Hexachordal Solmization and Syllable-Invariant Counterpoint in the Vocal Music of William Byrd

Abstract

Abstract William Byrd was an unusually creative contrapuntist: he is known for his virtuosic double counterpoint, his expressive manipulation of soggetti (imitative subjects), his capacity for exhausting possible contrapuntal combinations in stretto passages, and his points of imitation that build toward an expressive climax (what Joseph Kerman [1981] has described as Byrd’s “cumulative” imitation). This article addresses a cumulative technique that has not previously been identified: syllable-invariant counterpoint. Byrd often develops points of imitation where the soggetto is solmized identically in two hexachords (what sixteenth-century theorists called fuga, in contrast to imitazione). But Byrd frequently builds points toward an extra statement of the soggetto in a new, bonus hexachord; this transposition introduces a new semitone foreign to the work’s local tonality. Byrd thematizes syllable invariance throughout his vocal repertory, particularly in his serious motets. This article shows how Byrd combines syllable-invariant counterpoint with a variety of distinct imitative strategies to achieve specific expressive and tonal goals. The article further considers the implications of syllable invariance for tonal structure in Byrd’s music. Syllable-invariant counterpoint makes visible the constraints and affordances of Byrd’s tonal system, the Guidonian diatonic gamut under hexachordal solmization. Byrd carefully controlled the tonal compass of his works by using syllable invariance, among other strategies, to manipulate his counterpoint’s “chromatic” ambit. Syllable-invariant counterpoint—which Renaissance musicians would have understood as a diatonic, not chromatic, strategy—encompasses Byrd’s contrapuntal, expressive, and tonal compositional techniques.