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What is invertible counterpoint?

(http://www.organduo.lt/home/whatis-invertable-counterpoint)
10/26/2014
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In the learned Renaissance and Baroque music circles, it was common to study
counterpoint. Theorists, composers, organists, and other musicians got together
and immersed themselves in various metaphysical speculations. This all comes
down from the fact that music was part of the classical education students
received from universities.
This system included the education in 7 liberal arts (just like in the Ancient
Greece): the Trivium (grammar, dialectics, and rhetoric) and the Quadrivium
(arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music). To make it easier to understand,
you can imagine that as part of the Trivium, students learned everything about
the words and as part of the Quadrivium they learned all about the numbers.
The most fascinating fact (and the most different from today's perspective) is

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Dr. Vidas Pinkevicius
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that the study of music was concerned with numbers and not with emotions.

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This all makes sense when you think that all music consists of intervals and

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various proportions. Just as architecture was concerned with the numbers

embedded in space, music basically was concerned with sounding numbers.

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The study of Trivium and Quadrivium was in preparation of the philosophy and

theology, of course.
So students of such old polyphonic masters as Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck

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(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Pieterszoon_Sweelinck) and Gioseffo Zarlino

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(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gioseffo_Zarlino) liked to study counterpoint

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together. For example, Sweelinck's students Matthias Weckmann

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(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Weckmann) and Johann Adam Reincken

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(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Adam_Reincken) wrote down everything

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the old master (who was called the Great Orpheus of Amsterdam and Maker of

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German Organists) taught them about the art of counterpoint. The result is

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Sweelinck's Composition's Regeln

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(http://imslp.org/wiki/Werken_(Sweelinck,_Jan_Pieterszoon)) (the Rules of

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Composition - vol. 10 of the "Werken") - an indispensable source of inspiration

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for anybody interested in the style of composition and improvisation of the 16th-

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17th centuries.

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We have to remember that in those days the art of contrapuntal composition

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was a science in itself with many seemingly mysterious rules and techniques.

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Invertible counterpoint is one of those techniques. You know that if we invert an

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interval of the third, we get a sixth and vice versa. This is done by exchanging

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two voices by the octave. This is called invertible counterpoint at the octave. It's

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simple to understand. Here is a list of intervals and their inversions:

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1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8

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8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

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So you see that if we invert a fourth (C-F), we get a fifth (F-C) and vice versa or

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instead of a second (C-D), we get a seventh (D-C). That's why thirds (C-E) and

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sixths (E-C) are so valuable here. They are the sweetest intervals.

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But Reincken, the creator of the longest chorale fantasia in the North German

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organ school on record ("An Wasserflussen Babylon" - 327 measures), uses

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even more advanced counterpoints - invertible counterpoint at the tenth and

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the twelfth. Here's how the intervals are inverted in these cases:

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Invertible counterpoint at the tenth:

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1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10
10-9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1
Here you can't play two consecutive thirds or sixths because in inversion you
will get forbidden parallel octaves or fifths.
Invertible counterpoint at the twelfth:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10-11-12
12-11-10-9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1
In this counterpoint, thirds are very useful because you get tenths in inversion.
But sixths are used very carefully because the inversion would create dissonant

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sevenths.
Remember that you, like those students of Sweelinck can experiment with
invertible counterpoint by writing short melodies and supplying them with
counter-melodies with desired intervals. Always play everything you write down
to really discover what works and what doesn't.
Sight-reading:
Marcia funbre
(http://imslp.org/wiki/Marcia_fun%C3%A8bre,_Op.59_(Krygell,_Johann_Adam)),
Op.59 by Johan Adam Krygell (1835-1915) who was a Danish organist and
composer of the Romantic period.
Hymn playing:
God, That Madest Earth and Heaven
(http://openhymnal.org/Lyrics/God_That_Madest_Earth_and_HeavenAr_Hyd_Y_Nos.html)
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