Are these parallels thirds/sixths legal?

My experience of orchestrating baroque counterpoint is fairly limited, and this represents the start of my first attempt to compose a large scale orchestral composition in the late baroque idiom. Other than the fact that the oboes are too low, I'd like advice on the parallel motion of this vordersatz I've written, with a view to extending it to a full ritornello.

Ripieno Concerto in D (opening).mid

Ripieno Concerto in D (opening).sib

From an uneducated standpoint, it doesn't sound dissonant or out of place.

parallel thirds/sixths should never be a problem. Only fifths and octaves.

parallel thirds/sixths should never be a problem. Only fifths and octaves.

Well, there was never a "rule" against them, but that doesn't mean they are appropriate in every music. Leading voices parallel to each other for extended passages goes against contrapunctual principles regardless of the interval between those voices. You probably won't find parallel sixths or thirds for extended periods in a Palestrina motet, even if two voices certainly can run parallel in thirds/sixths for a couple of notes.

I don't really know much about baroque orchestration either, but I've seen quite extended passages of parallel sixths and thirds, namely in concerti grossi which often were orchestrated after the motto "all available instruments play the same few voices as loudly as possible" :P But of course also in orchestrations more refined than that.

This passage for the first and second violins, for example, is out of H

Great! I'll crack on then. I think this post mainly constituted compositional procrastination, but it's worth considering the implications of having lots of parallel motion in parts.

Definitely, for reasons already pointed out.

Nothing you have here so far is at all problematic.

I find paralell 3rds/6ths useful for fast notes, while contrary motion sounds better for slow notes (at least for me).

I don't know much about orchestration, but I think long run of paralell 3rd/6ths/8ves/unisons are ok, if their purpose is to emphasize or enrich the main melody or to make the counterpoint less dense (so easier for the listener).

So there is no problem with your composition.

M

Hi,

parallel were never forbidden. Fifth and octaves are because they affect the independence of each voice in the counterpoint.

Your composition is very nice though!

Rolan

if i remember correctly too. Dependign on the orchestration parrallel octaves arnt to big a deal. Especially if the two instrumetns have a different timbre or come from different families.

Remember writing for each orchestration has its differences.

For example writing for Brass is completely different from writing for Strigns due to timbre and different limits that the performers have.

Just my two cents.

parallel octaves or unisons, for what strict counterpoint is, just "kill" voices, that is..

if two playes on the same instrument or on different ones, play the same notes in paralle 8th or unison, it is pratically just one voice that you hear, even if there are 2 instruments, and instead, if one uses other intervalls that are consonants and musically more intresting like 3rds or 6ths then you hear the two parts that play good together and that means more voices heard...

not that octave or unisons cant be applied, of course they help define a melodic line better, and also reinforce it.. but if u have just 3 instruments, and 2 of them do just octaves, then what u hear is basically 2 voices... that's what i meant.

but anyway octaves or unisons are better sounding than 4ths and 5ths because those are like octaves...

...in the sense that they are resting places, where the harmony is so consonant that you ear doesnt have much stimulation, so going for parallel 5th or 4ths doesnt give much, since they just go from a resting place to another, and u just get nothing intresting musically... so better the 3ds and 6ths that have this particular character that makes them more intresting to hear than 5ths and 4ths, even if u have some them here and there... :)

hope i made sense here again.

to go back to your piece... for what concernes it, well, i think there's nothing bad... you just doubled other instrumetns to give a different nuance and to give more importance to the themes. nothing wrong with that.

Generally that seems rather accurate, but just two comments:

- Parallel fourths are entirely different form parallel fifths. Fifths melt together a lot better than fourths, which is why traditionally the fifths is considered a perfect consonance, but the fourth a dissonance. So there's no problem of "vanishing counterpoint" when you have parallel fourths. They are only "not ok" in classical counterpoint because they are unresolved dissonances.

- I'd be extremely careful with saying that a particular technique is "not musically interesting". Parallel fifths can be problematic for contrapunctual hearing depending on the nature of the counterpoint, but there certainly is musical interest outside of counterpoint. Sound and timbre, for instance. And exactly for these aspects, intervals that "melt together" are extremely important. In music that focuses mainly on colour instead of contrapunctual lines "parallel fifths" have an entirely different meaning.

You might correctly point out that in such cases, where it's not truly contrapunctual it would be wrong to talk about "parallel fifths" in the first place. But it's not always strictly the one or the other. There is quite some music that fluctuates between "sound colour" and counterpoint, which can be an extremely interesting combination, if used well.

And to get back to the point of this thread, yes, parallel fifths and octaves are a different problematic than parallel thirds and sixths, but the fact that parallel thirds were always "allowed" -doesn't- mean they're "appropriate" for every style. They may not "kill" counterpoint, but they can severly limit it. They are not something that you would commonly find for extended periods in very dense, very contrapunctual music, as they too give the impression that two voices are "bound" to each other, where classically counterpoint seeks to display the seeming independance of voices. ("Seeming" because they are of course usually still connected in rather strict systems, harmonically or otherwise.)

So in summary, I think it's problematic when you focus too much on certain musical rules, like "You should always do A and you should never do B". Those rules may have good reasons and it's good to know them, but in reality it's often much more ambiguous. But as I said, I don't think it's any problem in this piece here.

Sorry for this kind of frivolous response, but this MIDI reminded me a WHOLE lot of the song "Less Talk More Rokk." Search for it on seeqpod.com and listen to it if you haven't heard it, and you'll know what I'm talking about :)

Yes - I do see what you mean!