A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Contrapuntal

CONTRAPUNTAL is properly that which is written according to the rules of strict Counterpoint, which see; but it is commonly used to describe music of a pure and dignified style, in which the effect is produced more by the independent motion of the parts than by the massing of the harmonies. The larger proportion of early modern music was essentially contrapuntal, and it seems that the first ideas of harmony were derived from the species of counterpoint called Discantus, which was a popular device of the latter part of the eleventh century, and consisted of fitting two independent tunes together. This basis, and the fact that musicians were slow in developing a sense for more than very simple harmonies, made the contrapuntal style their natural mode of musical expression. But the development of the elaborate harmonies of modern instrumental music has so changed its whole character, that an attempt to write true contrapuntal music at the present day is something like trying to write a poem in the English of Chaucer; and very few composers, unless they devote their attention specially to it, are likely to achieve a contrapuntal work which shall not have the appearance of being either forced or meaningless.

[ C. H. H. P. ]