Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Ian Bent
- Preface
- Notes on the translation
- Introduction
- Part I Grundlagen des linearen Kontrapunkts (Foundations of linear counterpoint)
- 1 Polyphonic structure
- 2 Thematic and motivic processes
- 3 Polyphonic melody
- Part II Romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wagners “Tristan” (Romantic harmony and its crisis in Wagner's “Tristan”)
- Part III Bruckner
- Appendix: Complete tables of contents for Kurth's Grundlagen des linearen Kontrapunkts, Romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wagners “Tristan” and Bruckner
- Select bibliography
- Index of musical examples
- General index
3 - Polyphonic melody
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Ian Bent
- Preface
- Notes on the translation
- Introduction
- Part I Grundlagen des linearen Kontrapunkts (Foundations of linear counterpoint)
- 1 Polyphonic structure
- 2 Thematic and motivic processes
- 3 Polyphonic melody
- Part II Romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wagners “Tristan” (Romantic harmony and its crisis in Wagner's “Tristan”)
- Part III Bruckner
- Appendix: Complete tables of contents for Kurth's Grundlagen des linearen Kontrapunkts, Romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wagners “Tristan” and Bruckner
- Select bibliography
- Index of musical examples
- General index
Summary
The present chapter contains excerpts from the most striking and, for the history of analysis, probably the most important chapter in Grundlagen: a discussion of polyphonic melody (“The Polyphony of a Single Line,” Grundlagen, 3rd edn., part 3, chapter 8). Kurth devotes eighty-six pages to the topic, making the chapter by far the largest in Grundlagen. Kurth's discussion of polyphonic melody is historically important because it investigates large-scale melodic connections which in some cases resemble, superficially at least, the large-scale melodic continuities discovered at around the same time by Heinrich Schenker (see EKATA, 99, 101–2).
In describing such large-scale continuities, Kurth introduces the notion of the “apparent voice” (Scheinstimme, pp. 279, 282), consisting of registrally related, nonadjacent pitches. The “actual voice” (Realstimme, p. 302) is the note-to-note melodic development. The apparent voice may create an “apex line” (Höhepunktslinie, pp. 273, 275–76), or “rim line” (Randlinie, p. 289). Such lines consist of nonadjacent pitches called “rim points” (Randpunkte, p. 277). Kurth calls the resulting broad melodic continuities “higher-order linear phases” (übergeordnete Linienphasen, p. 272), or simply “overarching lines” (übergreifende Linien, “Zur Motivbildung,” 98–99). They provide “curvilinear intensification” (Kurvensteigerung, p. 272) and thus are essential for creating and regulating dynamic form.
Kurth begins with some general remarks on polyphonic melody and illustrates the idea with a few introductory examples (pp. 258–60).
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- Information
- Ernst Kurth: Selected Writings , pp. 75 - 96Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991