Dissertation Index



Author: Dodds, Michael R.

Title: The Baroque Church Tones in Theory and Practice

Institution: University of Rochester

Begun: June 1994

Completed: January 1999

Abstract:

The church tones, or tuoni ecclesiastici, are a set of tonalities arising from the harmonization and transposition of the eight Gregorian psalm tones in Roman Catholic Offices. Adriano Banchieri's classic theoretical presentation of the church tones in L'Organo suonarino (1605) was followed by a long succession of treatments by other music theorists, not least of all Johann Mattheson, who, in Das neu-eroffnete Orchestre (1713) used them as the foundation for his first listing of the twenty-four major and minor keys. This dissertation traces the church tones from their origins in late-sixteenth-century Italian psalmody, through Austrian and Bavarian sources, to their reception in the eighteenth century by north German theorists.

Because the church tones arose from the complex interaction of various conventions and practical constraints, not all Baroque musicians recognized them as modal categories in their own right. Others did recognize them as such, however, regarding them as the "tones according to the modern use" or as a reduction of Zarlino's twelve modes, and presenting them using the same theoretical apparatus used to explain the traditional eight- and humanistic twelve-mode systems. Changes in modal representation in a large body of keyboard cycles ordered according to the church tones suggest that the "transition from modes to keys," while incremental in certain respects, is best explained in terms of paradigm shifts occurring around the beginning and ending of the Baroque rather than as an evolutionary process. By mediating between vocal and instrumental ways of organizing tonal space, the church tones bridged the vocally oriented, twelve-mode system of the sixteenth century and the keyboard-oriented, two-mode system of the eighteenth century.

Keywords: mode, modality, tone, tonality, modal representation, alternatim, practice, versets

TOC:

I. Concepts and Contexts
II. Psalm-tone tonalities in Selected Late Cinquecento Writings
III. The Church Tones in Seicento Writings Addressing Organ-Choir Antiphony
IV. The Church Tones in Seicento Theoretical Writings
V. The Church Tones in Austrian and Bavarian Writings about Music
VI. Modal Representation in Italian and South German Keyboard Versets Ordered according to the Church Tones
VII. Epilogue: The Reception of the Church Tones in Eighteenth-Century North German Music Theory

Contact:

Division of Music
Meadows School of the Arts
Southern Methodist University
Dallas TX 75275
tel: +1 214-768-3595


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