The Composition of Late Renaissance Stretto Canons

Abstract

problems inherent in writing strict canons have fascinated composers since the rota and rondellus of the Medieval period. Interest in canonic devices probably peaked around the middle of the Renaissance and continued in the missa adfugam genre of the 1500s. This study of late Renaissance canons originated from an assignment in my graduate modal counterpoint course to write a three-voice canon. While certain theoretical treatises of that period cite examples of canonic technique, they give us little or no insight as regards their actual composition.1 Although I provided some general guidelines, suggestions, and potential pitfalls, the students were pretty much left to their own design. It seems unlikely, however, that Renaissance masters would have resorted to a similar hunt and peck approach when composing canons that featured close imitation (or stretto canons). Certain compositional procedures and stereotypical paradigms must have emerged through their experience, procedures that in turn were passed down to their own students. In this study I will attempt a reconstruction of these principles in terms of present-day algorithms. The formulas I present are based on an underlying pitch/rhythm framework of note-against-note (or firstspecies) counterpoint. There will be three areas of inquiry: 1) analyses of several works in the canonic literature, revealing the existence of shortand long-range sequential patterns; 2) presentation of a set of algorithms for composing stretto canons, based on the stylistic restrictions of the period; and 3) a discussion of the relevance and application of the above to creative writing assignments. As some theorists have demonstrated, the application of Schenkerian reductive technique to foreground events in Renaissance polyphony is useful in revealing surface voice leading.2 However, I become somewhat apprehensive when such techniques are extended to deeper structural levels. Are tonal Ursatz models equally applicable to music organized on modal principles? Does this approach adequately address the question of how the masters in this period dealt with precompositional issues?

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