The Compendium of Harmony, Counterpoint and Music Composition

Over the past 7 years, I have had the great fortune to thoroughly study and rediscover the lost art of counterpoint, and regain a long lost perspective on music composition. The Compendium is my approach to streamlining recent (re) emergences in this field of study, and to craft a book that would make my life (and subsequently yours) easier in terms of approaching this subject, and expanding upon several existing theories. While I did anticipate this journey to answer many of my daily questions and challenges as a composer, I didn't expect to answer quite so many of them. This book is not so much an instructional dictation on the subject, but moreover a guide.

Situated largely from the great German composers and pedagogues, with a few caveats of the great Italian and French pedagogues, this book borrows from the following resources, which I've broken into a few major groups and timelines:

1.) Bach and Italian Pedagogy

My book starts you with a few different sources that form the basis of understanding the theory and thinking, borrowing fromVorschriften und Grundsätze from JS Bach (likely student who was tasked with copying down a similar assignment) while providing you the layout for approaching this topic. We examine some principles of the Italian partimenti masters, and compare/combine with Heinichen and Niedt to form the basis of this theory, and the subsequent curriculum.

2.) Händel

His practices from Basso Continuo According to Handel, the exercises from Precepts, and Exercises for Princess Anne will drill us on the basic principles of thorougbass harmonization in a way that can instantly seep into our compositional skills.

3.) Adlung

This is where begin to understand how to 'break out' from the thoroughbass figures in to counterpoint improvisation, as evidenced in Jakob Adlung's treatise on improvisation, and revisit some of the Händel with these in mind. In this phase we will focus extensively on 'forgetting' about interpreting this music solely in written form, but through improvisation.

4.) Beethovenhaus Library

Here we begin to enter the next phase, where we largely borrow from Beethoven's own very well documented personal library to begin to explore composition. We learn how to apply techniques from the master himself, along with all of the foundational forefathers, including two 'godfathers' of form, Riepel and Koch. We additionally will borrow from Albrechtsberger, Kirnberger and later Vogler to add to a chart we visited prior, while soon after examining examples to emerge from Chopin, Brahms, Bruckner, and various other figures in this era of the repertoire.

5.) Fugue

Here we will examine the following texts and exercises for this portion, although this topic will be well underway: 

Marpurg, Cherubini, Langloz Manuscript, Zarlino

6.) Contemporary Applications for Modern Composition

This is where we begin to build off from this foundation into new territory: we begin to explore the applications in 'reexaming' some late 19th and 20th century idioms through this lens. From subjects like Arensky's 1000 musical problems, to Challon, or even the octatonic scale borrowed from Messiaen, we will endure several exercises to approach these contrapuntally.