as I noted in the previous post, is far more common in music of the 16th and 17th centuries than our usual counterpoint rules would have us believe.

The final phrase of the chorale (circles below) is embellished via the ubiquitous pre-cadence flourish of small notes, and there the Dorian ^6 finally does appear in the tenor -- not surprisingly, as the alto and tenor move in parallel thirds through the figure. The alto starts with notes of the final chorale phrase and makes an easily heard chromatic connection from F5 to F#5 across the phrase. I would regard the alto here as a descant voice; to analyze in Schenkerian (Salzerian/Novackian) terms, the Urlinie would reside in the tenor.

Nevertheless, there is a point of historical interest in the alto's descant. I quote from my essay Rising Lines, p. 17 (link to the essay):

[One] source of rising lines comes from five-part vocal (but more often) instrumental music, where the cantus (or topmost) line takes on the character of a descant. . . . When the cantus "loses" its descant character and acts as a principal upper voice, rising structural lines are easily achieved. This change is parallel to the one that occurs in the first half of the nineteenth century, when—even though the force of a century-old cliché that demands descending cadential formulas is still strong—composers sometimes "forget" to relegate ascending lines to [their usual position in] the coda. 

A dance from John Playford's English Dancing Master (first edition 1651); music only, without dance instructions. For more information on "Madge on a Tree" go to an earlier post on this blog: link. The Dorian signature and the ascending Urlinie are obvious features. At the asterisks, note E-natural expressing the Dorian ^6 in a striking way in the context of G minor and Bb major triads, then Eb as a simple neighbor note ornament to D5.

Here are the first two of four dances from Michael Praetorius's collection Terpsichore. The four are ns104, 147, 148, and 295, and all have been discussed elsewhere on this blog.

(1) Here is my comment on n104 from an earlier post:

A shift to minor quality in the second strain, with a fairly leisurely descent/ascent pair that use both F# and F-natural in each half of the figure. (link)

A modern-sounding major/minor contrast is achieved between the strains: Mixolydian in the first, once-transposed Dorian in the second -- except that the consistent use of Eb (asterisks) renders the scale Aeolian in sound. Exceptions in the cadence (boxed) are routine embellishments.

(2) Here is my comment on n147 from an earlier post:

. . . author of the melody unknown; this is one in a series of courantes in once-transposed Dorian mode (final G; one flat in the signature). The box shows a simple linear ascent to the cadence on D5. In the second strain, the figure in part or whole occurs four times in a row.  (link)

Here, as we have seen in some earlier cases, inflections of E as Eb produce an Aeolian sound in the first half of the first strain, but move toward a cadence on D brings back the Dorian ^6 as E-natural in bars 5-8. The final measures of the second strain are exclusively Dorian in sound.

Minor key series, part 14 (Dorian and Aeolian octaves)

In the introduction to this minor-key series (link), I wrote the following:

At the end of the series, I will add posts with a couple additional counter-examples (from Beethoven and Offenbach) and other posts with historical context about the Dorian octave, the examples coming mainly from Praetorius and Eyck.

Beethoven was here recently (link), but not Offenbach: when I wrote the introduction, I anticipated finding something in Orpheus in the Underworld, but even there Offenbach wrote in the major key! In this appendix on rising figures and the modal octave, the example list does include Praetorius and Eyck, but also Morley, Walther, and La Guerre, as well as a dance from Playford.

The Dorian and once-transposed Aeolian modes are an interesting case in point for the complex history of modes, scales, harmony, and keys in the 17th century.  We'll start with the simplest examples: characteristic, conservative treatments of each.

Among the earliest posts on this blog (from 2014) is a series on rising lines in music by Jacob van Eyck, from the Fluyten Lusthof. Here is one paragraph from the introductory post (link).

As is well-known, in the 1640s the Dutch flutist Jacob van Eyck published a pair of remarkable volumes called Der Fluyten Lust-hof: vol Psalmen, Paduanen, Allemanden, Couranten, Balletten, Airs, &c. Konstigh en lieslyk gefigureert, met veel veranderingen. As the subtitle announces, the pieces -- all for solo flute (or solo treble instrument) -- range from Calvinist psalm tunes and well known chorales (such as Vater unser in Himmelreich) to dances and popular tunes. All of them are dressed with "divisions" (diminutions, or the technique that "breaks" a long note into smaller notes), most with multiple versions (met veel veranderingen).

In van Eyck's setting of an old tune, "Wel jan wat drommel" (which is discussed in the introductory post linked to above), we can see a firm maintenance of the Dorian scale, except for leading-tone inflections for the cadence to A in the first section and for the cadence to D in the second section. At "x" we might expect a player to lower the B to Bb, but at "y" the B makes sense as is. In fact, the expressive contrast between Bb at "x" and B nearby at "y" would by no means be out of place in this era (as we'll see in some subsequent examples). At "z1" and "z2", B is a given because the leading tone G# has already been heard.  In the second section, "m" and "n" are appropriately B, as the entire passage sits in the upper tetrachord and the leading tone is heard no less than four times.

"Modo 2" indicates the first of two variations. The "gebroken" version of "x" still suggests a possible Bb and the contrast between a flat for the downward line from C5 to G4 and a natural for the upward line from G4 back to C5. At "z1", it seems unlikely that Bb would sound given the proximity to the leading tone and cadence on A (see "z2"). At "m" and "n" the same constraints that dictated B rather than Bb throughout in the theme continue to apply to the diminutions.

In "Modo 3," the second variation, the diminutions come down to mostly eighth notes. At "m" Bb seems much more likely now, to avoid a tritone leap from F4 to B4 -- and of course suggests that van Eyck may have assumed a player would use Bb at this point in the theme and first variation as well. At "n" again, B is clearly meant throughout, first because of the focus on C5, then in figures that follow from the leading tone G#. At "o" it's hard to know what to make of the two notated tritones (at "p" the tritone G-C# is heard again). Unless we want to invoke possible misprints, the first B could be done as Bb, but all others at "o", "p", and "q" are B-naturals.

The figure below traces the diminutions in the closing cadences of Modo 2 & 3 back to the theme. The asterisks show the clichéd escape tone figure, where D-C# is embellished by an upper E. In the box, the escape tone even receives its own elaboration. These are excellent early examples of what be called the mirror to the leading-tone third: the not uncommon case where ^2 embellishes a more basic ^#7.

Van Eyck, Courante. I have written about this piece here: link. What might seem a subtle difference in the present day was assuredly not in much of the 17th century. This courante is in "D minor" (key signature of one flat), but properly in once-transposed Aeolian mode (the mode on A transposed up a fourth or down a fifth). The presence of Bb gives the scale a different color than the Dorian -- in any case, historically, the Aeolian mode was associated with the Phrygian, not the Dorian. The Bb is carefully maintained in the courante and its two variations, with the exception of the end of variation 2 ("Modo 3"), where the turn of the cadence up toward ^8 would surely change the notated Bb to B-natural in performance.

Next, the beginning and end (untexted) of Thomas Morley's madrigal "Leave, alas! This tormenting" (1595) are given below. Notation for viols is by Albert Folop and is available on IMSLP. I show the opening to demonstrate that it is clearly twice-transposed Aeolian (up two fourths produces a key signature of two flats). Several expressive Eb's emphasize the mode's characteristic sound, and the voice entries are in the expected positions (on D and G; not G and C, as would be the case if this were twice-transposed Dorian).

The madrigal is 88 bars long. The Aeolian octave is strictly maintained throughout, with just these two exceptions (before the end): two measures for a cadence on D (mm. 30-32 b1) and the first statement of the closing cadence below (at mm. 53-61).

The latter and its twin  (mm. 79-88) at the end of the piece are indistinguishable from the Dorian because of the repetition of a rising figure (in boxes) that requires E-natural. The structural upper voice in the cadence, also using this line, makes the adjustments we would expect for an Aeolian cadence.

Minor key series, part 6b (Couperin)

Repeated from an earlier post:

Figure f underpins the Dorian-octave elements with a very tonal third divider and the ubiquitous move i to III, minor tonic to relative major. The example is a very striking, counter-intuitive one, where the surface appearance of the structural cadence is down, not up. I am grateful to Charles Burkhart for sharing his reading with me and for permission to reproduce it along with his commentary.

The composition is "La Flore" from Ordre 5, and Burkhart told me that he worked on a reading of the piece because a former student had asked about it.

Levels (a) and (b), background and middleground, are shown below. Level (a) is nearly identical to figure f; the G3 in the bass of the figure appears at bar 12 in level (b). As level (b) clearly shows, the move from i to III is elaborated as a circle of fifths move A-D-G-C. Once ^#7 over V is reached, it is significantly elaborated.

Level (c) is the foreground, shown here in three systems. The first is bars 1-19 and covers the initial ^5 over i to ^7 over III, reached in the typical internal cadence to the opposite mode at bar 19.

The second system here is the expansion of ^#7 over V and the completion with the arrival of ^8. Bars 19 to 27.

This third system shows the coda, bars 27 to 31, whose elaboration out of a set of parallel octaves is traced through its levels (a), (b), and (c).

We pick up Burkhart's commentary now (in italics). An important compositional feature is a hill-shaped motive whose basic shape— E-F#-G-A-G-F-E—occurs several times. In my graph, at Level c, the motive is marked by brackets numbered 1, 2, and 3. The changes this motive undergoes are an important narrative strand.       ----   See the sketch fragments below, where the three versions are also collated with the score.   ----

Prominent in each version of the motive is the note G4, which is always metrically strong. Also important is A5, the peak of the hill. What happens to this note? 

Bracket 1: A5 is a weak neighbor tone.


Bracket 2: A5 is stronger—an accented neighbor, but part of an (unstable) 6/4 chord.


Bracket 3: A new harmonization of the motive emphatically brings A5 as an essential member of a I6 chord. Yet this A5 is still not entirely stable, occurring as it does within a larger V#.

 The complete Urlinie, E-F#-G-G#-A, stretching from bars 3 to 27, is an enlargement of the rising notes of the hill-motive—the motion up to its peak. However, La Flore's final two phrases—bars 20 (with pickup)-27—complete this enlargement—and the Urlinie—by plunging downward to end in the lower octave, that is, on G#3 and A4. How should we understand these plunges? They extend the down-side of the hill-motive, recall earlier downward motions, and provide a dramatic conclusion. Of course they strike the ear like the fall of a traditional Urlinie, but this is illusory. Their source is the upward progression G#4-A5, as Levels a and b of the graph reveal. Thus, it is the A of the enlargement that brings the motivic narrative to a close.

The coda (mm 27ff.) now celebrates, mimicking the hill-motive's up-down at a different pitch-level, and echoing 26-27.       [Coda level graph reproduced below. It's the same as the one shown earlier.]

And here is the coda, level c again, aligned with the score:

Update (21 September 2017): At the Euromac conference in July of this year, Stephen Slottow read a paper responding to Burkhart's analysis. Here is the abstract: link.

Minor key series, part 6a (La Guerre)

See background information on Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre in this previous post: link.  The suite in D minor (with Dorian signature) from 1687 has two courantes, the first of which is discussed here.

The opening is in some ways a mirror of the opening in the second courante, where a slowly ascending, mostly linear figure coupled F4 to F5. Here a fully linear descent from D5 to F4 occupies the first three measures, but the larger figure is an initial ascent from the opening D5 to the first Urlinie tone, F5, in measure 4 -- marked in the score.

In the final measures, ^3, as F4, is clearly heard again in the typical internal cadence to the opposite mode (at "x"), then an insistently rising pattern starting at "y" leads upward through the octave, but—as in the opening—the larger figure goes the opposite direction as the Urlinie descends in an unequivocal way from ^2 to ^1 in the final two bars. The point of interest is "what might have been" -- at "z" natural ^7 gives way directly to ^#7 over the just established V harmony.

The notation here is from Steve Wiberg's edition, available on IMSLP: link.