Cantus contra cantum

Cantus contra cantum

The term “contrapunctus” (Latin for “counterpoint”) first appeared in musical theoretical writings from about 1330. It originated in a stricter medieval compositional practice: “punctus contra punctum” (“point against point”), a type of polyphonic writing rhythmically measured in a note-against-note manner between voices. In the early 15th century, the Italian theorist Prosdocimus de Beldemandis wrote in his treatise "Contrapunctus" that note-against-note composition had been supplanted by a “cantus contra cantum,” a melody-against-melody compositional style: in other words, a counterpoint of independent voices combined together and concerned with horizontal (i.e. harmonic) and vertical (i.e. melodic or rhythmic) integration.

Alfred Mann, in his introduction to Johann Joseph Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum, draws an analogy between the development of counterpoint and that of perspective in visual art: “both reflect a rise of three-dimensional thought.” That—to me—is one of the more successful metaphors: counterpoint and perspective were instrumental developments of Renaissance art and both trace their origin in the artistic experimentation of the 14th and 15th centuries. This “three-dimensional” manner of composing starts to flourish with composers of the Franco-Flemish school: Josquin des Prez (c. 1450/55 – 1521) and Nicolas Gombert (c. 1495 – c. 1560), to name a few. These composers wrote choral music, almost all of it sacred, and developed a contrapuntal technique of unity in diversity.

Josquin des Prez (like Beyoncé, also known mononymously as Josquin) was especially ambitious, setting the standard of music composition for the 16th century and beyond. Taruskin goes so far as to compare Josquin to Beethoven, “in his unprecedented stature and his undisputed preeminence in the eyes of his contemporaries and posterity…”. His psalm setting "Qui habitat" requires four choirs, each with six parts in canonic imitation, rendering a complex, highly textured 24-voice canon.

Following Josquin, the Franco-Flemish style at “its most seamless and luxuriant” can be heard in the work of Nicolas Gombert, who served in the illustrious position as canon of Tournai Cathedral in the court of Charles V. By 1540, however, all reference to Gombert in chapel records disappear. According to physician and mathematician Jerome Cardan, Gombert’s contemporary, the composer was convicted of violating a boy and sentenced to hard labor, serving on ocean galleys. In exile, Gombert wrote eight settings 5 of the Magnificat, perhaps as an effort of personal redemption. The Magnificat settings earned him a pardon from Charles V and allowed Gombert to live the rest of his days in peace.

With the music of Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548–1611) and Thomas Tallis (c. 1505–1585), contrapuntal practice spread throughout the rest of Europe amidst the schisms of the Reformation, which shattered the power of Catholic Rome. As composers were primarily still concerned with sacred music in the Renaissance, these events proved to be of immeasurable consequence and affected the practice of composition. The Council of Trent, convened by Pope Paul III in 1545, sought to cleanse all music of the Roman church of “lascivious and impure element,” which included bans on instrumental music, the parody mass, and usage of the organ.

The extent to which these bans were carried out was spotty, at best. Tomás Luis de Victoria, one of the most influential musical figures of the counter-reformation and the Spanish Renaissance, played the organ and used instruments in his sacred music. Living in Rome and borrowing musical ideas from Venice, he employed “cori spezzati”—polychoral writing in which different choirs were spatially arranged to create a kind of 16th-century surround-sound—and set his texts with vivid musical word-painting, creating works of great harmonic intensity. His Magnificat settings, which use both the aforementioned techniques, are less contrapuntal than some of the music of his contemporaries (Palestrina for instance) and employ simpler, more homophonic textures matched with a freer treatment of dissonance.

Tudor composer Thomas Tallis lived on the other side of the Reformation, in newly-Protestant—and somewhat confused—England. In a kind of 16th-century soft Brexit, Henry VIII’s repudiation of Papal authority did not extend to the doctrines of the Church: Latin was used alongside vernacular English in religious choral settings, and the musical characteristics of the Catholic church (the use of chant, call-and-response devices, and psalm and liturgical settings) were still intact. Still, most English music of this time rejected the complex counterpoint of the Continent, with more homophonic and syllabic text settings in an effort to create a more inclusive religious service.

By the time Tallis composed "Spem in alium" he had earned the reputation as England’s greatest composer through “Reformation austerity”: syllabic sacred settings in which the text was “plain and distinct”. Compositionally, the piece could not be further from such a reputation. After the Italian composer Alessandro Striggio likely performed his 40-voice motet Ecce beatam lucem in London, Tallis wrote Spem in alium in a supposed attempt at nationalistic one-upmanship and possibly premiered it for Elizabeth I’s 40th birthday in 1573. Set for eight choirs, each of five voices, it is a mastery of Renaissance counterpoint, with choirs layered on top of one another in rich imitative embroidery. Using Latin text and adapting European techniques of highly florid counterpoint and “cori spezzati,” Spem in alium is considered Tallis’s “crowning achievement” and is emblematic of England’s still ambivalent relationship with Europe.

—Prof. Dr. Mena Mark Hanna