A Historical and Algorithmic Study of Fux's Approach to Counterpoint

John Ewing

Date of Award

2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Aarden, Bret

Keywords

Fux, Johann Joseph, Python, MIDI, Counterpoint, Zarlino, Gioseffo, Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi

Area of Concentration

Humanities

Abstract

In 1725 Johann Joseph Fux published the counterpoint guide Gradus ad Parnassum. Designed for the beginning composition student, it presents sixteenth-century polyphony taught by a fictional teacher meant to represent Palestrina. Twentieth-century scholarship demonstrated that Fux's guidelines contradict one another at times and that his examples are informed by practices not accounted for by the rules his text. Regardless, the work became the foremost text on counterpoint and is still in use today. A computer model of counterpoint practice based on Fux's notated examples shows that he was working with an implicit understanding of modern harmonic practice (namely keys and functional harmony) even though he renounced the use of major/minor keys in a debate with Johann Mattheson. By uncovering the shifts in musical thinking between the time of Palestrina and Fux's own time, it becomes clearer why Fux would choose a figure so far removed from his own time and thinking. Fux believed that the best pedagogical method for teaching composition was to begin with musical fundamentals, and Palestrina represented that practice to Fux. Despite the fact that Fux employed many implicit rules that did not fit the stile antico, Palestrina's symbolic utility made him a suitable model for Fux's goals.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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