Overview

From Modes to Keys in Early Modern Music Theory addresses one of the broadest and most elusive open topics in music history: the transition from the Renaissance modes to the major and minor keys of the high Baroque. The system Glarean proposed in his 1547 Dodecachordon comprised twelve modes at two transposition levels; the scheme J.S. Bach used to order The Well-Tempered Clavier in 1722 featured two modes at twelve transposition levels. What took place in between?Through deep engagement with the corpus of Western music theory, author Michael R. Dodds presents a model to clarify the factors of this complex shift. The essence of this model lies in the dynamic interplay of three historical-conceptual layers arising successively in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque, each layer continuing once introduced. Medieval theorists conceptualized mode along a continuum between tune and scale. Renaissance theorists extended mode from plainchant to polyphony, applying modal theory to such features as cadential hierarchies and contrapuntal imitation. Early Baroque mapping of vocal modality onto the keyboard catalyzed a transformation from the diatonic gamut to the chromatic keyboard as background pitch system, with a corresponding change from ladder to circle as the dominant model for tonal space, culminating in the circle of fifths. Spanning two centuries of music and music theory, and incorporating dozens of diagrams from historical treatises, Dodds provides the first comprehensive study of the transition from the Renaissance modes to the major and minor keys.

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9780199338153

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Reviews

"""Michael Dodds offers an ambitious and wide-ranging account of one of the most vexing problems in the history of Western music, the shift from mode to key. Dodds brings unparalleled knowledge of musical repertories and theoretical thought to illuminate pivotal moments. Disentangling diverse strands of thought he offers a three-fold model to explain change based on the dynamic interplay among three historical-conceptual layers. From Modes to Keys becomes the starting point for all future investigations of mode."" -- Jessie Ann Owens, Distinguished Professor of Music Emeritus, UC Davis ""The historical path leading from modality to tonality has long been a confounding and contentious subject for musicologists. In his brilliant new study, Michael Dodds may well have written the definitive account of this epic story. We learn how the familiar major and minor key system emerged not through any direct evolution from the set of eight Ecclesiastical modes, rather through a radically new theoretical conception of tonal space catalyzed by the introduction of keyboard instruments in the church service. A landmark book."" -- Thomas Christensen, Avalon Foundation Professor of Music and the Humanities, The University of Chicago"

Author Information

Michael R. Dodds is Associate Professor of Music History at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. His callings as scholar, artist, and teacher are united by a life-long fascination with the conceptualization of tonal structures, especially in the contexts of sacred music. The story of Dodds as an artist is the subject of the 2023 documentary Blessed Unrest: A Composer's Awakening.

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