Gradus ad Parnassum

Steps to Parnassus, the title of an ancient treatise on counterpoint, serves as the text for this two-part counterpoint. Parnassus is the home in Greek legend of the muses of poetry, music, and learning. The music is intended to be a meditation on learning counterpoint. If my editorial eye is correct, it even follows the rules and conventions of sixteenth century polyphony. In setting the text, I avoided different syllables starting simultaneously, which should make the text easier to understand when sung. There are only two vowels; “a” is most prominent and “u” is the final vowel for the two primary words. I tended to avoid sounding the two vowels simultaneously as well. Click here for an audio file, sung on "oh" rather than the words.

Piano Sonata in F, Episode 7

This is the end of the second movement, where the marching ostinato makes its third appearance. The right hand manipulates the motive E-C#-D# starting in bar 123 with parallel sixths added. A block chord version follows that fades but the ostinato brings the music back. A retrograde of the motive is stated once, then an embellished variant with sixths or thirds added. A descent from a high C# leads to the motive re-ordered to E-D#-C# which continues the descent to the motive as a chord in bar 134.



In bar 135, the motive is inverted and spread out as triplet quarter notes, then it soars up on triplet sixteenths to a D# and the motive scattered over two octaves. The re-ordered variant from bar 132 makes a second appearance in bar 138 followed by a descent that goes deep, growling with the motive as a chord that is freely extended. Rising out of the depths on triplet sixteenths, the motive appears inverted at different pitches until it is no longer the motive but a sequence of three descending notes.



Those descending triplets dive once more, but briefly, into the bass, then soar up to an F#, then floats back down to a final simple statement of the motive in bar 148. The ostinato continues for one bar alone, then abruptly quits.