Modern scholars have suggested various approaches to the
analysis of the pretonal repertory. However, if we consider
the question of how the individual voice parts interact in a
Renaissance polyphonic composition to create coherence for the
movement as a whole, we find that there are no tools available
to undertake such a task. We may be able to speak generally
of the arrival of certain moments as relatively accented or
unaccented; we may even be able to dissect a complete melodic
line with some segmentation process to highlight motivic
structure, phrase development or contour-articulated pitch
events. But there are no analytic strategies available yet
which are capable of disclosing the structures of independent
voice parts and their interaction as timepoint-accenting
elements capable of creating formal, rhythmic and pitch-class
patterns. This study outlines a methodology that has been
developed to deal with these specific issues.
The analytic strategy is based on the perception of
accents in individual voices of polyphonic works. The types
of accents germane to Renaissance polyphony include
durational, leap, contour, cadential and beginning-accents.
The study proposes a simple, bipartite classification of
accentual strength—strong or weak. Each voice part in a work
is then analyzed, with every pitch attack represented as
strongly or weakly accented through special notation developed
for the analysis.
The methodology affords a picture of the most strongly-
accented timepoints in the individual melodies of three- and
four-voice cantus firmus masses of the mid- to late fifteenth
century. The relative strengths of these accents, along with
their synchronization in the multi-voice aggregate, are
disclosed through the notation. After renotating scores with
this special notational symbology, we extract points of
coincident strong accents in three or more voices to create
accent profiles for each section of a movement. We then
compare profiles of same-texted works by different composers
in order to disclose normative formal and pitch-class
procedures in some Renaissance compositions.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/4836 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Ethier, Glen Edward |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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