Anonymous submission MT&A Analytical vignette 29 July 2016

HARMONIC EXTROVERSION IN THE POPE MARCELLUS MASS

Scholars have long disagreed about the origin of functional tonality, situating it variously in the early 1500s (Dalza and the Frottola), the early 1600s (Monteverdi), the 1670s (Corelli), and sometime after Bach.1 To my mind, however, this is like asking for the year in which dinosaurs evolved into birds: functional harmony, like the birds, developed extremely gradually over time, and there is no single point at which the process began or ended. Instead, it seems to have appeared by the early 1500s as a limited set of ionian-mode popular-music idioms emphasizing the primary triads I, IV, and V.2 Over the next century and a half, these routines gradually colonized an ever- increasing swath of European musical practice, to the point where they started to resemble universal musical laws rather than an assortment of style-specific tendencies. While this was happening they also increased in complexity: where the simplest functionality merely emphasizes root-position I, IV, and V chords, more complex styles feature ever-longer chains of idiomatic progressions connecting tonic to dominant. Thus the supertonic becomes the primary predominant in the early 17th-century, with the vi chord being codified as a pre-predominant (i.e. chord that progresses to IV or ii rather than directly to V) only decades later. In much the same way, the I@ chord begins as a sonority that can typically be explained as “merely a suspension,” only later evolving the independence to be approached and resolved in a variety of ways.

1 Lowinsky 1961 (early 1500s), Dahlhaus 1990 and Fetis 1994 (Monteverdi), Bukofzer 1947 (Corelli), Gauldin 1995 (after Bach). 2 This paragraph summarizes [omitted for anonymity], which reports on an ongoing statistical investigation into the origins of harmonic function. My perspective is closest to that of Lowinsky, though without the teleology and more focused on specific changes (e.g. replacement of iii by I6) within the ionian mode. Unlike Bobbitt (1955) and Meeus (2000), I emphasize specific chords (I, IV, V, I6) rather than specific kinds of root motion. 2

The upshot is that sixteenth-century music is fundamentally polystylistic, offering composers a range of techniques and aesthetics unified by no overarching laws. This can be seen in the works of composers like Willaert and Goudimel, who wrote extroverted, populist, and harmonically proto-functional music, while also composing more learned contrapuntal pieces. And although it is tempting to associate tonality with secular homophony, and modality with sacred counterpoint, genre and harmony are only loosely correlated: as we will see, midcentury polyphony starts to adopt harmonic procedures from the extroverted style, such as a preference for sonorities like I, IV, V and I6; and conversely, there is plenty of homophonic music that is not strongly functional, particularly in modes other than the ionian. This, then, is the background for understanding the Pope Marcellus Mass, a paradoxical piece that is simultaneously the most famous example of 16th-century sacred polyphony, and an outlier within Palestrina’s oeuvre. It is in many ways the paradigmatic Renaissance work—best-selling, most-analyzed, universally praised—while also representing Palestrina’s closest approach to the extroverted harmony of the popular tradition. To understand it we must therefore be prepared to look from multiple angles, moving between the linear perspective in which harmonies are secondary, to a vertical approach in which chords are genuine musical objects with their own distinct tendencies.3 Personally, I find the anachronistic quality of this latter perspective to be thrilling rather than threatening: for if modern analytical tools can reveal non-obvious truths about Palestrina’s style, then this is presumably because they capture features of the composer’s implicit and untheorized musical intuitions—aspects of his musical knowledge that his contemporaries had not managed to codify. In making these about Palestrina’s harmony I am necessarily inviting a host of methodological questions, from the technical (how do we identify tonal centers, or distinguish genuine harmonies from the byproducts of nonharmonic tones?) to the philosophical (what justification is there for the application of anachronistic terminology in analysis?). Rather than discuss these in the abstract, I would instead like to consider

3 Bobbitt (1955) and Lockwood (1975) both acknowledge the importance of harmonic structure in the work, though they do not emphasize its functional qualities to the extent that I do. 3 them in the context of actual analysis. It is necessary, however, to raise a couple warning flags. The first is that all analysis is to some extent subjective and provisional, with Renaissance music presenting the same philosophical problems we confront in other styles—though perhaps to a greater degree. The second is that I adopt a minimalist understanding of familiar harmonic symbols, interpreting them simply as collections of scale degrees: thus I use “I6” to mean “the chord with scale degrees five and one above three in the bass.” The relation between this chord and “I” (the chord with scale degrees three and five above the first) is a matter for investigation rather than a presupposition embedded in the terminology. From this point of view, Roman numerals differ from figured-bass labels largely insofar as they label relative to a tonal center. Figure 1 provides my harmonic analysis of Palestrina’s opening “Kyrie.” The music is in two large parts. Measures 1–14 present the fourth-based “gap-fill” theme, which appears four times in the lowest voice, always generating some variation of the harmonic progression I–IV–I6–vii°6–I. This occurs twice in G mixolydian and twice in C ionian, though the opening’s pervasive F-naturals may tempt modern ears into hearing the passage in C.4 (This anachronistic-but-not-completely-incorrect analysis is shown on the second line.5) The second section introduces new melodic material and increases cadential energy; we begin with a series of emphatic V–I cadences yielding to a closing trio of plagal progressions. Note that the passage features a number of seventh chords which cannot be interpreted as mere byproducts of nonharmonic tones: for instance, if we were to replace the suspension G in measure 8 with its tone of resolution F , we would s create the equally problematic seventh chord A–C–E–F . Likewise, the ii# in measure 15 s

4 Jeppesen 1975 agrees with this reading of the key structure, arguing that the movement is in mixolydian for the first 8 measures and ionian thereafter. 5 Tonics and dominants are oriented oppositely in time: dominant chords can be approached freely but progress in constrained ways (typically to tonics); tonic chords, by contrast, are approached in constrained ways (typically by dominants) but progress freely. In the late sixteenth century, phrygian and mixolydian tonics start to progress in more constrained ways, typically moving by fifth to the chord that would later become the major or minor tonic. In this sense these tonics are starting to behave like dominants. This can be seen in the opening bars of Figure 1, where the mixolydian tonic G invariably moves to C. 4 would become a vii°@ if we were to replace the suspended C with its tone of resolution B.6 Since there is no obvious way to explain the seventh chords in terms of familiar nonharmonic tones, I consider them to be syntactical objects—highly constrained, of course, but nevertheless part of the music’s harmonic skeleton. On my analysis, this harmonic skeleton is both clear and broadly consistent with functional norms. Dominant (V and vii°6) chords resolve either to I or vi while IV chords typically move to I or I6. Dominant chords are preceded either by tonics, I6 chords, or pre-dominant sevenths (ii7 or ii#). There is a notable preference for I6 over iii, a chord which does not appear in the passage. Somewhat unusually for the period, root position vi act like a “pre-predominant,” proceeding either to IV or ii#, consistent with functional grammar. Of course, the music is not completely functional, particularly at the beginnings of phrases: its broadly functional outlines are periodically obscured by

6 5 progressions which move from 3 to 3 over a fixed bass—a common Renaissance idiom suppressed in functionally tonal music. I interpret these as articulating a single generalized harmonic region associated with the bass: for instance, in measures 2–3, a “generalized G chord” which can appear in the more and less stable forms G–B–D and G–B–E. (This is to reiterate the point that G–B–E should not be presumed equivalent to E–G–B in this music.) Note also the common cadential embellishment vii°6–vi6–I, found in mm. 11–12, a variant of the vii°6–IV@–I cadence familiar from the eighteenth century. To be sure, this analysis provides opportunities for disagreement. One might, for example, dispute my identification of tonal centers in the opening measures, just as one might prefer to eliminate the I6 in measure 4, treating B and D as passing tones. But is important to keep these controversies in perspective: after the first eight measures the tonal center is unequivocal (as it is throughout most of the rest of the movement), and the questionable chords, listed in parentheses in my analysis, are in the minority. Furthermore, this is a situation where the urge to avoid error can overwhelm the pursuit of truth: it is after all perfectly possible that Renaissance composers did in fact internalize

6 This is Fetis’s argument for the reality of seventh chords in Monteverdi (Fetis 1994), which works equally well for Ockeghem, Josquin, Palestrina, and virtually every other Renaissance composer. What is new in Monteverdi is that the sevenths are no longer always treated like suspensions or passing tones. 5 a collection of harmonic conventions that eventually developed into those of functional tonality. To evaluate this hypothesis we have little alternative to comparing the harmonic patterns found in a range of sixteenth-century music—an enterprise that necessarily requires something like roman numerals as I interpret them. Analyses such as Figure 1 do not situate the Pope Marcellus Mass relative to Palestrina’s compositional norms or those of his contemporaries. Figure 2 attempts to provide this background, tracing the gradual development of functional harmonic routines by recording the percentage of diatonic progressions conforming to my own theory of functional harmony.7 What is striking is the long and gradual increase from Ockeghem to the classical composers, an increase that looks remarkably gradual, with no cliff or sudden transition from “modality” to “tonality.” (Of course, there are composers like Encina or Monteverdi who are outliers relative to their contemporaries.) The dashed lines on the graph show the proportion of grammatical progressions in both the Pope Marcellus Mass and an assortment of other Palestrina ionian-mode compositions. The gap between these is roughly equivalent to the difference between Tallis and Monteverdi, or Sermisy and Schütz. Thus though the Pope Marcellus Mass is less functional than Haydn, it is also significantly more functional than Ockeghem, Josquin, or even Palestrina’s other music—indeed, judging by Figure 2, it is about hundred years closer to full-fledged functionality than Palestrina’s norm. Figure 3 compares the distribution of harmonies in the work to other Palestrina ionian-mode pieces. We see there are more root-position I, IV, and V chords in the mass—precisely as we would expect if it were influenced by the simple harmonies of sixteenth-century popular music. Figure 4 looks at harmonic tendencies, or the likelihood that one chord will progress to another: we see that the Palestrina of the Pope Marcellus Mass is fond of precisely those progressions that characterize functional harmony (V–I, I–V, etc.) while disfavoring the nonfunctional V–IV.8 All of this is again consistent with

7 For details see [omitted for anonymity]. The central idea is that chords typically move from tonic to dominant along the descending chain of thirds (skipping freely), with a few idiomatic progressions (IV–I, V–I, V–vi, etc.) moving in the opposite direction. 8 Calculating these tendencies is complex, because a tonal language with many V and I chords will also have many V–I progressions. Here I subtract the overall likelihood of a given chord from the likelihood of that chord’s appearing after another particular chord: 6 the truism that the Pope Marcellus Mass is written in an unusually extroverted manner. However, we can now broaden this claim to encompass not just the work’s homophonic texture and clear text-setting, but also its detailed harmonic structure: the piece uses an unusual number of primary triads, root-position harmonies, and functionally tonal progressions—even relative to Palestrina’s own ionian-mode practice.9 Figure 5 shows that the “Christe” is largely dominated by primary triads, with root position I, IV, and V accounting for about half the chords. (Including their inversions brings the number up to 85%.) Harmonies again mostly progress as they do in functional tonality, through there are again a few anomalies—including the strange ii6–I “thwarted cadence” in mm. 35–36 and 45–46. (In marked contrast to the opening Kyrie, there is just a single cadence involving the converging voices of the clausula vera, starred on the example.) About a third of the way into the section, Palestrina introduces a pervasive descending motive that produces a chord I have labeled “I@” (mm. 33, 34, 37, 40, 44, and 47). Figure 6 provides two interpretations of this puzzling chord: my own, and a second that records the standard music-theoretical claim that suspensions represent their tone of resolution; from this point of view, the chord is not a @ at all, but rather a G– B–E sonority whose third is decorated by an inessential suspension. In other words, Palestrina might just as well have held the E constant while the suspension resolves. The problem is that Palestrina very rarely does this: in my sample of more than seven hundred Palestrina mass movements, there are just a small handful of passages

6 6 where a 4–3 suspension creates a progression from a 4 to a 3 over a fixed bass, as 6 5 compared to hundreds of cases where the 4 moves to a 3 . (This asymmetry is present, though less extreme in the work of earlier composers such as Josquin.) The rarity of the 6 4 − 3 progression suggests that the E–D motion in the Christe is not accidental or thus the “tendency” of V–I is given by (the probability of I following V) – (the probability of I). This measures how much a V chord increases the likelihood of the next chord’s being a tonic. 9 Taruskin 2004 articulates the standard texture-based view: “the style of Palestrina’s Kyrie does not differ especially from the ars perfecta idiom [i.e. the Renaissance polyphonic style beginning with Josquin] with which we are familiar, because the Kyrie is a sparsely texted, traditionally melismatic item where textual clarity was not of paramount concern. […] It is in the ‘talky’ movements of the Mass—the Gloria and the Credo—that the special post-Tridentine qualities emerge” (655). 7

6 5 inessential: on the contrary, the 4 → 3 progression may be genuinely harmonic, a desirable and important succession of sonorities rather than the mere byproduct of

10 6 independent lines. I register its significance by labeling the it as a 4 on my analysis 6 rather than a 3 . On my reading, then, the passage involves what came to be called “root motion by fifth,” in this case linking a tonic inversion to the root-position dominant. It is tempting to associate the passage with other Palestrina idioms that also favor these same features— for example, his preference for the tonic inversion I6 over the root-position iii, or his tendency to support bass motion by fourth with root position triads.11 Such asymmetries are much weaker in Palestrina’s predecessors: for instance, when the bass moves by fourth or fifth, it supports root position triads about 90% of the time Palestrina, 80% of the time in Josquin and less than 60% of the time in Ockeghem. (This reinforces my earlier remark that the Christe’s two ii6–I “thwarted cadences” are unusual.) The gradual origins of functionality, I believe, can be seen in changing harmonic preferences like these, changes that differentiate composers who speak the same contrapuntal language. Note in this context the numerous IV–I progressions that use ascending voice leading to create a “passing” leading tone (mm. 27–28, 38, 42–43, 49–50). This treatment of the IV–I progression is quite common through the time of Bach, and it is reasonable to imagine that this is because the resolving tritone endows these ostensibly plagal progressions with a dominant quality.12 (Indeed these “plagal dominants” are a significant source of non-cadential dominant energy in late Renaissance music: in Figure 5 they account for a substantial proportion of the resolving tritones.) Here again we confront passages in which the linear motions seem to conspire to produce harmonically noteworthy results, passages that are interesting precisely because they challenge the neat distinction between “harmonic” and “nonharmonic” phenomena—the point of view according to which the leading tones in Palestrina’s IV–I progressions are “merely”

10 Compare Jeppesen 1939, p. xi: “in Palestrina’s style, the vertical, harmonic requirements assume merely the exclusively consonant, full harmony of the chords, in which modulatory relations [i.e. chord changes] play only a small part.” 11 Bobbitt (1955) and Haigh (1957) both note the importance of fifth-progressions in Palestrina. 12 [omitted for anonymity]. 8 passing, just as the I@ chords in the Christe are “merely” suspensions.13 One difficulty of late Renaissance music is that it offers a wealth of idioms in which supposedly “nonharmonic” notes seem play an essential role. Figure 7 annotates the final Kyrie. Once again the piece is replete with primary triads behaving in functional ways, here generating familiar harmonic cycles such as I– IV–V–I, I–IV–ii–V–I, and I–vi–ii–V–I. Like the Christe, it is largely devoid of clausulae verae, though numerous V–I progressions involve resolving leading tones.14 Measure 75 is of particular interest, with a IV@ chord decorating the piece’s final V–I progression; that chord is itself embellished with a irreducible seventh chord I have labeled “vi#.” What is especially interesting here is that the F, while dissonant with the bass, serves both as resolution of the suspension G and as preparation of a suspension that resolves to E— again suggesting that @ chords can function as syntactical harmonies. Overall, about 84% of the progressions in the opening movement conform to the harmonic grammar I have outlines in A Geometry of Music, with the exceptions mostly falling into a just two categories: 6–5 motions over a fixed bass, and progressions involving the iii chord.15 These numbers are characteristic of the work as a whole, supporting the notion that the Pope Marcellus Mass is full of characteristically functional progressions, and not just at its cadences. This picture of the work’s proto-functionality has been further reinforced by the statistical data in Figures 2–4, which show that the mass is unusual even when compared to other pieces of its time. Needless to say, in presenting these observations, I am not promulgating a Hegelian or teleological attitude that considers Renaissance music to be flawed or imperfect relative to later styles; on the contrary, I value sixteenth-century music for what it is rather than what it became. My claim, rather, is that this music—in and of itself—shows clear signs of harmonic structure: sonorities, rather than being merely accidental byproducts of musical lines, behave in characteristic ways that clearly anticipate the conventions of later centuries.

13 Cf. the numerous “merely passing” notes that happen to create V7 chords with resolving tritones (mm. 16, 17, 37, 58, 60, 62, 66, 72). 14 Note that Renaissance music doubles the leading tone more frequently than later functional music. 15 These numbers are consistent with my analysis of the work as a whole (Figure 2). 9

Proceeding cautiously and in an empirical spirit, I have tried to use modern harmonic analysis to reveal this otherwise-hard-to-describe structure—hoping thereby to chart a middle path between the Hegelianism of the past and the historicist counter-reaction that seeks to restrict us to the analytical vocabulary available at the time of a work’s composition. Used wisely, contemporary theory can be a tool uncovering the implicit conventions at play in the sixteenth century—conventions which are an important but often overlooked aspect of the style.

WORKS CITED some references omitted for anonymity

Bobbitt, R. 1955. “Harmonic Tendencies in the Missa Papae Marcelli.” The Music Review 14: 273–288. Bukofzer, Manfred. 1947. Music in the Baroque Era. New York: Norton. Dalhaus, Carl. 1990 [1968]. Studies in the Origin of Harmonic Tonality. Trans. Robert O. Gjerdingen. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Fétis, François-Joseph. 1994 [1841]. Esquisse de L'histoire de l'Harmonie. Ed. and trans. Mary I. Arlin. Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press. Gauldin, Robert. 1995. A Practical Approach to 18th Century Counterpoint. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. Haigh, Andrew. 1957. “Modal Harmony in the Music of Palestrina.” In Essays in Honor of Archibald T. Davison, 111–120. Festschrift printed by the Harvard University Music Department. Jeppesen, Knud. 1939 [1931]. Counterpoint: The Polyphonic Vocal Style of the Sixteenth Century. Trans. Glen Haydon. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. –––––. 1975 [1944–45]. “Problems of the Pope Marcellus Mass: some remarks on the Missa Papae Marcelli by Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina.” In Palestrina: Pope Marcellus Mass, ed. Lewis Lockwood, 99–130. New York: Norton. Lockwood, Lewis. 1975. “Notes on the Text and Structure of the Pope Marcellus Mass.” In Palestrina: Pope Marcellus Mass, ed. Lewis Lockwood, 77–98. New York: Norton. Lowinsky, Edward. 1961. Tonality and Atonality in Sixteenth-century Music. Berkeley: University of California Press. Meeus, Nicolas. 2000. “Toward a Post-Schoenbergian Grammar of Tonal and Pre-tonal Harmonic Progressions.” Music Theory Online 6:1. Taruskin, Richard. 2004. The Oxford History of Western Music, volume 1. New York: Oxford. 10

Figure 1. Harmonic analysis of the opening Kyrie in the Pope Marcellus Mass. 11

Figure 1. continued.

100 Harmonic Grammar

95

90

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Pope Marcellus Mass 80

75

Other Palestrina Ionian pieces

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65 Percent of progressions that conform to the grammar the to conform that progressions of Percent

60 Dufay Josquin Frottola Sermisy Tallis Goudimel Lassus Cavalieri Morley Schutz Cavalli Corelli Haydn Beethoven Chopin Rock Ockeghem Encina Willaert Gombert Clemens Palestrina Victoria Gastoldi Monteverdi Merula Lully Bach Mozart Mendelssohn Brahms Composers

Figure 2. The development of functional harmony from Dufay to Brahms, considering only diatonic progressions in ionian-mode pieces. There is a steady increase from Ockeghem to Haydn. The Pope Marcellus Mass is significantly more functional than Paestrina’s other ionian pieces. 12

30 Histogram of Chord Popularity Pope Marcellus Mass Other Palestrina Ionian pieces

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20

15 Percentage

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0 I V IV vi IV6 ii V6 ii6 iii I6 viio6 iii6 vi6 viio Chords by popularity in the Pope Marcellus Mass

Figure 3. Chord frequencies in the Pope Marcellus Mass and a selection of other ionian- mode pieces in Palestrina. The Pope Marcellus Mass has more root-position I, IV, and V, and less of everything else.

First order probability - simulated first-order probability 25 V -> I I -> V I -> IV 20 IV -> I V -> IV

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15 Josquin Palestrina other Ionian pieces Palestrina (no MPM) Pope Marcellus Mass

Composers

Figure 4. Chordal tendencies in the Pope Marcellus Mass. The progressions V–I, I–V, I–IV, and IV–I are unusually frequent in the mass. V–IV is unusually infrequent. 13

Figure 5. Harmonic analysis of the Christe in the Pope Marcellus Mass.

14

Figure 5. continued.

Figure 6. Two interpretations of the same sonority; on the left, the C is a chord tone, while on the right it stands for a B, forming a G–B–E sonority that never appears. 15

Figure 7. Harmonic analysis of the final Kyrie in the Pope Marcellus Mass.