Counterpoint - Species Counterpoint

Species Counterpoint

Species counterpoint generally offers less freedom to the composer than other types of counterpoint, and is therefore a so-called strict counterpoint. Species counterpoint was developed as a pedagogical tool, in which a student progresses through several "species" of increasing complexity, with a very simple part that does not change known as the cantus firmus (Latin for "fixed melody"). The student gradually attains the ability to write free counterpoint. (that is, less rigorously constrained counterpoint, usually without a cantus firmus) according to the rules at the given time. The idea is at least as old as 1532, when Giovanni Maria Lanfranco described a similar concept in his Scintille di musica (Brescia, 1533). The 16th century Venetian theorist Zarlino elaborated on the idea in his influential Le institutioni harmoniche, and it was first presented in a codified form in 1619 by Lodovico Zacconi in his Prattica di musica. Zacconi, unlike later theorists, included a few extra contrapuntal techniques as species, for example invertible counterpoint.

In 1725 Johann Joseph Fux published Gradus ad Parnassum (Steps to Parnassus), in which he described five species:

1. Note against note;
2. Two notes against one;
3. Four (extended by others to include three, or six, etc.) notes against one;
4. Notes offset against each other (as suspensions);
5. All the first four species together, as "florid" counterpoint.

A succession of later theorists imitated Fux's seminal work quite closely, but often with some small and idiosyncratic modifications in the rules. A good example is Luigi Cherubini.