oa From Treatise to Classroom: Teaching Fifteenth-Century Improvised Counterpoint

The importance of an oral and aural understanding of counterpoint in the fifteenth century has been widely recognized by both scholars and performers of early music. In this essay I reflect on the way I have attempted to ‘reconstruct’ an itinerary for teaching the skill of extemporizing simple two- and three-voice types of fifteenth-century counterpoint, based on a close reading of Guillelmus Monachus’s treatise De preceptis artis musicae and a comparative analysis of extant compositions. De preceptis informs us that the learning of counterpoint can start from the singing of simple parallels in imperfect consonances, called gymel. These gymels can be combined into different types of simple three-voice counterpoint (fauxbourdon) or in a horizontal way, alternating between different parallels. To this technique of ‘mixed gymel’ elements of fourteenth- and fifteenth- century discantus teaching, such as singing by neighbouring consonances, may be added to achieve a freer type of counterpoint.