The 20th century

The 20th century, like the 19th, has had its counterpoint inspired by earlier music. Anton Webern, for example, advocated a return to the forms of counterpoint used by Renaissance composers such as Heinrich Isaac, and in numerous of his own works (e.g., Symphonie) he makes use of Renaissance contrapuntal devices such as simultaneous canons and retrograde movement between the voice parts—i.e., one voice using the other’s melody but with the notes in reverse order. Out of a similar return to Baroque forms came musical works such as the double fugue (a fugue based on two themes) that forms the second movement of the Symphony of Psalms by Igor Stravinsky.

But the use of older musical forms is no more of the essence of 20th-century counterpoint than it was of the 19th. A basic characteristic of 20th-century counterpointis the separation of the voice parts into isolated entities of sound that are of themselves rather static. This may take the form of polytonality (the simultaneous use of two or more keys), using as static entities the notes of each key. It may also take the form of contrast of individual tone colour effects, rather than of melodies, found in much electronic music. (This use extends beyond the original definition of counterpoint simply as the combination of melodies.)

Richard Strauss’s Elektra (1909) was one of the earliest works to make use of polytonality; in certain passages the instruments and voice parts are grouped into layers, each of which defines a different tonality, or key, although in this case all of the keys can also be interpreted as complicated aspects of the basic key. Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for String Quartet (No. 1) suggests four keys at the same time: G, B, D, and A♭. In this particular work each instrument is limited throughout the piece to a few notes assigned to it. Thus each part is absolutely individual and, except for the viola, consists of an ostinato melodic and rhythmic pattern. The coming together of these ostinato patterns at different times and in continually shifting arrangements suggests the effect of a mobile. Béla Bartók carried out a similar procedure in many of the short piano pieces of his Mikrokosmos, and in his Fourth Quartet (1928) he set apart tone clusters (chords built up in seconds, as C–D–E–F–G) in this way.

Turning now to a counterpoint purely of tone colours, Intégrales (1925) by Edgard Varèse presents 11-note “sound-clouds” in the wind instruments in opposition to the sounds of a large battery of percussion instruments. This approach probably grew directly out of earlier experiments with polytonality, but here tone colours, rather than keys or tones, are differentiated. Elliott Carter in his Double Concerto (1961) set apart two groups of instruments, one around a piano, another around a harpsichord, each with its distinctive tone colours and its own distinctive harmonic intervals or note combinations. In György Ligeti’s Atmospheres every instrument in a symphony orchestra, including every string part, plays its own unique, melodic pattern; all of these parts coalesce into gigantic bands, or spectra, of tone colour that contrast with one another. In later experiments, the sound-producing groups are further set off by visual or spatial contrasts in the physical placement of performers; e.g., Ramon Zupko’s Third Planet from the Sun, 1970.

The literature of counterpoint

Most of the writings on counterpoint have sought to increase the student’s skill in musical composition. From the 18th century onward, textbooks of counterpoint have recommended as a model usually Palestrina or Bach, and in some recent cases 20th-century composers. Medieval and Renaissance treatises also were originally intended for student guidance and reflect the taste and attitudes of their own time. Several 20th-century studies deal with the contrapuntal technique of a particular composer or group of composers.