Staff Notation: Clefs and Key Signatures

Some issues regarding the above excerpt for your consideration: 1] What are the clefs and key signature? 2] Which contrapuntal technique is freely used? 3] Which harmonic device appears from the beginning to the downbeat of measure 3?

Staff Notation: Clefs and Key Signatures

The excerpt - in 3/4 meter - shown above is obviously for 3 instruments. The top line repeats a 1-measure motive, while the voice notated on the middle staff moves along in a continuous dotted rhythm. The lowest instrument plays a two-measure figure punctuated by a quarter rest.

For your consideration: 1] What are the clefs and key signature of the excerpt? 2] Where during the course of the 6-measures do complete triads occur on the beat? incomplete ones? 3] What is the significance of the chromaticism?

I am most interested in finding out different musicians’ methodologies in deriving the solution, so do write me a comment explaining your rationale if you have a moment.

Score Reading: Misprints

A passage from the fugue of Franck’s Prelude, Fugue and Variation in B minor, op. 18 is quoted above. I believe it contains a rather serious misprint in the highlighted measure.

Misprints in musical scores can occur for a number of reasons: a slip of the copyist’s pen from autograph to 1st edition or to any subsequent edition, a copyist’s misinterpretation of the composer’s notation, misreading a clef, an editor’s decision, or in rare cases, a mistake on the part of the composer.

When the composer’s autograph is not available, how are we to know which edition to use? Can we trust so-called ‘urtext’ editions implicitly? Fortunately, two or more editions are available for most repertoire, although many performances are indeed based on a single source. It is also fortunate that misprints are extremely rare. What is unfortunate is that they can easily go undetected.

The alleged misprint in the Franck excerpt occurs in the soprano voice - the eighth note D should be a major 6th higher - B on the 3rd line. The evidence supporting this assertion is quite clear. In the measure in question, the soprano voice appears to re-enter, after a brief rest, with two additional connected statements of the characteristic 8th-note motive which is part of the fugue subject. [Actually, the previously existing soprano voice either becomes the alto, or it splits into two voices on the downbeat of the measure - notice the change in stem direction from the 1st to the 2nd measure of the system]. If the D is correct as it appears, this would be the only statement of the motive in the entire fugue which does not conform melodically to all its other appearances. There is more. The voice leading as it stands involves a pair of parallel unisons, again the only such occurrence - in this case of faulty counterpoint - in the fugue. Finally, the augmented 4th, D to G sharp, sounds disturbing, yet the piece is full of augmented and diminished intervals, both melodically and harmonically, which sound perfectly natural.

There are many instances in various editions of Franck’s organ music in which I believe there are misprints of this sort. As responsible musicians, we need to be on the lookout for this potential problem in our daily musical studies. This is especially true in the more complex chromatic styles and those of the 20th century, but we can never be too careful, whatever the style or composer.

Staff Notation: Clefs and Key Signatures

Most tonal music is notated with a key signature. It should be noted that ‘key’ and ‘key signature’ are not synonyms. F sharp major is a key; 6 sharps is a key signature. And most tonal music modulates from the home key and returns to it by the end of the piece. When the music moves to a secondary key, accidentals are inevitable, with special exception.

Let us use E flat major as a home key and consider its five diatonically related keys - F minor, G minor, A flat major, B flat major and C minor - in terms of the ‘accidental landscape’ when each of these secondary keys is in force: F minor - D flat, E natural; G minor - A natural, E natural, F sharp; A flat major - D flat; B flat major - A natural; C minor - A natural, B natural.

For minor keys, we shall use B minor, which like all minor keys, resides in a 9-note system including, in the case of B minor, the common accidentals G sharp and A sharp. Its related keys are D major, E minor, F sharp minor, G major and A major. For D major - this is the exception - accidentals disappear; E minor - C natural, D sharp; F sharp minor - G sharp, D sharp, E sharp; G major - C natural; A major - G sharp [and no A sharp].

An obvious conclusion can be drawn from this: as a musical score progresses, the music is not necessarily in the home key, or its attendant key signature, in every measure of the piece.

For your consideration: what are the clefs and key signature of the contrapuntal excerpt above? We can assume that the two clefs appear in order of register from bottom to top - bass, baritone, tenor, alto, mezzo soprano, soprano, treble. We should not assume, on the other hand, that the two clefs aren’t the same. There is more than one correct solution within these assumptions.

Staff Notation: Clefs and Key Signatures

Some questions for your consideration: 1] What are the clefs and possible key signature[s] of this three-part contrapuntal piece? 2] What is the harmonic basis for each measure? [example: F minor, root position; C# diminished, first inversion]. 3] Where does the greatest distance between any pair of voices occur? 4] The smallest? 5] Where do accented neighboring tones occur? 6] Where do consonant passing tones occur?

Staff Notation: Clefs

In Lesson 11 of ‘Studies in Music Theory’ by James Harrison, Louis Martin and Myron Fink, the alto clef is introduced. The lesson also includes a first glimpse at second species counterpoint, wherein the Cantus Firmus begins to appear consistently in the alto clef against treble or bass. The treble-alto and alto-bass combinations are favorable because in two part music, these pairs of vocal ranges produce a better overall balance.

A beautiful summary of the clefs that have been in use throughout common practice is given above. While not all of these clefs are currently in use, a responsible musician would need to be fluent in most of them in order to read complex scores more readily. The soprano clef facilitates reading instruments in A, while the mezzo soprano clef serves well in reading the English horn and the horn in F. The alto clef is the primary clef for the viola and alto trombone, and works well in reading instruments in D. Bassoon and violoncello parts often change to the tenor clef, the primary clef of the tenor trombone. The tenor clef is also used to read the B flat clarinet and trumpet. And the baritone clef is useful for reading the horn in G and the alto flute.

The next post will be [another] puzzle in determining the clefs and key signature of a three-voice texture.

The examples are quoted by permission of the authors.

Contrapuntal Techniques: Voice Crossing

A superb example of invertible counterpoint at the octave appears in Bach's monumental Fantasie [and Fugue] in G minor, BWV 542. Taking the two analogous passages quoted above, we see that in the first instance, in D minor, the soprano is a minor 6th above the alto. In the later statement, in G minor, these two voices start a major 3rd apart and are thus an inversion of the previous statement. The tenor is a literal transposition of the first statement, as is the pedal line.

Invertible counterpoint appears throughout the literature, especially during the Baroque era. But something quite fascinating takes place in this Fantasie regarding the voice leading at the cadences of the two excerpts. An additional voice appears [black square] toward the end of the 2nd measure in both cases. The tenor actually divides and becomes two independent voices [tenor 1 and tenor 2]. Now to the fascinating part: in the D minor statement, tenor 1 [B natural - up a major 6th from D below] crosses above the alto [G sharp - down a diminished 7th from F above] on the 4th beat. Both voices then proceed to A [unison] on the next downbeat. Needless to say, this voice crossing will have a bearing on how the organist plays the passage.

There is compelling evidence to support this assertion. Hint: it is directly connected to the process of inversion.

Comments are most welcome.