Counterpoint vs. Polyphony
Bill Baldwin
any)? Sometimes the words seem to be used interchangeably. Other times,
a distinction seems to be made. But I'm not sure what the distinction
is. In general, I see "polyphony" applied to pre-Baroque music and
"counterpoint" to the classical style with some overlapping of
terminology in the Baroque period.
--
Bill Baldwin (that's my real email addy)
Dr.Matt
Bill Baldwin <nospa...@netzero.net> wrote:
>What's the difference between counterpoint and polyphony (or is there
>any)? Sometimes the words seem to be used interchangeably. Other times,
>a distinction seems to be made. But I'm not sure what the distinction
>is. In general, I see "polyphony" applied to pre-Baroque music and
>"counterpoint" to the classical style with some overlapping of
>terminology in the Baroque period.
There's a couple different uses for each. But across most of those uses,
"polyphony" emphasizes that many sounds are made at once, whereas
"counterpoint" emphasizes the notion that care has been taken to
make it easy for a listener to hear the many sounds distinctly.
Aside from these slight differences in emphasis, the two terms are
generally used interchangeably.
--
Matthew H. Fields http://personal.www.umich.edu/~fields
Music: Splendor in Sound
"Hey, don't knock Placebo, its the only thing effective for my hypochondria."
Brights have a naturalistic world-view. http://www.the-brights.net/
Jerry Kohl
> In article <Xns9511803093E13op...@130.133.1.4>,
> Bill Baldwin <nospa...@netzero.net> wrote:
> >What's the difference between counterpoint and polyphony (or is there
> >any)? Sometimes the words seem to be used interchangeably. Other times,
> >a distinction seems to be made. But I'm not sure what the distinction
> >is. In general, I see "polyphony" applied to pre-Baroque music and
> >"counterpoint" to the classical style with some overlapping of
> >terminology in the Baroque period.
>
> There's a couple different uses for each. But across most of those uses,
> "polyphony" emphasizes that many sounds are made at once, whereas
> "counterpoint" emphasizes the notion that care has been taken to
> make it easy for a listener to hear the many sounds distinctly.
> Aside from these slight differences in emphasis, the two terms are
> generally used interchangeably.
There are other possible distinctions. In twentieth-century musical
contexts, "counterpoint" is sometimes used to refer to an interrelating
of simultaneous melodic lines, where the pitch relations are treated
in a manner at least roughly analogous to traditional contrapuntal
principles (that is, hierarchies of pitch intervals, motivic relations
such as imitation, etc.), whereas "polyphony" may be more generally
used for simultaneously occurring layers of music, which may or
may not be related in this way, but which are nonetheless distinctly
perceptible.
--
Jerry Kohl <jerom...@comcast.net>
"Légpárnás hajóm tele van angolnákkal."
Mike Coldewey
counterpoint" (various species, no parallel fifths or octaves, etc.) that
imply ... well, something different between the two. However, I can't think
of a usage where the terms aren't, I guess, technically synonymous. I think
of "counterpoint" as being post-Medieval era (Rennaissance and beyond) and
"Polyphony" as up to that time. But I don't know of a technical distinction
between the two terms.
"Jerry Kohl" <jerom...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:40D9E55B...@comcast.net...
Jerry Kohl
> One other distinction might be that mention is sometimse made of "Rules of
> counterpoint" (various species, no parallel fifths or octaves, etc.) that
> imply ... well, something different between the two. However, I can't think
> of a usage where the terms aren't, I guess, technically synonymous. I think
> of "counterpoint" as being post-Medieval era (Rennaissance and beyond) and
> "Polyphony" as up to that time. But I don't know of a technical distinction
> between the two terms.
This is certainly *not* a usual distinction between "counterpoint" and
"polyphony" (that is, a historical-period distinction). The term
"counterpoint" has its origins in the notion of setting one "point"
(either a note or, in later terminology possibly a short figure) against
("contra") another. It is, in other words, the art of setting one melody
against another. The result is a combination of two or more voices, and
the term for this is "polyphony" (poly = many, phoné = voice). Seen
from an etymological sense, "counterpoint" comes from Latin,
"polyphony" from Greek. Although they are not quite identical in
meaning, they are used more or less synonymously up until fairly
recent times.
As I said in my previous post, in some twentieth-century contexts,
"polyphony" can refer to distinct multiple streams of musical
"voices" where the specific "note-to-note" relation of traditional
counterpoint is not applicable. Examples may be found in the music
of Lutoslawski (e.g., the String Quartet of 1963, where different
instruments play their parts without precise coordination), or Ligeti's
music from around the same time (Atmosphčres, for example, where
a slowly-changing "sound mass" in several instruments may be
"crossed" by another homogeneous but distinct sound mass). Music
primarily utilizing glissandos, as found in Xenakis's string writing
may also plausibly be viewed as "polyphony" without "counterpoint",
and electronic music is full of such situations--for example,
Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge (1956), Kontakte (1958-60),
or Hymnen (1966-67). There is also the possibility of simultaneous
occurrence of complete (harmonic or contrapuntal) but mutually
distinct musical structures, as exemplified in many compositions
of Charles Ives, e.g., his Fourth Symphony (1909-16) or Elliott
Carter, e.g., Third String Quartet (1971).
This is not necessarily limited to the twentieth century and beyond
(I think, for example, of Biber's superimposition of drinking songs
in different keys in his Battaglia, where the polyphony is undoubted
but any notion of counterpoint is utterly abandoned, for comic
effect), but it only becomes a regularly occurring matter for
terminological difference after about 1900.
Christopher Eva
> What's the difference between counterpoint and polyphony (or is there
> any)? Sometimes the words seem to be used interchangeably. Other times,
> a distinction seems to be made. But I'm not sure what the distinction
> is. In general, I see "polyphony" applied to pre-Baroque music and
> "counterpoint" to the classical style with some overlapping of
> terminology in the Baroque period.
I would have said that the difference is quite simple; counterpoint is
a well-defined technique of musical composition, with self-imposed
rules and procedures, whereas polyphony is a fairly vague term used to
describe the texture of a piece of music.
To enlarge a bit: the art of counterpoint was described and defined by
countless composers and theorists in the period 1500-1750; there was
plenty of disagreement along the way (the theory of tonal answers, for
example), but it was clearly understood that what was being described
and defined was a body of related techniques that could be used in
composing music. (For example, Part III of Zarlino's Istitutioni
harmoniche of 1558 is called "The Art of Counterpoint".) Counterpoint
was defined in precise detail, from Contrapunctus Aequalis
(note-against-note counterpoint) or Contrapunctus Simplex (defined by
Bononcini as counterpoint of any fixed-ratio type, such as 1:1 or 2:1)
to Contrapunto Composto (counterpoint that is written against a cantus
firmus in anything other than a fixed ratio such as 1:1 or 2:1),
Contrapunto Obligato (according to Zarlino, counterpoint in which a
short motive or theme is repeated in ostinato fashion above a cantus
firmus) and Contrapunctus Cum Fuga. The term "Fugue" also acquired a
huge number of definitions. It's all admirably presented in a new book
on the subject, "Theories of Fugue from the Age of Josquin to the Age
of Bach" by Paul Mark Walker (University of Rochester Press 2000),
which I heartily recommend to Dr. Matt and Jerry Kohl. The common
heritage of counterpoint and fugue as developed in Italy and Germany
in that period set the standard for succeeding generations, and became
something that later composers would turn to in search of greater
rigour in their music. (I was looking the other day at old exam papers
from my time as a music student at Cambridge University; in "The
History of European Music before c. 1830" I came across "Discuss
Beethoven's relation with strict counterpoint".)
"Polyphony" on the other hand is the sort of vague term that a music
historian turns to; it is really only of use in describing the long
development from monophonic music such as Gregorian chant or a
12th-century Trouvère Song to the great flowering of vocal polyphony
in the period of Lassus and Palestrina. The earliest type of
polyphonic music was called organum; in its simplest form it consisted
in adding to a Gregorian melody a second, or organal voice which
exactly paralleled the original plainsong at the interval of a fifth
or fourth above or below. Turning to my copy of the invaluable
"Masterpieces of Music Before 1750" (Carl Parrish & John F. Ohl) I
find an example taken from a famous theoretical treatise of the ninth
century, the Musica enchiriadis (Musical Handbook), which contains the
first written discussion of polyphony. Vocal polyphony developed by
means of various techniques; organum, canon, imitation and faux
bourdon (consecutive chords of the sixth). But the point is that
polyphony is the end result (as seen from a music historian's
perspective), not the technique.
Paul Mark Walker (see above) begins his book with the suggestion that
the conception of the idea of fugue may have been due more than
anything else to the change in compositional process, effected in the
course of the fifteenth century, wherby the old method of "successive
composition" (writing one voice at a time) was replaced by the
"simultaneous conception" of a piece (writing all voices at once, a
few measures at a time).
Unfortunately, the terms "counterpoint" and "polyphony" have become so
debased by sloppy usage as to be almost meaningless. For example, I've
recently been reading Leonard Bernstein's The Joy of Music, and came
across this, in a 1957 telecast on The Music of Johann Sebastian Bach:
‘When "counterpoint" is mentioned, or, even worse, when its adjectival
cousin "contrapuntal" is mentioned, people throw up their hands.
"Don't bother me with all that counterpoint stuff. I don't get it.
Give me a good simple melody." Well, there's nothing to be scared of.
Counterpoint is melody, only accompanied by one or more additional
melodies, running along at the same time.'
No wonder there is so much confusion around "counterpoint"! (I've
noticed that it surfaces fairly often on rec.music.classical).
Christopher Eva
AJM
> What's the difference between counterpoint and polyphony (or is there
> any)? Sometimes the words seem to be used interchangeably. Other times,
> a distinction seems to be made. But I'm not sure what the distinction
> is. In general, I see "polyphony" applied to pre-Baroque music and
> "counterpoint" to the classical style with some overlapping of
> terminology in the Baroque period.
Usually when people draw a distinction between the two, they're talking
about, say
the last movement of Mozart's Jupiter symphony has ingenious
counterpoint, but "no real polyphony" - whereas a Bach fugue does use
polyphony.
I think of all composers as using counterpoint, but polyphony as being
a more extreme case of "many sounds" in harmony
Ryan
> any)? Sometimes the words seem to be used interchangeably. Other times,
> a distinction seems to be made. But I'm not sure what the distinction
> is. In general, I see "polyphony" applied to pre-Baroque music and
> "counterpoint" to the classical style with some overlapping of
> terminology in the Baroque period.
I do think they are qualitive terms for the same thing. Look at in
the extreme. One could say that we are constantly immersed in
polyphony. The birds chirping, the neighbor's kids playing, the wind,
our little boombox.... I don't think anyone would call that
counterpoint as it isn't very teleological, but polyphony...possibly.
Perhaps counterpoint is polyphony done right. Or perhaps not.
Harmony as a lot like polyphony as well, but with less rigidity than
counterpoint. A good harmony is certainly as good as a good
contrapuntal answer.