Studies in the History of the Cadence

Caleb Michael Mutch

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

2015

 2015
Caleb Michael Mutch
All rights reserved

ABSTRACT
Studies in the History of the Cadence
Caleb Michael Mutch

This dissertation traces the development of the concept of the cadence in the history of
music theory. It proposes a division of the history of cadential theorizing into three periods,
and elucidates these periods with four studies of particularly significant doctrines of musical
closure. The first of these periods is the pre-history of the cadence, which lasted from the dawn
of medieval music theory through the fifteenth century. During this time theorists such as John
of Affligem (ca. 1100), whose writings are the subject of the first study, developed an analogy
between music and the classical doctrine of punctuation to begin to describe how pieces and
their constituent parts can conclude. The second period begins at the turn of the sixteenth
century, with the innovative theory expounded by the authors of the Cologne school, which
forms the subject of the second study. These authors identified the phenomenon of musical
closure as an independent concept worthy of theoretical investigation, and established the first
robustly polyphonic cadential doctrine to account for it. For the following three centuries
theorists frequently made new contributions to the theorizing of the cadence in their writings,
as exemplified by the remarkable taxonomy of cadences in the work of Johann Wolfgang
Caspar Printz (1641-1717), the subject of the third study. By the early nineteenth century,
however, cadential theorizing had largely ossified. Instead, authors such as A. B. Marx (17951866), on whose writings the fourth study focuses, only drew upon the concept of the cadence

as was necessary in their treatments of newly emerging theoretical concerns, especially musical
form.
In order to elucidate and corroborate this historical framework, the dissertations
chapters undertake close readings of the doctrines of musical closure put forth by John of
Affligem, the Cologne school, Printz, and Marx. The theoretical contributions contained in
these sources are interpreted and contextualized in light of the non-musical discourses upon
which they draw, and through interrogation of the relationship between the cadential ideas
they espouse and contemporaneous musical practice. In doing so, the dissertation reveals
discontinuities in the concepts and functions of cadential doctrines in historical music theories,
and provides new possibilities for understanding and experiencing musical structure.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF EXAMPLES ................................................................................................................................iv
LIST OF FIGURES .....................................................................................................................................vi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ....................................................................................................................... vii
INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................... 1
CHAPTER 1. MUSICAL CLOSURE, GRAMMATICO-RHETORICAL DOCTRINE,
AND CHANT: JOHN OF AFFLIGEM ..................................................................................... 14
1.1

The Analysis of Speech Structure in Classical Rhetoric ........................................................ 16

1.2 The Grammatical Doctrine of Punctuation in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages ......... 24
1.3 Grammatical and Rhetorical Elements in Musical Discourse before John of Affligem ....... 34
1.4 John of Affligem and the Application of the Distinctiones to Music ....................................... 46
1.5 The Transmission of the Doctrine ................................................................................................ 66
1.6 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 70

CHAPTER 2. POLYPHONIC CLOSURE IN THE RENAISSANCE:

THE COLOGNE SCHOOL ........................................................................................................ 72
2.1 The Term Clausula Formalis ........................................................................................................... 75
2.2 Precedents of the Cologne Schools Theory ............................................................................... 85
2.3 The First Stage: Three-voice Cadences in the Opus aureum and Musica ................................. 91

2.4 The Second Stage: Four-voice Cadences in the Musica and Tetrachordum musices ............. 102
2.5 Triadic Tonality and Cochlaeuss Sixth Rule ........................................................................... 106
2.6 Cadential Doctrine and Compositional Practice ..................................................................... 122
2.7 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 137

CHAPTER 3. MID-BAROQUE CLAUSULA DOCTRINE:

PRINTZ AND HIS PREDECESSORS ..................................................................................... 140
3.1 German Cadence Theory before Printz .................................................................................... 142
3.2 A Ramist Theory of Cadence ...................................................................................................... 154
3.3 Printzs contribution .................................................................................................................... 165
3.3.1 Voice-specific Cadences ....................................................................................................... 166
3.3.2 Cadence and Mode: Propria/Peregrina .............................................................................. 171
3.3.3 Perfect/Imperfect Cadences ................................................................................................. 175
3.3.4 Totalis/Dissecta ...................................................................................................................... 177
3.3.5 Desiderans/Acquiescens....................................................................................................... 181
3.3.6 The Sedes ................................................................................................................................. 192
3.3.7 An Inchoate Theory of Phrases ........................................................................................... 199
3.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 202

ii

CHAPTER 4. A. B. MARX, BIOLOGY, FORM, AND CADENCE .................................................. 205

4.1 The Roles of Cadence in Music-theoretical Discourse before A. B. Marx ............................ 206
4.2 A. B. Marxs Conception of Cadence ......................................................................................... 216
4.3 Form and Cadence in Marxs Music Theory ............................................................................ 225
4.4 Organicism and Marxs Theory of Form .................................................................................. 238
4.5 Changes in the Nineteenth Century .......................................................................................... 247
4.6 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 258

BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................................... 264

APPENDIX.............................................................................................................................................. 283

iii

LIST OF EXAMPLES

Example 1.1 Tribus miraculis ornatum diem, antiphon for the feast of Epiphany ................... 44
Example 1.2 Petrus autem servabatur, antiphon for the feast Vincula Petri ............................... 53
Example 1.3 Homo quidam erat dives et,
antiphon for the feast of the second Sunday after Pentecost ................................................ 59
Example 1.4 Erat Petrus dormiens inter, antiphon for the feast Vincula Petri ............................ 61
Example 1.5 Transeuntes autem primam et, antiphon for the feast Vincula Petri...................... 64
Example 1.6 Ecce nomen Domini, antiphon for the feast Nativitas Domini ................................ 67
Example 1.7 Melodic ending formulas from Wollick, Opus aureum, f. F4v ..................................... 69

Example 2.1 Three-voice clausulae from [Cochlaeus], Musica (ca. 1505), f. C5r ............................. 96
Example 2.2 A two-voice clausula from Ornithoparchus,
Musice active micrologus, IV.4, f. L4v ......................................................................................... 97
Example 2.3 Clausulae on mi ............................................................................................................... 100
Example 2.4 Four-voice clausulae from Cochlaeus, Musica (1507), f. F4v ..................................... 103
Example 2.5 Cochlaeuss Sixth Rule ................................................................................................... 107
Example 2.6 Additional type of mi cadence from Galliculus, Isagoge, f. C3v ................................ 121
Example 2.7 Schlick, Mein Lieb ist weg ......................................................................................... 126
Example 2.8 Isaac, I[nn]sbruck, ich muss dich lassen .................................................................. 130

iv

Example 3.1 Four-voice clausula from Johannes Cochlaeus,

Tetrachordum musices, f. F1r (1512) ........................................................................................... 143
Example 3.2 Ramus, Dial. lib. duo, x. (Cambridge: John Hayes, 1672 edition) ............................. 158
Example 3.3 Printz, Phrynis Mitilenaeus, I.8 (from the 1696 edition) .............................................. 164
Example 3.4 A Cadence on mi, from Phrynis, I.8, 43, p. 31 ............................................................ 174
Example 3.5 Phrygian-related cadences ............................................................................................ 185
Example 3.6 Heinrich Schtz, Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, SWV 235 (Dresden, 1661) .... 191
Example 3.7 The Sedes Subintellecta, from Phrynis, I.8, 31, p. 29. .................................................. 194
Example 3.8 Caesuras, from Phrynis, I.8, 57, p. 33. ......................................................................... 200

Example 4.1 Marxs Two Harmonic Masses ..................................................................................... 217

Example 4.2 Marxs Trugschluss .......................................................................................................... 221
Example 4.3 A synopsis of Marx's theory of form............................................................................ 227
Example 4.4 Marxs Satz and Periode .................................................................................................. 229
Example 4.5 Marxs Period and the Piece in Two Parts .................................................................. 231

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3.1 Cadence Categories in Precursors of Printz.................................................................... 144

Figure 3.2 Ramus's Cadential Types.................................................................................................... 163
Figure 3.3 Clausulas with respect to mode ....................................................................................... 171
Figure 3.4 Totalis and Dissecta cadences ........................................................................................... 177

Figure 4.1 Marxs Fourth and Fifth Rondo Forms ............................................................................ 232
Figure 4.2 Marxs Fourth and Fifth Rondo Forms ............................................................................ 233

vi

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Of all the help and encouragement I have receive along the dissertating road, David
Cohens has been the most formative. He has been a sage guide to the recesses of historical
music theory, lavish with his feedback, and selfless with his time. My thanks to him are many,
and profound. Benjamin Steege has also been a great help in my latter years of graduate school,
and Ive benefited from his graciousness, attention to argumentation, and perspective on the
field. Im very grateful for his support.
There are many other people from the Columbia community I wish to thank. Joseph
Dubiel and Ellie Hisama, for guiding my way through the program; Elaine Sisman and Susan
Boynton, for their support and their feedback on my work; Anne Gefell and Gabriela Kumar,
for their unfailing goodwill in the departmental office; and Elizabeth Davis and Nick Patterson,
for their consummate librarianship. To Kate Heidemann, David Gutkin, Nicholas Chong, Ben
Hansberry, Will Mason, and the rest of my grad school colleagues, thanks for your camaraderie.
Id also like to acknowledge the valuable experiences I had outside the walls of my
school. The classes I took with William Rothstein inform me both as a historian and an analyst,
and my dissertation is much the better for his presence on my committee. Nathan Martin has
been a wonderful mixture of mentor, colleague, and friend, and I thank him for his
encouragement and generosity. Thanks, too, to Richard Kurth for piquing my interest in the
history of music theory, and for his mentoring over the years.
To my family, both by birth and marriage, my deepest gratitude for your unflagging
support and encouragement. Most of all, to my wife, Sarah Godbehere, thank you for your
steadfast loving-kindness. Your forebearance these last years has meant the world.

vii

INTRODUCTION
Of all the uses to which humans have put music, of all the qualities and potencies they
have imputed to it, there is perhaps no attribution loftier than the traditional doctrine of the
music of the spheres. Beginning with Platos famous Myth of Er in his Republic and lasting even
until Keplers day, philosophers, astronomers, and musically inclined scholars held that the
celestial bodies emit sounds which create a harmonious concord.1 Since the deity was held to
motivate the spheres revolutions in their fixed, sempiternal courses,2 the celestial bodies
supposedly sounded their music endlessly, ever moving seamlessly from the end of one orbital
revolution to the beginning of the next. Yet this eternal, immutable perfection cannot be
experienced in the sublunary realm. As the fifth-century B.C.E. philosopher-scientist Alcmaeon
put it, Humans perish on account of this: they are unable to connect the beginning to the end.3
At the end of the course of our allotted years of life, we are unable to return to infancy and
begin again. Similarly, all music here on earth must come to an end.4

Plato, Republic, 617b.

. . . summus ipse deus, arcens et continens ceteros in quo sunt infixi illi qui uoluuntur stellarum
cursus sempiterni (Cicero, Somnium Scipionis, IV). All translations are mine, unless otherwise noted.
2

,
(Alcmaeon, frag. 2 [H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, vol. 1, 6th
edn. {Berlin: Weidmann, 1951}, 215]).
3

It is worth noting that even the musical performance that may come closest to escaping the
bonds of finitude, the rendition of John Cages As Slow as Possible being performed in Halberstadt,
Germany, is invariably described in the popular press in terms of when it will conclude (see, for instance,
Maura Judkis, Worlds longest concert will last 639 years, The Washington Post [November 21, 2011],
and Daniel J. Wakin, John Cage's Long Music Composition in Germany Changes a Note, The New York
Times [May 6, 2006]).
4

This dissertation takes as its subject musical closure, and the diversity of ways in which,
over the centuries, writers on music have engaged with the phenomenon of the conclusions of
musical pieces and their constituent parts. It proposes a new narrative of how conceptions of
the cadence developed from the eleventh through nineteenth centuries, by drawing upon
detailed analyses of crucial doctrines of cadence found in music theory texts, and by comparing
those ideas with contemporaneous musical compositions. In doing so, it presents material that
will be of interest to a range of scholars. Those who focus on the analysis of compositions will
gain fresh insights into past conceptions of musical closure that may provide access to new
possibilities for hearing a compositions musical structure and sectional divisions. For
historians of theory, the dissertation offers a new interpretive framework for the concept of
cadence, comprising three previously unidentified periods of cadential theorizing with
important discontinuities of doctrine and practice separating them. As for modern Formenlehre,
many recent theories of form refer back to eighteenth and nineteenth-century doctrines of
formal design, either to demonstrate the superiority of contemporary perspectives, or to
challenge current theory to take into consideration historically-sensitive ways of understanding
formal types.5 Yet these sorts of appeals to the past have not occurred with respect to the
concept of cadence. To crafters of modern theories of form, this dissertation presents
opportunities both to be challenged by older conceptions of closure and to make well informed
decisions about when to depart from those conceptions in favor of modern understandings of

James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2006), 605; Scott Burnham, The Second Nature of Sonata Form, in Music Theory and Natural Order
from the Renaissance to the Early Twentieth Century, ed. Suzannah Clark and Alexander Rehding
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 117, n. 8.
5

cadence. Discussion of the broader intellectual contexts of these cadential doctrines shows how
the latter have not depended solely on developments in musical practice, but were also
influenced and shaped by concepts and methodological procedures drawn from their wider
intellectual environment.
Before proceeding further, a few words about the terminology of cadence and closure
are in order. The meaning of the words cadence and closure (and related terms in other
languages) varies significantly in different periods and places, and one of this dissertations
endeavors is to tease out the nuances of such terminology in different texts. For now, however,
let the term musical closure provisionally be understood to refer to the general function of
marking the conclusion of a formal unit (or other stretch of musical utterance) and establishing
to some degree a definite impression of arrival and/or conclusion, by whatever means are
appropriate to the style of the music in question.6 Cadence, in contrast, here refers to a
stereotyped succession of at least two sonorities, normally composed of three or more voices,
that produces the effect of closure, as just defined. Thus, monophonic chant cannot have
cadences, but does have musical closure. The related idea of ending will be used to
differentiate a conclusion that is not motivated by the music before it from the concepts of
closure and cadence, which are understood to close off some amount of preceding material
(though the precise amount that is thereby concluded is often ambiguous).
That is not to say, however, that all theories of cadence advance this understanding of
the concept. Indeed, many cadential theorists focus either on characterizing the function of

My understanding of closure here is similar to Mark Anson-Cartwrights first definition of

closure, but without his restriction to the tonal repertoire (Concepts of Closure in Tonal Music: A Critical
Study, Theory and Practice 32 [2007]: 3).
6

concluding formal units, or on describing the musical configurations which constitute cadential
progressions. That is to say, they dedicate their attention to the questions of where cadences are
made, or how they are constructed. Our provisional definition of the cadence encompasses both
of these facets, of course, but it is important to note that most innovative cadential doctrines
show signs of originality in only one of these two areas, and leave the other either unstated or in
an entirely traditional form. Thus, the questions of how and where cadences are made can cast
significant light on theorists priorities and contributions, and we will return to them as we
consider different historical theories of cadence.
The contribution I seek to make in this dissertation will become clearer in the light of a
review of the scholarly literature of the past few decades that has addressed the concept of
cadence. The vast majority of this literature may be fruitfully analyzed as falling into three
broad categories: wide-ranging encyclopedia articles, analyses of musical closure in a given
repertoire, and studies of cadential doctrine in particular periods. The most thorough example
of the first category is a pair of related articles on Clausula and Kadenz by Siegfried
Schmalzriedt in the Handwrterbuch der musikalischen Terminologie.7 Schmalzriedts purpose is to
describe all the ways in which the given terms have been used over the centuries. The
crowning achievement of his articles is a table of 81 terms in Latin and Italian, followed by an
exposition of what the terms mean and who employed them. His treatment offers a valuable
overview of a great number of the meanings with which the terms clausula and cadence
(and their cognates) have been associated over the centuries, and he does not neglect peripheral

Siegfried Schmalzriedt, Clausula and Kadenz in Handwrterbuch der musikalischen

Terminologie, ed. Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1972).
7

uses of the terms, such as the seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century tendency to describe a
trill-like melodic ornament as a cadence.8 Yet the concision of Schmalzriedts articles entails
several deficiencies: his focus on providing definitions for terminology minimizes the extent to
which the conception of a single term, like clausula formalis can change over the course of the
nearly three centuries in which the phrase was used. Additionally, Schmalzriedts articles are
unreliable witnesses to matters of chronology and intellectual priority: the sources Schmalzriedt
cites to demonstrate his terms often transmit the cadential doctrine of earlier theorists in nearly
identical form, yet Schmalzriedt rarely acknowledges the antecedent sources, resulting in a
misleading impression as to just when the usage in question first appeared.9
The second category of literature consists of a few works that seek to theorize the
practice of musical closure in particular corpora of compositions. One example of this approach
is an article by Kevin Moll, in which he proposes a list of ten defining elements of cadences in
French mass settings of the fourteenth century.10 He considers aspects of the music such as text
setting, pulse, counterpoint, and consonance. By appealing to his defining elements, Moll
makes claims for where and whether one should understand cadences to occur in this music.
His criteria also allow him to apply the label of cadence to progressions that are not normally
identified as fourteenth-century cadences by modern scholars. Based on this, Moll concludes

See, for example, Michael Praetorius, Syntagma musicum, III, 137-9, and tienne Louli, lments
ou principes de musique, 67.
8

Schmalzriedt often cites Walthers Lexikon to define terms first proposed more than fifty years
earlier by Printz in his Phrynis Mitilenaeus, and also cites Ornithoparchuss nearly verbatim version of
Schanppecher and Wollicks cadential doctrine with no reference to the latter.
9

Kevin Moll, Voice Function, Sonority, and Contrapuntal Procedure in Late Medieval
Polyphony, Current Musicology 64 (Spring 1998): 32.
10

that musical closure in that corpus is more flexible than is commonly acknowledged, though it
still adheres to an easily discernible set of music elements.11
Jennifer Bain theorizes how cadences work in a yet more restricted repertoire: the music
of Machaut. Her central contribution, like Molls, is to broaden the notion of what serves as a
cadence. She emphasizes progressions that occur at conclusions of textual units, and argues
that they should be considered as cadences even if they come to rest on imperfect sonorities.
These imperfect-sonority cadences are at once points of provisional arrival and cues
indicating that a more complete, perfect-sonority cadence is required at a later point in the
piece.12 Bain also argues for a more inclusive approach to the definition and identification of
cadences in Machauts music than is provided by the standard theory. The latter stipulates, as
required features of a cadence, a progression of imperfect to perfect dyads exhibiting conjunct
and contrary motion, and thus effectively limits cadential progressions to three: minor third to
unison, major third to perfect fifth, and major sixth to octave. Bain, however, points out several
examples in Machauts oeuvre in which both structural voices leap, or move in some other
unusual way, to a perfect consonance which is the final sonority of a whole piece, arguing that
such cases prove the existence, in this repertoire, of a broader range of cadential possibilities
than that allowed by the standard theory.
Such studies of cadential practice in specific bodies of music are mostly limited to pretonal music. When it comes to music of the common-practice period, recent and current

11

Ibid., 37-40.

Jennifer Bain, Theorizing the Cadence in the Music of Machaut, Journal of Music Theory 47, no.
2 (Fall, 2003): 343-346.
12

theoretical and analytical work does not usually attempt a redefinition of the cadence; rather,
most such work adopts without question those prevailing concepts of cadence that are the
result of a centuries-long development. One exception to this is William Caplin, who has
dedicated a substantial article to theorizing the classical cadence.13 Yet his work is markedly
different from the projects of Moll and Bain: rather than offering a novel theory of how cadences
function in a given musical repertoire, Caplin articulates how he believes the concept of the
cadence should function in discourse devoted to classical music, a functioning largely
instantiated in the theory of form published earlier in his book Classical Form.14
Two fine examples of the third category, studies of cadential doctrines of particular
authors or eras, are Elisabeth Schwinds monograph Kadenz und Kontrapunkt: Zur
Kompositionslehre der Klassischen Vokalpolyphonie, and Markus Walduras tome Von Rameau und
Riepel zu Koch.15 Schwind takes as her focus sixteenth-century polyphony, but, rather than
deducing cadential function from the repertoire, she undertakes a close reading of
contemporaneous theoretical texts to gain insight into how composers may have conceptualized
musical closure. Walduras text is less oriented towards compositional practice. Instead, he

William E. Caplin, The Classical Cadence: Conceptions and Misconceptions. Journal of the
American Musicological Society 57, no. 1 (Spring 2004): 51-118.
13

14

Idem, Classical Form (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

Elisabeth Schwind, Kadenz und Kontrapunkt: Zur Kompositionslehre der Klassischen Vokalpolyphonie
(Hildesheim: Olms, 2009); Markus Waldura, Von Rameau und Riepel zu Koch: Zum Zusammenhang zwischen
theoretischem Ansatz, Kadenzlehre und Periodenbegriff in der Musiktheorie des 18. Jahrhunderts.
Musikwissenschaftliche Publikationen, ed. Herbert Schneider, no. 21 (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag,
2002).
15

aims to elucidate eighteenth-century ideas of cadence and phrase structure by investigating a

wide range of contemporaneous music-theoretical texts.
Poundie Bursteins work includes an example of a very different kind of study of the
concept of the cadence.16 Rather than surveying the dicta of multiple theorists, Burstein here
elucidates one aspect of cadence in a single theorists work, to wit, Heinrich Schenkers
auxiliary cadence (Hilfskadenz). He thoroughly investigates Schenkers texts and analytic
examples and offers a compelling interpretation of a concept that previously had been poorly
explained by commentators. Burstein finds that the essence of the auxiliary cadence is a
cadential progression in which the tonic harmony, which in Schenkers view normally initiates
cadences, is omitted. One major difference between Bursteins project and those of Schwind
and Waldura is that he aims explicitly to change analytic practice. His article contains
numerous examples of Schenkers use of the auxiliary cadence, and he structures his argument
in such a way that Schenkerians can easily put his conclusions to work in their own analyses.
The present dissertation differs significantly from these three categories of cadencerelated literature. In that it evaluates the concept of the cadence over a broad chronological
sweep, it bears resemblances to the first category, encyclopedia articles. Yet the significantly
greater depth of inquiry found in this work leads to substantial differences from such articles,
including more accurate accounts of historical precedence, concern for the relationship between
theory and practice, and scrutiny of the ways in which cadential theorists drew on non-musical
discourses. In that its primary object of study is cadential doctrine, this dissertation does not fit

L. Poundie Burstein, Schenkers Concept of the Auxiliary Cadence, in Essays form the Third
International Schenker Symposium, ed. Allen Cadwallader (Hildesheim: Olms Verlag, 2006), 2-6.
16

the second category, in which authors try to infer cadential functioning in a given musical
corpus. The third category is the closest match, yet this works investigation of cadential
doctrines from many different centuries results in several characteristics which are significant
departures from other examples of that category. The most notable of those characteristics are
this dissertations analysis of the history of cadential discourse into three previously
unidentified periods, and the attention paid to conceptual similarities and discrepancies
stretching across centuries. The first of these three periods comprises the pre-history of the
concept of the cadence, and it extends from the dawn of music theorizing in the West (ca. 900
CE) to the start of the sixteenth century. The second period begins with the earliest texts to
present a theory of the cadence proper (understood as a polyphonic progression) in the early
sixteenth century, and lasts about 300 years, until the beginning of the nineteenth century. The
final period stretches from the nineteenth century to the present. Thus, this dissertation
features both scope and depth of investigation in a way unmatched by previous studies of the
concept of the cadence, and consequently is able to offer new insights into the object of its
inquiry.
The methodology of this work centers upon close analysis of primary texts. The
foundational body of material for this study consists of written accounts, belonging to what we
now call music theory, that theorize musical closure, and, in particular, selected texts which I
consider to be particularly noteworthy instantiations of trends in that theorization. These texts,
however, are clearly not the only sources relevant to the study of the cadence.
Contemporaneous compositions can provide important an important resource both for
clarifying ambiguities in a given text, and also for testing the degree of fit between theoretical

pronouncements and actual practice; while they are not central to this dissertations project,
they will be drawn upon when helpful. Nor is consideration of primary texts limited to musical
texts. From their earliest appearances in medieval texts, discussions of musical closure have
been informed by other areas of knowledge, such as the trivial arts of grammar, rhetoric, and
dialectic. Consequently, this dissertation examines the intellectual traditions upon which music
theorists drew, and considers the concept of cadence in relation to developments in the broader
intellectual life of Western Europe.
The first of this studys four chapters examines the first period of theorizing musical
closure, during which a concept of a robustly polyphonic cadential progression had not yet
arisen. Focusing on the conceptualization of closure in medieval chant, it finds that discussions
of the subject from the earliest centuries of this period are limited to brief analogies between
segments of pieces and the idea of punctuation. It was not until the turn of the twelfth century,
in John of Affligems De musica, that a substantial theory of musical closure arose, in which
three different concluding phenomena are aligned with three degrees of syntactic closure in a
given chants text. We will see that Johns breakthrough is due to his adaptation of the full
conceptual richness of the late classical doctrine of punctuation, in which there are three types
of marks with different syntactical and performative implications. This chapter contextualizes
Johns ideas within that grammatico-rhetorical tradition, and also demonstrates the significant
ways in which Johns theory of closure surpassed that of his musical predecessors. It then
proceeds to consider the problematic relationship between Johns doctrine and actual chant
melodies, before concluding by tracing the centuries-long survival of Johns ideas in later
theoretical texts.

10

The second chapter considers a little-known cadential doctrine that established our
second period, and the first epoch of theorizing the cadence proper. In the first period, accounts
of closure had only discussed concluding formulae being constituted of one or two independent
voices, even when three- and four-part compositions had become common. In contrast, a new
body of doctrine, of nebulous authorship, arose in early-sixteenth century Cologne that treated
what it called the clausula formalis as a simultaneous conjunction of three or even four
melodic gestures, each of which was stereotypically associated with a particular vocal part.
This conception of the cadence proved very attractive, and persisted in the German tradition for
the next two hundred years. Even longer lasting, however, was the period of cadential
theorizing that the Cologne school initiated. As we will see, a confluence of significant factors
accounts for the disjuncture separating the texts in the Cologne orbit from earlier theories of
closure. One such factor is the identification of the cadence as an important, self-standing object
of theoretical study: conclusive progressions are no longer discussed in the context of long lists
of contrapuntal possibilities, but instead have entire chapters dedicated to their explication.
Another significant factor is the aforementioned insistence on theorists part on describing
cadences as being constituted of three or four voices, even as they struggle to account for the
behavior of these newly added voices. Another significant feature is the imputation of the idea
of structural closure to contrapuntal progressions through the adoption of the term clausula (or
close). Yet in spite of the implications of this onomastic choice, the Cologne school theorists
also initiated a long-lived relational ambiguity between the function of musical closure and
those musical successions which qualify as clausulae formales. This ambiguity results from the
Cologne schools lack of articulation of an explicit connection between the clausula progression

11

and the structure of an accompanying text. The second chapter tests different possibilities for
interpreting the link between the clausula formalis and the function of closure by applying them
to contemporaneous compositions; it then proposes a flexible approach to engaging with this
ambiguity that builds upon a rarely noticed contemporaneous division of clausulae progressions
into two classes: those capable of ending entire pieces, and those which are not.
The third chapter delves into the most elaborate efflorescence of the type of cadential
theorizing initiated by the Cologne school: that of Johann Wolfgang Caspar Printz. In the last
quarter of the seventeenth century Printz proposed a system of nine polyphonic cadential types,
and developed a detailed conceptual apparatus to support them. As this chapter elucidates,
part of the motivation for the profusion of cadential types in Printzs system was his tacit
adherence to pedagogical principles that trace their origin to the educational reform movement
established in the mid-sixteenth century by Petrus Ramus. Printzs doctrine also contains many
features with rich musical implications which this chapter teases out. These include one of the
earliest articulations of the idea that listeners can understand one progression to be implied,
even as they hear another (as in an evaded cadence), a related emphasis on the role of the bass
line in cadential functioning, and an incipient theory of hierarchical formal structure.
The final chapter turns to the significant change in cadential theorizing that occurred
around the turn of the nineteenth century. Ever since the days of the Cologne school, authors
had treated the cadence as an important element of music theory, devoting chapters to its
nature and proper compositional disposition. By way of a comparison of the writings of H.C.
Koch and A.B. Marx, this chapter contends that by the turn of the nineteenth century the
concept of the cadence ceased to function as an autonomous element of theoretical concern, and

12

instead became subordinate to the newly ascendant concept of musical form. This change was
due in part to a growing predilection for organicist metaphors in music theory, which gave rise
to a new focus on formal concerns, and an attendant reformulation of the role of cadences in
that discourse. This chapter argues that at the end of the eighteenth century, music theory
underwent a transition analogous to the contemporaneous transformation of natural history
into biological study. By examining cadential discourse in light of this analogy, new insight will
be gained into the decreasing prominence of cadential theorizing in this third period, and the
related elevation of musical form into a central element of music-theoretical study, a status
which it continues to hold nearly two centuries later.

13

CHAPTER 1
MUSICAL CLOSURE, GRAMMATICO-RHETORICAL DOCTRINE, AND CHANT:
JOHN OF AFFLIGEM
Musical discourse in the West has drawn heavily upon the disciplines of grammar and
rhetoric from the time of its medieval revival in the ninth century. Today the most famous
appropriation from these disciplines for musical ends is likely the seventeenth centurys
development of a doctrine of musical figures (Figurenlehre), borrowing from a tradition in
rhetoric.1 Yet in earlier centuries writers on music instead drew primarily upon methods of
analyzing and demarcating the structure of prose, methods which developed during Antiquity
in the disciplines of rhetoric and grammar. Rhetorical theorists focused on developing a
vocabulary for analyzing speech into its constitutive phrases and sub-phrases, whereas
grammarians formulated a system of punctuation marks to assist the parsing of written texts.
Both of these approaches proved useful to medieval music theorists as they attempted to
describe chant melodies in terms of phrases, their component parts, and their conclusions.
This chapter elucidates the first sophisticated theory of musical closure by
demonstrating its dependence on much older theories of prosal phrase structure and
punctuation. To do so, we will begin by examining accounts representative of the state of
rhetorical and grammatical theory in Antiquity, and will consider how the early medieval
reception of these ideas combined the two into a somewhat uneasily conglomerate theory of

See, for example, Patrick McCrelesss survey of music-theoretic appropriations of rhetorical

ideas (McCreless, Music and Rhetoric, in The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, ed. Thomas
Christensen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 847-79.
1

14

punctuation. Thereafter our attention turns to medieval discussions of music. We will see that
writers from the early centuries of the medieval efflorescence of music theorizing did not draw
upon the full apparatus of punctuational concepts and terminology available to them, tending
instead to use that apparatus merely to refer to phrases or phrase demarcations in general
terms. Indeed, it was not until the De musica of John of Affligem (ca. 1100 C.E.) that the full
conceptual power of the ancient worlds rhetorical and grammatical doctrines of phrase
structure and punctuation were put to use in the field of music, giving rise to a number of ideas
about music that continue to resonate today. Particularly noteworthy examples include
discussion of the role of performance in the delineation of musical structure, the question of
what constitutes a complete musical thought, and the earliest articulation of the idea that a
musical event can feign closure, a musical phenomenon which later developed into timehonored progressions such as the deceptive and evaded cadences. I therefore offer a careful
consideration of Johns treatment of grammatico-rhetorical concepts and musical closure,
examining the particular strands of thought upon which he drew, the alterations he made to
those ideas, and the innovative development in the theory of music which resulted; the
relationship between Johns theory and musical practice is also examined. The chapter
concludes with a demonstration of the surprising longevity of the analogy between different
forms of punctuation and musical endings first developed by John of Affligem, finding that
theorists were still articulating variants of it as late as the middle of the eighteenth century.

15

1.1 The Analysis of Speech Structure in Classical Rhetoric

Given the connotations of duplicity and self-serving manipulation of the audience that
the term rhetoric invokes today, it may come as a surprise that the origins of the field of
rhetoric are inextricably linked to pedagogy. The first practitioners of rhetoric for whom
historical attestation exists were itinerant wise men, or sophists ( [sophistai]), who
traveled the Greek-speaking world of the fifth century, B.C.E., and were famously critiqued and
lampooned by Plato in many of his dialogues. Because they were not natives of the cities to
which they traveled, they could not seek direct political power. Rather, they delivered show
piece speeches in public, in which they attempted to attract paying students, and instructional
speeches in private to those students.2 A recurring claim of many of these self-proclaimed
sophoi, such as Protagoras and Gorgias, was that they could convincingly argue either side of an
argument, and, thus, that they could teach their students to deliver compelling speeches and
gain political power.3
This first generation of rhetoricians seems to have guarded the secrecy of their teachings
for reasons of financial self-interest, and this appears to have been the governing model well

On the pedagogical and commercial orientation of the sophists, see Laurent Pernot, Rhetoric in
Antiquity, trans. W. E. Higgins (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 12-15.
2

Indeed, many of the show piece speeches demonstrated the orators skill by attempting to
accomplish the seemingly impossible, often by facetiously rehabilitating the image of reprehensible
characters or casting aspersions on heroes. This genre of praising or blaming came to be known as the
genre of epideictic, or display, oratory. For more contextualization of the early sophists and their
thought, see George A. Kennedy, A New History of Classical Rhetoric (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1994), 17-21.
3

16

into the fourth century B.C.E.4 Indeed, the Greek tradition of writing handbooks (
[technai]) addressing the subject of rhetoric in detail only began with the Rhetorica of Aristotle
(384-322 B.C.E.), which he likely wrote in the years about 330 B.C.E. In this treatise and in
similar texts from following generations, Aristotle and later rhetoricians develop a theory of the
structure of speech ( [lexis]), analyzing it into sentences and constituent phrases. Aristotle
proposes a hierarchy of two levels. The higher level of syntactic unit he calls the period
( [periodos], pl. [periodoi]), which he defines as follows: I call the period an
utterance () that has its own beginning and end, and an easily comprehensible
magnitude.5 These periods may be made up of shorter clauses, called colons ( [kla],
sing. [klon]), that is, members, as of a body; alternatively, periods can also be simple
( [aphels]), consisting of a single colon.
At some point in the following two centuries a new, still shorter unit was added to the
hierarchy of period and colon.6 This was the comma ( [komma], pl.
[kommata]), that is, a cutting, incision, or articulation of the utterance into brief segments.
These concepts clearly establish a hierarchical organization of word grouping, but they are far
from strictly defined. Given the amount of information provided in Aristotles treatise and the

It was not until the early fourth century that the first formal school of rhetoric was founded, by
Isocrates (436-338 B.C.E.), and his letters, the sole contemporaneous extant source, merely hint at his
pedagogical program.
4

(Aristotle, Rhetorica, III.9, 1409a34-b1).
5

Perhaps the earliest extant Greek texts to use the term colon is the De compositione verborum of
Dionysius of Halicarnassus (fl. 20 B.C.E.), but the presence of the concept in the Roman tradition of
rhetoric in the later second century B.C.E. makes it clear that Dionysius was not the first author to use the
term (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, De compositione verborum, XXVI, ll. 12-3).
6

17

scanty number of extant Greek rhetorical works which survive from the following three
centuries, one cannot reconstruct with certainty precisely how any author would or would not
employ these concepts in practice. Rather, the vagueness of the definitions offered suggests that
students learned the concepts of period, colon, and comma not primarily through such
definitions, but empirically and inductively, through their instructors examples and gradual
honing of the students intuitions.7 Consequently, we should not expect lucid, precise
explanations of this conceptual triad, but rather we should hold fast to its basic hierarchical
relationship while attending to the broader implications of the terms definitions.
Perhaps surprisingly, the concepts of the period, colon, and comma were not often
introduced in later rhetorical treatises as a broadly applicable means of breaking down and
comprehending entire passages. Instead, they usually served as a tool in discussions of literary
style, which was one of the chief concerns of rhetorical education in Greco-Roman Antiquity.
Since young students of rhetoric learned to recognize and create different kinds of style through
analyzing exemplary passages and composing imitations of them, it was important to be able to
recognize common techniques of manipulating normal speech to produce heightened effects.
The most well-known of these techniques became codified in lists of tropes (tropoi) or figures
of speech (exornationes verborum), such as antithesis, asyndeton, and climax. Yet from the time
of Aristotle rhetoricians had used the period and colon (and later the comma) as another means

For instance, Augustine of Hippo employs the comma, colon, and period to analyze scriptural
excerpts in his De doctrina christiana, but offers only examples of their use, rather than substantive
explanations of the terms (De doctrina Christiana, IV.7, 11, 13). This passage circulated widely by the
tenth century as an appendix to many copies of Cassiodoruss Institutiones (R. A. B. Mynors,
Introduction, in Cassiodori Senatoris Institutiones, ed. R. A. B. Mynors [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1937],
xxx-xxxix).
7

18

of describing unusual, marked structuring of words, including successive colons of similar

length (parisosis or isocolon), clauses containing antithetical thoughts (antithesis), and similarity
or dissimilarity of the final syllables of successive phrases (paromoiosis).8 Consequently, later
rhetoricians, such as pseudo-Cicero, often set their treatments of the period, colon, and comma
in the midst of lengthy lists of these figures of speech.9
Despite the paucity of extant Greek treatises from the first and second centuries B.C.E.,
our knowledge of rhetorical doctrine during that period is not impoverished. Starting in the
later second century B.C.E. a Roman tradition of rhetoric arose which doubtless borrowed
heavily from Greek rhetoric of the day. As Harry Caplan notes, the rhetorical treatises written
during the initial decades in which that field was being established in Rome have not survived
intact, and thus the pseudo-Ciceronian Rhetorica ad Herennium (ca. 90s B.C.E.) is the oldest
Roman rhetorical text to survive in its entirety.10 This treatise presents and explains in detail a
fully formed doctrine embracing the conceptual triad of period, colon, and comma, or
continuatio, membrum, and articulus, as the anonymous author translates the terms. Because of
the longstanding erroneous attribution of the Rhetorica ad Herennium to Cicero, this work was
tremendously influential in the medieval period; consequently, it is worthwhile to investigate
its transmission of Greek rhetorical doctrine in some detail.

Aristotle, Rhetorica, III.9.

[Cicero], Rhetorica ad Herennium, IV.xiii.19-xliii.56.

[Cicero], Rhetorica ad Herennium, trans. Harry Caplan in Loeb Classical Library 403 (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1954), vii.
10

19

Adhering to tradition, Pseudo-Cicero presents the three terms as a hierarchy in which

commas compose colons, which in turn compose periods. Concerning the comma/articulus
(which Cicero calls incisum,) pseudo-Cicero writes: It is called a comma (articulus) when
individual words are separated by pauses in choppy speech,11 e.g. By [your] sharpness, voice,
expression, you terrified your enemies.12 This stipulation that every comma is comprised of
an individual word (by your sharpness is one word in Latin) is much more restrictive than
the Greek conception of commas as merely being shorter than colons. As for the
colon/membrum, pseudo-Cicero invokes a two-colon norm reminiscent of Aristotles first type of
period (the ): Colon (membrum orationis) means an element (res) that is
briefly concluded without the articulation of the complete thought (sententia), which is
continued with a fresh start by another colon, in this way: You were at once benefiting your
enemy . . . That is what we call one colon. This should then be taken up by another [colon], in
this way: and you were injuring your friend.13 The last category, the period/continuatio, is

Choppy speech is my rendering of caesa oratione. Lewis and Shorts A Latin Dictionary glosses
this phrase as asyndeton, which is the rhetorical device in which conjunctions are omitted (s.v.
caedo). The examples given by pseudo-Cicero all exhibit asyndeton, but adopting that word in the
translation would give an incorrect impression that the Latin text involved that degree of technical
terminology.
11

Articulus dicitur cum singula verba intervallis distinguuntur caesa oratione, hoc modo:
Acrimonia, voce, vultu adversarios perterruisti ([Cicero], Rhetorica ad Herennium, IV.xix.26). Translation
adapted from Caplans edition, p. 295.
12

Membrum orationis appellatur res breviter absoluta sine totius sententiae demonstratione,
quae denuo alio membro orationis excipitur, hoc pacto: Et inimico proderas. Id est unum quod
appellamus membrum; deinde hoc excipiatur oportet altero: Et amicum laedebas (ibid.).
13

20

described much more concisely: A period (continuatio) is a compact and uninterrupted

crowding together of words with completion of the thoughts.14
The definitions of these latter two, the colon and the period, both employ the concept of
the sententia (thought or idea), which merits discussion. Through the rest of Antiquity and well
into the Middle Ages rhetorical theorists relied on a poorly defined set of terms having to do
with meaningmost notably sententia, sensus, and significarein their discussions of both
rhetorical and grammatical matters having to do with the analysis of speech. No consistent
differentiation exists in the grammatical corpus between the nouns sententia and sensus; while
some authors, like Isidore of Seville, do attempt to employ them in distinct ways, other authors
use them interchangeably. One of the most common usages of these terms is to invoke the
semantic referent of a given group of words. Another important one refers to a thought, with
overtones of something resembling our modern sense of syntactic structure. For instance,
Pseudo-Ciceros definition of the colon stipulates that it concludes without the articulation of
the complete thought (sententia). To my knowledge, authors from Antiquity and the medieval
period never spell out what distinguishes completion from incompletion in the realm of
thought and meaning. Many authors do, however, provide examples of complete and
incomplete thoughts, and in each example which I have evaluated the authors indication of
whether the thought is complete aligns with my intuition of whether the syntax of the text is
closed off. Due to the lack of conflicting evidence, I choose to assume that the meaning of
completion and incompletion in these texts roughly corresponds to ours. (An important

Continuatio est densa et continens frequentatio verborum cum absolutione sententiarum

(ibid., IV.xix.27).
14

21

proviso, however, is that grammatical texts from Antiquity and the medieval period do not
appear to have a direct correlate to our modern idea of the simple sentence. The nearest
analogy to our sentence is the concept of the periodus, but classical orators often developed
tremendously long periods, which we would identify as compoundor even run-on
sentences.) Thus, the sententia or (sensus) of a collection of words like The severed hand of
Cicero, being displayed in the Rostra is Ciceros hand itself, but the words also would be
considered to comprise an incomplete sententia. It is also worth noting that some authors seem
to employ sententia or sensus to indicate the verbal entity itselfthe ordered series of
wordsrather than the referent of those words. The verb significare and its derivatives are used
to denote the action of words whereby they represent, express, or convey a thought. From text
to text the precise nuances of these terms can vary, of course, so we will reflect upon their
meanings when the implications are significant.
Through the rest of Antiquity rhetorical theorists increasingly came to rely upon these
ideas of meaning and sense when discussing the comma, colon, and period. For instance, even
though Quintilian (ca. 30-ca. 100 C.E.) adapted these terms to serve his description of prose
rhythm, in which orators or writers employ formulaic metrical patterns at the ends of sentences,
he still describes the comma and colon as thoughts (sensus).15 More specifically, the colon is
an incomplete thought that is rhythmically closed, whereas the comma is a thought that is not.16

15

The subject of prose rhythm is addressed in more detail in the next chapter, section 2.1.

In my opinion a comma is a thought which is not closed off by a finished rhythm, and which
commonly is a part of a colon (comma est, ut mea fert opinio, sensus non expleto numero conclusus,
plerumque pars membri) (Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, IX.4.cxxii); a colon is a thought which is closed
off by rhythms, but is disconnected from the whole substance [of the speech] and completes nothing in
16

22

Martianus Capella (fl. 410s-20s C.E.) further intensified the role of signification, and thus
thought, in his definitions of the period, colon, and comma, describing both the colon and
comma as a portion of a speech which signifies (pars orationis significans). The former signifies
in many words (i.e., more than one) something complete, and the latter signifies something
incomplete in fewer words.17
These conceptions of the comma and colon demonstrate the increasing importance of the
role of thought (sententia) in these late-antique definitions. Pseudo-Ciceros description of the
comma as a word distinguished by pauses has completely disappeared, and his rather
mechanical focus on the grouping of more or fewer words in the colon and period has been
largely suppressed in favor of a more insightful description of thought-units that comprise
more or less information, and have greater or lesser degrees of completion. Of course, in both
conceptions the main criterion for judging between period, colon, and comma ends up being the
conclusion (or lack thereof) of the meaning of the words in question; nevertheless, some authors
present their concepts as consisting primarily of analyses of verbal structures per se, while
others more explicitly take account of the semantic content of the thoughts expressed. This
shifting emphasis between analyzing words and analyzing thoughts will continue to be
important in the consideration of punctuation immediately to come.

itself (membrum autem est sensus numeris conclusus, sed a toto corpore abruptus et per se nihil
efficiens) (ibid., IX.4.cxxiii).
A colon is a part of speech which expresses in many words something completely (membrum
est pars orationis ex pluribus verbis absolute aliquid significans) (Martianus Capella, De nuptiis, V, 528,
p. 184); a comma, however, is a part of speech which expresses in two or more words something not yet
complete (caesum autem est pars orationis ex duobus aut pluribus verbis <non>dum quicquam absolute
significans) (ibid.).
17

23

1.2 The Grammatical Doctrine of Punctuation in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
From a modern readers perspective, the development of a system of punctuation would
seem to have been almost necessary for classical culture. Greek scribes, and Roman scribes
from the second century C.E. onwards, wrote in continuous script (scriptura continua), in which
all the letters of a text were spaced at roughly equal distances from each other, a practice that
gave no indications of distinctions between words, let alone larger sense units.18 In a context
like this, scribes could have relied on punctuation as a way to help readers intuit the texts
syntactic structure, or even to give aspiring orators indications of appropriate points at which to
breathe or to pause for emphasis. And indeed, such a system of punctuation was developed
and propounded in grammatical textbooks, as we shall see. Yet it is crucial to note that the
practice of punctuation in Antiquity was very different from that of our day. As the
paleographer M. B. Parkes has shown, punctuation marks were never written concurrently with
texts by the original scribes before the sixth century C.E.; rather, they were added to texts by
readers as they attempted to parse the string of letters presented to them in the scriptura
continua style of writing.19
Given this ad hoc nature of early punctuation, it is perhaps unsurprising that in
Antiquity and the medieval period there was often a large discrepancy between the practice of
punctuation and contemporaneous explanations of how punctuation functions. Scribes in

Concerning the Latin adoption of scriptura continua and gradual adoption of word spacing in
the medieval period, see Paul Saenger, Space between Words: the Origins of Silent Reading (Stanford, Cal.:
Stanford University Press, 1997), 9-17.
18

M. B. Parkes, Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West (Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 9-13, 16.
19

24

different locations and periods employed many different signs in a wide variety of ways, and
could even vary their practices substantially within a single manuscript. Although the doctrine
of punctuation developed by grammarians was widely transmitted and conceptually neat, it
did not adapt by expanding to include the variety of functions that scribes desired, so it became
increasingly irrelevant in the medieval period. The development of the practice of punctuation
from Antiquity to the Renaissance has been masterfully explained by Parkes, and music
historians like Leo Treitler have proposed compelling theories of the dependence of early
musical notation on medieval punctuation marks.20 Yet as we shall see, the most sophisticated
medieval theories of musical closure utilize the concepts developed in the doctrine of
punctuation, and largely ignore the complexities of scribal practice. Consequently, we will turn
our attention on this doctrine, focusing on the watershed punctuational theory of the late
Roman grammarian Aelius Donatus (fl. mid-fourth century C.E.).
Before proceeding, there are two things one should note about terminology: first, in this
chapter I retain punctuation-related terms in their original language because authors choice of
terminology is often significant and reveals trends of word selection and doctrinal influences.21
Translating the substantial number of synonyms using the same English words or phrases
would obscure the differences; translating the synonyms differently would suggest to the

Parkes, Pause and Effect; Leo Treitler, The Early History of Music Writing in the West, Journal
of the American Musicological Society 35, no. 2 (Summer 1982): 269-73; ibid., Reading and Singing: On the
Genesis of Occidental Music-Writing, Early Music History 4 (1984): 186-208.
20

For example, in Latin texts, earlier authors use both the terms positura and distinctio, with
a tendency to prefer positura when discussing the general phenomenon of punctuation marks. In
Isidores writing the term distinctio has fallen out of fashion, but by the time of John of Affligem
distinctio has replaced positura as the term of choice.
21

25

English reader a greater variety of concepts than is actually in play. Secondly, most
grammatical authors use the term distinctio (originally stigm in Greek) to indicate all three
punctuation marks in general, and also to refer specifically to the most final punctuation mark,
the plena distinctio (teleia stigm).
As is the case with Latin rhetorical theorists, Donatus drew upon a much older Greek
tradition in the creation of his grammar textbook. This tradition stretches back to Dionysius of
Thrax (ca. 100 B.C.E.), whose Ars grammatica (Treatise on Grammar) was the foundational text of
the Greco-Roman grammatical project, and contains the oldest extant theory of punctuation.22
Surprisingly, despite the path-breaking stature of Dionysiuss Ars grammatica, its teachings on
punctuation do not appear to have become integral to the art of Greek grammar: virtually none
of the extant Greek grammatical works transmits any form of its punctuation doctrine, other
than the Byzantine-era family of commentaries specific to this text.23 Indeed, it was not until the
flourishing of Roman grammar in the mid-fourth century C.E. that the doctrine of punctuation
was again discussed in a clear and thorough fashion. At least six independent treatises from
about this period contain statements concerning punctuation, and many more treatises gloss
and amplify those six. Of the six treatises, the Ars maior of Aelius Donatus was by far the most
influential in later times, and its treatment of punctuation contains all the elements of classical
theory that were employed by authors in succeeding generations.

22

Dionysius of Thrax, Ars Grammatica, 6.

Several fragments attributed to a certain Melampodos transmit pieces of this doctrine, but they
are not sufficient to explain the system of punctuation on their own. These fragments are printed in M.
Hubert, Corpus stigmatologicum minus, Archiuum Latinitatis Medii Aeui (Bulletin du Cange) 37 (1970):
13.
23

26

Because Donatuss account of the punctuation marks presents largely the same
information as that of Dionysius Thrax, but in an expanded and clarified fashion, we will
proceed directly to his account:
There are three positurae or distinctiones, which the Greeks call (theseis)24: distinctio,
subdistinctio, and media distinctio. A distinctio is where a complete thought (sententia) is
finished; we place its mark by the top of the letter. A subdistinctio is where not much of
the thought remains [unsaid], which [remainder], although necessarily separate, is soon
to be provided (inferendum); we place its mark by the bottom of the letter. A media
distinctio is where almost as much of the thought remains as has already been said, and
yet it is necessary to breathe; we place its marks by the middle of the letter. In reading, a
complete thought is called a period; its parts are colons and commas.25
At the core of the doctrine of punctuation which Donatus borrows from Dionysius Thrax is a
system of three marks (positurae;26 stigmai, sing. stigm in Dionysiuss Greek). All take the
form of simple dots, like the period in modern punctuation, and differ only by their position on
the page: one sits beside the top of a [capital] letter (), another beside the bottom of a letter (.),
and the final beside the middle of a letter (). The first of these, the distinctio, seems to
correspond quite closely to the modern sense of the period mark: it indicates the conclusion of a

Curiously, no Greek texts seem to survive that use the term in this manner (The Greek-English
Lexicon of Liddell, Scott, and Jones offers only Donatuss Latin text as a source for this meaning of the
term [s.v. ]), which suggests that Donatus (or an earlier scholar) was drawing in part upon
a non-extant Greek textual tradition.
24

Tres sunt positurae uel distinctiones quas Graeci uocant, distinctio, subdistinctio,
media distinctio. distinctio est, ubi finitur plena sententia: huius punctum ad summam litteram ponimus.
subdistinctio est, ubi non multum superest de sententia, quod tamen necessario separatum mox
inferendum sit; huius punctum ad imam litteram ponimus. media distinctio est, ubi fere tantum de
sententia superest, quantum iam diximus, cum tamen respirandum sit: huius punctum ad mediam
litteram ponimus. in lectione tota sententia periodos dicitur, cuius partes sunt cola et commata
(Donatus, Ars grammatica 612).
25

Although Donatuss introductory sentence treats positura and distinctio as equivalent, I prefer to
employ the term positura when discussing this grammatical doctrine, and reserve distinctio to refer
specifically to the mark that concludes a complete thought.
26

27

complete thought (plena sententia). Here the term sententia functions in multiple ways,
referring to the words on the page beside which the mark is place, to the semantic referent of a
group of words, and to the quality of closure exhibited by those words. The distinctio, in
contrast, refers to the written mark itself, and not to the semantic or verbal unit that it
demarcates. The second mark, the subdistinctio, indicates a minor division in the flow of the
thought, and Donatus suggests that it comes towards the end of a given thought.27 The last
type, the media distinctio, refers to breathing. In contrast to the previous two positurae, which
mark minor or major divisions of thought, the media distinctio comes into play at the point when
suitable thought divisions are furthest away: when almost as much of the phrase remains
[unsaid] as has already been said. Donatuss further association of this mark with breathing is
noteworthy, since it inserts seemingly incongruous performative concerns into a doctrine that,
at least explicitly, is concerned explicitly with the realm of thought and meaning, and the
analysis of the degree of something resembling syntactic closure. This importation of issues of
breathing into punctuational matters is doubtless due to the Greek traditions conception of the
analogous mark (called the mes stigm), in which the sign is used to indicate where one should
breathe.28
The last sentence of the passage by Donatus merits special attention, because it lays the
ground for a new conceptual relationship between the positurae and rhetorical analysis that
music theorists later exploited. (In the ancient and early medieval grammatical and rhetorical

Donatuss description of the subdistinctio adds to Dionysius Thraxs description of the

analogous mark, which describes it merely as the sign of an incomplete thought (Dionysius of Thrax, Ars
Grammatica, 6).
27

28

Ibid.

28

texts no such relationship is to be found: the two conceptual triads of period, colon, comma and
distinction, subdistinction, and medial distinction seem to occupy parallel universes, isolated
from each other.) In our excerpts final sentence, Donatus briefly mentions the period, colon,
and comma, and states that the first consists of the latter two. Although this simple statement
does not assert any explicit connection between these rhetorical terms and the doctrine of
positurae, Donatuss decision to place it immediately after his discussion of punctuation suggests
that he sees some connection between the two terminological triads. And indeed, there are
intriguing similarities between the first two positurae, in particular, and the concepts of the
period and colon, in that both categories make reference to the concept of the thought and its
completion or incompletion; the positurae could be used to indicate the period, colon, and
comma. Yet there are two significant reasons to be wary of these conceptual similarities. The
first has already been mentioned: there is no evidence that authors before Donatus had drawn
any connection between the two. The concepts of the period and colon belonged to the study of
rhetoric, whereas the punctuation marks arose in the field of grammar; the fact that the concepts
belonged to different disciplines may be responsible for the lack of connections made between
them.29 The second reason is that the rhetorical and grammatical concepts do not correspond
perfectly to each other. Period and colon were primarily used in the analysis of figures of
speech in the heightened language of oratory or orations, and refer either to a given group of

This is one of several respects in which Donatus blurs the strict delineation between the fields
of rhetoric and grammar that had been championed by Quintilian (Institutio II.i.4-6, cited in James J.
Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages [Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974;
reprint ed. Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001], 33). For more
on Donatuss blending of rhetoric and grammar in book III of the Ars maior, see Murphy, Rhetoric in the
Middle Ages, 32-4.
29

29

words or to the thought that those words express. The distinctio and subdistinctio, in contrast,
appear to have served a more pedestrian function: they seem to have been invented to assist
readers in their attempts to sound out the text by parsing the string of letters into words and
units of thought. The terms do not signify a group of words or a thought; rather, they refer to
physical marks, which in turn indicate either the end of an incomplete component of a thought
or the word that completes a thought.
Surprisingly, this fleeting incursion of rhetorical concepts into a grammar text proved to
be tremendously long-lived, which can be seen in the fact that practically all accounts of the
positurae in the seven centuries after Donatus at least preserve his mention of the period-coloncomma triad.30 But many do more than that. For the mere implication of a relationship
between that rhetoric-derived triad and the positurae made by Donatus did not remain long
remain the status quo, due to the wide circulation of the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville (ca.
560-636). Here, in a dramatic change from all extant punctuation doctrine prior to this, each
kind of punctuation simply is a different phrase type, and yet at the same time is also the
written mark that indicates the phrase:31

M. Hubert discusses the grammatical reception of these three terms and other related triads
exhaustively (Le vocabulaire de la ponctuation aux temps mdivaux: un cas dincertitude lexicale,
Archiuum Latinitatis Medii Aeui [Bulletin du Cange] 38 [1971-2]: 80ff.).
30

R. W. Mller speculates that this aspect of Isidores doctrine may, in fact, be older: he posits
that it could come from the lacuna in Charisiuss grammatical treatise, or perhaps from the Bobbienser
Mischhandschrift. Unfortunately, Mller does not elaborate his claim or provide any support for it.
Based on this authors acquaintance with Isidores discussion of music and its substantial divergences
from earlier musical texts, it seems entirely possible that Isidore himself is responsible for the innovations
found in his treatment of punctuation. Thus, this author sees no reason to accept Mllers hypothesis as
it stands (Rudolph Wolfgang Mller, Rhetorische und syntaktische Interpunktion: Untersuchungen zur
Pausenbezeichnung im antiken Latein, Ph.D. diss., Eberhard-Karls-Universitt zu Tbingen, 1964, 75).
31

30

A positura is a mark written to distinguish meaning (sensus) through colons, commas,

and periods. When it is added appropriately, it shows us the meaning of a reading.
They are called positurae either because they are notated with positioned (positis) points,
or because the voice is lowered (deponitur) there for a [brief] span of time appropriate to
the distinction. The Greeks call them , and the Latins positurae. The first positura
is called subdistinctio, and also comma. The media distinctio follows; it [is] also [called]
colon. Last is the distinctio, which closes an entire thought (sententia); it [is] also
[called] period, the parts of which, as we have said, are colons and commas. The
difference [between these colons and commas] is shown by points placed in different
positions. For when at the beginning of the utterance there is not yet a complete unit
with regard to its meaning, and yet it is necessary to breathe, a comma is made, that is, a
sense fragment; its mark is placed by the bottom of the letter, and it is called a
subdistinctio, from [the fact] that it receives a point below (subtus), i.e., by the bottom of
the letter. Where, however, in the sequel the group of words (sententia) manifests its
meaning, but something of the groups fullness yet remains left over, a colon is made;
we mark the middle of the letter with a point, and we call it a media distinctio, since we
place the point by the middle of the letter (ad mediam litteram). But when, speaking step
by step, we effect a complete closure (clausula) of the thought, there is a period; we place
a point by the top of the letter, and this is called a distinctio, that is, a disjunction, since
it has marked off (separavit) a complete thought.32
As this account of the positurae demonstrates, Isidores association of punctuation marks with
closure of thought, or lack thereof, is traditional, and one can see similarities between it and the
classical punctuation theory that stretches all the back to Dionysius Thrax. Yet Isidores
conflation of rhetorical phrase with punctuation mark leads to fundamental differences from his

Positura est figura ad distinguendos sensus per cola et commata et periodos, quae dum ordine
suo adponitur, sensum nobis lectionis ostendit. Dictae autem positurae vel quia punctis positis
adnotantur, vel quia ibi vox pro intervallo distinctionis deponitur. Has Graeci vocant, Latini
posituras. Prima positura subdistinctio dicitur; eadem et comma. Media distinctio sequens est; ipsa et
cola. Ultima distinctio, quae totam sententiam cludit, ipsa est periodus; cuius, ut diximus, partes sunt cola
et comma; quarum diversitas punctis diverso loco positis demonstratur. Ubi enim initio pronuntiationis
necdum plena pars sensui est, et tamen respirare oportet, fit comma, id est particula sensus, punctusque
ad imam litteram ponitur; et vocatur subdistinctio, ab eo quod punctum subtus, id est ad imam litteram,
accipit. Ubi autem in sequentibus iam sententia sensum praestat, sed adhuc aliquid superest de
sententiae plenitudine, fit cola, mediamque litteram puncto notamus; et mediam distinctionem vocamus,
quia punctum ad mediam litteram ponimus. Ubi vero iam per gradus pronuntiando plenam sententiae
clausulam facimus, fit periodus, punctumque ad caput litterae ponimus; et vocatur distinctio, id est
disiunctio, quia integram separavit sententiam (Isidore, Etymologiae I.20).
32

31

predecessors. In the classical punctuation doctrine of Donatus and others, the full distinctio
indicates the end of a completed thought. In Isidores theory, the term distinctio all at once
refers to the mark (figura) which is placed after a given word, to the collection of words
(pronuntiatio) that is thus demarcated, and therefore also to the completed thought (tota
sententia) which those words express. Once the positurae take on these additional meanings of
word-group and thought, Isidores retention of the performative implications of breathing for
the comma seems all the more incongruous. Indeed, grammarians in the four centuries after
Isidore tended to minimize this aspect of the traditional punctuation doctrine, often going so far
as to omit it entirely.33
Isidores account of the positurae is also noteworthy because it strives toward a more
complex understanding of sensus and sententia than in earlier texts. As we have noted, authors
like Donatus and Cassiodorus use the terms in practically indistinguishable ways, to refer to the
referents of a group of words, something resembling the syntactic structure of those words, and
to the words themselves. Isidore often exhibits a similar degree of ambiguity. For instance, in
the opening sentences of the quotation one could translate sensus as meaning, or, just as
plausibly, as structure. Similarly, his definition of the distinctio as something that closes an

Four related Donatus commentaries from the ninth century all minimize the concept of
breathing, and each does so in a different way. Sedulius Scottus gives the Donatus lemma, but does not
mention breathing at all in his commentary; he later quotes the entirety of Cassiodoruss account of the
positurae, which is one of the few pre-Isidore sources not to mention breathing (In Donati artem maiorem
52-3). Murethachs only acknowledgment of breathing is that he glosses it is necessary to breathe
(respirandum sit) with pause (repausandum), which shifts the emphasis from respiration to the
articulation of the meaning (In Donatem 44). The Ars Lavreshamensis does not include the phrase and yet
it is necessary to breathe in the lemma, so the issue of breathing never arises (185). Lastly, Remigiuss
commentary rephrases Donatus, rather than giving lemmas, and he never mentions breathing at all
(Commentum 230-1). See the bibliography for full citations of these sources.
33

32

entire sententia could equally well refer to group of words or thought. Yet later in the
passage, Isidore clearly attempts to articulate a more sophisticated understanding of these
ideas. There, he establishes what seems to be a mutually exclusive contrast between
sententia, which refers only to a collection of words, and sensus, which indicates the
semantic referent of those words: Where, however, in the sequel the group of words (sententia)
manifests its meaning (sensus), but something of the groups fullness yet remains left over, a
colon is made . . . Here it makes little sense to think of sententia and sensus being
interchangeable; instead, a group of words invokes those words semantic referent, but it is
lacking the words necessary for it to attain the fullness (plenitudo) of something approaching
syntactic closure. Unfortunately, Isidore does not consistently employ these terms in a way that
reinforces this sophisticated understanding, but this passage does demonstrate his efforts to
articulate notions of groupings of words, meaning, and syntactic structure as distinguishable,
though related, concepts.
In spite of all this theorizing about the three-mark system of punctuation, few scribes
during the medieval period actually used it; the positurae of late Antiquity remained a topos of
scholarly erudition rather than a practical necessity of literate education.34 Consequently,
although there are numerous concise descriptions of the positurae in a variety of texts surviving
from the seventh through eleventh centuries, many of these accounts consist merely of
quotations from older sources.35 In light of this, a set of four related, ninth-century

For an account of alternatives to the three-mark system employed in the early medieval period,
see Parkes, Pause and Effect, 24-8.
35 See texts reprinted in Hubert, Corpus stigmatologicum minus, 77-8, 82-3, 92-4, 99.
34

33

commentaries on Donatuss Ars maior offers an unusually detailed view of how medieval
scholars explained this traditional element of grammatical doctrine.36 While these four
commentaries do offer a few interesting expansions of Donatuss concise description of
punctuation, such as an emphasis on the links between the spatial orientation of the positurae
with the sense of a given phrase,37 they do not reinterpret Donatuss ideas in any particularly
substantive ways. Furthermore, none of the punctuation-related insights unique to these
commentaries were adopted by writers discussing music. Consequently, we will pass over the
details of these four texts and proceed to our consideration of how these concepts from the
disciplines of grammar and rhetoric were adopted and adapted in early music treatises.

1.3 Grammatical and Rhetorical Elements in Musical Discourse before John of Affligem
Isidores Etymologiae (ca. 600 C.E.) marks an important turning point not only in the
history of punctuation doctrine, but also in music. Subsequent to Isidores brief discussion of

Of the medieval grammars to which I have had access, only the Donatus commentaries concern
positurae. For a concise description of genres of medieval grammars, see Vivien Law, Grammar and
Grammarians in the Early Middle Ages (London: Longman, 1997), 132-3.
36

With regard to the distinctio, Donatuss text posits no explicit connection between space and
meaning: A distinctio is where a complete thought (plena sententia) is finished; we place its mark by the
top of the letter (ad summam litteram) (Ars maior, 612). To this lemma Murethach adds, And since the
highest point (summa)that is, the fullness (plenitudo)of the meaning is there, for that reason we place
its mark by the highest point of the letter (Et quia summa, id est plenitudo, sensus est ibi, ideo ad
summam litteram ponimus punctum) (In Donatem maiorem, 43).
Concerning the media distinctio, Donatus writes that it occurs where almost as much of the
thought remains [to be said] as has already been said, and yet it is necessary to breathe; we place its mark
by the middle of the letter (Donatus, Ars maior, 612). Remigius of Auxerre simply states that it is called
media distinctio because the midpoint (medietas) of the meaning is there (Media distinctio dicitur, quia
medietas sensus ibi est) (Remigius of Auxerre, Commentum Einsidlense in Donati artem maiorem 230-1). Cf.
Murethach, In Donatem maiorem 43 and Ars Lavreshamensis 185, which repeat the same sentiment with
almost identical words.
37

34

music in this work, which offers nothing of especial relevance to the present study, the writing
of technical treatments of music evidently ceased until the ninth century.38 Indeed, virtually
nothing music-related survives from that period, be it music notation, treatises on music, or
general commentary on the role of music in society. In the ninth century a new body of music
treatises arose that attempted to theorize the growing body of liturgical chant, and from the
start many of these works drew upon concepts and terminology from rhetoric and grammar. In
particular, the concepts of period, colon, and comma all found their way into musical treatises,
as did the positurae.
One of the earliest contributions to the field of medieval music theory was the Musica
enchiriadis, which likely dates from the second half of the ninth century,39 and the family of
anonymous treatises associated with that work.40 In a fashion similar to the rhetorical analysis
of speeches (which became common in later music theory texts), the Musica enchiriadis proposes
a terminology for identifying the segments (particulae) which make up a given song:
The segments of a song are its colons or commas, which divide the song by their
endings. But colons are made by two or more commas uniting appropriately, although
it sometimes is the case that it could be called a comma or colon indiscriminately. And
For a concise introduction to Isidores music-specific contributions, see Calvin M. Bower, The
Transmission of Ancient Music Theory into the Middle Ages, in The Cambridge History of Western Music
Theory, ed. Thomas Christensen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 148-9.
38

Concerning the dating and background of the Musica enchiriadis, see Raymond Erickson,
Introduction, in Musica enchiriadis and Scolica enchiriadis: Translated, with Introduction and Notes,
trans. Raymond Erickson, ed. Claude V. Palisca (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), xix-liv; Nancy
C. Phillips, Musica and Scolica Enchiriadis: The Literary, Theoretical, and Musical Sources (Ph.D. diss.,
New York University, 1984), 1-17; Charles M. Atkinson, The Critical Nexus: Tone-System, Mode, and
Notation in Early Medieval Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 118-36, and David E. Cohen,
Notes, Scales, and Modes in the Earlier Middle Ages, in The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory,
ed. Thomas Christensen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 323-331.
39

For more on the complicated textual tradition whence this work comes, see Phillips, Musica
and Scolica Enchiriadis, 377-419.
40

35

commas themselves are made through an arsis and a thesis, i.e. a raising and a lowering
[of the voice]. But sometimes in a comma the voice is lifted up and lowered by a single
arsis and thesis, and at other times [it is raised and lowered] more frequently. The
difference between the highest and lowest pitch of a comma is called interval
(diastema). At one time these intervals are rather small, like that which we call a
[whole] tone, and at another [they are] larger, so that they have the distance
(intervallum) of two or three or successively some [other] number of [whole] tones.
Moreover, just as colons consist of commas, so we say that intervals are the ranges of
commas. But the ranges of colons, or of some whole melody, we call systems
(sistemata).41
The basic framework of analyzing melodies into colons which consist of two more commas is
unmistakable. And while this text does not invoke the third term of the comma-colon-period
triad, another treatise in the Enchiriadis family, the Scolica enchiriadis, does associate the entire
melody (totum melum) with the period in its closely related discussion of these terms.42 Other
elements of the Musica enchiriadiss discussion, such as linking the comma to arsis and thesis
and to the idea of melodic range, are entirely foreign to the traditional rhetorical employment of
these terms. The innovative ways in which early medieval music theorists employed these
concepts from Antiquity may be a manifestation of the oft-noted Carolingian tendency to adapt

Particulae sunt sua cantionis cola vel commata, quae suis finibus cantum distingunt. Sed cola
fiunt coeuntibus apte commatibus duobus pluribusve, quamvis interdum est, ubi indiscrete comma sive
colon dici potest. At ipsa commata per arsin et thesin fiunt, id est levationem et positionem. Sed alias
simplici arsi et thesi vox in commate semel erigitur ac deponitur, alias sepius. Discrimen autem inter
summam et infimam vocem commatis appellatur diastema. Quae diastemata nunc quidem minora sunt,
ut est illud, quod vocamus tonum, nunc maiora, ut duum triumve ac deinceps aliquot tonorum habentia
intervallum. Porro autem sicut cola commatibus constant, sic commatum spacia dicimus diastemata.
Quae in colis vero spacia fuerint vel integro quolibet melo, sistemata nominamus (Musica enchiriadis IX,
pp. 22-3).
41

Scolica enchiriadis, 85. Mathias Bielitz argues that the concept of the colon in the Musica
enchiriadis is functionally equivalent to that of the period in rhetoric, but does not take into account the
explicit discussion of the period in the related Scolica enchiriadis, an omission which makes his contention
less convincing (Musik und Grammatik: Studien zur mittelalterlichen Musiktheorie [Munchen and Salzburg:
Musikverlag Katzbichler, 1977], 155-6).
42

36

purposefully old ideas and terminology to serve new ends.43 Yet it also may be the case that
these innovations are not so purposeful, but instead demonstrate the mixed results of scholars
struggling to theorize musical practice and drawing upon other domains of doctrine, such as
grammar and rhetoric, in their attempts to describe it.
The concepts of the comma, colon, and period were not the only rhetorico-grammatical
ideas employed in early medieval music treatises. Indeed, nearly every treatise from between
850 and 1100 that invokes that triad also employs the term distinctio.44 In many of these texts the
term refers simply to the constituent segments of a melody, much as the terms comma,
colon, and period were originally used in rhetorical treatises, but without that triads
hierarchical differentiation.45 A few treatises do draw explicit connections between the term
distinctio and the concept of dividing a larger unit, be it either musical or verbal. None of these

See, for one example, Cohen, Notes, Scales, and Modes, 307-9, and passim. Atkinsons The
Critical Nexus offers an extended reflection on Carolingian reception of ideas from Antiquity.
43

One exception to this is the Regula rhythmicae by Guido dArezzo. For helpful tables which set
out the adoption of these and other terms, see Calvin M. Bower, The Grammatical Model of Musical
Understanding in the Middle Ages, in Hermeneutics and Medieval Culture, ed. Patrick J. Gallacher and
Helen Damico (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 134-6; Karen Desmond, Sicut in
grammatica: Analogical Discourse in Chapter 15 of Guidos Micrologus Journal of Musicology 16 (1998):
470-1; and Dolores Pesce, A Historical Context for Guido dArezzos Use of Distinctio, in Music in
Medieval Europe: Studies in Honor of Bryan Gillingham, ed. Terence Bailey and Alma Santosuosso
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 148-50.
44

Dolores Pesce contends that in medieval grammar, distinctio refers to a major division of a
sentence, that is, a grammatical unit, and mistakenly attributes the punctuating sense of the term to the
field of rhetoric (ibid., 147). For a brief survey of several medieval music treatises that use distinctio in this
sense, see ibid., 151-3. Furthermore, Calvin Bower states that the term refers to phrases, and never
connects it to the concepts of division and punctuation (Grammatical Model, 134).
Pesces article as a whole aims at an elucidation of Guido dArezzos puzzling usages of the term
distinctio. Guido often uses the term in a new sense that involves differentiating modes from each other,
and Pesce dedicates much of her article to this meaning, which is outside the concerns of this chapter (A
Historical Context, 153-62).
45

37

texts before John of Affligems, however, invoke the three types of punctuation that figured
prominently in grammatical treatments of the subject ever since Dionysius Thrax. Rather, their
choice of the term distinctio seems to be motivated by its etymology: authors often use it in a
general sense to refer to the act of distinguishing things from each other, and the term is
frequently employed in conjunction with the verb from which it derives, distinguo (to
distinguish or divide).
One example of the conceptual complications that can arise in relation to this term is the
pseudo-Odonian dialogue De musica, which may date from the late tenth century.46 This text
attempts to adapt the concept of the distinctio to serve musical ends, and draws an analogy
between music and speech to demonstrate:
A distinctio in music is that amount (quantum) of any song we are in the course of
performing (continuamus) which is [i.e., has just been] pronounced at the point when the
voice has come to rest. Moreover, just as one portion of a speech, or two or more,
completes the meaning (sensus) and comprises a complete thought (sententia)as when I
say What are you doing? [and] you reply, Reading or Corroborating a reading or
Seeking a certain ideaso too one, two, or more of these parts of music complete a
versicle, an antiphon, or a responsory; nor do they [thereby] lose the signification of
their numbers.47

Concerning the authorship of this treatise and the following treatise to be discussed, see Michel
Huglo, LAuteur du Dialogue sur la musique attribu Odon, Revue de Musicologie 55, no. 2 (1969):
119-171. For the dating of the De musica, see ibid., 144, n. 1.
46

Distinctio vero in musica est, quantum de quolibet cantu continuamus, quae ubi vox
requieverit, pronuntiatur. Item sicut una pars locutionis aut duae vel plures sensum perficiunt, et
sententiam integram comprehendunt, ut cum dico quid facis? respondes lego, sive lectionem firmo, sive
aliquam sententiam quaero: ita una, duae vel plures ex his musicae partibus versiculum, antiphonam vel
responsorium perficiunt, nec tamen suorum numerorum significationem amittunt ([Odo], De musica, pp.
275-6).
47

38

Upon examining this analogy closely, however, it seems that the author of the De musica has not
fully absorbed the explanatory potential that the concept of the distinctio offers: indeed, his text
contains a less than coherent admixture of suggestive ideas, rather than a clear comparison
between a musical phenomenon and its language-based counterpart. The initial description of
an amount (quantum) of a song demonstrates that Odo is primarily using the term distinctio to
refer to a portion of a melody that is demarcated by the point when the voice has come to
rest. While this phrase is somewhat ambiguous, and could refer to drawn-out durations (or
some other characteristic), the verb requiesco (to come to rest) also means to stop or to let
rest, which suggests that Odo is referring to brief silences between distinctiones.48 If this
reading is correct, then these pauses would surely involve the singer inhaling, and consequently
recall the media distinctios original association with the performative concern of breathing.
After the initial definition of the distinctio the author sets forth a partially articulated
analogy between speech and music that is inflected with thought-related terminology borrowed
from the rhetoric-grammatical tradition. Here, Pseudo-Odos use of sensus and sententia could
be interpreted along the lines of Isidores, with sensus invoking syntactic structure, and
sententia referring to the words themselves. Yet the brevity of the passage makes it difficult
to be sure that Odo intended to draw such a conceptual distinction. It is more likely that our
anonymous author simply meant to indicate something akin to syntactic structure in both cases,
and used different phrases merely for the sake of verbal variety (variatio).49 Pseudo-Odos larger

48

Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary, s.v. requiesco.

The redundant connotations of completeness provided by the verb perficio and the adjective
integer occuring in short succession (sensum perficiunt, et sententiam integram comprehendunt)
reinforce this contention.
49

39

point appears to be that the groups of words he provides as samples (What are you doing?
Reading., etc.) are each syntactically closed (integra sententia/perfectus sensus), and are
composed of two distinctiones. In the same way, Odo argues that many collections of notes
both comprise complete musical utterances (versicles, antiphons, and the like), and may be
composed of more than one musical distinctio. Even though this description of a complete
thought comprising several constituent sections seems highly suggestive of the hierarchical
relationship of colon to period (or comma to colon, as in the Enchiriadis familys employment of
the terms), Odo surprisingly never appeals to these terms.
In her brief discussion of this quotation, Karen Desmond identifies yet another way in
which the passage invokes an analogy between music and speech. With reference to PseudoOdos association of the distinctio with vocal performance, Desmond writes: He also provides a
practical definition for the distinctio, a familiar definition in grammatical texts. In his
Etymologiae, Isidore of Seville defines the period, which he had earlier equated with the
distinctio, as follows: periodos autem longior esse non debet quam ut uno spiritu proferatur (a
period ought not to be longer than can be delivered in a single breath).50 She goes on to
speculate that Isidores definition may ultimately derive from Quintilians exhortation that a
period should not be too long to be spoken in one breath.51 While a close reading of Isidores
discussion of the punctuation marks reveals that he associates the need for breathing with the
comma/subdistinctio rather than the period/distinctio, such a conflation of his later definition of

50

Desmond, Sicut in Grammatica, 472-3. Her Isidore quotation comes from Etymologiae, vol. 1,

II.xviii.1.
51

Desmond, Sicut in Grammatica, 473.

40

period with the term distinctio surely would have been within the realm of the possible for the
medieval reception of Isidores text.
In contrast to the somewhat muddled nature of the De musicas treatment of the
distinctio, a more musically developed discussion of the term occurs in the Dialogus de musica
which Gerbert also mistakenly attributed to Odo, and which may be based upon the pseudoOdonian De musica.52 Although this treatise does not obviously invoke the concept of
punctuation, it uses the term distinctio to more fruitful ends: It is clear that the distinctiones,
i.e. places (loca), in which we pause in a song and in which we divide a song, ought in a [given]
mode to end with the same notes on which songs of that mode can begin. And where a mode
begins better and more frequently, there it is accustomed to begin and/or end its distinctiones
better and more fittingly.53 Before turning to the striking musical features of this passage, let
us briefly address how it adapts traditional grammatico-rhetorical ideas. Pseudo-Odos
emphasis on the places where a song is divided strongly suggests that he is using the term
distinctio to refer to punctuation. Yet whereas the language of the first sentence aligns the
distinctio with breaks between melodic segments (where breathing would presumably occur),
the second sentences reference to the beginnings and endings of distinctiones demonstrates that
Pseudo-Odo also uses the term to indicate the melodic segments themselves. Distinctly absent
is any connection between the distinctio and the completion of a thought, or lack of such

Michel Huglo reports Wantzloebens assertion of the dependence of the Dialogus on the De
musica, but remains skeptical (LAuteur du Dialogue, 144, n. 1, 150).
52

Distinctiones quoque, id est loca, in quibus repausamus in cantu, et in quibus cantum

dividimus, in eisdem vocibus debere finiri in unoquoque modo, in quibus possunt incipi cantus eius
modi, manifestum est. Et ubi melius et saepius incipit unusquisque modus, ibi melius et decentius suas
distinctiones incipere vel finire consuevit ([Odo], Dialogus, VIII, p. 257).
53

41

completion, and there is also no indication of a hierarchy of distinctio punctuation types.

Mathias Bielitz, in his seminal study of the relationship between music and grammar in the
Middle Ages, also notes that the authors choice of the verb pause (repauso) evokes the
grammatical tradition.54 In particular, this verb is suggestive of the writings of Cassiodorus, a
late Roman, Christian author whose Institutiones was widely read by medieval scholars. Bielitz
notes that Cassiodorus defines the positura/distinctio as an exposed pause (aperta repausatio) of
moderated speech, and elsewhere associates pausatio with the periodus.55
In a striking departure from traditional doctrines of punctuation and rhetoric, PseudoOdo draws an explicit connection between the concept of the distinctio and melodic pitches.
Shortly after this passage, Pseudo-Odo further develops the relationship between the distinctio
and the beginning or end of a melody, writing that Many distinctiones ought to end on the
same note (vox) which ends the mode, the authorities say . . . For beginnings, too, are very
frequently and properly found on the same note which ends the song.56 Of course, very few
chant melodies consistently begin their distinctiones on the modal final; indeed, a chant which
Odo cites to explain the concept (transcribed in Example 1.1, which we will soon consider in
detail) begins only a third of its distinctiones on the final. It seems that Odo wants chant

Bielitz translates the term repausatio simply as Pause, ignoring the re- prefix. Since the
pertinent sources give little support to attempts to understand the term as a re-pausing, rather than a
simple pause, I have adopted Bielitzs reading.
54

Positura sive distinctio est moderatae pronuntiationis aperta repausatio (Cassiodorus,

Institutiones, p. 95); Bielitz, Musik und Grammatik, 188.
55

Plures autem distinctiones in eam vocem, quae modum terminat, debere finiri, magistri
tradunt . . . Nam et principia saepius et decentius in eadem voce, quae cantum terminat, inveniuntur.
([Odo], Dialogus, VIII, p. 257-8).
56

42

melodies to be more modally unified than they actually are. Bielitz interprets Pseudo-Odos
pairing of modal final with beginnings and endings of distinctiones to indicate that the notes of
the scale have developed a functional significance, and then proceeds to argue that this passage
exhibits a strong bonding of key (Tonart) and division (Gliederung), which exhibits the essence
of tonality (das Wesen der Tonalitt).57 Here Bielitz seems guilty of clear interpretive overreach,
since one surely cannot reduce a concept as complex as tonality to the pairing of final pitch and
phrase boundaries. Nonetheless, the significance of associating formal and/or textual
articulation in this repertoire with that note which over time comes to define a given mode (or
key) should not be underestimated in the study of the history of musical closure.
Pseudo-Odo evidently felt that his innovative importation of pitch concerns into the
discourse of the distinctio might be unclear to his readers, for he saw fit to provide an example,
the antiphon Tribus miraculis ornatum diem, from the second vespers office of the feast of
Epiphany. To demonstrate that many distinctiones end on the modal final, he writes out the
words of the antiphon, and interrupts to point out each distinctio: Tribus miraculishere [is]
one distinctioornatum diem sanctum colimushere [is] anotherhodie stella magos duxit ad
praesepiumhere [is] the thirdhodie vinum ex aqua factum est ad nuptiashere [is] the fourth
hodie a Iohanne Christus baptizari voluithere [is] the final one.58 His text does not include any

Bielitz, Musik und Grammatik, 191. Immediately after this quotation Bielitz relates PseudoOdos idea to modern tonic-dominant relationships, an act which confirms that he intends das Wesen der
Tonalitt to invoke the modern concept of tonality, rather than merely the essence of the [medieval]
mode.
58 Tribus miraculis; ecce una distinctio: ornatum diem sanctum colimus; ecce alia; Hodie stella
magos duxit ad praesepium; ecce tertia: Hodie vinum ex aqua factum est ad nuptias; ecce quarta: Hodie a
Iohanne Christus baptizari voluit: ecce ultima (ibid., 258).
57

43

musical notation, but fortunately this chant is very common, and may be found with only slight
variations in many collections of antiphons. Example 1.1 presents a transcription of the chants
melody from a fourteenth-century antiphoner, with bar-lines added to indicate Pseudo-Odos
divisions.

Example 1.1 Tribus miraculis ornatum diem, antiphon for the feast of Epiphany59

Transcribed from Einsiedeln, Kloster Einsiedeln - Musikbibliothek, 611, f. 38v, a fourteenth

century antiphoner from Einsiedeln. This monastery is about 100 kilometers from Saint Blaise in the
Black Forest, the source of the manuscript of the Dialogus upon which Gerbert based his edition (Huglo,
LAuteur du Dialogus, 127, 144, n.1 ). For more on this antiphoner, see
http://cantusdatabase.org/source/374029/ch-e-611.
59

44

A cursory inspection of the figure reveals that all but one of the distinctiones identified by
Odo end on D, the final note of the entire chant.60 Thus far the claim of pseudo-Odo that
where a mode begins better and more frequently, there it is accustomed to begin or end its
distinctiones better and more fittingly appears to be borne out by his example. Yet a closer
examination of the words quoted with the transcribed antiphon demonstrates just how
complicated it can be to interpret a term like distinctio. As we have mentioned, Pseudo-Odos
reference to how a distinctio is begun or ended clearly seems to indicate that he is using distinctio
to refer to a melodic segment in this context, for it makes no sense to speak of the musical
analogue of a punctuation mark having a beginning or end. His discussion of Tribus
miraculis, however, seems to refute this reading: here, what Odo identifies as the final
distinctio is not, in fact, the final phrase of the antiphon, but is instead the final division between
phrases, that is, the point at which we pause in a song and in which we divide a song, in
Pseudo-Odos words.61 Despite the terminological and conceptual inconsistencies that
characterize this quotation, the transcription of the antiphon does provide support for PseudoOdos larger point that melodic segments usually (but not always, as the penultimate one
proves) end on the modal final. Intriguingly, the Einsiedeln manuscript contains erasures

One should note that the first of Pseudo-Odos distinctiones, after tribus miraculis, fits the
melody well, but is not the only way to divide the text. It also works to posit a division one word later,
after ornatus, in which case the opening two lines would translate as We revere this day, which is
adorned by three miracles. Either parsing of the text works satisfactorily, but the chant melodys
emphasis on miraculis clearly reflects the translation shown in Example 1.1.
60

Consultation of more than a dozen antiphonersfrom Italy, near the Black Forest, and other
regions of Europehas revealed a great deal of uniformity in the chants constitution: not one of these
manuscripts contains a version of the text that ends with the words baptizari voluit.
61

45

corresponding with the start of the Example 1.1s fourth and fifth systems. It appears that these
segments of the melody originally began on D, which conforms better with other manuscripts
versions of the melody and also with Pseudo-Odos comment that distinctiones often begin on
the modal final as well.62
We have seen that the treatises attributed to Odo resonate with a considerable number
of ideas from the fields of grammar and rhetoric. Odo borrows a more potent set of concepts
from language in his discussion of music than does the author of the Musica enchiriadis, but he
does not deploy it in a systematic fashion that takes advantage of the hierarchy of different
types of distinctiones, understood either as punctuation marks or as segments of speech/music.
Yet such a development would eventually occur, and it brings us to the main theorist of this
chapter, John of Affligem.

1.4 John of Affligem and the Application of the Distinctiones to Music

It was not until the turn of the twelfth century that a developed system of musical
punctuation arose in the De musica (ca. 1100) of John of Affligem. Johns contribution consists
of a fully articulated system of three musical distinctiones to parallel the three found in writing,
or at least in the grammarians analysis of language. The relevant passage occurs in a chapter in
which John is discussing the musical modes (modi), which some people incorrectly (abusiue) call

For two other fourteenth-century versions of this melody, see Graz, Universittsbibliothek, 29
(olim 38/8 f.), f. 61v, and Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France - Dpartement des Manuscrits, lat. 15181,
f. 170v.
62

46

tones (a multivalent term often used to refer to the musical modes in medieval writings).63
John sets out to dispel the confusion by explaining the different phenomena to which the term
tone has been improperly applied, so that he can establish what the modes actually are. It is
in this context that John writes his ground-breaking treatment of the distinctiones. This
significant passage is composed of five sections, which we will consider in turn, beginning with
the first:
Or surely those [marks] which Donatus calls distinctiones are called tones (toni) for
their similarity to the tones; for just as in prose there are considered to be three
distinctiones, which also can be called pauses (pausationes), namely, the colon (or
member), comma (incise), and period (ending or circuit), in such a way [there are] also
[three] in song. In prose, to be sure, when [something] is read in a suspended manner
(suspensive), it is called a colon. When the thought (sententia) is divided by a suitable
point (per legitimum punctum), [it is called] a comma. When the thought is led to its end,
it is a period.64
John begins by describing the prose-based distinctio, or punctuation mark. His linking of
distinctio to the triad of the period, colon, and comma is a marked departure from earlier music
treatises. Furthermore, his descriptions of these three distinctiones are brief, and they seem to
assume that the reader already knows what the purpose of the marks is. This suggests that by
the early twelfth century there was a greater familiarity with the grammatical doctrine of the
punctuation marks, both because John knowingly makes use of the full apparatus of marks, and

For more on the meanings of the term tonus, see Charles Atkinson, Tonus in the Carolingian
Era: A Terminological Spannungsfeld, in Quellen und Studien zur Musiktheorie des Mittelalters, vol. 3, ed.
Michael Bernhard (Munich: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2001), 19-46.
63

Vel certe toni dicuntur ad similitudinem tonorum, quos Donatus distinctiones vocat; sicut
enim in prosa tres considerantur distinctiones, quae et pausationes appellari possunt, scilicet colon id est
membrum, comma incisio, periodus clausura sive circuitus, ita et in cantu. In prosa quippe quando
suspensive legitur, colon vocatur; quando per legitimum punctum sententia dividitur, comma, quando
ad finem sententia deducitur, periodus est (John of Affligem, De musica X, p. 79).
64

47

because he expects his readers to be somewhat familiar with them. Yet John does not assume
complete familiarity, as his brief definitions and subsequent sample sentence demonstrate. The
definitions exhibit Isidores characteristic fusion of grammar-based punctuation and rhetoricderived analysis of an utterance into sections: John refers to dividing a thought by a point
(punctum), which seems almost certainly to be a reference to the doctrine of punctuation marks,
but his descriptions of the colon and period also explicitly refer to a thought (sententia) and its
completion. What constitutes a complete thought is, in typical classical and medieval fashion,
left unexplained. John does, however, provide a parsed sentence as an example, which we will
soon consider, and his analysis of when that thought concludes aligns with modern intuitions of
syntactic closure.
As for the details of Johns definitions, conspicuously absent is the ninth-century
interpretation from Donatus commentaries that correlates the spatial disposition of the three
kinds of punctuation marks with different degrees of completion of the thought. Rather, the
vocabulary and doctrine hearken back to sixth and seventh centuries, to the period of
Cassiodorus and Isidore. Johns definition of the colon (suspensive legitur) shares the
element of suspension found in Cassiodoruss discussion of the subdistinctio, which he defines
as being always placed at that point in a comma where it is recognized that the utterance [in
progress and here] suspended (suspensus) is now to be resumed.65 John gives no indication of
what it sounds like for something to be read in a suspended manner; regardless of whether
this might refer to vocal pitch, pausing/breathing, or some other quality, it is clear that issues of

Primo de subdistinctione dicamus, quae ibi semper apponitur, ubi in commate sermo
suspensus adhuc reddendus esse cognoscitur (Cassiodorus, De orthographia, 146).
65

48

textual delivery are a feature of Johns doctrine of the distinctio. Similarly to the colons
resemblance to Cassiodoruss ideas, Johns sense of comma as a division into two suitable parts
(per legitimum punctum sententia dividitur) is a less explicit version of Isidores definition of
the colon, which divides the sententia into a first part that manifests its meaning and a second
part that completes the fullness of the thought: in sequentibus iam sententia sensum praestat,
sed adhuc aliquid superest de sententiae plenitudine. This interpretation, of course, assumes
that John adapted Cassiodoruss and Isidores concepts of the subdistinctio/comma and media
distinctio/colon, but connected each concept to the other term. As curious as this reversal is, it is
not unique: in the Remegius of Auxerres ninth-century Donatus commentary, he initially
expounds the standard understanding of comma and colon, but then at the end of the passage
of distinctiones states that the comma is longer than the colon: Colons and commas are parts of
the same utterance, but we say that a colon is in smaller parts . . . A comma, however, is in
larger ones . . .66 This same switched understanding of comma and colon later went on to
become common in discussions of punctuation in grammar treatises of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries.67 Johns account, however, lacks these later treatises introduction of yet
another synonymous triad of terms, to wit, versus (distinctio), punctus (media distinctio or
subdistinctio), and metrum (subdistinctio or media distinctio).

Sunt enim eiusdem dictionis partes, sed in minoribus partibus colon dicimus . . . Comma vero
est in maioribus . . . (Remegius of Auxerre, In Donati artem maiorem, quoted in Hubert, Corpus
stigmatologicum minus, 81).
66

Petrus Helias, B.N. ms. lat. 15121, quoted in Hubert, Corpus stigmatologicum minus, 104;
Alexander de Villa Dei, Doctrinale IV.11, quoted in Hubert, Corpus stigmatologicum minus, 124.
67

49

After these definitions John offers an example for further clarification, a passage from
the third chapter of the gospel according to Luke: As an example: In the fifteenth year of the
reign of Tiberius Caesarhere, [and] in all the [four subsequent] brief clauses, occurs a colon.68
Then, where it is added under the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, there occurs a
comma. And at the end of the verse, where it is the son of Zachariah in the wilderness, there
occurs a period.69 Due to the significant length of the Lucan passage and its familiarity to his
readers, John omits two parts of the sentence. The complete sentence reads: In the fifteenth
year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar [colon], with Pontius Pilate governing Judea [colon], Herod
being the tetrarch of Galilee [colon], his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and
Trachonitis [colon], and Lysanius tetrarch of Abiline [colon], under the high-priesthood of
Annas and Caiaphas [comma], the word of God came to John, the son of Zachariah, in the
wilderness [period].70 The first division, the colon, comes at the end of a lengthy dependent
clause, which describes the time when the main action occurred. Johns description of the colon
occurring in all these brief clauses (hic in omnibus punctis) is no doubt a reference to the
compound nature of this dependent clause, which contains four ablative absolute constructions

Harold S. Powerss interpretation of this elliptical sentence, which refers to Luke 3:1-2 (verses
which contain a string of six successive prepositional and participial phrases), informs my translation
(Language Models and Musical Analysis, Ethnomusicology 24, no. 1 [January 1980], 50).
68

Verbi gratia: Anno quinto decimo imperii Tiberii Caesaris, hic in omnibus punctis, colon est;
deinde ubi subditur: Sub principibus sacerdotum Anna et Caipha, comma est; in fine autem versus ubi
est Zachariae filium in deserto periodus est (John of Affligem, De musica X, p. 79).
69

Anno autem quintodecimo imperii Tiberii Caesaris procurante Pontio Pilato Iudaeam
tetrarcha autem Galilaeae Herode Philippo autem fratre eius tetrarcha Itureae et Trachonitidis regionis et
Lysania Abilinae tetrarcha sub principibus sacerdotum Anna et Caiapha factum est verbum Dei super
Iohannem Zachariae filium in deserto (Luke 3:1-2).
70

50

(the latter three of which involve understood participles), in addition to the initial ablative
construction. According to John, the comma of the second division indicates that the thought
is divided by a suitable point. In the case of this sentence, the aptness of the division seems to
rely on the fact that it demarcates the initial temporal contextualization from the subsequent
main clause. The final division, the period, closes the syntactic structure of the thought in an
obvious fashion.
Once John has established the role of the distinctiones in prose, he adapts that doctrine to
serve musical ends, while leaving ambiguous the precise relationship between textual and
musical structure (an issue which we will address later). Drawing upon the now-familiar
concepts of comma, colon, and period, John proposes three classes of melodic closure that
correspond roughly to the three punctuation marks:
Similarly, when a melody rests in a suspended manner (per suspensionem) a fourth or a
fifth from the final note, it is a colon. When [the melody] is led back to the final note in
the middle, it is a comma. When it arrives on the final note at the end, it is a period. As
in this antiphon [transcribed in Example 1.2]: Moreover Peter (colon) was being kept
in jail, (comma) and prayer was being made (colon) on his behalf without ceasing
(comma) by the church to God (period). By this, in fact, it can be seen that the modes
are not altogether improperly called tones, and that not unsuitably do they share a
name [with] the distinctions or accents, whose varieties they imitate.71

Similiter cum cantus in quarta vel quinta a finali voce per suspensionem pausat, colon est;
cum in medio ad finalem reducitur, comma est; cum in fine ad finalem pervenit periodus est. Ut in hac
antiphona: Petrus autem colon, servabatur in carcere comma, et oratio fiebat colon, pro eo sine
intermissione comma, ab ecclesia ad Deum periodus. Qua in re animadverti potest, quod modi non
omnino abusive toni vocantur, nec incongrue distinctionum seu accentuum nomen sortiuntur, quorum
varietates imitantur (John of Affligem, De musica X, pp. 79-80).
71

51

Johns musical period occurs when the melody concludes on the note of the modal final.72
Johns colon, corresponding to what earlier writers called the subdistinctio, happens when the
melody pauses on a note that doesnt sound final, specifically, a note a fourth or fifth above the
note that would sound final. His comma, which corresponds to the media distinctio, occurs when
the melody lands on the final note, but does so before the conclusion. This concept is similar to
Pseudo-Odos observation that many distinctiones end on the modal final, and yet is a more
precise claim. For instance, John acknowledges that some distinctiones, such as his colon, do not
normally end on the modal final. Also, Johns statement that the comma ends in such-and-such
a way represents a more prescriptivist claim about how music ought to work, whereas Odo
merely describes how chant melodies often progress.
To elucidate the musical distinctiones, John refers to the antiphon Petrus autem
servabatur. He simply quotes the text of the antiphon, and, while a few of the manuscripts of
this treatise include neumes, these are probably later scribal additions.73 Yet the melody that
John had in mind is not impossible to reconstruct. The antiphon in question was fairly
widespread, both temporally and geographically, and was commonly associated with the feast
of The Chains of Peter (vincula Petri), the feast of Peter, and the feast of Peter and Paul.74 Not
surprisingly, a number of melodic variants occur across the manuscripts that notate this
antiphon. Example 1.2 presents my transcription of the version found in an early twelfth-

Although in this passage John does not explain what he means by the final (finalis vox), his
discussion of the modes in later chapters clarifies that he does indeed use this term to refer to the
standard four final notes (D, E, F, and G) of medieval modal theory (De musica, XI, p. 83-90).
72

73

See the apparatus criticus on p. 79 of Smits van Waesberghes edition of the De musica.

74

See http://cantusdatabase.org/id/004286?page=1.

52

century antiphoner from just outside Paris, which makes it fairly close in both time and space to
John of Affligem.75 Each bar-line marks one of Johns distinctiones: the order of distinctiones is
colon, comma, colon, comma, period. These divisions in the melody, at the very least,
correspond perfectly with the melody John knew: each colon ends a fifth above the modal final,
each comma ends on the final, and the last note of the melody, and thus the period, is also the
modal final.
In Johns definitions of the three musical distinctiones, it is worth noting what he states
explicitly, and what remains assumed. First, all three are defined by musical factors, without

Example 1.2 Petrus autem servabatur, antiphon for the feast Vincula Petri76

Calvin Bower has presented a similar transcription of Petrus autem servabatur (The
Grammatical Model, 137). His source is a thirteenth-century antiphoner from Worcester. That
manuscript is further in time and distance from John of Affligem, and its version of Petrus autem
servabatur lacks the words pro eo; both of these factors suggest that the version found in the
manuscript from St. Maur-de-Fosss is closer to the melody to which John was referring. Harold Powers
has also transcribed a version from an antiphoner from Lucca, which is even further from Affligem. This
melody does include the phrase pro eo, but misses the conjunction et. Otherwise, the melody is
mostly the same as that of the St. Maur-de-Fosss antiphoner, with minor variants (Powers, Language
Models and Musical Analysis, 50). Incidentally, this text (with minor variants) also appears in the
modern Antiphonale Romanum for the Lauds liturgy of the same feast, but with an entirely different
melody, which is in the third mode (Antiphonale sacrosanctae Romanae ecclesiae pro diurnis horis [Rome:
Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1912], 672-3).
75

Transcribed from Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France - Dpartement des Manuscrits, lat.
12044, ff. 166v-167r, an early twelfth-century antiphoner from the Cluniac monastery of St. Maur-deFosss, outside of Paris. For more on this manuscript, see http://cantusdatabase.org/source/374051/f-pnlat-12044.
76

53

reference to the chants text. According to Johns definition, whenever the melody is led back to
the modal final in the middle (such as on the word et), it constitutes a comma. Of course, his
analysis of the antiphon makes abundantly clear that these musical criteria operate in
conjunction with a rhetorical analysis of the text into units of suitable length. (For him (pro eo)
and by the church (ab ecclesia) could each be colons, since they end a fourth or fifth above the
final, but they are presumably too short for John to count them as independent units.) Second,
John defines the comma and period as occurring in the middle (in medio) and at the end (in
fine), but he is not explicit about what is being concluded. Within the context of this section of
Johns discussion of the distinctiones, the most likely explanation is that he is referring to a given
chant melody (cantus), which is, after all, the subject of the first sentence of the section. Yet if
this were the case, then the musical period would only occur once in any chant, regardless of its
texts length or complexity. Considering that John only has three punctuational categories
available to him, this would largely write off a third of his conceptual apparatus. Every time
the melody rests on the modal final, it would be a comma, except for the very last time.
There is, however, another possible interpretation of Johns understanding of the comma
and period. This reading pays heed to the larger context of this passage, namely, its function as
the second half of an analogy between grammatical and musical distinctiones. In his discussion
of punctuation in speech, John states that the comma occurs when a thought (sententia) is
divided, and the period comes at the conclusion of the thought. While some utterances can be
only one thought long, it is obvious that many most speeches and texts will comprise more than
one thought, or period. Similarly (similiter), John tells us, switching to the musical half of the
analogy, when the melody rests on the modal final in the middle [of the texts thought], it is a

54

[musical] comma, and it is a [musical period] when the modal final occurs at the end [of the
thought]. In this interpretation the period, rather than being conceptually impoverished, exists
in a dynamic tension with the comma, with the distinction between the two resting on the
identification of whether the thought being expressed by the chants text is complete or
incomplete. Thus, in Petrus autem servabatur, one needs to evaluate whether a complete
thought is concluded after Peter, moreover, was being kept in jail (Petrus autem servabatur in
carcere). Let us again remember that our modern concept of a simple sentence does not appear
to have a direct correlate in grammatical thought of Johns day, and that the ancient conception
of the periodus often included many more clauses than todays sentences in English.
Consequently, it should not surprise us that John reserves the period for the conclusion of the
antiphon, even though Peter, moreover, was being kept in jail comprises a simple sentence by
modern standards.
In both of these interpretations, the musical comma emerges as the most conceptually
interesting of the distinctiones. With this concept John insightfully identifies a parallel between a
particular musical event, in which a musical unit comes to rest on the modal final without being
complete, and a particular linguistic phenomenon, where, in Cassiodoruss words, no words
are lacking, but the [thought] is gradually proceeding to fulfillment.77 Hence, both melodic
resting on the modal final and a rhetoricians proper performance of suspensions of the
utterance (sermo suspensus) are capable of helping listeners perceive that a significant division in
the texts structure is occurring. Johns passage is, in fact, the first time that any author alludes

77

. . .nullus sermo deest, sed gradatim tendit ad plenam . . . (Cassiodorus, De orthographia 146).

55

to musics ability to feign closure, to perform a gesture that sounds like it should be associated
with a strong conclusion, but turns out not to be. It is by drawing upon the grammatical
doctrine of punctuation, the positurae or distinctiones, that John first identifies the phenomenon
of a musical event sounding complete on a lower level, while simultaneously being incomplete
on a higher level. This kind of perceptual experience developed to great effect in later
polyphonic music, and underpins such familiar phenomena as the half cadence of tonal music.78
In the excerpts final section John adds a new terminological triad to the rhetorical triad
of member/incise/circuit and the hybrid rhetorical-punctuational triad of colon/comma/period
drawn from Isidore: That which in prose some grammarians call colon, comma, and period, in
melody the musicians name interval (diastema), system (systema), and completion (teleusin).
Interval means a separating decoration which occurs when a melody does not pause on its
final note, but [instead] pauses appropriately on another note. System indicates a connecting
decoration, [which occurs] whenever a fitting pause of the melody is made on the final note.
Completion is the end of the melody.79 These three terms diastema, systema, and
teleusin are Greek or Greek-derived, and the employment of the first two in a rhetoricomusical context is not original to John. As we have seen, the ninth-century Musica enchiriadis

Of course in Johns case the perceptual complexity arises from a combination of musical and
textual parameters, whereas later polyphonic devices, like half and deceptive cadences, communicate
simultaneous completion and incompletion through musical means alone. Yet in the chant theory of
Johns day, it is not clear that one can speak of purely musical concerns divorced from any
considerations of the chant text, so the distinction may be less meaningful than it initially seems.
78

Quod autem in prosa grammatici colon, comma, periodum vocant, hoc in cantu quidam
musici diastema, systema, teleusin nominant. Significat autem diastema distinctum ornatum, qui fit,
quando cantus non in finali, sed in alia decenter pausat; systema coniunctum ornatum indicat, quotiens
in finali decens melodiae pausatio fit; teleusis finis est cantus (John of Affligem, De musica X, p. 80).
79

56

mentions the diastema and systema in the context of its brief discussion of melodic sections.
After the anonymous author introduces the concepts of the comma and colon (understood in
their original rhetorical sense as phrases, not punctuation),80 he informs the reader that the
distance between the highest and lowest note of a comma is called interval (diastema), and
that the melodic ranges of colons or an entire melody are called systems (sistemata).81 John is
obviously putting these borrowed terms to a different use, redefining them as mere equivalents
of the punctuation types. The third term, teleusin, seems to have no precedent in any significant
musical or grammatical texts. John (or whoever originally coined it) doubtless derives it from
the Greek word (tele), a verb which denotes the act of completing or fulfilling, likely by
way of the derivative noun (telesis), which means event or fulfillment.82 This term
did not gain much traction in music-theoretical circles, and its appearances in later texts are
largely restricted to quotations or paraphrases of this passage.83

The Musica enchiriadis never extends the analogy past the level of the colon. The Scolica
enchiradis (another treatise in the Enchiriadis family of texts), however, does briefly use the term periodus to
refer to an entire melody (Scolica enchiriadis, 85).
80

Discrimen autem inter summam et infimam vocem commatis appellatur diastema (Musica
enchiriadis, IX, p. 22). Concerning the sistemata, see ibid., p. 23. See also the closely related discussion of
these terms in Scolica enchiriadis, pp. 85-6.
81

Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, revised by Sir Henry Stuart
Jones and Roderick McKenzie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940), s.vv. and .
A thirteenth-century author who paraphrased and commented on Johns account of the distinctio
was clearly baffled by this coinage, offering the following as a supposed explanation for teleusin: Celeuma
is a sailors cry or a song for the dead, as says Papias (Celeuma est clamor nautarum sive carmen super
mortuos, ita dicit Papias [Jerome of Moravia, Tractatus de musica, XX, p. 154]).
82

One such example, in addition to the previously mentioned Tractatus de musica by Jerome of
Moravia, is the fourteenth-century Cantuagium of Heinrich Eger von Kalkar (V, pp. 57, 63).
83

57

Thus far John has described two different ways that melodic segments can conclude (on
the final, or on the fourth or fifth above it), two different syntactical locations for these
conclusions (at the conclusion of a melody or during its course), and correlated these with the
punctuation/phrase-types of the colon, comma, and period. He has also cited the antiphon
Petrus autem as an example, and it fits his descriptions perfectly. Yet in this passage John
leaves ambiguous precisely how these descriptions relate to musical practice. Is he describing
how pieces work, or how good pieces work? Is he offering advice to those thinking of
composing new melodies, or giving implicit advice about performance? Or are such practical
questions even relevant to Johns project?
When we turn our attention to practical concerns such as these, it quickly becomes clear
that the corpus of chant is much more complex than Johns claims make it out to be. Not all
antiphons from Johns day, let alone pieces from other genres of chant or other periods, follow
the melodic dictates which John lays out. Indeed, in a later chapter of his treatise which
addresses the best kind of melodic motion (optima modulandi forma), John acknowledges as
much: The best kind of melodic motion is this: where the verbal meaning makes a distinctio,
there the melody receives a pause on the final (pausatio finalis). You can examine this rule in the
antiphon Cum esset desponsata. On the other hand, he who set (modulatus est) the verses
Homo quidam erat dives valde did not observe it well, for this same versicle never touches the
final at [its] true distinctio.84 As one might expect, Homo quidam erat dives (an antiphon

Optima autem modulandi forma haec est, si ibi cantus pausationem finalis recipit, ubi sensus
verborum distinctionem facit. Quod considerare potes in hac antiphona Cum esset desponsata. Hoc
autem praeceptum non bene inspexit, qui versiculos illos modulatus est quorum initium est Homo
quidam erat dives valde. Nam iste idem versiculus nusquam in recta distinctione finalem contingit (John
of Affligem, De musica XIX, p. 120).
84

58

from the Lauds office of the second Sunday after Pentecost), transcribed as Example 1.3, does
not easily fit into standard modal categories. Its melody concludes on G, and its range extends
from C to d, suggesting that it is most likely in the eighth mode. Yet the two strongest
syntactical divisions of the text, which come at the ends of the fourth and final systems, coincide
with notes a third apart. Even if one of these two ending notes corresponds to what John would
call the finalis, the other cannot relate to it in any of the ways John proposes for the colon, comma,

Example 1.3 Homo quidam erat dives et,

antiphon for the feast of the second Sunday after Pentecost85
Transcribed from Worcester, Cathedral - Music Library, F.160 (olim 1247), f. 93v; facs. as
Paleographie musicale 12 (Tournay : Descle & Cie, 1922), 187. Johns citation of the antiphon ends with the
words dives valde, rather than dives et. No chants found in the Cantus database contain this series
of words, and it is easy to imagine a regional variant in which the word valde was set under the G-F-G
at the end of the first line of the transcription.
85

59

or periodus. Clearly Johns melodic prescriptions do not apply across the board, and John
acknowledges as much by his reference to this antiphon.
Yet an informal survey of medieval manuscripts reveals that a surprisingly large
proportion of chant melodies can be analyzed as conforming to Johns theory. True, John gives
no principles for determining where best to locate divisions of the colon and comma, and thus
the resulting flexibility makes it possible for the modern analyst to posit divisions
tautologically, only in places that support Johns theory (or in those that frequently contradict
it). One could even go as far as Calvin Bower, and argue that our analysis of a texts
grammatical structure reveals which melody notes would have been emphasized.86 On the one
hand, it becomes evident when one reads books printed in previous centuries that we cannot
assume that our intuitions of where to place punctuation marksthat is, of grammaticosyntactic structure always map neatly onto those of readers from 300 years ago, let alone
those of readers of nearly a millennium ago.87 For a brief example, consider again Petrus
autem (Example 1.2), the text of which ends with four successive prepositional phrases. Other
than by appealing to the notes upon which those phrases end, which would beg the question,

Thus one of the first principles in interpreting these melodies must be analysis of the
grammatical structure of the underlying text in order to determine which pitches will be stressed through
lengthening (Bower, The Grammatical Model, 139, emphasis original). Bower does admit later that the
relationship between text and musical structure is more balanced than he had made it out to be (ibid.,
143).
86

As an example of how much punctuational practice can change over time, consider this
seventeenth-century quotation that strikingly diverges from modern expectations: The ordinata
adscendens imperfectior cadence occurs / when / after everything / which is proper to a perfecta totalis
cadence has been arranged / except for the last interval / instead of a falling fifth or rising fourth, one sets
a rising second [Ordinata adscendens imperfectior ist / wenn / nach dem alles gesezt ist / was zu einer
perfecten Clausula formali totali gehret / das lezte Intervallum ausgenommen / an statt der absteigenden
Qvint oder auffsteigenden Qvart, eine auffsteigende secunda gesezet wird] ([Johann] Wolfgang Caspar
Printz, Phrynis oder Satyrischer Componist, vol. 1 [Quedlinburg: Christian Okels, 1676], VII, 17, ff. C2 r-3v).
87

60

how does one justify positing divisions before the first and third of these phrases, rather than
elsewhere? Johns account does not provide enough information to say why his analysis is
superior to other possible divisions of the text. On the other hand, if Johns central claim is to
offer any insight into his times understanding of the relation between melody and verbal
syntax, then we should expect to find melodic arrivals on the appropriate notes coinciding to at
least some degree with points in the text that could plausibly have been understood as syntactic
divisions.
As an attempt to get a preliminary and informal idea of whether other melodies follow
Johns principles, let us consider Example 1.4, which presents a transcription of Erat Petrus
dormiens inter, the antiphon that immediately follows Petrus autem in the St. Maur-deFosss antiphoner. Similarly to Petrus autem, John would likely identify it as being a
specimen of the first mode, D authentic (or perhaps the second, D plagal, due to its limited

Example 1.4 Erat Petrus dormiens inter, antiphon for the feast Vincula Petri88

Transcribed from Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France - Dpartement des Manuscrits, lat.
12044, f. 167r.
88

61

ambitus of C to a).89 Unlike the former antiphon, its medial closes are somewhat less
compatible with Johns theory. The opening words Erat Petrus dormiens, which have the
same ascending contour as the first colon of Petrus autem, conclude on the note a fourth
above the final, in conformance with Johns dictates.90 After that, however, the conformance
becomes less apparent. We cannot be certain exactly how John would have divided the text of
this antiphon into colons and commas, so the divisions marked in Example 1.4 represent merely
one possible parsing. The possible division after milites ends on the note a third above the
final, in violation of Johns norms; admittedly, there is not a strong break in the syntax at this
point, and John may have analyzed the words inter duos milites vinctus catenis duabus as
consisting of one comma.
In either case, a syntactical division clearly occurs after catenis duabus, yet the melody
closes on the note a major second below the final. Johns theory cannot account for this feature,
in spite of the fact that plainchant repertoire often emphasizes the subtonic in this way. For
instance, many of the chant melodies for this feast exhibit syntactic divisions coinciding with
the subtonic, such as Simon Bar Jona (mode 3) and Exiens Petrus apostolus (mode 1).
Furthermore, Angelus Domini astitit concludes on a D in this antiphoner, but all the medial,
comma-like closes occur on the note E. While this could represent a bold departure from
Johns norms, the final D may also be a scribal error, in which case the emended melody would

John discusses the modes in chapters ten through twelve of the De musica, wherein he defines
mode on the basis of modal final and ambitus (pp. 76-96).
89

Another French antiphoner from the twelfth century (albeit the last decade of that century) has
a version of this chant in which the melody for the word dormiens ends two notes earlier, on the
second A. This alteration produces a melodic opening with greater similarity to that of Petrus autem
(Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France - Dpartement des Manuscrits, lat. 1090, f. 192 r-v).
90

62

adhere to the principles John sets forth. And indeed, many other medieval manuscripts show
this antiphon concluding on the note E.91 If this hypothesis of a scribal error is correct, then the
most consistent mismatch between Johns principles and these chants is closure of internal
phrases on the note below the final. Were we to make an addendum to Johns text stating that
the comma can conclude on either the final or the note below it, then these antiphons would
match the revised principles to a very high degree.
Thus far all the chants considered have been in authentic modes (or perhaps plagal, in
the case of Erat Petrus dormiens inter.) In view of the correlation between the colon
concluding a fourth or fifth above the final and the higher ambitus of authentic modes than
plagal ones, one might suppose that his dictates would apply better to chants in authentic
modes. Yet pieces in plagal modes often have plausible syntactic divisions on notes that are
concordant with Johns principles. Example 1.5 provides a transcription of a mode 4 (E plagal)
antiphon, Transeuntes autem primam et, from the same feast in the St. Maur-de-Fosss
manuscript. Perhaps the most significant departure between this chant and the authentic-mode
Examples 1.2 and 1.4 is that all three syntactical units (whose conclusions are indicated by the
bar lines) come to rest on the melodys final pitch. Johns theory informs us that an ending
made on the modal final but not at the conclusion of a piece (or of a textual thought/sententia, in
our alternate interpretation) demarcates a comma, which occurs when the thought is divided
by a suitable point. From a grammatical perspective, one might wish to differentiate the
relative degrees of conclusiveness of the conclusion of the first phrase, which marks the end of a

Of the fifty-one modally identified cases of this antiphon listed in the CANTUS database, all the
melodies except for that in our manuscript are labeled as being in the fourth mode, which strongly
supports the hypothesis that its intended final is E (http://cantusdatabase.org/id/001411).
91

63

participial phrase modifying the understood subject of the immediately following main verb,
and the end of the second, which merely sets off a relative clause; in an Affligem-based reading,
however, both endings are equally commas because each comes to rest on the modal final
without completing a thought in the text (or bringing the chant to completion). Indeed, all three
phrases of the antiphon conclude with essentially the same melodic figure, which occurs for the
first time with the word custodiam in the first phrase. Thus, even though this chants phrases
conclude on notes approved by Johns theory (unlike Example 1.4s Erat Petrus dormiens
inter), its repeated ending formula makes it difficult to affirm the connection John draws
between different levels of syntactic closure and different types of melodic conclusions.
What, then, does Johns theory have to say about melodies that deviate from his
strictures? As previously mentioned, his main discussion of the distinctiones leaves the

Example 1.5 Transeuntes autem primam et, antiphon for the feast Vincula Petri92

Transcribed from Paris, Bibliothque nationale de France - Dpartement des Manuscrits, lat.
12044, ff. 167r.
92

64

relationship between his theory and actual practice entirely ambiguous. Fortunately, Johns
aforementioned discussion of the best kind of melodic motion, quoted in conjunction with
Example 1.3, sheds some light on this relationship. The wording even of the passages very first
line strongly suggests that John sees the degree to which a melody adheres to his rules as an
indicator of its artistic quality: the best (optima) kind of melodic motion occurs where a chants
melodic and textual closure coincide. John does not go so far as to uphold explicitly this
principle as a model for future composers, but he does criticize the man who set (modulatus
est, which usually means s/he sang, but here seems more to invoke the act of creation) the
melody which begins Homo quidam erat dives valde.93 That is not to say, however, that John
was proposing an aesthetic criterion for those interested in evaluating already existing chant.
Rather, we can conclude that John expected his treatise to be read by those wanting to know
how to compose, on the basis of the content of the De musicas eighteenth chapter, which
provides Precepts for composing song (Praecepta de cantu componendo) (precepts which make
no mention, however, of Johns punctuational doctrine). This strongly suggests that Johns
comments on the best kind of melodic motion were intended as a guide for aspiring
composers.94
Thus, we can view Johns doctrine of melodic punctuation as something of an attempt to
compensate via melodic means for the deleterious effects of music on the comprehension of

93

John of Affligem, De musica XIX, p. 120.

Mathias Bielitz disagrees with this conclusion, noting that the phrase cantus pausationem
finalis recipit (a song receives the pause [proper to] the final) diverges from a strictly compositional
approach, and that the words forma modulandi (kind of melodic motion, literally form of
modulating) is rather abstract for practical use in describing the course of a melody (Musik und
Grammatik, 225).
94

65

text. Setting a liturgical text to music presents obstacles to its proper apperception. Not only
can a beautiful melody distract both performer and listener from the religious import of the
words; the constraints of a composed melody also prevent the performer from freely employing
the full range of techniques developed in rhetoric for orally clarifying a readings meaning.
John implicitly proposes to regulate the composition of melodies such that they clearly express
the chants textual structure, and the points in a liturgical text where the completion of a
thought does and does not inhere.

1.5 The Transmission of the Doctrine

John of Affligems application of the doctrine of punctuation marks to music proved to
be of lasting interest for theorists of later centuries. Johns treatise was copied often and was
widely circulated, which no doubt contributed to the initial transmission of his treatment of the
distinctiones.95 In the following generations theorists incorporated this passage into their own
treatises, often quoting it verbatim in its entirety. For example, Jerome of Moravia, who died
sometime after 1271, included it (and many other excerpts from Johns treatise) in his Tractatus
de musica.96 It is also in the Speculum musicae (ca. 1325-50) often attributed to a certain Jacques
de Lige, though here Johns sample sentence and antiphon are not mentioned.97

95

See pp. 4-18 of Smits van Waesberghes edition of the De musica.

96

Jerome of Moravia, Tractatus de musica, XX, pp. 153-4.

Jacobus Leodiensis, Speculum musicae VI.35, p. 88. On the dating and authorship of this treatise,
see Karen Desmond, New Light on Jacobus, Author of Speculum musicae Plainsong and Medieval Music 9,
no. 1 (2000): 19-40.
97

66

In the following generations authors began to take more liberties with Johns passage.
Gobelinus Person (1358-1421) reworded some of Johns sentences and omitted the sentence in
which John links modes, tones, distinctions, and accents.98 His most significant departure,
however, is that he replaces Johns citation of the antiphon Petrus autem servabatur with a
reference to a different antiphon, namely, Ecce nomen Domini, an antiphon often used in the
liturgy for the feast of Christmas Day. (See Example 1.6 for a transcription of this melody.)
Person states that a colon occurs after Emmanuel, a comma after per Gabrielem, and a
period at the conclusion, where magnus rex is said.99 These divisions yield the same results

Example 1.6 Ecce nomen Domini, antiphon for the feast Nativitas Domini100

98

Gobelinus Person, Tractatus musicae scientiae, p. 188.

Person, Tractatus, 188. Another fourteenth-century antiphoner contains an entirely different

setting of this melody, yet it also has the final on Gabrielem and rex, and the note a fifth above on
Emanuel (see Klosterneuburg, Augustiner-Chorherrenstift - Bibliothek, 1011, f. 69v).
99

Transcribed from Einsiedeln, Kloster Einsiedeln - Musikbibliothek, 611, ff. 69v-70r, a

fourteenth-century antiphoner from the monastery of Einsiedeln, Switzerland. For more on this
manuscript, see http://cantusdatabase.org/source/374029/ch-e-611.
100

67

as in Johns example, Petrus autem servabatur.101 Persons choice to cite a different antiphon
suggests that he expected his readers to be unfamiliar with Johns antiphon, and demonstrates
that he was much more interested in communicating the substance of Johns ideas to his readers
than in merely parroting a tidbit of musical lore.
Invocations of the analogy between musical closure and punctuation are not limited to
the medieval period. Music theorists kept returning to this explanatory tool for centuries
thereafter; indeed, perhaps the most developed account of this analogy occurs in the eighteenth
century, in Johann Matthesons Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739).102 One treatment of the
punctuation-closure analogy from the intervening centuries illustrates the variety of uses to
which theorists put this idea. This particular treatment is by Nicolaus Wollick (ca. 1480-after
1541), and it occurs in the Opus aureum (1501), which, incidentally, also contains an unrelated
discussion of polyphonic closure which we will examine in the following chapter. At the end of
the second of the volumes four books Wollick inserts a little treatise (tractatulus) teaching
how one ought to read readings and histories, which refers to chanted delivery of the lessons
texts of Matins services.103 Unlike John of Affligem, who prescribes the conclusions of phrases
in an otherwise unregulated chant melody, Wollick is describing a practice of recitation
formulaes in which phrases consist of a monotonic, syllabic declamation of text except for when

One could also posit a syntactic division after the word Israhel, in which case the new
phrase would deviate from Johns system by concluding a step above the modal final. This possible
division, however, would obscure the syntactic connection between the main verb apparuit and its
subsequent subject, magnus rex. Consequently, Persons analysis, which conforms to Johns principles,
is quite defensible on syntactic grounds alone.
101

102

Johann Mattheson, Der vollkommene Capellmeister, II.9 (see 22 in particular).

103

Nicolaus Wollick, Opus aureum, f. F4r-v.

68

they conclude.104 He begins by setting out how the voice should move at each of four
punctuation marks in a given text: three of these derive from the familiar positurae of Antiquity,
and the fourth is called the interrogativum, which corresponds to the modern notion of the
question mark. As for the three older marks, the subdistinctio or comma has become the virgula,
the media distinctio or colon is the comma, and the distinctio or periodus is now the periodus or
colon, though Wollick only uses the latter term elsewhere in this passage. Example 1.7 presents
a transcription of Wollicks example summarizing the two manners (modi) in which the voice
can move in each of these situations.
Thus far Wollicks account has been strictly mechanical, eschewing any consideration of
grammatical matters in favor of a practical focus on recognizing the punctuation marks and
pairing them with their proper melodic realizations. Yet Wollick is not content to end his
discussion on such an intellectual bare note. Instead, he concludes with a brief summary of the

Example 1.7 Melodic ending formulas from Wollick, Opus aureum, f. F4v
syntactical characteristics of these punctuation marks, in terms that harken back to much earlier
texts: The concept (notitia) of these four marks (since many can be found in most [texts]) is held

104

David Hiley, Western Plainchant: A Handbook (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 47-58.

69

[to be] of such a sort, and these are: [1] the virgula or suspension (suspensivum) ought to be
observed when neither the thought (sententia) nor the construction appear complete; [2] the
comma ought to be observed when the construction is complete, but the purpose (intentio) is still
left hanging; [3] the interrogativum ought to be observed when the utterance proceeds in a
questioning manner; [4] the colon ought to be observed when neither the construction nor the
meaning (sensus) lack anything more.105 Excepting the addition of the interrogativum mark and
a few terminological alterations, Wollick presents a traditional view of the punctuation marks
that evaluates the relative state of completion of the individual clause (at a local level) and the
overall thought (at a global level). This is the distinction that John of Affligem introduced to the
discourse of music, and which stretches all the way back to Cassiodorus in the sixth century
C.E. Though so much had changed, both musically and educationally, between Johns day, at
the turn of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and that of Wollick at the start of the sixteenth
century, the analogy between punctuation and musical closure was still a valuable explanatory
tool for authors seeking to describe musical practice.

1.6 Conclusion
Over the course of nearly a millennium, discourse concerning punctuation developed
from its origins in antique Greek grammar texts to the relatively sophisticated doctrine of
rhetorical phrase types and sense closure found in Isidores Etymologies and developed in ninth-

Noticia profecto istorum quattuor (quia vt in plurimum plura reperiri possunt) punctorum ita
habetur, et sunt hec: [1] Virgula siue suspensiuum obseruari debet quando nec sententia nec constructio
exstat perfecta; [2] Comma obseruari debet quando constructio est perfecta, sed adhuc pendet intentio; [3]
Interrogatiuum obseruari debet quando oratio procedit interrogatiue; [4] Colon obseruari debet quando
neque constructio neque sensus magis dependet (ibid., f. F4 v).
105

70

century Donatus commentaries. This body of doctrine proved useful for the earliest theorists of
chant, as the tentative mention of distinctiones in several ninth and tenth century texts
demonstrates. Yet it was not until John of Affligems De musica that a highly developed
application of punctuation doctrine to music emerged, with a well-articulated analogy between
each type of distinctio and a corresponding musical event. It was this analogy that permitted
John to begin to articulate the new insight that chant has the capacity to sound simultaneously
complete on one level and incomplete on another, and thus the grammatical concept of
punctuation proved instrumental in the elucidation of a highly significant aspect of musical
language.
John of Affligems theory of musical closure occupies a clear position in the dichotomy
of how closure happens versus where it occurs (a dichotomy introduced in the introductory
chapter). His is unambiguously a theory of where, and pays almost no attention to how musical
closure is effected. He gives no specification whatsoever about what musical events occur
leading up to the conclusion of a phrase, and no specification about what happens when that
phrase concludes, other than mentioning a pitch or choice of possible pitches. In contrast,
nearly all of Johns explanatory efforts go towards describing where cadences occur. John
conceives the temporal span of a given chant largely in terms of its verbal text, and defines
phrase conclusions in terms of the texts syntactical divisions. Thus, Johns distinctio-inspired
account of closure lies toward one extreme of the how vs. where dichotomy. We will now
examine a theory which operates at the other extreme of this dichotomy: the early sixteenthcentury cadential doctrine of the Cologne school, which is the subject of the following chapter.

71

CHAPTER 2
POLYPHONIC CLOSURE IN THE RENAISSANCE: THE COLOGNE SCHOOL
Consider, for a moment, the state of musical composition in the late fifteenth century.
The Franco-Flemish school of composition is in its glory, with Ockeghem, Obrecht, and Josquin
all composing actively. With regard to musical closure, conventional ending formulas are
ubiquitous, primarily a variety of progressions which sound similar to perfect authentic
cadences,1 but also several others, including the descending-fourth (that is, the so-called
plagal) cadence.2 As the previous chapter demonstrated, theories of monophonic closure, like
that developed by John of Affligem, worked well for addressing chant, but they clearly cannot
begin to explain the complexities of closure in Franco-Flemish polyphonic music. Furthermore,
the music theory of the intervening centuries was not much of an improvement. The most
pertinent theoretical tradition of that time was contrapunctus, or counterpoint, which
provided a series of principles governing the arrangement of two voices in a strict note-againstnote fashion. These principles covered matters such as which intervals appropriately follow a
given interval, how the voices should move with respect to each other (preferably by contrary
motion), and whether the same interval may occur twice in succession (yes for imperfect

Such progressions accompany the essential dyadic progression of major sixth to octavean
imperfect consonance resolving to its closest perfect consonancewith a low contratenor or bassus
voice which adds both a fifth below the tenor in the first of those dyads, and also a unison, a lower
octave, or (more rarely by this time) an upper fifth to the tenor in the second of the two sonorities.
1

Concerning the origin of the term plagal cadence, see Caleb Mutch, Blainvilles New Mode,
or How the Plagal Cadence Became Plagal, Eighteenth-Century Music 12, no. 1 (March 2015): 69-90.
2

72

consonances, no for perfect ones).3 The contrapunctus tradition was able to stipulate that
imperfect consonances should progress to perfect ones,4 and that pieces should begin and end
on perfect consonances, but it only spoke of dyads. In the mid-fifteenth century theorists of
faburden or fauxbourdon began to describe three-voice textures.5 Yet this approach does not
present a significant conceptual departure form contrapunctus theory, since one added voice
relates to the original line by a simplified version of the familiar contrapuntal rules, and the
other simply mirrors the original line at the fourth above or below. Developments in musical
practice clearly called for a new theory of musical closure that could stipulate what composers
should do with three, or even four, truly independent voices at ending points.
Given this musical situation, it is perhaps surprising that the first radically new theory
of musical closure did not arise until the first decade of the sixteenth century. In an approach
that is without precedent, this body of doctrine describes cadences not as successive dyads, but
as three- or four-voice combinations of stereotyped melodic figures. The new doctrine,
furthermore, found its home in a new genre of treatise, namely, a textbook-like compendium of
both traditional learned topics and practical compositional advice that was intended for
grammar-school students. The pedagogical orientation of this genre is undoubtedly due to the

See Sarah Fuller, Organum Discantus Contrapunctus in the Middle Ages, in The Cambridge
History of Western Music Theory, ed. Thomas Christensen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002),
477-8, 490-6; and Klaus-Jrgen Sachs, Der Contrapunctus im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert: Untersuchungen zum
Terminus, zur Lehre und zu den Quellen (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1974).
3

Concerning the intellectual background of this concept, see David E. Cohen, The Imperfect
Seeks Its Perfection: Harmonic Progression, Directed Motion, and Aristotelian Physics, Music Theory
Spectrum 23, no. 2 (Autumn 2001): 139-169.
4

Fuller, Organum Discantus Contrapunctus in the Middle Ages, 496-8; Brian Trowell,
Faburden and Fauxbourdon, Musica Disciplina 13 (1959): 43-78.
5

73

fact that the authors of these treatises were all associated with the university in Cologne, both as
students and teachers. Their doctrine would be worthy of study solely due to its status as the
earliest truly polyphonic theory of musical closure; it is all the more significant that it arose in
association with the polyphonic vocal style of the so-called high Renaissance period. This
styles increased employment of triadic sonorities and frequent use of dove-tailed textures
also provide challenges to the interpreter of contemporaneous music theory, encouraging us to
consider important issues such as whether the Cologne schools doctrine provides evidence of
triadic thinking, and to what extent their concept of a closing progression corresponds with our
idea of cadence.
This chapter will undertake a thorough investigation of the Cologne schools doctrine of
musical closure. It will begin by considering the curiously little-explained meaning of the
compound term clausula formalis, which these authors introduced to describe polyphonic
closure. Further contextualization follows, in the form of a brief survey of the diverse mixture
of theoretic traditions upon which the authors of the Cologne school drew to create their theory,
most notably the corpus of conservative treatises cultivated in Germany and a newer form of
contrapuntal pedagogy associated with Italian writers. After this background has been
explained, the chapter turns to a detailed discussion of the doctrine of closure itself, examining
the rules for three- and four-voice closes in turn. The presence of four-voice progressions raises
the question of whether this theoretical tradition provides evidence of triadic thinking in early
sixteenth century Germany; a careful evaluation of this issue follows. This chapter concludes
with a brief study of the role of the clausula formalis in contemporaneous compositional practice,
suggesting the value of future research in this area.

74

2.1 The Term Clausula Formalis

From its first articulation of the concept of musical closure, the Cologne school referred
to it using the term clausula formalis. Curiously, even though these authors are apparently the
earliest to use this compound term, they never define it or explain what its constituent words
mean. This lack of explicitness is unfortunate, since each of the terms clausula and formalis has a
multiplicity of meanings and possible interpretations, which have implications for our
understanding of the concept in question. It will be worthwhile, therefore, to begin the study of
the clausula formalis by exploring the web of meanings the term would have invoked at the start
of the sixteenth century.
The employment of the term clausula in music texts predates the Cologne-school
theorists use of it by more than five hundred years. The word itself is older yet: in Classical
Latin it generally means conclusion or ending, and is derived from the verb to close
(claudere). Perhaps its first musical use occurred in the text Alia musica, a work whose
complicated textual history begins about the second half of the ninth century. The Alia musica
uses the term in an inchoate effort to elucidate the concept of modal ambitus, presumably to
refer to the idea of a melody closing off a given amount of musical space.6 Yet the treatise had
little circulation, and this meaning never gained wide currency. It was far more common for
treatises in the following centuries to use clausula to refer to the concept of the musical interval,
or to employ it as a glossing synonym for the term period (periodus) as used to denote the
musical phrase, a terminological-conceptual complex which the previous chapter discusses in

Alia musica, 116.

75

detail.7 John of Affligems De musica (ca. 1100) is representative of the terminological melee of
this period. Throughout the bulk of his treatise John uses clausula to refer to intervals, even
though that meaning was falling out of favor; indeed, he is one of the last authors to use the
term in that sense. But John also uses the term in the second sense in his discussion of the
analogy between music and prose. There, he glosses the word periodus with the words
clausula or circuit, the latter of which is a near-literal translation of the Greek
(periodos).8 This gloss is not original to John; rather, its origin lies at least as far back as the
grammatical treatise De arte metrica by Bede (ca. 672-735).9 Several other medieval treatises also
quote it, one of which is at latest from the early twelfth century, but it is difficult to assert
whether their authors knew the phrase independently or whether they were merely quoting
John.10 In the centuries after John this sense of clausula came to replace entirely the intervallic
meaning, as treatises such as Anonymous IV demonstrate.11
It was not until the late fifteenth century that the meaning of clausula began to shift
again. Sometime before 1475, the Franco-Flemish theorist and composer Johannes Tinctoris (ca.
1435-1511) defined the term in his proto-dictionary of music, the Diffinitorium musicae, which

See chapter 1, sections 1 and 3-4.

. . . periodus [id est] clausura sive circuitus (De mus. 79). Most manuscripts of Johns treatise
read clausura rather than clausula, and this alternate spelling is transmitted by later authors.
Clausula is clearly the word intended, as its spelling in Bede demonstrates.
8

Bede, De arte metrica, XII, 188, 51.

One such source is a fragmentary text edited by Gerbert and attached to the end of his edition
of Hucbalds De harmonica institutione (p. 125). Another is the Ecce modorum sive tonorum of the
Enchiriadis tradition, which exists in many manuscripts dated to the twelfth century.
10

See, for example, Montpellier Organum Treatise, 33; Anonymous IV, 46; Pseudo-Bede, Musica
quadrata seu mensurata, 926.
11

76

was published in the Veneto region in 1495.12 Tinctoris describes a clausula thus: A clausula is
a little part (particula) of any section of a song, at the end of which is found either general repose
or completion (perfectio).13 The association of clausula with conclusion is unmistakable in the
case of both general rest and completion: in the former a situation analogous to todays
grand pause ends the particula, whereas in the latter the particula concludes on a perfect
(perfectus) sonority that has the ontological quality of completion (perfectio).14 Tinctoriss
definition leaves it rather unclear how much music he considers to count as a clausula. As we
shall see in section 2.3, the Cologne school makes clear that a clausula formalis consists of three
sonorities, which could well be the approximate amount of music Tinctoris had in mind when
he defined clausula as a little part of a song. Thus, in both temporal scope and association
with ending, the Cologne schools employment of the term clausula is substantially closer to that
of Tinctoris than to those of their medieval predecessors. Furthermore, several later treatises
penned by members of the Cologne school quote Tinctoriss definitions, which demonstrates

Tinctoriss understanding of the clausula also initiated a tradition of Italian cadential theorizing
that differs from the Cologne schools doctrine in several respects, including an exclusively two-voice
understanding of the progression, and a far greater emphasis on deploying cadences such that they
reinforce the texts structure. For more on this Italian tradition see section 3.1 of the following chapter,
Elisabeth Schwind, Kadenz und Kontrapunkt: Zur Kompositionslehre der Klassischen Vokalpolyphonie
(Hildesheim: Olms, 2009), 209-14, and Anne Smith, The Performance of 16th-Century Music: Learning from the
Theorists (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 71-74).
12

Clausula est cujuslibet partis cantus particula in fine cujus vel quies generalis vel perfectio
reperitur (Tinctoris, Diffinitorium musicae, III, p. 180). I have adopted Karol Bergers translation of quies
as repose (Musica Ficta: Theories of Accidental Inflections in Vocal Polyphony from Marchetto da Padova to
Gioseffo Zarlino [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987], 129).
13

This interpretation of the meaning of perfectio is supported both by Tinctoriss definition of

the term in the Diffinitorium musicae (XIV, p. 186), and his use of the term in his Liber de arte contrapuncti
(II, p. 16, and VI, p. 28).
14

77

their authors familiarity with his dictionary.15 For example, Andreas Ornithoparchus, in his
Musice active micrologus (1517), provides an almost verbatim quotation of the definition, and
then goes on to add: or it is a uniting (coniunctio) in perfect consonances of voices which
progress in various fashions, which makes explicit the new connection between the term and
the effect of closure.16
Yet the word clausula did not have exclusively musical meanings. Rather, the term had
acquired a strong association with the phenomenon of closure more than 1500 years before
Tinctoriss day, in the field of rhetoric. Authors who were concerned with rhetoric began to
discuss how speech should express closure through rhythmic means starting with Aristotle, in
his Ars rhetorica (ca. 320s).17 Starting in the early first century BCE, rhetoricians such as Cicero
(106-43 BCE) adapted and developed this Greek tradition into a Latin doctrine of prose rhythm,
in which metrically identifiable patterns of long and short syllables became associated with

See, for example, Wollicks quotations of Tinctoriss definition of circulus (Enchiridion [1512],
V.5, f. H4v), and Cochlaeuss quotation of Tinctoriss definition of sonus (Tetrachordum musices [1511], I.6, f.
A4r).
15

. . . Uel est vocum diuersimode gradiencium in consonantijs perfectis coniunctio (Musice

active micrologus, IV.5). See also Wollick, Enchiridion [1512], VI.5, f. L2v, and Galliculus, Isagoge, IX, f. C2r.
Gallus Dressler also gives a nearly verbatim quotation of Tinctoriss definition in the early 1560s, a
testament to the lasting currency and appeal of Tinctoriss thought in Germany (Praecepta musicae poeticae,
VIII, p.136).
16

17

Aristotle, Rhetoric, III.8-9.

78

expressing the conclusions of thoughts.18 To refer to these formulaic metrical patterns Cicero
used the term clausula.19
In the later Antique period the Latin languages system of metric demarcation shifted
from a quantitative basis to a stress-oriented one. In Ciceros day syllables in spoken Latin
varied in duration, and meter was conceptualized as patterned sequences of longer and shorter
syllables. By the early fifth century this system had been replaced by one familiar to todays
English speakers, in which syllables do not vary in duration, but in stress, which is
accomplished by volume and other means.20 Soon after this shift in practice came the fall of the
Roman Empire in the West, and the fundamental changes in education and scholarship that
resulted from it. Because none of Ciceros discussions of prose rhythm were known in the
medieval period, and the mutilated form of Quintilians Institutions that survived (the so-called
textus mutilatus) had only limited circulation, medieval rhetoricians had little direct access to
classical doctrine. Consequently, when rhetoricians of the twelfth century began to develop a
theory of prose rhythm as a part of the ars dictaminis, or art of letter writing, the resulting

The Latin rhetoricians also borrowed and adapted their Greek predecessors terminology of
period, colon, and comma in their analyses of sentence structure, as the previous chapter narrates in
detail.
18

For Ciceros discussion of this topic see De oratore, 2, 59, 240; 3, 44, 173, 3, 46, 181; 3, 50, 192; and
also Orator, 64, 215 ff. Quintilian, too, discusses the subject, but in a less concrete manner (Inst. 8, 5, 13; 9,
3, 77; 9, 4, 50; 9, 4, 70; 9, 4, 101). For a detailed treatment of the role of these texts in the enigmatic field of
classical prose rhythm, see Steven M. Oberhelman, Prose Rhythm in Latin Literature of the Roman Empire
First Century B.C. to Fourth Century A.D. Studies in Classics, 27 (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press,
2003).
19

At the time of St. Augustine [354-430 CE], according to Augustine himself, the difference
between long and short syllables had completely disappeared (Dag Norbert, Introduction to the Study of
Medieval Latin Versification, trans. Grant C. Roti and Jacqueline de La Chapelle Skubly [Washington, D.C.:
Catholic University of America Press, 2004], 81).
20

79

doctrine was significantly different from that of their classical predecessors.21 While they
maintained the conceptual framework of the formulaic pattern of syllables, this pattern was
now of stressed and unstressed syllables, a concept very likely adopted from the field of poetry,
which had been structuring speech based on stress since the time of Augustine.22 Furthermore,
an important terminological change had occurred as well. By this date, in the context of speech
the term clausula had come to refer only to the sentence; a new term, cursus, arose to refer to the
phenomenon of rhythmic prose and to the different patterns of accentuation.23
By the fifteenth century the ars dictaminis had largely ossified; indeed, in as much as it
survived at all, it mostly existed in rhetorical treatises in the form of collections of stock
sentences which could be used to address members of different governmental and ecclesiastical
ranks. Yet even as the medieval doctrine of cursus faded into obscurity, the Roman rhetorical
tradition of Antiquity was being rediscovered and circulated more widely than ever before. In
1416-7 Poggio Bracciolini discovered and copied the complete text of Quintilians Institutions,
and in the following decades other scholars recovered nearly the entire corpus of Ciceros
writings.24 These rediscoveries came at an opportune time, for they helped to launch the

Concerning the ars dictaminis, see James J. Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: A History of
Rhetorical Theory from St. Augustine to the Renaissance (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1974), 194ff.
21

22

Norbert, Introduction to the Study, 23.

For a thorough account of medieval cursus doctrine and a modern interpretation of the practice,
see Tore Janson. Prose Rhythm in Medieval Latin from the Ninth to the Thirteenth Century. Studia Latina
Stockholmiensa, 20 (Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell International, 1975). See also Murphy, Rhetoric in the
Middle Ages, 248-53.
23

Murphy, Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, 357-60. Ciceros De oratore and Orator, his two texts that
address prose rhythm in the most detail, were discovered a mere five years after Quintilian (ibid., 360-1).
24

80

intellectual and cultural movement to which historians later applied the term humanism, and
coincided with the start of the era known as the Renaissance. Indeed, with the invention of
movable type and the printing press in the mid-fifteenth century, classical rhetorical texts began
to circulate widely.
Could Ciceros doctrine of the clausula have directly inspired the conception of the
clausula formalis? Unfortunately, no evidence survives that can prove this conclusively. All of
Ciceros texts that address phrase rhythm had been published by the start of the sixteenth
century, and perhaps even by the time that Tinctoris wrote his definition of the clausula in his
Diffinitorium (1495). Yet discussion of prose rhythm and related topics still found no place in a
rhetorical textbook first published in 1501 in Cologne, the city where the doctrine of the clausula
formalis originated.25 Numerous humanists who could have been familiar with Ciceros doctrine
circulated through Cologne in the later 1490s, such as Heinrich Mangold, Hermann von dem
Busche, and Jakob Canter aus Groningen, but details of these mens private teaching activities
unsurprisingly do not appear to have survived.26 Thus, we are left with tantalizing possibilities
for a direct connection between the flourishing humanistic activities of the Renaissance and the
formation of a new doctrine of musical closure, but no more than possibilities.

This text is the Aerarium aureum poetarum of Jacobus Magdalius Gaudensis (Kln: Quentel,
1501). The term aureum (golden), which also occurs in the title of the Cologne schools foundational
work (Opus aureum musicae), does not indicate a dependence between the two works. Rather, it occurs in
at least eight works published in Cologne in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and likely is
due to the great popularity of the late medieval work Legenda aurea, by Jacobus de Voragine. Concerning
the wide circulation of the latter work, see Sherry L. Reames, The Legenda Aurea: A Reexamination of its
Paradoxical History (Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 3-4.
25

Carl [or Karl] Otto, Johannes Cochlaeus der Humanist (Breslau: Verlag von G. P. Aderholz
Buchhandlung, 1874), 7; Hans Rupprich, Humanismus und Renaissance in den deutschen Stdten und an den
Universitten. Deutsche Literatur, Reihe 8, 2 (Leipzig: P. Reclam, 1935), 26-7.
26

81

As for the term formalis, it too was frequently used in non-musical settings, particularly
in philosophical texts and by authors importing philosophys Aristotelian-scholastic terms and
concepts into their discussions of other fields. Linguistically speaking, the adjective formalis
directly derives from the common Latin noun forma, or form; in this capacity it was widely
employed, either to refer to notions of visual shape, configuration, and appearance,27 or to more
abstract concepts of form. (One should note that the idea of musical form in our modern
sense long postdates the sixteenth century, and certainly was not invoked by the term
formalis.28) In Aristotelian thought, the concept of form operates in opposition to that of
matter: in this context, most broadly and basically, an entitys form is that organizing
principle which makes that thing what it is, precisely by organizing or informing an
appropriate amount of appropriate matter so that that matter becomes that thing. Matter, then, in
this metaphysical scheme, is simply whatever receives a form so as to acquire the
organization which that form bestows, an organization that causes that quantum of matter to be
the specific kind of thing of which the form is the form. A things form, together with the
concept of its appropriate matter, constitutes its essence.29 Music texts of the fourteenth and

27

Another common Medieval meaning of forma that derives from this sense is beauty.

As we will see in section 4.1, even in the late eighteenth century Kochs use of the term
formalis in his discussions of instrumental genres still does not indicate musical form.
28

See Aristotle, Physics, II.1, 193a9-b21, and Aquinas, Commentary of the Metaphysics of Aristotle V,
l.2 n.2 for the medieval reception of formalis, particular in the context of the formal cause.
29

82

fifteenth centuries often employed the term in a strict, Aristotelian fashion, one such example
being the Speculum musicae attributed to a certain Jacques de Lige.30
When it comes to a clausula being formalis, however, it seems quite clear that the
metaphysical concepts of matter and form are not being invoked. There is another possible
meaning, however. This alternate sense of formalis has very little currency in music texts, but it
more logically applies to cadential activity. The key difference is that this definition stresses
regularity over essentiality: R. E. Lathams second definition of formalis is in accordance with
normal procedure; regular,31 which doubtless derives from the medieval usage of forma, in
which it can mean a rule of life or a norm.32 In this same sense du Canges seventeenthcentury dictionary of Middle and Late Latin tells us that formalia verba are those which, in
formulaic verbal expressions (formis), or especially in the typical sorts of enunciations of
religious rites (sacri ), are of this kind, [for example]: Our Serenity, Holiness, Gentle One,
etc.33 Thus, the term clausula formalis likely suggested a little part (particula) of a musical phrase
(courtesy of Tinctoris) that contains a formulaic, regular (formalis) succession of sonorities
and/or melodic lines.

Jacobus Leodiensis, Speculum musicae II.2, f. 37v, p. 10 and VI.27, p. 64. On the dating and
authorship of this treatise, see Desmond, New Light on Jacobus, 19-40.
30

Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, ed. R. E. Latham (London: Oxford University
Press for the British Academy, 1981), s.v. formalis.
31

Mediae Latinitatis lexicon minus, ed. J. F. Niermeyer & C. van de Kieft, revised J.W.J. Burgers
(Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2002), s.v. forma.
32

FORMALIA Verba, qu in Formis, seu sacris ut plurimum scribebantur, cujusmodi

sunt: Nostra Serenitas, Pietas, Mansuetudo, etc. (du Cange et al., Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis,
http://ducange.enc.sorbonne.fr/FORMALIA1, accessed October 22, 2012).
33

83

The question of how best to translate this term remains. Based on the previous
paragraphs, formulaic seems to be the best translation for formalis. As for clausula, most
recent translators render it as cadence.34 The danger with this choice is that it communicates
that a clausula formalis in the early sixteenth century is what we today think of as a cadence, an
implication which fails to do justice to the complexity of the situation, as this chapter
demonstrates.35 Similarly, translating formalis as formulaic would efface the philosophical
overtones of the term, and would rather heavy-handedly clear away the semantic web
attending the term formalis in favor of one simplistic interpretative claim. To avoid these
pitfalls, this chapter translates the term clausula formalis as formal close. This rendering (more
specifically, formall Cloe) is the translation selected by John Dowland in his 1609 English
translation of an early text by the Cologne school.36 More important than this historical
precedent, however, is the fact that the term formal close preserves a sense of distance
between the sixteenth-century concept of the clausula formalis and todays use of the term
formulaic and understanding of the concept of the cadence.

See, for example, Johannes Cochlaeus, Tetrachordum Musices, trans. Clement A. Miller ([Dallas]:
American Institute of Musicology, 1970), 79-80, and Benito V. Rivera, Harmonic Theory in Musical
Treatises of the Late Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries, Music Theory Spectrum 1 (Spring, 1979): 834.
34

Without endorsing his contention unreservedly, it is apposite to mention Carl Dahlhauss claim
that to feel close to things past is to misconstrue them, while to understand them is to sense their
remoteness (Carl Dahlhaus, Foundations of Music History, trans. J. B. Robinson [Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1983], 63).
35

Ornithoparchus, Andreas Ornithoparchus his Micrologus, or Introduction . . ., trans. Iohn Douland

(London: Thomas Adams, 109), IV.5, pp. 84-5.
36

84

2.2 Precedents of the Cologne Schools Theory

Of the two main traditions upon which the authors of the Cologne school drew to craft
their new theory, the Italian line, associated with writers like Gaffurius, is much more widely
known today. In contrast, the German theoretical tradition, represented by treatises like the
Flores of Hugo Spechsthard von Reutlingen and the Lilium musicae planae of Michael
Keinspeck,37 has not attracted much notice, likely because of its more conservative tendencies
and the limited transmission of its texts. For example, one of the most influential German
treatises for the Cologne school is the Musica (1490) of Adam von Fulda, a text which seems to
have circulated only in a single manuscript copy for nearly three centuries before being printed
by Gerbert.38 Like many other Northern European treatises of the fifteenth century, this work
covers a wide variety of traditional theoretical topics, and does so in a fairly concise fashion.39
Its first book contains speculative topoi such as the etymology of musica, a lengthy section
extolling the value of music (the laus musicae), and an account of musics founders (the
inventores musicae artis).40 The following books comprise concise treatments of the pitch aspect

Karl G. Fellerer, Die Klner Musiktheoretische Schule des 16. Jahrhunderts, in RenaissanceMuziek 1400-1600: Donum Natalicium Ren Bernard Lenaerts, ed. Jozef Robijns (Leuven: Katholieke
Universiteit Seminarie voor Muziekwetenschap, 1969), 125.
37

Peter J. Slemon, Adam von Fulda on Musica plana and Compositio. De musica, Book II: A
Translation and Commentary (Ph.D. diss., University of British Columbia, 1994), 20.
38

For a list of eight works with similarities in content and ordering, see Slemon, Adam von
Fulda on Musica plana, 33-4.
39

Adam von Fulda, Musica, I.1-7, pp. 332-41. In this passage Adam uses the term inventatores,
which was likely intended to be inventores, as at I.6 and I.7 (p. 340).
40

85

of monophony and polyphony (musica immensurata), its rhythmic aspect (musica mensuralis), and
numerical proportions.
Considering that a polyphonic theory of musical closure arose in Germany a mere
decade later, Adam pays surprisingly little attention to matters of simultaneities. There is no
book devoted to counterpoint, and what space Adam does dedicate to polyphonic concerns all
occurs in the course of the second books treatment of musica immensurata. The most significant
treatment of polyphony comes in the eleventh chapter of that book, which consists of a list of
ten compositional principles.41 A few of these are similar to precepts promulgated in Italian
lists of contrapuntal rules, which will be discussed shortly. Yet the bulk of Adams principles,
which he describes as rules of the ancients (regulae antiquorum), are surprisingly idiosyncratic:
many of them have no obvious precedent, and later authors do not adopt them.42 For example,
rule five consists of an exhortation for composers to memorize the twelve intervals of music.43
The only rule that does address the issue of musical closure is the first one: In every song at
least one voice is appointed to be adapted to a correct tone. Moreover, to adapt to a tone
(namely, of the eight tones) is this: it is to place cadences (clausulae) beautifully and appositely,
for as the rise and fall of speech is set off by the period, so is the tone by a perfection.44 The

41

Ibid., II.XI, p. 352-3.

42

Peter Slemon discusses Adams ten rules in detail in Adam von Fulda on Musica plana, 92-

43

Adam von Fulda, Musica, II.XI, p. 353.

104.

In omni cantu ad minus una vox dicitur aptari vero tono; hoc est autem aptare tono, scilicet
octo tonatos, id est, clausulas pulcre localiterque ponere, sicut enim accentus prosae per punctum
ornatur, sic tonus per octo (ibid., translated by Harold Powers in Mode, New Grove Online,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/43718pg3). Powers evidently reads
44

86

first clause quite clearly indicates polyphonic composition, while the remainder of the quotation
mentions placing cadences properly. Unfortunately, Adam provides no further information on
the topic, and the reader is left guessing as to what Adam considers a clausula to be, and what
distinguishes a beautifully located clausula from one that is less beautifully placed.
Yet despite the predominantly conservative content of this treatise and its paltry
consideration of polyphony, it occupies an important place in the development of the genuinely
new theory of the Cologne school. Wilibald Gurlitt claims that the Musica was a foundational
text for that schools treatises, and a comparison of its contents reveals many similarities with
the latter half of the Opus aureum (1501), the earliest published work by the Cologne school.45
Most prominently, the substantial preface to part three of the Opus aureum is copied verbatim
(until the final sentence) from the preface to the third book of Adams Musica.46 Other textual
concordances abound throughout the third and fourth parts of the Opus aureum, revealing its
authors close reliance on Adams treatise. Many similar concordances exist between the first
two books of the Opus aureum and Michael Keinspecks Lilium musicae planae (1496). Thus, the
conservative tradition of German theory treatises, and Adam of Fuldas Musica in particular,
constitutes and important part of the foundation upon which the Cologne school erected its
music-theoretic doctrine.

the final word of the quotation as an erroneous replacement of perfectionem with octo; the latter
term makes little sense in the context, and the former resonates with Tinctoriss invocation of the term
perfectio in his definition of clausula.
Wilibald Gurlitt, Die Kompositionslehre des deutschen 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, in
Musikgeschichte und Gegenwart: ein Aufsatzfolge, vol. 1, ed. Wilibald Gurlitt (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner
Verlag, 1966), 82-4.
45

46

Wollick, Opus aureum, III, preface, f. F5r; Adam von Fulda, Musica, III, preface, p. 359.

87

The other theoretical strand that informs the Cologne schools cadential innovations is
the aforementioned Italian tradition of contrapuntal teaching. Although the pedagogical
approach of this tradition dates at least as far back as Prosdocimo de Beldomandis
Contrapunctus (1412), the most important contrapuntal sources for the Cologne school are
undoubtedly the Liber de arte contrapuncti of Johannes Tinctoris and the Practica musice (1496) of
Gaffurius. The third book of the latter treatise comprises a wide-ranging treatment of
counterpoint, including discussion of the treatment of dissonances, the use of musica ficta in
counterpoint, and the possible voicings of four-voice chords.47 The final book of the Opus
aureum, which treats counterpoint, draws upon book three of the Practica musice in important
ways; indeed, with the important exception of the new cadential doctrine, nearly every
significant part of the Opus aureums last book is an abbreviated reworking of material from the
Practica musice.48 For example, the eleventh chapter of book three of the Practica musice, which is
entitled On the Composition of Diverse Parts of Counterpoint (De Compositione diuersarum
partium contrapuncti), consists of a so-called Contratenorlehre, which is a method of describing
how to add a third voice to a given interval formed by the other two voices, and then a fourth
voice to these three; the fifth chapter of the Opus aureum, On the Formation of Counterpoint

For a detailed discussion of doctrines of counterpoint ca. 1500, see Schwind, Kadenz und
Kontrapunkt, 13-83.
47

Interestingly, the trio of German authors who published on the Cologne school in the 1950s and
1960s (Wilibald Gurlitt, Karl Fellerer, and Klaus Wolfgang Niemller) focused on medieval German
influences on the Cologne school, and do not appear to have drawn connections between the Cologne
school and non-German theorists such as Gaffurius. Elisabeth Schwind, however, has conscientiously
shown the dependence of the 1507 edition of Johannes Cochlaeuss Musica on Gaffuriuss work (Kadenz
und Kontrapunkt, 136-42).
48

88

(De formatione contrapuncti), contains a much more concise Contratenorlehre, which dispenses
with the fourth voice.49
Of all the theoretical elements which the Opus aureum borrows from treatises in the
Italian contrapuntal tradition, it is those treatises lists of contrapuntal rules that provide the
conceptual structure upon which the Opus aureum erects its cadential material. One such list is
found in the third chapter of book three of Gaffuriuss Practica musice. The chapter describes the
eight mandates or rules of composition (de octo mandatis sive regulis contrapuncti), of which the
first and last rules address what sort of intervals should start and end a composition, and the
middle six discuss permissible dyadic successions.50 In contrast to later works by the Cologne
school, which quote Gaffuriuss rules verbatim,51 the Opus aureums iteration of the list of
contrapuntal rules is one of the places in which its author demonstrates the most freedom in his
adaptation of tradition: of the seven rules, only three are adaptations of Gaffurius, one of
Tinctoris, and three are not accounted for in earlier contrapuntal lists.52
Both the Italian contrapuntal tradition and the new German cadential doctrine treat their
subject matters as regulations for the disposition of two (or more) voices to each other, and both
address the issue of closure. Tinctoriss work is significant for our purposes not only because of

Gaffurius, Practica musice, III.11, ff. DD8r-EE1v; Wollick, Opus aureum, IV.5, f. H3v-4r.

49

Gaffurius, Practica musice, III.3, ff. DD1r-3r.

50

See Johannes Cochlaeus, Musica (ca. 1505), f. C4r-v; id. Musica (1507), f. E4r-F1r; id. Tetrachordum
musices, f. E6r-v.
51

Rule 1 corresponds to Tinctoriss first contrapuntal rule (Liber de arte contrapuncti, III.1), rule 2 is
similar to Gaffuriuss fourth rule (Practica musice III.3), rules 3 and 4 are conceptually very similar to
Gaffuriuss rules 7 and 3 (ibid.), and the last three rules are unique.
52

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its aforementioned definition of the term clausula as a little part of any section of a song, at
the end of which is found either general repose or completion (perfectio), but also for the
concept of the perfectio which he begins to articulate. The perfectio, in Tinctoriss words, is a
conclusion of an entire song or of its parts (particulae).53 While he does not make explicit how
one should construct a perfectio, the way in which he employs the term in his contrapuntal
doctrine accords well with later understandings of the clausula: the perfectio can never arrive on
a dissonance, and multiple perfectiones should not be made successively on the same note.54
Furthermore, Tinctoris provides musical examples to accompany his discussion of the perfectio,
and these progressions, in both two and three voices, contain conclusive progressions that fit
the cadential descriptions of the Cologne school.55
As for Gaffuriuss treatment of the issue of closure, only the final two of his contrapuntal
rules concern endings, and these are exclusively two-voice phenomena. The pith of these rules
is as follows:
The seventh rule is that when we seek a perfect concord from an imperfect one, as at a
termination of a song or any harmonic part of it, it is necessary to move in such a way as
to obtain the nearest perfect concord by contrary motion (diuersis motibus) in each part. . .
. The eighth and final rule is that every song ought to be ended on a perfect concord,
viz. either on a unison (as is the custom for the Venetians), or on an octave or a fifteenth,
which every school of musicians frequently observes for the sake of a completed
harmonic moderation. For, as the Philosopher attests, the end is the perfection of any
thing.56
Perfectio est totius cantus aut particularum ipsius conclusio (Tinctorius, Diffinitorium musicae,
XIV, p. 186).
53

54

Idem, Liber de arte contrapuncti, III.5, III.7, pp. 149-153.

55

Ibid.

Septima regula est quod quando ex concordantia imperfecta perfectam petimus

concordantiam tanquam cantilenae terminationem: vel alicuius partis eius harmonicae: ad
56

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As Gaffuriuss many examples make clear, these two rules dictate the motions of two voices, the
tenor and discantus, at endings of pieces or their constituent parts. These voices move from a
given imperfect consonance to the closest perfect consonance by contrary or oblique motion,
dictates that by Gaffuriuss day had become traditional in the Italian contrapuntal tradition. It
is to this regulative approach to a simple, dyadic framework, developed by the Italian
contrapuntists, that the Cologne school would append its striking doctrinal developments.

2.3 The First Stage: Three-voice Cadences in the Opus aureum and Musica
In the history of music theory, as is true for all intellectual history, efforts to pin down
conceptual developments to one person alone often do not do justice to the complexity of the
situation.57 Even so, the original authorship of the Cologne schools polyphonic theory of
musical closure is unusually complex. The first treatise to contain this doctrine is the Opus
aureum musice castigatissimum . . ., which was first published in Cologne in 1501, and was
reprinted four times over the next eight years. Heinrich Quentel published the treatise, which is
divided into four parts (partes), under the authorship of Nicolaus Wollick (ca. 1480-after 1541).
But as Wollick writes in the dedicatory note at the end of the book, he was not the sole author of

propinquiorem perfectam diuersis vtriusque partis motibus acquirendam concurrere necessum est. . . .
Octaua et vltimam Regula est quod omnis Cantilena debet finiri et terminari in concordantia perfecta
videlicet aut in vnisono vt Venetis mos fuit. aut in octaua aut in quintadecima: quod omnis musicorum
scola frequentius obseruat gratia harmonicae mediocritatis perficiendae. Est enim Finis teste Philosopho
vniuscuiusque rei perfectio (ibid., ff. DD2 v-DD3r).
A well-known example of this is Rameaus formulation of the fundamental bass, the
component conceptual parts of which were nearly all present in treatises of the previous century, as
Thomas Christensen argues (Rameau and Musical Thought in the Enlightenment [Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press 1993], 43-70).
57

91

its material. In describing the treatise as a whole, which he calls these little works (hec
opuscula), Wollick notes that he wrote the Gregorian work (gregorianum [opusculum]), whereas
the figured work (figurativum [opusculum]) was by Malcior de Wormatia (born ca. 1480),
hereafter known as Melchior Schanppecher.58 Although this does not specifically address the
fourth, counterpoint-dedicated part (pars) of the treatise, Klaus Wolfgang Niemller has
convincingly argued that Schanppecher is most likely the author of this final section, and
Niemllers contention will be adopted here.59
Although no evidence survives that would explain specifically how Schanppechers
contribution come to be combined with Wollicks gregorianum writings, there is information on
the relationship of the two men. As Niemller has shown, both were students at the University
of Cologne: Schanppecher matriculated in 1496, and Wollick in 1498. Furthermore, in a later
work, the Enchiridion (1509), Wollick describes Schanppecher as his teacher.60 The nature of this
teaching relationship, whether it was collaborative, and whether it even focused on music must
remain a mystery. Nevertheless, it does establish that Wollicks composite work was not the
result of borrowing from a widely circulating manuscript, but instead arose from personal
interaction.
The other significant early member of the Cologne school is Johannes Cochlaeus (14791552). This theorist wrote a treatise entitled Musica, which underwent several revisions over the

Quamobrem cum hec opuscula musice artis (meum videlicet gregorianum, At malcioris de
wormatia figuratiuum) imprimenda forent . . . (Wollick, Opus aureum, postscript, f. H5v).
58

Klaus Wolfgang Niemller, Nicolaus Wollick (1480-1541) und sein Musiktraktat (Kln: Arno VolkVerlag, 1956), 158-161.
59

60

Wollick, Enchiridion, III.3; quoted in Niemller, Nicolaus Wollick, 47.

92

course of four published versions between ca. 1504 and 1515. Little scholarship has been done
on this text, as it has a difficult textual tradition: the first two editions bear neither an authors
name nor a date, and all four editions are distinct in content.61 Furthermore, only the edition
from ca. 1505 has been published in modern times, and it was published as an anonymous
treatise in installments by Hugo Riemann over a century ago.62 Cochlaeus also studied at the
university in Cologne starting in 1504, and received his Master of Arts degree in 1507.63
Unfortunately, the precise nature of his relationship with Schanppecher and Wollick is not
documented. Cochlaeus joined the Montana Bursa, a college-like subdivision of Colognes
university, and Schanppecher belonged to, and taught for, this Bursa. Yet Schanppecher had
left Cologne to go to the university in Leipzig in 1502 and may not have returned until 1505.64
Wollick was in Cologne until at least 1507, before he departed to Metz and then Paris, but his
membership in the Corneliana Bursa somewhat decreases the likeliness of his interactions with
Cochlaeus.65 As such, it is possible that Cochlaeus may have relied on the text of the Opus

Two papers that touch on Cochlaeuss Musica were read at the 2010 Medieval-Renaissance
Music Conference in London, England: Ruth DeFords Two Recently Identified Writings on Musical
Practice by Johannes Cochlaeus, (July 7, 2010), and Susan Forscher Weisss Publishing Music Treatises
by Students at the University of Cologne in the Early Sixteenth Century (July 7, 2010).
61

Hugo Riemann, ed., Anonymi Introductorium Musicae (c. 1500), Monatshefte fr Musikgeschichte 29, no. 11 (1897): 147-54; 29, no. 12 (1897): 157-64; 30, no. 1 (1898): 1-8; 31, no. 2 (1898): 11-19.
Klaus-Jrgen Sachs is preparing an edition of Cochlaeuss treatises, to be published by Olms Verlag.
62

Clement A. Miller, Cochlaeus, Johannes, New Grove Online,

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/06024; Fellerer, Die Klner
musitheoretische Schule, 121.
63

64

Ibid.

Klaus Wolfgang Niemller, Wollick, Nicolaus, Grove Music Online,

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/30521; id., Nicolaus Wollick, 38. 47. Of
65

93

aureum in the preparation of the first edition of his Musica (ca. 1504), rather than personal
contact with its authors. Yet in 1505-7, Cochlaeus, Schanppecher, and Wollick were all active in
the university in Cologne; it seems quite likely that they would have interacted at some point
over this period, and that such contact would have informed Cochlaeuss later revisions of his
theory. In any case, Cochlaeus was at the very least intimately familiar with the doctrine of the
Opus aureum, and his musical writings draw heavily from it, while also expanding and adding
to it.
As for the doctrine developed by these men, its first occurrence is at the end of the Opus
aureum. The text is as follows:
Every song, with respect to the discant, tenor, and bass, wants to be closed (clausulari)
only by formal closes (clausulae formales).
Each close of the discant, being constituted of three notes, will always come upon
(habebit) its last note from below [i.e. the discants formula rises], but every close of the
tenor, constituted of the same number of notes, will come upon its last note from above
[i.e. the tenors formula descends].
The closes of the added voice (contrapunctus) are formed in various ways, yet this course
of progression (processus) is observed to occur the same way in every cadential arrival
(positio).
Rule: [1] Every discant, on whatever note it makes a cadential arrival (ponatur), always
ought to have its penult placed a sixth above the tenor, and the bass a fifth below the
tenor on the same note [i.e. the penult], as here:
It must, however, be noted most diligently that [2] if the tenor closes (clauditur) on mi,
the discant ought to be joined to it as above, but the penult of the counterpoint [i.e. the
bass] ought to be placed a third and not a fifth below the tenor. But if the tenor takes up
the discants close, let the discant take the tenors formula [3] by closing (clausulando)
from a third to a unison with the tenor (and the penult of the added voice will remain on
the third) or even [4] by closing from a fifth to a third, in such a way, however, that the
bass closes from a sixth with the tenor to an octave, and is placed a tenth below the
discant.66
course, Schanppecher and Wollick themselves were members of different Bursae, so such interactions
obviously were possible.
Omnis enim cantilena quo ad discantum, tenorem et bassum non nisi formalibus clausulis vult
clausulari.
66

94

Such a dense and abstract verbal explanation of the phenomenon of musical closure would be
clearer with musical examples. Schanppechers text calls for one example explicitly with his
phrase as thus (ut hic), and the pages over which this quotation spreads contain five empty
staves (three with five lines and two with ten lines) which are obviously intended to furnish
notated examples. This omission is not isolated: only the first two books of the Opus aureum
have musical notation, and the final two have gaps or empty staves throughout.67 Furthermore,
Wollicks later treatise, which was a slightly adapted form of the Opus aureum published as the
Enchiridion musices (1509), had only verbal descriptions of these closes, and did not even have
empty staves.
Fortunately we can turn to Cochlaeuss Musica for contemporaneous musical examples
of this cadential doctrine. The second edition of this treatise (ca. 1505) contains the same
doctrine as the Opus aureum, but in a rephrased and sometimes expanded form, and also
includes a musical example, transcribed as Example 2.1.68 These four examples include every

Omnis clausula discantus ex tribus notis constituta semper habebit ultimam sursum. Sed omnis
clausula tenoris ex totidem notis constituta habebit ultimam deorsum.
Clausulae contrapuncti diversimode formantur, iste tamen processus in omni positione
communiter observatur.
Regula: Omnis igitur discantus, in quacumque clave ponatur, semper eius penultima debet poni
in sexta supra tenorem et bassus in eadem nota in quinta infra tenorem, ut hic:
Est tamen summopere advertendum, quod, si tenor clauditur in mi, discantus debet sibi iungi ut
supra. Penultima autem contrapuncti poni debet in tertia et non in quinta infra tenorem. Sed si tenor
discantus clausulam assumpserit, capiat discantus formulam tenoris clausulando de tertia in unisonum
cum tenore, et stabit penultima contrapuncti in tertia, vel etiam clausulando de quinta in tertiam, ita
tamen, ut bassus cum tenore clausuletur de sexta in octavam sitque positus sub discantu in decima
(Wollick, Opus aureum, IV.6, ff. H4v-5r).
This situation is not unique to one book or printing, either: all of the editions of the Opus
aureum have empty staves.
67

The first (ca. 1504) and fourth (1515) editions of the Musica each have only extant copy; I have
been unable to consult either of these.
68

95

progression stipulated by the text of the Opus aureum: I have inserted bracketed numbers into
the translated text to facilitate comparison.
Together, the text and example present an understanding of cadence far removed from
ours. A cadence consists of three voices, each of which has its own characteristic melodic
formula, a formula or clausula. These are comprised of three notes, the last two of which are the
penult (penultima), and the final, or ultimate (ultima). After his initial acknowledgment that a
clausula consists of three notes, Schanppecher only mentions the final two, and it is not until the
next decade that Andreas Ornithoparchus explicates that a clausula consists of an ultima,
penultima, and antepenultima.69 The emphasis on a three-note clausula would seem to be tailored
to the discants formula, which usually contains a suspension, both in contemporaneous
musical practice and musical examples in treatises. Example 2.2 reproduces one of Andreas
Ornithoparchuss early examples of a two-voice clausula: in this case the discants formula is
articulated by the tenor, which creates a 2-3 suspension with the discant. Such syncopations at
points of cadential arrival pervade compositions of the sixteenth century, but German theorists

Example 2.1 Three-voice clausulae from [Cochlaeus], Musica (ca. 1505), f. C5r 70

69

Ornithoparchus, Musice active micrologus, IV.5.

70

The text in Example 2.1 is a translation of the text under Cochlaeuss example.

96

of the first half of that century, in contrast to Italian theorists, do not make explicit connections
between syncopation and closing formulas.71 Indeed, the first text by a German author to
discuss the matter appears to be the Praecepta musicae poeticae (1563-4) of Gallus Dressler.72
Another significant aspect of the theory that Schanppecher treats lightly is the role of the third
voice (the contrapunctus or bassus). He is very clear that the discants clausula ascends and the
tenors descends, each by a step, but never offers a similar characterization of the bassus.
Although this voice is under-theorized in the Opus aureum, and largely functions as a part to be
added to the tenor-discant framework in whichever way seems most convenient, it is important
to note that Schanppecher still treats it as an integral part of the clausula formalis and provides
no indication that it may be omitted.
As the name tenors formula (formulam tenoris) indicates, the tenor and the discant
each by default employ their proper cadential gestures, but these are subject to permutation
between the voices: the tenor can assume the characteristic ascent of the discant, in which
case the discant will reciprocate by taking up the tenors descending line. Schanppecher

Example 2.2 A two-voice clausula from Ornithoparchus, Musice active micrologus, IV.4, f. L4v

Pietro Aarons discussion of cadentiae in 1516 implies the metric organization of syncopations
(De inst. harm. III.36), and Stephano Vanneo explicitly discusses syncopations by 1533 (Recanetum de
musica aurea, III.16-7).
71

Dressler, Praecepta musicae poeticae, VIII, p. 138. This work only circulated in manuscript form.
The first printed work in the German world to discuss syncopations appears to be the Melopoiia (1592) of
Sethus Calvisius, which, not incidentally, is the work which transmitted Zarlinos theory to the German
world (XIII, G4r-8r).
72

97

describes this situation as an exchange of melodic gestures which are independent, and which
are strongly characterized by their retained associations with their default voices. This
strongly suggests that Schanppecher views the clausula formalis not as a progression of threenote chords, but as a combination of independent melodic elements. The question of whether
the clausula should be considered a chordal phenomenon is significant, and will be addressed
again later.
Although the melodic formula of the discant ascends while that of the tenor descends,
they do not always do so in the same way: the sizes of the steps by which the voices move
varying depending on where in the gamut the clausula occurs. Schanppecher discusses two
different possibilities for cadential disposition. The first, unnamed (and presumably default)
option is characterized by a descending whole tone in the tenors melodic formula. When the
tenor closes on C or F the discant moves by an ascending semitone to close on the octave above,
as the first progression of Example 2.1 demonstrates. When the tenor ends on D, G, or A,
however, Schanppechers description suggests that the discant should move from a minor sixth
above the tenor on the penult to the octave, an ascent of a whole tone. This progression raises
some interpretive issues, for numerous factors outside of the Cologne schools clausula formalis
doctrine suggest that musicians usually replaced it with the progression of a major sixth to the
octave, wherein the discants penult was raised by a semitone. General discussions of
contrapuntal rules by Schanppecher and Cochlaeus note that the octave always follows the
major sixth, and that the minor sixth more frequently moves obliquely to the perfect fifth.73

73

Wollick, Opus aureum, IV.4, f. H3r; Cochlaeus, Musica (ca. 1505), f. C4v.

98

Furthermore, notated examples of clausulae formales in Cologne school treatises usually show
progressions ending on C or F; Elisabeth Schwind argues that this tendency suggests that
authors recognized that it was usual for the discant to ascend by semitone, and that it must
have been conventional to avoid accidentals in musical examples.74 Curiously, even though
authors of the Cologne school always treated the topic of musica ficta in their sections on
plainchant, they almost never drew explicit connections between the note alterations suggested
by ficta principles and polyphonic practice, including the clausula formalis.75 The fact that Italian
theorists like Pietro Aaron did address chromatic alterations of polyphonic cadentiae starting in
the 1510s makes the German theorists reticence seem all the more unusual.76 Schwind contends
that this divergence is due to the authors of the Cologne school being concerned with abstract
contrapuntal relationships in their discussions of clausulae, whereas Aaron and the Italians dealt
more with issues of specific musical realizations.77
The second dispositional possibility occurs when the tenor closes on mi (tenor clauditur
in mi), i.e., when the tenor descends by a semitone to E or B. In this situation the discant
ascends by a whole tone, resulting in a progression from a major sixth to an octave, as in the
second progression of Example 2.1. This progression merits additional attention by

74

Schwind, Kadenz und Kontrapunkt, 157.

The one exception to this is a passing mention by Cochlaeus of how musica ficta affects clausulae.
This occurs at the end of his discussion of plainchant in the Tetrachordum musices (II.10, f. C1v, cited in
Berger, Musica Ficta, 145).
75

Aaron, De inst. harm. III.39-42. For more on the place of ficta in Germany and Italian cadential
doctrines, see Berger, Musica Ficta, 122-54.
76

77

Schwind, Kadenz und Kontrapunkt, 156-7.

99

Schanppecher because of its implications for the bassus voice. When the tenor descends by a
whole tone, as in the first progression of Example 2.1, one can add a third voice a fifth below the
tenors penult; this note will then move to a unison with the tenor or an octave below it, creating
what modern theory would call a V-I progression. Although Schanppechers text does not
mention it, Cochlaeuss example offers two other possible resolutions. In the first, the bassus
leaps by octave, landing a fifth above the tenor; this characteristically fifteenth-century
progression was largely obsolete by the time of the Opus aureum. In the second, the bassus
ascends by a step, yielding an imperfect sonority which sounds to modern listeners like the
conclusion of a deceptive cadence-like progression. When the tenor descends by a semitone,
however, placing a fifth below its penult yields a diminished fifth. This would create the
progression possibilities shown in Example 2.3a. Musica ficta of the day offered no quick fixes
to this problem, as adding both a D# and an F# to the penult sonority would entail altering both
of the contrapuntally primary voices to accommodate the conceptually supplemental bassus

Example 2.3 Clausulae on mi

100

voice.78 Instead, the bassus moves from a third below the tenors penult to a fifth below its final,
as in Example 2.3b, rendering consonant sonorities which have no need of ficta.
This progression as a whole presents something of an interpretive challenge. Todays
listeners, who usually assume that the lowest voice of a root position chord indicates chordal
identity, might be inclined to identify the progression as a plagal cadence (should the listener
accept the legitimacy of such a cadence) in A minor, or perhaps a half cadence in a modal, Dcentric context. Yet as Bernhard Meier and many other scholars have observed, sixteenthcentury music theory uniformly describes the progression in Example 2.3b as occurring on mi,
and they do not conceptualize the final bass note (or any of its notes) as a structural element.79
Indeed, theorists of later generations associated progressions such as this as with the Phrygian
mode.80 As the musical function of the lowest voice changed over the following decades,
theorists continually re-addressed the issue of cadences in which the tenor descends by a
semitone, and this progression still demanded attention from theorists close to two centuries
later, as the following chapter demonstrates.

Even when the conceptual priorities of voices changed, this putative solution remained
unattractive to some theorists: over 170 years later after the Opus auruem, Wolfgang Caspar Printz
addressed this very proposal in disapproving terms in his Phrynis Mitilenaeus. By his day, however, the
objection appears to have been that the sharps violated the bounds of the cantus durus and cantus mollis
scale systems (see 5.3.2, in the following chapter).
78

Bernhard Meier, The Modes of Classical Vocal Polyphony: Described According to the Sources, trans.
Ellen S. Beebe (New York: Broude, 1988), 96-9.
79

80

Herbst, Musica Poetica, VII, f. K4r, p. 71.

101

2.4 The Second Stage: Four-voice Cadences in the Musica and Tetrachordum musices
Thus far Schanppecher has been responsible for all the significant theoretical activity:
Wollicks contribution appears to be limited to getting Schanppechers work published, and
Cochlaeuss only significant innovation is his musical example. Yet in the years following 1506
the balance of theoretical labor shifts. There is no evidence that Schanppecher ever wrote about
music after his contribution to the Opus aureum, although there is record that he wrote an
introduction to astronomy.81 As mentioned before, Wollicks only further musical publication
was the Enchiridion musices, in which the discussion of musical closure largely consists of a
barely adapted version of the Opus aureum. It is Cochlaeuss Musica of 1507 that brings new life
to the Cologne schools doctrine of closure. Prior to this edition, the Musica contained a
paraphrased (and often amplified) version of Schanppechers cadential doctrine, with the
significant addition of completed musical examples.82 The 1507 version represents a departure
from the prior two editions. First, the text provides much more information about itself: its final
page states the date and location of its publication, and a verse on the title page indicates that
the author is Cochlaeus. More significantly for cadential concerns, the 1507 text extends the
theory of musical closure to four voices.
This four-voice doctrine also takes the form of a list of lists, and they build directly upon
the three-voice propositions. Each of the first four consists of a stipulation of how a fourth

81

Niemller, Nicolaus Wollick, 46.

This is certainly the case with the second edition of the Musica. I have not been able to consult
the first edition, but Ruth DeFord states that the second edition is an expanded version of the first
(DeFord, Two Recently Identified Writings). Based on this it seems safe to assume that the first edition
either has no cadential doctrine, or that it does not depart dramatically from the text of the second
edition.
82

102

voice, called the altus, should be added to the corresponding three-voice example. Example 2.4
is a transcription of Cochlaeuss four-voice example as it is found in both his 1507 Musica and
his Tetrachordum musices of 1511. (The only difference between the two is in the examples
underlaid labels, indicated by [Musica] for the former, and [Tm] for the latter.) In each
progression, the top and lower two voices in the penultimate and final sonorities are identical to
those of the corresponding three-voice progression in Example 2.1 (with the exception of
progression hh, which here is transposed down a fourth and divested of its alternate resolutions
in the bassus voice). There are substantial discrepancies in the antepenultimate sonorities, and
neither Schanppecher nor Cochlaeus prescribes the disposition of antepenultimate notes. Even
though both authors are apparently convinced that cadences are necessarily composed of three
events, they do not seem to have come upon a satisfactory theory of how the antepenultimate
sonority should be constructed.
In each of these four rules, Cochlaeus, after adding the bass to the discant-tenor duo,
dictates the interval between the alto and the tenor or bass voice in the penultimate and final

Example 2.4 Four-voice clausulae from Cochlaeus, Musica (1507), f. F4v

103

sonorities. The disposition of the altus voice differs from progression to progression, but in each
case there is a 5/3 or diminished 6/3 chord on the penult, and an open fifth or 5/3 chord at the
end of the progression. For instance, the third rule reads: But if the tenor has the discants
formula (formula), such that the bass stands a third below the tenor on the penult while the
discant comes together on a unison with the tenor, then the alto will be able to place its penult a
third or a sixth above the tenor, and its final note a fifth above the tenor, as here: ([example]
kk).83 The associated example, progression kk of Example 2.4, matches Cochlaeuss
description, and also shows an additional resolution for the altus, namely, a third above the
tenor in the final sonority. The most likely explanation for this discrepancy is accidental
omission, since in Cochlaeuss next published text, the Tetrachordum musices, the text
accompanying this same example explicitly acknowledges the possibility of the altus resolving a
tenth above the bassus.84 As for the text of the rule, the if clause of the rule precisely describes
the situation described in both Schanppechers and Wollicks third three-voice rules, wherein
the tenor rises (using the discants formula) and the discant descends to meet it at the unison
(using the tenors formula). The concluding clause stipulates how to add a fourth voice to the
existing three voices.
In the final two rules the altus voice no longer functions as a contrapuntal voice added to
the three-voice framework. Here is the fifth rule in the 1507 Musica: But when the tenor makes

Quod si tenor. discantus formulam obtinuerit, ita quod bassus penultima terciam sub tenore
occupauerit, commeante discantu cum tenore in vnisonum. poterit tunc altus penultimam suam collocare
in tercia aut sexta supra tenorem. Ultimam vero in quinta supra eundem ut hic kk (Cochlaeus, Musica
[1507], f. F4r).
83

84

Cochlaeus, Tetrachordum musices, f. F1r.

104

a sixth or octave with the discant on the penult, but a sixth on the last note, then the bass will
place its penult a third below the tenor, joining with it at the fifth below on the final note. The
alto then very beautifully assumes the discants form (forma), occupying on the penult a sixth
against the bass and an augmented fourth (intensa quarta) against the tenor, and duly places its
final note an octave above the bass and a fourth above the tenor.85 The altus has adopted the
discants melodic formula, just as the tenor did in the third and fourth progressions. Indeed,
this progression, mm in Example 2.4, is in large part a permutation of progression ll, in which
the tenor and alto have switched parts. This alteration demonstrates that the altus voice is not
merely an accessory, contrapuntal voice, but can adopt other voices melodic formulas, and
thereby partake in the melodic framework that defines the clausula. Nevertheless, the altus
voice does not appear to have acquired a distinct melodic identity in the minds of sixteenth
century theorists: in circumstances when the other voices characteristic melodic formulas are
recounted, the altos clausula is described as arbitrary, since it proceeds by various motions.86
It is not until the early seventeenth century, with Joachim Burmeister, that a theorist attributes
to the altus voice its own characteristic cadential formula, consisting of a repetition of the note a
fifth or twelfth above the basss final.87 It is striking that even a full century after authors of the

Atuero dum tenor cum discantu sextam vel octauam seruauerit in penultimam Sextam vero in
vltima. tunc bassus penultimam suam in tercia sub tenore constituet. in vltima cum eodem conueniendo
in quintam: altus vero perpulcre tunc discantus formam assumet. in penultima sextam ad bassum. et
quartam ad tenorem intensam obtinens. vltimam vero in octaua supra bassum atque in quarta supra
tenorem rite disponet (ibid., f. F4r-v).
85

Hujus clausula arbitraria est, eo quod variis incedat motibus . . . (Beurheusius, Eratomatum,
II.5, p. 112). See also Galliculus, Isagoge, IX, f. C2r.
86

87

Burmeister, Musica poetica, V, p. 36.

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Cologne school allow the altus to resolve to the third above the bass, such a resolution still is not
conceived to be normative, even though it is conducive to producing triadic sonorities. The
precise nature of the relationship between the Cologne schools doctrine and the generation of
triadic sonorities has been postponed thus far; it is now time to take up that subject.

2.5 Triadic Tonality and Cochlaeuss Sixth Rule

The final rule from the 1507 Musica is unlike the previous ones. In this rule Cochlaeus
does not invoke language of forma or formula;88 indeed, the only voice to be associated with a
direction is the tenor, which resolves upwards (sursum) in this progression, in what is easily
recognized as the discant clausula, though Cochlaeus does not identify it as such. Instead, he
relates the disposition of the voices in a string of intervallic relations:
But if the discant makes a third with the tenor (which resolves upwards) on the penult,
and [then] does the same on the last note, then the contratenor gravis [i.e. the bassus] will
maintain under them a fifth against the discant and a third against the tenor on the
penult, and an octave against the latter and a tenth below the former on the final note.
The alto will be able to set its penult at the unison with the tenor [recte: discant] or at a
fourth above the discant. In like manner, it can raise its final note a third above the
discant, or at the unison with the tenor, or it can be at a fourth lowered below the tenor,
while keeping a fifth against the bass, as in: ([example] nn).89

Cochlaeus makes substantially more use of the terms forma and formula in his 1507 Musica than
does Schanppecher in the Opus aureum, which perhaps gives greater significance to its absence from the
sixth rule (see the Appendix).
88

Quod si discantus cum tenore (sursum concludente) terciam constituerit in penultima. itidem
et in ultima. tunc contratenor grauis in penultima sub illis seruabit. ad discantum quidem quintam. ad
tenorem vero terciam. in vltima autem ad hunc octauam. ad illum vero decimam custodiet. Altus vero
poterit penultimam suam ordinare ad vnisonum cum tenore [recte: discantu] vel ad quartam supra
discantum Pariter et vltimam supra discantum in terciam eleuare potest aut in vnisono cum tenore vel
sub tenore ad quartam depressam. ad bassum tamen quintam custodientem. hoc modo nn (Cochlaeus,
Musica [1507], f. F4v).
89

106

Example 2.5a reproduces the transcription of Cochlaeuss example of the sixth rule. Benito
Rivera has pointed out a discrepancy between the textual description of the altus part and the
musical example.90 I have adopted his emendation of the text, which has the advantage of
avoiding parallel unisons between the altus and tenor. The remainder of Example 2.5 realizes all
six possible configurations of the altus voice according to Cochlaeuss text.91 Progression f,
however, would not have been countenanced as a valid realization due to its parallel octaves.
Why did Cochlaeus avoid mentioning the voices stereotyped melodic gestures? The
most likely reason is that the musical phenomena he was describing stray in some ways from
the voices characteristic lines. The bass voice moves in its accustomed fashion and the tenor
adopts the discants formula, resolving upwards. The discant voice should normally
reciprocate by resolving downwards, according to the tenors formula. Yet this never happens.
In Example 2.5c the altus adopt the tenors formula, and thus all three melodic figures are

Example 2.5 Cochlaeuss Sixth Rule

90

Rivera, Harmonic Theory, 84.

Rivera realizes only progressions c, e, and g. There is no indication of his grounds for omitting
progressions b and d (ibid.).
91

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present. In the remaining progressions, however, the discant does not articulate any traditional
melodic gesture: its penult is a fifth above the bassus, as is normal for the tenors formula, but
then it ascends by step to a tenth above the bassus, rather than descending to the octave above it.
In doing so, it omits the discant-tenor motion from a major sixth to octave (or minor third to
unison) that has defined every clausula thus far.
The sixth rules absence of the tenors complete characteristic formula, and the resultant
lack of contrary motion to the octave or unison, suggests that Cochlaeuss clausula formalis is
governed by some principle other than the combination of formulaic melodic gestures. If one
glances at Cochlaeuss example of the sixth rule in Example 2.5, it appears that both sonorities
contain complete triads. Could Cochlaeus have dispensed with the melodic stereotypes
because the discant-tenor frameworks resolution to an octave or unison makes it difficult to
create sonorities with thirds (or tenths) above the lowest voice, and that such sonorities were
more important to him than this conceptual framework? Benito Rivera has argued precisely
this point, and furthermore has claimed that this privileging of sonorities with thirds indicates
awareness of and preference for complete triads. If Rivera is correct, this would be highly
significant. It would mean that Cochlaeus recognized, on some level, triadic sonorities more
than a century before Lippius articulated the concept of the trias harmonica.92 This would also
link the earliest evidence of triadic thinking in the context of compositional precepts with the
earliest articulation of a polyphonic theory of musical closure, a connection which would make
the work of the Cologne school substantially more significant to the history of music theory

92

Lippius, Disputatio musica tertia, ff. B2r ff..

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than it is commonly held to be. This hypothesis will be carefully evaluated over the following
pages, first through evaluating Riveras argument, and then through inspecting the claims
validity in other treatises by the Cologne school.
It is in an article proposing the emergence of harmonic theory around the turn of the
sixteenth century that Benito Rivera argues for a triadic interpretation of Cochlaeuss theory. In
his discussion of the sixth four-voice rule, and of its progressions that lack the tenors
characteristic melody, Rivera writes: The explanation for such an anomaly can only lie in the
composers apparent determination to achieve complete triadic sonorities at the expense of
proper intervallic progressions. The discant had to conclude on the third rather than on the
tonic, precisely in order to produce a complete triad. It would seem, therefore, that to the extent
that one could speak formerly of a theory of intervallic progression, one can now speak of a
quasi-embryonic theory of triadic progression.93 The sixth rule certainly is anomalous: this is
emphasized even by the relatively superficial fact that it is the only one of Cochlaeuss
progressions to have not three but two sonorities. Yet Riveras interpretation of the significance
of that anomaly is far from inevitable, and at least two significant objections to Riveras
argument exist. The first is that preferring sonorities with thirds and fifths above the bass is not
at all the same thing as conceptualizing those sonorities as triads. The second objection is that
Cochlaeuss writings do not clearly support Riveras assertions that achieving full sonorities
(regardless of their conceptualization) had replaced the significance of the tenor-discant
framework. Each objection will be addressed in turn.

93

Rivera, Harmonic Theory, 84.

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The first objection arises from Riveras assertion that the writings of the Cologne school,
among others, demonstrate the emergence of triadic thinking. Rivera asserts that by the early
sixteenth century, a good number of treatises . . . reveal in their treatment of counterpoint the
advanced metamorphosis of the dyadic structure into something clearly triadic. Indeed several
treatises form this period imply not only a theoretical understanding of triadic construction,
but, in fact, also a triadic orientation to polyphonic composition.94 It is certainly true that this
period of time saw a shifting of compositional style in which composers increasingly concluded
entire movements and pieces with 5/3 sonorities, rather than with open fifths and octaves, as in
previous centuries. Yet favoring a sonority that includes a third and a fifth above the lowest
note is not at all the same thing as conceptualizing that sonority as a pre-existing, structural unit
with an identity of its own. The latter conception did not arise until Lippius drew an analogy
between the 5/3 sonority and the trinity, yielding the phrase trias harmonica.95 In the sixteenth
century theorists still conceived of such sonorities as resulting from combinations of dyads, or
from the mediation of a large, structural dyad by an intervening note, as in the writings of
Gaffurius and Zarlino.96 Thus, it is clear that Riveras assertion of triadic thought is not
warranted.

94

Ibid., 81.

95

Lippius, Disputatio musica tertia, ff. B2rff..

David E. Cohen discusses the role of harmonic mediation in Gaffurio and Zarlino in more
detail and clarifies that, while it is an important predecessor of the concept of the triad, it is merely an
anticipation of it (Ramos to Rameau: Toward the Origins of the Modern Concept of Harmony, paper
presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Music Theory, New Orleans, Nov. 4, 2012).
96

110

There is, however, an important intermediate stage in this shift from dyads to triads that
can shed light on the Cologne schools theory, and it relies upon the differentiation of imperfect
and perfect consonances. Since the dawn of western European polyphonic theorizing in the
ninth century CE, perfect consonances have been associated with musical propriety and unity,
whereas dissonances and imperfect consonances (a concept that arose several centuries later)
have been treated as if they were less suitable for inclusion in music.97 And indeed, for many
centuries thereafter only perfect consonances were found at the conclusions of pieces and their
component parts. From at least the time of Dufay, however, composers began to alter existing
polyphonic closing formulas by replacing the concluding perfect consonance with an imperfect
sonority. It is likely that this technique caused listeners to expect closure, but then disrupted the
fulfilment of that expectation by substituting the inconclusive imperfect sonority for the final
perfect consonance, similarly to how deceptive and evaded cadences function in music of the
common practice period. As this technique became more common, it appears that the mere
presence of an imperfect consonance in a given sonority gradually lost its disruptively
inconclusive character: over time the full sound of the 5/3 sonority in particular came to be a
desirable sound on its own merits. At that point composers began to employ that sonority at
the ends of pieces, in spite of its previous association with disruption and inconclusiveness. It is
an unfortunate fact that the relative paucity of dateable and localizable German compositions
from the late fifteenth century would make it rather difficult to assert with confidence at what

For one of the earliest accounts of the role of consonance in polyphonic theory, see Musica
enchiriadis, XVII, pp. 48-50. Concerning the metaphysical valuation of consonance and dissonance in this
treatise and in antiquity, see David E. Cohen, Boethius and the Enchiriadis Theory: The Metaphysics of
Consonance and the Concept of Organum, (Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University, 1993), especially 518-33.
97

111

point this change in compositional practice occurred, and in what regions.98 If future
scholarship is able to come to such conclusions, however, it would be a significant boon to our
abilities to interpret the significance of imperfect sonorities for individual composers and
theorists.
This narrative suggests that the older the music, the more unlikely it would be for a
resolution to an imperfect sonority to suggest closure in the day of its composition. Yet as we
have seen in Schanppechers discussion of the clausulae formales, the Cologne schools earliest
account of polyphonic closure mixes together resolutions to imperfect and perfect sonorities,
with no apparent attempt to distinguish between their effects. There is, however, one passage
in which Cochlaeus distinguishes the two. In his discussion of the first three-voice rule (in
which the discant and tenor move normatively to the octavesee the first measure of Example
2.1) in the Musica, he allows the bass to rise by step, from a fifth below the tenor to a third.
Concerning this progression, Cochlaeus writes: It cannot, however, be conducted this way at
the end of the entire song. For one ought to bestow perfection not to beginnings, but to
endings.99 This stipulation makes clear that Cochlaeus considers such a progression to lack
perfection in some respect, but he does not offer further detail. The most obvious possibility is
that the presence of an imperfect consonance in the final sonority renders it inappropriate for

The earliest composition (not specific to Germany) to end on a sonority which includes a third
above the lowest note that I have found is by Dufay, placing the origin of the technique at November
1474 at the latest. This is not to say, of course, that Dufay was the first one to use the technique, nor to say
that the technique had necessarily achieved broad acceptance across all geographical regions and musical
genres by 1500 (Guillaume Dufay, O Proles Yspanie/O Sidus Yspanie, Opera omnia vol. 1, 14-19).
98

Hoc modo tamen in fine totius cantilene deduci non poterit: Namque perfectionem non
principiis sed terminationibus attribuere oportet (Cochlaeus, Musica [ca. 1505], f. C5r; Musica [1507], f.
F3v).
99

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ending a piece. Yet it is also possible that the basss unconventional ascent by step is what
makes this progression defective; if that is the case, then a 5/3 sonority could still end a piece.
Unfortunately, Cochlaeuss text does not offer any other clues to help adjudicate the matter, and
no other early text by the Cologne school addresses the matter.
The fact that the theorists of the Cologne school did not comment definitively on the
effects of cadential progressions which end on imperfect sonorities at a period in which such
progressions had recently been perceived as defective could suggest that the imperfect
sonorities already sounded perfectly stable and even preferable, as in Riveras hypothesis.
Alternately, it could suggest instead that the authors of the Cologne school may have simply
lacked the language to conceptualize the effect of disrupted cadential progressions of this
kind.100 Even though Cochlaeus intuited that not all such progressions functioned identically,
and that some clausulae were not suited for the ends of compositions, the language and
terminology developed by the Cologne school was only really able to describe how such
clausulae should be constructed with respect to their constituent intervals, and could not easily
specify where in the course of a composition individual clausula forms should be utilized.
From the preceding discussion of the difference between the conception of the triad and
preference for imperfect sonorities, it is clear that Riveras hypothesis of triadic awareness
cannot stand. Yet his specific claim that early sixteenth-century writings, including those of the
Cologne school, demonstrate a preference for triadic sonorities could easily be rephrased to
avoid that problem. Even though those theorists did not conceptualize the triad as such, it is

Indeed, it was not until the 1560s, however, that German authors developed a terminology
with which to distinguish between cadential progressions of greater and lesser closure (Dressler,
Praecepta musicae poeticae, VIII, p. 138-9, 146-51).
100

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worthwhile considering the extent to which they privileged sonorities which include imperfect
consonances, both 5/3 sonorities and simple octaves-plus-thirds, in place of the older
convention of perfect consonances at endings. It is to this topic that we now turn.
An initial examination of Examples 2.1 and 2.4 makes it clear that the composer, by
which Rivera presumably means Cochlaeus, was not at all determined to create complete 5/3
sonorities in any of the three-voice progressions, nor in the first three four-voice ones. Many of
these progressions end with open fifths, and some in bare octaves. Furthermore, one of the
possible progressions described by the sixth rule, Example 2.5c, lacks a fifth in its final sonority;
while a chord with a third but no fifth lends the effect of imperfect consonance to a sonority, it
does not suggest that the complete 5/3 sonority was highly important. Thus, the desire for
complete 5/3 sonorities is certainly not characteristic of the operating procedure of the
composer in general.
Indeed, of the ten examples of three- and four-voice cadential progressions that
Cochlaeus gives in his 1507 Musica (see Examples 2.1 and 2.4), only one of them is amenable to
Riveras interpretation, namely, the four-voice progression of the anomalous sixth rule. Since
a reading of Cochlaeuss text that seeks evidence of 5/3 sonorities relies so heavily upon this
final rule, it is worthwhile to consider how later texts in the Cologne school treat that kind of
progression. The first text after the 1507 Musica to discuss closure in a significant way is
Cochlaeuss Tetrachordum musices, first published in 1511.101 This treatise varies substantially
from the Musica texts: Cochlaeus added to and subtracted from the material of the 1507 Musica

As previously mentioned, the clausula doctrine in Wollicks Enchiridion of 1509 consists merely
of a rephrased version of Schanppechers text in the Opus aureum, and offers nothing new to this study.
101

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to create the Tetrachordum, and recast much of the retained theoretic content. On a large,
structural level, the Tetrachordum does not include Cochlaeuss semi-independent booklets on
plainchant (cantus choralis) and rhythm and its notation (cantus figurabilis) that were bound with
many copies of the 1507 Musica.102 The Tetrachordums discussion of counterpoint also omits
many topics covered in the Musica.103 The new material that Cochlaeus adds to the Tetrachordum
is generally more apt to so-called speculative theory (musica speculativa or theorica), covering
topics like historical instruments (such as the kithara), the Davidic psalms, and songs written in
ancient Greek metrical schemes.104 The most plausible reason for exchanging practice-oriented
contrapuntal topics for speculativa material such as this is that Cochlaeus used the Tetrachordum
to rework his ideas to appeal to students who were interested in music as a component of a
formal, university or pre-university education; in this reading, the Musicas greater emphasis on
practical matters suggest that Cochlaeus wrote it with composers and other practitioners of
music in mind.105 Cochlaeuss adaptation of the Musica text also extended to the rearrangement
of the order of some chapters, the addition of new prefatory material for each book of the
treatise, and the recasting of the Musicas propositional style into a more catechetic form.

102

For more on these two works, see DeFord, Two Recently Identified Writings.

Folios E1r-F3v of the 1507 Musica are mostly absent in the Tetrachordum, with the notable
exception of the list of fourteen rules of counterpoint, which is present in nearly identical form in both
texts (Musica, ff.E4r-F1r; Tetrachordum, f.E6r-v).
103

104

Cochlaeus, Tetrachordum, ff. A5v-B1v, F2v-4r.

This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the Tetrachordum musices does not include
Cochlaeuss discussion of the basss stepwise, ascending resolution in the Musicas first three-voice rule
(see the Appendix).
105

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Each of these alterations suggests that Cochlaeus was concerned with improving the
pedagogical experience of his music theory. This impression holds in his treatment of closure.
The Tetrachordum uses the same musical examples of clausulae formales as the 1507 Musica (such
recycling of examples was very common in the Cologne school), yet its discussion of these
progressions is entirely distinct. To begin with, the Tetrachordum borrows very few phrases
from the Musica: even though the former text describes the largely the same theoretic substance
as the latter one, it does so with wording that is both appreciably different and generally more
concise. More significantly, of the 10 cadential rules described in the 1507 Musica, only three
align perfectly with those of the Tetrachordum. For example, here is the fourth of the four-voice
rules in the 1507 Musica (cf. Example 2.4kk): But if the discant and the tenor, [the latter] vested
with the discants formula, make a third with each other on the final note and a fifth on the
penult, then the low contratenor will place its penult a sixth below the tenor, with its final note
coming together with the tenor at the octave. But the high contratenor can hold a third or an
octave above the bass on the penult, and a fifth above the bass on the final note, as in: (ll).106
In the Tetrachordum musices Cochlaeus rephrases and condenses the rule, and also removes one
of the optional altus notes: In the fourth close the alto, [being an augmented fourth] below the
tenor, will ascend with it into a fourth, but will make a third against the bass on the penult and

Si vero discantus et tenor (forma discantus indutus) terciam adinuicem in vltima seruauerint.
et in penultima quintam tunc contratenor grauis penultimam suam in sexta sub tenore disponet
conueniente vltima eius in octauam cum tenore Contratenor vero acutus poterit in penultima terciam aut
octauam supra bassum occupare. obtinendo quintam supra bassum in vltima: hoc modo ll (Cochlaeus,
Musica [1507], f. F4r).
106

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a fifth on the final note.107 In the former account the altus voice can be either a fourth below or
a third above the tenor on the penult, while the latter permits it to be only the fourth below.
Cochlaeuss musical example, which is the same in both texts (with the exception of the labels of
the examples sections) shows alto notes on both D and G, which suggests that the text of the
Tetrachordum might be omitting this part of the description accidentally. The preceding rule
supports the hypothesis that Cochlaeus was being unsystematic: here the Tetrachordums version
matches the example, whereas the Musica overlooks one of its possible resolutions. There does
not appear to be any consistent pattern to such discrepancies between the two texts: some
alterations add additional possibilities, while others remove them; some changes fit the musical
examples better, others worse.
The sixth four-voice rule from the Musica, however, is different. Discussion of this
progression, upon which Riveras argument relies, is entirely absent in the Tetrachordum musices.
Furthermore, Cochlaeus changes the underlaid labels of the four-voice musical example:
whereas the final two progressions are labeled mm and nn in the Musica, the Tetrachordum
stretches the words [Example] of the fifth rule (quinte regule), under both progressions, in
spite of the fact that its discussion of the fifth rule does not touch upon the final progression at
all. What could the significance of this omission be? A possible, though scarcely convincing
explanation appeals to a desire for brevity: since Cochlaeus discusses clausulae formales, and
counterpoint in general, more concisely in the Tetrachordum than the Musica, perhaps he omitted

In quarta clausula. Altus sub tenore / cum ipso in quartam simul ascendet / Ad Bassum vero
seruabit terciam in penultima / quintam vero in vltima (Cochlaeus, Tetrachordum, f. F1r).
107

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the final rule because he felt it was too long. Yet Cochlaeus does include a version of every
other rule from the Musica, so that hypothesis is suspect.
A more plausible explanation for the omission of the sixth rule looks to precisely those
features that distinguish it in Riveras view. As noted, the Cologne schools conceptual
apparatus of stereotyped melodic gestures does not easily accommodate the sixth rules
progression, with its lack of contrary motion to an octave or unison. This characteristic, which
supports Riveras hypothesis of the significance of 5/3 sonorities, may be the reason why
Cochlaeus suppresses it in the Tetrachordum. Many of the features that distinguish the Musica
from the Tetrachordum, such as its emphasis on counterpoint, the more verbose treatment of
closes, and the presence of the sixth rule, suggest a practice-directed orientation that could
support discussion of a progression that occurs in actual music but is theoretically awkward,
whether due to its lack of explanatory voice-formulas or due to the presence of an imperfect
consonance in its final sonority. When Cochlaeus revised the Musica to produce the
Tetrachordum musices, which is somewhat more speculative and streamlined in nature, he may
have decided that the sixth rules nonconformance to the principles of clausulae was
inappropriate for his pedagogical aims in the Tetrachordum.
There is a counter-argument to the argument that the sixth rule is entirely aberrational,
however. In his article, Rivera provides a second example of a theorist proposing a rule
wherein the progression has no contrary motion to an octave or unison. Riveras source is the
Compendiaria musice (1516) of Michael Koswick; the rule in question is as follows: Third rule. If
the tenor should take the formula of the discant, the discant can be placed a third above it [at
the penult], and from there it may end on a unison or on a third above the tenor. On the other

118

hand, the bass must cadence from a third beneath the tenor to an octave below.108 Rivera
appears not to have observed that Koswick copied his discussion of clausulae verbatim from the
Tetrachordums section on three-voice closes. This third rule exhibits one of the discrepancies
between the Musica and the Tetrachordum. The text of the Musica, its musical example (see
Example 2.1), and the text of the Opus aureum all declare that this progressions discant
concludes at the unison with the tenor, and only there. In the Tetrachordum Cochlaeus allows it
to end a third above the tenor, which would result in those two voices eschewing contrary
motion to a unison in favor of an ascent by parallel thirds. This alternate resolution supports
the reading that 5/3 sonorities were favored (either for their deceptive effect or because they had
become the preferred sonority for conclusions), and works against the streamlined,
pedagogically simplified view of the Tetrachordum musices proposed above. Yet, as mentioned
earlier, the Tetrachordums adaptations of the Musicas clausula resolutions do not in the least
demonstrate a systematic effort to achieve complete triadic [or 5/3] sonorities at the expense of
proper intervallic progressions,109 a fact which the suppression of the Musicas sixth rule only
supports. Thus, although the text of Cochlaeuss Tetrachordum does offer one alternate
resolution that works against the Cologne schools emphasis on characteristic melodic gestures
which move in contrary motion to the unison or octave, the text on the whole fits the schools
conventions better than Cochlaeuss earlier Musica. Consequently, Riveras claim that
Cochlaeus description of several four-voiced cadences marks even more clearly the collapse of

Tertia regula. Si tenor discantus formam assumpserit: discantus potest supra ipsum in tertia
disponi/ex qua in unisonum/aut in tertiam supra tenorem finietur. Bassus vero in tertia sub tenore/in
octavam deorsum claudatur (Koswick, Compendiaria, f. L5v; trans. by Rivera, Harmonic Theory, 83).
108

109

Rivera, Harmonic Theory, 84.

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the dyadic structure in favor of a triadic sonority is not an accurate assessment of Cochlaeuss
Tetrachordum musices, and is a questionable claim to make even of the 1507 Musica alone.
Furthermore, this alleged favoring of complete 5/3 sonorities over dyadic progressions is
entirely absent in later treatises which show the influence of the Cologne school. For example,
the Musice active micrologus (1517) of Andreas Ornithoparchus contains the usual discussion of
the four vocal parts and characteristic voice motions.110 Ornithoparchus, however, shows no
signs of trying to adapt the theory to produce complete 5/3 chords. Similarly, Johannes
Galliculuss Isagoge de compositione cantus (1520) operates within the same four-voice framework
and invokes the same stereotyped melodic gestures as does Ornithoparchus. His main
cadential innovation is an additional way of closing (alius modi claudendi) on mi: There is also
another manner of closing [on mi], when, namely, the tenor and cantus move from a sixth to the
equisonant octave, and then the penultimate note of the baritonans, having been led from a
third below to a third above the tenor, concords as sweetly and smoothly as possible. And
against [that], the high tenor, having been lead from a third [above] the tenor to a fifth,
produces a good harmony whose value (negocium) is apparent.111 Example 2.6 presents a
transcription of his example of this technique.112 The cadential type in question does not occur
at the end of the example, as one might expect, but rather in measures 4-5. This suggests that

110

Ornithoparchus, Musice active micrologus, IV.5, ff. L3r-M1r.

111

Galliculus, Isagoge, IX, f. C3r-v.

The tenor of Galliculuss example contains one more measure than the other three voices. I
have adopted Arthur Moorefields emendation, since it aligns the parts to produce the cadence on mi that
Galliculus describes (Gesamtausgabe der Werke der Johannes Galliculus, vol. 4, ed. Arthur A. Moorefield
[Ottawa: Institute of Mediaeval Music, 1992], 24-5). The disposition of the tenor and tenor acutus parts is
Galliculuss.
112

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Galliculus may have felt that this type of clausula failed to provide complete closure, but he
offers no further information with which to support or refute this possibility. As for the close
itself, it produces a complete 5/3 sonority, but not in a way that clearly indicates the collapse of
the dyadic structure: the discant and tenor voices still exhibit their characteristic motions,
expanding from a sixth to the octave, and the alto (or high tenor, as Galliculus calls it) moves
freely to sound the fifth of the final proto-triad. The bass (baritonans) voice is the only one that
varies. Curiously, Galliculus has it retain its characteristic rising fourth, but transposed so that
the final note is a third above the triad, thus, in effect, completing the triad. Taken as a whole,
Galliculuss theory of closure sometimes, but not always, yields complete 5/3 chords, and it
hews closely to the stereotyped melodic formulas. Thus, it does not fit Riveras description of a
theory that eschews traditional dyadic resolutions in favor of triads.
Riveras hypothesis that the theory of the Cologne school provides evidence of the
formation of triadic awareness is certainly attractive. Not only does that theory coincide
temporally with the development of the style of vocal polyphony that we think of as
characteristic of the Renaissance, but it also characterizes closure as a phenomenon of three or

Example 2.6 Additional type of mi cadence from Galliculus, Isagoge, f. C3v

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even four voices, in contrast to the previous dyadic conceptionwhich, however, it preserves
even while moving beyond it in regard to the number of voices involved. Yet, as we have seen,
there was no conception of the triad as a structural unit in the sixteenth century, and
furthermore, careful consideration of the Cologne schools complex textual tradition casts
serious doubt on the weaker claim that its authors privileged complete 5/3 sonorities. The
theoretical apparatus of Schanppecher, Cochlaeus, and writers for many generations afterwards
insisted on describing clausula as a complex of melodic gestures that by default yield open fifths
or even bare octaves.113 While exceptions to this rule do exist, exceptions of which Rivera makes
much, it took many generations for authors to refashion this theory into a truly triad-oriented
one.

2.6 Cadential Doctrine and Compositional Practice

The theory of clausula developed by the Cologne school is unmistakably practical in
orientation. There are no ontological speculations about the nature of closure, or even a clear
explanation of what the compound term clausula formalis means.114 The emphasis is entirely on
the contrapuntal options available to the aspiring composer. This didactic disposition leads
naturally to the question of whether composers followed the advice of the Cologne school, or,

While many accounts from Dressler onwards define the altus as able to come to rest either at
the unison with the tenor or a third above it, perhaps the earliest German author to demonstrate an
unambiguous desire for all final chords to have complete 5/3 sonorities is Conradus Matthaei (1652), who
describes the altus as functioning to fill out the harmony (. . . die Alt-Clausul explementalis, darumb da
sie den Gesang ausfllet genennet werden [Matthaei, Kurtzer Bericht, I, p. 3]).
113

Though, as we have seen, Ornithoparchus and others do provide a definition of clausula

borrowed in part from Tinctoris (see above, n. 9).
114

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more plausibly, how closely the theorists of the Cologne school modeled their precepts upon
what early sixteenth-century composers in northern Europe were already doing in their
compositions, be they sacred or secular. A thorough, systematic study of compositional
techniques at the turn of the sixteenth century that attends to the chronological development of
styles of closure in geographically specific areas would be necessary to identify the particular
configuration of cadential conventions to which the Cologne theorists were responding, and
thereby to interpret with confidence the significance of closes that come to rest on imperfect
sonorities. Such a wide-ranging study, however, is beyond the scope of this chapter;
furthermore, the frequent dovetailing of melodic lines in repertoire of and influenced by the
Franco-Flemish style adds considerably to the challenge of investigating cadential progressions
that do not end movements. As a result, the following considerations of cadence in
compositions will be limited to two somewhat homophonic pieces, both of which have German
connections. The first, a piece for lute which has three distinct melodic lines, will be compared
with the three-voice cadential rules of the Opus aureum, while the second work, in four voices,
will be compared with the four-voice rules of Cochlaeuss Musica.
Before turning to these compositions, however, we should address again the question of
whether the Cologne schools concept of the clausula formalis can be equated with todays
concept of the cadence. (For even though, as we will see, the Cologne school initiated a new
period of cadential theorizing, that does not mean that they shared our modern understanding
of the cadence.) By now it is clear that Schanppecher and his colleagues describe how clausulae
are formed, and that some these progressions are identical in material features to the perfect
authentic cadence (PAC) of todays theory, whereas others include inverted sonorities (such as

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such the fourth progressions of Examples 2.1 and 2.4) that many modern theorists would not
consider the progressions to be properly cadential at all. Scholars including Karol Berger
assume that the term clausula from Tinctoris onward is identical to the modern cadence: Thus
Tinctoriss understanding of the term cadence [clausula] is no different from ours: it is a device
signifying closure of the whole musical discourse or of its part.115 Yet, other than their choice
of the term clausula, meaning close, and with its Tinctorian resonances of the end of a little
part of a song, the theorists of the Cologne school are for the most part strikingly reticent
concerning the issue of where a composer should (and should not) place clausulas in the course
of a composition.116 In this respect they furnish a striking contrast to the theory of John of
Affligem, who, as we have seen, draws heavily upon grammatico-rhetorical ideas of where
musical closure occurs, but offers only the barest description of how musical closure is effected.
Indeed, the Cologne theorists restrict their discussion of specific parts of pieces to the endings of
entire songs, and even that commentary is minimal: Schanppecher indicates that a clausula
formalis should come at the end of every song, and Cochlaeus states that a piece should not end
with a progression in which the bass rises by step.117 From this we can extrapolate that some
progressions identified as clausulae formales are capable of concluding a piece, while others are
not. Yet it remains unclear whether we ought to understand a clausula formalis to occur every

115

Berger, Musica Ficta, 129.

Ornithoparchus advises students to place formal closes in their songs as often as possible
(vt in cantilenis suis formales clausulas quam sepissime ponant [Musice active micrologus, IV.5, f. L4r]),
but this scarcely seems like the most musically nuanced of advice.
116

117

Wollick, Opus aureum, IV.6, f. H4v; Cochlaeus, Musica [ca. 1505], f. C5r; Musica [1507], f. F3v.

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time the proper combination of intervals occurs, or only at major sectional divisions, or
somewhere in between those two options.
The following analyses pay attention to each progression that could conceivably qualify
as a clausula formalis in order to evaluate whether it seems musically sensible to understand
formal closes as occurring wherever the appropriate sonorities exist. In doing so I will often
invoke my own sense of where I hear cadences, understood as progressions combining
stereotyped ending formulas and the formal function of closure, to occur. While it is true that
involving my own musical sensibility in these considerations removes any chance of attaining a
pure comprehension of the Cologne schools understanding of the clausula formalis, it is
highly unlikely that such a pure, unmediated comprehension is even a possibility. Given the
unavoidable reality of the interpreters presence, it seems defensible to bring both historical and
musical interpretation to bear on the theories of the Cologne school.
The first piece, transcribed in Example 2.7, is a composition for solo instrument and lute
by Arnolt Schlick (ca. 1460-after 1521), a widely traveled German organist and composer who
likely originally came from the area around Heidelberg.118 It comes from the collection
Tabulaturen etlicher Lobgesang und Lidlein uff die Orgeln und Lauten, which was published in
Mainz in 1512. I will begin by considering the first progression that matches Schanppechers
descriptions of cadential possibilities. The first of these occurs in measure 8, where a D5/3
sonority moves to three Gs. While this progression exactly matches Schanppechers first rule, it
seems unlikely that it would have been considered a clausula formalis. From a modern

Hans Joachim Marx, "Schlick, Arnolt," Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, Oxford
University Press, accessed January 23, 2013,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/24903.
118

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perspective, the fact that it resolves on a weak beat and also occurs so quickly after a grand
pause suggests that this progression does not actually close off a section of music; although
such analytic language would obviously have been foreign to Schanppecher, his connection of
the clausula formalis to the action of closing (clausulari) suggests that he may have considered
this progression to be something other than a proper close.
The cadential progressions in measures 18-9 and 20-1 present clearer examples of the
first rule. Both resolve on strong beats, and both feature the discants conventional syncopation
(7-6 against the tenor, 4-3 against the bass), which was prevalent in cadences of the time, and

Example 2.7 Schlick, Mein Lieb ist weg119

Arnolt Schlick, Mein Lieb ist weg, in Tabulaturen etlicher Lobgesang und Lidlein uff die Orgeln
und Lauten (Mainz: P. Schoffer, 1512); ed. Gottlieb Harms (Klecken: Ugrino, 1924), 45.
119

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which the authors of the Cologne school never addressed. The second of these two closes
resolves as we might expect: all the voices move to the pitch-class G and hold that note for half
of the next measure. The first cadential progression, however, resolves differently. Its bass
resolves up by step; this is one of Cochlaeuss alternate resolutions in the first three-voice rule,
and it is the one that he indicates should not finish pieces, due to its imperfection.120 Thus, it
seems likely that this progression signaled the deferral of complete closure to its listeners, or at
least to Cochlaeus. Furthermore, the solo part immediately moves away from its note of
resolution, and the accompanying lines soon follow. Although this creates a substantially
different effect from the cadence two measures later, the Cologne school had not yet developed
a conceptual apparatus further to characterize this phenomenon, which modern theory would
label as an evaded cadence.
The role of the progression in measures 5-6 is less clear. The progression has potential to
effect closure, in that it both ends on a long note that lands on a strong beat, and also is followed
by a rest. The downward-resolving lowest voice suggests Schanppechers fourth rule, in which
the bass closes from a sixth with the tenor to an octave, and yet the tenor does not have those
intervals above the bass; nor does the discant match the fourth rules stipulations. The
progression of major third to perfect fifth in the bass and tenor is traditionally understood as a
contrapuntal cadence formula, but the authors of the Cologne school do not draw an explicit
connection between this dyadic progression and the clausula formalis.121 Thus, this is either a

120

Cochlaeus, Musica (ca. 1505), f. C5r; Musica (1507), f. F3v.

The third of Schanppechers contrapuntal rules does state that, among other progressions, the
major third ought to seek the perfect fifth (Opus aureum, IV.4, f. H3r), but this progression does not feature
further in the Opus aureum.
121

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clausula formalis that departs entirely from the Cologne schools dictates, or is not a clausula at
all. While there is no way to adjudicate definitively between these two possibilities, it is worth
considering the triadic status of this progression: unlike every other cadence in this piece, the
final sonority of this putative clausula is a full triad, rather than open fifths or octaves. This fact
suggests that this piece was composed in a style in which cadential progressions were required
to come to rest on perfect sonorities; consequently, triadic sonorities would not function as
concluding entities, and this progression would not be a clausula formalis. Furthermore, the
discant syncopation so characteristic of musical practice of the time, and which is present in
many of the pieces other clausulae, is entirely absent from mm. 5 and 6. None of these factors
can render a definitive analysis, of course, but together they do suggest that this progression
would not be considered a clausula formalis.
The piece concludes with the cadential progression of mm. 25-6 (a progression which
also occurs in mm. 13-4). This cadence exemplifies Schanppechers closure on mi from his
second rule: the tenor-discant framework resolves from an F-D sixth to an E-E octave, with the
bass moving from a third to a fifth below the tenor. While the theory of the Opus aureum
suggests that this type of close is entirely conventional, it is, in fact, less frequently encountered
as a final cadence in contemporaneous repertoire.122 By this time the perfect cadence-like
progression of the first rule, in which the lowest voice rises a fourth or falls a fifth, had already
become established as the highly preferred, but not sole, means of concluding a piece.

122

For instance, of the 29 pieces in the Tabulaturen, this is the only one to end with such a cadence.

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This analysis of the potential clausulae formales in Schlicks Mein Lieb allows us to
formulate a hypothesis about the role of the clausula formalis. According to this reading there
are only three fully functional clausulae in the piece: at measures 13-4, 20-1, and 25-6.
Furthermore, even though measures 1-6 are demarcated by a rest in all voices, the progression
ending them does not qualify as a proper formal close. From this we can extrapolate that
Schlick may have reserved proper clausulae formales for the ends of long stretches of music, and
thus he may have understood them to have functioned syntactically, effecting the closure of
musical sections.
Before moving on, it is also worth mentioning the strikingly Phrygian characteristics of
this melody. The solo line has an ambitus of C4 to D5, closes on an E, and prominently
articulates the C above that E several times throughout the course of the piece; all these features
fit the Phrygian mode well. Furthermore, there is a close correspondence between the melodys
cadential notes and those notes identified as characteristic of the Phrygian mode by theorists of
later generations. In the early 1560s Gallus Dressler describes the Phrygian modes cadential
notes as follows: [The Phrygian mode] usually ends on the note E; it therefore receives
principal closes on E mi, B mi, [and] C fa, and less principal closes on G sol [and] A re.123 This
melody, of course, concludes on E, and the notes upon which it closes with the syncopated
discant formula are the principal close notes E (m. 14) and C (m. 10), and the less principal close
notes A (m. 19), and G (m. 21). Even though this theoretic description is forty years older than
the composition, the degree to which the two align is remarkable, and suggests that

Regulariter exit in clave E, igitur principales recipit clausulas mi in clave E, mi in B, fa in clave

C. Minus principales sol in clave G, re in clave A (Dressler, Praecepta musicae poeticae, IX, pp. 156-7). For
more on Dresslers cadential terminology, see chapter 3, section 1 of this dissertation.
123

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compositional conventions for Phrygian-mode music may have been fairly stable in the midsixteenth century.
The second piece, I[nn]sbruck, ich muss dich lassen, is by Heinrich Isaac (ca. 14501517) (see Example 2.8). It is a four-voice, strophic song with German lyrics (only the first
verses lyrics are reproduced here), that was composed sometime between the early 1480s and

Example 2.8 Isaac, I[nn]sbruck, ich muss dich lassen124

Heinrich Isaac, I[nn]sbruck, ich muss dich lassen, in Weltliche Werke, ed. Johannes Wolf
(Wien: Artaria & Co. and Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hrtel, 1907), no. 12, p. 15.
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1515.125 Compared to Mein Lieb ist weg, this songs features suggest a later date of
composition: for one, the unusual, modally motivated cadences of Mein Lieb are no longer
present; for another, in Innsbruck cadential progressions often come to rest on sonorities
containing thirds and fifths above the bass, unlike the concluding open fifths and octaves found
in Schlicks composition. The first cadence of the piece occurs in measures 3-4. This
progression, which occurs in identical form in measures 11-2, follows the dictates of Cochlaeuss
fifth rule: although Cochlaeuss illustration (Example 2.4) shows the discant resolving up by
step to the note a tenth above the bass, his verbal description allows for the downwards
resolution shown here.126 The next cadential progression, in measures 6-7 and 14-15, is an even
closer match: it precisely fits Cochlaeuss description of the fourth four-voice rule, and Isaacs
progression is even at the same pitch level as Cochlaeuss musical illustration (see Example 2.4).
The remaining cadential progressions all feature descending fifths in the lowest voice:
the first occurs in measures 8-9; the second is at measures 18-9 and 22-3. Both progressions
align with Cochlaeuss first rule, and in both cases one voice, this time the alto, matches
Cochlaeuss verbal description and not the musical example, in that it leaps down by a third to

Isaac worked in and then periodically returned to Innsbruck from the 1480s through 1515
(Reinhard Strohm and Emma Kempson, Isaac, Henricus, Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online,
Oxford University Press, accessed January 23, 2013,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/51790), so biographical details are not
helpful for establishing a likely date of composition.
125

But when the tenor shall make a sixth or an octave with the discant on the penult, but a sixth
on the last note [Atuero dum tenor cum discantu sextam uel octauam seruauerit in penultiam {sic}, Sexta
vero in vltima] (Cochlaeus, Musica [1507], f. F4r-v).
126

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resolve to the note a third above the tenor.127 As for the first progression, measures 8-9,
although it fulfills all of Cochlaeuss contrapuntal requirements, it is another situation where
one cannot be sure that it would have been considered a clausula formalis. Two significant
matters to consider are the length of the unit it concludes, and the formal location of that unit.
With the exception of measures 8-9, every formal unit in the piece that is demarcated by rests is
three or four measures long. Measures 8-9 articulate only three chords before the antepenultima
of the putative clausula formalis arrives. Furthermore, this two-measure unit occurs immediately
between the larger unit of measures 1-7 and that units near-exact repetition in measures 10-15.
As such, to my ears it sounds more like an appendix to the end of the phrase, rather than a
distinct phrase with a substantial cadence of its own.
This progression offers a useful contrast to measures 5-6 in Mein Lieb ist weg. In that
piece the initial six measures are set off by rests in all voices, and they sound like a fairly selfsufficient unit. Yet due to the lack of a proper clausula progression at their end, we understood
these measures as lacking closure. In contradistinction to this, the progression in measures 8-9
of Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen fulfills all the intervallic requirements of a clausula formalis,
yet does not conclude a significant span of music. If the authors of the Cologne school would
have identified such a progression as a formal close, it would suggest that they considered the
clausula formalis to be defined by its material, contrapuntal aspects, rather than by its potential
function of concluding phrases. If, on the contrary, they considered a concluding function to be
essential to the clausula formalis, then they would have been unlikely to consider the progression

[The added voices] final note can be located a third or a fifth above the tenor [At eius vltima
poterit in tercia seu in quinta supra tenorem collocari] (ibid., f. F4 r).
127

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of mm. 8-9 to be a formal close. My personal inclination when evaluating potential clausulae in
music of this period is to approach progressions on a case-by-case basis, rather than holding
that all progressions of a certain type are necessarily cadential. I also draw inspiration from
Cochlaeuss aforementioned comment that a formal close in which the bass ascends by step
should not be used at the end of a song.128 From this I extrapolate that there could be two
differing kinds of clausula formalis function in music of that period: a weaker class, which
embraces all (or at least the majority) of progressions that meet the contrapuntal criteria, and a
stronger class, which includes only those progressions that are capable of concluding major
sections or entire compositions in a given body of repertoire. This hypothesis admittedly
represents a reformulation of Cochlaeuss thought, but it also leads to a listening strategy that is
sensitive both to the marked sound that any clausula formalis progression may have had for
listeners in the early sixteenth century, and also to the possibility that composers may have
relied on specific formulations of the clausula formalis when they wanted to conclude significant
spans of music.
Thus far we have considered the contrapuntal progressions in Innsbruck, ich muss dich
lassen to see how they align with the Cologne schools cadential doctrine. Since the Cologne
authors, in contrast to John of Affligem, say nothing about the relationship between textual
structure and musical phenomena, considering the songs text-music relations cannot give
dependable insight into our authors understanding of how the clausulae formales work.
Nonetheless, since Isaacs piece is texted, let us briefly consider how the textual structure can

128

Cochlaeus, Musica (ca. 1505), f. C5r; Musica (1507), f. F3v.

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inform our own, modern understanding of the songs cadential functioning, without making
claims about the Cologne schools ideas. The texts three strophes each map their clauses onto
the verse structure in substantially the same way, so our consideration of the first verses
organization applies to the remaining verses as well. The verse itself is made of six lines, the
last of which Isaac repeats in his setting:
Innsbruck, ich mu dich laen,
ich far dohin mein straen,
in fremde land dohin.
Mein Freud ist mir genomen,
die ich nit wei bekummen,
wo ich im elend bin.

Innsbruck, I must leave you,

I am travelling my roads
to a foreign land.
I am deprived of my joy,
which I do not know how to regain,
where I am, in misery.

Perhaps the most interesting issue raised by considering the text is the progression in mm. 8-9,
which set the end of the texts third line. From a strictly contrapuntal perspective this
progression is a clausula formalis, though, as we noted, it comes so quickly after the cadence in
mm. 6-7 that it may sound more like an appendix. From a textual perspective, however, it
completes a thought left hanging in m. 7, and is the strongest ending in the poem to that point.
From an Affligemian perspective on the text, lassen (m. 4) might be a comma, Strassen (m.
7) a colon, and dohin (m. 9) a period. Applying that reading to the music, the progression in
mm. 8-9 would not merely conclude the preceding two measures, but also the entire piece to
that point. Similarly, bin, the final word of the first verse, would conclude the final three
lines, and perhaps even the entire verse (in a more expansive understanding of the periods
scope). The fact that mm. 19-23 consist of a near-exact repetition of mm. 15-9 (only the final alto
note differs), including the text, presents a bit of an ambiguity for text-cadence relations.
Doubtless biased by teleological assumptions, I hear the second cadence as more conclusive,

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and thus would read the bare-fifths conclusion in m. 19 as somewhat lacking, in a way that the
repetition and 5/3 triad conclusion in m. 23 rectifies.
Clearly an approach to cadential structure that fuses the Cologne schools contrapuntal
detail with John of Affligems attention to textual structure has much to offer for the analysis of
polyphonic song. The sense of cadential hierarchy it gives rise to is attractive, as is the potential
for musical units to be viewed as cumulative, rather than merely successive. Such a fusion,
however, never came to be in the writings of the Cologne school or writings by authors of the
following generations. If one were to speculate as to why these strands of thought never were
woven together, at least two potential explanations come to mind. One is that compositional
practice at the time was likely even less disposed to correlate specific cadential types with
punctuation than was chant practice. Another explanation is that the imitative textures popular
in the earlier sixteenth century made it much more difficult to map textual structure onto
specific musical simultaneities than had been the case in chant. In any case, the authors of the
Cologne school, despite their innovations, leave us wishing for more theoretical content than
they chose to provide.
Through careful investigation of the warren of texts that comprises the early output of
the Cologne school, we have found that Schanppecher, Wollick, and Cochlaeus considered
closure to consist primarily of combinations of melodic formulas, most of which are associated
with individual voices. The discant and tenor voices, which normally resolve to an octave or
unison, characterize the progression, and indicate its tonal focus. To this pair the composer can
add further, contrapuntal voices (contrapuncti). These additional voices can combine with the
discant-tenor framework in numerous ways, rendering the final sonority either a perfect or an

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imperfect sonority. While it has been argued that these authors arranged their progressions to
create triads, or at least 5/3 sonorities, at the ends of progressions, the textual tradition does not
convincingly support this hypothesis.
Bringing the Cologne schools cadential apparatus to bear on compositions from the
early sixteenth century has accentuated a crucial issue in the interpretation of the clausula
formalis. In particular, the question of whether the progression of mm. 8-9 in Innsbruck, ich
muss dich lassen would have been considered a formal close is analogous, I believe, to the
question of whether todays concept of cadence is equivalent to the clausula formalis. If any
succession of two sonorities that meet the contrapuntal requirements constitutes a formal close,
as the Cologne schools texts imply, then the clausula formalis is much more similar to Rameaus
concept of cadence than it is to todays idea, which is more dependent on the function of closure.
If, on the other hand, the authors of the Cologne school tacitly assumed a connection between a
true formal close and the ending of a little part of any section of a song (cuiuslibet partis cantus
particula), in Tinctoriss phrase, then it would be fair to say that the clausula formalis is
functionally equivalent to our concept of cadence.
As is all too often the case, there is no way to prove what the authors of the Cologne
school would have made of these issues. The best response to this indeterminacy, I believe, is to
listen with sensitive ears and evaluate with an open mind the different interpretive possibilities,
rather than holding that all such progressions are undoubtedly clausulae formales, or assuming
that their concept of the formal close is identical to our notion of the cadence. Hence, when
listening I try to attend to the contrapuntal configuration of the clausula formalis whenever it
occurs, but I also remain open to the possibility that large-scale closure may operate using a

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more restricted set of contrapuntal options. This approach, of course, is but one of many
possibilities, and many avenues remain open for further research into the relation between the
Cologne schools doctrine and contemporaneous compositional practice.

2.7 Conclusion
We have seen that the authors of the authors of the Cologne school drew upon a variety
of sources and ideas in their work: the German speculative tradition, Italian contrapuntal
teaching, Tinctoriss term clausula, and musical practice of the day. We have also observed
the many innovations contained in the Cologne schools doctrine of musical closure, including
its extension of contrapuntal concerns to four voices, its differentiation of cadences based on the
scale degree of resolution (namely, the clausulae on mi), and the ways in which its approach is
conducive to triadic thinking, even though it does not manifest that thinking itself. This
doctrine, however, does not merely represent a departure from earlier attempts to grapple with
the nature of musical closure; it also initiates a number of attitudes and practices in the
theorizing of the cadence that persisted for centuries thereafter, and thus it launches a new
period in the history of the cadence.
One of the most notable changes instituted by the Cologne school is the identification of
the concept of the cadence as an important object of theoretical inquiry. When earlier theorists
acknowledged pieces and their parts conclude with special kinds of contrapuntal
progressionsand many theorists did not even acknowledge thisthey addressed those
concluding phenomena in the context of lists of general contrapuntal possibilities. Cadential
progressions were not isolated as a phenomenon worth exploring in detail; they were merely

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another item in the enumeration of composers contrapuntal options. In contrast, the authors of
the Cologne school saw fit to dedicate entire chapters in their texts to the subject of the clausula
formalis, and developed entire lists of contrapuntal principles to explain the correct employment
of clausulae. In doing so, they established a three-century-long tradition of defining the cadence
as an object meriting thoughtful attention, and as a locus of theoretical innovation.
Another significant change found in the Cologne schools cadential doctrine is the
consistent contention that cadences are made of three, or even four, independent voices. One of
the nearest approximations of a three-voice description of musical closure in the preceding
decades occurred in the tradition of faburden, or fauxbourdon, which described the resolution of a
6/3 sonority to an 8/5 one. Yet in this tradition the two upper voices are not at all independent,
but rather they always proceed locked at the interval of a fourth apart. The authors of the
Cologne school, on the other hand, developed a theoretical apparatus capable of describing the
motions of four truly independent voices. Even as they struggled to identify characteristic
behaviors for the third and fourth voices, Schanppecher, Cochlaeus, and company insisted that
clausulae consist of at least three voices. This conception of the cadence became the norm in
German theory, and, while Italian and French theory defined cadences primarily in terms of
dyads for many decades thereafter, by the seventeenth century a polyphonic, and later
harmonic, understanding of cadences was standard.
Yet another related change initiated by the Cologne school is their development of a
robust theory of how cadences are to be constructed. Compared to John of Affligem, they both
offer more examples of closing phenomena, and provide substantially more detail (in terms of
voices and also number of events they comprise) about those progressions. Although the

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Cologne schools theorizing focuses to a great degree on how to make cadences, their theory
does not completely eschew issues of where cadences should be placed. In addition to
Cochlaeuss rather isolated differentiation of progressions based on whether they can occur at
the ends of pieces, it is also important to not to minimize the significance of such progressions
being named formal [i.e., formulaic] closes. Even as the Cologne theorists failed to articulate
a satisfactory account of where to place cadences, they still thematized the closure-related
nature of cadences, thereby leaving unfinished work for later theorists to take up.
All of these significant changes which are found in the cadential doctrine of the Cologne
school established a new paradigm for the theorizing of the cadence that lasted for three
centuries. Theorists kept turning their attention to the concept of the cadence, with some
providing new details on specific polyphonic configurations that effect closure, and others
offering a fuller account of where to locate different types of cadences. We will now turn from
considering the Cologne schools initiation of a new period of cadential theorizing to what may
be the fullest efflorescence of that theorizing, the mid-baroque cadential doctrine of Johann
Wolfgang Caspar Printz.

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CHAPTER 3
MID-BAROQUE CLAUSULA DOCTRINE:
PRINTZ AND HIS PREDECESSORS
In 1676-7, Johann Wolfgang Caspar Printz (1641-1717) published the first two parts of
his Phrynis Mitilenaeus. This lengthy treatise compiles much of the German music theory of the
preceding generation, and is one of the early manifestations in the field of music of the
seventeenth centurys encyclopaedizing urge. It is also distinguished by its narrative structure,
in which chapters of music-theoretical doctrine are worked into a fictional framework involving
the eponymous protagonist, Phrynis Mitilenaeus.1 Printzs goal in the treatise is to make the
tenets of musica poetica accessible to aspiring German composers who could not read treatises in
Italian or Latin,2 and, by means of his fictional interludes, perhaps even to make the experience
of learning enjoyable for his readers.
Yet Printzs aims are not limited to translating traditional knowledge into German. On
the contrary, he presents an innovative perspective and new ideas on many issues, including
the analysis of rhythm in terms of poetic feet and the relative lengths of sections of music.3 Of

Concerning this fictional structure, see Thomas Huener, Wolfgang Caspar Printz Phrynis
Mitilenus: a Narrative Synopsis of Musica poetica (Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 1989), especially pp.
55-62, and also the conclusion of this chapter.
1

Ibid., 57.

On Printzs theory of rhythmic feet, see William E. Caplin, Theories of Musical Rhythm in the
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, in The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, ed. Thomas
Christensen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 662, 666; on his discussion of the length of
sections (numeri sectionales), see Werner Braun, Deutsche Musiktheorie des 15. bis 17. Jahrhunderts, vol. 2
(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1994), 364-5.
3

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more pertinence to this study, one of Printzs most significant and idiosyncratic innovations is
his naming and describing of numerous kinds of cadence, many of which had never before been
considered to constitute distinct cadential types. Indeed, Printz presents what is likely the most
comprehensive account of cadences in German theory. He synthesizes the theories of cadence
espoused by his predecessors and also proposes new types of cadence and descriptions of their
qualities, no doubt in response to the changes in musical practice underway in the last third of
the seventeenth century. As a result, the efflorescence of cadential theory found in Phrynis
Mitilenaeus provides us with an invaluable source for understanding how musical closure was
understood to function during those years in which the modal system still held sway in
pedagogical circles, even as contemporaneous compositions strike us as being more and more
well served by simple major-minor interpretations.
Printzs theory is worth studying not just because of its status as an unusually well
developed account of cadential theory, or because of its chronological placement at the time
when elements of common-practice tonality were increasingly coming into play. Equally
noteworthy is the way in which his various categories of cadence are logically organized.
Printz lays out his theory of cadence types in a strictly systematized order that derives from the
intellectual movement known as Ramism. This was a pedagogical tradition dating to midsixteenth century France that stressed recasting instructional materials and the entire
educational process so that students could learn material more quickly, efficiently, and
ultimately, more economically. Printz sets forth his theory of cadence in accordance with
Ramist procedure, and, as this chapter demonstrates, this structure is not a passive receptacle
for knowledge; rather, it shapes Printzs cadential ideas in ways that can seem counterintuitive

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to modern readers. Because of the significance of Ramism for Printzs doctrine of cadence, this
chapter investigates both the substantive aspects of his theory and the formal, Ramist-inspired
aspects which structure those claims.
In order to contextualize the novelties of Printzs cadential doctrine, this chapter begins
with a summary of earlier German theories of cadence. It then demonstrates the dependence of
the categorial organization of Printzs doctrine on Ramism. Detailed consideration of the
substance of Printzs cadential ideas follows; after seeing how Printz transmits traditional
cadential ideas, this chapter investigates his novel classification scheme, teasing out the
theoretical and practical implications of his often terse or equivocal descriptions. It concludes
by examining two of the most innovative of Printzs cadential concepts, namely, the two types
of cadential seats (sedes expressa and sedes subintellecta), and his doctrine of the musical section,
which may be the earliest account of an inchoate theory of phrase structure.

3.1 German Cadence Theory before Printz

Printzs theory of cadences was highly original, but his originality did not lie in creating
an intellectual edifice ex nihilo. Rather, he synthesized and developed a body of cadence
doctrine that German theorists had been shaping since the early years of the sixteenth century.
This section will briefly summarize the important developments in cadential theory upon which
Printz drew, focusing on how cadences were made (through characteristic voice patterns), where
they were made (by the relationship of cadence to mode), and by what means cadences were
characterized (as perfect or imperfect, with different meanings for the terms over time). See
Figure 3.1 for a synoptic view of these categories and the authors discussed.

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As the previous chapter has demonstrated, Melchior Schanppechers contribution to the

Opus aureum musicae of 1501 initiated a long-lived practice of conceiving of cadences as
combinations of stereotyped melodic figures, each of which was associated with a voice type.
More specifically, the discants cadence melody closes with an ascending step, the tenors with a
descending step, while the bass has an ascending fourth or descending fifth at the end, and the
alto is variable.4 When all four motions are combined, they form a progression of root-position
triads which later theorists would call a perfect authentic cadence, as Example 3.1 demonstrates.
Theorists also emphasized that voices could swap their melodies; for example, the tenor could
sing the discants cadence figure, while the discant, in invertible counterpoint, took up the
tenors gesture. This manner of describing cadences remained popular in Germany for
generations, and is present in the treatises of both Johann Herbst (1588-1666) and Conradus

Example 3.1 Four-voice clausula from Johannes Cochlaeus,

Tetrachordum musices, f. F1r (1512)

Schanppecher described only the tenor, discant, and bass (Opus aureum musicae, IV.6, ff. Hiiiivvr). The first text to add the alto and to offer four-voice examples was Johannes Cochlaeuss Musica of
1507 (f. Fiiiir-v).
4

143

Matthaei (1619-1667), two of the most significant German theorists in the generation before
Printz.5
The other important manner in which German theorists conceived cadences was by
relating them to modes. Their approach was to characterize all the notes which occur in a given
cadence by just one pitch or pitch class, and then to evaluate the extent to which that note is
related to the mode. Nearly all theorists who discussed the matter referred to cadences that do
not come to rest on a note integral to the mode as foreign (peregrina), a term first
Voice patterns
Melchior
Schanppecher
(b. ca. 1480)
Opus Aureum musicae
(1501)
Gallus Dressler
(1533-1580s)
Praecepta musicae
poeticae (early 1560s)
Sethus Calvisius
(1556-1615)
Melopoiia (1592)
Johannes Crger
(1598-1662)
Synopsis musica (1630)
Johann Herbst
(1588-1666)
Musica poetica (1643)
Conradus Matthaei
(1619-1667)
Kurtzer . . . Bericht
(1652)

Integral/foreign to
mode

Perfect/Imperfect

Figure 3.1 Cadence Categories in Precursors of Printz

Herbst, Musica poetica, VII, pp. 58-63; Matthaei, Kurtzer Bericht, I, 11-19, pp. 3-7.

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systematically applied to cadences by Gallus Dressler (1533-1580s) in the early 1560s.6 No such
term for cadences proper to the mode, however, gained wide acceptance; many authors simply
avoided giving a name to such cadences, while others made up their own terms. For example,
Conradus Matthaei writes, Proper cadences are those which are made on the three notes of
the modes fifth, and indeed on the lowest, highest, and middle note [of that fifth]. These three
notes (which elsewhere are called the harmonic triad) must be placed in every song (even in
poor melodies). Foreign cadences are those which are made from an alien triad, and are led
into a different mode.7 The mention of three notes in a proper cadence does not refer to which
three notes should comprise a given simultaneity in a cadence, but rather to three different
cadences, one of which arrives on the modal final, while the other two arrive on the notes a fifth
and third above the final.
Oddly, when these theorists implicitly reduce all the notes of a cadence to one, they
never articulate which note or which voice they mean, nor the method they use to determine it.
Nor do they address the tension between their acknowledgment that each voice has its own

Dressler, Praecepta musicae poeticae, IX, pp. 154, 156. A slightly earlier employment of the term in
connection with cadences is that of Hermann Finck (Practica musica, f.Ss3v, Ss4v). Finck does not explain
his two, fleeting uses of the term in this sense, but an earlier section of his text (f.Pp4 r), which discusses
the tonus peregrinus, strongly suggests that he borrows the term from chant theory, where it had been
applied to irregular modes and differentiae since the fourteenth century (see, for instance, Eger von
Kalkar, Cantuagium, 62). Benito Rivera also points out that the term peregrina was used by Quintilian
to refer to foreign words (verba peregrina) (Joachim Burmeister, Musical Poetics, trans. Benito V. Rivera
[New Haven.: Yale University Press, 1993], 149).
6

Propriae Clausulae sind: welche gemacht werden in den dreyen Clavibus der Quinten eines
Modi, und zwar im untersten/ im hchsten und mittelsten. Diese drey Claves (welche sonsten Trias
Harmonica genennet werden) mssen in einem jeden Gesange (auch nur in schlechten Melodien)
befunden werden. Peregrinae Clausulae seyn/ welche aus einer frembden Triade gemacht/ und in einen
andern Modum herein gefhret werden (Kurtzer Bericht I, 5 & 7, p. 2).
7

145

important cadential figure and the implication that a cadence is defined by only one note. Each
cadence simply is said to arrive on a note that is integral to the mode, or on one that is not. The
texts of the treatises are not helpful; fortunately, several theorists provide musical examples that
are more illuminating. Johann Herbst and Johannes Crger (1598-1662) both show the precise
pitches upon which the different cadence types can be made, and in both cases, the pitches
shown range from around middle C to a tenth higher, which corresponds to the tessitura of the
discant voice in other musical examples.8 Furthermore, Crgers examples consist of successive
transpositions of a written-out cadential figure, in which the final note corresponds to the single
note shown in Herbsts examples; this melodic fragment is the usual discant formula, complete
with its characteristic syncopation. These clues suggest that theorists understood the final note
of the discant voices cadential figure to be the regulative voice when they sought to relate
cadences to modes, though they can do no more than suggest it given the lack of explicit
evidence.9
The conceptual framework of cadences belonging to or foreign to a mode derives from
Gioseffo Zarlino (1517-1590).10 In his Istitutione harmoniche of 1558, he divides cadences into

Herbst, Musica poetica, VII, p. 67-8; Crger, Synopsis musica, XV, f. L3r-v.

Lori Burns comes to the same conclusion in her discussion of Herbsts cadence theory,
appealing to Herbsts practical realization of the modal cadence formulas (Bachs Modal Chorales
[Stuyvesant, N.Y.: Pendragon Press, 1995], 191).
9

Pietro Aaron proposed a similar distinction between cadences on more and less normative
notes of a given mode in 1525 (Trattato della natura, IX-XX). Aarons division of modes into regular and
irregular notes, however, was much less systematic than Zarlinos, and scarcely any later theorists appear
to have been inspired by his treatise. As with the term peregrina, irregolari/irregularis was borrowed
from chant theory, where it originally referred to modes of unusual ambitus and ending (St. Martials
Anonymous, VIII).
10

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regular (regolari) and irregular (irregolari); regular cadences are those which are found on
the notes of the octave which bounds the mode, on the note that divides that octave into the
modes fifth and fourth, and the note that divides the fifth into the modes major and minor
thirds. Irregular cadences are those found on any other note.11 Helpfully, he states that
cadences should principally be made in the tenor, since it is the basis of the piece, though he
acknowledges that they can occur in other voices.12 Zarlinos ideas were transmitted to the
German-speaking world by Sethus Calvisius (1556-1615), who rendered an adapted form of
them into Latin in his Melopoiia of 1592. Calvisius did not consistently employ translations of
Zarlinos regolari and irregolari cadences, but he did add new terminology: cadences made on
the modal final are primary (primariae), those on the fifth above it are secondary (secundariae),
and those on the third above the final are tertiary (tertiae, emended by later authors to
tertiariae).13 Calvisius himself did not clearly state that all cadences other than these are foreign,
or peregrina, but this division became a commonplace in authors of the following generation.14
This entire set of terms proved popular with later authors, and was adopted by Johannes
Lippius, Johannes Crger, and Conradus Matthaei.15 Lippius, however, introduced a significant

11

Zarlino, Istitutione harmoniche, IV.18, p. 320.

12

Ibid., p. 321.

13

Calvisius, Melopoiia, XIV, f. H3v.

Calvisius does use the term peregrina once, but in a different context than his discussion of
the relation between cadences and modes; here it is lumped together with improper (impropria) and
imperfect (imperfecta), and thus it seems to function as a general epithet of faultiness rather than a
technical term (Melopoiia, XVII, f. I1r).
14

Lippius, Synopsis musicae novae, f. H2v; Crger, Synopsis musica, XV, f. L1v; Matthaei, Kurtzer
Bericht, I, 5, p.2.
15

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conceptual alteration to the content of these terms: instead of relating the cadence types to the
modal final, he assigned one to each note of the Trias harmonica, or the triad, a concept which he
crystallized in 1610.16 This redefinition yields the same notes as Zarlinos system, but it shifts
the emphasis from modal finals and proportionally derived notes above them to the unity of the
triad. In doing so, Lippius brings a concrete musical meaning to the previously abstract
connection between the triad and the mode that it anchors, by associating the cadence scheme
of a given piece with the triad that is proper to that pieces mode.17 Later theorists such as
Crger and Matthaei found this explanation more attractive, and it entirely replaced Zarlinos
justification in German theory.
Yet Calvisiuss set of terms was not the only one which Germans used to describe where
cadences could be made. In addition to coining the term peregrina, Gallus Dressler also
proposed a classification system that roughly corresponds to Calvisiuss terminological trio.
His also consists of three categories of cadence, ranked in terms of centrality to the mode: the
principal (principalis), less principal (minus principalis), and the aforementioned foreign cadence
(peregrina).18 Unlike the theory of Zarlino and Calvisius, there is no systematic pattern to
Dresslers categories: modes have two to four principal cadences, zero to two less principal
ones, and the remaining notes in each mode are foreign. Due to this irregularity, Dressler offers

Lippius, Disputatio musica tertia, ff. B2rff. A more widely available version of Lippiuss theory
from 1612 may be found in his Synopsis musicae novae, ff. F4r-F7v.
16

For more on Lippius, the triad, and modes, see Joel Lester, Between Modes and Keys: German
Theory 1592-1802 (Stuyvesant, N.Y.: Pendragon Press, 1989), 41-5.
17

18

Dressler, Praecepta, IX, pp. 154-162.

148

vague descriptions of each type, and then defines each modes principal and less principal
cadences by extension.
If Dresslers cadence categories seem messy, then those of Zarlino and Calvisius are
suspiciously neat. The musical practice of the mid- to late-sixteenth century did not employ all
modes equally, and certainly did not cadence identically in every mode, as theorists grapplings
with the Phrygian mode, among others, demonstrate.19 Zarlinos cadence locations are clearly
influenced by his penchant for system building via the harmonic and arithmetic mediation of
large intervals; the irregularity of Dresslers cadence categories must be derived from an effort
to tailor them to match musical practice rather than theoretic simplicity. Yet this effort to be
more faithful to how modes were employed did not prove as attractive to later theorists as did
Zarlinos system. Even theorists who preserved Dresslers terms, such as Johann Herbst,
changed the words meanings to reflect Zarlinos theory: Herbsts principal (principalis) cadence
is made on the modal final, the less principal (minus principalis) is on the note the fifth above it,
and a newly added category, related (affinales oder virgulares), refers to cadences a third above
the final.20 Thus, in the century after Dressler there was one basic conception of where in a
mode cadences should occur, even though there was no such unanimity of terminology.

For example, Pietro Aarons attempts to apply modal theory to polyphony yield a remarkably
non-systematic set of melodic ending points. For a thorough explication, see Harold S. Powers, "Is Mode
Real? Pietro Aron, the Octenary System, and Polyphony," Basler Jahrbuch fr historische Musikpraxis 16
(1992): 952.
19

Musica poetica, VII, p. 68. Burmeister also employs Dresslers terms in his Musica Poetica of 1606,
but he defines them in a way distinct from both Dresslers and Herbsts. See Burmeister, Musica Poetica,
IX, and Riveras introduction to his translation of Burmeisters treatise (Musical Poetics, liii-lvi).
20

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The last way in which some German theorists classified cadences was in terms of their
perfection or imperfection. The concept of perfection (vollkommenheit/perfectio) had been
employed in musical discourse to refer to completion since the thirteenth century, and these
authors carried on that tradition.21 Yet in spite of the continuing presence of the notion of
completion, two substantially divergent senses of how perfection or completion could be
manifested occurred in the theoretic discourse in different periods, and the change between the
two indicates a shift in how people may have heard cadences. The earlier usage refers to the
quality of one of the final sonoritys intervals: an octave or unison makes a perfect cadence
(clausula perfecta), whereas a fifth or a third (and some authors include a sixth) forms an
imperfect one (clausula imperfecta). This conception is originally Italian, and entered the German
discourse through Calvisiuss adaptation of Zarlino. The Italian cadence doctrine of the
sixteenth century normally theorized cadences as if they were exclusively a two-voice
phenomenon, in spite of the fact that Italian music by no means consisted solely of duets. All
Zarlinos examples of cadences are in two voices; in this situation it is straightforward to
classify cadences by their interval quality.22 From hints that Italian theorists left, we can safely

For a thorough exegesis of the concept of perfection in medieval musical discourse, see David
E. Cohen, The Imperfect Seeks Its Perfection: Harmonic Progression, Directed Motion, and Aristotelian
Physics, Music Theory Spectrum 23, no. 2 (Autumn 2001): 139-169.
21

Although Zarlino classifies cadences into two classes, the concepts of perfect and imperfect
were rigorously applied first by Calvisius. Zarlino considers the first class (octave and unison) to be
cadences in an absolute sense (assolutamente Cadenze), whereas the second class (fifth and third) consists
of imperfect cadences (Cadenze imperfette) (Ist. harm. III.53, p. 222). The idea of classifying cadences by
interval type is not original to Zarlino: in the 1530s his predecessor Stephano Vanneo proposed categories
of cadences concluding on the unison, the fifth, and the octave (Recan. de mus. aur. III.14).
22

150

assume that their two-voice frameworks represent the tenor and discant voices,23 but their
discourse is far from explicit concerning the relationship between their theories and
contemporary compositions. German theorists who adopted this classification, most notably
Calvisius and Crger, provide several four-voice examples of perfect and imperfect cadences.24
In these examples the octave or unison in question usually occurs between the bass and tenor
voices; only in cadences on mi (Phrygian mode cadences) does the interval lie between the tenor
and discant. This suggests that theorists were beginning to pay more attention to the lowest
voice when they considered multi-voice sonorities, and that the tenors descending step motion
was gradually yielding to the basss leap as the defining lower-voice motion in cadences.
German theorists were aware of this usage of perfection and imperfection well into the
seventeenth century due to the stature of Calvisiuss Melopoiia. Yet few authors consider it
worthy of discussion in their treatises. The most notable exception is Johannes Crger. Yet the
observation that Crger discusses these categories in his Synopsis musica of 1630 requires a
caveat: Crgers treatment of cadences contains almost no material that is original to him.
Rather, his chapter consists of a sophisticated compilation of cadence-related material from four
different chapters of Calvisiuss Melopoiia, along with a few interpolations from Lippiuss
Synopsis novae musicae of 1612. As such, Crgers text demonstrates that Calvisiuss categories

See, for example, Zarlino, Ist. harm. IV.18, p. 321. This matches the contemporary German
doctrine that the discant and tenor voices normatively cadence at the octave or cadence. Carl Dahlhaus
uses the term Diskant-Tenor-Klausel to describe this pairing (Die Maskierte Kadenz: Zur Geschichte
der Diskant-Tenor-Klausel, in Neue Musik und Tradition: Festschrift Rudolph Stephan [Laaber: LaaberVerlag, 1990], 89-98).
23

24

Calvisius, Melopoiia, XIII, ff. G4v-H1v; Crger, Syn. mus. XV, ff. L2r-v.

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lasted several decades into the seventeenth century, but did not elicit further theoretical
developments.
Two decades after Crger, Conradus Matthaei proposed an entirely new meaning for
the familiar perfect-imperfect binary. By this time German music theory had begun the
transition to the vernacular, so his Kurtzer doch ausfhrlicher Bericht von den Modis Musicis of 1652
described the categories as perfecta/vollkommene and imperfecta/unvollkommene.25 For Matthaei, a
perfect cadence consists of three sonorities, the notes of which are determined by the traditional
stereotyped voice-patterns. An imperfect cadence is a defective perfect cadence: Matthaei
explains that
imperfect clausulas are those which either remain on the penult (as in the following
example)

or which lead their ultimate sonority elsewhere. The latter clausulas are also called
concealed clausulas (Clausulae occultae). Such [a thing] occurs either in all voices or in
several:

25

Matthaei, Kurtzer Bericht, I, 8, p. 2.

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26

As Matthaeis examples make clear, the notion of imperfection does not refer to
imperfect consonances: indeed, the second concealed clausula progression in the second
example leads to a major triad that has the perfect fifth, octave, and major third one would
expect to find in one of Matthaeis perfect cadences. Rather, Matthaeis imperfection refers to
the incompletion (imperfectio) of a process, specifically, the cadential progression that the
imperfect or concealed cadence sets in motion.
Also significant is the fact that Matthaei classifies these incomplete or misdirected
progressions as cadences, albeit imperfect ones. This is a remarkable claim, especially in the
case of the first category, which ends on the penult. All authors in the previous 150 years who
put forth a theory of cadence assumed that a cadential progression requires a final chord of
arrival, or at least pseudo-arrival. (Although theorists of that time did not address meter
explicitly, their doctrine implies that cadences must be metrically complete, whereas Matthaeis

Imperfectae Clausulae sind: welche entweder in der penultima stehen bleiben als: [Example]
Oder ihre Ultimam anders wohin fhren / welche auch Clausulae occultae genennet werden. Und
geschieht solches entweder in allen Stimmen oder in etlichen [Example] (ibid., 20, p. 8).
26

153

imperfect cadence seems to be able to end a beat too early.27) The prior generations notion of
cadential defectiveness or incompletion is limited to their concept of the imperfect cadence,
which requires a penultimate harmony to move to a final chord in which a third or sixth
replaced the expected unison or fifth; there is no mention of the possibility of an absent final
chord. As such, Matthaeis concept of the imperfect cadence represents a significant innovation
in the consensus of which events constitute a cadence, and in the role that aural expectations
play in the identification of cadences.

3.2 A Ramist Theory of Cadence

Printz develops the content of his precursors theories of the cadence in noteworthy and
original ways, as we shall see. Yet one of the most pervasively significant aspects of his doctrine
concerns its implicit, underlying formal organization. This bears the unmistakable stamp of the
pedagogical tradition spearheaded by the innovative French educator Petrus Ramus (15151572). We shall see that the Ramist principles which undergird Printzs theory of cadence
explain many of the features that make that doctrine so unusual, such as its extraordinarily
verbose terminology, rigorously systematized exposition, and curious groupings and separation
of different cadence types.
Ramus is a significant figure in intellectual history primarily owing to his contributions
in the areas of pedagogical method and curricular streamlining, which he and his

One of the earliest texts to address explicitly the metric placement of cadences is the second
volume of Friedrich Erhard Niedts Die musicalische Handleitung (Handleitung zur Variation [Hamburg: the
author, and Dohm: Benjamin Schiller, 1706], III, f. E3v).
27

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contemporaries and followers rightly saw as amounting to a radical reformation of education.

Ramus taught at small colleges in Paris for the first fifteen years of his career, during which
period he began his lifelong series of polemics with the conservative, Aristotle-influenced
faculty of the University of Paris. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, Ramus was
appointed by Henry II of France to the prestigious post of Regius Professor of Rhetoric and
Philosophy in 1551.28 Much of the controversy surrounding Ramus derived from his claims that
the time-honored texts of classical antiquity were poorly organized, and that students would
learn more efficiently from newly written textbooks than by reading the works of Aristotle.
While these ideas presented a serious challenge to the authority and expertise of the highly
educated, they were attractive to those seeking to gain an education more quickly and
affordably. Thus, devotees of Ramus spread his convictions throughout Europe, and Ramism,
as his pedagogical approach is often called, became especially rooted in parts of Germany.29
Ramuss principal and most significant innovation was in the field that he identified as
dialectic (ars dialectica), i.e. logic. His innovation concerned the method by which an author or
teacher should structure a given field of knowledge so that students might learn it most easily.
His focus rests upon two tools: definition (definitio) and division (distributio, divisio, and other
terms). The former is invariably expressed in terms of the purpose or end of the discipline

For a biography of Ramus, see James Veazie Skalnik, Ramus and Reform: Church and University at
the End of the Renaissance in France (Kirskville, Mo.: Truman State University Press, 2002).
28

This analysis of why the academy reacted so vigorously to Ramus is drawn from Skalnik
(Ramus and Reform, 8-10) and Howard Hotson (Commonplace Learning: Ramism and its German
Ramifications, 1543-1630 [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007], 41-51, 289-92), rather than the
dismissive, and now dismissed, interpretation of Ramuss intellectual puerility made by Walter J. Ong
(Ramus: Method, and the Decay of Dialogue [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958; reprint,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004], 23-4, 214-24).
29

155

itself;30 the latter consists of breaking down the subject in question into its broadest constituent
parts and ordering them from most general or conspicuous or pedagogically convenient to the
least. Once that is done, those constituent parts are defined and divided, with the entire process
repeating until it produces the most particular aspects of the subject.31 Describing this
method, Ramus writes: and so the most general definition shall be first; division will follow. If
the division is multiple, a partition into complete parts will come first, and a division into
species will follow. These parts and species ought to be treated anew in the same order, and
they should be defined in the places where they are distributed.32 It is, of course, not original
to state that a subject under inquiry ought to be defined. Similarly, thinkers have advocated
division into parts as a means of understanding topics since Plato;33 Johann Sturm (1507-1589),
in particular, advocated a division-based method a few years before Ramus.34 The latters
particular contribution to educational theory lies in his emphasis on the systematic application
of this process. This one method of inquiry (Ramuss sola et unica via), of which numerous
authors have written, is responsible for structuring the disposition of all material pertinent to

30

Hotson, Commonplace Learning, 45-6.

31

Ibid.

Definitio itaque generalissima prima erit : distributio sequetur, quae si multiplex fuerit,
praecedet in partes integras partitio, sequetur divisio in species: partesque ipsae & species eodem ordine
sunt rursus tractandae, ac definiendae quo distributae fuerint. (Ramus, Dial. lib. duo II.18).
32

See, among other passages, Plato, Phaedrus, 265d-277c, esp. 270d, and id. Sophist, 218c-231c.
Mary Louise Gill provides a comprehensive treatment of Platos views on dialectic and division (diaeresis)
in Method and Metaphysics in Platos Sophist and Statesman, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter
2009 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2009/entries/plato-sophstate/.
33

Sturms program took root in Strasbourg and heavily informed Johannes Lippiuss highly
influential theory of music (John Brooks Howard, Form and Method in Johannes Lippiuss Synopsis
musicae novae, Journal of the American Musicological Society 38, no. 3 [Autumn 1985]: 524-550).
34

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the discussion of a given subject.35 Furthermore, Ramuss principle could be extended from
organizing the individual subjects that comprise an education to systematizing all existing
knowledge, as the Ramist-inspired encyclopedist Johann Heinrich Alsted (1588-1638) realized,
along with other German intellectuals of the early seventeenth century who tried and failed to
compile such an encyclopedia.36
The most famous hallmark of Ramus is closely related to this process of definition and
division. It is the branching diagram, which visually lays out a given subjects entire series of
divisions from left to right across a page, as Example 3.2 demonstrates. Ramus was not the first
author ever to use such diagrams, for they appear in the De inventione dialectica of Rudolph
Agricola (1444-1485), but his oeuvre served to promulgate their use in an unprecedented
manner.37 Walter Ong argues that the spatial arrangement of a subject matter gradually became
an unarticulated pillar of Ramuss intellectual project due to its pedagogical appeal: he
describes a Ramist textbook as comprising a series of definitions and divisions having as their
real, and practically ultimate, base, classroom practicality. Ramist arts explain little or nothing.
Division, like definition, is effected in them not by insight, but by ukase [i.e. decree], and the

Ramus, Dialecticae libri duo, II.17; Ong, Ramus, 245-62; Skalnik, Ramus and Reform, 43-6; Hotson,
Commonplace Learning, 43-7; Ian Maclean,Logical Division and Visual Dichotomies: Ramus in the Context
of Legal and Medical Writing, in The Influence of Petrus Ramus, ed. Mordechai Feingold, Joseph S.
Freedman, and Wolfgang Rother (Basel: Schwabe & Co. AG Verlag, 2001), 228, 234-5.
35

On the influence of the Ramist method on German encyclopedizing efforts in the early
seventeenth century, see Hotson, Commonplace Learning, 153ff.
36

37

Ong, Ramus, 199.

157

ukase is issued in the name of the visual imagination. What goes is what can be readily and
convincingly pictured in at least semidiagrammatic form.38
In the last few decades scholars have challenged Ongs assertions. Ian Maclean has
argued that the visual dimension was not intrinsic to Ramuss method, but was only one of
several ways to communicate divisions of a subject to readers; this point is supported by

Example 3.2 Ramus, Dial. lib. duo, x. (Cambridge: John Hayes, 1672 edition)

38

Ong, Ramus, 260. See also pages 199 and 203 concerning the unstated centrality of this method.

158

Raphael Halletts noting that most of the diagrams now associated with Ramus were
first added to posthumous editions of his books by editors and printers.39 Nevertheless, in the
decades following Ramuss death this sort of diagram became extremely popular in parts of
Europe. This is in part due to the particular attractions of the Ramist pedagogical program. As
James Skalnik has shown, Ramuss innovations were motivated by his desire to help indigent
students to gain an education, and thus to rise out of poverty, more quickly than he had been
able to.40 This emphasis on conveying information efficiently, and Ramuss related
championing of practical skills such as mathematics, proved particularly popular in the
merchant-dominated cities of the Hanseatic League, particularly those in north-western
Germany.41
By the 1620s and 30s Ramuss ideas had diffused through Germany. Even as Ramuss
own writings fell from favor and largely ceased to be printed in Germany,42 his approach still
shaped contemporary thought. As Hotson has pointed out, Alsteds tremendously influential
encyclopedia, the Cursus philosophici encyclopedia of 1620, summarizes its structure and ideas by
means of a Ramist table at the end of each book and major subsection.43 He also argues that the
writings of Jan Amos Komensk (or Comenius, 1592-1670), a student of Alsted and an

Maclean, Logical Division, 239; Raphael Hallett, Ramus, Printed Loci, and the Re-invention
of Knowledge, in Ramus, Pedagogy and the Liberal Arts: Ramism in Britain and the Wider World, ed. Steven J.
Reid and Emma Annette Wilson (Surrey: Ashgate, 2011), 106-7.
39

40

Skalnik, Ramus and Reform, 157.

41

Hotson, Commonplace Learning, 79-82, 243-4, 286-94.

42

Skalnik, Ramus and Reform, 60, 162.

43

Hotson, Commonplace Learning, 184.

159

important reformer of education, were profoundly rooted in the central European pedagogical
tradition which Ramus had shaped generations earlier.44 In the world of music scholarship, the
Ramist-derived branching diagram can be found in German music theory texts even as late as
the 1650s, as Matthaeis Kurtzer doch ausfhrlicher Bericht demonstrates.45
Phrynis Mitilenus reveals the extent to which Ramuss pedagogical program still
resonated more than a century after Ramuss death in the St. Bartholomews day massacre of
1572. One broad similarity is evident in Printzs democratizing motivation for writing Phrynis.
As he indicates in the prefatory material to the works second edition, Printz composed the
treatise in order to make proper knowledge (rechte Wissenschafft) more accessible to German
musicians (Musicanten) who knew neither Latin nor Italian, an impetus which resembles the
Ramuss emphasis on efficiently educating those of little means.46 Other, more structural
borrowings of Ramist ideas occur in the treatise as well. For instance, Printzs definition of
music in the Synopsis of Poetic Music section of the treatise follows Ramuss dictates on the
presentation of a subject: after an initial definition of music and a division of it into Theoretica
and Practica, Printz proceeds to divide each of these into successively smaller categories, which

Hotson, The Ramist Roots of Comenian Pansophia, in Ramus, Pedagogy and the Liberal Arts:
Ramism in Britain and the Wider World, ed. Steven J. Reid and Emma Annette Wilson (Surrey: Ashgate,
2011), 236, 245-6, 250-2.
44

45

Matthaei, Kurtzer Bericht, folio between pp. 62 and 63.

[Johann] Wolfgang Caspar Printz, Phrynis Mitilenaeus oder Satyrischer Componist, vol. 1 (Dresden
and Leipzig: J. C. Mieth and J. C. Zimmerman, 1696), pp. 2-3, f. B1v-2r. See also Huener, Wolfgang
Caspar Printz Phrynis Mitilenus, 57.
46

160

he defines in the order of their division.47 In a strictly Ramist account of music, such as that
provided by the Ramist Friedrich Beurhaus in the Erotematum musicae (1580), a diagram would
follow, in which the successively branching constituents of music progress across the page.48
Printz never offers such a table to supplement his prose descriptions, yet his text certainly
reflects a Ramist orientation to the presentation of material. Indeed, when Printz turns to the
subject of cadences, he employs the same process of orderly definitions and divisions. I have
converted his main series of cadence divisions into a Ramist table in Figure 3.2, which also
includes brief summaries of Printzs descriptions of each kind of cadence. Example 3.3 is a
transcription of one of Printzs figures; it offers examples of almost all of the cadence types in all
the modes (the imperfecta totalis saltiva perfectior cadence is missing, presumably because it
simply a minor-resolving version of the perfecta totalis cadence).
One of the most prominent visual and conceptual features of Figure 3.2 is its repeated
bifurcations. As we have seen, such division is representative of the Ramist movement, which
has an unstated, but often noted by modern scholars, preference for dichotomies. These
dichotomies can be expressed narratively in the text, or visually in the branching diagrams so

Printz, Phrynis, I.5, 2-12, pp. 16-7. All page references hereafter are to the more easily
accessible 1696 edition published in Leipzig and Dresden. Where there are two different section
references separated by a slash (e.g. 34-6/35-7) the first refers to the 1676 edition (entited Phrynis oder
Satyrischer Componist, and published by Christian Okels in Quedlinburg), and the second to that of 1696.
The discrepancy is due to the fact that 43 from the earlier edition is shifted earlier to become 33 in the
later edition.
47

Beurhusius, Erotematum musicae, 16. Beurhaus was a seminal figure in the establishment of
Ramism in Germany through his rectorship of the gymnasium in Dortmund (Hotson, Commonplace
Learning, 27-8).
48

161

characteristic of the Ramist movement after the death of Ramus.49 As Ong observes, the most
compelling explanation for this preference for bifurcation is the pedagogical appeal of
symmetry.50 The simplicity and attractiveness of this scheme of division is doubtless
responsible for Printzs classification as well.
Yet the systematic application of bifurcations has some unusual effects on Printzs
theory. It is directly responsible for one of the most prominent idiosyncrasies of Printzs
cadence doctrine: the unusually long names of some cadence types, which are up to seven
words long (the clausula formalis imperfecta totalis ordinata adscendens imperfectior). These names
were unprecedentedly lengthy, and in spite of the great specificity they allowed, their
cumbersomeness doubtless contributed to the fact that no later theorists adopted Printzs
terminology in its entirety.51 Yet the peculiar length of the names also made Printzs theory
memorable, such that even some seventy-five years later Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg still saw
fit to mock the length of these names, commenting after mentioning one of the terms that he
was out of breath.52
Printzs commitment to bifurcations has yet another unusual effect. In several situations
where a less rigidly principled approach would allow three cadence types to coexist on the

49

Hallett, Ramus, Printed Loci, and the Re-invention of Knowledge, 106-7.

50

Ong, Ramus, 199.

The theorist who most closely adheres to Printzs cadence theory is Johann Gottfried Walther in
his Praecepta der Musikalischen Composition of 1708, but even he changes (and thereby shortens) many of
Printzs terms (Praecepta, pp. 161-3).
51

. . . der Athem entgehet mir . . . (Marpurg, Abhandlung von der Fuge, 109). This passage is
referred to in Gerald Antone Krumbholz, Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurgs Abhandlung von der Fuge (17534), (Ph.d. diss., University of Rochester, 1995), 157.
52

162

Figure 3.2 Ramus's Cadential Types

163

Example 3.3 Printz, Phrynis Mitilenaeus, I.8 (from the 1696 edition)

164

same level, Printz instead has one cadential progression paired with a placeholder category that
splits into two subordinate cadence types. Consider, for example, the cadence types which
Printz describes as Imperfecta totalis ordinata. When Printz discusses cadences that do not come
to rest (imperfecta) yet have a complete succession of chords (totalis), he divides them into those
that have a leap in the bass (saltiva) versus those that move conjunctly (ordinata). Three distinct
cadential progressions fall under this latter category. To the modern theorist, one of these
would be a deceptive cadence (adscendens imperfectior), while the other two of these would be
inversions of each other, one being a 7-6 suspension resolving to the tonic (descendens), the other
being a 2-3 suspension resolving similarly (adscendens perfectior). To a musical
sensibility rooted in figured-bass considerations,53 the decision to classify cadences by whether
the acoustic bass skips or moves stepwise is artistically understandable; far less compelling is
the insistence on the ontological similarity of the adscendens imperfectior and the adscendens
perfectior at the expense of the similarity of the adscendens perfectior and descendens cadences.

3.3 Printzs contribution

The extent to which Printz couched his theory of cadence in Ramist trappings is
unprecedented. The content of his theory, however, must be considered in dialogue with his
music-theoretic predecessors. Many of Printzs innovations are layered onto generations-old
theoretic doctrines and commitments; that being so, it is valuable to precede discussion of his

53

Printz devotes substantial attention to figured bass realization (Phrynis, II, 21-4, pp. 124-43).

165

innovations with an account of how his theory adapted and recast those older doctrinal strands
that section 3.1 summarized.
Before entering into a detailed study of Printzs theory, a brief introduction to his
terminology is in order. Printz uses the term clausula formalis to refer to all polyphonic cadence
types. His first bifurcation is into perfecta/vollkommene and imperfecta/unvollkommene; the former
refers to cadences that come to rest, whereas the latter does not. Both the clausula perfecta and
clausula imperfecta categories then undergo a further, identical bifurcation, into totalis and
dissecta types. The precise implications of this distinction are sometimes unclear, as will be
discussed below, but a provisional explanation is that a totalis cadence comprises a complete
cadential progression, while a dissecta cadence seems to be missing the final sonority of its
progression. Beyond these two bifurcations Printzs system soon descends into further, unique
subdivisions, which will be discussed in due course. Readers are advised to consult Figure 3.2
and Example 3.3, above, whenever they wish to see how a specific cadence fits into the overall
organizational scheme, or to see its musical realization.

3.3.1 Voice-specific Cadences

The doctrine of characteristic voice motions which the Cologne school began more than
170 years earlier is alive and well in Phrynis Mitilenus. Indeed, Printz presents the usual
subject matter in condensed but thoroughly traditional terms shortly after erecting his Ramist
edifice.54 In the context of his theory of cadence, this discussion functions more as an obligatory

54

Phrynis, I.8, 32-3, p. 30.

166

recounting of lore than a vital constituent of the theory. Yet this is not the only passage in
which Printz directs his attention to the melodic line of an individual voice; rather, he
innovatively considers a cadence to be characterized primarily by the particular motion that
occurs in its lowest voice. This is made obvious by the fact that many of the terms he chooses
describe motion, such as adscendens, descendens, and saltiva (leaping), and his examples make
clear that it is the lowest voice in particular that he has in mind. The clausula imperfecta totalis
saltiva imperfectior cadence type, which corresponds to a progression from V to I6, presents a
particularly new kind of cadence. Earlier German theorists such as Matthaei and Herbst
acknowledged that the cadential gesture of the bass involves a leap, but only by a descending
fifth or ascending fourth. For them a leap of a descending third from the fifth of the scale to the
third is one of the options for the altus part; if such a motion occurs in the lowest voice, then the
altus part has been shifted into the lowest sounding part, and the usual bass gesture is likely in a
higher voice.55 Printz, in comparison, does not describe this motion as an altizans (articulating
the altus part) gesture; rather, he relates it to the descending fifth or ascending fourth motion.
The descending third is a defective, or less perfect (imperfectior) form of the clausula imperfecta
totalis saltiva perfectior, which corresponds to a progression from V to a minor I chord. This, in
turn, is a faulty kind of closure, a fact communicated by its relegation to the clausula imperfecta
branch; were the final chord a major triad, then it would be perfect, specifically, a clausula
perfecta totalis. Similarly, as Richard Jacoby has pointed out, when the traditional discantus
figure lies in the bass, Printz calls it a clausula imperfecta ordinata adscendens perfectior; a cadence

55

Herbst, Mus. poet. VII, p. 59; Matthaei, Kurtzer Bericht, I, 12-9, pp. 3-7.

167

with the tenors figure in the bass is a clausula imperfecta ordinata descendens.56 Printz describes
neither of these cadences in such terms, but instead categorizes them simply based on the
direction of the basss motion. Thus, Printzs classification represents a decisive shift in aural
orientation from that of earlier theorists, away from a polyphonic hearing that privileges
varying dispositions of stereotyped voice parts, and towards a more bass-driven sort of hearing.
The contrapuntal invertibility of these four voices and its implications for keyboard
performance suggests a link between this German theoretical doctrine and modern accounts of
the Italian partimento tradition.57 As Ludwig Holtmeier has noted, the standard cadenza doppia
of partimento theory consists of three contrapuntal voices (which are identical to the clausulas
of the bass, discant, and tenor voices of German theory). Holtmeier goes on to link inverted
forms of this cadence to segments of the descending and ascending Rule of the Octave:
Underlying the Rule of the Octave is less a collection of interval-progression models and more
of a Durchkadenzierung (thorough [recte: through] cadentializing) of the scale by means of these
contrapuntal cadence modelsabove all the cadenza doppia.58 Holtmeier then demonstrates
how the standard Rule of the Octave progression can be re-harmonized so that its ascending
scale supports a variant form of the discants clausula in the bass (a progression that Printz calls
a clausula imperfecta totalis ordinata adscendens perfectior), and its descending scale supports the

Richard Jacoby, Untersuchungen ber die Klausellehre in deutschen Musiktraktaten des 17.
Jahrhunderts, (Ph.D. diss., University of Mainz, 1955), 24.
56

For a comprehensive study of the partimento tradition, see Giorgio Sanguinetti, The Art of
Partimento: History, Theory, and Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
57

Ludwig Holtmeier, Heinichen, Rameau, and the Italian Thoroughbass Tradition: Concepts of
Tonality and Chord in the Rule of the Octave, Journal of Music Theory 51, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 16.
58

168

tenors clausula at its conclusion (Printzs clausula imperfecta totalis ordinata descendens). And
indeed, the traditional discant clausula figures prominently in both Printzs cadential
examplesparticularly the upper voicesand the cadenza doppia of the partimento tradition, and
the tenor clausula could easily be added to nearly all cadences.
Yet there are also significant differences between Printzs theory and the partimento
tradition. First, the most famous regole, or rules, that transmit the theoretical content of
partimenti restrict the term cadenza to progressions in which the bass falls a fifth or rises a
fourth.59 Thus, while Printz considered many different types of progressions to be capable of
providing closure, the Neapolitan partimento tradition largely restricts its considerations to
variants of only one of Printzs types, the clausula perfecta totalis.60 Progressions corresponding
to the inverted forms of the cadenza doppia, to which Holtmeier calls attention, do not receive
any special emphasis in the Neapolitan regole; rather, they are described as some of the possible
ways to ascend or descend by stepwise motion. Francesco Gasparini, who was educated in
Rome, does use the term cadenza di grado to refer to progressions in which the bass descends by
step with a 7-6 suspension above; yet in in his LArmonico pratico al cimbalo he never applies this
term to ascending-step progressions.61 The only partimento-related source I have found to

See the treatises by Fenaroli, Durante, and others edited by Robert Gjerdingen on the
Monuments of Partimenti website (http://facultyweb.at.northwestern.edu/music/gjerdingen/partimenti/collections/index.htm).
59

Concerning the complicated and conflicting uses of cadential classification schemes in

partimento works, see Sanguinetti, The Art of Partimento, 105-11.
60

Francesco Gasparini, LArmonico practico al cimbalo, 4th ed. (Venice: Antonio Bortoli, 1745), VI,
pp. 24, 29.
61

169

describe both ascending and descending progressions as cadences (cadentiae minimae) is a

German treatise written in 1699, the Regulae concentuum partiturae of Georg Muffat.62
Indeed, the terms tenor clausula/clausula tenorizans and soprano clausula/clausula
cantizans, which modern partimento theorists often mention,63 do not actually appear in the core
partimento works of the Neapolitan tradition. Indeed, as Robert Gjerdingen acknowledges, the
terms are borrowed from the German tradition of authors such as Johann Gottfried Walther
(1684-1748) and Andreas Werckmeister (1645-1706).64 This lineage extends back to Printz, and
several of Walthers cadence types and terminological choices clearly demonstrate Printzs
influence. The analytic work of Gjerdingen amply demonstrates the value of applying these
German theoretical ideas to the Italian tradition, and Sanguinettis research has emphasized the
degree to which Neapolitan musical pedagogy and practice permeated throughout Western
Europe.65 Nevertheless, the tradition of associating melodic formulas and entire cadence types
with individual voices does not appear to be nearly so significant in the Italian musical scene,
and this demonstrates a noteworthy way in which German musicians and authors cultivated
their own distinct music-theoretic culture.

Muffat, Regulae concentuum partiturae, ed. B. Hoffmann and S. Lorenzetti in Collana Editoriale 10
(Bologna: Associazione clavicembalista bolognese, 1991, 1993), 114-21. This work dedicates much space
to considerations of how to resolve particular intervals, much in the way best typified by Johann David
Heinichens work. As a result, attempting to appeal to this work as representative of early partimento
theory en bloc is questionable.
62

Holtmeier, Heinichen, Rameau, 16; Robert Gjerdingen, Music in the Galant Style (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2007), 139ff.
63

64

Ibid., 139-40.

65

Sanguinetti, The Art of Partimento, 7-8. See also Holtmeier, Heinichen, Rameau, 13.

170

3.3.2 Cadence and Mode: Propria/Peregrina

The relationship between cadence and mode reveals one chink in Printzs finely
constructed system of cadence types. As is the case with most other German theorists of his
day, Printz held to the traditional teaching that there are twelve modes, in spite of the fact that
musical practice was starting to coalesce into a mere two, major and minor.66 Printz also
preserved the standard Zarlinian doctrine concerning the location of cadences within the mode,
and adopted Matthaeis clear contrast of peregrina and propria cadence classes. Other than
glossing the usual terms Primaria, Secundaria, and Tertiaria in terms of their relative perfection
and linking of them with the concept of the Sedes (to be discussed in Section 3.3.6 of this
chapter), Printzs account is straightforward. 67 Like Figure 3.2, Figure 3.3 translates his text
discussion into the Ramist diagram it implies.

Perfectissima und Primaria on first note of Trias

Propria
Clausula Formalis
(in Ansehung des
Modi oder Toni)

Perfecta und Secundaria on the third note of Trias

Imperfecta und Tertiaria on the middle note of Trias

Peregrina on a note that isnt part of the Trias

Figure 3.3 Clausulas with respect to mode

On this gradual evolution, with particular attention paid to modes 3 and 4, see Harold Powers,
From Psalmody to Tonality, in Tonal Structures in Early Music, ed. Cristle Collins Judd (New York:
Garland Publishing, 1998), 322-33. Joel Lester points out that Johann Crger advocated adding two
additional modes on B and E-flat in the 1654 edition of his Synopsis musica (Lester, Between Modes and
Keys, 55-9). See also his listing of two German manuscripts from 1676 or before which mention the eight
church keys (ibid., 80).
66

67

Printz, Phrynis, I.8, 24-7, p. 28.

171

Later in the chapter Printz returns to the issue, and states that all the primaria clausulas
of a given mode are secundaria to the mode a fifth below it, and tertiaria to that a third below.
The exceptions to this rule are Lydian/Hypolydian and Dorian/Hypodorian, the primariae
clausulas of which cannot function as secundaria and tertiaria clausulas respectively, for those
would correspond to a mode with a final of B natural, which does not exist for Printz. Similarly,
Phrygian/Hypophrygian has no secundaria clausulas, and Mixolydian/Hypomixolydian cannot
have tertiaria ones.68 Printzs omission of cadences on B natural is different than Zarlinos
approach, which is to acknowledge that their cadences sound somewhat hard, since B does
not have a corresponding fifth above or fourth below, but to hold that a cadence of good effect
on this note can nevertheless be produced when there are more than two voices.69 Joel Lester
interprets this difference to mean that Printz was retreating from the progressive nature of
Zarlinos position: according to Lester, the modal uniformity of Zarlinos doctrine was another
step that minimized the individual differences between the separate octave species, whereas
Over a century later, Printz is still troubled by the problems of a cadence on B, there reemphasizing the special characteristics of the individual octave species.70 A different
explanation for the discrepancy is motivated by the fact that Printzs cadence doctrine
presupposes the presence of a Trias harmonica above the bass of the final sonority. For Zarlino a
cadence is primarily a two-voice phenomenon, with the result that additional voices could

68

Ibid., 34-6/35-7, p. 30-1.

69

Zarlino, Ist. harm. IV.20, 63; trans. by Vered Cohen, p. 63

70

Lester, Between Modes and Keys, 61.

172

include a sixth above a bass on B instead of a fifth.71 Thus, Zarlino need not be a progressive to
Printzs shrinking violet; instead, they could both be responding to contemporary musical
practice and theoretic conventions with sensitivity.
Thus far the doctrine is largely Zarlinian. Later in the chapter Printz returns to the
propria/peregrina pair, but this time he muddies their meaning. Printzs concern here is with
transposed modes, and with the cadences that result from the procedure. The gist of Printzs
argument is that propriae cadences can come only from the natural mode, i.e. they have no
unusual accidentals. He then provides an example to clarify, which is transcribed below as
Example 3.4. Printz asserts that This clausula is in no way a propria secundaria of the Aeolian
and Hypoaeolian modes, and also not a propria tertiaria of the Ionian and Hypoionian modes,
but rather a peregrina clausula, and it is borrowed from the system which is transposed down a
fourth.72
The claim that Example 3.4 is a peregrina clausula is problematic for Printz classificatory
scheme. In both Aeolian/Hypoaeolian and Ionian/Hypoionian the resting place (Sitz oder Stelle)
of the cadence is on one of the notes of the modes Trias harmonica, so it should be considered

While cadential progressions coming to rest on a sixth are usually considered to be cases of
avoiding the cadence (fuggir la cadenza) in Zarlinos thought, his concept of the imperfect cadence (or
cadence, imperfectly speaking) includes situations where the upper voice rises by step and the lower
descends by a third to form a sixth (Ist. harm. III.53, p. 224; see, in particular, the second progression in the
example on p. 224).
71

Diese Clausula ist keines Weges Propria secundaria, Aeolii und Hypoaeolii, auch nicht
Propria tertiaria, Jonici und Hypojonici, sondern vielmehr eine Peregrina, und entlehnet aus dem
Systemate in Quartam deorsum Transpositio (Printz, Phrynis, I.8, 43, p. 31). This quotation is from the
1696 edition; the 1676 contains an abbreviated (and less emphatic) version of the same idea at 42.
72

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propria according to Printzs earlier definition of that term.73 It is true that the F# in the melody
does not occur in the normal, natural gamut, and thus the entire cadence better fits the onesharp gamut, i.e. the system which is transposed down a fourth. Yet a brief perusal of
Printzs example of cadence types (Example 3.3) turn ups a multiplicity of accidentals, including
F#, so accidentals alone do not explain Printzs position. The better explanation is that Printzs
understanding of the modal system in large part depends on the quality of the 5/3 chord built
on B natural remaining diminished, and therefore needing to be omitted. Throughout Example
3.3 Printz studiously avoids B-rooted triads, either omitting cadences that would require them
(most of the Phrygian cadences, as well as the Lydian dissecta acquiescens) or replacing would-be
5/3 chords on B with 6/3 triads (such as the Lydian imperfecta dissecta and Dorian ordinata
adscendens imperfectior). The blithe employment of the F# (and implied D#) in Example 3.4s
cadence would thus disrupt one of the few consistencies in Printzs approach to adding sharps.
In the one-sharp system to which Printz therefore assigns the cadence of Example 3.4,
the Trias harmonica of Ionian/Hypoionian, for example, is G major, so the cadential progression
would clearly be peregrina in that case, on the grounds of its root alone. The case of one-sharp
Aeolian/Hypoaeolian is more complicated: its Trias is E minor, so Example 3.4s cadence could

Example 3.4 A Cadence on mi, from Phrynis, I.8, 43, p. 31

73

Ibid., 24, p. 28.

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be seen as a propria primaria cadence in the transposed form of that mode. Yet for Printz, the
status of this cadence in the transposed system is not the point; rather, since the cadence is
foreign (peregrina) to the natural, no-sharp gamut, its relation to the proper modes Trias
harmonica (Printzs initial definition of propria cadences) becomes inconsequential. This is one of
the few instances in Printzs theory of cadences in which such a category error occurs, and it is
not surprising that the problem arises when Printz attempts to graft an observation about
accidental-inflected music onto a traditional, diatonic teaching. In both cases it is useful to
characterize the cadential experiences as either belonging to the mode or being foreign to it, but
these terms are employed in divergent and fundamentally incompatible ways.

3.3.3 Perfect/Imperfect Cadences

Of those strands of preceding cadential theory identified above, Printzs greatest
departure from his predecessors occurs in his employment of the perfect/imperfect binary. The
interval-specific sense founded by Zarlino is nowhere present in Printzs account. Printzs use
of the term is closer to Matthaeis new definition of the terms, which evaluated whether the
expected cadential progression was complete; cadences could be rendered imperfect either by
stopping on the penultimate chord of the progression, or by having one or more voices move to
an unexpected note in the last chord.74 Printzs use of perfecta/vollkommene and
imperfecta/unvollkommene shifts the emphasis from concrete description of notes and chords to a

74

Matthaei, Kurtzer Bericht, 8.

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more listener-oriented perspective which focuses on the perceived quality of restfulness or

closure in a cadence: Perfecta is that which leads the melody or concord to rest, so that a perfect
end of a perfect melody or harmony can therewith be made. . . . Clausula Formalis Imperfecta is
that which does incline to rest, but all the same does not lead the harmony to rest, so that a
perfect conclusion of a perfect melody and concord could be made with such [a clausula], but
the melody . . .indicates that it should be sung further.75 Printz defines these terms
intensionally by offering a rest-based principle, rather than extensionally by merely
enumerating examples, as Matthaei had done. As a result, Printzs theory is not limited to the
simple provision of labels for different cadences; rather, his invocation of rest implicitly
demands the listeners evaluation of whether he or she perceives musical motion to have come
to a stop. Cadences in which the listener feels motion has stopped are clausulae perfectae, and
those in which it has not are clausulae imperfectae. This emphasis on musical rest rather than
completion of expected progressions also motivates Printz to assign some cadence types to
different categories than did Matthaei: the most notable example is the clausula perfecta dissecta
desiderans, which modern theorists would describe as a half cadence. The puzzling nature of this
cadence will be discussed below.

Perfecta ist / welche die Melodey oder Zusammenstimmung zur Ruhe fhret / also da damit
ein vollkommenes Ende einer vollkommenen Melodey oder Harmonie kan gemacht werden. . . . Clausula
Formalis Imperfecta ist / welche sich zwar zur Ruhe neiget / aber doch die Harmonie nicht zur Ruhe
fhret / da mit einer solchen ein vollkommenes Final einer vollkommenen Melodey und
Zusammenstimmung knte gemacht werden / sondern die Melodey . . .da weiter fortgesungen werden
solle / andeutet (Printz, Phrynis, I.8, 4, 11, pp. 26, 27).
75

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3.3.4 Totalis/Dissecta
Elements of Matthaeis sense of the perfecta/imperfecta dichotomy are present in Printzs
use of the terms; they are also present in a more veiled way in the next classificatory dichotomy
in Printzs system: totalis/dissecta. To start with the totalis cadences, Printz defines the clausula
perfecta totalis as one in which the lowest voice falls a fifth or rises a fourth (see Figure 3.4).76 (He
later adds that the final two chords are both major.77) The category of clausula imperfecta totalis is
less clear, because it divides immediately into saltiva and ordinata, without having any
characterization assigned to it by Printz. Yet by examining the examples Printz gives (Example
3.3), one concludes that this category embraces cadences modeled on the clausula perfecta totalis,
except that they have been altered by change in inversion, root (where the bass ascends by step),
or quality of third above the bass. This interpretation is supported by the formally equivalent
layout of the first three levels of Printzs cadential classification scheme (see Figure 3.2): because
both perfecta and imperfecta contain totalis and dissecta categories, imperfecta totalis should be a
variant of the perfect totalis that creates less of a sense of rest.
Totalis
Clausula perfecta
Clausula imperfecta
totalis
totalis
Lowest voice falls a
[like perfecta totalis,
fifth or rises a fourth
but altered]

Dissecta
Clausula perfecta
Clausula imperfecta
dissecta
dissecta
Lowest voices falls a
Lowest voice moves
fourth or rises a fifth;
by a different
cut-off final chord
interval; cut-off final
chord

Figure 3.4 Totalis and Dissecta cadences

76

For all the following definitions, see Printz, Phrynis, I.8, 5-10, 12-22, pp. 27-8.

77

Ibid., 38/39, p. 31.

177

Printzs definitions of perfecta dissecta and imperfecta dissecta both employ the word
abgeschnitten, which is the German equivalent of dissecta: a clausula perfecta dissecta occurs
when the bass falls a fourth or rises a fifth, so that the falling fifth or rising fourth seems to
have been, as it were, cut off from it.78 Printz seems to be suggesting that this bass motion,
which is the inversion of the clausula perfecta totaliss bass, is the penultimate progression in the
perfecta totalis cadence, rendering a I-V-I progression for the complete perfecta totalis, and a I-V
progression for the cut-off perfecta dissecta.
The clausula imperfecta dissecta presents a less strictly defined situation. Printz describes
it as follows: Clausula formalis imperfecta dissecta is when, instead of a descending fourth or a
rising fifth, another interval is placed [in the bass], so that it creates desire for the cut-off chord,
presumably the ultimate chord of a clausula perfecta totalis.79 The reference to instead of a
descending fourth or a rising fifth makes clear that Printz conceives this category as a variant
of the perfecta dissecta cadence. Thus, the progression consists of two chords: a first chord,
whose bass is built on some note other than the tonic scale degree, and a second chord, which is
the dominant.
Printz places almost no restrictions on the makeup of the first chord. As long as the bass
is not on the tonic or the dominant (to extrapolate from Printzs emphasis on the basss
intervallum), any harmony should be allowable. Stepwise descents and leaps of a rising fourth,

. . . also da gleichsam die absteigende Quint oder auffsteigende Quart darvon abgeschnitten
zu seyn scheinet (Printz, Phrynis, I.8, 7, p. 27).
78

Clausula Formalis Imperfecta Dissecta ist / wenn an statt der absteigenden Quart, oder
auffsteigenden Quint ein ander Intervallum gesetzt wird / also da es den abgeschnittenen Klang
Verlangen mache (ibid., I.8, 22, p. 28).
79

178

for example, are all possibilities according to Printzs text. Printzs musical examples, however,
present a far more constrained range of options. In each modes example of the imperfecta
dissecta cadence (see Example 3), the bass rises by step to arrive on a root position dominant
chord, but the upper voices exhibit a significant degree of variation. With respect to chord
types, the different predominant harmonies Printz includes are IV, ii6, and V6/V. The
relationship between the predominant harmony in the imperfecta dissecta and perfecta totalis
cadences also varies: in Aeolian/Hypoaeolian, the predominant chord is identical in both cases,
while in the Ionian/Hypoionian, Dorian/Hypodorian, and Lydian/Hypolydian modes the
imperfecta dissectas ii6 (or II6 in the case of Lydian/Hypolydian) chord replaces the predominant
tonic triad of the perfecta totalis cadence. In the case of Mixolydian/Hypomixolydian, the perfecta
totalis begins with a IV chord, whereas the imperfecta dissecta starts with a V6/V. Thus, Printz
allows for a diversity of progressions in his imperfecta dissecta cadence type, and does not
exemplify it merely with abbreviated reproductions of the perfecta totalis cadence. Indeed, the
relationship between the predominant harmonies of the clausula perfecta dissecta and clausula
imperfecta dissecta is similar to the relationship between the post-dominant harmonies of the
clausula perfecta totalis and the clausula imperfecta totalis: in both cases the clausula imperfecta
replaces the chord normally found in the corresponding clausula perfecta with one that is
inverted or has a different root, which may effect the lesser degree of rest to which Printzs
definition of the clausula imperfecta refers.
Many of these imperfecta cadences appear to align well with Matthaeis sense of
imperfecta clausulas. As mentioned above, those cadences described as clausula imperfecta totalis
all have at least one voice that moves to an unexpected note on the final chord; thus, they

179

correspond to Matthaeis clausula occulta, a subtype of his clausula imperfecta. The clausula
perfecta dissecta desiderans and clausula imperfecta dissecta cadences, both of which are similar to
contemporary half cadences, fit Matthaeis larger category of clausula imperfecta, which remains
on the penultimate chord. The only objection to this parallel is the clausula perfecta dissecta
acquiescens, which roughly corresponds to a plagal cadence, and which will be discussed below.
Carl Dahlhaus, in his brief discussion of Printzs theory, understands the fundamental
distinction between totalis and dissecta to be that the former is complete, whereas the latter is
interrupted.80 This interpretation, doubtless inspired by the evocative abgeschnitten, is
intuitively compelling, yet not entirely accurate. In anachronistic and convenient terms, totalis
cadences progress from a dominant harmony (root position or inverted) to a tonic or tonic
substitute (I6, i, or vi). Dissecta cadences are half cadences (preceded by I or a chord built on a
scale degree other than the tonic) or plagal cadences. Because modern theorists would not
necessarily assume that a deceptive cadence is more complete than a plagal cadence,
Dahlhauss summary can be misleading. Instead, it is better to understand totalis cadences as
those where the bass descends by fifth in the final succession (perfecta totalis) or where one or
more voices are diverted from their expected resolutions in such a cadence (the imperfecta totalis
cadences); dissecta cadences are cadences other than these, and either stop on the penult (perfecta
dissecta desiderans and imperfecta dissecta) or descend by a fourth in the bass in the final
succession (perfecta dissecta acquiescens). From this, one can generalize that a totalis cadence
contains both a dominant chord and subsequent chord, either the tonic or a tonic substitute,

Carl Dahlhaus, Studies on the Origin of Harmonic Tonality, trans. Robert O. Gjerdingen
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 219.
80

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whereas a dissecta cadence lacks that progression, either because it stops on the dominant or
because it consists of a plagal cadence.
Notably absent from Printzs treatment of totalis and dissecta cadences, and of all
cadences in general, is any substantial discussion of rhythmic or metric concerns. Such
discussion could have been especially enlightening when it comes to dissecta cadences. As we
have seen, Printz describes dissecta cadences as those in which the final note of a totalis cadence
has been abgeschnitten, or cut off; and indeed, the examples of the dissecta desiderans and
imperfecta dissecta cadences he provides in Example 3.3 sound distinctly interrupted to modern
ears, as their endings occur on weak beats. Yet he never addresses the rhythmic alterations that
often accompany cadences that end on dominant chords, alterations that cause the dominant to
arrive a beat later, on the strong beat upon which the tonic would arrive in a clausula perfecta
totalis. While the cadential practice of the later seventeenth century was not at all as metrically
fixed as in the music of the high classical period, the fact that Printz does not characterize
different cadence types with regard to their metrical possibilities demonstrates that his concept
of cadence was more narrowly focused on pitch, and consequently that todays conceptions of
cadence usually involve a greater number of musical parameters, with meter being one of the
most significant additions.

3.3.5 Desiderans/Acquiescens
Printzs definition of dissecta raises a question: in what sense can a cadence be both
perfecta and dissecta, i.e., what does it mean to hear a cadence come to rest while simultaneously

181

the falling fifth or rising fourth seems to have been, as it were, cut off from it?81 An analogy to
the contemporary theoretical construct of the half cadence suggests itself: while the half cadence
concludes phrases, thus bringing them to rest, one also usually understands it as an aborted full
cadence, interrupted before reaching stronger closure on a withheld tonic.82 This analogy works
well for the perfecta dissecta desiderans cadence, which desires (desiderat) the cut-off chord, but
it is less true of the perfecta dissecta acquiescens, of which Printz explicitly says that it does not
long for that cut-off chord.83
Further investigation of these two cadence types, in which the bass falls a fourth or rises
a fifth, may help to resolve the apparent discrepancy. According to Printzs definitions, the
desiderans (desiring) cadence should have smaller note values or a brief syncopation, but the
essential difference between these two types seems to be whether the ear desires the
abgeschnittene note. According to Printzs discussion in the text, it seems that the acquiescens
(resting) cadence does not desire the cut-off note because the final chord of the progression is
held for a long time relative to the final chord of a desiderans cadence. Yet Printzs musical
examples suggest that the two types of dissecta cadences do not diverge solely with respect to
duration (see Example 3.3). In each mode, the bass of the acquiescens cadence moves from the

. . . also da gleichsam die absteigende Quint oder auffsteigende Quart darvon abgeschnitten
zu seyn scheinet (Printz, Phrynis, I.8, 7, p. 27). One could argue that perfecta dissecta refers to a cadence
that would have been perfecta had it not been dissecta, but this hypothesis cannot account for the existence
of both perfecta dissecta and imperfecta dissecta cadences, since they hypothesized non-perfect meaning
describes the latter, not the former.
81

Of course modern half cadences are understood to arrive normally on a strong beat; thus, the
aborted full cadential progression also undergoes a rhythmic alteration. As discussed in 3.3.4, Printz
provides no information on the metrical disposition of dissecta cadences.
82

83

Printz, Phrynis, I.8, 10, p. 27.

182

fourth above the modal final to that final, while the bass of the desiderans cadence progresses
from the final to the fifth above it. This suggests that there is a far more significant difference
between the two types than the durational variation that Printz describes. It seems likely that
Printz intuited a difference in achievement of closure that he struggled to articulate: his names
for the cadences (desiring and resting) broadly characterize the two types perceptual
affects, but he was unable to describe the difference he perceived more precisely. Instead, he
may have fallen back on this durational distinction as an artificial, and perhaps musically
untenable, means to explicate the technical difference between the two cadences.
Dahlhaus interprets these progressions as demonstrating that Printzs acquiescens
category refers to the tonal rest that comes from motion to the tonic, whereas the desiderans
yearns for the tonic.84 This seems very plausible in the case of the latter: a clausula perfecta
dissecta desiderans would be a cadence that begins as if it were a perfecta totalis, with no
inversions or other alterations (thus perfecta), but also desires a chord which has been cut off
(the final tonic of the expected tonic-dominant-tonic progression, in Dahlhauss terms). The
case of the former is more puzzlingwhat is the chord that has been cut off? Inasmuch as a
clausula perfecta dissecta acquiescens is an incomplete tonic-dominant-tonic progression, the final
sounding chord (the would-be dominant) should be able to be resolved by a triad a fifth below
it. Yet if the dissecta acquiescens concludes on the tonic, then the tonic resolution that should
follow it would be a fifth below, and the entire cadence would be a cut-off version of a tonicdominant-tonic progression in the mode a fourth below (in the subdominant key, as it were).

84

Dahlhaus, Studies on the Origin of Harmonic Tonality, 219.

183

At the pause on the local dominant, that chords status as the global tonic would reassert itself,
and consequently the entire progression would come to rest. This interpretation seems
plausible, and accounts for the details encountered so far. (Section 3.3.6 below, however, will
address a fundamental problem with this interpretation.) Fortunately there is another, yet more
plausible interpretation, one which does not depend on invoking a foreign mode. In a later
passage of his chapter on cadences, Printz remarkably comments that the dissecta acquiescens
cadence occurs at the end of Phrygian and Hypophrygian pieces.85 This is a noteworthy
observation because Printz is one of the earliest theorists explicitly to connect a particular
manner of cadencing with a certain mode; furthermore, he never relates this cadence type to
any other mode in his verbal remarks. As Example 3.3 demonstrates, Printzs preservation of
the twelve-mode system means that there can be no clausula perfecta totalis in Phrygian and
Hypophrygian, as the triad a fifth above the final has a diminished fifth. As a result, the dissecta
acquiescens cadence functions as the conclusive cadence in those modes.
This cadence, however, is far from the only final cadence used in Phrygian- and
Hypophrygian-identified pieces. Example 3.5 shows a variety of clausulas, all of which can be
found at the end of such compositions. The ordering of cadences 5b-g is determined by a
logical reconstruction of compositional development, which the following material elaborates.
Thus, while the ordering is informed by the dating of compositions from the sixteenth and

85

Printz, Phrynis, 31.

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seventeenth centuries, I do not claim that it does justice to complexity of compositional practice
in this period of significant modal/tonal development.86
Before considering these cadences, it is important to address what is meant by
Phrygian- and Hypophrygian-identified pieces. As Harold Powers has most famously
argued, the relationship between systems of modality and polyphonic compositional practice
was fraught from the first attempts to reconcile the two in the second half of the fifteenth
century.87 Over the course of the following two centuries compositional practice changed

Example 3.5 Phrygian-related cadences

Intriguingly, forms of all five cadences of Examples 5c-g are provided by Thomas Morley in
1597 as examples of formal closes on E (A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke, ff. S3v, T1v.
86

See Powers, Is Mode Real? and idem, Modality as a European Cultural Construct, in
Secondo convegno europeo di analisi musicale: Atti, ed. Rosanna Dalmonte and Mario Baroni (Trento:
Universit degli studi di Trento, Dipartimento di storia della civilt europea), 207-20.
87

185

substantially, and the gradual spread of the so-called church keys, not to mention the nascent
major-minor key system, casts serious doubt on the continued applicability of the traditional
twelve-mode system to pieces of that day.88 Nevertheless, the concept of the twelve-mode
system plays a prominent role in Printzs theorizing of cadence, and it would be a loss to fail to
compare his dictates to compositional practice simply because of the modal/tonal complexity of
that practice. As a result, I have employed several criteria to determine which pieces final
cadences should be considered. The most historically well-founded criterion is contemporary
modal assignments, either citations of chorale melodies as belonging to certain modes, or
collections of movements ordered by mode. I have supplemented this with considerations of
the given pieces characteristics, most notably an emphasis on the mi-to-mi species of the fifth,
and a final on E (or a transposed form of E, if the piece is not in cantus durus). Lastly, even
though there is substantial diversity of nomenclature and conceptual apparatus between
Phrygian, Hypophrygian, and the third and fourth church keys, there also exists significant
similarities of compositional approach to their pitch material and final cadences. This leads me
to adopt the phrase mi tonality, which Cristle Collins Judd coined, to refer to the collection of
these modal types.89

Concerning the church keys, see Powers, From Psalmody to Tonality, 322-33. For more on
the diversity of tonal systems operating in the late seventeenth century, see Gregory Barnett, Tonal
Organization in Seventeenth-Century Music Theory, in The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory,
ed. Thomas Christensen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 207-55.
88

Cristle Collins Judd, Modal Types and Ut, Re, Mi Tonalities: Tonal Coherence in Sacred Vocal
Polyphony from about 1500, Journal of the American Musicological Society 45 (1992): 428-67.
89

186

Example 3.5a consists of a simplified form of Printzs clausula perfecta dissecta acquiescens,
reproduced here for ease of reference. The next two measures, Example 3.5b, show the discanttenor framework of the Phrygian cadence,90 wherein the tenor descends by step and the
discant rises by step to form an octave. Back in the sixteenth century, when additional voices
needed to be added to this cadence, they were usually those shown in Example 3.5c.91 Although
this cadence sounds like a plagal cadence in A minor to modern listeners, due to our usual
reliance on the lowest sounding voice in determining tonal focus, in the sixteenth century the
tenors E was considered to indicate the modality.
This tenor-focused conception of modality began to change in the mid-seventeenth
century, however. Changes in compositional practice seem to reflect a greater emphasis placed
on the bass: the traditional sixteenth-century cadence (Example 3.5c), which closes with an A in
the bass, fell out of favor, and was replaced by the cadences shown in Example 3.5d-f. In
Example 3.5d, the tenors descending semitone is transferred to the bass part, and the upper
voices fill out the harmonies to make complete triads.92 Consequently, the cadence comes to
rest on an E major triad, and the modal final is now in the bass. Printz calls this type of cadence

As mentioned above, few, if any, theorists before Printz explicitly connect the Phrygian mode
to a particular type of cadence, so the term Phrygian cadence appears to be an anachronism. (Perhaps
the closest anyone comes is the example of a final [finalis] cadence shown by Herbst in his discussion of
only the Phrygian mode [Musica Poetica VII, p. 71].) Nevertheless, this type of cadence was clearly
understood to be proper for mi-tonality pieces, as is made clear by its presence at the end of Zarlinos
example of the third mode (Ist. harm. IV.20, p. 323).
90

This is, in fact, a transcription of the standard four-voice cadence on mi proposed by Johannes
Cochlaeus in his Musica of 1507 (f. F4v). Mein Lieb ist weg (Tabulaturen etlicher Lobgesang [Mainz,
1512]), by Arnolt Schlick (ca. 1460-after 1521), concludes with this type of cadence, and is reproduced as
Example 2.7 in the preceding chapter.
91

Sebastian Anton Scherer, Intonationes breves per octos tonos (Ulm, 1664), Intonationes 3 and 4 of
the fourth tone (pp. 15-6).
92

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a clausula formalis imperfecta totalis ordinata descendens, and Example 3.3 shows that it is one of the
three cadence types that Printz allows in the Phrygian and Hypophrygian modes.
Example 3.5e begins identically, but then includes two more chords at the end of the
progression.93 These two have a familiar sound to the modern ear, and could be characterized
in several different ways: as an Amen-style plagal cadence (this time in the key of E, rather
than Example 3.5cs A minor), or as a post-cadential elaboration, by means of a doublecomplete-neighbor 6/4 figure with an interpolated bass creating root position triads. In either
case, in Printzs terms an ordinata descendens cadence is followed by a clausula perfecta dissecta
acquiescens, as comparison with Example 3.5a demonstrates. This particular succession of
chords occurs frequently at the end of Phrygian and Hypophrygian pieces in the 1660s and 70s,
and conforms well to Printzs edicts that the dissecta acquiescens cadence concludes pieces in this
mode. Furthermore, it simultaneously emphasizes the discant-tenor frameworks progression
from a major sixth to an octave on E by placing it in the outer voices, though Printz does not
speak explicitly of this point.
Example 3.5f presents another progression that concludes mi-tonality pieces of that era.94
This one ends with the same dissecta acquiescens cadence as Example 3.5e, but without the
preceding E major triad. As a result, this progression lacks a direct statement of the discanttenor frameworks F-D sixth to E-E octave succession, which had characterized Phrygian and
Hypophrygian closure in the sixteenth century. The basss F does move to the expected E in the

An embellished form of this cadence occurs at the end of Heinrich Schtz, Erbarm dich mein,
o Herre Gott (SWV 447) (Dresden, 1664).
93

Example 3.6 provides an example of a piece that concludes with this progression, except that
the first sonoritys outer voices have been exchanged.
94

188

next measure, suggesting the possibility of hearing Example 3.5f as a variant of 3.5d, into which
an A minor triad has been interpolated, or of 3.5e, from which the first E major triad has been
elided. With respect to the first interpretation, seventeenth century accounts of cadence do not
suggest that listeners of the day used this strategy to understand music, and Printzs category of
the dissecta acquiescens clausula emphasizes precisely the A minor to E major progression that
this interpolative analysis minimizes. The second, elision-based interpretation does find some
support in music texts of the day,95 but if the discant-tenor frameworks progression were a
necessary conceptual precursor to the dissecta acquiescens cadence, one might expect Printz to
have made some reference to that situation. Thus, it appears that by Printzs day closure in the
mi tonality was no longer effected exclusively (and perhaps not even primarily) by the
traditional discant-tenor framework of ascending whole tone and descending semitone that we
today call a Phrygian cadence. Rather, motion to an E major triad, either from a D-F sonority or
an A-rooted triad, seems to come to communicate closure in the Phrygian and Hypophrygian
modes.
Another type of cadence, which is shown in Example 3.5g, also occurs in mi-tonality
music of Printzs day.96 The initial progression is the now familiar, ordinata descendens cadence
of Example 3.5d. After that comes the archetypical perfect cadence, the clausula perfecta totalis.

Christoph Bernhard discusses a musical figure he terms ellipsis, in which two consecutive
dissonances suggest that an intervening consonance has been elided (Bericht/Tractatus, ed. Walter Hilse,
pp. 112-4). In the case of Example 3.5f, the progression from the D/F sonority to the A minor chord
proceeds by entirely consonant intervals, so the standard Figurenlehre approach of providing a consonant
framework to explain dissonances is not obviously applicable.
95

Scherer, Intonationes breves, Intonatio 1 of the third tone (p. 9), but with the first sonoritys outer
voices exchanged.
96

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Printz never discusses this particular cadential event, likely because he would not have thought
that it was modally valid. One reason why that could be so is that the final harmony of the
piece, the A major chord, does not include a single E, the putative modal final. Another reason
is because this is a perfecta totalis cadence in the Aeolian and Hypoaeolian modes, and thus its
only status in Phrygian is as a borrowed, foreign (peregrina) entity, not proper to the key. To
end a piece with a progression that sounds like it belongs to a different mode would be
upsetting to modal theorists of a more conservative strain: to them, a proper cadence in the
correct mode would still be required. Nevertheless, this cadence definitely occurs at the end of
mi-tonality pieces, and, indeed, does so frequently. It is beyond the scope of this dissertation to
determine absolutely whether this cadence is best interpreted as a sign of the rise of
major/minor key relations, as an indication of the increasingly paradigmatic nature of the
perfect cadence regardless of mode, or as an integral part of the modal tradition overlooked by
Printz. In either case, the frequent occurrence of this cadence is a problem for Printzs doctrine,
and it is emblematic of the discrepancy between musical practice and theory that came to
require a fundamental shift in cadential doctrine in future generations.
For a brief example of how contemporary composers employed cadences in the
Phrygian mode, consider Example 3.6. This setting of an old Lutheran chorale melody was
published in Dresden in 1661. The melody exhibits the range and melodic emphases
characteristic of the Phrygian mode, a reading confirmed by Johann Walthers citation of it as a
Phrygian melody in the early eighteenth century.97 The broad outlines of Schtzs choice of

97

Walther, Praecepta, 323.

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cadences in this chorale setting are fairly typical for chorales in this mode: an ordinata adscendens
perfectior cadence (the outer voices of which contain an inverted form of the discant-tenor
frameworks F-D to E-E progression) at the end of the repeated section, and a dissecta acquiescens
cadence at the conclusion of the piece. This particular final cadence takes the form of Example
3.5f, the type which does not articulate the discant-tenor frameworks mi-resolving progression.
For the other melodic resting points in the piece Schtz employs cadences that Printz would not
consider to be primaria in the Phrygian mode. The first phrase concludes with an ordinata
descendens cadence, but in a transposed system: the D# arises from a transposition of the
Phrygian modes form of that cadence by a descending fourth. The third and fourth phrases
each conclude with perfecta totalis cadences proper to the Aeolian and Mixolydian modes,
respectively. Such a series of perfect cadences borrowed from other modes is characteristic of

Example 3.6 Heinrich Schtz, Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, SWV 235 (Dresden, 1661)

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this section of Phrygian chorale settings, as Phrygian- specific events seem to be reserved for
moments of special significance, such as conclusions.
In light of this analysis of cadences in the mi tonality, it seems that the paradox of the
dissecta acquiescens, or interrupted resting, cadence can be resolved. Printz explicitly uses
perfecta dissecta to refer to the form of ascending fifth/descending fourth in the bass. In
many situations this corresponds to the motion away from the final at the ends of phrases, and
thus sounds like an interrupted clausula perfecta totalis, which desires the absent triad on the
modal final. In the Phrygian and Hypophrygian modes the same bass motion obtains, and thus
it seems to share in the character of being cut off. Yet here it constitutes a gesture that confirms
Phrygian character with a cadence unique to this mode, and, as such, this particular ascending
fifth progression has a sense of closure and rest unlike any other dissecta cadence.

3.3.6 The Sedes

One of the most forward looking aspects of Printzs cadence doctrine is not incorporated
into his hierarchy of cadence types: it is his concept of Sedes subintellecta and Sedes expressa.
These two terms comprise a separate binary that Printz employs to describe the relative
experience of closure of a given cadence. Printz writes: In order to understand this correctly
one must know that the seat of the clausula formalis is the sonus fundamentalis (the fundamental
sound), which is required to make the clausula formalis complete and perfect. This sonus, or
sound, is either expressed (ausdrcklich gesezet) or is understood. If it is the former, it is called a
sedes expressa (an expressed seat); if it is the latter, it is called a sedes subintellecta (an

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implied or understood seat).98 Like most of Printzs terminology, the terms are somewhat
awkward to translate. Sedes is Latin for seatmusical chair, if you prefer; it might be best
glossed as resting place. Expressa, also Latin, means articulated or expressed. The
most important term is subintellecta, which refers to things that are understood by the
intellect, but not actually present.
These terms furnish a binary in which cadences either attain their desired resting places
or do not. In Example 3.3 above, the leftmost four cadences all are sedes expressa, while the
rightmost four are sedes subintellecta; Figure 3.2 uses daggers and asterisks to relay to which of
these two categories Printz assigns his cadences. Those cadences that are expressa conclude
with a root position triad with the modal final in the lowest voice. This strongly suggests that
the modal final is the same as Printzs Sonus fundamentalis or Grund-Klang. In fact, Printz later
explains that fundamental sound is a particular pitch. Confirmation of this thesis comes with
Printzs description of those cadences which have a sedes expressa: . . . in these the seat is easily
recognized because it is the final sound in the lowest voice, in that it is required to make the
clausula formalis entire and full.99
When it comes to the sedes subintellecta cadences, Printz provides an illustration to make
his meaning clearer (see Example 3.7). The four types, perfecta dissecta desiderans, imperfecta

Umb dieses recht zu verstehen / ist zu wissen / da der Sitz Clausulae Formalis sey Sonus
fundamentalis, (der Grund-Klang) welcher erfordert wird / die Clausulam Formalem ganz und
vollkommen zu machen. Dieser Sonus oder Klang wird entweder ausdrcklich gesezet / oder verstehet
sich. Ist jenes / so heisset er Sedes expressa, (ein ausdrcklicher Sitz;) Ist dieses / so heisset er sedes
subintellecta, (ein verdeckter Sitz) (Printz, Phrynis, I.8, 28-9, p. 28).
98

. . . in diesen wird der Sitz leicht erkennet / weil er der letzte Klang in der Grund-Stimme ist /
als der da erfordert wird / die Clausulam Formalem gantz und vllig zu machen (ibid., 30, p. 29).
99

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dissecta, ordinata adscendens, and saltiva imperfectior, are all notated in the Ionian mode, and after
each cadence Printz supplies the understood sedes, which in each case is a C. The first two
cases, in which the harmonies progress to a G major chord and then halt, imply that the
expected C major harmony has been omitted. The latter two, in which the final chords are an A
minor and an inverted C major triad, are more interesting yet. They suggest that Printz feels
that the root-position C major triad has been supplanted, rather than omitted. Printz describes
all four progressions individually using slight variants of the same phrase, adjusted to account
for the differences between the progressions. In the case of the third progression, the clausula
formalis imperfecta totalis ordinate adscendens imperfectior, he writes: Ordinata Adscendens
Imperfectior [cadences] have an understood seat, because the last sound of the desired falling
fifth or rising fourth, in place of which the rising second is set, is an understood seat. [This is]
because it would make a perfect (vollkomme) clausula formalis if it were employed instead of the
last sound of said [rising] second.100 When the progression from the G major to A minor
harmonies sounds, Printz avers that the progressions proper resting place, C major, is

Example 3.7 The Sedes Subintellecta, from Phrynis, I.8, 31, p. 29.

Sedem subintellectam haben . . . Ordinatae Adscendentes Imperfectiores : Denn der letzte

Sonus der desiderirten absteigenden Qvint oder auffsteigenden Qvart, an deren statt die auffsteigende
Secunda gesetzt ist / ist Sedes subintellecta ; Weil er die Clausulam Formalem vollkommen machte /
wenn er an statt des letzten Soni der besagten Secundae gesetzt wrde (ibid., 31, p. 29).
100

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understood or implied (subintellecta). In the case of the fourth progression, the final harmony
contains all the correct pitch classes, but in the wrong registers: an imperfect consonance
between the outer two voices, the minor thirteenth, replaces the expected bisdiapason, a
phenomenon which corresponds to Zarlinos fuggir la cadenza,101 and which composers have
employed since at least the time of Dufay. Printz never articulates the nature of the perceptual
and/or cognitive work listeners undertake when hearing such a progression, nor even spells out
explicitly that there is any relationship between the sedes subintellecta and listeners.
Nonetheless, his choice of the term subintellecta, which denotes that its referent, sedes, is
implied or understood, and his talk of one sound happening instead of (anstatt) another
strongly suggest that Printz believes that it is possible for us as listeners to hear one pitch at the
same time that we cognize a mental representation ofor hear internallythe sedes in place
of which the sounding note occurs.
To be sure, theoretical discussion of these latter two progressions are not entirely
unprecedented. Conrad Matthaeis examples of the clausula occulta show a similar progression,
in which a G major chord moves to an A minor triad, and two in which the final chord is F
major. Matthaeis description of these is concise: he says that they lead their ultimate sonority
elsewhere.102 Nevertheless, Printzs account is a substantial increase in sophistication from all
previous attempts to theorize incomplete cadences, and prefigures Rameaus theory of the role

101

Zarlino, Ist. harm. III.54, p. 226.

102

. . . ihre Ultimam anders wohin fhren . . . Matthaei, Kurtzer Bericht, I, 20, p. 8.

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of the ear in hearing/understanding (sous-entendu, a French cognate of subintellecta) sounds that

are not in fact present.103
These categories of subintellecta and expressa also shed further light on the distinction
between the clausula formalis perfecta dissecta acquiescens and desiderans. The initial hypothesis
put forth above to explain the dissect acquiescens cadence is that it consists of a tonic-dominanttonic progression in the key of the subdominant (Aeolian mode) in which the final chord is left
out, and that at the local dominant, the ear recognizes the global tonic and thus comes to rest.
Printz labels the dissecta acquiescens cadence as being sedes expressa; according to his definition,
this means that it expresses the resting point/fundamental sound of the clausula formalis. (Note
that this sound is not necessarily the modal final, since in secundaria, tertiaria, and peregrina
cadences the cadential Sitz is different from the modes final). If Printz conceived the dissecta
acquiescens as a cut-off totalis cadence in the Aeolian mode, then the sonus fundamentalis of that
clausula, A, is not expressed at the end of the progression. Printz clearly considers E major to
be the sedes of this cadence, which disqualifies the Aeolian interpretation of it. The clausula
formalis perfecta dissecta acquiescens comes to rest on the Grund-Klang of its progression, and the
dissecta desiderans cadence desires that Grund-Klang, but never comes to rest on it. Thus, through
the combination of his terminological choices and his concept of sedes expressa and subintellecta,
Printz carefully characterizes the perceptual experience of two formally similar but
experientially different cadences.

For more, see David E. Cohen, The Gift of Nature: Musical Instinct and Musical Cognition
in Rameau, in Music Theory and Natural Order from the Renaissance to the Early Twentieth Century, ed.
Suzannah Clark and Alexander Rehding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 69-92.
103

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As alluded to earlier in the chapter, Printz employs the sedes to novel effect in his
discussion of the traditional categories of primaria, secundaria, and tertiaria clausulae. While
Printz maintains the longstanding association of primaria with the root of the trias harmonica,
secundaria with its fifth, and so forth, these associations yield unusual results in Printzs theory.
Printz labels all the cadences shown in Example 3.3 as clausulae formales primariae, suggesting
that all of them should be associated with the root of the trias. Yet as Lori Burns has observed,
Printzs clausulae formales primariae do not necessarily resolve to the tonic, as in the I V
progression, and there are even some primary cadences in which the tonic triad is not present . .
. In considering these cadential progressions to be primary, Printz departs significantly from
earlier definitions of primary cadences.104 Burns is certainly right: as we have seen, earlier
theorists thought of regular or proper cadences as those in which the tenor (in Zarlinos
case) or the discant (in seventeenth century German theory) comes to rest on the modal final, its
third, fifth, or sometimes its octave. Printz, however, establishes a new understanding of the
distinction between peregrina and propria, with its constituent categories. Burns makes this
distinction to be that in propria cadences one part of the triad is placed in the harmonic triad of
the main mode, whereas in peregrina cadences no part of the triad is placed in the harmonic
triad of the main mode.105 Yet a careful reading of Printzs text demonstrates that his
understanding of the distinction is more conceptually sophisticated, and it involves the sedes.

104

Burns, Bachs Modal Chorales, 202.

105

Ibid., 199.

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In his initial discussion of the topic, Printz defines the propria clausula as that which has
its seat or place (Sitz oder Stelle) on one part of the harmonic triad of its mode.106 The terms Sitz
and Stelle go unremarked upon throughout his definitions of the three types of propria cadences
and the peregrina cadence. It is not until several paragraphs later that Printz clarifies that to
understand this correctly is to know that the seat (Sitz) of a clausula formalis is its fundamental
sound (the ground-sound); thereafter he begins his discussion of the sedes, explaining that this
sound (Sonus oder Klang) can be either expressed or understood.107 Clearly Printz has replaced
the traditional association of primaria cadence and the articulation of the modal final by the
discant voice, in favor of a new understanding of a primaria cadence as that in which the modal
final is understood (subintellecta) to occur in the lowest voice, even when it does not. This is
indeed a significant departure from earlier classifications, and demonstrates a shift from a
mechanical identification of the note found in the discant to a characterization of progressions
based on their expected conclusions.
It is also worth noting that the two kinds of sedes cast a revealing light on the limitations
of Printzs Ramist edifice, as represented in Figure 3.2. Sedes expressa cadences are not limited to
one branch of the structure and sedes subintellecta cadences to the other; in fact, many of the most
closely related cadences according to the branching structure are assigned to opposite sedes
types. As a result, Printz essentially cordons off his discussion of the sedes from his initial

Propria ist / die ihren Sitz oder Stelle hat in einem Theil Triadis Harmonicae ihres Modi
(Printz, Phrynis, I.8, 24, p. 28).
106

Umb dieses recht zu verstehen / ist zu wissen / da der Sitz Clausulae Formalis sey Sonus
fundamentalis (der Grund-Klang) . . . (ibid., 28); Dieser sonus oder Klang wird entweder ausdrcklich
gesetzet / oder verstehet sich (ibid., 29).
107

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Ramist narration: he does not list the cadences in precisely the same order in which they occur
in his initial systematic exposition (though the order is, admittedly, very close to identical), and
he discusses the sedes only after going into yet another cadential classification system that is
unrelated to the initial Ramist-inspired one, to wit, that of propria vs. peregrina cadences.108
These incompatible classification systems, along with the discussion of the traditional voicedefined cadences that immediately follows, demonstrate the wide variety of ways in which
Printz conceptualizes cadences, many of which yield conflicting characterizations and
classificatory schemes.

3.3.7 An Inchoate Theory of Phrases

One final contribution Printz made to the theory of cadences was to link them to the
concept of the section (sectio). His discussion of this matter is quite brief: Note here that
sections are named after their formal clausulas. E.g. A section is called totalis perfecta
primaria which has a totalis perfecta primaria formal clausula.109 After this Printz goes on to
explicate a supplementary way of classifying sections: by the extent to which two sections are
related to each other, with respect to their durations and the rhythmic nature of their
beginnings, middles, and endings.110 Printz then articulates a rudimentary sense of phrase

108

See section 4.3.2 above for an examination of Printzs discussion of this classification system.

Mercke hier / da die Sectiones von ihren Clausulis Formalibus benennet werden. z.E. Sectio
Totalis Perfecta Primaria wird genennet / welche Clausulam Formalem Totalem Perfectam Primariam
hat (Printz, Phrynis, I.8, 44, p. 32).
109

110

Ibid., 45-52, p. 32.

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hierarchy by means of the concept of caesura.111 There are two senses of caesura, which he
clearly delineates: the first is a musical division or separation, and the second is a part of a
section, articulated by caesuras in the first sense.112 With regard to the first sense, it is worth
noting that both the 1676 and 1696 editions of Phrynis clearly align letters D and E, which
indicate caesuras, above the rests in Example 3.8. This placement suggests that Printz
understands musical division to be created by lack of musical activity. As for the second sense
of caesura, Printz lays out subsections which can be classified in relation to each other by length
and rhythmic quality just like the larger sections. Printzs example of caesuras is transcribed in
Example 3.8. Concerning this figure, Printz writes: AB is the entire section, which has three
caesuras in the first sense, namely, C, D, E, and four in the other sense, namely, AC, CD, DE,
and EB. Of those, the first three (AC, CD, and DE) are related (relativae), because they are
similar to each other in their length and manner of progressing.113 The term manner of
progressing is defined slightly before this quotation as the rhythmic character of the middle of

Example 3.8 Caesuras, from Phrynis, I.8, 57, p. 33.

It is difficult to assert with confidence whether Printzs concept of the sectio corresponds
perfectly to the modern idea of the phrase, in large part due to a lack of consensus as to what defines the
phrase. Printzs sectio does end with a cadence and is composed of shorter, hierarchically nested
subsections, which are commonly understood to be necessary characteristics of the phrase.
111

112

Ibid., 54-6, pp. 32-3.

AB ist die ganze Section, welche drey Caesuras erster Bedeutung hat / nemlich C, D, E, und
vier der andern Bedeutung / nemlich AC, CD, DE und EB, deren ersten drey AC, CD, und DE Relativae
seyn / weil sie einander an der Zeit und Modo progrediendi gleich seyn (ibid., 57, p. 33).
113

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a sectio. Presumably this term refers to the entirety of an individual caesura: because these are
so brief, it would seem obtuse to differentiate between the rhythmic characters of their
beginnings, middles, and ends.
Thus concludes the discussion of sections in this chapter. Yet as Thomas Huener has
pointed out, Printzs treatment of the subject continues elsewhere.114 Towards the end of the
treatise, Printz adds to his inchoate theory of form in the context of his treatment of rhythm.
Huener demonstrates that Printz develops his characterization of sections by their lengths: his
concept of sectional number (numerus sectionalis) quantifies the number of time-units
(tempora), or tactus, that occur in the section or caesura.115 This number can be either whole or
include fractions of a time-unit. Furthermore, Printz proposes a hierarchical nesting of formal
categories by means of an analogy to speech, carrying on a longstanding tradition.116 Beyond
these observations, Printz does not put his theory of sections to much use.
There is much that this incipient theory of sections does not do. It does not speculate on
the maximum, minimum, or usual lengths of sections. As a result, one cannot assert with
confidence that his concept of the sectio aligns neatly with our concept of the phrase, although
the fact that it ends with a cadence and is composed of shorter segments is suggestive. It has no
criteria for determining whether all cadences necessitate that the section concludes, and there is
no indication at all that sections in one part of a piece may function differently from those in
another part. Nevertheless, Printzs brief account establishes a strong onomastic connection

114

See Huener, Printz Phrynis, 129-32, 136-7.

115

Ibid., 131, referencing Printz, Phrynis, III.15, p. 111.

116

Ibid.

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between cadences and sections, and thereby hints at an ontological link between them. Indeed,
Printz starts the entire chapter by defining a sectio as a part of the melody which ends with a
clausula formalis.117 The significance of the concept of the section is also demonstrated simply
by the fact that Printz gives heed to such issues in the first place: concerns of phrase hierarchy
and segmentation did not play a notable role in Printzs German predecessors, and have no
place whatsoever in their discussions of cadence. Thus, although this incipient attempt to
articulate a theory of phrase which could be responsive to cadence does not amount to much in
Printzs treatise, it marked an important early step in the development of a German theory of
form that came to fruition in the next century and a half with the writings of Koch and A. B.
Marx.

3.4 Conclusion
Let us return now to the structure that contains Printzs cadential doctrine. We have
seen that his presentation of the different types of clausula formalis follows the Ramist method
precisely, as Figure 2s conversion of discourse into diagram demonstrates. Figure 3 shows that
Printzs discussion of the relationship between cadence and mode follows the same pattern. Yet
the strikingly formal structure of these elements of cadential doctrine does not extend to the
doctrine as a whole: there is no initial general definition of cadence, and no initial division of
cadence into cadence with respect to voices (Clausula formalis in Ansehung der Stimmen),
cadence with respect to mode (Clausula formalis in Ansehung des Modi oder Toni), and whatever

117

Sectio ist ein Theil der Melodey / so sich endet mit einer Clausula Formali (Phrynis, I.8, 1, p.

26).

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other partitions Printz might have employed to divide his subject. The individual components
are ordered, but the whole is not.
This is true not just of Printzs doctrine of cadence, but of Phrynis Mitilenus as a whole.
As alluded to in this chapters introduction, the work is one of a small number of German quasinovelistic music treatises from the turn of the eighteenth century, and, as Thomas Huener has
shown, is utterly unique in the extent to which it weaves detailed music-theoretic lore into a
narrative framework.118 The treatises storyline concerns the eponymous Phrynis, who is a
loosely fictionalized stand-in for Printz himself. The second book of the treatise intersperses
theoretical discussions with narrative episodes about Phryniss travels in a fictionalized Italy,
and the third book presents its doctrine largely in the form of dialogue between characters.119
The first book, however, largely consists of an independent synopsis of poetic music (Synopsis
musicae poeticae) supposedly dictated and explained to Phrynis by Rhtus, an aged music
teacher whom he encountered during his journey.120
Thus, in the world of Phrynis Mitilenus, the narrator (Phrynis) takes the content of his
musical forbear and sets it into a new context, his novel; within that fictional realm, it is entirely
conceivable that Phrynis adapted and improved the ideas of Rhtus when they seemed
unclear. In our world, the author (Printz) takes the cadential content of his musical
predecessors, and recasts them in a Ramist form. And the numerous innovations and

Huener, Printz Phrynis, 140-3. This unusual genre is not entirely extinct: Harald Krebss
book Fantasy Pieces has a similar narrative frame for its theoretic content (Fantasy Pieces: Metrical
Dissonance in the Music of Robert Schumann [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999]).
118

119

Huener, Printz Phrynis, 57-62.

120

Printz, Phrynis, I.4, p. 16.

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alterations to that content made by Printz are what make Phryniss doctrine of musical closure
so interesting for us today.

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CHAPTER 4
A. B. MARX, BIOLOGY, FORM, AND CADENCE
In chapters three and four we examined two theoretical treatments of musical closure in
some detail. We found that the Cologne school established the first theory of the clausula
formalis, an initially abstruse term referring to a complex of three or more voices. We then
considered the theoretical contribution of Printz, who provides one of the most exhaustive
accounts of cadential types, together with innovative characterizations of cadences restfulness
and expected resolutions. In contrast, this chapter focuses on the ossification of cadential
theorizing at the turn of the nineteenth century. In that period theorists largely ceased to make
new contributions to cadential doctrine, and the concept of the cadence instead became
subordinated to the newly established theoretical topic of musical form.
This chapter takes as its subject the transition from the sort of cadential theorizing
characteristic of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries to the new, form-oriented use of the
concept of the cadence in the nineteenth century, exemplified by the theoretic output of A. B.
Marx (1795-1866). We will begin by considering the functions that the concept of the cadence
plays in music theory texts in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, the better to highlight
the novelties in Marxs approach. A close reading of Marxs pedagogically-motivated take on
cadences follows, along with a synopsis of his theory of musical forms. This consideration of
form leads us to investigate Marxs oft-remarked use of organicist imagery, and to propose a
previously unacknowledged kinship between his theory and the field of comparative anatomy.
We will see that the life sciences changed dramatically in the years about the turn of the
nineteenth century, and that there are striking parallels between the investigation of plant and

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animal bodies during this period and the description of musical pieces. We conclude by
situating the changed functioning of the concept of the cadence within the new Formenlehre
established in the nineteenth century.

4.1 The Roles of Cadence in Music-theoretical Discourse before A. B. Marx

Let us now step back a distance from the fine detail of the preceding chapters analyses
of the Cologne school and Printz, and broadly consider the state of the concept of the cadence
the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. Rather than attempting even the most highly
condensed history of all pertinent developments in cadential doctrine, let us instead examine
the roles that the concept of cadence played in music-theoretical discourse in that period.
Musical closure, in the guise of the clausula formalis, first became a distinct object of theoretic
attention with Wollick and Schanppechers Opus aureum of 1501. Prior to this treatise, when
theorists happened to discuss the sorts of progressions that occur at the ends of
contemporaneous compositions, and only some authors did so, they did not articulate any
explicit connection between these progressions and the idea of closure.1 Rather, the relevant
comments merely took the form of dictates for the disposition of two-voice successions, and
were integrated into broader discussions of contrapuntal issues.2 From the Opus aureum

As we saw in section 2.1, Wollick and Schanppecher drew in part on the ideas of Tinctoris, who
in his Diffinitorium musicae defined the clausula in terms of the idea of completion (perfectio) at the end of
pieces and their sections. In his Liber de arte contrapuncti he made a sketchy connection between the
perfectio and certain dyadic successions, but did not develop a coordinated doctrine of musical endings.
1

The topos of imperfect consonances seeking particular perfect consonances, to which several
modern commentators have drawn attention, is one example of how pre-1500 discussions of could
mention develop a doctrine that could apply to musical closure without actually making that application.
For a treatise invoking this language in the decade before the Opus aureum, see Burtius, Musices
2

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onwards, however, many German and Italian treatises began to have chapters devoted to the
subject of the clausula formalis or the cadenza.3 By the second half of the sixteenth century,
French theorists were beginning to dedicate chapters to what they called la cadence as well.4
Musical closure clearly had become a topic of sustained music-theoretical interest in a way it
had never been before.
This newly emerged object of inquiry came to play a variety of roles in different theories
of music. In order to begin to understand these roles, let us provisionally divide them into two
categories. In the first, the cadence is conceived as a basic compositional element, whose
disposition is stipulated by some means; this use occurs in practically all theories which employ
the concept. In the second category, which is operative in a smaller number of theories, the
concept of the cadence serves, in addition, as a means to help explain other theoretical points,
namely, harmonic succession and genre. We will consider each of these categories in turn.
We have already, in the previous two chapters, become acquainted with theories in
which the role of the cadence is of the first type, that of a basic compositional element. Indeed,
the opposition of how versus where cadences are made instantiates this type of cadential
functioning. Beginning at the turn of the sixteenth century, the Cologne school established a
theoretical discourse in which the clausula formalis serves as a special type of contrapuntal

opusculum, II.2, f. E4v. For a careful examination of this topos, see David E. Cohen, The Imperfect Seeks
Its Perfection, 139-169.
Many such German treatises are examined in chapter three. Early Italian treatises to devote
attention to the cadenza include Aaron, De institutione harmonica, idem, Thoscanello de la musica, and
Vanneo, Recanetum de musica aurea.
3

See, for instance, Michel de Menehou, Nouvelle Instruction Familire, XXI-XXVI, and Adrian Le
Roy, Traict de Musique, ff. 13r-17r.
4

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formation which composers need to learn to produce correctly. Although much of our interest
in the Cologne school is due to the association which they briefly assert between the clausula
formalis and musical closure, these theorists do not develop that association. Instead, they focus
on describing the clausula formalis as a combination of melodic gestures, and thus it appears,
within the theoretical discourse, more as a contrapuntal pattern than as a formal articulation.
In the following generations this remained a dominant role of the music-theoretical
concept of the cadence. Indeed, as new cadence types and cadence-related procedures were
proposed in later years, such as the imperfect cadence and avoidance of the cadence (Zarlinos
fuggir la cadenza),5 they were employed in much the same way, conceptualized as contrapuntally
defined procedures to be learned by composers. Yet these additional cadence types also led to
attention being paid to the question of where cadences should occur. In a manner reminiscent of
John of Affligems analogy between punctuation and musical closure, which we examined in
chapter two, theorists began to stipulate that the default, perfect cadence should align with
the conclusions of complete sentences in the text being set, whereas other, weaker cadence types
should correspond to medial distinctions (distintioni mezane) in the text.6 Thus, the concept of
cadence kept acting as a compositional element to be mastered by composers, but now it
entered, or rather re-entered, a semantic field involving text and the completion of meaning.

For the imperfect cadence, which occupies a somewhat tenuous cadential status in Zarlinos
thought, see his Istitutioni Harmoniche, III.53, p. 221. For the evaded cadence, see ibid., III.54, p. 226. The
notion of cadences being imperfect had entirely solidified by the late sixteenth century, as Sethus
Calvisiuss work demonstrates (Melopoiia, XIII, f. G4v).
5

Ibid., III. 53, p. 225.

208

This role as a compositional element persisted throughout the seventeenth century. In

our examination of Printzs theory of cadence we found many unique cadential types, novel
characterizations of cadences, and a systematic, pedagogically motivated structure governing
that informations presentation. While some of these innovations, like the sedes subintellecta,
constitute advances in conceptual sophistication, the clausula formalis did not take on any
significantly new roles in Printzs theory. His novel characterizations of cadences by their
degree of restfulness represent an additional layer of description added upon the cadences
standard role at the time: as a class of syntactically charged gestures defined by their melodic
and harmonic content, whose proper employment was necessary for successful composition,
and thus merited its own chapter in most theory treatises.
It was not until the eighteenth century that this heretofore stable, unitary role of the
concept of cadence began to undergo alterations, partly as a result of the concepts acquisition
of additional, distinct, and more abstract theoretical functions. One example of such a
conceptual shift is Matthesons Der vollkommene Capellmeister, of 1739. In this text Mattheson
develops to a remarkable extent the time-honored analogy between prosal punctuation and
musical events, both cadential and non-cadential.7 In many respects this analogy seems to be
functioning just as it does in many earlier theories;8 yet although Mattheson mentions several
different kinds of cadences, in a striking departure from tradition he leaves tacit what the
musical referents of these terms are. He develops a robust theory of where in a piece composers

Mattheson, Der vollkommene Capellmeister, II.9, pp. 180-95.

See, for instance, Charpentiers Regles de composition (ca. 1692) (ff. 13v-14r). (Concerning the
dating of this manuscript, see Lillian M. Ruff, M-A. Charpentier's Regles de Composition, The Consort
14 [1967]: 233.)
8

209

should place cadences, and other features that clarify the textual structure, but neither specifies
how composers should make those cadences, nor explains that omission. Thus, in Matthesons
theory the concept of cadence operates within a highly traditional analogical framework, and at
the same time is able to act in a newly flexible manner, without the intervallic specifications that
had become so customary. Yet just because most other theorists of Matthesons time and later
decades continued to articulate the musical referents of their terms, even if less systematically
than in the seventeenth centuries, one should not assume that all cadential configurations had
simply become assumed knowledge by Matthesons day. Nonetheless, the lacunae in cadential
doctrines formed by components which are left tacit can tell us important things about theorists
understanding of the concept, as we will see in greater detail when we turn to Marxs doctrine
of the cadence.
The second category of cadential role, in which it also serves to help explain other
theoretical issues, can be seen clearly in the theoretical system of Jean-Philippe Rameau. It is, of
course, true that Rameau describes cadences in terms of his famous basse fondamentale, a fact
which yields several novelties, such as using the basse fondamentale to group together chordal
formations previously thought to be unrelated.9 Yet with regard to the cadence, these
theoretical innovations amount merely to a new way of describing the construction of the
cadence, understood as a compositional element whose disposition needs to be specified. That
is, Rameaus new theoretical conception of chord structure necessarily produced a new

For a highly developed analysis of Rameaus cadential ideas, with particular attention paid to
the fundamental bass, see Markus Waldura, Von Rameau und Riepel zu Koch. Zum Zusammenhang zwischen
theoretischem Ansatz, Kadenzlehre und Periodenbegriff in der Musiktheorie des 18. Jahrhunderts,
Musikwissenschaftliche Publikationen, ed. Herbert Schneider, no. 21 (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag,
2002), 177-386.
9

210

description of cadential structure. It is only in certain comments of Rameau that we see a new
function of cadence layered on top of this traditional way of employing the concept. As well as
being a specified kind of musical event, the cadence also is elevated to serve as a model for all
harmonic progressions, a feature which commentators such as Thomas Christensen and Joel
Lester have rightly emphasized.10 Even though there were several basse fondamentale
progressions which could not be explained by Rameaus cadential types, Rameau claimed that
all chords and their progression could be derived from his three kinds of cadence.11 In a late
treatise he even went so far as to claim that all music (excepting motion away from the tonic)
consists of cadences and their imitations.12
The collection of cadence-associated phenomena in Rameaus theory, by which I mean
both cadential progressions and other progressions derivable from cadences, thus functions as a
model for harmonic succession, and also as an implicit tool for evaluation. When one considers
Rameaus claims about the cadence, it appears that any pair of successive chords which cannot
be related to a cadence struggles to be explained at all, and thus would not seem to be permitted
within Rameaus conception of music. Yet no Ramellian cadence or imitation thereof can
explain an ascending third in the basse fondamentale, and, similarly, cadences are unable to

Thomas Christensen, Rameau and Musical Thought in the Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993), 115, 120; Joel Lester, Compositional Theory in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), 116-7.
10

. . . tous les Accords et leur progression peuvent en tre tirez . . . (Rameau, Trait, supplement,
p. 7; quoted in Christensen, Rameau and Musical Thought, 120). See also ibid., 115.
11

Christensen states that this proclamation by Rameau occurs in the Trait, but I have been
unable to find it there (Christensen, Rameau and Musical Thought, 115). It does, however, occur in the Code
de Musique Pratique (XI, p. 140).
12

211

explain motion by descending step, a progression for which Rameaus larger theoretic construct
also strains to account (though, admittedly, such progressions are quite rare). Basse fondamentale
progression by descending third is also troublesome in this regard. No cadential type exists in
the Trait which can account for motion of this kind, as the cadence interrompue (descending
motion by a third from a dominante-tonique [V7]) was not introduced until Rameaus Nouveau
Systme.13 Yet in the Trait Rameau also offers an explanation of basse fondamentale motion that is
more inclusive than the cadence-based account. In this alternate explanation, which occurs at
an earlier point in the treatise, the basse fondamentale can progress by all the intervals resulting
from the first divisions of the string (the perfect fifth and major third), as well as the intervals
Rameau derives from them (the perfect fourth, minor third, and major and minor sixths).14
Indeed, Rameau appeals to this string division process in his initial introduction of the
fundamental bass motions by perfect fifth that undergird his basic types of cadence.15 Yet
although these two explanatory strategies are related, they still remain distinct, as demonstrated
by the fact that basse fondamentale motion by third (and sixth) cannot be justified by one of

13

Rameau, Nouveau Systme, VII, p. 41.

Idem, Trait, II.1, p. 50; Gossett, p. 60. Note that that Rameau conceives of the fundamental bass
as an unarticulated, yet fully musical, bass part, whose notes are concrete in the sense that they occupy
specific registers. Consequently, in Rameaus theory basse fondamentale motions by descending fifth and
ascending fourth are conceptually distinct, just as they are in an actual compositions bass line. For more,
see Allan R. Keiler, Music as Metalanguage: Rameaus Fundamental Bass, in Music Theory: Special
Topics, ed. Richmond Browne (New York: Academic Press, 1981), 84-6, 92, 97.
14

All cadences however, are reserved for the fifth alone and for the fourth which represents it [. .
. reservant toutes les cadences la Quinte seule, et la Quarte qui la represente] (Rameau, Trait, II.1, p.
51; Gossett, p. 60). This translation is Gossetts.
15

212

Rameaus explanatory models, that is, the cadential model, but can by the other, derived from
string divisions.
We have seen that in Rameaus theory the concept of cadence serves two primary
purposes: its usual role as a compositional element, and also as a model of harmonic
progression. Such a dual functioning also obtains in some eighteenth-century German theories,
particularly those of Riepel and Koch. In these theoretical accounts the proper formation of
cadential types is still specified, though often in relatively brief, isolated passages.16 In addition,
just as the concept of the cadence also helped to explain chordal succession in Rameaus work,
here it aids in the description of parts of melody (Theile der Melodie). That is, in both cases the
concept of the cadence is being employed to describe some other aspect of music, even as the
cadence also acts in its traditional role of a compositional element. First Riepel and then Koch
developed a doctrine of melody in which the phrase (Absatz or Satz) became for the first time a
significant object of theoretic investigation. The hundreds of pages dedicated to this topic in
Riepel and Koch are one obvious manifestation of the importance of the idea.17 A more subtle
indication of the innovative nature of this topic appears in Kochs discussion of the constitution
of parts of melody (die Beschaffenheit der melodischen Theile). Following a centuries-old tradition,
Koch first reminds his readers that speech (Rede), its periods (Perioden), sentences (Stze), and

Riepel, Anfangsgrnde zur musicalischen Setzkunst, vol. 1, pp. 13-4, vol. vol. 5, p. 56; Koch,
Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Adam Friedrich Bhme, 1782), II.1, 178-80, pp.
239-44.
16

Riepel, with his unstructured style of writing, sprinkles discussion of phrases throughout the
first five volumes of his Anfangsgrnde. Kochs treatment of the subject largely occurs in the last quarter
of the second volume of the Versuch ([Leipzig: Adam Friedrich Bhme, 1787], II.3, 77, p. 342 ff.) and in
most of the third volume.
17

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parts of speech (Redetheile) are analogous to a compositions melody (Melodie eines Tonstckes),
its periods (Perioden), phrases (Stze), and parts of melody (melodische Theile).18 An entire
utterance, verbal or musical, comes first, and then is decomposed into successively smaller
component parts. Yet in the following paragraph, when Koch turns to how his treatment of the
subject will proceed, he inverts that order: In this section [of the book] we must necessarily
learn to know the material constitution of these parts, from which the periods of a melody are
put together, before we usefully treat their formal19 constitution, that is, the way of combining
the smaller parts of melody into a main section (Haupttheile) of the whole, or the construction of
melodic periods.20 Proper consideration of melody cannot start with the whole; rather, it must
begin at a more immediate level. In practice Koch tends to treat the phrase (Satz) as the primary
unit of investigation, adding and subtracting measures to and from standard phrases, and
combining them in his discussion of larger musical structures.21

18

Koch, Versuch, vol. 2, II.3, 77, pp. 342-3.

Note that Kochs use of formal constitution here indicates the principles dictating why
certain melodic parts can be connected successively; consequently, it gets at something similar to a
modern sense of musical form. Yet one should note that this passage appears to be the only place in
the three volumes of the Versuch in which the adjective formelle occurs. Furthermore, Koch is not using
the term in isolation; rather, formelle Beschaffenheit operates in opposition with materielle
Beschaffenheit, a reference to the Aristotelian-scholastic binary of form vs. matter.
19

Wir mssen nothwendig zuerst die materielle Beschaffenheit dieser Theile, aus welchen die
Perioden der Melodie zusammen gesezt werden, in diesem Abschnitte kennen lernen, ehe wir die
formelle Beschaffenheit derselben, das ist, die Verbindungsart der kleinern melodischen Theile zu einem
Haupttheile des Ganzen, oder den melodischen Periodenbau mit Nutzen vor uns nehmen knnen (ibid.,
p. 343).
20

For a detailed accounting of Kochs generation of large musical structures from simple phrases,
see Elaine Sisman, Small and Expanded Forms: Kochs Model and Haydns Music, The Musical
Quarterly 68, no. 4 (Oct. 1982): 444-59.
21

214

The analogical relationship between speech and music plays a second important role in
Kochs account of the evocatively named resting point of the spirit (Ruhepunct des Geistes). He
begins his account of the constitution of musical parts by claiming that just as speech and the
other fine arts have their resting points of the spirit, so does melody. Although Koch does not
define this term, his subsequent discussion demonstrates that he uses it to mean the musical
articulations created both by the Cadenz22 and by less conclusive ending formulas
(Endigungsformeln). Kochs lack of definition is not surprising, since the term is found at least as
early as the 1760s in the German translation of the works of the noted French aesthetician
Batteux; thence it doubtless came to Kochs attention through the writings of Johann Georg
Sulzer.23 Batteux developed the concept of the repos de lesprit in his Trait de la construction
oratoire, where he uses it to refer to the brief spacing that separates any action undertaken by the
spirit (by which Batteux means something like intellect, as the context indicates), and, in
particular, the momentary sense of rest that occurs in the listener after the pronouncement or
composition of each clause in a text.24
Since Koch sought out an analogous phenomenon in music, it is scarcely surprising that
his attention turned to the ways in which melodic parts conclude. In his theory, and also in that
of Riepel, ending formulas, whether identified as Cadenzen or not, are necessary components of

22

Koch reserves this term for what we today call a perfect authentic cadence.

Charles Batteux, Einleitung in die Schnen Wissenschaften, ed. [and trans.] Karl Wilhelm Ramler,
vol. 4, 3rd, augm. ed. [Leipzig: M. G. Weidmanns Erben und Reich, 1769], p. 137.
23

Idem, Principes de la litterature, vol. 5 (Paris: Desaint and Saillant, 1764), 98; idem, De la
construction oratoire (Paris: Desaint and Saillant, 1763), 273-5. For more on Batteuxs repos de lesprit, see
Michael Spitzer, Metaphor and Musical Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 214.
24

215

the different types of melodic sections (Einschnitt, Absatz, Schlusatz, and so forth).25 As the new
theoretical object of melody, which is understood as a regulated concatenation of melodische
Theile, emerges, one can observe the concept of musical closure play a new, supporting role. It
serves to guarantee the coherence and identity of a given section of melody by demarcating its
bounds: the Ruhepunct des Geistes after which it begins, and the Ruhepunct by which it is
concluded. The conception of cadence as a compositional element identified with a special type
of harmonic progression is not play at this point in the treatise; rather, it is cadence, and closure
more generally, that is a feature which helps listeners to parse and comprehend melodic
structure.

4.2 A. B. Marxs Conception of Cadence

Musical closure serves quite a different purpose in the theory of A. B. Marx, which he
sets forth most completely in his monumental four-volume treatise Die Lehre von der
musikalischen Komposition (1836-47).26 Cadence is no longer conceptualized as a contrapuntal
configuration, as it usually had been since the turn of the sixteenth century. Neither is the
cadential progression treated as a fundamental, autonomous element of musical composition,
and no chapter of the treatise is devoted to the subject. Instead, Marx employs the concept of
the Schluss, a term which can refer either to cadence specifically or closure more generally,

25

Waldura, Von Rameau und Riepel zu Koch, 34-9, 410-5, 594-7.

Marxs treatise went through at least ten printed editions, being republished as late as 1903. I
will make reference to the first edition (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Hrtel, 1837) and third edition (Leipzig:
Breitkopf und Hrtel, 1846) of the treatises first volume, since the third edition contains some significant
revisions to Marxs cadential ideas. All references to the third volume will be to the the first edition
(Leipzig: Breitkopf und Hrtel, 1845).
26

216

in a novel manner that merits detailed explication. The first subsection of the treatise which
Marx dedicates to the issue of the Schluss occurs some forty pages into the treatise in its first
edition, and relies upon several original concepts which Marx has introduced in the preceding
pages. Consequently, we will begin with an overview of the necessary background, and then
proceed to his discussion of the Schluss.
The first necessary idea is that of the Masse, which Marx also calls Tonmasse and
Harmonie. After a substantial discussion of the composition of monophonic melody, Marx
introduces the concept of harmony as the basis of two-voice composition. To do so, he initially
generates a major triad with its octave by exhorting his readers to listen for those notes which
are immediately above a given pitch and go well with it. Shortly thereafter he abandons this
method in favor of an appeal to the field of acoustics.27 Marx invokes a fundamental pitch and
its first eleven overtones (excepting the sixth overtone, which he withholds for future
consideration), and then divides those notes into two different collections (see Example 4.1).
The first mass, or tonic mass, consists of the fundamental and those sounds that agree with it; its
pitches are indicated by a superscript 1 in Example 4.1. After noting that the overtones D5
and F5 are not amenable to combination with the fundamental C, Marx proposes that they be

Example 4.1 Marxs Two Harmonic Masses28

27

Marx, Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, vol. 1, p. 41; 3rd ed., p. 56.

28

Ibid., 42; 3rd ed., p. 57.

217

combined with the overtone G3 to form the second mass, or dominant mass, whose pitches
receive a subscript 2 in Example 4.1. Note that because the pitch-class B does not occur in the
first sixteen partials that Marx stipulates, there can be no B in his second, dominant mass;
consequently, the leading tone does not figure in Marxs initial discussion of closure. As Scott
Burnham has noted, Marx introduces only as much harmony as is needed to enter into the next
stage of composition; indeed, the reader must wait another fifty pages before Marx introduces
full tonic and dominant harmonies in the usual sense.29
The next significant idea to be proposed in this passage is the concept of opposition or
antithesis (Gegensatz). In the discussion of monophonic melody which begins the treatise, Marx
establishes the major scale as the first foundation for building successions of tones, and
emphasizes the contrast between the restfulness of the tonic and the concept of the motive,
which he purports to be characterized by the non-tonic notes of the scale.30 From this he
generalizes to find the first, and fundamental, of many antitheses in the treatise: In these we
have found an antithesis effectively pervading the whole compositional art: rest and motion,
tonic and scale.31 As we will see in detail in the following section, this opposition between
tonic and non-tonic scale degrees forms the basis of Marxs theory of form, as he conceptualizes

Idem, Musical Form in the Age of Beethoven: Selected Writings on Theory and Method, ed. and trans.
Scott Burnham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 46. For the introduction of the tonic and
dominant chords, see idem, Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, vol. 1, pp. 62-5; 3rd ed., pp. 80-2.
29

30

. . . die Durtonleiter, als erste Grundlage fr die zu bildenden Tonfolgen (ibid., p. 18; 3 rd ed.,

p. 23).
Hierin haben wir einen durch die ganze Tonkunst wirksam hindurchgehenden Gegensatz,
Ruhe und Bewegung, Tonika und Tonleiter gefunden (ibid., p. 19; the equivalent of this passage [in
different words] occurs on p. 23 of the 3rd ed.).
31

218

the simple, monophonic Satz as a whole which begins and concludes on rhythmically accented
tonic notes, and which is composed of scalar, non-tonic motion within those bounds.32 Marx
presents the first and second harmonic masses as exhibiting an analogously antithetical relation.
With these concepts elucidated, we are now ready to turn to Marxs initial discussion of
the Schluss in the first edition of his treatise, wherein he writes:
We have already seen . . . that the first [harmonic] mass took up the place of the tonic, or
of the element of repose (Ruhemoment). The principal note therein is the tonic itself, and
will most effectively appear in the highest voice. For that reason we will make our
cadences (Schlsse) with the first mass and in a position like in [example] a, provided that
we do not wish to abandon the harmony and lead both voices to the tonic, [like in
example] b.

Furthermore, we have found the second [harmonic] mass as the antithesis of the
first, just as earlier the scale was the antithesis of the tonic and moved to the tonic for
closure (Schluss). Thus the second mass will now move to the first for the effecting of
closure (c); only [the first masss] third note is inadmissible there [i.e. in the highest
voice], since it (as in d) would prevent the highest voice from leading to the tonic and
from letting it close in that place.33

32

Ibid., pp. 24-5; 3rd ed., pp. 30-1.

Ferner haben wir schon . . . erkannt, dass die erste Masse an die Stelle der Tonika, oder des
Ruhemomentes getreten ist. Der Hauptton darin ist die Tonika selbst, und am wirksamsten wird dieser
Hauptton in der Oberstimme hervortreten. Wir werden daher u n s e r e S c h l s s e mit der ersten
Masse und zwar in der Stellung wie bei a machen, wofern wir nicht die Harmonie aufgeben und beide
Stimmen (b) in die Tonika fhren wollen.
Wir haben ferner die zweite Masse als Gegensatz der ersten befunden, gleichwie frher die
Tonleiter Gegensatz der Tonika war und sich zum Schluss in diese hineinbewegte. So wird nun jetzt die
zweite Masse zur Bewerkstelligung des Schlusses sich (c) in die erste hineinbewegen; nur ihr dritter Ton
ist dabei unzulssig, da er (wie bei d) verhindern wrde, die Oberstimme in die Tonika zu fhren und
daselbst schliessen zu lassen (ibid., pp. 46-7; the analogous, though different, discussion in the 3 rd ed. is
on pp. 61-2).
33

219

At this point in Marxs exposition of his theory the concept of Ruhe is aligned very closely with
the tonic. Indeed, his invocation of the relationship between the first mass and the tonic, or the
moment of repose indicates that motion from the second to the first mass effects a sense of
closure analogous to the transition from motion within the scale to the tonic in a monophonic
Satz. As his discussion of progression d reveals, he holds that the upper voice in a Schluss ought
to conclude on the tonic to effect a proper sense of completion. It is only after another fifty
pages of text that Marx formally defines the imperfect cadence (unvollkommne Schluss), which
comes to rest with the upper voice a third or a fifth above the tonic.34
Yet the tonic note and first harmonic mass are not the only possible entities associated
with the quality of Ruhe. In the course of his initial treatment of the two harmonic masses, Marx
notes that when the second mass takes the form of a fifth, like G-D, it strongly resembles the
fifth of the first mass, C-G. (Other manifestations of the second mass, particularly those
involving the seventh, resemble the first mass much less.) As a result of this strong
resemblance, the second masss fifth can adopt, so to speak, the nature of the first mass, and
furnish a momentary point of rest.35 Immediately after the passage on cadences translated above,
Marx appeals to this finding in order to introduce the concept of the half cadence (Halbschluss),

Ibid., p. 91; 3rd ed. p. 115. In an earlier passage he had proposed different means by which to
present a Schluss in an imperfect manner. These means include having the upper voice come to rest on
the third, as well as contracting or expanding the progressions expected rhythms (ibid., pp. 51, 53; 3 rd ed.
p. 70). As a result, having the upper voice conclude on the third is here portrayed as a deformation of the
normal cadence, rather than as a proper form of cadence in its own right.
34

. . . knnen fr sich allein gleichsam die Natur der ersten Masse annehmen, einen
a u g e n b l i c k l i c h e n R u h e p u n k t abgeben (ibid., 44; this passage appears to have been excised
from the 3rd ed.).
35

220

which he identifies with the momentary point of rest created by the second mass.36 Now, he
remarks, we are no longer limited to the single resting point of the tonic; rather, we now have a
second, though more imperfect, [one].37
The final significant type of Schluss present in Marxs theory, the deceptive cadence
(Trugschluss), also serves as a replacement of the expected conclusive cadence, in preparation
for what Marx calls an Anhang, an extension of a phrase or larger section which is motivated by
the Trugschluss, and which eventually leads to the initially expected strong conclusion.38 In this
type of cadence the dominant chord progresses to some non-tonic harmony. His figure
exemplifying the Trugschluss (Example 4.2) demonstrates that he conceives of this cadence type
as involving an ascending step in the lowest voice, but that it includes far more than just the
progression from dominant to submediant triad proposed by more restrictive definitions.

Example 4.2 Marxs Trugschluss39

36

Ibid., 47; 3rd ed. p. 62.

Wir sind also nun nicht mehr auf den einzigen Ruhepunkt der Tonika beschrnkt, sondern
haben noch einen zweiten, wenn auch nur unvollkommnern (ibid.; also excised from the 3 rd ed.).
37

Ibid., 197-8; 3rd ed. pp. 222-3. A few other cadential types of comparably paltry significance
occur in Marxs discussions of modal music: he mentions two Phrygian ways of cadencing (phrygische
Schlussarten) (ibid., p. 363), and in the third edition of the treatise, he introduces the church cadence
(Kirchenschluss), a synonym for the plagal cadence (ibid., 3 rd ed., 199).
38

Ibid., 198. In the third editions version of this illustration, an F major 6/3 chord follows the Aflat major triad, and the final two resolutions shown in the first edition are omitted (p. 223).
39

221

Indeed, the roots of the chords Marx shows as possible resolutions of the G dominant seventh
chord are not limited to A and A-flat; they also include F-sharp and G-sharp, and receive
dominant and diminished seventh chords above them. The diversity of these possible
resolutions also draws our attention to the fact that, by this point in the treatise, Marx allows far
more harmonies than merely the first and second harmonic masses. Indeed, his initial
discussion of the Trugschluss occurs nearly 150 pages after his introduction of the imperfect
cadence. In the intervening pages he has significantly expanded the range of harmonic
possibilities by means such as appealing to octave doublings in order to reinterpret the
harmonic masses as triads, harmonizing the scale to generate the remaining diatonic triads, and
introducing modulations to account for accidentals.40
Taken as a whole, Marxs doctrine of cadences exhibits some strikingly original features.
The first is the extent to which his pedagogical convictions inform his cadential theorizing. As
Scott Burnham observes, Instead of treating the elements of harmony, for example, as a set of
grammatical instances and attendant prohibitions to be learned by the student before any
creative activity can be attempted, Marx presents these elements in the form of positive rules.
The stress is more on what can be done rather than what ought not be done.41 Michael Spitzer
has developed this argument, making a case that it is due to the influence of the Swiss
pedagogue Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827) that Marx was motivated to avoid

See pp. 63-7 (3rd ed., pp. 81-5), where he posits triads and adds the dominant and subdominant
chords; pp. 79-81 (3rd ed., pp. 98-100), where he adds the mediant and submediant chords; and p. 149 ff.
(pp. 175 ff.), where, in the context of modulation, he first addresses adding notes foreign to the home key.
40

Scott G. Burnham, Aesthetics, Theory and History in the Works of Adolph Bernhard Marx
(Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University, 1988), 86.
41

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proscriptions and to place such value on letting students develop their natural creativity
through exercises which gradually increased in difficulty.42 This pedagogical approach is fully
in evidence in Marxs discussion of cadential matters: he presents only the minimum of defining
principles and strictures needed at the given moment, and consistently avoids specifying
configurations to eschew. For instance, by defining the Schluss and Halbschluss in terms of the
first and second harmonic masses, Marx initially gives a great deal of specificity as to what
pitches can be used to make a cadence, yet gives the student very little information beyond that.
As his conceptual apparatus expands to include all the notes in the tonic and dominant seventh
harmonies, formal types, and chordal inversions, Marx gradually provides his readers with
more information that directs them towards realizing the standard cadential formulas of
classical music. Students comprehension of cadences develops and evolves alongside their
growing comprehension of the entirety of Marxs theoretical system, and, in particular, his
formal theory, as we shall see in the next section.
Marxs concept of the Trugschluss offers another good example of the difference between
his approach and that of other theorists. Rather than considering the deceptive cadence to be
definable merely by a conjunct ascent from the dominant in the basse fondamentale, as in
Rameau, or in the sounding bass, as in Printzs imperfecta totalis ordinata adscendens imperfectior,43
Marx sees it as a progression from the dominant chord to some other chord that substitutes for

Michael Spitzer, Marxs Lehre and the Science of Education: Towards the Recuperation of
Music Pedagogy. Music & Letters 79, no. 4 (Nov. 1998): 497-512.
42

This is not to imply that Printz considers the adscendens imperfeectior to be a deceptive cadence.
He does describe it as a progression in which the ascending second is set in place of the falling fifth or
rising fourth (Phrynis, 17, p. 27), and in which the expected Sedes is not articulated, rendering it a Sedes
subintellecta (ibid., 31, p. 29).
43

223

the tonic that would form a perfect cadence. This chord will usually be constructed above the
pitch a semitone or whole tone above the dominant of the key in question, as Example 4.2
shows, but there is yet another possible chord that can conclude a Trugschluss. For as Marx
notes, imperfect cadences . . . also receive this name, when they take up the place of a perfect
cadence, in order to add an appendix to the Satz first, in place of the regular end.44 This results
in a concept of the Trugschluss which is very similar to that of Koch, who understands cadences
to be interrupted by off-tonic resolutions in the bass, the melody, or both.45 Marx, however,
includes a still greater variety of harmonic possibilities in his examples of the Trugschluss than
does Koch.
The relatively open-ended nature of Marxs Trugschluss is emblematic of the difference
in the function of the cadence in his theory and that of Rameau. As was mentioned above,
Rameau treats the cadence both as a basic compositional element, and also as a model for all
harmonic motion. Consequently, he aims to explain the majority of chordal successions within
a given key as one of his two conclusive cadences (the cadence parfaite and imparfaite/ irreguliere),
or as imitations of those cadences; far fewer successions are derived from the non-conclusive,
broken and interrupted cadences (cadence rompu and interrompu), whose names suggest
their deficiency. Rameaus theorizing, particularly of the phrase harmonique, suggests that in an

Auch die unvollkommnen Schlsse . . . erhalten diesen Namen, wenn sie an die Stelle eines
vollkommnen Schlusses treten, um statt des regelmssigen Endes erst noch einen Anhang dem Satze
zuzufgen (Marx, Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, vol. 1, p. 198; 3rd ed., p. 223).
44

Koch, Versuch, vol. 2, II.3.2, 114, pp. 444-7; idem, Musikalisches Lexikon (Frankfurt am Main:
August Hermann der Jnger, 1802), s.v. Tonschlu.
45

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ideal phrase each chordal succession would resemble the cadence parfaite as closely as possible.46
Marxs Kompositionslehre takes a different approach. Since form is more important in his theory
than cadences, as we will soon see, his concept of the Schluss is restricted to occurring only at
the conclusions of formally significant sections of music, and must consist of the progression
from dominant to tonic. When other progressions are described as being cadential in nature,
they are not described as modifications of the basic Schluss, but instead either are half cadences,
or are subsumed under the broad category of the Trugschluss, the conceptual equivalent of
Rameaus rather constrained cadences rompus and interrompus.47 This is doubtless because
Marxs conception of music needs the presence of cadences to be restricted to certain locations
in a pieces formal structure, a subject to which we now turn.

4.3 Form and Cadence in Marxs Music Theory

We have seen that Marxs conception of the Schluss incorporates several striking
innovations, such as his use of the harmonic masses in his initial definition, and the wide
variety of possible progressions embraced by his concept of the Trugschluss. There also exist
similarities to previous theories, of course, like his description of different cadential types, and
the cadences function of bringing conclusion to phrases. As salient as these similarities are,
however, Marxs employment of the cadence differs in subtly yet fundamentally different ways

For more on the phrase harmonique, see Nathan John Martin, Die phrase harmonique bei
Rameau, Spektrum Musiktheorie (forthcoming).
46

Marx was, of course, preceded by Koch in his restriction of the Schluss/Cadenz to just one or two
progressions because of formal desiderata. Koch, however, did not propose such a widely encompassing
version of the deceptive cadence, so in that respect the contrast between Marxs Trugschluss and Rameaus
cadence rompu and interrompu is particularly novel.
47

225

from that of his predecessors. This discrepancy becomes most evident when we consider the
relation between cadence and form in Marxs theory, for this reveals that the concept of the
cadence can be understood as an important means by which more complicated forms develop
from simpler ones.
As Scott Burnham has noted, Marx places form at the center of his Kompositionslehre
project in an unprecedented fashion.48 Form emerges as the object of study at almost the very
beginning of his treatise, and it remains the final goal of his Kompositionslehre.49 Marxs
presentation of formal types may be profitably understood as a series of increasingly complex
forms, all of which embody the fundamental pattern of Ruhe-Bewegung-Ruhe (Rest-Motion-Rest).
Since the process by which Marx derives his many types of forms has been covered in detail by
a number of authors, we will dispense with an exhaustive summary in favor of careful
consideration of a few representative steps in the derivation process.50 (For references sake,
Example 4.3 offers a schematic overview of Marxs formal types.)
Let us begin with Marxs two fundamental formal structures (Grundformen): the Satz and
the Gang. As we have observed, Marx views his elementary tripartite structure of Ruhe-

48

Burnham, Aesthetics, Theory and History, 82.

Ibid. See also idem, Introduction: Music and Spirit, in A. B. Marx, Musical Form in the Age of
Beethoven, 9.
49

Readers interested in a more detailed account of Marxs account of form are referred to Scott
Burnham, The Role of Sonata Form in A. B. Marxs Theory of Form, Journal of Music Theory 33, no. 2
(Autumn 1989): 249-60; idem, Form, in The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, ed. Thomas
Christensen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 888; Lotte Thaler, Organische Form in der
Musiktheorie des 19. und beginnenden 20. Jahrhunderts (Mnchen and Salzburg: Musikverlag Emil
Katzbichler, 1984), 19, 30-1, 45-7, 67-72; and Birgitte Plesner Vinding Moyer, Concepts of Musical Form
in the Nineteenth Century with Special Reference to A. B. Marx and Sonata Form, (Ph.D. diss., Stanford
University, 1969), 85-122.
50

226

Example 4.3 A synopsis of Marx's theory of form

227

Bewegung-Ruhe as being instantiated most elementarily in the progression of tonic through nontonic scale degrees back to tonic; in his system, this progression constitutes the simplest form of
Satz, a term which Marx uses to denote a coherent musical utterance at any level of musical
form: a phrase, a theme, or an entire movement.51 The Gang, in contrast, is a progression that
lacks an internally motivated conclusion, and ends arbitrarily.52 As Marx writes in a late
publication, Die Form in der Musik: A thought that is closed in and of itself is called a Satz.
Its conclusion is its characteristic feature. The Gang, too, must stop sometime and somewhere,
like everything; but it takes an ending only for external reasons it does not close. The Satz
closes for internal reasons.53 Thus, musical closure, and implicitly the concept of the cadence,
is operative at the very beginning of Marxs Formenlehre, establishing the distinction between his
two most fundamental formal structures.
The simple Satz gives rise to the next of Marxs forms, the period (Periode), in a
straightforward way, by having a second, complementary Satz joined to the end of it (see
Example 4.4).54 The resulting structure, in both its monophonic and polyphonic forms, is a
musical unity (Einheit) divided into two phrases by a half cadence or pause on the tonic, a

51

Burnham, Introduction: Music and Spirit, 14.

52

Marx, Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, vol. 1, 24; 3rd ed., p. 30.

Ein in sich abgeschloner Gedanke heit S a t z . Ein Abschlu ist das Charakteristische. Der
Gang mu auch irgend einmal und irgendwo aufhren, wie Alles; aber er nimmt ein Ende nur aus
uerlichen Grnden, er schliet nicht. Der Satz schliet aus innerlichen Grnden (idem, Die Form in
der Musik, in Die Wissenschaften im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, ed. J. A. Romberg, vol. 2 [Leipzig:
Rombergs Verlag, 1856], 31; translated in idem, Musical Form in the Age of Beethoven: Selected Writings on
Theory and Method, ed. and trans. Scott Burnham [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997], 68).
The translation of this passage is Burnhams.
53

54

Idem, Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, vol. 1, 23-4, 30-33; 3rd ed., pp. 29-30, 46-7.

228

moment of local rest which divides the forms Motion (Bewegung) section (indicated by the
brackets above the staves in Example 4.4) into a subsidiary Motion-Rest-Motion structure.55 Or,
in another light, it divides the piece as a whole into two shorter, elided successions of the RestMotion-Rest archetype.
In his summarization of the period, Marx addresses different forms analogous RestMotion-Rest structures. Indeed, in the third edition of the treatise, he deletes the chapter
dedicated to the full and half cadences (which we examined in section 4.2), and incorporates his
initial discussion of those concepts into his introduction to two-voice composition.56 This results
in an account of the cadence that both integrates the concept still further with formal concerns,
and also emphasizes the functional analogies between monophonic periods resting points and
the cadences of the two-voice period. Furthermore, in both editions Marx explicitly articulates
the idea that music can be simultaneously characterized by the quality of motion on one level,
and by the quality of rest on another. Since the textual formatting of this passage does

Example 4.4 Marxs Satz and Periode

(R=Rest, M=Motion)

Ibid., 47-8; 3rd ed., pp. 61-3. Curiously, Marx does not appear to articulate the now common
notion that the succession of weaker cadence to stronger cadence (half cadence to perfect cadence) in the
period helps to guarantee its unity.
55

56

Ibid., 3rd ed., p. 61-2.

229

important communicative work, my translation transcribes the layout of Marxs original, which
then follows:
The foundation concepts of
Rest,
Motion,
Rest,
Tonic,
Scale,
Tonic,
are arranged in monophonic and then in harmonic (for now two-voiced) periods thus:
Rest,
Motion,
Rest,
Rest,
Tonic,
Tonic harmony,

Motion,
Scale,
Motion,

Rest,
Tonic at the octave,
Half cadence,

Motion,
Scale,
Motion,

Rest,
Tonic.
Perfect cadence

Rest,
Motion,
Rest,
This complete period leads us to the two-part form, which likewise is consistent with the
same concepts and features:
Tonic harmony,
Motion,
Half cadence,
Motion,
Perfect cadence.57

57

Marx, Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, vol. 1, 54; 3rd ed., p. 72.

230

This quotation takes us through the generation of Marxs basic forms. As the brackets
indicate, the Rest-Motion-Rest structure that characterizes the simple Satz (ascending octave
scale), is divided by a medial, subsidiary point of restfulness (octave of the tonic or, in
polyphonic cases, half cadence) to form the next formal type, the period. Division by a cadence,
or its monophonic equivalent, is the means by which the simple form develops into the more
complex. Furthermore, at the point of division Marxs layout of the text effectively qualifies the
music as being characterized by motion and rest at the same time. Within the context of the
period as a whole (the Rest-Motion-Rest progression above the bracket), the moment of arrival
on the half cadence (or upper octave) is in the midst of the forms Motion section; with respect
to that moments arrival on the octave or half cadence, however, (as is shown below the
bracket), the event is much more stable than the surrounding music, and thus it simultaneously
has the quality of restfulness, as the Rest/Ruhe directly underneath the Motion/Bewegung
indicates spatially.
The piece in two parts (Tonstck in zwei Theilen), to which Marx gestures at the end of
the quotation, undergoes development analogous to that of the period. It shares the latter
forms progression of tonic to half cadence to perfect cadence: a Rest-Motion-Rest structure
bisected by a half cadence (see Example 4.5). Yet the two-part form is a more developed form of
the period: both of its parts are themselves divided into antecedent and consequent phrases

Example 4.5 Marxs Period and the Piece in Two Parts

231

(Vorderstze and Nachstze) by cadences, just as the entire period was.58 This, it would seem,
amounts to saying that the two-part form consists of two concatenated periods, of which the
second concludes more conclusively than the first; yet Marx does not explain the matter in this
way, choosing instead to emphasize the shared qualities of motion and rest that the period and
two-part form share, and the subdivision by means of cadences by which both forms develop
from their antecedents.
All these basic formal types, which Marx calls Liedstze, are covered in the first volume
of his treatise. It is not until the third volume of the work that he turns to the more complex
formal types, like the rondo forms. These higher forms all consist of artistically unified
composites of the simpler Liedstze. In order to understand the likely motivations for and
ramifications of Marxs approach to these complex forms, we will first consider two alternate,
simpler ways of explaining how to derive his formal categories. The first is to explain the
various formal types as a mechanical tacking-on of additional main Stze (MS), subordinate
Stze (SS), Gnge (G), and closing Stze (CS) (as one can see in Example 4.3). For instance, the
fifth rondo form would result from simply adding a Gang and a closing Satz to the end of the
fourth rondo form (see Figure 4.1).
Fourth Rondo

MS SS1 (G)

MS SS2

MS

SS1

Fifth Rondo

MS SS1

CS

MS

SS1 G CS

SS2

Figure 4.1 Marxs Fourth and Fifth Rondo Forms

58

Ibid., 50-1, 54-5; 3rd ed., pp. 66-8, 70-1.

232

The second possible approach to explain Marxs derivation of his more complex formal
types is more in keeping with his approach to the simple Liedstze: it conceptualizes rondo
forms as manifestations of the tripartite Rest-Motion-Rest archetype that are elaborated by
means of cadential divisions. Let us return our attention to his fourth and fifth rondo types,
which appear again in Figure 4.2, this time with the spatial arrangement depicting how the
forms constituent parts fit into the archetype of Rest-Motion-Rest. When viewed from the
perspective of the tripartite archetype, the final Rest section, which in the fourth rondo was
divided by one strong cadence into a Main Satz and a Subordinate Satz, is divided into yet more
sections by an additional cadence. Now the final Rest section matches the first one: two medial
cadences divide the section into a Main Satz, Subordinate Satz, and Closing Satz, and a Gang
(which by definition lacks an internally motivated cadence) connects the last two Stze. And
what a transformation the final Rest section has undergone! From its starting point as a single
tonic pitch in the less developed forms, like the octave-scale Satz, it grew into a chord, then a
phrase in the tonic key. In the rondo forms it became an entire Lied form in the tonic key, and
now is a series of Satz forms which can be seen to instantiate the entire Rest-Motion-Rest
Rest

Motion

Rest

Fourth Rondo

MS SS1 (G)

MS

SS2

MS

SS1

Fifth Rondo

MS SS1

CS

SS2

MS

SS1 G

Figure 4.2 Marxs Fourth and Fifth Rondo Forms

233

CS

archetype on a lower level, with much of this increase in length being facilitated by the
expansion of previously simple phrases by means of medial cadences.59
Marxs approach, however, differs from these possibilities in important ways. Instead of
arbitrarily adding Stze to existing forms, Marx repeatedly emphasizes the necessity for more
complex forms to be artistically unified composites of simpler forms, such as the period and the
Gang. For example, in his preamble to the newly introduced category of the rondo form, Marx
contrasts unartfully juxtaposed phrases with proper rondos, which are coherently concatenated:
Let us follow a complete, closed-off Liedsatz with another, existing for itself, [such that the
whole is] without internal strong connection. Thus we do not get a new form, but only a
succession of strung together, dissimilar Liedstze . . . New [rondo] forms, on the other hand,
come into being when dissimilar Stze, or Stze and Gnge unite and are combined into (sich
einigen zu) some whole that is not a mere external juxtaposition [of parts], but is, rather,
internally coherent and bound together.60
As his emphasis on internal coherence in the quotation suggests, Marx expresses the
progression from one rondo form to the next as being motivated by artistic necessity, the need

Main Satz = Rest; Secondary Satz 1 + Gang = Motion; Closing Satz = Rest (Marx, Die Lehre von der
musikalischen Komposition, vol. 3, p. 187).
59

Lassen wir einem vollkommen abgeschlossenen Liedsatz einen andern fr sich bestehenden
ohne innere und feste Verbindung folgen, so erhalten wir keine neue Form, sondern nur eine Folge
verschiedner aneinander gereihter Liedstze . . . Neue Formen dagegen entstehn, wenn verschiedne
Stze, oder Stze und Gnge sich zu einem nicht blos usserlich aneinandergestellten, sondern innerlich
zusammenhngenden, festverbundnen Ganzen einigen (Marx, Die Lehre von der musikalischen
Komposition, vol. 3 [Leipzig: Breitkopf und Hrtel, 1845], 91-2).
60

234

for a more cohesive unity or a more expansive variety, as Scott Burnham puts it.61 As an
example, Marx explains the progression from the fourth to the fifth rondo forms (shown in
Figure 4.1) as being motivated by the need to improve the fourth rondo form, with respect to
both variety and unity. The second Main Satz of the fourth form is replaced by a Closing Satz to
avoid monotony, and this Closing Satz then reappears at the end of the form in order to round
off and better unify the entire composition.62 As for the question of the origin of this motivated
need for variety and unity, Burnham compellingly interprets the motivation as expressing the
burgeoning artistic consciousness of the developing student, and demonstrates how this
reading is supported by Marxs pedagogical aims.63 Burnhams argument is excellent, but he
also uses it to downplay parallels between Marxs theory and contemporaneous biological
thought, parallels which reward more careful consideration, as we will see later in the chapter.
Marxs approach to the more complex forms also differs from our alternate method of
generating forms through the division of the tripartite archetype. This difference is particularly
apparent in the way he uses cadences. As we have seen, cadences figure prominently in his
descriptions of the simplest formal types, like the Satz and Gang, and also play an important
role in his derivation of more complex Liedstze, such as the two-part form. In the third volume
of the treatise, however, Marx dedicates much of his attention to the analysis of compositions

Burnham, Aesthetics, Theory and History, 119. For a compact passage in which this
tendency of Marx is manifested, see Marx, Die Form in der Musik, 39-42; translated in idem, Musical
Form in the Age of Beethoven, 78-82.
61

Ibid., 41; Burnham, pp. 80-1. See also Marx, Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, vol. 3,
180-1, 184.
62

63

Burnham, Aesthetics, Theory and History, 124-8.

235

that are representative of the formal types in question, in contrast to the theoretical exposition
that occupies much of the first volume. In these analyses Marx takes his concepts of Satz and
Gang and deploys them in a manner significantly different from how they were described in the
first volume of the treatise. Rather than treating them as fundamentally opposed, on the basis
of whether their endings are internally motivated, Marx seems to use them to characterize the
relative stability of a given musical phrase. Tightly constructed main themes are invariably
considered Stze by Marx; beyond this point, however, his system soon starts to feel rather
haphazard. For one, the presence of the Gang-like Satz (gangartige Satz) and Satz-like Gang
(satzartige Gang) in Marxs analyses threatens the understanding of Satz and Gang which he
established in the first volume. For instance, Marx describes mm. 9-20 of the first movement of
Beethovens F minor Sonata, Op. 2, no. 1, as the antecedent Satz of the sonatas main Satz, but
also says that it finds no closure, but rather runs, Gang-like, into the subordinate Satz.64 The
Marx of volume one would, of course, automatically consign a phrase lacking closure to the
category of the Gang.
Another perplexing aspect of Marxs analytic practice is his treatment of the progression
from the subordinate Satz to the Gang which may follow it. In several of his analyses he locates
the beginning of the Gang immediately after inverted V-I progressions.65 Consequently, the
entire Satz ends with a progression so weak that many theorists today would not consider it to

Der Nachsatz . . . findet aber keinen Abschluss, sondern luft gangartig zum Seitensatze hin
(Marx, Die Lehre, vol. 3, 252); trans. adapted from Burnham, Musical Form in the Age of Beethoven, 108.
64

For a rondo-form example, see mm. 44-5 in the third movement of Beethovens third piano
sonata, op. 2, no. 3 (cf. Marx, Die Lehre, vol. 3, 179). For a sonata, see mm. 65-6 in the first movement of
Beethovens Piano Sonata in E-flat major, op. 31, no. 3 (cf. Marx, Die Lehre, vol. 3, 274).
65

236

be a cadence. Yet more striking is Marx deals with the rhetorically emphasized cadence (often
the moment of essential expositional closure, in modern parlance) in some sonata
movements. In many analyses Marx identifies the closing Satz as beginning immediately after
this point, which accords well with modern understandings of the formal structure. Yet in his
discussions of the first movements of Beethovens op. 31, no. 3; op. 2, no. 1; op. 106; and op. 10,
no. 2 Marx has described the measures containing the strongest cadence in the piece thus far as
being a Gang!66 In the first volume of the treatise Marx held that Gnge end arbitrarily, without
internal motivation. These cadences, and their corresponding events in the recapitulation,
seem, at least to modern sensibilities, to be among the most motivated, unarbitrary, teleologyinflected points in the entire movement. What can account for this apparent contradiction?
Any explanation for this oddity must rely in part on the unstable, driving nature of the
passages Marx identifies as Gnge following subordinate Stze. These passages generally
exhibit what William Caplin would call continuational function, exhibiting fragmentation, loose
hypermetrical organization, sequences, and the like. One possible interpretation of the
conundrum is that Marx was using the term Gang simply to describe these qualities of loose
phrase construction, and that closure no longer figured into his concept of the Gang. A related,
and more charitable, interpretation is that Marx recognized the presence of those prominent
cadences, but actually believed that they were not motivated by the preceding music. Instead,
he focused on the continuational quality that dominates much of the Gang, and, rather than
understanding the continuational function to fuse eventually with the following cadence, he

Ibid., vol. 3, 273-5, 279-80, 282-3. My thanks to William Rothstein for bringing this situation to
my attention.
66

237

viewed the closure of the phrase as being of a fundamentally different nature from the rest of
the Gang. In either case, it is evident that the binaries of Satz/Gang and closed/cut-off that Marx
proposes in the treatises first volume operate in a substantially less clear way in the analyses
found later in the work.
We have seen in Marxs simpler forms that the cadences play a vital role in his
fundamental formal structures of Satz and Gang, and in his derivation of a given form from its
antecedent. As for the more complex formal types, even though Marx prefers to explain them
as developing by internally motivated concatenations of simpler forms, the same approach of
dividing the Rest-Motion-Rest archetype by cadences could effectively generate the same series
of rondo and sonata forms that Marx derives, and does so using only one principle for both
simple and complex forms. Furthermore, this means of explanation emphasizes the qualities of
rest and motion in given stretches of music much more effectively than Marxs approach to
generating the rondo forms does. As a result, even when Marx does not make explicit the fact
that cadences can explain how the rondo and sonata forms derive from simpler formal types,
we can still understand it to lie latent as an explanatory option, one that is fully manifest in his
discussion of the simpler forms, like the period and two-part form.

4.4 Organicism and Marxs Theory of Form

Marxs use of organicist imagery, such as seed (Kern), development or evolution
(Entwicklung), and drive (Treib), in his writing is well-known, and many scholars have

238

debated its implications and significance.67 Carl Dahlhaus describes Marxs Formenlehre as
genetic (genetisch) on account of its similarities to Goethes ideas of plant morphology; he
appeals in particular to the increasing significance of functional differentiation and
subordination of parts in Marxs rondo forms, characteristics which Goethe uses when
distinguishing between more and less perfect organisms, as Dahlhaus demonstrates.68 Lotte
Thaler presents a more detailed version of this case, arguing for specific ways in which Marxs
process of formal development reflects the ideas of polarity (Polaritt) and intensification
(Steigerung), which undergird Goethes theory of plant metamorphosis; she balances this
discussion with acknowledgement of aspects of Marxs theory that better fit Hegels progressive
view of history than Goethes process of metamorphosis.69 Scott Burnham, however, offers a
cogent critique of Dahlhaus and Thalers reading on the grounds that a viewpoint which
equates Goethes theory with Marxs Formenlehre (which Thalers does in a step by step fashion)
must thus assume that Marx thinks of musical form as a single, metamorphosing entity.70 As
Burnham ably demonstrates, this assumption is not in keeping with Marxs perspective, which
assigns aesthetic autonomy and value to each formal type, whereas early stages of Goethian

Ian Bent nicely situates Marxs nature-based imagery within the larger context of uses of
organicist concepts in nineteenth-century musical texts (Ian Bent, ed., Music Analysis in the Nineteenth
Century, vol. 1 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993], 11-7).
67

Carl Dahlhaus, sthetische Prmissen der Sonatenform bei Adolf Bernhard Marx, Archiv fr
Musikwissenschaft 41, no. 2. (1984): 78-82.
68

69

Thaler, Organische Form, 66-76.

70

Burnham, Aesthetics, Theory and History, 122.

239

development are immature (and thus deficient) versions of the mature plant to come.71 Instead,
Burnham argues that Marxs formal derivation is primarily motivated by pedagogical ends: It
is not musical form, or the Satz, which necessitates its own metamorphoses through each stage;
it is rather the artistic capability of the student which grows and requires new formal
possibilities.72 This pedagogical reading explains many aspects of Marxs Formenlehre well; yet
there are additional, previously unexamined parallels between nineteenth-century biological
thought and Marxs writings that shed significant light on his contributions to the theory of
musical form, as we shall now see.
Although it is clearly problematic to pursue a strict analogy between Marxs formal
derivations and Goethes plant metamorphosis, there are several other aspects of Goethes
scientific thought that can fruitfully inform our reading of Marx, while avoiding Thalers
interpretive shortcomings. One such aspect, which Burnham has identified, is Goethes
understanding of the relation obtaining between the general and the specific. As Burnham
writes: After abandoning his notion of the concrete reality of the Urpflanz [sic], Goethe claims
that there is no such thing as a concrete exemplar of a generic class. Instead, individual plants
are seen as instances of a prototypical growth process; no single instance can serve as a model
for the general class.73 In a similar way, Marx understands each composition as constituting a

71

Ibid., 122-3.

72

Idem, The Role of Sonata Form, 263.

Ibid., 265-6. Burnham concisely alludes to this same idea in his later writing on Marx as well
(idem, Introduction: Music and Spirit, 9-10).
73

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unique manifestation of the relevant forms underlying and dynamic principles, conditioned
and shaped by the musical content of the opening Satz.74
Another aspect of Goethes thought that illuminates Marxs Formenlehre is his writing on
zoological morphology. The resonances between these two have been overlooked in previous
studies, and reward the careful consideration which we will now give them. Just as in his
theory of plant metamorphosis Goethe hypothesized an archetypical plant (Urpflanze), from
the 1790s onwards he sought to explain all vertebrate animals by relating them to an archetype
(Typus), or, more specifically, an archetypical animal (Urtier). Crucially, this archetype was
not a mere lowest common denominator between different species, such as a spine; rather, as
Robert Richards points out, Goethe conceived the archetype as an inclusive form, a pattern that
would contain all the parts really exhibited by the range of different vertebrate species.75 As
Goethe presents it in his Outline for a General Introduction to Comparative Anatomy (ca.
1795), the archetype is composed of three main sections, namely, the head, torso, and rear
section. In his initial description of these sections Goethe characterizes them by their organs:
the head has the brain, the torso has the organs for inward maintenance of life and constant
movement outwards (such as the heart and lungs), and the rear section contains the organs of
nourishment and reproduction, as well as those of grosser elimination.76 Later on in the

74

Idem, The Role of Sonata Form, 265-6.

Robert J. Richards, The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 443. Emphasis original.
75

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Von den Vortheilen der vergleichenden Anatomie und von den
Hinderfissen die ihr entgegen stehen, in Zur Naturwissenschaft berhaupt, besonders zur Morphologie, 3rd
ed., vol. 1 (Stuttgart und Tbingen: J. G. Cotta, 1820), 153; partial trans. by Douglas Miller in Johann
76

241

Outline, however, he recasts his archetype in terms of the skeleton, and lists many of the
specific bones one should expect to encounter in each of the main sections (an approach put into
practice in the methodology of Goethes drafts of tables of osteological data), even while he
draws connections between individual bones and the organs and senses they facilitate.77 In this
schema the rear main section, which he calls the helping parts (Hlfsorgane), comprises bodily
accessories, such as arms and legs.78
Unsurprisingly for an Outline, Goethe does not present us with fully worked out
examples of zoological morphology, and the epistemological status of his Urtier remains
fuzzy.79 Nonetheless, several suggestive ideas emerge from his text. The first is that any given
bodily element will be more developed in some species than in others. As Goethe points out,
even though all vertebrates and highly developed insects have tripartite bodies, with bodily
functions distributed between them in constant ways, the various animal species manifest that
archetype in a diversity of ways.80 Goethe writes: After recognizing these parts and examining

Wolfgang von Goethe: Scientific Studies (New York: Suhrkamp, 1988), 119-20. All translations from this
work are Millers.
Ibid., 165-9; Miller, 124-6. Goethes osteological tabulation was organized in such a way that
vertical rows carried the different bones from the skull and cervical vertebrae down to the vertebrae of
the tail and the bones of the extremities, while the names of the different animals he studied (lion, beaver,
dromedary, buffalo, bear, hog, elk) were written horizontally (Rudolf Magnus, Goethe as a Scientist, trans.
Heinz Norden [New York: Henry Schuman, 1949], 90).
77

78

Ibid., 168-9. (Not in Millers partial translation.)

On the slippery epistemology of the Urpflanze in Goethes thought, see Richards, The Romantic
Conception of Life, 395-6, 416, 424, Marva Duerksen, Organicism and Music Analysis: Three Case Studies
(Ph.D. diss., City University of New York, 2003), 24-7, and H. B. Nisbet, Goethe and the Scientific Tradition
(London: Institute of German Studies, University of London, 1972), 17-22.
79

80

Goethe, Von den Vortheilen, 151-33; Miller, 119-20.

242

them well, we will find that the many varieties of form arise because one part or the other
outweighs the rest in importance. Thus, for example, the neck and extremities are favored in
the giraffe at the expense of the body, but the reverse is the case in the mole.81 In addition to
differentiation by development of one part over the rest, Didier Hurson has shown that Goethe
considers there to be something of a hierarchy of species, in which three-part organisms are
more developed than other types, like mollusks, and even that some three-part organisms are
more developed overall than others, regardless of developmental emphasis on one part or
another.82
The zoological morphology which Goethe espouses furnishes a fruitful point of
comparison for the consideration of A. B. Marxs formal types. Both accounts start by
proposing underlying fundamental structures that are ternary: head, torso, rear section, and
rest, motion, rest (though, of course, the relationship between the first and third part is different
in the two instances). In each theory there are many types of organisms, which vary in their
degrees of complexity and development. Indeed, Goethes concept of different animals
exhibiting more or less complex development of the Typus accords nicely with Marxs
conception of higher forms as the original Rest-Motion-Rest structure made by more complex

Wenn wir die Theile genau kennen und betrachten, so werden wir finden da die
Mannigfaltigkeit der Gestalt daher entsprintgt, da diesem oder jenem Theil ein Uebergewicht ber die
andern zugestanden ist. So find, zum Beyspeil, Hals und Extremitten auf Kosten des Krpers bey der
Giraffe begnstigt, dahingegen beym Maulwurf das Umgekehrte statt findet (ibid., 155-6; Miller, 120-1).
81

Didier Hurson, Les Mystres de Goethe: lidee de totalite dans loeuvre de Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(Paris: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion: 2003), 259-60. For instance, Goethe states that in the less
developed animals the midsection has a large variety of auxiliary organs: feet, wings, and wing covers.
In the more developed animals the midsection is where the middle auxiliary organs are found: arms or
forefeet (ibid., 154; Miller, 120).
82

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by the insertion of additional sections and/or cadences. Furthermore, even the less developed
species and musical forms are still autonomous and viable organisms, a feature which allows
the analogy between pieces and animals to sidestep Burnhams critical objection to Thalers
plant metamorphosis reading. This analogy between morphology and Marxs Formenlehre also
illuminates much of the organicist language in his Kompositionslehre. For instance, there are
evident similarities between Marxs statement that throughout [the Formenlehre] we have
found, in departing from a foundational form (Grundform), as a kernel of a whole realm of
forms, a range of conformations (Gestaltungen) . . . and Goethes avowal that I am fully
convinced that a general archetype (Typus), which is developed through metamorphosis,
progresses through all organic creatures.83 Additionally, it is worth considering Goethes
morphological tenet that more perfect organisms exhibit a greater degree of differentiation in
their parts, as well as a greater degree of subordination of these parts to the whole, when
compared to less perfect organisms.84 As Carl Dahlhaus has pointed out, there are strong
similarities between this tenet and Marxs description of the rondo forms as exhibiting a greater
degree of thematic contrast and formal integration than the Lied forms.85

Ueberall haben wir, von einer Grundform, Als Kern eines ganzen Formengebiets ausgehend,
eine Reihe von Gestaltungen gefunden . . . (Marx, Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, vol. 3, 335),
translation adapted from Burnham, Aesthetics, Theory and History, 119; . . . ich war vllig berzeugt,
ein allgemeiner, durch Metamorphose sich erhebender Typus gehe durch die smmtlichen organischen
Geschpfe durch . . . (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Tag- und Jahres-Hefte als Ergnzung meiner sonstigen
Bekenntnisse, in Goethes Werke, vol. 35 [Weimar: Hermann Bhlau, 1892], 16).
83

Idem, Bildung und Umbildung organischer Naturen, in Zur Naturwissenschaft berhaupt,

besonders zur Morphologie, 3rd ed., vol. 1 (Stuttgart und Tbingen: J. G. Cotta, 1820), x-xi.
84

Dahlhaus, sthetische Prmissen, 79-80. As an example of the formal integration found in

more developed forms, consider Marxs statement that in the Rondo forms the subordinate Satz appears
subordinated to the main Satz [der Seitensatz gegen den Hauptsatz untergeordnet erscheint] (Marx,
Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, vol. 3, 125).
85

244

There are, of course, significant differences between zoological morphology and Marxs
Formenlehre as well. First, Marxs prose is more suggestive of a single, determinate progression
from form to form, rather than a multiplicity of forms related only by virtue of their derivation
from a common Urtier. Although the analogy between the Formenlehre and zoological
morphology is attractive because it avoids implying that the less developed of Marxs formal
types are not autonomous, Thaler and Dahlhaus are not amiss in paying attention to Marxs
tendency to describe his Lied and rondo forms as necessarily progressing from one determinate
form to the next in a manner suggestive of the growth of a plant or the emancipation of a
Hegelian spirit of creative reason. Although the parallels between these and Marxs prose break
down if taken too far, there is no compelling reason to discount their resonances in Marxs
Formenlehre. And indeed, as we will see later in this chapter, attending to the organicist aspects
of Marxs thought provides us new insights into his innovative theory of form and the role of
the concept of cadence within it.
The second difference is that the manner in which Goethe employs his tripartite Urtier
for comparative purposes diverges significantly from Marxs use of the Rest-Motion-Rest
archetype. Although Goethe does acknowledge the role of organs in defining the three main
sections, much of his approach focuses on characterizing the bones that one can expect to find in
all vertebrates on the basis of their relative size, shape, location, and the like.86 Marx, in
contrast, does not elaborate a framework of elements common to the Motion section of all
pieces, or to either of the Rest sections, for that matter. Instead, his approach makes clear that

86

Goethe, Von den Vortheilen, 169-71.

245

the first and final sections of his archetype are characterized by a single quality: that of
restfulness. This moment of rest can constitute a single tonic pitch, as in the simple Satz, or it
can be expanded to embrace a phrase in the tonic, an entire Liedsatz, or even a series of Stze that
can effect a modulation to another key, as in the initial Rest section of the sonata form. In the
simpler manifestations of the Rest section, this expansion will take place by means of the
insertion of medial cadences that have the effect of dividing the overall Rest section into
subordinate progressions of Motion and Rest, progressions which must be understood to occur
at lower levels of musical structure.87 Similarly, the Motion section of pieces is characterized by
a departure from the pieces state of rest, either by means of the non-tonic notes of the scale (in
the simple Satz), a too-high tonic pitch (in the monophonic period), a momentary rest on a nonconclusive harmony, or phrases or Lied forms in non-tonic keys. Consequently, Marxs
approach to his formal archetype serves his purposes well, but seems to diverge substantially
from Goethes compiling of lists of elements that commonly recur across different species.
Overall, it is clear that Marx did not set out to construct a theory of form modeled
rigorously upon either Goethes plant morphology or his zoological metamorphosis. Marxs
account of the derivation of forms is too teleological to be a perfect match for describing the
wide range of animal species, but places too much value on early, less developed formal types
to fit precisely the Goethian metamorphosis from Urpflanze to mature plant. Nonetheless, we
should not rush to dismiss the resonances of organicist ideas evoked by Marxs terminology
and methodology. As we shall see, considering further the parallels between musical form and

As we saw in section 4.3, Marxs derivation of the Rest sections in more complex forms, like the
rondo and sonata forms, relies on a more haphazard set of procedures justified by artistic necessity.
87

246

biology in Marxs writings yields new insight into the state of musical discourse in the early
nineteenth century.

4.5 Changes in the Nineteenth Century

Goethes pioneering work in zoological morphology was one of the first efforts to
establish what is today known as comparative anatomy, but he was not the only thinker to
undertake this kind of work at the turn of the nineteenth century. As historians of science have
observed, new concepts of nature and approaches to its study emerged in those years, with the
result that many observers of the natural world asked significantly different questions in the
nineteenth century than had their forebears in the eighteenth.88 In the pages to come we will see
that a number of the organicist ideas invoked by Marxs text are characteristic of these new
ways of studying nature, and that when we compare early-nineteenth-century accounts of
musical form, like Marxs, with those from the later eighteenth century, surprising parallels
between musical discourse and the study of nature appear.
Let us begin with a brief characterization of the study of nature in the eighteenth
century. The term biology had not yet been coined, nor had the discipline we now think of as
biology come into focus.89 Rather, those studying nature contributed to what is usually called

An early author to draw attention to this juncture was mile Guynot (Les sciences de la vie aux
XVII et XVIIIe sicles: LIdee devolution [Paris: ditions Albin Michel, 1941], 402-4, 441-5), whose work may
have informed Michel Foucaults famous analysis of natural history and biology in The Order of Things:
An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Vintage Books, 1973) 125-62, 226-32, 263-79.
88

William Coleman dates the first appearance of the term to the year 1800 (Biology in the
Nineteenth Century: Problems of Form, Function, and Transformation [Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1977], 1).
89

247

natural history, a discipline whose practitioners sought to describe and organize all the
objects found in nature. The two most notable eighteenth-century representatives of this
discipline were Carl Linnaeus (1707-78) and Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707-1788).
Linnaeus is most famous for replacing the inconsistent welter of names for plants and animals
with a new system of binominal nomenclature, which forms the basis of modern biological
terminology. While Linnaeus was certainly not the first to propose a new, more systematic way
of naming things, his method benefited from its simple and consistent means of classifying
beings. With plants he directs his readers attention to the organisms fructification, and
specifically to the number, proportion, and location of its stamens and pistils.90 By paying
attention to these easily identifiable, external characteristics, which Linnaeus took to express the
essence of the organism, natural historians were able to group individual plants into species
with identical fructification, and then into genera exhibiting similar fructification.91 In an
analogous way, animals were grouped into species and then genera on the basis of external
characteristics, although the choice of characteristics was usually more ad hoc than in botanical
classification. Even though Linnaeuss method could produce rather arbitrary results (and
Linnaeus admitted to surreptitiously considering more than just the reproductive system when

EGO . . . Sexuale Systema secundum numerum, proportionem & situm staminum cum pistillis
elaboravi (Carolus Linnaeus, Philosophia botanica [Stockholm: Kiesewetter, 1751], 24). See also ibid., 100.
90

On the essentialist, Aristotelian-informed nature of Linnaeuss thought, see Frans A. Stafleu,

Linnaeus and the Linnaeans: The Spreading of their Ideas in Systematic Botany, 1735-1789 (Utrecht: A.
Oosthoeks Uitgeversmaatschappij N.V., 1971), 25-31.
91

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forming his genera), the clarity and easy reproducibility of Linnaeuss results led gradually to
the widespread adoption of his nomenclature.92
Buffon, in contrast, did not place the same value on nomenclatural reform. Indeed, he
was highly critical of Linnaeuss attempts to reduce plants and animals to their essential
characteristics.93 Rather, Buffons particular contribution to natural history was his helming of
an extensive collection of widely read Histoires naturelles, which described a great variety of
plants and animals not in terms of their simplest defining qualities, but in a much more
exhaustive, holistic sense, including their behavior and geographic distribution. In Buffons
view, the idea of a continuity of characteristics extending between all living creatures was much
more important than mechanical classification based on one arbitrarily chosen feature.94 Yet as
Dirk Stemerding has observed, Buffons work nonetheless exhibits the same tendency to
abstract defining characteristics from the multitude of living creatures and plants, since he bases
his concept of the species on those qualities which are passed on unaltered by the process of
reproduction.95 Buffon states this pithily while explaining that the idea of species cannot be
extended to minerals: [Since] the species is thus nothing other than a constant succession of
individuals which are similar [to each other] and which can reproduce, it is clear that this

Ernst Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance (Cambridge:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1982), 178-9.
92

93

Ibid., 181.

94

Ibid., 180-1.

Dirk Stemerding, Plants, Animals and Formulae: Natural History in the Light of Latours Science in
Action and Foucaults The Order of Things (Enschede: School of Philosophy and Social Sciences,
University of Twente, 1991), 67-8, 76-8.
95

249

designation should only be extended to animals and plants, and that it is by an abuse of terms
or ideas that the nomenclators have used it to designate different kinds of minerals . . .96
Nineteenth-century biology differs from earlier natural history in several crucial
respects. One such difference is the increasing emphasis placed on the internal functioning of
plants and animals. Stemerding has argued compellingly that a significant motivation for
eighteenth-century natural historians was to create organizational schemes for their often
sizeable collections of preserved plant and animal specimens. Given the state of preservation
techniques, it was much more feasible for people to classify specimens by observing the external
features of dried plants and mounted animals than it was to compare their internal workings.97
Thus, Linnaeuss focus on fructification not only yielded results that were intuitively acceptable
to most natural historians, but also was eminently practical. About the turn of the nineteenth
century, however, observers increasingly turned their attention to the inner workings of living
organisms, and to their forms and functions.98 Rather than postulating that a single feature of
an organism could express its essence, biologists such as Georges Cuvier (1769-1832)
emphasized the interdependence of organisms constituent parts, writing that: The laws which

Lespce ntant donc autre chose quune succession constante dindividus semblables & qui
se reproduisent, il est clair que cette dnomination ne doit stendre quaux animaux & aux vgtaux, &
que cest par un abus des termes ou des ides, que les nomenclateurs lont employe pour dsigner les
diffrentes sortes de minraux . . . (Georges Louis Leclerc comte de Buffon, Histoire naturelle, gnrale et
particulire, avec la description du Cabinet du Roi, vol. 4 [Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1753], 386). For
additional elaboration of this point, see also ibid., 384-6.
96

97

Stemerding, Plants, Animals and Formulae, 34-6, 118-9.

The relationship between form and function in nineteenth-century biology is something of a

commonplace in relevant intellectual histories, but is elucidated with particular sophistication by Stephen
T. Asma (Following Form and Function: A Philosophical Archaeology of Life Science [Evanston, Ill.:
Northwestern University Press, 1996]).
98

250

determine the relations of their organs, and which are of a necessity equal to that of the laws of
metaphysics or mathematics, are founded in this mutual dependence of the functions, and in
the aid which the functions reciprocally lend one another. This is because it is evident that the
seemly harmony between organs which interact is a necessary condition of existence of the
creature to which they belong, and that if one of these functions were modified in a manner
incompatible with modification of the others, this creature could not exist.99 Indeed, Cuviers
belief in the interdependence of parts was so strong that he held that investigation of one
component could help one deduce the likely characteristics of the rest of the organism, a
conviction he put into practice in his reconstructions of fossilized skeletons.100
Furthermore, comparison of different vertebrate species skeletal systems offered a
significant means of gaining new insights into the relationships between animals.101 Numerous
biologists, such as tienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844) and Johann Friedrich Meckel
(1781-1833), also dedicated their attention to the appearances of embryos at different
developmental stages, positing connections between developmental stages of an embryo from a

Cest dans cette dpendance mutuelle des fonctions, et ce secours quelles se prtent
rciproquement, que sont fondes les lois qui dterminent les rapports de leurs organes, et qui sont dune
ncessit gale celle des lois mtaphysiques ou mathmatiques: car il est vident que lharmonie
convenable entre les organes qui agissent les uns sur les autres, est une condition ncessaire de lexistence
de ltre auquel ils appartiennent, et que si une de ses fonctions toit modifie dune manire
incompatible avec les modifications des autres, cet tre ne pourroit pas exister (Georges Cuvier, Leons
danatomie comparee, vol. 1 [Paris: Baudouin, 1800], 47). Translation adapted from Mayr, The Growth of
Biological Thought, 184.
99

Mayr, The Growth of Biological Thought, 183-4; Herv Le Guyader, tienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire:
A Visionary Naturalist, trans. Marjorie Grene (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 13-6.
100

101

Ibid., 21-5, 48-52.

251

given species and mature examples of other, less complex species.102 The functioning of internal
organs and systems of respiration, digestion, and the like also took on much more importance
as biologists attempted to compare how different species of organisms accomplished the same
bodily tasks, and to draw inferences from these differences.103 In Michel Foucaults analysis,
these changes are evidence of a change from constructing a classificatory system for the
diversity of organisms confronting the natural historian to investigating the quality of life
shared by all living organisms, and the diverse means of its manifestation.104
Returning our attention to music, there are signs that the writing of music theory
underwent analogous changes in the decades before and after the turn of the nineteenth
century. When Koch describes musical pieces as wholes, his approach involves classifying
them by a somewhat haphazard mixture of instrumentation-defined genre and formal type.
Thus, the sonata and symphony genres receive separate treatments, yet Koch also details the
disposition of melodic sections within the first movement of larger compositions, a grouping
which encompasses the symphony, sonata, and other genres105; Marx, in contrast, merely
addresses Sonatenform as a whole, without genre-specific characterizations. Considering that
Kochs Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition is a compositional manual, the texts account of
genres is directed toward giving composers guidelines within which to work, rather than a

Ibid., 8, 101-5. See also Coleman, Biology in the Nineteenth Century, 47-53, and Paul Lawrence
Farber, Finding Order in Nature: The Naturalist Tradition from Linnaeus to E.O. Wilson (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2000), 42-4.
102

103

Ibid., 123-35; Stemerding, Plants, Animals and Formulae, 142-6.

104

Foucault, The Order of Things, 226-32, 263-79, esp. 268-71.

105

Koch, Versuch, vol. 3 (Leipzig: Adam Friedrich Bhme, 1793), XXX.

252

diagnostic method intended to identify the category of an unknown work. The most reliable
guidelines Koch provides are of easily observable external characteristics: the overall
disposition of pieces into lengthy main periods (Hauptperioden) (the equivalent of a sonatas
exposition or development), and then into constituent periods (Perioden), each of which usually
concludes with a strong cadence. Moments of moderately subjective observations do occur,
such as describing the second period of a sonata as being sweet, expressive, and tender.106 Yet
for the most part discussions of genre and form by Koch and his contemporaries, like Kollmann
and Galeazzi, gravitate toward describing musical organization and form in terms of periods in
certain keys that conclude with strong cadences, and to comparing different genres with respect
to their relative grandness, simplicity of subject, thematic expansiveness, and the like.107
The beginning of the nineteenth century saw the development of a remarkably different
way to describe musical compositions. As Ian Bent has compellingly demonstrated in his Music
Analysis in the Nineteenth Century, a proto-hermeneutic style of musical discourse arose in the
years about the turn of the nineteenth century.108 This new approach to describing music was
often directed toward a broad musical public, and took a variety of forms, such as E.T.A.
Hoffmanns famous analysis of Beethovens fifth symphony, in which vivid metaphors for the

Francesco Galeazzi, Elementi teorico-pratici di Musica con un Saggio sopra lArte di Suonare il
Violino, vol. 2 (Rome: Michele Puccinelli, 1796), 256. Translation adapted from Bathia Churgin, Francesco
Galeazzis Description (1796) of Sonata Form. Journal of the American Musicological Society 21, no. 2
(Summer 1968), 193.
106

Augustus Frederic Christopher Kollmann, An Essay on Practical Musical Composition, according

to the Nature of that Science and the Principles of the Greatest Musical Authors (London: the author, 1799), 15;
Koch, Versuch, vol. 3, 305-6, 315-6, 330-3.
107

Ian Bent, ed., Music Analysis in the Nineteenth Century, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1994), 14-9.
108

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effects of the music on listeners are mixed with fine-grained technical descriptions, and JrmeJoseph de Momignys practice of setting words to instrumental music or providing stage
directions for it, in an attempt to convey the musics sentiments.109 In contrast to the focus on
external characteristics of phrase and modulation that is typical of the descriptions of musical
pieces in eighteenth-century composition treatises, many of those nineteenth-century analyses
which are described as hermeneutic by Bent attempt to penetrate deeper into the internal
qualities of music: into the mind and intentions of the composer, the effects of the music on the
inmost being of listeners, or the artistic content and meaning of the music. Even composition
manuals reflected this change, as the presence of Momignys analysis in his composition text
demonstrates, as do the lengthy discussions of works by Beethoven in the third volume of
Marxs Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition.110
With these overviews of biological and music-theoretical changes in mind, certain
parallels become evident. In the eighteenth century natural historians and music pedagogues
were confronted with a variety of phenomena for which existing conceptual frameworks did
not sufficiently account. Previously unknown plant and animal specimens were brought to
Western Europe, spurring natural historians to seek each species defining features in order to
classify them efficiently and consistently. Similarly, compositional practice in the later
eighteenth century began to coalesce into a collection of genres which, even when they were
labeled with previously existing names, exhibited a significant degree of uniformity within each

109

Hoffmanns analysis is translated in ibid., 145-60. Concerning Momigny, see ibid., 127-40.

For a comparatively brief example, see his discussion of the finale of Beethovens Waldstein
sonata (Marx, Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, vol. 3, 162-9).
110

254

genre, leading music pedagogues to attempt to abstract those genres defining characteristics.
Easily observable, even quantifiable external features were valuable in both fields: the
number, proportion, size, and location of the stamen and pistils in Linnaeuss system, and the
number of phrases ending with strong cadences, along with their keys in the case of Koch,
Kollmann, and others.
By the early nineteenth century, however, these approaches had in many respects run
their course. Biologists turned their attention to the internal features of organisms, such as
skeletal structures and physiological systems like respiration and nutrition, seeking insight into
the varieties and uniformities through which life could be expressed. Accounts of musical
compositions developed a new focus on their inner workings, both in terms of composers
intentions and listeners perceptions. This concern with characterizing musics quality is also
reflected in Marxs emphasis on the qualities of motion and rest, and elaboration of a system in
which a moment may be restful within the context of a stretch of music with an overall
character of motion, and so forth. At the same time, this systems reliance on characterizing
moments within the context of a tripartite pattern of rest-motion-rest bears similarities both to
the three-part archetype in Goethes zoological morphology, and to the widespread concept in
biology of the subordination of parts, which emphasizes the dependence of any given body part
on the entirety of the organism from which it comes.
How should we understand these similarities? Did Marx set out to perform
comparative anatomy on musical bodies? While, as Dahlhaus has noted, Marx was a tireless

255

reader,111 making it plausible that he had come into contact with the scientific writings of the
esteemed Goethe, the similarities between Marxs Formenlehre and Goethes morphology are not
abundant and exact enough to suggest that Marx intended to construct a Goethian model of
musical morphology. Parallels between his Formenlehre and nineteenth-century biological
thought certainly exist, but they are only one component in the complex admixture of
biological, idealist-historical, pedagogical, and strictly musical concerns that Scott Burnhams
work has admirably elucidated. Are the similarities due to a Foucauldian epistemic rupture,
which gave rise to one style of natural history (and compositional texts) before 1800, and
another kind of biology (and Formenlehre) afterward? The transition from classifying objects
based on external characteristics to uncovering the inner structures and functioning of
organisms certainly resonates with Foucaults hypothesis of the nineteenth-century change of
episteme. Yet moving the explicative onus onto an unconscious substrate of thought has definite
drawbacks, even apart from the well-known weaknesses of Foucaults original epistemic
hypothesis. It diverts our attention from meaningful continuities in praxis that would undercut
that hypothesis, as Dirk Stemerding has shown,112 and it can tend to shift the terms of the
discussion from active engagement with the relevant particulars to abstract debate about the
merits of Foucaults theorizing.
While Marx was not constructing a rigorously Goethian morphology, we should not
discount the significance of the nineteenth-century tendency of Marx and others to conceive of
musical pieces as organisms, in the sense of contemporaneous biological thought. When one

111

Dahlhaus, sthetische Prmissen, 75.

112

Stemerding, Plants, Animals and Formulae, 179-81.

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begins to think of compositions as organisms, new questions become relevant. What makes all
the different parts of a piece, its themes and key changes, cohere? What is the seed (Kern) from
which the organism developed? How can one explain the development or evolution
(Entwicklung) from this seed into a fully developed organism? What structural regularities exist
between organisms that are traditionally considered to be unrelated? How do the different
parts of the organism function, and how are those functions subsumed to the operation of the
organism as a whole? These latter questions, in particular, could easily explain why Marx
sought out an archetype undergirding all compositions, why he developed a system for
characterizing the restfulness or motion of different stretches of music, and why he built his
compositional method around the study of musical form, not received notions of genre.
And after all, it should not surprise us that ideas from biology might affect musical
discourse. Marx, and many others, surely saw the innovations and resulting cultural prestige of
biological study, and evidently desired to couch their own writings in that fields terminology
and conceptual apparatus when it served their purposes.113 Furthermore, both biology and
Formenlehre were undergoing development in the same cultural milieu. Considering that
numerous scholars in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries made contributions in both
artistic and scientific fields, it is scarcely surprising that aspects of methodology and intellectual
habitus might be shared between fields that appear quite unrelated today.114 Thus, by appealing

Lotte Thaler discusses many other authors who adopt organicist concepts and terminology,
including Otto Klauwell, Salomon Jadassohn, and Hugo Leichtentritt (Organische Form, 5, 18, passim).
113

In addition to Goethes scientific and poetic endeavors, one could also cite Leonhard Euler
(1707-83) and Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-94) as additional exemplars of scholars who made both
scientific and music-theoretic contributions.
114

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both to Marxs intentional adoption of organicist concepts and his being situated in a
nineteenth-century context, we can attempt to chart a sort of via media between emphasizing
authors unwitting subservience to an undergirding frame of knowledge at the expense of their
agency, and extolling authors intentionality to the point of ignoring the intellectual culture in
which they are situated.

4.6 Conclusion
Those transformative years about the turn of the nineteenth century saw yet another
change: the start of our final period of cadential theorizing. Since the dawn of the sixteenth
century, with the innovations of the Cologne school, the cadence had been a mainstay of
theoretical discussion. Even as scholars differed in their opinions of how many cadences should
be postulated, and whether to describe cadences in terms of how there were constructed or
where they were located, a common understanding of the cadence as an obligatory element of
music-theoretic discourse was assumed. In Marxs writings, however, the concept of the
cadence is deployed in a fashion that does not accord with texts from previous centuries. One
difference is the manner in which Marx presents his cadential ideas. Instead of laying out a
fully formed doctrine of the cadence, Marx gradually disperses cadential details, providing his
readers only as much information as they need at that point in their artistic formation. Another
difference is the relationship between the concept of the cadence and his theory of musical form.
In the late eighteenth century, period-ending cadences, and their keys, were crucial

258

characteristics for the delineation of genres and forms by authors such as Koch and Galeazzi.115
Marx, however, appeals to cadences not as a characteristic useful for diagnosing a given
specimens genre, but instead as a means by which simple formal structures develop
organically into more complex formations. The concept of the cadence has been repurposed
from an independent, necessary component of music treatises to an idea that is now dependent
on the concept of musical form, consequently is no longer an autonomous topic of theoretical
interest.
This subordination of cadential theorizing to formal concerns is unlikely to be reducible
to just one cause, but we can identify some of the factors that contributed to it. One factor is the
nineteenth-century rise in organicist metaphors for music. As this chapter has demonstrated,
nineteenth century biology and Formenlehre both sought to characterize the internal functioning
of organisms, and to uncover the structural similarities between seemingly unrelated species.
Furthermore, Marx shared many biologists desire to explain the developmental processes by
which a diversity of organisms become manifested. The adoption of the analogy between the
musical piece and the organism focused the attention of music scholars on the artistically
unified composition as a whole, more than on individual chordal successions.116 It also
prompted music scholars to ask new questions about the nature of that organism, questions

Vasili Byros argues for the importance of cadences in the perception of Kochs version of the
sonata form in Hauptruhepuncte des Geistes: Punctuation Schemas and the Late-Eighteenth-Century
Sonata, in What is a Cadence?: Theoretical and Analytical Perspectives on Cadences in the Classical Repertoire,
ed. Markus Neuwirth and Pieter Berg (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2015), 215-51.
115

Thaler identifies conceptions of the organically unified whole in the writings of Jadassohn,
Klauwell, Marx, Riemann, and others (Organische Form, 35-42).
116

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which led to the identification of musical form as a central object of musical inquiry, and to the
increasing subordination of the concept of the cadence to the topic of musical form.
Another factor that contributed to the cadences subordination in our third period is the
evolution of compositional practice. During the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
the regular occurrence of cadences were a particularly crucial means by which compositional
comprehensibility was communicated.117 While, as we have seen, the analogy between musical
closure and punctuation stretches back to the very origins of music theory in Western Europe, it
rings especially true in the music of the classical era, which is reflected in the diagnostic role of
cadences in many modern Formenlehre texts. In the later nineteenth century, in contrast,
regularly recurring cadences are far less necessary. Indeed, long stretches of Wagners music,
and even compositions by Brahms, seem at times to thematize the avoidance of usual cadential
progressions.118 Musical practice was moving away from the traditional cadential formulas, but
no alternative that was subject to easy systematization arose to take their place. For this reason
it is less surprising that the previous centuries tradition of cadential theorizing ceased to hold
pride of place in new music theories, and in the later nineteenth century was often relegated, in
an ossified form, to more rudimentary levels of musical education.119

Danuta Mirka, Punctuation and Sense in Late-Eighteenth-Century Music, Journal of Music

Theory 52, no. 2 (Fall 2010): 238-9.
117

William Kinderman, Das Geheimnis der Form in Wagners Tristan und Isolde, Archiv fr
Musikwissenschaft 41, no. 3 (1983): 186-7. See Brahmss Intermezzo in F minor, Op. 118, no. 4, for a fine
example of a piece that postpones a strong arrival on the tonic until the very end of the composition.
118

See, for instance, E. F. Richters popular textbook, which explicitly spells out how to form
cadences with full examples; even Richters treatment, however, is gradually meted out over the course of
the treatise, perhaps thanks to Marxs approach (Lehrbuch der Harmonie, 3rd ed. [Leipzig: Breitkopf und
Hrtel, 1860], 20-1, 27-8, 40-3, 69-70, 194-6).
119

260

That is not to say, however, that cadences ceased to be mentioned in ambitious theory
texts of the third period. Even as the traditional cadential theorizing which characterized the
second period slid into obsolescence, and attention shifted instead to the entire composition,
which was seen as an organically unified whole, the concept of the cadence was still employed
by prominent music theorists as they sought to describe the musical form of entire
compositions. We will briefly consider the theoretical output of Hugo Riemann, Arnold
Schoenberg, and Heinrich Schenker, for whom the concept of the cadence served as an
explanatory metaphor for the form of whole pieces. In Riemanns first work, Musikalische
Logik, he describes his great cadence (groe Cadenz) (defined as C-F-C-G-C) as the
prototype (Typus) of all musical form, presumably because it serves as the foundation from
which he derives the functions of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.120 The significance of these
functions for entire compositions cannot be under-estimated, since in Musikalische Logik
Riemann aims to explain how the freest and most complex of harmonic and metric formations
evolve from the simplest principle of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis . . .121 Schoenbergs use of
the cadence to describe the formal structure of entire pieces is more straightforward: at several
points in his writings he describes a resemblance between pieces and cadences, and writes of

Diese Gestalt der Cadenz ist der Typus aller musikalischen Form (Hugo Riemann [as
Hugibert Ries], Musikalische Logik: Ein Beitrag zur Theorie der Musik, Neue Zeitschrift fr Musik 68, no.
28 [1872]: 280; trans. Kevin Mooney as Musical Logic: A Contribution to the Theory of Music, Journal of
Music Theory 44, no. 1 [2000]: 101-2). For more on this cadence, see Kevin Mooney, Hugo Riemann's
Debut as a Music Theorist, Journal of Music Theory 44, no. 1 (2000): 81-99.
120

Wir werden sehen, wie sich aus dem einfachsten Princip von These, Antithese und Synthese,
entsprechend dem Hauptmannschen Octav-, Quint- und Terzbegriff, die freisten und complicirtesten
harmonischen wie metrischen Bildungen entwickeln (ibid.; Mooney, p. 101). Translation by Mooney.
121

261

musical phrases corresponding to different elements in a cadential progression.122 Schenker

similarly invokes the cadence as a model for whole compositions. His concept of the Ursatz,
which embraces a tonic-dominant-tonic harmonic progression with melodic closure on the tonic
scale degree, constitutes the foundation of entire pieces, and is likened by Schenker to a cadence
(a term which Schenker uses to refer to a wide variety of V-I progressions).123 Thus, even as the
defining details of the traditional cadential categories ossified in theoretical discourse, certain
scholars repurposed the concept of the cadence, in a highly abstract fashion, for their treatments
of entire pieces and the artistic impetus which give them structure.
Through the course of this dissertation we have observed many significant changes in
the theorizing of musical closure, and the concept of the cadence. In our first period, we looked
at how John of Affligem and his peers borrowed ideas from the grammatico-rhetorical tradition
in order to grapple with the syntactic structure of chant melodies. Our second period saw the
Cologne school initiate theorizing of the concept of the cadence with their idea of the clausula
formalis, and Printz develop that concept in ways both profound and risible. In the late
eighteenth century cadences were still functioning as an obligatory element of theoretic
discourse, even as it was employed for the purposes of identifying musical genres and forms.
Indeed, it was not until the nineteenth century that the concept of the cadence began to function

Arnold Schoenberg, The Musical Idea and the Logic, Technique, and Art of Its Presentation, ed. and
trans. Patricia Carpenter and Severine Neff (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 35859; cited in
William E. Caplin, The Classical Cadence: Conceptions and Misconceptions, Journal of the American
Musicological Society 57, no. 1 (Spring 2004), 60.
122

Heinrich Schenker, Free Composition, ed. and trans. Ernst Oster (New York: Longman, 1979), 16.
For his most thorough discussion of cadences, see idem, Harmonielehre (Stuttgart: J.G. Cotta'sche
Buchhandlung Nachfolger, 1906), 119-124, pp. 287-311.
123

262

in a new way, thereby beginning our third period. Buffeted by the forces of potent organicismbased conceptualizations of music and changes in compositional style, the concept of the
cadence ceded its former place of importance in music theory to the newly ascendant subject of
musical form, to which it, in an ossified state, served as a mere accessory. In this capacity it
helped authors to describe the relationships between different formal types, and even to
conceptualize the formal structure of entire pieces. The concept of the cadence, a formerly
august subject of theoretical concern, was no longer an autonomous object of theoretical
interest, but instead served as an adjutant to nineteenth- and twentieth-century discourses of
musical form that laid the groundwork for contemporary music theory.

263

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