II. History 1. Early history (to 1750)

II. History
1. Early history (to 1750).
Analysis, as a pursuit in its own right, came to be established only in the late 19th century; its emergence as an approach and method can be traced back to the 1750s. However, it existed as a scholarly tool, albeit an auxiliary one, from the Middle Ages onwards. The precursors of modern analysis can be seen within at least two branches of musical theory: the study of modal systems, and the theory of musical rhetoric. Where, in either of these branches, a theorist cited a piece of music as illustrating a point of technique or structure, only a small amount of discussion was necessary before he was using what would now be called the analytical approach.

In a sense, the classificatory work carried out by the Carolingian clergy in compiling tonaries was analytical: it involved determining the mode of every antiphon in a repertory of chant, and then subclassifying the modal groups according to their variable endings (‘psalm tone differences’: see Tonary). Such theorists as Wilhelm of Hirsau, Hermannus Contractus and Johannes Cotto in the 11th century cited antiphons with brief modal discussion, as did later theorists such as Marchetto da Padova and Gaffurius. Their discussions were essentially analysis in the service of performance. Renaissance theorists such as Pietro Aaron and Heinrich Glarean discussed the modality of polyphonic compositions by Josquin. (For examples see Mode.)

Such citations of individual works were all concerned with matters of technique and substance. It was only with the development of musical rhetoric that the idea of ‘form’ entered musical theory. The literature of ancient classical Greek and Roman rhetoric was rediscovered with the finding of Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria in 1416. But the application of the ideas of classical oratory has been traced back as far as the Notre Dame polyphony of the early 13th century, and its direct impact is clear in late 15th-century music. It was with Listenius (Musica, 1537; Eng. trans., 1975) that musica poetica – musical rhetoric – was introduced into musical theory. Dressler (1563) alluded to a formal organization of music that would adopt the divisions of an oration into exordium (‘opening’), medium and finis. Pietro Pontio (1588) discussed the standards for composing motets, masses, madrigals, psalms and other genres, and similar discussions occur in Cerone (1613), Praetorius (1618), Mattheson (1739) and Scheibe (1738–40).

A plan similar to Dressler’s appeared in Burmeister (1606). Burmeister had already proposed (1599, 1601) that musical ‘figures’ could be treated as analogous to rhetorical figures, and it was he who first set out a full formal analysis of a piece of music. It was Burmeister, too, who gave the first definition of analysis (1606, pp.71ff):

Analysis of a composition is the resolution of that composition into a particular mode and a particular species of counterpoint [antiphonorum genus], and into its affections or periods. … Analysis consists of five parts: 1. Determination of mode; 2. of species of tonality; 3. of counterpoint; 4. Consideration of quality; 5. Resolution of the composition into affections or periods.

He then discussed each of the parts of analysis in detail, and followed this by his analysis of Lassus’s five-voice motet In me transierunt. He defined the mode as authentic Phrygian, and discussed the total range of the piece and the individual vocal ranges. He defined the tonality as ‘diatonic’, the species of counterpoint as ‘broken’ (fractum), the quality as diazeugmenorum. Burmeister then proceeded to the fifth stage (pp.73ff):

Furthermore, the work can be divided up very comfortably into nine periods, of which Period 1 comprises the Exordium, which is elaborated with two kinds of ornament: fuga realis [regular imitation] and hypallage [imitation by contrary motion]. The seven middle periods are the Corpus of the work, just like the Confirmatio in oratory (if comparison be allowed with a kindred art). Of these, the first [Period 2] is ornamented with hypotyposis [word-painting], climax [repetition of a figure one step higher or lower] and anadiplosis [homophonic passages in multiple restatements at different pitches]. The second [Period 3] is ornamented in like manner, but has anaphora [pseudo-imitation of a figure, but not in all the voices] added to it. The third [Period 4] has hypotyposis and mimesis [homophonic phrases from different sub-choruses, answering each other at higher or lower pitches]. The fourth [Period 5] divides into two sub-choruses, and has pathopoeia [a semitone chromatic step expressive of sadness (on the words ‘dolor meus’ in Tenor I and Bassus)]. The fifth [Period 6] has fuga realis, the sixth [Period 7] anadiplosis and noemate [homophonic passages], the seventh [Period 8] noemate and mimesis. Period 9, the final one, is like the Epilogue in oratory. The piece ends with a principal cadence [with Tenor I falling to E and the Altus ascending to the octave above it].

Passages from this motet are cited elsewhere in Burmeister’s treatise to illustrate rhetorical devices, thus giving a very full exegesis of the work.

Lippius (1612) discussed rhetoric as the basis of the forma, or structure of a composition. Throughout the Renaissance and Baroque periods the principles of rhetoric were prescriptive: they provided routine techniques for the process of composition rather than descriptive techniques for analysis. But they played an important part in the growing awareness of formal structure during these periods, and in particular of the function of contrast and the links between contrasted sections, out of which the analytical faculty was eventually to develop. Mattheson (1739) enumerated six parts to a well-developed composition such as an aria (p.236):

Exordium, the introduction and beginning of a melody, in which its purpose and entire intention must be shown, so that the listener is prepared and his attention is aroused. …

Narratio is a report or a narration in which the meaning and nature of the discourse is [are] suggested. It is found immediately at the entrance of the voice – or the most important concerted [instrumental] part, and is related to the Exordium … by means of a suitable association [with the musical idea found in the Exordium].

Propositio briefly contains the meaning and purpose of the musical speech, and is simple or compound … Such propositions have their place immediately after the first phrase of melody, when actually the bass takes the lead and presents the material both briefly and simply. Then the voice begins its propositio variata, joins with the bass, and thus creates a compound proposition.

Confirmatio is the artistic strengthening of the proposition and is usually found in melodies by imaginative and unexpected repetitions, by which is not to be understood the normal Reprise. What we mean here are agreeable vocal passages repeated several times with all kinds of nice changes of decorated additions.

Confutatio is the resolution of objections [i.e. contrasted or opposing musical ideas]. In melody it may be expressed either by tied notes or by the introduction and rejection of passages which appear strange.

Peroratio, finally, is the end or conclusion of our musical oration, and must above all else be especially expressive. And this is not found just in the outcome or continuation of the melody itself, but particularly in the postlude, be it either for the bass line or for a strong accompaniment; whether or not one has heard the Ritornello before. It is customary that the aria concludes with the same material as it began; so that our Exordium also serves as a Peroratio.

Mattheson then went on to apply this sectionalization to an aria by Marcello, complete with discussion and musical examples (pp.237ff), introducing other technical terms as he did so. (See Rhetoric and music, §II.)

So far this discussion has been occupied with principal developments up to 1750 in the analysis of structural organization. However, if a full appreciation is to be gained of the groundwork of analytical theory, then three other traditions of musical theory must be touched upon at this point: the art of embellishment, the technique of figured bass and the theory of harmony. None of these is itself centred on analysis, but each bears on it.

The tradition of embellishment manuals, stretching from Ganassi (Fontegara, 1535) to Virgiliano (Il dolcimelo, c1600) and then on to the 17th-century vocal and instrumental tutors, was primarily concerned with teaching graces and passaggi to performers. This was done by means of tables of ornaments, extended practical examples and formulated rules. In these manuals is established the fundamental concept of ‘diminution’. This concept has two aspects: (1) the subdivision of a few long note values into many shorter values; and (2) the application to an ‘essential’ melodic line of a layer of less essential linear material. In both aspects a hierarchy is created, and in both the possibility exists of the hierarchy becoming multi-layered as an already embellished line is subjected to further embellishment. On the face of it this was a quest for the purely transient affair of the virtuoso performer. In reality much 16th-century music contained elements of embellishment as it was written down; and the modern style of 17th-century seconda pratica subsumed ornamentation within its notated exterior. The compositional notion of inventing (or adopting) a basic structure and then elaborating it, which goes back at least to the 9th century and was developed as contrapunctus diminutus by 14th-century theorists, was crystallized in this instructional tradition and was absorbed deep into European musical consciousness. Nowhere was this truer than in the stile antico lineage, which led from Diruta (Il primo libro, 1580) through Berardi (Ragionamenti musicali, 1681; Miscellanea musicale, 1689) and Fux (Gradus ad Parnassum, 1725) right into the heart of the 19th century. It should not be forgotten that Beethoven was steeped in this tradition and to the end of his life remained profoundly influenced by his lessons from Albrechtsberger. This tradition was to be of incalculable importance to the theories of Heinrich Schenker at the beginning of the 20th century.

The teaching of figured bass was similarly performer-orientated. The line of treatises stretched from Agazzari (Del sonare sopra’l basso, 1607) into the 18th century. It tended to foster the concept on which it was founded: that of the chord as an indivisible unit. It evolved a new categorization of consonance and dissonance which, like the concept of diminution, was absorbed profoundly into the mainstream of musical thought. However, it masked the concept of ‘root’ by concentrating on the actual bass line.

Unquestionably the most influential music theorist of the 18th century was Rameau. Rameau was not himself concerned with analysis of form and large-scale structure. His theory of harmony nonetheless had latent significance for future analysts. Rameau ‘conceptualized those principles of tonality which were so thoroughly revolutionizing harmony in the early eighteenth century’ (Gossett, ed. and trans.: Rameau: Traité, 1971, p.xxi). He asserted the primacy of harmony over melody. At the heart of his theory are the three ‘primary consonances’, the octave, 5th and major 3rd, and the fact that they are contained within and generated by the single note. (This he saw first through mathematical subdivision of string lengths, as had Zarlino before him, and later through the observed overtone structure of a sounding body, or corps sonore.) He saw the octave as the ‘replica’ (réplique) of its source (ibid., 8). From these observations he posited the notion of transposing the natural order of sounds in a harmony, thus isolating the principle of ‘inversion’ (renversement): ‘inversion is basic to all the diversity possible in harmony’ (ibid., 13). The principle of ‘implication’ (sous-entendre) allows that sounds may be heard in a chord while not existing in their own right. Inversion, replication and implication together yield the notion of ‘root’ (a concept which had already been grasped by Lippius, 1612, and Baryphonus, Pleiades musicae, 1615, 2/1630) and thus also the series of such roots, some present and some implied, that underlies a harmonic progression containing inverted chords. This series of notes Rameau termed ‘fundamental bass’ (basse fondamentale).

What did this theory have to offer to analysis? First, it offered explanations for chordal structures, consonant and dissonant, thereby providing tools for chordal analysis. Second, it presented a highly centralized view of tonality, comprising a very few elements which could occur in a rich variety of ways. Together with the rules for the operation of ‘fundamental bass’, this paved the way for a reductionist approach to musical structure. Finally, by giving acoustical primacy to the major triad it offered the prospect of scientific verifiability to analytical systems.

Rameau’s exact contemporary J.D. Heinichen was almost as prophetic in certain respects. His Der General-Bass in der Composition (1728) was written towards the end of the figured-bass tradition and brought that tradition into contact with the theory of composition. Heinichen came close to formulating a theory of chord-progression. Of particular interest to the analyst is his notion of ‘fundamental roles’ (Fundamentalnoten), by which he denoted the principal notes in a melody line after inessential notes have been stripped away.