YEARBOOK OF THE ALAMIRE FOUNDATION

CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY TEXTBOOKS ON SIXTEENTH-CENTURY COUNTERPOINT
that the ‘tonal types’, described by Harold Powers 40 and subsequently gaining firm
analytical ground in many writings during the 1980s and 90s, still await to be mentioned
in counterpoint manuals.
As an exemplification of some of the issues touched on so far, this examination will
conclude with a short comparison of the textbook by Thomas Daniel, Kontrapunkt.
Eine Satzlehre zur Vokalpolyphonie des 16. Jahrhunderts (1997) with the one by
Peter Schubert, Modal Counterpoint, Renaissance Style (1999), not only because
they are the two newest textbooks included in this survey, but because they are among
the most comprehensive and simply rank among the best.
Starting with the modes, the by far most comprehensive account is found in
Daniel, who gives a thorough presentation of the eight- and twelve-mode systems,
the psalmtones and mode in polyphony, supplemented by the modal impact on voicedispositions,
clef-combinations, imitation, cadences, and so on. 41 The account given
by Schubert is up-to-date too, although a lot less comprehensive than Daniel’s (for
example, Schubert skips the eight-mode systems, focussing entirely on the dodecachordal
system). 42
Regarding the pedagogical approach, the two books differ significantly.
Although Daniel divides his exposition into chapters dealing with two-, three- and
four-voice counterpoint, he does not apply a species approach. The book contains a
lot of rules, scattered throughout the text, but there are no assignments at all. His
target group can best be defined as broad. As already mentioned, Schubert adheres
to the old species approach, making a lot of so-called hard and soft rules. 43 He is specific
about his target groups and provides the reader with a wealth of varied exercises
in four levels. 44 These differences are reflected in the layout of the books too,
the work by Daniel being very dense and with a rather monotonous arrangement,
while Schubert’s book displays a much lighter and well-arranged texture.
Looking at the stylistic orientation in the two books, on the surface it seems
almost the same, Daniel concentrating on the stylistic idioms found in the works of
especially Palestrina and Lassus, 45 and Schubert presenting “rules that generally represent
vocal style around 1570”. 46 Nevertheless, big differences emerge when it turns
out that Schubert primarily bases his exposition on “materials used by actual sixteenth-century
counterpoint teachers, … drawn from over a dozen treatises and
40 H.S. POWERS, Tonal Types and Modal Categories in Renaissance Polyphony, in Journal of the American
Musicological Society, 34 (1981), pp. 428–470. The volume, Tonal Structures in Early Music (cf. footnote
34) – dedicated to Powers as an ‘unofficial Festschrift’ (p. 10) – contains a bibliography of Powers’ publications
on mode and modality (pp. 389-390) as well as his essay From Psalmody to Tonality (pp. 275–340).
41 THOMAS DANIEL (1997), pp. 37-41, 134–166.
42 PETER SCHUBERT (1999), pp. x, 9–17.
43 PETER SCHUBERT (1999), pp. viii, et passim.
44 PETER SCHUBERT (1999), pp. v–vi, xi–xii.
45 THOMAS DANIEL (1997), pp. 13–15.
46 PETER SCHUBERT (1999), p. viii.
119