On 20 Nov 2007 at 18:02, John Howell wrote: > At 5:53 AM -0500 11/20/07, dhbailey wrote: > > > >But if someone would know the false relationship is a common feature > >of this style of music, they would very likely also know that the F > >would be lowered on the descending melodic line after having been > >raised on the ascending line. > > OK, several people (well, at least two!) have brought up this > "descending melodic line" and I haven't commented, but I really have > to. The ascending and descending thing simply wasn't a rule in > renaissance music. They would have been trained in hexachordal > analysis and in the rules of ficta, and those would have guided their > realization of a melodic line. (Although I do appreciate that people > have recognized the alto line as an independent melodic line.) The > F# has nothing to do with an ascending line. It is raised by ficta > because the alto line forms a cadence with one of the other lines (I > didn't save the example, but that's what I recall looking for and > finding). If it did appear in the copy source (which i assume it > did), it was probably because it was a passing cadence in the middle > of a line of text and the singer could have been uncertain.
The reason the # was supplied in the source was because it was a cadential leading tone approached by 3rd, instead of the normal stepwise approach. > "Because it's a descending line" is NOT sufficient reason in > renaissance theory, at a time when the melodic minor scale was not > even invented yet. (And that's actually where the idea came from, > I'm pretty sure.) There's an intervening barline, and a non-cadential figure in a hexachordal context where the F would be natural. That's two reasons why the # no longer applies, and why a natural need not be notated. Actually, I think the figures in the bass are the best place for cautionary additions: http://www.philomela.net/ex/deus.jpg because there is no indication of the # third in the 4th measure, and what seems like an unnecessary # third in the 2nd measure (perhaps the context before was very Eb heavy -- I'd assume we're gradually moving from a "g minor" to a "d minor" context, and would expect the following measures to be a resolution on the chord of F Major), and last of all, no # third in the last measure. If I were editing this, I would add a parenthetical sharp figure for the continuo line on the first beat of m. 4 and the 3rd beat of the last measure (where there's a mode change that's not going to get played if the continuo player is reading from a bass line alone). -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
