RE: [tuning] Digest Number 3458

Hi Daniel,

I'm familiar with the term "Fauxbourdon" as an organ stop, and had
read of "faburden" as being a form of descant singing in Western
Europe. I had always assumed some connection between the two ...

Can you point me to a (preferably online) reference giving more
detail about the character and practice of "fauxburdon" as
"a semi-improvised form of polyphony"?

(You DO mention "surviving documents", so it's not ALL imagination!)

Regards,
Yahya

BTW: "Islamdom" ??? Did you just make that up? In Arabic, we speak
of the Jama`ah Islamiyyah, the Islamic community. YA

-----Original Message-----
________________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 11:08:54 +0100
From: Daniel Wolf <djwolf@snafu.de>
Subject: Re: Digest Number 3457

Re: "Sumer is a coming in" and Pythagoreanism

The English specialized in a semi-improvised form of polyphony called
fauxbourdon. It made a predominantly triadic texture, especially 6th
(6/3) chords, out of monophonic repertoire. It is hard to imagine that
these would have been sung vertically in anything other than simple
5-limit chords. It is easy to imagine the "Sumer" canon within this sme
intonational environment.

(Please don't think that my appeals to imagination here are cop-outs:
England, and English fauxbourdon, was on the margin of European theory
and practice, and the deficits in surviving documents can only be
balanced by modest appeals to the imagination!)

It is easy enough to to place the blanket label "pythagorean" over all
medieval musical theory and practice, but that is insufficiently
granular to describe what is a reather more complex situation, and this
is apparently true for pythagoreanism in both of the cultures inheriting
the Hellenistic traditions, Christendom and Islamdom.

On the one hand, one can assume that a literal pythagorean practice did
exist for some repertoire. However, the is ample evidence in both
surviving repertoire and in theory that the pythagorean "project"
included trying to reconcile practices beyond the three limit with an
intellectual (= rational _and_ theological) committment to the three
limit. Extended pythagorean schemes (e.g. schismatic tunings where a
pythagorean Fb/C is used to approximate the 5:4 third) were one answer
to this problem, quarter-comma meantone was the unique European
solution, and the searches for a successful large-number temperament
have been perpetual Greece, Turkey, in Arabic countries, and even among
some members of this community, however within this community the
problem has been generalized to considered the reconciliation of several
prime factors, not just three and five.

Re: Lowinsky

Edward Lowinsky (1908-85) was a music scholar, with a decidedly
unorthodox bent. His controversial work centered on the "secret
chromatic art" of the high renaissance, and especially questions of
_ficta_ and the characterization of transitional repertoire as tonal or
atonal. Naturally, he touched on some significant intonational issues as
well. Lowinsky remains an essential figure for research in music from
Ockeghem to Orlando and Vincentino to Gesualdo. His article on Mozart's
rhythm is a small treasure, again with a viewpoint that goes against the
grain.

As an undergrad, I had a very gracious exchange of letters with
Lowinsky, then retired from Chicago, about the disappearance of the
enharmonic genera, one of my small obsessions.

Not an idol, but a bit of a hero and a good example of the ability of
Academe to sometimes let unorthodox scholars get past the gates to the
ivory tower. Not a bit of general knowledge, but certainly a name that
should be encountered by anyone with more than a passing interest in
music of the Renaissance.

Daniel Wolf

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