Johannes Tinctoris, De arte contrapuncti I–III: new complete critical edition and translation
- Submitting institution
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Birmingham City University
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 33Z_OP_R2092
- Type
- R - Scholarly edition
- DOI
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- Title of edition
- Johannes Tinctoris, De arte contrapuncti I–III: new complete critical edition and translation
- Publisher
- earlymusictheory.org
- ISBN
- -
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2020
- URL
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https://earlymusictheory.github.io/REF2021/Tinctoris/texts/deartecontrapuncti/#
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- This output is a critical edition and translation of the three books that comprise Tinctoris’s complete treatise _De arte contrapuncti_. It is a work of extended and complex research such that it was felt necessary to divide it into two sections in its online presentation (which if printed would likely occupy two substantial volumes). Book I includes 12,000 words of edited Latin text (plus full original texts of the three principal sources) with 17,000 words of English translation; Books II and III include 7,000 words of edited Latin with 10,000 words in English translation; illustrated throughout with extensive musical examples.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- The _Early Music Theory_ website offers Jeffrey Dean’s new critical edition and English translation of one of the most substantial and important treatises on music theory by Johannes Tinctoris (c.1435–1511), his _De arte contrapuncti_ (On the art of counterpoint). This complements and extends Tinctoris’s treatises on mensural notation, which were published earlier on the website. The edition and translation supersede those by Albert Seay (American Institute of Musicology, 1975, 1961), which are riddled with errors and misunderstandings. Consultation of the edition and translation should be preceded by reading the ‘A guide to the project website’ (in the Help menu), which provides guidance in using the web interface most effectively; the editorial principles are discussed in ‘A note on the presentation of texts’ (in the Texts menu).
Tinctoris’s _De arte contrapuncti_ is one of the most important treatments of counterpoint and composition in the fifteenth or sixteenth century, going into much more detail than was customary. Book I defines all the consonances from the unison to the triple octave and gives for each a comprehensive and nuanced list of acceptable consonant progressions. Book II begins by doing the same for all the dissonances and false consonances within the same range. It proceeds to treat the distinction between written or composed counterpoint and unwritten, extemporized counterpoint, giving some interesting written-down examples of the latter. The book ends by extensively discussing dissonance treatment in different mensural contexts, illustrating this with a number of specially composed motets (for three parts except for one in five). Book III provides eight famous rules of composition, similarly illustrating most of them.
This edition was produced as part of the AHRC-funded project _Interpreting the Mensural Notation of Music: An Expert System Based on the Theory of Johannes Tinctoris (running from 2017-2022, with Dean as PI).
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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