Le 28 juin 2017
de 14h00 à 14h30
Le Patio (université de Strasbourg)
22 rue René Descartes, 67000 Strasbourg
amphithéâtre 4
Séance - Falling Nicely Into Place: The Cadence in History and Theory
Pré-acte / Acte
Auteur : David Lodewyckx
In the second volume of his Forschende Orchestre (Quartae Blanditiae, 1721), Johannes Mattheson explains how a fourth, considered against the bass, is always dissonant and should resolve by going one step down. Mattheson mentions common compositional practice and judgement by (his) ears as distinctive arguments. He blames theorists who describe the fourth, in one way or another, as a consonance. Mattheson mockingly quotes Francisco de Salinas (De Musica, 1577), who referred to a mass by Josquin to demonstrate that a fourth is consonant. If we could only trace back that mass, says Mattheson, then maybe a ‘Quart-Wunder’ will occur?
Apparently Mattheson was not fully aware of the ‘Quart-Wunder’ in his own time: a specific cadential pattern gradually developed from the late 17th century until it became one of the most typical cadence formulae in the 18th century. In this cadence, a fourth above scale degree five in the bass proceeds by going one step up instead of resolving downwards. The fourth is seemingly treated as a consonance: Mattheson’s ‘Quart-Wunder’ is fulfilled.
In this paper I will first explore Mattheson’s position and arguments. After that, I will demonstrate how performance practice played a crucial role in the development of the cadential scheme at hand, using Corelli’s opus 5 (3rd edition, 1710) and Tartini’s Trattato (ca. 1750) as main sources. Finally, I will present repertoire examples from the end of the 17th century until ca. 1750 to clarify the different steps from early experiments (implicit acknowledgment) to full mastery (explicit acknowledgment).
