Musica Ficta and Jacobus

Gallus
Musica ficta (musica falsa) the term
used loosely to describe accidentals
added to sources of early music.

Modality or tonality?
Tonality arises in: 14. century (A. Machabey), 15. century (H. Besseler), 16. century (E. E. Lowinsky), 17.
century (M. Bukofzer).
It is true that much of Monteverdis music, particularly in his later Venetian style, can readily be
analysed in terms of major-minor tonality (even though this music never uses the resources of tonal
modulation in any developed way). On the other hand, the anachronism implicit in such analysis, not
least in the light of Artusis interest in Monteverdis modal practice, has led to 20th-century attempts to
interpret the music in terms of modes. Bernhard Meier (see L. Finscher, D1986) is an extreme example
of a writer interpreting the music in terms of a supposedly thorough-going, unified modal system, with
all divergences from supposed norms interpreted in terms of rhetorical intention.
Dahlhaus: Teiltonarten (partial keys) that permits cadencing on any note of the prevailing hexachord
But changes in the understanding of the late Renaissance modes during the last three decades have
brought into question many of the assumptions on which much of this work was based, including the
assumptions that 16th-century music was uniformly modal; that Monteverdis tonal language
represents a transitional stage between modality and tonality; that the establishment of modern
tonality involves an increase in structural complexity; or indeed that tonality depends primarily upon
chordal, vertical relationships at all. It is sufficient here to note that many of Monteverdis works exploit
novel techniques of tonal integration, not necessarily invented by the composer, and that these later
became part of the basic equipment of all composers writing in major-minor tonality (see 7 below).
Their use contributes to some of the most profoundly satisfying artistic effects in Monteverdis music,
although they are in part specific to certain sections of his output.
Kantionalsatz from about 1580/90.

Musica ficta before 1500

Musica ficta and the synonymus musica falsa (more common in 13th cent.) were used by music theorists from
the mid-13th cent. to denote chromatic notes alien to the hexachords that had formed the basis for musical
instruction since they were first established by Guido od Arezzo in 1025-6.
Hexachords on g, c, f, g comprised the white notes of the modern diatonic scale with the addition of bb (which
was adopted into musica recta even before Guidos system) were defined as musica vera or recta (all of the
structure 1-1-1/2-1-1 and identified with the same sylables ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la). Mi-fa were always the notes of the
semitone.
The singer moved up&down the overlapping hexachords if necessary making transitions (mutations or
coniunctae) on notes common to two hexachords, though never between the notes bounding the semitone mi-fa.
The system of solmization (originally designed for plainchant) had to be extended to cope with the growing
demands of polyphony by transpozing recta hexachords to alien pitches that semintone steps other than B-C, E-F
and A-B could take their place within the solmization system.
The range of available ficta hexachords was increased, rationalized and in the 1430s Ugolino of Orvieto
recognized a complete system of ficta hexachords whose sole purpose was to accomodate the chromatic notes.
Because of the ficta notes the theorists from the late 13th cent. ownwards repudiated the application of modes
to polyphony. Only Tnctoris and Glarean (in the late 15th and early 16th cent.) made serious attempts to assign
polyphonic compositions to specific modes.
Enchiriadis treatises (ab. 900): the earliest explicit of chromatic alteration named absonia (or disonantia).
Vitium seems to mean disturbance of the normal scale. A scale G A Bb c | d e f g | a b c' d' | e' f#' g' a' | b' c#
was proposed as an addition to the more normal scale and is expecially suited for the organum at the 5th. The
pitches of eb and f# were introduced to plainchant, c#, g#, d# and Ab were allowed.

Notation
Accidentals were placed above, below, in advance of or even after the
note to which applied.
The reasons for the incomplete provision of accidentals are:
the signs were used to indicate solmization and only incidently they also
indicated inflection,
medieval musicians reluctance to admit in theory or to notate in
practice something that lay outside the regular, respectable system
Consequently the responsibility for providing the appropriate inflections
rested in with the performer.
The cross-section of required accidentals includes pitches that fall within
musica recta and those that lie outside it. The same is with the additional
accidentals they affected both recta and ficta notes. Therefore it is not
possible to equate musica ficta only with added accidentals (e.g. B).

Theorists rules of 13th century

Johannes de Garlandia: leading notes need to be a semitone to their destination.
Lambertus main purpose of musica ficta is to achieve perfect vertical consonances on 5ths,
8ves and other perfect intervals.
Jehan de Murs:
for melodic progressions lower returning notes should be raised G-F-G G-F#-G, leading
notes approached by any other means (e.g. by lap) should be raised also,
the sounding of mi against fa is forbidden in vertical perfect intervals (i.e. 5ths and octaves
are to be perfect; this rule is ubiquitous in treatises),
the perfect interval should be approached by the nearest imperfect interval. A
major 3rd will expand to a 5th, a major 6th to an octave, a minor 3rd will contract
to an unison, etc.
when one of the parts proceeds by step, this step will in practice, be a semitone (ex. 1a; if
both proceed by step, only one will be a semitone),
Several theorists added that these rules should be effected where possible without resort to
musica ficta if the interval or progression can be corrected within the system of musica
recta, this should be done. (Whereas Jehan de Murs examples invariably sharpen a leading
note in the upper part, using musica ficta, one progression may be corrected within the recta
system by flatening the lower note instead of sharpening the upper, thus placing the
semitone step in the lower part (ex. 2b).
Invariable consequence to the second harmonic rule, applicable to most music up to 1450 is the double
leading note cadence (ex. 2a) in which results from the superimposition of the legitimate two-part
progressions (ex. 2b and 2c).
An anonymus 15th cent. theoretical fragment from Seville state explicitly that melodic tritone should be
avoided when they return within their own confines).
True chromatic progressions (e.g. F-F#-G) are both allowed in theory and prescribed in manuscript sources.

Tinctoris
In Diffinitorium (1472) wrote that musica ficta is a way of singing apart from the
regular ordering of the /Guidonian/ hand.
In Liber de natura etproprietate tonorum:
- 5th and 6th modes (the authentic and plagal form of F mode) use Bb and not B.
- the necessity for the flat is twofold to create perfect consonances in
polyphony and to avoid the linear or vertical tritone,
- the flat at the beginning of the staff affects the whole segment, while the
accidental flat lasts as long as the hexachord segment before which it is placed,
- the formation of this two modes with Bb to avoid tritone, is well known, so much
so that the flat not need to be always written down,
- linear tritones should also be avoided in other modes but in polyphony they are
sometimes unavoidable because of inadmissible vertical intervals that may
othervise result and in such cases n should be used (if vertical tritone problem
clashes with the linear one, the former shuld take precendence),
- what is true of the tritone in regular modes is also true of irregular ones in
musica ficta,
- the linear tritone is less difficult when approached by step then by leap.

c1500 to c1600
So long as the traditional gamut and hexachord system stood as a basis of musical
structure, distinction of musica recta and musica ficta must have influenced both
composition and performance, and those accidentals that were extra manum were
considered variable units within a basically diatonic system.
Even more problematic interpretation of unspecified accidentals because of:
- gradual increase of the number of voices used for vocal polyphony,
- the multiplication of variant versions of works as a result of the invention of music
printing,
- rise of experimental chromatic and enharmonic tone systems (such as that of
Vicentino) along with
- the freer exploatation of chromatic degree-inflection by composers outside the
rank of theorists.
On the other hand composers, copyists and printers become accustomed to the
specification of many more accidentals.
There is no single formula devised that seems readily applicable to all types of
musica ficta problems, but it seems likely that an attitude of intelligent and wellinformed relativism on the matter is historically more realistic then an pocalyptic
vision a universal solution for all cases.
There is a persuasive evidence that the musicians of that period found it difficult
how to apply the rules of musica ficta.

Contemporary theory and

rules
Lovinsky (1964) summed up the prevailing rules under the headings of causa
necessitatis and causa pulchritudinis.
Causa necessitatis:
- prohibition of simoultanous sounding of mi and fa (e.i. diminished 5ths and
octaves between two simoultaneously sounded). Mi contra fa diabolus est in
musica (ex. a)
- una nota super la, semper est canendum fa
to prevent a linear tritone when a line ascends la,
- the prohibition of false relations.
Causa pulchritudinis:
- the rule governing the subsemitonium modi
raising of the leading note in cadential formula,
- the rule of propinquity approaching a perfect consonance in two voices by
the nearest imperfect consonance (ex. b) and
- the rule of ending on a complete (major) triad (probably only in 16th century).
How to apply the rules when one contradicts the other?

Jacobus Gallus Carniolus,

Jakob Petelin Kranjski
Life and work:
Born (probably) on July 3rd 1550 either in entvika gora or in Ribnica (Reiffnitz) in Carniola (nowadays
central Slovenia),
most likely educated at the Cistercian monastery at Stina (Sittich) in Carniola,
left Carniola sometime between 1564 and 1566, traveling first to Austria, and later to Bohemia, Moravia, and
Silesia,
for some time lived at the Benedictine Melk Abbey in Lower Austria,
a member of the Viennese court chapel in 1574,
choirmaster (Kapellmeister) to the bishop of Olomouc (Olmtz), Moravia between 1579 (or 1580) and 1585,
from 1585 to his death worked in Prague as organist to the Church of St. John on the Balustrade (Cz. Sv. Jan
na Zbradl),
died on July 18, 1591 in Prague.
represented the Counter-Reformation in Bohemia, mixing the polyphonic style of the High Renaissance
Franco-Flemish School with the style of the Venetian School. His wide-ranging, eclectic style blended
archaism and modernity, rarely used the cantus firmus technique, preferring the then-new Venetian
polychoral manner, yet he was equally conversant with earlier imitative techniques,
both sacred and secular, and hugely prolific opus of over than 500 works. Some are for large forces, with
multiple choirs of up to 24 independent parts,
most notable work is the six part Opus musicum, 1577, a collection of 374 motets that would eventually
cover the liturgical needs of the entire ecclesiastical year. Printed in Prague where he also published 16 of his
20 extant masses, his five-voice motet Mirabile mysterium contains chromaticism worthy of Carlo Gesualdo,
enjoyed word painting in his madrigals (harmoniae), - his secular output, about 100 short pieces, was
published in the collections Harmoniae morales (Prague 1589 and 1590) and Moralia (Nremberg 1596).