Counterpoint 2

Catalog description

Continues the study of counterpoint begun in MUT 4401, expanding two-voice composition and analysis into three and four voices. Straddling the late Renaissance and the Baroque, the techniques covered in this class prepare students to write and fully comprehend modal motets as well as tonal fugues. Through analysis, composition, study, performance and listening, students will gain competence in the strict techniques and idioms of multi-voiced imitative entrance, sequence and subject harmonization. Students will also familiarize themselves with Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier both for its technical uses of counterpoint, exemplary and exceptional, and its historical significance. The course concludes with a brief excursion into the use of chromaticism in later contrapuntal styles.