When discussing varietas Tinctoris cites six works that exemplify the concept, of which four survive. Chapter 6 considers up to what point these pieces, which span the major genres of the day, illustrate Tinctoris’s ideas. The chapter analyzes this music at different levels of zoom, and in light of the relevant compositional parameters.

Chapter 1 introduces three esthetic paradigms – kaleidoscopic, alternatim, and oppositional – that can help ground discussions of musical flow. Using examples spanning Gregorian chant through mid sixteenth-century polyphony, the chapter makes a case for a shift to and from an esthetics of opposition in the years surrounding the period at the heart of the book.

Powerful conclusions are central to the esthetic world this book describes. Many pieces trade on the so-called drive to the cadence; others feature deliberate ratchetings down. This chapter discusses seven heterogeneous examples, each extraordinary in its own right: songs by Johannes Okeghem and the little-known Malcort, a motet by Johannes Regis, and mass music by Jacob Obrecht, Josquin des Prez, Alexander Agricola, and an anonymous composer.

Beginning with the problem of historical distance, the introduction charts a path from notes on the page to potent sound experiences, taking as a representative example the modern performance of a mass by Johannes Okeghem. In addition to defining counterpoint and explaining the term’s relevance to this study, the introduction sets up some of the book’s main questions while laying out a ground plan for what follows.

The climactic power of melodic highpoints animates Chapter 12. The argument centers on Johannes Okeghem’s masses, paying attention not only to how melodic apices can generate or unleash energy, but also to how highpoints can be withheld for anticlimactic effect.