counterpoint v polyphony

The Goldberg Variations are a masterclass in counterpoint.  Like with all words whose meaning I never properly found out but sort of knew, my definition of counterpoint has always been more than a bit hazy.  It would be something like 'different, complimentary lines of melody overlaid...' or something.  Which is a bit crap.  And when I started thinking about it, after hearing Glenn Gould speak so eloquently on my new disc about how he favours contrapuntal music, I wanted to know the difference between counterpoint, and polyphony.  Because I couldn't tell.

(For what it's worth I think this stuff is really important.  The business of musical language.  It informs all sorts of other thinking.  But also it means we can all start talking like proper pseuds about classical music.  And to do that we need to be comfortable with it first.  Having said which, I am in fact a pseud, so bear in mind a lot of this is guessing - and as always I'd love to hear from anyone else.)

So the first thing I realised is it's not simply a matter of looking up definitions.  It's easy to discover the root of counterpoint is the Latin contrapunctum, meaning 'against note' (or punctum contra punctum - note against note).  In its simplest definition, polyphony is described as two or more melodies (of more or less equal weight).  And this didn't quite clear it up for me.

Then there's the historical context.  Counterpoint as a movement belongs to the Baroque period (17th + 18th century) whereas polyphony came into its own a little earlier - from the middle ages through to the rennaissance period.  So far so not clear enough.

This is where I began to think perhaps the interesting difference might be in the way these words are employed to imply values.  Perhaps the gap between them is more subtle.  When you look at at it this way 'counterpoint' (or 'contrapuntal') is often used to imbue the object in question with some very worthy qualities.  Complexity.  Rigour.  Virtuosity of composition.  The way the word sounds must have something to do with it: stringent, accurate, punchy, a bit thinlipped.  There's a kind of intimidating intellectual weight about counterpoint that polyphony can't carry.  On the other hand polyphony seems to boast a complexity of density.  An almost mystical ordered confusion of noise that sounds far more, romantic than chippy old counterpoint. 

It wasn't until I found this quote from John Rahn that I felt happier about the whole thing.  Or as happy as I'll get.

It is hard to write a beautiful song.  It is harder to write several individually beautiful songs that, when sung simultaneously, sound as a more beautiful polyphonic whole.  The internal stuctures that create each of the voices, separately must contribute to the emergent structure of the polyphony, which in turn must reinforce and comment on the structures of the individual voices. The way that is accomplished in detail is...'counterpoint'.

This quote made my hunch (and please if anyone knows different and I'm hurtling headlong down the wrong path...) that the difference, at least these days, is about implied meaning, could be right.  That the substantive technical meanings are quite close.  But that counterpoint is a discipline, or art.  Whilst polyphony is a kind of result, a resulting quality, or effect, or sound.

We know Bach is the master of counterpoint.  But can we then also describe the Goldberg Variations as polyphonic?  I reckon so.  At least parts of them.  The parts where your head spins with the complexity and beauty of combined linear melodies, cascading together into a kind of sonic euphoria.  All of which, as usual, is said better by Peter Phillips', quoted here by Alex Ross (and I think Phillips' is a fabulous quote to have in mind for a next listen to the GV):      

Phillips can't resist comparing polyphonic art to the mind-bending effects of abstract painting.  "Trance" is not the right word: the mind is not numbed out but made more alert.  It is a state of pleasurable perplexity:

'It is no coincidence that the paintings of Kandinsky and his modernist colleagues, especially the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock, send me into the same kind of reverie as an eight-part motet by Byrd.  The surface is seductive, the meaning obscure, the desire to grasp something that is too abstract to be grasped only causing me to try again and again, a lifetime of agains, a thrall without end.'

PS.  So next up it looks like Saint Saens as a reader's request.  And something modern from Lebowski.  (Anything in particular in mind?) I think we'll do two at once this time round.  I'd like to hear how people got on with the Goldberg Variations.  Married to them?  Loathed them?  Not sure?   

Comments

[Charles Frith]

Lovely. In the past I've googled/wiki'd those terms and looked blankly at the descriptions they did a Millennium Falcon over my head but somehow it's a bit more engaging from a blogger who I'm enjoying. Right, I'm off to poke a bit of Goldberg into last.fm and see what comes out for the day :)

[Lebowski]

I was bandying round the term 'dissonance' the other day in relation to how I thought we could use music in an ad to signify a larger thought the ad was based around.

Everyone just looked blankly at me. And probably thought I was annoying.

All I'll say is that if you want to do an ad about conflict or tension (in a positive way) then it might be interesting to use a dissonant music score because (and I think this is right), after a while the listener's brain re-organises the noise into patterns and rhythms it can understand. And at the point it does that, you feel a wave of euphoria and relief. Break-through point. Uplifted.

But I think we'll just use 'when i'm cleaning windows' instead.

[Charles Edward Frith]

Brilliant. I just had that experience yesterday watching one of my Youtube uploads and listening to 'dissonant' music accidentally at the same time. It was wrong and then it was so right. (clever me fluking it again)

Must remember that one. And when is the next classical post hey??? I only know polyphony and counterpoint. The fans are waiting.

[beeker]

I know. It's coming! Posting on this blog takes a bit more work than my others. Which is no real excuse.

I love your story Simon. Maybe we need to sneak this kind of stuff in more...sneakily.

[ichsteh]

Somehow I sat through an entire class on the History of Western Music in college without getting clear on the difference b/w polyphony and counterpoint - or if I knew, I forgot. Thanks for clearing that up.

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I have been learning about it because I think that it would be one of the most important things in the future, I have been in many lessons of historical music!22dd

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