156: Peter Schubert (Palestrina, Fux, Counterpoint) 

0:00 Intro 0:36 Start 1:59 St. Pius X's Motu Proprio "Tra Le Sollecitudini" 5:16 How did the Council of Trent affect Gregorian chant? 5:54 What do you think of Organum and composers like Léonin and Pérotin? 6:45 Johann Joseph Fux 14:53 Knud Jeppesen 26:54 Did Palestrina improvise or play the organ? 28:39 Bach played on the accordion 30:36 The Lute 31:44 Exultate iusti by Viadana, sung by the Sistine Chapel in 1925 36:34 Historically Informed Performance Practice 39:33 Has improvised counterpoint pedagogy become more prevalent in today's university music curriculums? 41:29 Professor Schubert's RU-vid Channel/s 43:07 19th century counterpoint 47:03 Nadia Boulanger 50:07 Counterpoint for modern composition 52:59 Wrapping Up 53:20 Outro

That’s interesting, the question you asked about serialism as it relates to Renaissance counterpoint - I’m writing my thesis on making a new (and more practical) method for understanding atonal counterpoint, and Renaissance and Baroque treatises were really important for helping me come up with the fundamental concepts!

A wonderful aspect of these last interviews: your professors have become so comfortable with you. For good reason! You have helped create a vibrant community through these detailed conversations. Thank you, Nikhil and Peter. It's a refreshment for the ears, mind and soul.

Thank you for the show, thanks for bringing these heroes to us.

I also want to mention (leaving it here because you might be more likely to see it on a recent video), that your interview with Sietze de Vries rocked my world. I still can’t believe that what he does is possible, and as a fellow organist he’s even more inspiring. I would love if you could have him back on the show at some point, and if you could ask him more about how he thinks about imitational counterpoint like fugue and canon; whether he’s thinking about things like real and tonal answer and the types of melodic intervals that work at certain intervals of imitation like Peter Schubert talks about in his book; and whether he "treats" a given theme, by altering it melodically so that it works better (I noticed that his twinkle twinkle was ever so slightly different at the end of the theme but wasn’t sure if it was purely embellishment or whether it served a technical purpose). I’ve watched all of his improvisation tutorials on his channel and I know that he’s a proponent of the analogy of language and music and "reading once one can speak" to learn from others, so I know that he is stacking a lot of concrete technical knowledge on top of a rich intuition, but I would love to know how he went about learning and mastering this style. In his videos at his church house he has a huge library. You should ask him what books/treatises etc. he’s used and would recommend!

Hi Nikhil, I’ve been watching your show for awhile now but it’s my first time commenting. I just want you to know how much I appreciate what you do. There’s really nothing like it. Your interviews with Peter Schubert have been some of my favourite and you both have such a playful, infectious enthusiasm for music. We used his baroque textbook when I studied counterpoint at the University of British Colombia and it was a refreshing perspective, but at that time Peter Schubert was just a cold name on a book, a professor out at McGill. It’s nice to see that he’s such a down to earth, loveable music lover. In your next interview with him I would love if you could ask him to go into what he meant by the French counterpoint of Boulanger and Théodore Dubois, and what the differences are between that and other cultural/historical approaches, especially the baroque and renaissance styles that he knows so well. Peter’s perspective on this would be invaluable. I so look forward to your next interview with him!

Thank you Nikhil! Again, amazing interview. Regarding 19th century, I think Russian school is very much into counterpoint, with Taneyev and his pupils like Rachmaninoff and Scriabin. I still remember prof. Gjerdingen talking in one of yours interview about Taneyev, Sunday, counterpoint exercises and apple pie! 😁🎵❤ I cant wait Nadia Boulanger video! 🥰🥰🥰

I had made a comment that I was just starting first species counterpoint, and you told me I had to sit down with pen and paper to learn counterpoint. LOL. I'm still struggling to write first species, and I think I have Aural Aphantasia. I've overcome bigger handicaps, so I'll keep plugging away. BTW my teacher told me he hadn't heard of the ROTO two weeks ago. This week he asked me to do it in several keys and he was able to see I had made one mistake switching positions. He's willing to follow me on the exercises Derek Remes has presented. Thank you for presenting these wonderful discussions so that non-musicians can learn to fake it.

Excellent conversation - we counterpoint nuts love this kind of stuff! I have one observation and one question: I would definitely say that the more convincing composers have a deeper and more instinctive sense of counterpoint. Bach is an obvious example; but I see the same dense contrapuntal textures in Beethoven, Chopin, and Wagner, in their respective idioms, and this makes their music stand out and above others'. While counterpoint is a structural foundation for any good art music, what do you think is the potential for a *modern* version of classic Renaissance-style counterpoint; as in, using imitative polyphony, etc., but with more a more modern harmonic language? Are there current examples of this?

Thank you for another captivating interview! Recently I've stumbled upon a fascinating article about the influence of Italian musical culture on Austria, with particular focus on Johann Joseph Fux and his Italianate predilections. It turns out the Viennese imperial court was heavily influenced by Italians for various cultural reasons. And the recourse to Palestrina by Fux was a part of this larger cultural tendency. Palestrina served as a father figure of religious music, but it often happened that it was his myth that was invoked more than his actual compositions or style. In other words, it was fashionable to shine with reflected light of the author of Missa Papae Marcelli. The author of the article, Harry White, writes as follows: "As everyone familiar with the matter knows, Palestrina’s actual presence in the Gradus is zero: Fux prefers instead to quote from his own compositions to illustrate his understanding of the various categories of style and compositional technique which he passes on to the obedient pupil, Josephus. Other than calling the teacher Aloysius and commending (in no uncertain terms) Palestrina as the light of music and the sovereign exemplar of all that is good in music, Fux’s recourse to Palestrina and the Roman School is strikingly at second or even third hand." The author mentions that Gradus is a highly retrospective work. It was written when Fux was 65 years old at a time when the compositional output of Fux had already significantly decreased. The treatise is an expression of nostalgia for times when music was tasteful, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders. Fux didn't have a high opinion of the music of his time, which shows in the preface to the Gradus: "Music has become almost arbitrary and composers refuse to be bound by any rules and principles, detesting the very name of school and law like death itself. I shall not be deterred by the most ardent haters of school, nor by the corruption of the times. I do not believe I can reclaim composers from the unrestrained insanity of their writing to normal standards." Thus, Palestrina became a perfect figure to symbolize the good old days. More explanations and the background are mentioned in the article, with a lot of other interesting pieces of information. It is available online, and here are the the coordinates: Harry White, "Johann Joseph Fux and the Imperative of Italy" Schriftenreihe Analecta musicologica. Veröffentlichungen der Musikgeschichtlichen Abteilung des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom Band 52 (2015) perspectivia.net/receive/pnet_mods_00003604

The "getting it 'wrong'" phenomenon discussed fascinatingly here can also be seen in the way Post-Webern serialism of Boulez, Stockhausen relates to Webern's actual music.

The sistine chapel singers remind me of the recordings of 'barber shop' singers from 1899. 'MA lady lu'

I love the Viadania performance presented in the video. When I was a student, the historical music movement was gaining momentum. I was preparing the Bach Fourth Lute Suite for my recital. In the library, I happened to listen to a recording of Rachmaninoff in which he played the same gavotte from suite in the keyboard version Bach had written. Rachmaninoff did just about everything that historical correctness said was wrong. However, his compositional understanding of the piece was so extraordinary that I no longer adhered to historical correctness with any strictness

Oh man I’d love to see that Perotin paper… never mind!

What about BEETHOVEN's fugues/fugal writing? Op. 131, 1st movment? His fugal developments in the sonatas? And Brahms, in his B major trio, bases the transition in the 1st movement on fugal texture. Liszt was very fond of Palestrina, and even mis-attributes his arrangement of the famous Miserere to him. Mozart transcribed the Miserere!

Knud Jeppesens book is great but personally I skipped 80% of the preliminary exercises. To follow it pedantically makes you fall asleep. I use it as a checklist to spot strong deviations from the Palestrina Style. If you feel ready for real compositions species counterpoint is a pain. As to how exactly Palestrina composed we can only guess, it seems a bit arrogant to suggest you'd know with any certainty. He could have dreamt finished compositions 😂. Genius shouldn't be underestimated. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on Peter Schubert's books though! Thank you for a great podcast!!

When I think of the 19th century and counterpoint the first composer that comes to my mind is Anton Bruckner. I think it is in this very strange composer that perhaps fuxian counterpoint, Wagnerian line chromaticism and intensity, and classical form (though I think that his understanding of form was quite his own) melt into one unique and organic hybrid. Modern counterpoint I think would have to develop less out of serialism and more out of the extended harmonic vocabulary of jazz voicing which belongs to an actual tradition where our ear expects certain resolutions. Great show as always!

Please do an interview about Nadia Boulanger.

Awesome timing - I just bought Peter's book on modal counterpoint a couple of weeks ago!

What was said about serial music set me off in another direction. When I lived in LA in the 1980s, I knew the people who were exploring just intonation (and I was one of them). One of my disagreements with the other people was they didn't understand intervallic counterpoint and imposed chordophony in every inappropriate way on a system that can liberate us out of that way of thinking.

Just curious if you’re considering posting these as podcasts again? Love listening to these on walks and jogging :)

Nadia'll say: Now you're one of us Peter!

❤❤❤

Re: rennaisance counterpoint and 12-tone composition. The first printed modern edition, in 1904, of Heinrich Isaac's enourmous Choralis Constantinus (in which he writes polyphonic settings around the cantus-firmus of the Proprium chants of the *entire ecclesiastical year*), was prepared and edited by none other than Anton Webern, who made a profound study of Isaac's counterpoint, wrote about it, lectured about it, and emulated it in his compositions for the rest of his short life. Of course his works became the model and point of departure for not a few, after the war.

Please listen to Voces8 magnificat primi toni

If he still listens to Kanye West…? 😂