Significance of dyadic grammar Flashcards
Margaret Bent
Dyadic grammar forms the central basis of her view
Relationship to Philip Brett (and Joseph Kerman)
Bent’s method supports Brett’s belief that “we should face the music’s internal logic on its own terms, not importing extraneous standards or extrinsic ‘method’”
Why should we approach analysis of counterpoint with dyadic grammar at forefront?
Analysis and performance are bound together - singers relied on training to construe the correct cadential formulas – we should therefore base our analysis on the same training as far as possible
Leach in agreement with Bent
“There is no conflict between counterpoint and composition; composition builds on the foundation of counterpoint.”
Leach - detailed analysis of B31 - ‘De Toutes Flours’ - key point
Directed progressions are the basic unit as a creator of expectation that can then be exploited in composition
A directed progression…
“relies on the impossibility of its negative manipulation, that is, its abandonment”
What breve of B31 does Leach use to explain the fundamentality of directed progressions?
Breve 15
Issue at hand
Notated Bb where one would expect a B-nat (it opens out to C octave) - question is how should this be interpreted by singer/analyst?
Sing as written?
Structural placing (just before cadence) and syntactical position (end of line) do not support this view
Alter the tenor part - Tenor sings Db to create necessary semitone approach to perfect sonority?
This would fundamentally change the musical make-up of the balade and would run against the rest of the cadential progressions - also very rarely found in Machaut’s work (B5, for instance)
Therefore…what is the alternative?
Should be sung as a B natural (B-mi)
Reasons for this interpretation?
Non-Machaut sources that contain the song generally write B-mi = suggests that ‘more singerly knowledge is assumed outside the Machaut manuscript tradition than within it’
Nature of directed progressions
