Musica Ficta (Musica Falsa) - Grove

Musica ficta [musica falsa]
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(Lat.: false, feigned or contrived music; synonymous with falsa mutatio,
coniuncta).
These terms were used by theorists from the late 12th century to the 16th, at first in
opposition to musica recta or musica vera, to designate feigned extensions of the
hexachord system contained in the so-called Guidonian hand. Most scholars
accept that notated polyphony of this period required performers to interpret underprescriptive notation in accordance with their training (by contrapuntal and melodic
criteria about which scholars disagree), ensuring the perfection of consonances,
and approaching cadences correctly. These requirements could often be met within
the recta system, but musica ficta was used where necessary in modern terms
only, by adding accidentals; in medieval terms, by operating musica ficta.
In modern usage, the term musica ficta is often loosely applied to all unnotated
inflections inferred from the context, for editorial or performers' accidentals rather
than notated ones (whether properly recta or ficta). Editors usually place
accidentals that they have supplied, on behalf of performers, above the affected
note or in brackets or small type, to distinguish them from those having manuscript
authority. (On the placing of editorial accidentals, see especially Angls, 1954;
Hewitt, 1942; Jeppesen, 1927; Lowinsky, 1964 and 1967; J. Caldwell, Editing Early
Music, Oxford, 1985.)
1. Introduction.
2. Theory.
3. Practical application.
4. Rules for inflection and adjustment.
5. After 1600.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
MARGARET BENT (14, bibliography), ALEXANDER SILBIGER (5)
Musica ficta
1. Introduction.
(i) Basis in solmization.
The hexachords of musica recta built on G, c and f (and their upper octaves, g, c',
f', g') comprise the white notes of the modern diatonic scale from G to e'' with the
addition of b , and b '; each letter name has tagged to it the solmization syllables of
its recta hexachords, which define the default interval arrangement of the gamut,
the normal relationships of syllables to letters (see Solmization, I, Table 2). The
internal arrangement of each hexachord was identical (tonetonesemitone
tonetone, identified by the syllables utremifasolla). These were the
hexachords of musica vera or recta (La Fage, 1864, Anonymus 1) and their
constituent pitches those of musica vera or recta (see Solmization, I, 2) in the
system attributed to Guido of Arezzo (10256 or 102832). Mifa or fami was
always a diatonic semitone, and a semitone was always either mifa or fami. The
singer moved up and down the overlapping hexachords as the music required,
making transitions (mutations or coniuncte) on notes common to two hexachords,
in order to get into position to solmize the next semitone step as mifa or fami,
without mutating between its boundary notes. These transitions were practical and
local means of negotiating and teaching semitone locations, but they have no
prescriptive status; the singer must know where he wishes to place the semitone
before selecting a hexachord; it is functional, a vocal analogy to fingering. The
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purpose of the system was to contextualize and demonstrate the position of

semitones deemed necessary. Solmization was the practical language in which
intervals were expressed; it was originally devised as a pedagogical tool for
melodic chant, providing the vocabulary for interval specification.
The system was extended to cope with the growing demands of polyphony, where
simultaneities often needed correction at the expense of line, by accommodating
the extra notes thus required. Semitone steps other than BC, EF, AB were
provided from ficta hexachords beginning in unusual places, on notes other than
G, C and F; these were sometimes conceived as the transposition of recta
hexachords to alien pitches. The F needed for an approach to G, for example, is
contrived by a fictitious D hexachord, making the F G semitone mifa; the E to
make a perfect 5th below a B might be fa in a B hexachord. In such cases not
only the F and the E had ficta status but also the G fa and the D mi, since the
hexachordal status affected context, not just individual pitches. The hexachord
beginning on low F, and therefore B , had ficta status. The close relationship of
ficta to solmization is confirmed by the synonym falsa mutatio.
The range of available ficta hexachords was increased and rationalized until, in the
1430s, Ugolino of Orvieto (Declaratio musice discipline) recognized a complete
system including recta and ficta hexachords whose sole purpose was to
accommodate the pitches needed for interval correction in polyphony, and to give
them a place within the extended solmization system. When melodic integrity had
to yield to the higher priority of simultaneous consonance, legitimate progressions
in polyphony could no longer be confined to intervals acceptable in chant.
Solmization is essential to understanding what the theorists say about interval
correction, but does not itself provide solutions or determine what the sounds
should be, since any melodic progression, even one illegal in chant, could be
solmized by an extension to the system. A few theorists allow disjunct hexachordal
change, for an awkward interval without a common note on which to mutate, by
means of the disiuncta. Until the late 15th century, when keyboard-influenced
attempts at reconciling the separate systems were made, Johannes Boen (Musica,
1357) was virtually alone in attempting to conflate the monochord and the gamut in
a single exposition, as distinct from the normal practice of using independent letters
to label the monochord, and separately tagging hexachord syllables to the letter
names of notes in the gamut. Boen resorted to some unusual vocabulary in so
doing, such as mansio (perhaps as in lunar mansion), and extorquere, for the
removal of sounds from those proper places.
Some earlier scholars took for granted that modes were an a priori assumption for
polyphony (Apel, Accidentien und Tonalitt, 1937, tailored accidentals to fit the
mode; Aldrich, 1969); more recent work has rejected modal interval species as
binding for ficta, in favour of more neutral and flexible tonal typings. But Christian
Berger has argued (1992) that 14th-century composition has an a priori modal
basis closely linked to Allaire's controversial theory of hexachords (1972), even
overriding many notated accidentals (challenged by Fuller, 1998). Both modes and
solmization were originally designed for the classification and teaching of
plainchant, which require little use of extraneous notes except for the correction of
melodic tritones. Before it was stretched by the extra demands of polyphony, the
recta gamut as devised for plainchant was also not incompatible with modal interval
species, but the introduction of fictive adjustments led most theorists from the 13th
century onwards (e.g. Johannes de Grocheio) to repudiate the application of
modes to polyphony. Isolated brief mentions before the 16th century link them; but
the Berkeley Manuscript treatise (c1375; US-BE 744) and Tinctoris in the 1470s,
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and even 16th-century successors such as Aaron and Glarean, confine their
classifications to the tenor, and these classifications are apparently not undermined
by the need for tenor inflections. (See Mode, III.)
(ii) Diatonicism and chromaticism.
Musica ficta has often been defined in terms of chromatic notes that by modern
standards are non-diatonic. But chromatic properly refers only to melodic
progressions involving the chromatic semitone (Haar, 1977). F GA are two
adjacent diatonic semitones; FF is a chromatic semitone. The word was used in
Greek theory and transmitted to the Latin West only to designate one of the tuning
systems that could be applied to a standard arrangement of tetrachords, and
indeed many 16th-century debates about chromaticism were dominated by
considerations of tuning (see Berger, 1980). Zarlino (Le istitutioni harmoniche,
1558) characterized individual fictive notes as borrowed from the chromatic genus;
he preferred a classicizing explanation over the medieval hexachord system.
Each tetrachord or hexachord is a diatonic entity, containing one diatonic semitone;
but the tight overlapping of hexachordal segments some as small as an isolated
coniuncta to produce successive or closely adjacent semitones did not
necessarily compromise their diatonic status. The tenor of Willaert's so-called
chromatic duo is entirely diatonic in its progressions (Bent, 1984), as are
Lowinsky's examples of secret chromatic art (Lowinsky, 1946) and indeed almost
the entire repertory. True chromatic progressions (e.g. FF G) are occasionally
allowed in theory (Marchetto, GerbertS, iii, 823) and prescribed in manuscript
sources. Except where a melodic chromatic interval is introduced in the interests of
vertical perfection (e.g. Old Hall, no.101; see ex.2d), musica ficta is by nature
diatonic.
Even music liberally provided with notated sharps is not necessarily chromatic; this
has been called accidentalism. Increasingly explicit use of accidentals and explicit
degree-inflection culminates in the madrigals of Marenzio and Gesualdo, which are
remote from medieval traditions of unspecified inflection, and co-exists in the 16th
century both with older hexachordal practices and with occasional true melodic
chromaticism. It is the small number of chromatic intervals in Lassus's Sibylline
Prophecies (Carmina chromatica), for example, that determine its chromatic status,
not the large number of sharps that give it chromatic colouring according to looser
modern usage.
Vicentino (L'antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica, 1555) employed chromatic
and enharmonic tone systems for composition, and tuning in imitation of the
ancient genera. Such experiments, as well as those originating in a fresh use of
chordal chromaticism of a colouristic type, are less indebted to the tradition of
musica ficta. In one of the most remarkable experiments of the century, Guillaume
Costeley's extraordinary chromatic chanson Seigneur Dieu (Levy, 1955; Dahlhaus,
1963), hexachordal solmization ( = fa) co-exists with non-hexachordal degree
inflection.
Musica ficta
2. Theory.
(i) Antecedents, 9th12th centuries.
(ii) 13th century.
(iii) 14th15th centuries.
(iv) 16th century.
Musica ficta, 2: Theory
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(i) Antecedents, 9th12th centuries.

The Enchiriadis treatises of about 900 give the earliest explicit and extensive
theoretical account of the additional semitones that we would call chromatic
alteration. The anonymous author of the Scolica enchiriadis defined absonia
(elsewhere dissonantia) as the lowering or raising of a note from its normal pitch.
The word vitium, used in this context, seems to imply no more than a disturbance
of the normal scale, the force being very similar to that of the later falsa (indeed,
the term falsus sonus appears in this treatise; GerbertS, i, 177). The absonia arises
from faulty intonation (a vice of the human voice to which instruments are less
subject) or, more important, from the nature of the music, where it has the effect of
transplanting or restoring the mode. A fusion of the Greek Greater and Lesser
Perfect Systems (see Greece, I, 6(iii) and Table 1) allowed for two different
positions for the note B through the former's disjunct diezeugmenn tetrachord
(providing B ) and the conjunct synmmenn tetrachord of the latter (providing B ).
This rationalization of the two positions of B is applied by Hucbald in De harmonica
institutione (c900; GerbertS, i, and trans. in Palisca, 1978, pp.2931) to specific
chant formulae.
Using dasian signs the author of the Scolica set up tetrachords (disjunctly, with a
central semitone flanked by two tones) yielding the remarkable scale GAB
cdefgab c'd'e'f 'g'a'b 'c '' (Spitta, 1889; Jacobsthal, 1897;
Spiess, 1959). This is proposed in addition to the more normal scale as specially
suited to organum at the 5th: the early use of such extreme alterations seems to be
occasioned by polyphony. For plainchant the author was more conservative but no
less ingenious. He evolved a system of pentachords involving recta forms as well
as the absonia. The pitches of e and f are introduced by changing the dasian
name on one note in effect a mutation. By extending the tetrachord system to
cover the legitimate transpositions of the pentachords with absonie, Jacobsthal
further advanced the possibility that the Enchiriadis treatises also allow for c , g , d
and A . Thus B was recognized even by some early theorists as part of the
regular (recta) system of available notes, with further allowance for alterations other
than the alternative inflections of B, although the terms musica ficta or falsa were
not yet used.
The usual reason given for melodic alterations to chant is avoidance of the melodic
tritone. The anonymous author of the 10th-century Dialogus de musica (Huglo,
1969, 1971) referred to the vice of additional semitones outside the prefixed rule
(GerbertS, i, 272) and cited chants in which b , e , c and f were required, but he
no longer explained them by tetrachords. The accommodation of such notes by
modal transposition (see Mode, II, 1(i)) is clearly specified by some 11th-century
theorists. Guido of Arezzo discussed the Affinitas or relationship between a modal
final and the note a 5th above, whereby a shared configuration of tones and
semitones for each pair of pitches makes it possible for either pitch to begin or end
the same piece (Pesce, 1987; see also Proprietas, Hexachord and Mode, II, 3(ii)
(b)). Berno of Reichenau recognized transposition of f and f and e and e to the
theoretically acceptable double position on b and b , where they become recta
locations for chromatic notes found elsewhere in untransposed chant (GerbertS, ii,
75). Johannes Cotto gave more detail and accepted transpositions up a 5th for
some modes (GerbertS, ii, 248; ed. J. Smits van Waesberghe, 1950, p.101; for
Guido and Johannes see Palisca, 1978). Johannes also provided for a process of
emendation in a few places where the notes can be neither notated at original
pitch nor transposed. The author of the Dialogus allowed emendation where
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necessary that is, where the piece could not be sung in another mode. Such
prescriptions already anticipate later warnings against using ficta when the situation
could be corrected by other means. The development of a system of modal
transpositions coincided with the rise of a clearer pitch notation which, however,
had very little capacity as yet to cope with the additional notes required for the
necessary perfection of simultaneous intervals in polyphony: f and c appear
besides B and B to permit perfect intervals in parallel organum at the 5th. Notes
outside the system are recognized, usually as undesirable distortions in chant, and
hence false, but useful for modal transposition.
The tetrachordal mapping developed in these early treatises allowed alternative
diatonic routes but no direct access from one kind of B to the other. By the 12th
century, most theorists extended tetrachords to overlapping hexachords in the
system atttributed to Guido, with the same function of defining and containing the
semitone step. The status of B was much debated, sometimes described as
added (adiunctum) or irregular (even by Guido), although B and B were given
equal status by several early writers, from Hucbald (c900) to the author of the
Summa musice (c1200; ed. Page, 1991, pp.89, 171).
Although there is as yet no use of the term musica ficta, there is a direct
terminological link. The synmmenn was translated into Latin as coniuncta, which
came to be a commonly given synonym for falsa mutatio or musica ficta.
(ii) 13th century.
The earliest known use of the term musica falsa is in a late 12th-century didactic
poem, describing variable hexachord steps (I-Rvat pal.lat.1346; an unpublished
edition by Smits van Waesberghe is cited in Sydow-Saak, 1990). 13th-century
theorists at first continued the negative definition of musica falsa as a
contamination of the chant; Elias Salomo refers to the false bellowing (mugiens) of
a false musician (GerbertS, iii, 19, 423, 61ff). Falsity implied transpositions
associated with irregular intervals; the melodic tritone was to be avoided, a vice
analogous to a false proposition in logic (Summa, c1200; ed. Page, 1991, p.122,
and GerbertS, iii, 238a). At this time it was often the fault, not its remedy, that was
considered false. Theorists qualified and excused the negative term and definition,
before shifting from denoting the fault to be cured to the means of correcting it.
Opinions were divided about the use of falsa or ficta to avoid melodic tritones in
plainchant, but all who declared themselves on the subject recognized its essential
role in correcting simultaneities in polyphony. Jacobus of Lige asserted its
importance in plainchant (CSM, vi/lxvi); Hieronymus de Moravia, however, allowed
it in polyphony but excluded it from plainchant (CoussemakerS, i, 86). Johannes de
Garlandia, in his treatise on plainchant and measured music, specified that much
was necessary on instruments, especially in polyphony (or organs: organis;
CoussemakerS, i, 166). Hieronymus's addition to Garlandia gives priority to the
correction of concords over maintaining melodic integrity (ed. Reimer, 1972, i, 95).
The St Emmeram Anonymus (1279) also affirmed the role of musica falsa (equated
with ficta) in polyphony as a helping hand for the essential correction of
consonance (De musica mensurata, ed. J. Yudkin, Bloomington, IN, 1990,
pp.2745). Lambertus likewise expressed dissatisfaction with designating as falsa
something necessary for achieving good consonance (CoussemakerS, i, 258); it is
not so much false as unusual [inusitata] (Anonymus [after Lambertus], ed. Gilles,
1989, p.48). Modern scholars' misreadings of this word as mutata derive from a
mistranscription by Coussemaker and have no basis in the manuscripts (e.g.
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Russo and Bonge, 1999). Anonymus 2 may be the earliest to distinguish the two
often-cited reasons for using musica falsa: necessity (causa necessitatis), for
correcting consonances, and beauty (causa pulchritudinis), apparently for melodic
reasons (CoussemakerS, i, 312; ed. Seay, 1978, p.28; see also Vatican organum
treatise, ed. in CSM, ix, 47).
Hieronymus de Moravia equated musica falsa with the synmmenn (coniuncta)
and accordingly based his exposition not on hexachords but on tetrachords. Walter
Odington wrote of movable solmization names (CoussemakerS, i, 216, and CSM,
xiv, 1970), Lambertus and Anonymus 2 of false mutation, or falsa musica
(CoussemakerS, i, 258a, 310; Anonymus 2 also in Seay, 1978). The idea of false
mutation came to be applied to hexachords with a term originally derived from
tetrachords, and by the later Middle Ages developed into a full-blown system of
infinitely transposable places. Johannes de Garlandia, Anonymus 2, Lambertus
and many others defined musica falsa as when we make a tone of a semitone or
vice versa (CoussemakerS, i, 166, 258, 310; Anonymus 2 also in Seay, 1978), a
widely used definition also for musica ficta and the coniuncta.
(iii) 14th15th centuries.
Increasing acknowledgment of its necessity in the growing art of polyphony
prompted a change to the less pejorative term musica ficta (not false but true and
necessary, because no motet or rondellus could be sung without it: Vitry, Ars nova,
23) or the even more neutral coniuncta (Berkeley MS, c1375, ed. Ellsworth, 1984).
This theorist defined the problem in terms of imaginary transposition of
hexachords and, explicitly dealing with plainchant and specific categories of
polyphony, exemplified the coniuncta from chant, contrary to some 13th-century
usage. The mid-15th-century Anonymus 11 (CoussemakerS, iii, 429) said that
coniuncte were necessary in both plainchant and polyphony.
The transition from 13th-century discant to 14th-century counterpoint teaching laid
greater stress on contrary motion and the controlled succession of perfect and
imperfect intervals; perfect intervals had indeed to be adjusted so that they were
intervallically correct, and they were to be correctly approached from a 3rd or a 6th
by a semitone step in one part. The few theorists who devote a sentence or two, or
even a separate chapter, to musica ficta usually append discussion of it to
counterpoint precepts, and link it to producing correct interval successions. The
rules may not be called ficta rules; the counterpoint should be adjusted anyway,
and if necessary by musica ficta. Strict counterpoint theory dealt in consonances
(some dissonances were permitted in florid counterpoint and in composition), and
was dyadically based until the late 15th century and beyond. The common
objection, that such simple theory helps us little with composed part-music using
dissonance, can be met by treating strict counterpoint as the background skeleton
of which a piece is implicitly a composing out. Theorists identify such counterpoint
as the basis both of florid counterpoint and of (implicitly multi-voice) composition.
14th-century counterpoint teaching stressed not only correct perfect intervals but
that they should be approached correctly from an imperfect interval, with a
semitone step in one or other part, whether ascending or descending (e.g.
Johannes de Muris; and see ex.1). In the definition of Prosdocimus (early 15th
century), musica ficta was devised solely in order to colour consonances that
could not otherwise be coloured (ed. Herlinger, 1984, pp.7095). That he here
includes the approach to perfect consonances becomes clear when he extends the
principle of proximity also to the antepenultimate. Ugolino invokes such inflections
not only for sweeter harmony, but in order to give the imperfect interval even closer
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adhesion to the perfect interval to which it resolves (ed. in CSM, vii/2, p.48).
Many theorists reserve ficta for situations that cannot be corrected by recta (e.g.
Johannes de Muris, Ars nove musice, 1321, GerbertS, iii, 307: if we can discant by
vera, then it is illicit to discant by ficta), giving rise to a proposal that recta should
be used in cases of equal choice; this would mean that a cadence on octave A
should normally be approached from a 6th with recta B in the lower rather than
ficta G in the upper part. In practice, however, this does not always seem to apply.
Prosdocimus appeals, unusually, to the judgment of the (trained) ear,
recommending whichever sounds best: if the signs sound better in the tenor they
should be applied there, if in the discantus, there (Herlinger, 945). This makes it
less likely that he (and perhaps others) imply recta preference when saying that
ficta should not be used except where necessary. He cannot mean avoid it, even if
bad intervals result that go against strong contrapuntal precepts. But he could
mean do not use it unless necessary, but if it is necessary, you must use it; or,
addressing the composer, avoid situations that will require the performer to use it.
Differing interpretations of theorists' rules arise according to whether they are taken
as instructions to the notator or to the singer.
In his dictionary (Diffinitorium, 1472) Tinctoris defined musica ficta as cantus
praeter regularem manus traditionem editus (a way of singing outside the regular
ordering of the [Guidonian] hand). In 12 treatises (c147285) he set out the
concepts of gamut, hexachord system, proportions, mode and counterpoint, but
giving only brief mention to the needs of musical practice or elements outside the
system. His few important observations on interval correction have again received
opposing readings according to different assumptions.
(iv) 16th century.
The term musica ficta was still used by German theorists (including Wollick, Opus
aureum musicae, 1501; Rhau, Enchiridion, 1517; Heyden, De arte canendi, 1540;
Listenius, Musica, 1537; Finck, Practica musica, 1556) but declined after the
middle of the century; the latest appearance (except to refer to obsolete practices)
seems to be with Walther (Musicalisches Lexicon, 1708). Otherwise, in the 16th
century, the term was largely replaced by coniuncta, especially by humanist
theorists, and by new ways of explaining inflections. There are scattered references
to some standard older definitions, such as tone-semitone substitution, and a
marked return to explanations involving transposition (e.g. Adam von Fulda, De
musica, 1490, and Cochlaeus, Tetrachordum musices, 1511, for whom
transposition down a 5th is equated with musica ficta). Vernacular forms include
fained musicke (Dowland's English translation, 1609, of Ornithoparchus's Musicae
activae micrologus), fremde Stimmen (M. Agricola, Musica figuralis deudsch,
1532) and musica finta (Vicentino, L'antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica,
1555). Examples of cantus fictus, melodies with flatward spiral accomplished by
leaps of 4ths and 5ths, are found in Listenius and Ornithoparchus.
The 16th century saw the breakdown of late-medieval solmization and of the
hegemony of the three-hexachord system. Instead of (or at least, in addition to)
presenting the full recta gamut with F, G and C hexachords, theorists (especially in
Germany) gave the scalar equivalents as two distinct forms, each representing only
two and not three hexachord-types, and in some cases recognizing octave
equivalence. The scala b duralis on gave equal access to the members of the
hard and natural hexachords but a lower priority to the soft hexachord. In the
absence of a signature, B and B thus lost their previously equal status and
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written B began to express a priority of B over B . The scala mollis on low F (with
one-flat signature) included the natural and soft but not the hard hexachords.
Depending on the absence or presence of a signature, B or B gained priority over
the alternative if not excluding it. A third scale signed with two flats, segregated as
the scala ficta or cantus fictus, transposed whole scales by a two-flat displacement
(see Solmization, I, 5). Full solmization atrophied in favour of a lazy short-cut
solmization, allowing fa super la to be sung without mutation. This meant, in effect,
that the entire rationale of medieval solmization, namely to identify the semitone (as
mifa) and give surrounding context to it, was eroded. Once it was no longer
interval-specific and hence functional, solmization became a mere pious
anachronism (F is fa for example in Morley, A Plaine and Easie Introduction,
1597). There is some evidence that the efficacy of the mi contra fa prohibition was
undermined by a growing habit of not changing solmization to accommodate
semitone cadential inflections. The underpinnings of the tonal system shifted partly
in response to humanistic changes in music theory, which restored the status of the
modes (Tinctoris; Glarean, Dodecachordon, 1547).
The new models were not only octave-based but keyboard-anchored (Ramis de
Pareia, Musica practica, 1482), sometimes with fixed three-position designations
for , and degrees (Hothby, Calliopea legale, ed. in CSM, xlii, 1997). It was above
all the rise of the keyboard and associated treatises that challenged traditional
vocally based explanations of musical rudiments; Schlick (Spiegel der Orgelmacher
und Organisten, 1511) refers negatively to alien notes in the context of the
keyboard. Pressure to accommodate to the exigencies and compromises of the
keyboard prompted change in the status of B . When theorists from Ramis
onwards sought to give B accidental status in accordance with its keyboard
position, they appealed for authority back to Guido, for whom that note had added
status. Aaron used the hexachord terminology of mi contra fa to describe collisions
and their rectification (exceptions are mentioned: see SpataroC, 66.20); but he also
used the keyboard-based terms proprio or naturale and accidentale not only for
musica recta versus ficta, but also for white and black notes.
Musical developments from the last quarter of the 15th century onwards prompted
significant changes in the treatment of inflections. They include a gradual increase
in the normal number of voice parts for vocal polyphony, the multiplication of variant
versions of works and self-help indications (including more explicit notation) as a
result of the invention of music printing and its markets, a tightening of the theory
and practice of dissonance treatment, and compositional control of the relationship
of all voices to each other, hence between voices outside the dyadic core. But
despite these changes and their different formulation, Zarlino still affirms (citing
Gaffurius and common practice) that octaves are approached from major 6ths.
Rich documentary evidence about specific problems in composition, notation and
performance is available from testimony of 16th-century musicians and theorists, in
formal debates and correspondence (notably involving Spataro, Del Lago and
Aaron: see SpataroC). In the 1550s the Roman singer and writer Ghiselin
Danckerts illustrated the problem citing a dispute between two singers which must
have occurred between 1538 and 1544 over the proper way to inflect a composition
by the papal singer Juan Escribano. Danckerts was asked to judge the matter, and
explained his decision in substantial detail (Lockwood, 1965).
Downward hexachordal spirals by 5ths occur in some incontrovertible cases, such
as the essential duo of Willaert's originally four-part Quid non ebrietas (see above,
1(ii)). This exercised contemporary theorists because of the tuning implications of
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a piece in which the tenor ends on a notated 7th sounding an octave with the
discantus (Lowinsky, 1943, 1956; Bent, 1984). Other cases are Greiter's Passibus
ambiguis (Lowinsky, 19567), and Costeley's Seigneur Dieu (see above, 1(ii)),
both clearly set up to end lower than they began. This may also apply to the
repertory of secret chromatic motets (Lowinsky, 1946), a hypothesis that has
generated controversy on grounds of modern ideals of tonal stability and minimal
intervention. Often convincing on purely musical grounds, many of Lowinsky's
solutions were supported by extra-musical theory and considerations of textual
content which led him to disqualify some musically similar compositions (for an
example by Obrecht see, among others, Lowinsky, 1972, Bent, 1984, and Berger,
1987).
For the period from the mid-15th century onwards, lute and other instrumental
tablatures are in principle interval-specific, and have been applied to support views
of the intended musical results in vocal models (Apel, 1942; Brown, 1971; Toft,
1992; Newcomb, 1997). This extremely rich evidence needs to be used with some
caution. Chronological and geographical lag between original and arrangement
may restrain a literal application, not to mention varying competence by
intabulators that sometimes yields incompletely edited results. Intabulators may
apply eccentric performers' licence but, above all, chordally conceived instrumental
solutions cannot necessarily be carried over into vocal practice, approached by
singers with a linear-hexachordal training accustomed to making
contrapuntally-based adjustments. The sometimes necessary sacrifice of line to
chord in contrapuntal polyphony is often exaggerated on a chordal instrument.
Musica ficta
3. Practical application.
(i) Notated signs.
(ii) Signatures.
Musica ficta, 3: Practical application
(i) Notated signs.
The accidental signs that found their way on to the pages of manuscripts and prints
include pitches that fall within the system of musica recta as well as many that lie
outside it. Additional inflections required in performance similarly include both recta
and ficta notes. It is therefore not correct to equate musica ficta simply with added
accidentals.
Most scholars accept that inflections were and should be applied according to
partly or largely unnotated tradition, but this view has been challenged by some
scholars (Harden, 1983; Brothers, 1997) who observe that theorists often notate
inflections in their treatise examples and say nothing about an unwritten tradition.
Slight direct and indirect support for such a tradition might be drawn from
quotations such as the following, from Arnulf of St Ghislain's Tractatulus (c1400;
trans. C. Page, JRMA, cvii, 1992, pp.121), f.67v: Who will not marvel to see with
what expertise in performance some musical relationship, dissonant at first hearing,
sweetens by means of their skilful performance and is brought back to the
pleasantness of consonance? Another interpretation of Prosdocimus's rule against
using ficta except where necessary (see above, 2(iii)) is: do not usually write it in
but leave it to the performer's initiative. This reading has some confirmation from
his explicit abhorrence that over-notation might incur as many signs as notes (ed.
Herlinger, 1984, pp.789). An often-quoted and mistranslated passage can now be
invoked (as translated by Leofranc Holford-Strevens, cited in Blackburn, 1998,
p.635) to support unnotated inflection: But these are frequently present virtually in
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B fa B mi although not always notated (Berkeley MS, I.1, ed. Ellsworth, 1984,
p.45). Tinctoris (Liber de natura et proprietate tonorum, 1476) brands as asinine the
unnecessary notation of flats to correct melodic tritones (see above, 2(iii)), and his
own examples do not always notate the inflections called for by his text. Aaron
(Toscanello in musica, 1529) endorses the role of performers as divining the secret
intent of the composer. Although it is commonly alleged that he advocates the full
notation of accidentals in general, the polyphonic contexts of his examples, cited as
single parts from known pieces, show that he has chosen situations where, as he
says, arrivals on simultaneities cannot be anticipated, and where without the help
of the signs the singers might first commit error by not perfecting the intervals,
clearly implying that the help he recommends was not always forthcoming (Bent,
JM, 1994). But by 1600 full notation was largely in place.
13th-century theorists already defined signs for notating musica ficta on the staff.
Johannes de Garlandia said that each tone is divisible into two semitones, which
can be notated by the signs of semitones (CoussemakerS, i, 166). Lambertus
prescribed and b for the points at which mutations are to be made
(CoussemakerS, i, 258). The signs of musica ficta are called neither chromatic nor
(until the 16th century) accidentals. For most of our period, they are simply the
signs of hard B (b) and soft B ( ), the signs of mi and fa in other words,
semitone boundaries, not indeed confined to fictive notes outside the recta gamut.
Theorists up to and including Prosdocimus and Ugolino (first half of the 15th
century) admitted only these two signs, to distinguish the soft and hard forms of B.
The exception is Marchetto (Lucidarium, 1317 or 1318), who used a sign to
distinguish the semitone step FF from the smaller mi-fa semitone F G. Although
scribes used either or for the hard B, the distinction seems rarely to have been
meaningful. Occasionally the letters F, C and G are used instead of the sign to
indicate the soft forms of those pitches. The 14th century saw an increase in
marked accidentals until, around 1400, D , D , G , A and G are specifically
notated and intended in certain sophisticated repertories such as those of the
Chantilly and Old Hall manuscripts. Other sources remained very sparing in their
indications, and there is a general decline in the number and range indicated from
about 1400 onwards.
Before 1450, few theorists directly admit that or b necessarily cause individual
pitch inflection. Those who do include Petrus frater dictus Palma ociosa (ed. J.
Wolf, SIMG, xv, 191314, pp.50434) and the author of the Berkeley treatise. But
for most theorists b simply denotes mi, and fa; that is, they indicate where the
semitone lies in relation to the sign. The signs express a relationship, not absolute
pitches within a system. Most theorists explain the alteration of tone and semitone
in the melodic context of its hexachordal access, and avoid saying that b raises or
that lowers an individual note from a fixed place. ( on F or b on B, for example,
rarely do anyway.) Rather, the sign increases or diminishes the (linear) ascent or
descent ( lessens the ascent and b augments it: Prosdocimus, ed. Herlinger,
767; on la sol la [A G A] the sol should be raised and sung as fa mi fa': Johannes
de Muris, CoussemakerS, iii, 73). The coniuncta is simply the moment of change at
which the singer sings a semitone for a tone, or vice versa.
In rare cases (Ugolino's treatise and some practical examples), notated mi or fa
may be used to bring not the signed note but its neighbour to a semitone distance
from it and not vice versa. A mi sign on F will usually mean that F is to be
pronounced mi and that the interval FG, instead of being a tone as in musica
recta, will be sung as a semitone. Nearly always this means that F will be
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construed and sung as F , but occasionally the semitone interval, though notated in
the same way, may have to be FG , more normally notated with the fa sign on G,
which could in some circumstances produce the same result as a mi sign on F
(Bent, 1972; Hughes, 1972; Memelsdorff, 1999). Lebertoul's O mortalis homo
(GB-Ob Can.misc.213, f.41v) has a G fa signature producing F s (Brothers, 1997,
pp.40ff). In the more rarely used signs further round the spiral in either direction,
the signs on G or D may mean either flat/natural or natural/sharp, depending on
context. Since any note is mutable in this way, a two-position rather than a threeposition system is in operation. Any note may be mi or fa in relation to its
neighbour, but which semitone is not necessarily defined. F fa can be in our terms
F , F , or even F .
Although means of notation existed throughout the period, the usage of accidentals
and signatures in musical manuscripts bears little relationship to modern notions of
consistency; the placing of signs often seems casual or capricious. Some scribes
placed the sign near, above or below the affected note, without regard for its
alignment on the staff: this is particularly common in some late 14th- and early
15th-century Italian and south German sources. Other scribes placed it well in
advance of or even after or simply near the note to which it applied. In view of
the close connection between the signs of musica ficta and the practice of
solmization, such pre-placing may serve as an advance warning of mutation. Thus
the progression fami (between which no mutation can take place) is very often
preceded, rather than divided, by the b sign indicating mi. A consequence of this
(solmization) function of a sign is that it does not necessarily have longer validity
than for the note to which it most directly refers. In some situations a larger context
will be affected, but an accidental, written or not, may easily be overruled (for the
sake of contrapuntal propriety) on subsequent appearances of the affected note.
Tinctoris (Liber de natura et proprietate tonorum, 1476) says that the signature flat
at the beginning of the staff affects the whole segment for which it is given, but
does not make it clear whether he means a segment of music or of staff; the
accidental flat, however, lasts as long as the hexachord segment (the deductio)
before which it is placed this indeed could be a very small local segment.
Inconsistencies within pieces and between sources abound, from the Notre Dame
manuscripts (ed. E.H. Roesner, Les quadrupla et tripla de Paris, Monaco, 1993,
p.xc) to the 16th century. Most scholars see this as a consequence of their
inessential notational status, early notation not being considered imperfect by its
own standards; rather, that composers and notators expected singers to
complement it on the basis of shared internalized contrapuntal training, as a literate
reader can construe an unpunctuated text; and that the results of this process are
largely recoverable as part of the implicit text and the intended sounding results
(e.g. Bent, EMc, 1994, 1998; Cross, 1990). Others treat early notation as
approaching the prescriptive force of modern notation, and the notated manuscript
accidentals as (almost) self-sufficient; they therefore keep editorial intervention to
a minimum. Such face-value readings of notation, or the belief that singers were
capable of applying only melodic rules, often conflicts with elementary counterpoint
precepts, requiring the construction of a partly independent theoretical tradition to
account for the resulting eccentricities (Harden, 1983; Hirshberg, 1996; Brothers,
1997).
Different versions of the same piece often notate different, though rarely conflicting,
signs; proponents of an unnotated performing tradition usually seek to reconcile
these as largely complementary explicit testimony to implicit practice; others see
variants as indicators of different intended sounding results. Dahlhaus even
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believed that the notated counterpoint is largely abstract, and that the composer
may have been indifferent to the actual sound (1969). At the other extreme, Cross
believes that recoverable composers' intentions fully determine a single intended
result, to the extent that she does not distinguish manuscript-authorized from
editorial accidentals in the musical text of her edition of Machaut's Messe de Nostre
Dame (New York, 1998). From a position closer to the latter, Bent (passim) holds
that some intentions are largely recoverable from theorists own prioritization of
rules, while leaving other inflections elective, dependent (as in the punctuation and
rhetorical delivery of a text) on some latitude of interpretation and articulation by
performers. If the notation of accidentals was optional (accidental), performers
were expected to apply their training and knowledge of conventions to the
realization of the under-notated music. By a combination of compositional and
notational indicators, the composer could tease the performer to fulfil, sidestep or
frustrate expectations. As in all repertories, there are cases where composers
seem to defy standard contrapuntal precepts, but the number of such anomalies
can be considerably reduced by situating them in relation to norms. Despite
different emphases, scholars strive to reconcile theoretical, musical and source
evidence. There is general agreement on the need to prioritize rules that frequently
conflict, but disagreement remains as to how this should be done.
Musica ficta, 3: Practical application
(ii) Signatures.
Where flats are indicated at the beginning of the staves, the number often differs
between voice parts of the same piece, the lower part or parts having, usually, one
flat more than the upper (partial signatures, sometimes called conflicting or
contrasting). From the top downwards, a three-part piece might have parts with
signatures of , , B ; , B , B ; B , B , B + E ; B , B + E , B + E . They may
come and go within a copy, or vary between sources, and their interpretation has
been hotly debated. Apel claimed that they implied bitonality (1938); Hoppin
proposed modal transposition, since they affect pitch levels about a 5th apart
(1953, 1956). Lowinsky saw them as practical reflections of cadence structures in
voices lying a 5th apart, the signature being omitted when no note of that pitch was
required (1954). But this would suggest that the fear of a vertical imperfect octave
was less than of an imperfect 5th (Berger, 1987, p.66); some theorists say the
opposite. All these views accord the signature its modern significance of inflecting
all notes written at that pitch level and perhaps of octave equivalents. But if B is
available by recta in an unsignatured part, what is the purpose of flat signatures?
The possibility remains that they denote the transposition of hexachord systems,
especially since hexachords rather than modes form the basis of medieval
discussions of ficta in polyphony (Lockwood, Grove6; Bent, 1972). If the
hexachords on G, C and F are transposed one degree flatwards, in the case of a
single flat in the signature the hexachords for that part will be on C, F and B ,
leaving two hexachords common to both a signatured and an unsignatured part,
and thus a considerable range of recta notes, including B , which a simultaneous
unsignatured part is perfectly free to use. If the whole part is in ficta, there would be
no recta/ficta orientation to govern performers' choices. Such flatward
transpositions of the hexachord system (with hexachords on B , F and C, making E
readily available) may have been counted as transposed recta (not all agree), as
distinct from the individual transpositions of ficta hexachords. Where there is a
signature, the transposed recta priorities would be established for the duration of
the signature, leaving the singer of a signatured part equally free to raise B for a
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leading note as to sing F in an unsignatured part. The distinction between applying

chromatic alteration by means of transposition and by means of individual
emendation does, after all, go back to the 11th-century theorists. The idea that a
flat signature might effect downward transposition by a 5th of a combined recta and
ficta system of hexachords was tentatively deduced from Ugolino (ii.4850) by Bent
(1972), extended with cognizance of the ambiguity by Hughes (1972), and
dismissed without explanation of the abiding anomaly by Berger (1987). Aaron
(Toscanello in musica, 1529) rejects the practice of partial signatures, along with
the allegation that they help to avoid false 5ths, on the grounds that it confounds
the interval species and the octaves.
One example of a piece involving sectional transposition by clef and flats is
Pycard's Credo (Old Hall MS, no.76). There are occasional examples of signatures
of E alone, and some progressively flattening pieces only sign the more extreme
flats. There also exist about a dozen pieces, mostly from the 15th century, whose
only clefs are flat signatures (fa signs) detached from letter names (the less
principal clefs). The relationship between the parts is easily inferred; such pieces
(preserved alongside normal pieces) can be performed without the need to name
the pitches, even though two flats a 5th apart might notionally be thought of as B
and F (or E and B) in an upper part and E and B (or A and E) in a lower. Similar
problems arise in canons notated on a single staff such as Ockeghem's Prenez sur
moi, and in his Missa cuiusvis toni, notated without letter-clefs and capable of more
than one resolution (for bibliography on these works see Ockeghem, Jean de).
A few rare cases of sharp signatures date mostly from the 14th century, and sharps
occur frequently as accidentals. By the late 15th century notated sharp signs, on
the other hand, become quite rare. Sharp signatures are used for rare examples of
canon at the 5th, as in Ockeghem's Prenez sur moi and in Willaert's Musica nova
(1559). From 1540 on, especially in Italian prints, the sharp sign becomes more
frequent, but its placing is still free and sometimes ambiguous. Harrn (1976, 1978,
following Kroyer, 1902; see also Ficker, 1914) proposed an ingenious but flawed
interpretation of sharps as cautionary signs with the opposite of their normal
meaning, in order to overcome certain types of false relations in note nere Venetian
madrigals of the 1540s. Instead of confirming an expected inflection, the signs are
alleged to warn the singer not to inflect. Godt (1978, 1979: see under Harrn, 1976)
challenged this view on logical, historical and musical grounds. Some of the
problems which his hypothesis addressed can be overcome by recognizing verbal
boundaries and permitting F to follow F after a sense break; the same is true of
the problems in Willaert discussed (also without text) by Lockwood (1968).
The normal sign for the sharp is , but variants of this sign appear. The sign ,
which had been the traditional sign for B quadratum in contradistinction to B
rotundum, returned around 1540 as a distinctive symbol and attained its modern
meaning; Einstein (The Italian Madrigal, 1949, i, 412) noted its use in a Vicentino
madrigal collection of 1542.
Musica ficta
4. Rules for inflection and adjustment.
13th-century theorists gave reasons both of consonance and melody, stressing
perfect vertical consonances on 5ths, octaves and other perfect intervals
(Lambertus, CoussemakerS, i, 258) and requiring leading notes to be a semitone
from their destination (Garlandia, CoussemakerS, i, 115). These principles were
more fully expounded in the 14th century, most clearly by Johannes de Muris, who
stated that, for melodic progressions, lower returning notes (e.g. in the progression
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GFG) should be raised (GF G); and that leading notes approached by any
other means (e.g. by leap) should be raised (e.g. DF G; CoussemakerS, iii,
713). This is also implied by the author of the Quatuor principalia (CoussemakerS,
iv, 250), who gave the widespread prohibition of mi against fa in vertical perfect
intervals and stated that a 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 a unison, and so on; where one part proceeds by step, it
will be a semitone (ex.1ab). The so-called double leading-note cadence of ex.2a
results from the superimposition of the two-part progressions exx.2b and 2c; it has
nothing to do with perfecting the vertical 4th, which was not during this period
considered a perfect interval for purposes of counterpoint, despite its acoustical
status. As the 15th century progressed, composers cultivated different cadence
forms; not to sharpen the third in ex.2a may avoid angularity but evades real issues
of cadence structure (Dahlhaus, Untersuchungen, 1968, pp.756; Eng. trans.,
34041).
Theorists of the 13th to 15th centuries said surprisingly little about the melodic
interval of the tritone, although it was disqualified in earlier chant treatises.
Prosdocimus's music examples observe the leading-note principle even when the
leap preceding it has to be a tritone. An anonymous 15th-century theorist from
Seville (Gallo, 1968) did state explicitly that melodic tritones should be avoided
when they return within their own confines, that is, when they are not ancillary to an
upward-resolving leading note; this rule became common from then on. In his
treatise on the modes, Liber de natura et proprietate tonorum (1476; chap.8, on the
6th tone), Tinctoris made clear that in practice the F modes, properly formed with B
, often require singers to use B to mollify such tritone outlines. But in order to
establish priority between conflicting rules of correction he introduced into this
treatise on modes in chant a surprising and isolated detour into considerations of
polyphony, showing that in two-part writing the correction of simultaneous 5ths
must take a higher priority than tritone correction. The melodic tritone should be
corrected, except where this would result in a false simultaneity. The tritone is
suffered only for such intervallic correction, not for modal integrity. His famous
comment that notation of obvious B s for tritone avoidance is asinine should not be
applied incautiously to the notation of all accidentals. He corroborates the priority of
vertical correction over tritone avoidance also for other modes, and his examples
use naturals to confirm that. The tritone is easier to sing mediated than as a direct
leap.
Two commonly cited rules of musica ficta originate from the 16th century or even
later. Although both are expressed in solmization syllables, they betray internally
the decay of that tradition. The jingle una nota super la semper est canendum fa
(a note above la is always to be sung fa; not attested in that form before
Praetorius, Syntagma musicum, iii, 1618) itself denies the medieval semitone
definition of mifa. It is understood to mean that the top of a phrase bounded by a
6th or a 4th or even a tone which descends within itself (D, F or A up to B and
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down again) should be rounded off so that the boundary interval is a minor 6th, a
perfect 4th or a semitone; earlier theorists expressed it more precisely in terms of
melodic tritone avoidance.
The other famous jingle, mi contra fa est diabolus in musica (mi against fa is the
devil in music), short-circuits to a sobriquet for the diabolic tritone (properly the
augmented 4th, which was not, at that time, synonymous with the diminished 5th),
and lacks essential qualifiers. Both of the above are anachronistic, even for the
16th century, and need to be replaced by more careful formulations. For example,
the widespread prohibition of sounding mi against fa (mi contra fa) is often quoted
without two qualifications which alone make sense of it, given to its older
formulation by medieval writers from the fully functioning hexachordal tradition: the
rule applies only in perfect intervals (i.e. 5ths and octaves, understood as arrival
points) and in counterpoint (i.e. between parts that are in dyadic contrapuntal
relationship, not just anywhere in the texture).
Many attempts have been made to compile theorists rules for musica ficta; these
have naturally varied according to the priorities observed by individual scholars and
their different readings of various theorists.
For many years, the most thorough account was by Lowinsky (1964), who equated
with necessity (causa necessitatis): I.1, the prohibition of the simultaneous
sounding of mi against fa, interpreted as diminished octaves and 5ths between
(any) two simultaneously sounding voices; I.2, the una nota super la rule (see
above) to prevent a linear tritone when a line ascends above the syllable la (Aaron,
Lucidario, 1545, showed that this was by no means a universally applicable
doctrine); and I.3, the prohibition of false relations. Under the heading causa
pulchritudinis Lowinsky included: II.1, the raising of the leading note at cadential
formulae; II.2, the rule of propinquity, that is, approaching a perfect consonance in
two voices by the nearest imperfect consonance; and II.3, the rule of ending on a
complete triad (according to Lowinsky this was known only in the 16th century).
However, this classification represents a conflation and does not prioritize the rules
to address their frequent conflicts. Necessity interpreted as the correction of
consonances was indeed historically associated with I.1, but also with II.1 and II.2,
because the approach (e.g. from 6th to octave) encapsulates the defining mifa or
fami progression (e.g. G A or B A) by which the perfect interval is reached
(Bent, 1972). I.2 was not so formulated by theorists until the solmization system
(whose raison d'tre was the mi-fa semitone) had atrophied; irrespective of the
solmization in which it is expressed, this formulation does not address how it
should be reconciled with I.1 when, as often happens, they conflict. I.3 has been
understood to apply not only to simultaneous but also oblique false relations, which
are not explicitly discouraged until Zarlino and are often artfully exploited in earlier
music; this rule can be subsumed under a more precise formulation of I.1, but it
cannot be avoided all the time.
Aaron referred to ordinary and special rules devised by musicians; his
prioritization of rules in the supplement to Toscanello in musica can be inferred
from his examples and commentary (Bent, JM, 1994, pp.3245). He indeed, like
Tinctoris, adjusts the melodic tritone when it returns within itself, but will tolerate it
in the interests of achieving a simultaneous perfect 5th or octave, which, especially
between lower parts and on strong beats, always takes priority over melodic
correction. Quoting a passage from the bass part of the third Agnus Dei of
Josquin's Missa L'homme arm super voces musicales (ex.3), Aaron explains that
the tritone fb cannot be changed to fb since that in turn would cause a
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diminished 5th b e: thus the singer will be obliged to sing the harsh tritone for the
sake of that interval [a 5th] or rather that syllable which occurs in the position of
hypat mesn, called E la mi; because in order to accommodate the interval in the
most convenient way, he is forced to break the rule.
There remains considerable disagreement as to how the theoretical and musical

evidence should be calibrated and interpreted. Urquhart argues (passim) that rules
affecting simultaneities, such as the mi contra fa prohibition, are directed at
composers, and that singers were able only to apply melodic principles. Bent
suggests that performers could, by contrapuntal training, rehearsal and aural
anticipation (aided by lateral displacement and suspension in composed music),
balance and prioritize the claims of (1) simultaneous combinations and (2) melodic
smoothness (Bent, 1984, EMc, 1994, 1996). Both accept false relations caused by
cadential collisions (see also, for example, Boorman, 1990; Bray, 197071, 1978),
Bent on grounds that in earlier music they usually arise between parts not
governed by the prohibition, and in later music were sometimes excepted by
theorists; Urquhart shows a wider tolerance for other kinds of contrapuntal
dissonance. The quest for viable solutions that meet both theoretical and practical
criteria continues; it will always be hampered by our unavoidable oral and aural
disconnection with the music as heard and intended in its own time.
Musica ficta
5. After 1600.
By the early 17th century the practice of musica ficta in the current sense, that is,
the introduction during performance of unnotated chromatic alterations according to
a set of commonly accepted principles, had largely become obsolete, except
occasionally among certain circles of musicians, such as Roman church choirs,
whose repertories also continued to include earlier, 16th-century polyphony (see
S.R. Miller: Music for the Mass in Seventeenth-Century Rome, diss., U. of Chicago,
1998, p.448). In spite of that, scores continued to include many notes that lacked
accidental signs but nevertheless required alteration. Until the later 18th century,
when modern conventions fell more or less into place (for instance, an accidental
remains in force to the end of the bar), notational practices were far from uniform
and often show an unpredictable mixture of older and newer habits, but the most
common circumstances in which accidentals were omitted are described below.
To begin with, there remained as legacy from the Renaissance a somewhat casual
attitude towards the notation of accidentals, which may in part be responsible for
the current misapprehension that musica ficta continued to be practised well after
1600. When working under pressure, copyists are more likely to commit errors of
omission than errors of commission, and during the early 17th century they were
more likely to omit a sharp or a flat sign than an entire note. This did not represent
a musica ficta practice, as the omissions follow no systematic or consistent pattern
and largely correlate with the overall lack of accuracy of the text. In carefully
prepared autographs, presentation copies or engraved prints, omissions of clearly
necessary accidentals tend to be rare; they are much more frequent in manuscripts
that show other signs of hasty copying or in prints using movable type (which often
harbour errors of all kinds). The editorial procedure for supplying unintentionally
omitted accidentals is, nevertheless, to some extent similar to the guidelines
followed for adding musica ficta, including the correction of certain diminished or
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augmented intervals and cadential chord progressions, although, even more than
with the earlier practice, caution must be exerted not to subvert intended
expressive effects.
The casual attitude towards the notation of accidentals extended to their
positioning. During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance an accidental had often
appeared well ahead (i.e. to the left) of the note that was supposed to be altered,
and was understood to indicate a shift in the hexachord governing the entire
passage rather than the raising or lowering of an individual pitch. By the early 17th
century such distant placement had become rare, but accidentals were sometimes
positioned above, below or somewhere else in the general vicinity, particularly
when there was insufficient space immediately to the left of the note. Certain
scholars have pointed to situations where accidentals even appear to have been
placed after (to the right of) a note, and dubbed these seemingly backward-acting
signs retrospective accidentals. Most often the accidental is followed by another
note at the same pitch (ex.4 presents a typical situation) and, since these
omissions are not consistent, it might make more sense to regard them as
instances of the casual practice described earlier than of a curious, backwardreading convention.
The question that arises most frequently with early scores is whether a notated
accidental applies only to the note that immediately follows or also to subsequent
notes of the same pitch. In this regard a fairly wide range of practices is
encountered, and the editor or performer is challenged to determine which is
applicable. At one extreme, the accidental applies only to the note that follows;
every note that needs to be inflected is given its own appropriate accidental,
including repeated notes. Under this policy cancellation signs are superfluous and
generally not supplied; as a result there is a danger of misreading chromatic
passages such as shown in ex.5. This extreme practice is rarely encountered after
the very early 1600s. Usually, an accidental remains in force for notes that are
immediately repeated, sometimes also during ornamental subdivisions of a beat
such as written-out trills, or even over a more extended passage, possibly
continuing across a bar-line. Cancellation signs (still most often in the form of
sharps to cancel flats and flats to cancel sharps: ex.6) continued to be rarely used
except to cancel accidentals prescribed by key signatures, and editors or
performers thus need to judge the range of action of an accidental on the basis of
musical context, relevant stylistic practice, and notational habits followed elsewhere
in the score.
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18 di 24
Modern editions often include far more editorial accidentals than 17th-century taste
would have demanded. This may be due in part to the aforementioned misguided
application of musica ficta practice, but sometimes also to an attempt to make the
work conform to later principles of major/minor tonality. In early 17th-century music
(as in 20th-century jazz practice) degree inflections are usually determined by the
local harmony (that is, the underlying chord and sometimes the chord that follows)
rather than by the key or mode of the entire passage. Close juxtaposition of major
and minor forms of a chord and various types of cross-relation not excluding
vertical majorminor clashes were favoured expressive devices; they were to
become much rarer towards the end of the century without, however, vanishing
altogether. Still in the 1660s a composer such as Matthias Weckmann liked to
exploit such devices, which by this time had become unusual enough that he felt a
need to confirm his intentions with special warning signs (see the + signs as well
as NB by the two conflicting pitches in ex.7); despite these signs, a 20th-century
editor of the work changed the A in the second violin part to an A .
Unnotated accidentals often do need to be added by the performer when executing

ornaments such as trills and mordents, and also when realizing figured basses.
The notating of degree inflection in bass figures was ruled by conventions that
varied strongly with time and place, and the modern principle that the realization
29/01/2014 22.06
must observe the key signature unless the figures prescribe otherwise does not
always apply. For example, in many 17th-century continuo basses the 5th is always
to be played perfect, regardless of the key signature, unless the figure 5 with a
sharp or a flat (or a slash across the figure) appears above the bass, even if in
those same basses the 3rd is to be played major or minor according to the key
signature (unless contradicted by a figure). Another almost universal convention is
that the final chord of a movement or a section should be played as a major chord,
regardless of what is implied by the signature; the required alteration is almost
never noted in the figures, although it may be indicated in the other parts when
those include the 3rd of the chord.
Musica ficta
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24 di 24
M. Bent: Editing Early Music: the Dilemma of Translation, EMc, xxii (1994),
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xlvii (1997), 7298
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1997), 46581
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Structures in Early Music, ed. C.C. Judd (New York, 1998), 1559
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Chanson, JAMS, li (1998), 63036
S. Fuller: Modal Discourse and Fourteenth-Century French Song: a Medieval
Perspective Recovered?, EMH, xvii (1998), 61108
E.E. Leach: Counterpoint in Guillaume de Machaut's Musical Ballades (diss., U. of
Oxford, 1998)
P. Otaola: Les coniunctae dans la thorie musicale au Moyen Age et la
Renaissance (13751555), Musurgia, v (1998), 5369
P. Memelsdorff: Le grant desir: cromatica criptica in Matteo da Perugia,
Provokation und Tradition: Erfahrungen mit der alten Musik: Festschrift Klaus
L. Neumann, ed. H.-M. Linde and R. Rapp (Stuttgart, 1999)
D. Pesce: Guido d'Arezzo's Regule rithmice, Prologus in antiphonarium, and
Epistola ad michahelem: a Critical Text and Translation (Ottawa, 1999)
M. Russo and D. Bonge: Musica Ficta in Thirteenth-century Hexachordal Theory,
Studi musicali, xxviii (1999), 30926
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