The Fredösphere

Fun stuff:  Charles T. Downey describes bizarre, da Vinci-code-esque speculation that the paintings of the Sistine Chapel contain a coded message:  implausible, slightly embarrassing, and more than slightly seductive.  And yes, you're right, it is interesting that Ned Rorem is turning Our Town into an opera.  I confess I don't get the love people have for that play.  What's with the ending?  Those dead guys:  they're awfully smug for a bunch of people who do nothing but sit around on chairs all day, don't you think?

Meanwhile, Gregory Hall may be a newbie at the Sequenza21 composers' blog, but he asks a sophisticated question:

It seems to me that good solid thought-out contrapuntal writing is taking a back seat to the practice of the "prosodic line"; that is, a melodic line that flows more "naturally" or imitates speech patterns. When you have a counterpoint of two or more of these complex lines, they often seem to be thrown together with little regard for the counterpoint between them.[...]

QUESTION for the reader: where are the great contrapuntalists of the present day? More specifically, those working not only somewhere between the prosodic line and the simple line, but those working between atonality/aleatoric practices and the "New Tonality" which, more often than not, is the "old tonality". Most specifically, composers who are writing aurally logical music (music that actually considers the overtone series, circle of fifths, etc.) which perhaps involves a good deal of scalar dissonance (modal tone clusters) and tertian writing, both of which have a good deal of tonal logic but are not at all traditional tonality. Graham Fitkin and Louis Andriessen come to mind, but I want to get even more specific, more "Bach-like"...

Well, this gives me a theme for a nice little research project.  Thanks, Gregory; now I know a little better what I don't know.  Those who want to find out more about species counterpoint may find this Schenker website a useful starting point.

My experiments in counterpoint are modulated by a casual comment from a a composition teacher.  He spoke of the importance of melodic line in contrapuntal writing, noting that even Bach occasionally (very occasionally) dives into harmonic incoherence for a beat or two for the sake of good voice leading.  I suppose he was repeating a meme that composers have passed around for years.  It makes sense to me.