Bach and the 'Old' Musicology

Renwick, William; Melamed, Daniel R.; Stinson, Russell; Poulin, Pamela L.; Burns, Lori

doi:10.2307/854467

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“…The work of Burns (1993Burns ( , 1994Burns ( , 1995, for instance, shows that chorales with modal melodies can be successfully analyzed by replacing characteristic tonal voice-leading paradigms with modal paradigms. Renwick (1997), however, argues that it is only the melody of a chorale, analyzed in isolation of the harmony as a single line, that is modal; otherwise, Bach sets the melody in a patently tonal harmonic context. (Note, for example, how Bach sets the Phrygian tune of "Herzlich thut mich verlangen" in both a minor context [21,89,270,286, 345] and a major context [74,80,98,367].)…”

Section: Methods and Methodological Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Model for Scale-Degree Reinterpretation: Melodic Structure, Modulation, and Cadence Choice in the Chorale Harmonizations of J. S. Bach

Clercq

2015

EMR

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This paper reports a corpus study of the 371 chorale harmonizations by J. S. Bach. Specifically, this study investigates what kinds of events are typical at phrase endings given various melodic conditions, i.e., how well melodic structure is a predictor of modulation and cadence choices. Each fermata event was analyzed by ear and encoded with regard to the local key area and the cadence type. The frequency of each cadence type was then tabulated with respect to categorizations of the melodic structure (in terms of the intervallic pattern and scale degree content) prior to and including the cadential arrival. It is shown that most fermata events can be categorized by a small collection of event types. As a result, a simplified conceptual model of cadence choice is posited. This model proposes that a basic harmonization default is to (re-)interpret the soprano note at the fermata as scale-degree 1, 2, or 3 in some closelyrelated key area via an authentic or half cadence. The efficacy of this model is found to be very good, especially given a stepwise melodic descent into the fermata. Moreover, an overall success rate above 90% can be achieved by accounting for other cadence types through the specific musical contexts in which they occur.

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Section: Methods and Methodological Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Model for Scale-Degree Reinterpretation: Melodic Structure, Modulation, and Cadence Choice in the Chorale Harmonizations of J. S. Bach

Clercq

2015

EMR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Bach and the 'Old' Musicology

Cited by 1 publication

References 0 publications

A Model for Scale-Degree Reinterpretation: Melodic Structure, Modulation, and Cadence Choice in the Chorale Harmonizations of J. S. Bach

A Model for Scale-Degree Reinterpretation: Melodic Structure, Modulation, and Cadence Choice in the Chorale Harmonizations of J. S. Bach

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