YEARBOOK OF THE ALAMIRE FOUNDATION

CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY TEXTBOOKS ON SIXTEENTH-CENTURY COUNTERPOINT
most referred to and quoted) – it is remarkable that the authors still only to a limited
extent profit from each other’s work (at least judged by the number of specific references),
53 and it is regrettable that in many cases the methodological standpoints of
the textbooks are still neither clarified nor explicit.
No doubt, Knud Jeppesen’s textbook ought to have gone through further revisions
already during his lifetime. But the outcome of this brief survey nevertheless
tends in the direction that none of the more recent textbooks can be said to constitute
an actual replacement for his work. And this, perhaps more than anything else,
answers the question why Jeppesen’s Counterpoint is still in use around the world.
53 No doubt, part of an explanation to this lies in the obvious linguistic divide still existing between Germanand
English-speaking musicologists. About half the works included in this survey are written in English by
Englishmen or Americans, and their sources – whether other textbooks or actual research literature – are in
English as well. With very few exceptions there are no references to German literature at all. On the other
hand – and perhaps a bit more surprising – it actually turns out that the German-speaking writers are just as
monolingual, using sources written in English only to a very limited extent; cf. HANSEN, Die Satzlehre zur
‘klassischen’ Vokalpolyphonie.
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