ERNEST BLOCH'S PEDAGOGICAL WRITINGS:

A DIDACTIC LEGACY OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICA

by
Michael David Nott
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Supervised by Alfred Mann
Department of Musicology
Eastman School of Music
University of Rochester
Rochester, New York
1985
CURRICULUM VITAE
Michael David Nott was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
on August 1, 1956. The son of professional musicians, he
began his musical studies at an early age, first on the pi-
ano and later on the violoncello. He graduated from Univer-
sity High School in Normal, Illinois in 1975, and enrolled
at Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, Illinois as a
violoncello major, receiving a B.M. magna cum laude in
1979.
His graduate training was begun in 1980 at the East-
man School of Music, where in 1982 he received an M.A. in
musicology. While at Eastman he has held an assistantship
with the Department of Conducting and Ensembles and teach-
ing assistantships in Musicology both at Eastman and at the
College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Roches-
ter. In addition, he has been active as a cellist and a
gambist with the Collegium Musicum, the Musica Nova Ensem-
ble, and various other performing groups at Eastman. He
has been the recipient of the Sraduate Assistant Teaching
Prize, the Heinemann Foundation Fellowship in Musicology,
and the Ball Dissertation Year Fellowship of the University
of Rochester.
His recent activities include the presentation of
iv
v
papers at both the National and New York-St. Lawrence Chap-
ter meetings of the American Musicological Society. He is
presently an Instructor of Musicology on the Eastman
faculty.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The major portion of the work on this project was
done under a Ball Dissertation Year Fellowship, granted by
the University of Rochester, and I am grateful to the Ball
Foundation for its support.
The dissertation benefitted from observations and
recollections of numerous Bloch students--foremost among
them the composer's daughter, Suzanne Bloch. Their contri-
bution is fully documented in the main body of the disser-
tation, particularly in its final chapter.
I am grateful to the members of the Musicology fa-
culty of the Eastman School of Music for their suggestions
and encouragement in the writing of the dissertation and
for their steadfast help throughout my term of graduate
study. The staff of the Sibley Music Library took special
pains to give me ready access to the contents of the Bloch
collection. Phil Lambert, presently a graduate student in
Theory, greatly facilitated my work on the text by sharing
with me his IBM personal computer; he has been a good and
faithful counselor besides.
My greatest thanks go to my adviser, Dr. Alfred
Mann, who through his dedication and expertise passes on to
his students a precious didactic legacy of his own.
vi
ABSTRACT
Ernest Bloch arrived in America on August 1, 1916,
and became one of the first of a number of prominent Euro-
pean composers to make a permanent home in the New World.
From his earliest days in America, he was active as a teach-
er of composition. Within two years he was offered a posi-
tion on the faculty of the Mannes School of Music; during
that time he also established a reputation that brought to
his studio many private students, including Roger Sessions,
Bernard Rogers, and Randall Thompson. There followed
appointments at the newly-founded Cleveland Institute of
Music (1921-25), the San Francisco Conservatory (1925-30),
and the University of California at Berkeley (1940-52).
Throughout these years Bloch preserved the material
resulting from his various didactic activities, and it was
during his Berkeley years that he began to arrange these pa-
pers as a formal collection. A series of letters exchanged
between Bloch and a former student, Herbert Elwell, reveals
that there had been plans to have the material published.
But no such project actually materialized. After Bloch's
death the collection passed into the care of his daughter,
Suzanne. Her decision to deposit it at the Sibley Music
vii
viii
Library served as the impetus for the present critical
edition of her father's didactic writings.
The principal contents of the collection may be di-
vided into four parts--representing, respectively, the dis-
ciplines of harmony, counterpoint, fugue, and musical analy-
sis. In each case, the methods involved evince the perspec-
tive of the practicing composer. Bloch's instruction in har-
mony focuses on the practical application of concepts rather
than the exposition of rules, and the study of harmony is in-
tegrated from the start with the study of musical form. His
approach to counterpoint is guided by a stylistic examina-
tion of sixteenth-century repertory, and by an effort to
achieve an increasing artistic command of the discipline.
The writings on fugue consist of a methodical presentation
of the basic aspects of fugal texture--subject, answer,
countersubject, exposition--leading to the composition of
complete fugues; constant reference is made to the keyboard
fugues of J. S. Bach. One particularly important documen-
tary record of this aspect of Bloch's instruction is found
in a body of manuscripts gathered from Sessions, Thompson,
and others that contain their early exercises in fugal
w r i t i n g ~ Bloch's analyses--a body of remarkably detailed
studies devoted to works by composers rar.ging from Josquin
to Debussy--reflect his conviction that all didactic inquiry
must ultimately focus on the master models themselves.
ix
A final consideration is that Bloch's teaching forms
a continuing bequest passed on from his direct students to
successive generations of eminent American composers.
TO MY PARENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE xii
Chapter
I. BLOCH AND THE AMERICAN SCENE 1
II.
III.
IV.
INSTRUCTION IN HARMONY
Simple Examples Used in Figuration
Harmony Applied to Form . . . . . .
Modulation Applied to Form . . .
INSTRUCTION IN COUNTERPOINT
33
41
51
64
94
Early Manuscripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Studies in Configuration . . . . . . . . . . 114
The San Francisco Notebooks . . . . . . . 127
INSTRUCTION IN FUGUE 261
Examples by Herbert Elwell . . . . . 265
Examples by Randall Thompson . . . . . . 271
Examples by Roger Sessions . . . 280
Examples by Quincy Porter . . . . . . . . . . 288
Examples by Theodore Chanler . . . . . . . . 295
Examples by other students . . . . . 300
Fugue I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
Studies in Configuration . . . . . . 349
Fugue Ibis . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
V. ANALYTICAL WRITINGS 383
VI.
La Forme musicale . . . . . . . . . .
Studies in Configuration
Analysis of Works by Bach . . . . . . .
Analysis of Works by Beethoven
Analysis of Works by Musorgsky and
Debussy . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
DISSEMINATION OF B L O ~ H ' S TEACHING
APPENDIX: INVENTORY OF THE COLLECTION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
384
390
403
433
485
495
525
526
PREFACE
This study was prompted by the donation of Ernest
Bloch's collected didactic writings to the Sibley Music Li-
brary of the Eastman School of Music, University of Roches-
ter, in 1983. The collection, compiled by the composer him-
self, had passed after his death into the possession of his
daughter Suzanne, an eminent musician in her own right, who
had received her early training from her father. It was
with the professional's sensitivity that she attended to
the exemplary preservation of these manuscripts and ulti-
mately decided that they should be given into professional
custody and made available for critical examination.
The Sibley Music Library proved to be a natural
choice. Bloch himself had been affiliated with the Eastman
School of Music, and Suzanne Bloch had visited the school
variously in the course of her performing career. Some of
her programs there, featuring Baroque music on authentic in-
struments, were given in the 1940s jointly with Alfred
Mann, now serving on the School's faculty as P r o f e s ~ o r of
Musicology; they had met in 1935 at the Dolmetsch Festival
in Haslemere, England, with which Suzanne Bloch was con-
nected as a regular member.
xii
xiii
It was at the 1980 meeting of the American Musico-
logical Society in Denver, which included a centennial trib-
ute to Bloch, that Suzanne Bloch, then in her seventies,
spoke to Professor Mann of her concern about a permanent
custody of the collection. Professor Mann's special re-
search interests had for many years been devoted to the
study of manuscripts embodying the teaching of eminent
composers, and this fact, together with the stature of the
Library which her family had known so well, determined even-
tually her decision for the bequest.
Some portions of Bloch's pedagogical writings had
gone at an earlier date to the Library of Congress; others
remained in the possession of the family. But what was
chosen for the donation to the Sibley.Music Library repre-
sents a core of the composer's didactic writings that was
designated by mutual consultation in a number of meetings
during which the final extent of the gift was formulated.
Professor Mann announced the arrival of the collection at
the Sibley Music Library in Notes, the Quarterly Journal of
the Music Librarians Association (vol.40, 1983), in a brief
article that remains the only published description of its
contents. A first complete inventory of the collection was
made by Iva Buff, Acquisitions Librarian at the Sibley
Music Library.
In undertaking a detailed examination of Bloch's
writings, it seemed that two additional aspects of his
xiv
achievement should be considered in order to place the docu-
ments in their proper perspective. Part of the significance
of Bloch's contribution as a pedagogue is due to the circum-
stances in which he taught, and thus it is important to view
his work in the larger context of the American scene upon
which he entered in 1916 and in which he remained active un-
til his death in 1959. He had arrived as the first major
,
European emigre composer of his generation--a generation
that included Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartok, and
Hindemith--and this fact lent weight to the singularity of
his role as a mentor of a young generation of American
composers.
An ever growing context, finally, arises from the
wide dissemination of Bloch's teaching, for his major stu-
dents have become major teachers whose influence now ranges
over two and three generations. Bloch's direct influence,
however, has remained clearly discernible, in spite of
changing tastes and trends, for the generations of his
schooling overlap and interact. An immensely gratifying
circumstance of this study arose from the fact that it was
undertaken at a time that still offered opportunity for
communicating with Bloch's immediate students in person.
CHAPTER I
BLOCH AND THE AMERICAN SCENE
During the early decades of the twentieth century,
the discipline of music was subjected in American universi-
ties to a system still in its infancy. John Knowles Paine,
the "father of the collegiate music curriculum," had estab-
lished the legitimacy of music pedagogy in 1875 by taking
the first professorship in his field at Harvard; several
other departments of music and various music conservatories
followed, creating the outposts of higher music education
on the American scene. But formal musical training devel-
oped slowly, and for the remainder of the 1800s speculation
remained as to what the role of higher education in music
should be. The vagueness which characterized music pro-
grams was in many ways only symptomatic of a much larger
problem. The evolving social structure of young America
was not stable enough to provide a foundation which could
lend genuine support to musical life. American musicians
were artists without a recognized native tradition, and
this posed profound difficulties for the growing pedagogi-
cal system.
1
2
Amidst this uncertainty, administrators and stu-
dents alike looked for guidance where America had already
sought direction in many other matters of culture: Euro-
pean tradition. The collegiate pattern, which American
universities had inherited from England, included the col-
lege chapel whose musical organization had always played a
vital part in the university student's education. But
unlike its English counterpart, the American university
chapel did not represent a religion that was, in fact, an
arm of the government, and its function in the American
educational system remained "extracurricular."
On the continent, it was not the university but the
conservatory that determined the nature of higher education
in music. To study in a metropolitan center such as Paris,
Leipzig, Munich, and Frankfurt was virtually required of
any aspiring American composer in the nineteenth century;
indeed, even in the early twentieth century very few gained
prominence without first having obtained some measure of
training overseas. Paine, George Whitefield Chadwick, and
Horatio T. Parker were just a few of the American peda-
gogues who received their education in continental conserva-
tories. They returned to college appointments and brought
to these the substance of their continental training, and
thus musical education in the American university came to
consist of a certain blending of collegiate and conserva-
tory traditions.
3
That this blending did not result in a system
entirely to the benefit of the student of composition is
apparent from the story of the most American of composers,
Charles Ives. Ives received his initial training at the
hands of his father, an versatile musician who fk
owed allegiance to no pedagogical tradition. The elder
Ives gave his son an education which, while well-grounded,
placed a premium on freedom and imagination.
Father was not against a reasonable amount of "boy's
fooling", if it were done with some sense behind it .
. . . Father used to say "If you know how to write a
fugue the right way well, I'p willing to have you
try it the wrong way--well."
Upon enrolling at Yale in 1894, Ives suddenly was
faced with a system in which doing things the "right way"
was obligatory. His teacher was Parker, a student of the
conservatory-trained Chadwick, and himself trained by
Rheinberger in Munich. Parker, then in his first year of
teaching, established a new (though conventional) curri-
culum, consisting of a sequence of classes concerned with
technical aspects of musical composition: harmony (accord-
ing to Jadassohn's text), counterpoint, and instrumenta-
t
. 2
Ives must have felt continual frustration at the
"rules of composition." "Tell Parker," his father encour-
aged him, "that every dissonance doesn't have to resolve
any more than every horse should have to have its tail
bobbed just because it's the prevailing fashion."
3
4
In the end, Ives's gift overcame the limitations of
his Yale experience, and he was able to wash his hands of
academic coercion. A number of his peers, however, were
bound to succumb to a conventional pattern. Daniel Gregory
Mason and Edward Burlingame Hill, both contemporaries of
Ives, continued the tradition of the preceding generation:
training in Europe, followed by faculty appointments at
horne. Yet in the early 1900s there were signs that the
American composer might begin to challenge the authority of
the prevailing system.
Prior to the turn of the century the most visionary
of early American pedagogues, Edward MacDowell, assumed the
first chair of the music department at Columbia University
with the conviction that, as Columbia's president Seth Low
stated, the University "ought to teach the science of music
in such a way as to train cornposers."
4
MacDowell's peda-
gogical orientation was ultimately realized in the form of
a "colony" established in his memory, where gifted young
composers (as well as artists and writers) could spend an
undisturbed summer of study and creative work.
The MacDowell legacy was indicative of currents in
the study of cornpositj.on which rendered the American scene
more promising for the student composer. Musicians born
around the turn of the century were the first, after Ives,
who gained consistent independence from the European
5
tradition. The careers of Douglas Moore, Randall Thompson,
Aaron Copland, and Roger Sessions are notable examples;
Moore and Copland were, in fact, early fellows at the Mac-
Dowell colony. Nevertheless, the new spirit could not yet
challenge the solidity of the academic curriculum, whose
patterns were maintained in spite of enlightened views in
the university faculty. A conflict with the Columbia admin-
istration over policy resulted in MacDowell's resignation.
Mason (who was eventually appointed to the MacDowell chair
at Columbia) and Hill (who was one of Sessions's teachers
at Harvard) were equally disturbed by the inadequacies of a
system from which their own European training had been the
only escape. As Sessions recalled:
In my junior year, Edward Burlingame Hill, who was the
member of the faculty that I knew the best, took me on
a walk and said to me, somewhat confidentially--or I
assumed it was: "I want to tell you that we are not
in a position here to give you what you need. I won't
go into the reasons why." And he urged me very
strongly to
5
go after I graduated to France to study
with Ravel.
Hill's reluctance to be specific does not obscure
the wisdom of his remarks; it is clear that he was fully
aware of the shortcomings of his surroundings, and that he
understood equally well what the student of composition
actually needed. To study with Ravel would mean an ideal
combination of artistic freedom and skilled guidance, the
like of which had proven itself time and again in the educa-
tion of great composers: the master-artisan relationship.
6
Sessions was not able to take Hill's advice. The outbreak
of World War I made study in Europe impossible and dis-
turbed, for a time, the steady flow of American composers
overseas. But the impact of the war on Sessions's career
and on the American scene was ultimately quite different
from what he or his colleagues were then able to envisage.
With increasing political and economic instability in
Europe, the cultural migration was gradually reversed; many
a distinguished European composer left the oppressive condi-
tions of his native country to make a home in the New
World. Sessions eventually found his master in America in
the person of Ernest Bloch.
Bloch was the first prominent European to flourish
in the States as a teacher of composition. His own arrival
in New York in 1916 was actually preceded by that of Anto-
V/
nin Dvorak, who took a position at the National Conserva-
tory in October of 1892.
y/
But Dvorak's activity in America
was short-lived--as was that of the National Conservatory--
and it did not result in any lasting contribution to the
pedagogy of composition. Bloch's career as a teacher was
another matter. Already by the 1920s he was providing
training to some of the strongest musical minds of the
younger generation. At that time, perhaps only Nadia Bou-
langer in Paris remained in a position to attract American
composers of quality and to produce similarly lasting
7
6
results. But the Boulanger legacy must be considered a
countercurrent to a tide already turned.
Bloch's immediate and unqualified success as a
teacher was essentially the consequence of two principles
central to his pedagogical conception. For one thing,
Bloch, with true reverence for the great composers of the
past, made it manifest that students could find a more
valid model in the masterpieces of musical literature than
could be isolated in any traditional music text. Examples
from the literature made their way into every stage of his
teaching. By this means, the student encountered models of
unquestionable quality which could be examined with refer-
ence to their larger musical context. Secondly, Bloch, who
had complete disdain for stylistic labels, was equally
unwilling to force any stylistic, regional or aesthetic
orientation upon his students. What he prized most in
those who came to him w ~ s individuality; that, he believed,
ought not to be compromised, either by one's teacher or
oneself. Henry Cowell made the most apt appraisal of this
rare quality in Bloch's teaching: "his pupils are remark-
able because they all write so thoughtfully and well, but
differently."
7
Above all, Bloch's status as an accomplished and
distinguished composer enabled him to approach his teaching
with a confidence and insight that was uncommon among his
American colleagues, and in the same sense the continued
8
arrival of prominent composers from Europe became decisive:
regardless of particular pedagogical orientations, there
could be no mistaking the voices of authority which came to
be heard on American shores.
Some of the major European composers who came to
America, such as Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky, never gave
thought to pedagogy. For a large majority, however,
teaching was virtually the sole means of support. The
/
emigre composer flourished in a few cases; the prominence
of students trained by teachers ranging from to
Milhaud gives ample testimony of the instruction native
Europeans brought to America. But many others--like
in minor university appointments where
the level of aspiration and achievement among students was
obviously below that which they had left at home. There is
no legacy by which their teaching might be remembered or
assessed.
Almost all these distinguished compcsers of
Bloch's generation. His career, too, might have run a
course much the same as theirs. His father was a \vatch-
maker; expectations were that the son would become a part-
ner in the family business. But by the mid-1890s his musi-
cal gifts had begun to assert themselves strongly. In the
following years Bloch traveled to many metropolitan cen-
ters, first as a student in the conservatories of Geneva,
9
Brussels, Frankfurt, and Munich, then as a young composer
in Paris--all the while accumulating a growing portfolio of
compositions. In 1904 Bloch returned to the family store;
in 1911, by then well-established as a composer, he assumed
a position on the faculty of the Geneva Conservatory, where
he lectured in aesthetics and composition.
Yet it was in his migration to America that Bloch's
life diverged from that of his contemporaries, his arrival
in 1916 preceding that of most other major European compos-
ers by some t w e ~ t y years. What this meant in practical
terms was that Bloch left Europe with his best years still
to come. For many of his colleagues the opposite was the
case. When Schoenberg, for instance, arrived in New York
in 1933 he was almost sixty, poor in health and spirit,
having already passed the most successful years of his pro-
fessional life. The circumstances under which the various
masters took up their American careers had obviously much
to do with the educational influence they ultimately
exerted.
. . ,
The clearest v1ew of the em1gre composer as a
teacher comes from three figures who, in addition to actual
instruction, undertook the task of recording their pedagogi-
cal theories in print: Schoenberg, Hindemith, and Krenek.
Their later writings are all the more revealing in that
they arose directly out of their experience with education
in the New World.
10
The American years of Schoenberg and Hindemith have
much in common: both came to the United States with an ex-
ceptional teaching history; both had written important peda-
gogical texts prior to arriving in America; both ultimately
settled in prominent university positions--Hindemith at
Yale, Schoenberg at the University of California at Los
Angeles.
Yet in neither case did their American careers
approach the illustrious success they had known as peda-
gogues in Europe; in fact, in comparison to the theories
presented in their European texts, the teaching Schoenberg
and Hindemith imparted to pupils in the American classroom
was altogether conventional in nature. In the main, this
arose from necessity. The two masters met an unexpected
challenge in the American student, whose preparation for
advanced study in composition was often inadequate. As one
of Schoenberg's pupils from 1935, Pauline Alderman, later
observed:
He was to write to friends in Vienna that summer,
commenting sadly on the low quality of the class
both as to ability and preparation. This was
natural since he must inevitably remember his
classes in Vienna, among whose members were some of
the most brilliant minds in all Europe. Also, even
the most pedestrian among them had as a common
heritaqe a musical sophistication and solid
8
training
still very uncommon among western students.
Of course, such craftsmen as Schoenberg and Hindemith would
have been concerned about the fundamentals of composition
11
in teaching anywhere. But in the course of providing basic
training to the American student, their return to conven-
tion became so complete that in relatively few instances
did they attempt to pass on the innovations which had been
the most vital part of their pedagogical work.
Schoenberg's textbooks for the study of harmony are
a case in point. To be sure, portions of the Harmonielehre
of 1911 are devoted to traditional concepts of the disci-
pline; however, Schoenberg also directed considerable atten-
tion to his seminal concept of "emancipation of dissonance"
and to the expanded harmonic resources which were part of
the most recent trends in musical thought. By contrast, in
the posthumously published Structural Functions of Harmony--
the manual written for American students--only a scant por-
tion of the text refers to the "emancipation" and the
twelve-tone method, and these without benefit of musical
examples. As the British composer Alexander Goehr said of
the latter text:
One is always aware that this book, unlike the
Harmonielehre, deals with a closed subject. And
where the earlier book ends with a vision of a
glorious future, this book ends with a rather
9
wan
"Apollonian" evaluation of a Dionysian epoch.
Schoenberg's other American texts, Models for Beginners in
Composition, Preliminary Exercises in Counterpoint, and Fun-
damentals of Musical Composition, represent a similarly tra-
ditional orientation for the training of pupils in this
country.
12
Hindemith's major theoretical work was marked by
the fact that in 1937--the year of the first volume of
Unterweisung im Tonsatz--many of the decisive steps in
modern music were no longer in the future; thus he sought
to make a more explicit statement of contemporary practice,
ostensibly to replace conventional pedagogical views.
Hindemith states in the opening chapter of Unterweisung im
Tonsatz, Volume One:
If the confusion in the technique of composition is
not to increase and spread, if the conflicting re-
sults of an outworn system of instruction are not to
bring disaster in the wake of uncertainty, a new and
firm foundation must be constructed .... I p r o p ~ 5 e
to attempt the construction of such a foundation.
It was a compelling vision. But even such a degree
of confidence and conviction could not come to grips with
the realities of teaching in America. Upon arriving in the
United States in 1940, Hindemith, as Schoenberg before him,
found that his method required an advanced knowledge which
the typical American student did not have. By 1943--only
six years after the publication of Unterweisung im Tonsatz--
he found himself obliged to produce a new text, the very
title of which reveals a dramatic reversal: A Concentrated
Course in Traditional Harmony. Hindemith wrote in the
preface:
Despite the evident loss of prestige which conven-
tional harmony teaching has suffered, we still must
count on it as the most important branch of theory
13
teaching, at least so long as it has not been
replaced by any generally recognized, universally
adopted
11
more comprehensive, and altogether better
system.
What is at issue here is not so much the quality of
Schoenberg's and Hindemith's teaching as its character.
Without a doubt, these two composers brought a competence
and a richness to their instruction that no American
teachers could equal. Nor would it be correct to imply
that Hindemith and Schoenberg completely avoided intro-
ducing their innovative concepts to pupils in the American
classroom. To be sure, Schoenberg did impart the twelve-
tone system to American students; similarly, Hindemith
presented to his students at Yale ideas from a projected
third volume of the Unterweisung im Tonsatz--though it is
indeed indicative of the situation that this volume, pub-
lished posthumously, had never been put into final form by
the author. Both masters realized that their American
teaching must differ from former didactic work in its point
of departure, and this had decisive implications for the
later stages of their pedagogical writing.
The circumstances under which Krenek began his
American career in 1938 varied from those which marked
Schoenberg's and Hindemith's arrival. He was twenty-eight
when he assumed a professorship at Vassar, and without any
essential prior experience as a teacher. Far from exercis-
ing any conservative turn of mind, he was dismissed after
14
one year for instructing the Vassar students in the twelve-
tone method.
12
Commitment to twelve-tone composition was to remain
the characteristic of Krenek's teaching in America. His
text Studies in Counterpoint, published shortly after his
arrival in the United States, approached the craft of part-
writing from a strictly dodecaphonic perspective, and
Krenek stated elsewhere (in terms that Schoenberg would
have abhorred) his conviction that such an approach is
viable:
The twelve-tone technique is eminently teachable
because the student's essays may be judged according
to clear-cut standards, similar to sixteeth-century
counterpoint, ... because I ~ e r y detail is under
easily demonstrable control.
Following his year at Vassar, Krenek accepted the direc-
torship of the Music Department at Hamline College in Min-
nesota where he was able to organize a program in keeping
with his own pedagogical vision. Since 1945 he has been
involved with a number of institutions, somewhat in the
manner of a "freelance" teacher, and has produced various
writings of pedagogical interest (see bibliography).
Their divergent experience and attitude not with-
standing, Hindemith, Schoenberg, and Krenek were united in
their position as mentors: they and their European col-
leagues viewed the pedagogy of composition from the
15
composer's perspective. Hindernith was quite clear about
what this meant to the student:
A gifted composer is not always a good teacher. But
his instruction is bound to have a certain creative
warmth . . . because he is ~ ~ s s i n g on directly what
he himself has experienced.
By the middle of the century--Hindernith returned to Europe
in 1953, and Schoenberg died in 1951--the dilemma which had
confronted the American student of composition in the early
part of the century was clearly a thing of the past. The
generation of composers which unwittingly heralded a final
break from European dependence--including Roger Sessions,
Randall Thompson, Douglas Moore--became now themselves the
respected professors in this country's universities, creat-
ing a lineage from American teacher to American student
which continues unbroken. These three were students of
Ernest Bloch, the European whose didactic work became a
genuine part of the American scene.
Bloch's teaching in America can be divided into
three periods: New York, 1916-20; Cleveland and San Fran-
cisco, 1920-25 and 1925-30 respectively; the University of
California at Berkeley_, 1940-52. Bloch first carne to the
United States, 1 August 1916, not as a pedagogue, but as a
conductor. He had accepted a position with a dance troupe
on their American tour which he hoped would provide his
family with financial stability lacking in war-time Europe.
16
But the tour failed after only six weeks, and Bloch had to
probe other options. Quite independent of the tour,
Bloch's own work began to gain attention; one performance,
in fact, was hailed by Musical America as the "most signifi-
cant event of the year in New York."
15
While proceeds
and royalties were not sufficient to provide means for an
independent existence, Bloch did achieve a measure of repu-
tation from which other opportunities--particularly those
involving teaching--naturally followed.
The first of these came through David Mannes, who
in 1916 had established a new Conservatory of Music in New
York. Mannes offered Bloch the position of head of the
Theory Department starting with the school year 1917-18,
and this meant the beginning of a series of faculty posi-
tions upon which the Bloch family's fortunes were based for
many years. Bloch's duties at Mannes consisted of a number
of lectures, primarily on the aesthetics of music, and
course work more specifically didactic, such as counter-
point and the study of form.
By 1918 Bloch was also affiliated with the Julius
Hartt School of Music in Hartford. But more significant
was his work as a private teacher in New York which at-
tracted some of his most outstanding students of composi-
tion. The great activity in Bloch's studio is remarkable,
considering that neither the Hartt nor the Mannes positions
involved the kind of public recognition that brought his
17
teaching to the attention of pupils outside the student
body. But here again Bloch the teacher was served by his
own continuing success as a composer. No doubt the mere
presence of an accomplished European composer in America
captured the eye of prospective students. Indeed, this
growing reputation provided the threshold for a wider scope
of Bloch's teaching career. Mrs. Franklyn B. Sanders, who
was in the midst of preparations for establishing an insti-
tute of music in Cleveland, "set herself to the formidable
task of securing to direct ~ h e artistic end, a man of corn-
rnanding musical stature and educational experience." (The
words are those of another of Bloch's students, Bernard
16
Rogers.) Her choice for the position was Bloch.
Bloch responded to the offer from Cleveland with
alacrity. The situation at Mannes had not been entirely to
his liking (he referred to his tenure there as a "two years-
17
sentence"), and the Cleveland position meant both a bet-
ter salary and greater security than did his earlier commit-
rnents in and around New York. But Bloch also must have
been attracted by the consideration that, as director of a
new institution, he could shape the curriculum and faculty
in accordance with his own pedagogical vision. There was
nothing tepid about Bloch's views on music education. When
he arrived in Cleveland with his family, he arrived also
with a wealth of, what for the organizers of the Institute
18
were, unorthodox plans, for instance abolishing grades and
and textbooks. Bloch was supported in his goals by a few
of his private students from New York, who joined their
teacher on the faculty of the newly-founded Cleveland Insti-
tute of Music.
But ultimately the unconventional policies proved
to be too much for the Cleveland administration, even
though in five short years Bloch had raised the Institute
from an unknown school with an enrollment of seven students
to a thriving musical center. The conflicts which thus
arose eventually brought his association with the Institute
to an end. In the meantime, Bloch's teaching had come to
the attention of other institutions. In 1925 at the invi-
tation of Howard Hanson he gave a series of master classes
at the Eastman School of Music--classes which were attended
by Hanson himself. In the preceding summer he had taught a
five-week course at the San Francisco Conservatory, and the
force of Bloch's personality and artistry led soon a9ain to
the point where he was offered the position of director.
Bloch assumed the directorship of the San Francisco
Conservatory with the beginning of the school year 1925-26.
The situation was more to his liking than that of the final
years in Cleveland. Not only Fas the salary higher, but
the governors of the conservatory were well disposed to-
wards his directoral policies; Bloch's tenure in San Fran-
cisco was peaceful and productive.
19
Bloch also had a good understanding with the resi-
dents of his adopted community (community education was
part of his regime in both San Francisco and Cleveland)--in
fact, rather too good for the continued association with
the Conservatory: towards the end of the 1920s a prominent
San Francisco family established a trust fund for Bloch,
which was to provide him with an annual income on the condi-
tion that he occupy himself exclusively with composition.
Bloch found the opportunity, which in essence amounted to
an entire decade of creative work free from other profes-
sional distractions, too attractive to refuse, and his
affiliation with the Conservatory came to a close.
The break from teaching, however, was to be only
temporary. The terms of the trust fund further stipulated
that in 1940 Bloch would assume a chair in composition
established in his name at the University of Califonia at
Berkeley. After spending most of the 1930s in Europe
composing and supervising performances of his works, Bloch,
now sixty and a respected elder statesman in his field,
returned to the American classroom.
Bloch's duties at Berkeley were not as demanding as
his directorships in Cleveland and San Francisco. He had
ample time to pursue projects of his choice and spent m a ~ y
hours analyzing masterpieces from the music literature. No
doubt this work was related to his teaching, but the docu-
ments themselves are so detailed and so meticulously
20
notated that one concludes Bloch must have found the work
satisfying in a more personal way. Similarly indicative of
an increasingly introspective spirit is the fact that Bloch
took a house in Agate Beach, Oregon (a considerable dis-
tance from Berkeley) , where he passed the remainder of his
life in privacy, repose, and study.
Bloch's retirement from university life in 1952, at
the age of seventy-two, brought an illustrious teaching ca-
reer to a close. He died seven years later. The legacy of
his teaching lives on in numerous students who have assumed
positions of high stature in American music, and it is
faithfully documented in his pedagogical writings. Unlike
some of his European colleagues, Bloch published no works
on the teaching of composition. Yet it is clear from the
care he took in compiling a collection of his didactic writ-
ings, as well as from his own statements, that he realized
the value of such a record. In fact, we know from a series
of letters exchanged between Bloch and one of his New York
students, Herbert Elwell, that publication of some of
Bloch's pedagogical documents was under consideration at
one point.
18
Equally revealing are magazine articles pub-
lished at the occasion of Bloch's seventy-fifth birthday;
they refer explicitly to "the impending publication of a
part of his immense accumulation of pedagogic papers."
19
None of these plans, however, reached fruition, and no part
21
of the meticulously preserved collection ever appeared in
print.
* *
*
The contents of the collection, while representing
Bloch's experience as a teacher in this country, naturally
also reflect the traditions that had formed the basis of
his own training. Bloch began his formal studies in music
in 1894 at the conservatory of his native Geneva, after his
early virtuosity on the violin had come to the attention of
one of the faculty members. In 1896, it was recommended on
the strength of his abilities that he continue his studies
in Brussels with Ysaye, and this led to a three-year term
at the Brussels Conservatory. Yet Bloch, who had been writ-
ing music from his early years, was advised by many, includ-
ing Ysaye, that his true calling was that of a composer.
Prospects for advanced study in composition in Brussels
were not good (his teacher was Fran9ois Rasse, only six
years his senior); thus, in 1899 Bloch traveled to Germany,
where he enrolled at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt be-
fore concluding his studies in Munich (1901-03). A final
phase of Bloch's association with the European conservatory
tradition came in 1911-15, when he returned to Geneva to
assume an appointment on the Conservatory faculty.
22
The circumstances of Bloch's training placed him in
direct contact with some of the most eminent pedagogues of
the day: in Geneva, he studied with Emile Jaques-Dalcroze,
whose innovative teaching methods were to attract consider-
able attention in the first half of this century; in Brus-
sels he doubtless came to know Gevaert,
the distinguished director of the Conservatory and author
of a well-known text, Traite d'harmonie (1905-07); one of
his teachers in Munich was Ludwig Thuille, whose Harmonie-
lehre (written in collaboration with his Munich colleague
Rudolf Louis and published posthumously in 1907) was a
standard work for classroom use in the early decades of the
1900s. We can gather--given the wide dissemination of
ideas that accompanied the cosmopolitan environment of the
conservatory setting, and the fact that Bloch received
training in both French- and German-speaking countries--
that his education was indeed one of great breadth.
But what direct bearing did Bloch's European experi-
ence have on his own work as a pedagogue in America? On
the one hand, turn-of-the-century theory was marked by
certain progressive tendencies that were in fact to become
integral to Bloch's own didactic methods. These tendencies
are manifest in the efforts among writers to relate the
didactic disciplines to living music, as well as to inte-
grate a historical perspective in the educational scheme.
Thuille, to cite one instance, incorporated examples from
23
the music literature--ranging from Alessandro Stradella's
to Richard Strauss's dramatic works--in his Harmonielehre,
but the volume nonetheless represents a continuation of the
conventional mode of instruction presented in numerous
nineteenth-century textbooks.
. . ~ ~
Slmllarly, Andre Gedalge
made specific reference in his widely used T r a i t ~ de la
fugue (1901) to works by Bach, yet the primary emphasis of
,
his method is on the fugue d'ecole. The training Bloch re-
ceived in the European conservatory setting represented a
tradition with which, in the end, he was highly dissatis-
fied, and from which his teaching in the New World consti-
tutes a significant departure.
On the other hand, an explicit--though varying--
indication of Bloch's interest in the prevailing didactic
scene comes to us by way of one of his American students,
Quincy Porter. The collection of Bloch's pedagogical writ-
ings (which otherwise is preserved entirely in his own
hand) includes a pair of volumes compiled by Porter, con-
taining notes he gathered while enrolled in a class taught
by Bloch in the summer of 1921. The notes--detailed
chronicles of the events of each class meeting--show that
the lectures were devoted mainly to Bloch's discussion of
the fundamental aspects of musical composition. But it is
also evident that Bloch, in the effort to expose his pupils
to a wider context of ideas, occasionally spoke about the
writings and methods of other pedagogues.
24
Many of these were mentioned merely in passing:
Bloch comments on the manuals of Riemann, Jadassohn, and
Richter, for example, but says only that they are "pedan-
tic"; of Schoenberg's Harmonielehre, he reportedly remarked
that while it "contains much that is quite wonderful in its
paragraphs on aesthetics . . the actual technical part of
it is not so simple as it might be"; Rimsky-Korsakov's Text-
book of Harmony is also cited, though Bloch's comment ("may
be good, but opinions vary") suggests that he may not have
been fully familiar with the text. Indeed, all these re-
marks indicate more than anything Bloch's dissatisfaction
with and essential independence from the texts in question.
There emerges in Porter's notes, however, a strict
division between volumes to which Bloch makes passing refer-
ence, and a body of writings that he recommends to his pu-
pils for actual use. Among the latter are three counter-
point texts: Heinrich Bellermann's Der Contrapunkt (1862),
Michael Haller's Kompositionslehre fur den polyphonen
Kirchengesang (1891), and Wilhelm Hohn's Der Kontrapunkt
Palestrinas und seiner Zeitgenossen (1918). These manuals
are representative of a movement that arose in the second
half of the nineteenth-century--initiated by Bellermann--
~ n d that advocated a return to an instruction of counter-
point based strictly on the practice of the Renaissance
masters. This movement was to culminate in the writings of
Knud Jeppesen, whose didactic presentation of contrapuntal
25
technique (Kontrapunkt, 1930) was in fact an outgrowth of
his own systematic and scholarly investigation of the
sixteenth-century repertory, Der Palestrinastil und die
Dissonanz (1925). The remaining volumes listed by Porter
are equally revealing of the premise of Bloch's teaching.
We find the titles of several general histories of music,
including Arnbros's Die Geschichte der Musik ("probably the
best book we have"), Lavignac's La Musique et les musiciens
("primitive in some respects, but of very great value''),
and The History of Music by Waldo Pratt. But mentioned
with particular emphasis are anthologies of Renaissance
repertory such as The English Madrigal School and Antholo-
gie de m ~ i t r e s religieux primitifs--volumes that come to us
from "people who have studied the works."
In addition to the various figures mentioned by Por-
ter, several pedagogues are frequently named in Bloch's own
writings; and here we are dealing with a group of authors
whose influence on Bloch is manifest. In his volumes per-
taining to the study of counterpoint, Bloch makes reference
to Bellermann, who, as we have seen, revived a mode of in-
struction that was to form the foundation for Bloch's own
contrapuntal method. Prominently mentioned in another por-
tion of the collection is the Swiss writer Mathias Lussy,
whose theories on rhythm and expression received high
praise from Gevaert and had considerable influence on
26
20
Jaques-Dalcroze. The thrust of Lussy's work is in pro-
viding a systematic basis for the teaching of musical inter-
pretation. Bloch applied Lussy's ideas to the study of
harmony--harmonization, in Bloch's view, being a process
that is fundamentally related to the interpretation of
melodic structure (cf. p. 37, below).
A further figure mentioned by Bloch in the context
of harmony is his teacher from Frankfurt, Iwan Knorr.
Though largely forgotten in our day, Knorr provided train-
ing in his years at the Hoch Conservatory to an impressive
number of prominent composers--including the so-called
"Frankfurt Group" (Cyril Scott, Percy Grainger, Roger Quil-
ter, Norman O'Neill, and Balfour Gardiner), and such native
German composers as Hans Pfitzner and Ernst Toch. Knorr
was also the author of a text, Aufgaben fur den Unterricht
in der Harmonielehre (1903), whose distinguishing feature--
that it consists of a brief and straightforward expostion
of the basic principles of harmonic writing--led Bloch to
incorporate it in his own teaching; in fact, Sessions also
acknowledges his indebtedness to the book in the opening
pages of his Harmonic Practice. But Knorr's greatest im-
pact on Bloch is evident in a more general way. As Bloch
was to recall to his biographer Mary Tibaldi Chiesa in
later years, "Knorr was a great and profound pedagogue.
And he appraised me of the most important thing: to be my
own teacher."
21
27
The commitment to rigorous and independent thought
instilled by Knorr's teaching is a decisive aspect of
Bloch's didactic work--particularly so in his analytical
studies. One finds more references in this material to the
writings of various authors than in any other portion of
the collection. Yet what Bloch refers to are not the stand-
ard analyses of Tovey, Schenker, or d'Indy, but rather the
work of the aesthetician Charles Lalo. Lalo proposed in
his Esthetique musicale scientifique (1908) that the study
of music, like that of the sciences, should be based strict-
ly on empirical observation, with no reference to precon-
ceived theoretical or philosophical systems--a postulate
which is at the heart of Bloch's approach to analysis. Its
foremost manifestation is in passages from Bloch's writings
that show his with the work of the French en-
tomologist, J. H. Fabre. Fabre's purely scientific studies
were apparently of considerable influence in prompting
Bloch to undertake a series of analyses--the "Studies in
Configuration"--in which he altered certain detailed fea-
tures of a musical idea in order to observe the effect of
the change on a larger context.
Against the background of his European experience,
the essential nature of Bloch's approach to teaching comes
into vivid relief. In spite of his conservatory training
and his great familiarity with the standard pedagogical
28
literature, he remained staunchly opposed to the conven-
tional didactic currents of his day. Yet, neither was he
in any sense a "modernist"; and in this respect his writ-
ings are clearly distinguished from those, for example, of
Joseph Schillinger, who set forth in his The Schillinger
System of Musical Composition, published 1941 in New York,
a method of composing based on the application of mathema-
tical principles--or even those of Krenek, who, as we have
seen, proposed that the craft of part-writing might be
taught through the twelve-tone method. The essence of
Bloch's teaching is in its ties to tradition--to modes of
instruction that had been proven in the training of great
masters of the past, and that are reflected in their music.
We thus find a striking parallel between Bloch's
didactic orientation and the approach to his creative work
that concurrently arose in his American years. As is well-
known, Bloch embraced no modern system of composition. The
influence of the musical past, however, is evident through-
out his oeuvre. One might point to the First Piano Quintet
(1921), whose movements are based on traditional formal mod-
els for the genre; or to the melodic and harmonic material
of the Suite Modale (1957), which recalls that of earlier
periods. In the Concerto Grossi No. 1 (1925) and No. 2
(1952), Bloch makes direct use of textural and structural
aspects of the Baroque form; while in other works, such as
the Sinfonia Breve (1952), stylistic references are more
29
oblique. In short, it is an approach towards the musical
past that is quite varied, yet nevertheless is character-
ized in each case by a personal style unquestionably rooted
in its own time. The meeting of past and present is simi-
larly evident in the contents of the collection.
30
Footnotes
1
Charles E. Ives, Memos (New York: W.W. Norton &
Company, Inc., 1972), pp. 46-47.
2
A complete list of Ives's course of study at Yale and
the music courses offered during his tenure is supplied in
Memos, pp. 180-84.
3
Ibid., p. 116.
4
Irving Lowens, Foreward to Critical and Historical
Essays by Edward MacDowell, by W.J. Baltzell (New York:
DaCapo Press, 1969), p. vi.
5
Edward T. Cone, "Conversation with Roger Sessions," in
Perspectives on American Composers, ed. Benjamin Boretz and
Edward T. Cone (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.,
1971) 1 P 91.
6
The case of Boulanger is a particularly interesting one,
both because of her widely-recognized contribution to the
development of a school of American composers--Copland, Roy
Harris, and Walter Piston among them--and because of the
special regard she and Bloch seem to have held for one
another. Sessions recalled that Boulanger was reluctant to
accept him into her studio because he would have already
received excellent training as a Bloch student (Ibid., p.
96.). Bloch's tribute to Boulanger was comparable. While
she was visiting him in Cleveland on her first tour of
America, Bloch agreed to entrust to her tutelage his
seventeen-year-old daughter, Suzanne (see Leonie Rosen-
stiel, Nadia Boulanger, a Life in Music [New York: W.W.
Norton & Company, Inc., 1981], p. 188.).
]
Henry Cowell, "Current Chronicle--New York," Musical
Quarterly 40 (1954): 237.
8
Pauline Alderman, "Schoenberg at USC," Journal of the
Arnold Schoenberg Institute 5 (1981): 207.
9
Alexander Goehr, "The Theoretical Writings of Arnold
Schoenberg," Perspectives of New Music 13 (1975): 13.
10
Paul Hindemith, The Craft of Musical Composition Book
I, trans. Arthur Mendel (New York: Associated Music
Publishers, 1942), p. 7.
11
Idem, A Concentrated Course in Traditional Harmony Book
!' Revised ed. (New York: Schott, 1968), p. iii.
31
12
see Ernest Krenek, "America's Influence on Its Emigre
Composers," Perspectives of New Music 8 (1970): 113.
13
Idem, "Teaching Composition in America: Reminiscences,"
The American Music Teacher 24 (.April, 1975): 11.
14
Hindemith, The Craft of Musical Composition Book I,
p. 4
15
H. F. Parker, "Unique Music by Ernest Bloch Receives
Notable Exposition," Musical America (May 12, 1917): 9.
16
Bernard Rogers, "'.A Bas, Formalism!' Is Device of
Cleveland Institute," Musical America (July 8, 1922): 9.
17
See Myron Schwager, "A Contribution to the Biography of
Ernest Bloch: Letters at the University of Hartford,"
Current Musicology 28 (1979): 45.
18
See below, p. 512.
19
Ernest Chapman, "Ernest Bloch at 75," Tempo 35 (1955):
6 .
20
see Howard Elbert Smither, "Theory of Rhythm in the
Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries with a Contribution to
the Theory of Rhythm for the Study of Twentieth-Century
Music," (Ph.D. Dissertation, Cornell University, 1960),
p. 79 ff.
21
Mary Tibaldi Chiesa, Ernest Bloch (Torino: G. B.
Paravia, 1933), p. 18 "Knorr . . era un grande e
profondo pedagogo. E mi apprese la cosa piu ardua e piu
importante: mi apprese a essere il maestro dime stesso."
Her work was the first monograph devoted to the composer;
only one full-length biography has followed so far: Robert
Strassburg, Ernest Bloch: Voice in the Wilderness (Los
Angeles: The Trident Shop, 1977).
CHAPTER II
INSTRUCTION IN HARMONY
The collection of Bloch's pedagogical writings con-
sists of some forty documents representative of the entire
length of his American teaching career.
1
Bloch preserved
the legacy of his didactic work in manuscript books and
folders, casting upon all the materials a degree of order
that is one of the collection's remarkable features. Most
of the writings are dated; often Bloch also provided labels
for the individual volumes. In short, every page of the
collection is a testimony of Bloch's firm intention to
create a comprehensive and orderly record of his teaching.
One is reminded of the way in which Handel, Haydn, and
Beethoven methodically collected notes and examples for the
instruction of students. And an interesting comparison
rises through a certain parallel with Bach, because to some
extent we are dealing with a conscious attempt at reviewing
and summarizing--merging styljstic study with original
creative work. Some of the dates which accompany Bloch's
writings are deceiving. The years specified are mostly from
the 1940s--the final stage of his teaching career. Indeed,
32
33
much of the work of collecting appears to have been done at
that time. In many cases, however, what Bloch codified in
a single manuscript during those years may actually have
been drawn from his earlier experience as a pedagogue.
Particular dates will sometimes indicate only when a given
document was compiled.
In gathering his didactic writings Bloch left not
only a legacy of his approach to the instruction of compo-
sition, but a unique and detailed documentation of his
teaching in all its phases. As the- materials reveal, Bloch
the teacher was involved in projects of remarkable diver-
sity, and his tutelage characteristically consisted of
various manners of inquiry. The collection contains three
volumes, compi"led during Bloch's .first decade in this
country, that concern his work with children, including his
own, in basic music education. In other folders Bloch
preserved notes for lectures at Berkeley, in which copious
musical examples appear next to quotations by philosophers
ranging from Buddha to Schopenhauer. A further group of
writings pertains to courses in community education.
Yet valuable as these materials will be for future
research, they are in a sense ancillary to a central sub-
stance of Bloch's writings. From the multiformity of the
contents emerges a core of studies directly rooted in the
practice of musical composition, and all other discussions
eventually guide the reader back to two major sections
34
where Bloch's thinking is preserved in its most comprehen-
sive form. The first (and larger of the two) consists of
analyses, astounding in their detail, of works by Debussy,
Musorgsky, Bach, and Beethoven; judging from these papers,
Bloch found the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Eroica
Symphony particularly important for systematic study. The
second section consists of fundamental teaching material
concerned with harmony, counterpoint, and fugue. Yet the
seemingly traditional arrangement is easily misleading.
The disciplines are treated in a totally
unconventional manner, and their presentation is guided by
a spirit that invariably reflects the practicing composer
as a teacher of composition.
The individuality of Bloch's teaching is imme-
diately and strikingly evident in his instruction of
harmony. Bloch gathered the principles essential to his
teaching of harmony into a single volume, Applied Harmony,
which measures 10 1/2 inches by 6 3/4 inches, a special
type of music manuscript book: single sheets of music
paper alternate with unlined leaves, so that each page of
staff paper faces a plain page. Bloch used this arrange-
ment to good advantage; in the space adjoining musical
examples, he frequently provided remarks that are highly
illuminating with regard to the principles in question.
The text of the harmony volume runs to twenty-five
35
2
pages. The book happens to be one of the few manu-
scripts Bloch neglected to date, but there is little
question, judging on the basis of handwriting and internal
organization, that it is a companion to other manuals com-
piled in the 1920s.
Mention should be made of two additional documents
in the collection which relate to Bloch's teaching of
harmony. The first is a manuscript book, dated 1921, with
the title La Forme musicale, in which Bloch gave a brief
exposition of procedures he ultimately included as part of
Applied Harmony. In the latter volume, however, his treat-
ment of this material is considerably more developed and
refined, and thus La Forme musicale is of limited relevance
to the present discussion. The second supplementary docu-
ment, on the other hand, is of essential help toward an
understanding of this aspect of Bloch's teaching. Bloch
compiled this manuscript in conjunction with a series of
ten lectures he delivered during the fall of 1920. In them
he explained certain points which are fundamental to his
thinking on the subject of harmony, and his draft of these
lectures constitutes a highly informative introduction to
his approach to the discipline.
The l a ~ t e r manuscript is included in a folder,
labeled Notes to the Teachers of Theory, Cleveland 1920.
It consists of eleven typed pages, representing Bloch's
personal record of the lecture series--observations he made
36
at the conclusion of each presentation as to effectiveness
of chosen methods and materials, response of participants,
and possible objectives for each subsequent meeting. In
some cases, Bloch also noted the date and time of lectures,
and we can gather from his annotations that the sessions
were generally held on a weekly basis. When the series
began Bloch had just arrived in Cleveland, and his account
of the opening meetings is recorded on hotel stationery.
For a later lecture, presented in December (the month in
which the Cleveland Institute first opened its doors), he
wrote--with evident pride--"at the institute" at the head
of the page. On page two of the manuscript he wrote out
the title of the whole series; it reads with the formality
of a description from a course catalogue (and perhaps was
initially designed for such a purpose):
THE MUSICAL SPEECH and its different elements .
An analytical Course, in TEN LESSONS , for the study
of Rhythm, Melody, Harmony, Counterpoint, Form, and
Expression, their relative importance, their logic,
their evolution through the ages, in the great works
of the masters and their intimate connection with
the problems of Interpretation.
This and the nine pages following clearly form an
integral unit, summarizing the ten lectures as the composer
presented them. They are preceded, however, by a page
whose text differs in the style of its formulation from
that of the other pages. While it is introductory in
nature, there is no indication as to how it was to be
37
incorporated into the series proper. Yet it is in this
short introduction that the material of greatest bearing on
Bloch's teaching of harmony is to be found.
The concept which figures so prominently in Bloch's
discussion -Of harmony--and this is documented in the intro-
duction to the Notes to the Teachers of Theory--is that of
rhythm. Bloch's use of this term, however, stands apart
from that commonly applied. He considers the individual
metrical accent, upbeat, or downbeat as belonging to the
realm of meter, or "thesis." Rhythm or "ictus," by com-
parison, is concerned with the motions of strong and weak
that exist within larger musical gestures. Discussing the
connection between meter and rhythm, in the second of the
Cleveland lectures, Bloch applies this metaphor: the
metric unit of the measure
is the smallest musical organism, like a cell in a
body or a plant ... later, studying rhythm, a
higher organization (reunion of many cells), those
cells will give a higher form.
Bloch found his thought corroborated in publi-
cations of the nineteenth-century aesthetician Mathias
Lussy, whose name in fact appears frequently in the com-
poser's writings. Lussy defined the rhythmic phrase as "a
collection of notes corresponding to a line of poetry."
3
Just as the sense of a poetic phrase depends on much more
than metrical organization of the words, so meaning in
music arises only to the extent that the various features
38
of the musical line and its existing rhythmic phrases are
fully integrated. Because composition is concerned with
levels of organization beyond the phrase, this concept of
rhythm is potentially of unbounded significance: phrases
are combined into what Bloch calls "sentences"; sentences
are extended into musical form; and rhythm has its place in
the organic unity of the whole. Thus, when Bloch mentions
in his summary of the ninth Cleveland lecture that he pre-
sented a "discussion of the Mozart Sonata in A Major, and
its rhythm," one has a sense as to the breadth of investi-
gation that may have been involved.
Lussy's notion of rhythm--like much of his work---
was intended to benefit the performer, the act of interpre-
tation being primarily a matter of discovering the particu-
lar "rhythm" of a composition. Bloch extended such inquiry
to the work of the composer. Upon it
depends . . the real sense of the musical speech.
All stages of invention are to be undertaken in service of
the structural rhythm, for
Harmony is absolutely dependent on it ... it is
only when you know the real sense of the melody that
you are able to harmonize it properly. i.e.
according to the real sense; to discriminate among
the different notes and accents, where are the most
important, to deduce the real divisions of the
sentence, to know it5 pun9tuation, then to put in
the real chords--(5-
3
or V and inversions)
Thus harmony never stands as a phenomenon in itself,
39
isolated from the other basic concepts of music in Bloch's
teaching. It is revealing that he included certain exer-
cises relating to harmony in the volume entitled La Forme
musicale.
It is in Applied Harmony that the pedagogical impli-
cations of Bloch's thinking are first realized in full; and
there the relationship between harmony and form clearly
emerges as the source of his method. One is aware of the
composer's conviction that, at every step, individual
exercises should be linked to a larger musical context;
technical principles are never isolated or abstracted. It
is never a matter of "filling'' harmonies into a prescribed
pattern. Rather, the study of harmony, as Bloch presents
it, becomes a natural outgrowth of musical form--it thrives
on the student's powers of invention, and can by no means
be mastered as an end in itself.
As was his custom in all his major didactic compi-
lations, Bloch provided for Applied Harmony a table of
contents. Certain markings in the table appear in blue
pencil. Bloch made it a point to use different pencils and
pens in compiling his writings--the analytical studies in
particular contain notaticns in an impressive variety of
colors. But in the didactic manuals, Bloch did most of the
work in black ink. Where he did use a different color, the
change often hinges upon some matter of organization or
40
emphasis, but seldom involves an essential pedagogical
point. (Thus black and white photocopies, as given here,
will convey Bloch's intentions adequately.)
Simple Examples Used in Figuration
The table of contents shows the following headings
for the main sections into which Applied Harmony is organ-
ized: Figuration, Harmony applied to Form, and Modulation
applied to Form. This threefold division represents the
stages essential to Bloch's method. But while one can
interpret Applied Harmony as his definitive pedagogical
record on the subject, it is evident from the very nature
of the volume that Bloch gave no thought to creating a man-
ual that would form the basis of a "curriculum." Indeed,
he referred to the harmony text of another author for cer-
tain aspects of his instruction. On the cover of Applied
Harmony, Bloch wrote in parentheses under the title:
to be used in connection with Knorr's exercises
The exercises in question are from !wan Knorr's Aufgaben
fur den Unterricht in der Harmonielehre, first published in
1903.
4
Bloch studied with Knorr at the Hoch Conservatory
in Frankfurt during the period 1899-1901, and there are
conflicting accounts as to the nature of the training he
41
received from Knorr's hand. David Kushner has written that
Bloch credited in part to Knorr's teaching the fact that he
gained the ability "to think independently and to develop
his own musical personality [cf. p. 26, above] ."
5
Herbert Elwell, on the other hand, reported:
Knorr was evidently a rather pedantic teacher. When
Bloch brought him an assignment in second rondo
form, he [Knorr] remarked, "It is an i n t e r e ~ t i n g
piece, but it is not in second rondo form."
While the argument might require further explanation, it
remains beside the point when it comes to the exercises
Bloch adopted in his harmony text: there are concrete
reasons why the relationship between Bloch and his teacher
cannot be summarily dismissed. Their work shows a definite
kinship in conceptual matters that shape the character of
their respective writings.
In the introduction to his Aufgaben, Knorr
addresses himself to the subject of pedagogical tradition,
and he speaks somewhat critically about the abundant writ-
ings on harmony and prevailing didactic practice. His
concern is that the traditional text does little more than
propagate "rules" which, by their nature, are contrary to
the creative spirit; and he resolves that his text will
have no part of the constrictions imposed by convention.
He accomplishes this by brevity and simplicity, preferring
to limit himself to a straightforward formulation of
principles presented in brief examples. Knorr is emphatic
42
about his conviction that the successful students of
harmony will be only those who are the most gifted to begin
with, and he invokes his memory of a conversation:
. about theoretical instruction Master
Brahms once said to me gruffly: "Eh harmony!
Either on7 knows it, or else it can never be
learned."
Bloch's orientation is similarly directed at the student of
evident gift. And in the introduction to the 1920 Notes to
the Teachers of Theory he had already expressed reserva-
tions about the study of harmony as promulgated by the
traditional text: he recommends
. . . using the simplest examples taken from the
book of study (any book will do! When wrongly
written, as is generally the case, the teacher and
the pupils will correct and reestablish the true--
punctuation) .
Bloch found in Knorr's text (and perhaps even more
so in Knorr's teaching) valuable influence effecting this
orientation. Knorr's Aufgaben, however, also proved to be
useful in a purely practical sense. For the opening
section of Applied Harmony Bloch selected from Knorr's book
certain formulas to illutrate his didactic principles. As
the basis for his first exercise he used a figured-bass
formula from Knorr:
8
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As the first two pages of Applied Harmony show,
Bloch's method is imbued with a novel sense of freedom.
Knorr's formula is harmonized faithfully, but the tradi-
tional chordal realization gives way to one built of arpeg-
giated patterns--literally "figurations"; and the exercise
unfolds in the manner of a set of variations, each of which
is formed by a single pattern. As a natural response to
the inherent musicality of the procedure, the student be-
gins to attend to various other aspects of musical texture.
This Bloch demonstrates in written commentary adjoining the
examples, where he appears continually as an eloquent pupil
of his own method.
Bloch notes from the outset that the musical tex-
ture resulting from figuration will suggest an actual per-
formance situation; he mentions in the table of contents
that the entire section on figuration is "for piano." Yet,
in the case of particular variations he gives at times
other specific directions. Regarding Variation IV, for
instance, he notes:
The melody could be written here, either for
Violin--Cello (8ve lower) or voice.
He makes a similar remark on page 2, above the tenth varia-
tion. Bloch also stresses that the student must begin to
exercise a certain critical perspective in order to com-
plete the exercises in figuration successfully. He writes
at the margin of Variation I that in inventing the
46
individual variations the student will
. study the forms which fit the best a variation
to an exercise.
In other words, the character of melodic writing and that
of the accompaniment must result in an appropriate
combination. Through these procedures, the discipline of
harmony becomes less a study in the abstract, and more of a
craft which is truly "applied." One can see from the
dynamics and articulation Bloch provides for the last of
the fourteen variations in the first exercise that these
elementary examples begin to assume a vivid musical
identity.
Bloch concludes the opening section of Applied
Harmony with two more examples in figuration, each of which
is based on a formula taken from Knorr.
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48
AppUe.d Hcvunon.y--p._ 4 . _
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49
In the second exercise in figuration, which appears
on page 3 of Applied Harmony, Bloch takes up a particular
issue: the addition of "extra'' notes in the accompaniment
(placed in parentheses) to form more elaborate patterns of
figuration. He had examined a similar process in the first
exercise, where the last six variations consist of a figura-
tion derived from a five-part harmonization, and where
Bloch illustrates a fundamental principle of part-writing;
he avoids doubling the third of the chord. The sound of
the doubled third, as he writes in the margin, is "not very
satisfactory."
Yet the question of doubling is superseded by a
more significant point on page 4 of the manuscript. In a
culminating third exercise in figuration, Bloch turns his
specific attention to the relationship between harmony and
musical form. He introduces the exercise with these
comments:
Ask the student to use the two forms of the exercise
[a and b] . as a sentence, 4 & 4, . . for
piano--or for piano and voice, or diff. instruments.
NB. Notes to be doubled (avoid the 3rd)
Bloch again uses the simple resources Knorr has
provided. For this third example, Knorr's formula is four
9
measures long.
r
II
50
In fashioning the individual variations, however, the
student is actually to double the length of the phrase to
create the larger structure Bloch calls a "sentence." (He
used the same procedure in the first exercise of this
section, as is clear from the first variation and the
marking "etc." at the end of the variations that follow.)
In essence, Bloch is creating a structural context
for the exercises that, even in this most elementary form,
adds to his writing a sense of directedness and proportion.
The subtle sustaining quality of figuration enhances the
relationship between the motions of harmony and structure:
the structural implication of harmony emerges more clearly
because the didactic presentation is in itself more musi-
cal. That this is indeed the thrust of the exercises in
figuration is clear from a postscript to the section which
Bloch notes on page 5 of Applied Harmony:
It is not only useful to use figuration, from the
very beginning, it is necessary to connect the study
of harmony to the study of form.
Harmony Applied to Form
The introduction of the subject of form into the
study of figuration prepares the student for the section of
Applied Harmony that follows; and the connection of harmony
and form becomes the central pedagogical issue. Bloch
51
specifies the principles operative for this second section
in his table of contents:
Harmony applied to Form, from the start (using only
I.IV.V in root position, for the formation of small
sentences, or song form (a.b.a.) with diff. rhythms
(no use of inversions, nor 7, nor changing or
passing notes, etc.)
y
52

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53
The simple chordal progressions may seem a definite
step back from the more elaborate texture of figuration.
And in fact, Bloch does implement harmonic means in the
first section of the manuscript--such as seventh chords and
inversions--that he forbids in the second. The new exer-
cises, however, represent a significant advance in proce-
dure in that they incorporate no pre-composed elements, so
that the melody, rhythms, and formal plans involved are now
completely of the pupil's own device. Bloch apparently
imposes particular restrictions to ensure that the student
will not be distracted from these new and essential compo-
sitional challenges. He writes on page 5 as commentary to
the first example:
Using only I.IV.V, in the root position, it is
possible, within such limitations, to form small
sentences, first--than [sic] "song form" (aba) using
all kinds of rhythms. (If the student has been well
prepared in rhythm, it will be an easy work for him,
and he will enjoy using, in a creative way the very
modest harmonic elements he controls.)
Bloch evidently had in mind three specific objec-
tives for this section of Applied Harmony. These he lists
in the space adjacent to the second exercise.
The example shows a b a, using I.IV.V only, in root
form. It is a.n excellent exercise: 1/ for the use
of the different positions 2/ [for the] connection
IV-V, V-IV. 3/ for application of Elementary Form.
Bloch further stresses the formal aspect of most of the ten
individual exercises in the harmony section through some
54
schematic illustration, such as can be seen beneath the
second exercise on page 5 of the manuscript. And of course
the preeminent concern is that the student pursue these
exercises with the understanding that an example cannot be
deemed correct unless it is first of all musical.
---
- --
55

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57
Bloch introduces the third exercise, on page 6, as
an example offering a very diff. character.
Palestrina "Ecce quomodo moritur". [)]
(See
The reference to Palestrina applies to the famous four-part
motet, which begins with the same harmonic progression
Bloch uses for this example and which is of the same
rhythmic character; moreover, Palestrina's motet (like
Bloch's exercise) consists predominantly of chords in root
position. Bloch also emphasizes the unusual phrasing of
-
this example: "5&5 2&2 5." For the fourth example Bloch
simply indicates "single sentence 4&4," reminiscent of the
structural lessons provided in figuration. The fifth
example is marked
single sentence (start for an a.b.a.)
The commentary for the sixth example, on page 7 of
the manuscript, contains only the indication "aba." Bloch
does not mention that in this exercise he has somewhat
stretched the stipulated restrictions. The "b" section of
the example, in effect, moves to the relative major, though
it continues to concentrate on I IV V in the new key. This
is a point, however, that Bloch takes up later in the manu-
script. In the seventh example Bloch reiterates the main
issues of the exercises presented thus far, so that it
takes on the direction of a compendium:
58
shows, besides form, the real use of the chords in a
normal and efficient way (I--IV v-- I--IV V--I) use
of change of positions, too ([marked by] X ~ )
With that summary provided, Bloch concludes this
second section of Applied Harmony with more advanced
examples.
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60
Bloch comments on the eighth exercise, (page 8):
This, and following examples show the possibility of
applying already more subtle rhythms--in form--to
the very simple harmonic elements thus far studied
(I.IV.V)
-
But it is the ninth example that stands as the quintessence
of this section. In extensive commentary on the exercise,
Bloch truly reaches beyond the seemingly defined pedagogi-
cal limits, integrating many of his fundamental notions of
harmony into a full range of harmonic techniques, and thus
putting his entire approach to the discipline into
perspective.
a) This example shows once more that with such
limited means the 3/4 time can be used to advantage;
on account of its rhythmic possibilities 'Prlrrlrrr)
b) all these ex. could be improved later, when the
first inversion (6) has been studied as well as the
7 and its inversions. It will be an excellent
exercise for the student to learn how to apply his
knowledge. how and when to use 5 or 6, according to
the real musical sense of the melody (a very impor-
tant point, which is almost totally ignored in our
actual teaching of harmony: the use of the chord)
(see illustration in red ink [fourth staff from the
bottom]) c) later too, using secondary chords
(II.III.VI-VII)
This commentary is of further interest in that it provides
the only instance in which Bloch makes explicit mention of
the study of seventh-chords and of inversion, even though
he had used these as early as the first section of Applied
Harmony (in the final section, figured bass notation is to
appear more frequently) . Bloch apparently assumed a degree
61
of understanding on the part of his students that made a
strictly systematic exposition of chordal procedure super-
fluous; or he regarded it as an unnecessary concession to
technicalities, the presentation of which ought not to
10
distract from more essential lessons in harmony. Once
again we sense a certain affinity to Knorr's charge against
traditional harmony manuals: "Do they not offer, rather
than 'principles', an abundance of 'rules' which would
frustrate any creative thought if followed!"
11
Bloch concludes the second section of Applied
Harmony with a tenth exercise, on page 9 of the manuscript,
for which a simple diagram is his only commentary.
'l...
(b)
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62
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63
Clearly he is taking up a new subject: the use of a second-
ary key center, and its integration within a larger formal
structure. He had, in fact, illustrated this process in
the sixth example, Applied Harmony page 7. Yet only in
this tenth exercise does he acknowledge the tonal motion,
and in neither of these two cases are verbal explanations
given. Verbal explanation is reserved for the final
section of Applied Harmony that follows.
Modulation applied to Form
This final section is remarkable not only for the
exposition of Bloch's teaching of modulation, but also for
features that reveal something of the way in which he may
have compiled this portion of the document. Attached with
a paper clip to the opening page of the modulation section
is a piece of scrap paper. Bloch used one side of it for a
checklist representing the organization of the text, and
the other side to develop the initial exercise. He seems
to have been so certain of the contents for the section on
modulation that he may have sketched the total layout of
the pages at the outset.
.
64
./
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Bloch evidently did not work on the pages in sequence.
There is a notation at the top of each page specifying what
material it was to contain. But it was only for those
groups of exercises that are crossed out on the checklist
65
that Bloch provided musical examples. The pages designated
for the fourth, ninth, and tenth groups, as well as an
additional sheet designated for the third group, are blank.
It would be wrong, however, to conclude from these
lacunae that the section on modulation is "incomplete."
One might rather infer that Bloch realized his method would
involve a rather extensive repetition of general prin-
ciples; and once he had illustrated all the fundamentals,
it apparently became less important to do so again. In
fact, Bloch sets forth the essential principles within the
first few pages dealing with modulation. For this reason,
the opening of this section takes on a character quite dif-
ferent from other portions of Applied Harmony. In Figura-
tion and Harmony Applied to Form, Bloch demonstrates his
practical orientation from the outset, introducing and
developing details along the way. The initial pages of the
section on modulation, on the other hand, appear as more of
a discourse. Basic concepts are verbally formulated, and
are illustrated by short examples returning to Bloch's
method of practical application.
Bloch begins the section by raising the question
"What is modulation," and he then defines it as a process
consisting of three parts. The first is called "point of
departure"; it contains material which affirms the home
key. The second part of the process, which Bloch labels
"no man's land," involves only "neutral chords"--chords
66
which are common to both the home key and the new key; it
avoids "conflicting chords"--chordal structures which the
two keys do not share. The third part is the "point of
arrival," introducing the new key, and confirming it ulti-
mately by a cadence. Concentrating at first on a modula-
tion from C major to G major, Bloch underscores these prin-
ciples with musical examples.
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68
At the top of page 10, Bloch demonstrates a way to
determine conflicting and neutral elements of keys: the
chords considered conflicting appear in parentheses; the
other chords are neutral. On the fifth and sixth staves of
the page, he illustrates through a short harmonic scheme
the three parts of the modulation process. He also writes
out a short melody modulating from D major to G major, to
which this "condensed" scheme can be applied. Bloch then
notes
we could use [for parts one and two of the
modulation process] another chord than I (III or IV)
Three cadence formulas are given at the bottom of the
page--two beginning with chords in root position, and the
last with an inversion. (The symbol III
6
is here errone-
6
ously placed for II .) But Bloch begins to appeal again
to a more musically sensitive procedure:
[(]If we use more of these neutral chords we give
more importance to part CD and get a more artistic
(subtle) result)
Applied Hanmony--p. 11
69
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70
Bloch's initial examples on page 11 are concerned
with the same part of the modulation process. Bloch com-
ments on the exercise in the first system:
Here we get all neutral chords
And for the second example (labeled Example a):
We get them [the neutral chords] in a "freer" way--I
mean in using them either twice or not all of them.
Example a is of further interest because it is used repeat-
edly as the basis for other examples in the section; in
fact, Bloch's next exercise ( ~ m e t e r , third system) is
derived from it.
Bloch observes, however, that the latter exercise
involves only the last two parts of the modulation process;
there is no representation of its first part. He writes:
If now, we want to use Q) (affirmation, more or less
of C . [)] we have to write a few chords using
the-characteristics of that key (f and leading tone)
(In the middle of page 11, Bloch supplies the "Characteris-
tics of C Major," and providing for the event of a modula-
tion away from the minor mode, the "[Characteristics] of a
minor.") The question of balancing the three parts of the
modulation process gives Bloch the opportunity to integrate
this phase of study with that to which his unending
attention is devoted:
71
This is an excellent way to apply our knowledge in a
more living manner, to We may use
(p. 11) as the end of a period . . ending at the
Dominant--we will have to make 4 bars . . . prepar-
ing it, and taking the part(D, inC--same material
may be used
Example b, on the second system from the bottom of page 11,
illustrates this blend of study aspects, for Bloch takes
the four-bar modulating scheme (Example a) and supplies for
it a four-measure antecedent. The result is a well-
proportioned "sentence" passing from C major to G major;
the circled arabic numbers above the example indicate the
three parts of the modulation process.
But he also demonstrates, in his commentary for
Example b, a concern--which appears without precedent in
Applied Harmony--for fine musical detail:
The indicate a little change in chords C VI
III VI instead of I.V.I in example a. (Because---
having had enough I V I in a [the antecedent] we
could, for variety and better transition use less
affirmative chords of C (which we are leaving) in
second fragment
The final exercise on page 11, Example c, expresses the
same tendency, though in this case Bloch's objective
involves a more extensive manipulation of rhythm and
meter. Bloch comments:
Same scheme, with Rhythm changes, and more melodic
form, (passing, changing notes, etc.) (may be used
as a start for a song form) (a)
Yet, these are not isolated examples of Bloch's attention
72
to subtleties of expression. As the modulation section pro-
ceeds, Bloch tacitly expands his musical palette, approach-
ing melody, rhythm, and harmony with increasing freedom,
and evincing, in the process, an orientation which is
patently less pedagogical than artistic in nature.
The studies of modulation from C major to G major
are concluded on page 12 of Applied Harmony.
. . ..
73
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74
h
. . . (d bis ter)
Bloc wr1tes out s1x more exerc1ses -g, g---, g---
in which we can see a continuous refining process. He
comments on Example d:
We may prepare the new key by another chord than V
(III. for inst. which contains the f ~ )
Bloch uses the scheme so derived as the second half of a
"sentence" in Example e. Both Example e and the next exer-
cise, Example f, involve further variation in rhythm, phras-
ing, and contour of the material given on page 11 in Exam-
ples a-c. An additional point is made in Example f in that
the antecedent phrase ends on the dominant:
One does not need to end the first part on the I
With Example g Bloch initiates a short series of
execises based on new material. Example g represents a
four-bar harmonic scheme. Like Examples d-f, it deals with
the procedure of using III to prepare the modulation. But
in this case Bloch makes use of inversion. His remark
added to Example g offers a particular explanation:
using softer forms ( ~ before the cadence (shadow &
light)
As before, Bloch uses the modulating scheme in Example g as
the consequent phrase of a larger formal unit, thus obtain-
his
ing a complete "sentence" (Example g---). The first half
of this sentence in turn, being based on the simple
75
elaboration of the interval of a descending fourth, becomes
the subject of two remarkably free and ornate variations,
. E
1
ter
ln xamp e g---. He provides a more basic illustration
ter
for the harmonization of Example g--- at the bottom of
the page (with a bass line that departs slightly from that
of Example gbis); as he explains parenthetically:
alteration may be used, giving a slight impression
of going to a minor or to e minor .
On page 13 of Applied Harmony, the aspects of modu-
lation discussed in the preceding pages are summarized.
The presentation of these remarks is given particularly
emphatic appearance because Bloch abandons the arrangement
of confining commentary to one side of a double page,
writing straight across instead.
Method of Working From the preceding notes we can
already see how modulation ought to be studied for
practical aims. 1/ Anatomically--using just chords
(and thinking theoretically of the process 6f
modulation) 2/ Physiologically using the scheme as
the second part of a sentence . . and adding
accordingly a first part, in the 1. key. 3/ Adding
passing notes, etc. more melodic--and eventually
changes of rhythm This method may be applied to all
the following modulations
In essence, these comments mark the point where the
exposition of principles ends and methodical application
begins. Concentrating on one pair of tonalities at a time,
Bloch illustrates the process of modulation in different
contexts. He uses a diagram, which is also entered on his
76
checklist, as a graphic aid.
C major serves in each case as point of departure. As is
clear from the diagram, Bloch is concerned exclusively with
modulations to closely related keys; no other possibilities
are mentioned or illustrated. But before commencing this
series of examples, Bloch makes one further point on page
13: modulation is not a purely harmonic phenomenon.
An excellent exercise would be to use it [the
modulation scheme] only melodically . . . using the
same thematic material for different modulations
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77
Working with a melody developed in a previous exercise
(Applied Harmony page 11, Examples a-c), Bloch demonstrates
modulations from f major to each of the five closely re-
lated keys contained in his diagram. Underneath the last
of these melodic examples, and extending from the extreme
left hand margain to the far right side of the recto sheet,
he notes the observation that the fourth and fifth
exercises
are not so satisfactory. The shape of the first
fragment could be modified, in order not to end on 1
[the tonic] which is rather conflicting .
The same issue is discussed at greater length in the
following pages. What is most noteworthy about Bloch's
comment is the implication that all modulations cannot be
handled identically; each particular pair of keys involves
peculiarities that must be considered if the modulation is
to be acceptable. The peculiarities often have to do with
conflicting chords and the way the three sections of the
modulation are used; and this is the subject to which most
of the remaining pages of Applied Harmony are directed.
Having dealt with modulations from C major to G
major thoroughly, Bloch begins page 14 with examples going
from C major to its relative minor; he comments at the
beginning of the page:
Proceed exactly as prescribed on page 10-13--
( and . . think! )
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78
ApplJ.ed Hanmony--p. 14
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79
The process implemented here is the same as is used for the
preceding exercises: the first step is to identify the con-
flicting chords; next, Bloch constructs a short harmonic
scheme, beginning with neutral chords, and ultimately
arriving at the new key; the scheme is then used as the
consequent phrase in a "sentence." In some cases, addi-
tional examples for the same modulation are given.
Bloch notes from the start that special conditions
are involved for the modulation from C major to its rela-
tive minor. He defines the conflicting chords as those
containing "g/g:lr' ," but also states that with the descend-
ing (natural minor) scale, circumstances will be different.
Most of his commentary, however, is concerned with the
first full "sentence" (on the sixth and seventh staves of
the page) and especially with the measure he has marked
with a large " X " .
The modulation is rather difficult here, because the
ictus [ ~ ] comes on a chord very conflicting The V
of C (which is the negation of a minor on account of
the g)--It would be much easier if the ictus come on
a neutral chord--(or to modulate to a, by immediate
alteration of g on the fifth bar . [)]
(Find examples among the Masters! and study them)
Practice modulations in diff. keys too!
On page 16 of the manuscript, as elsewhere in this
section, Bloch further illustrates the change of key with
examples written by his daughter, Suzanne.
Applied Hanmony--p. 16
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81
In the same manner prescribed in her father's "meth-
od of working" she evidently would compose a ''sentence" and
then approach it with the idea of making the part-writing
more intricate. Her exercise ends on the conflicting "V of
C" to which her father refers earlier. But she avoids the
problem he describes: rather than using neutral chords at
the outset of the consequent phrase, she prolongs C major
and introduces neutral chords (VI, VII
6
in C major) later
in the "sentence," followed by the characteristic "g :f:t" of
the new key.
Exercises for modulations from C major to e minor
appear on page 17 of the manuscript. The absence of any
commentary for these exercises perhaps suggests that Bloch
regarded this modulation as one which entailed no particu-
lar problems. One should notice that in his harmonic
scheme and the corresponding "sentence," he uses all three
available neutral chords to prepare the modulation. Bloch
also notes that the examples on the lower two s y ~ t e m s of
the page are by Suzanne.
Pages 18 and 19 of the manuscript, as mentioned
earlier, are blank. On page 20 Bloch examines the modu-
lation from f major to d minor.
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82
Applied Hanmony--p. 17
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84
Bloch states that modulating from C major to d
minor is complicated, primarily because there is only one
chord between the two keys that can be considered neutral.
He comments of the example on the third system:
This is possible--but not very satisfactory aesthet-
ically because the ictus (measure four) lays such
stress on b ~ . On the other hand, the only neutral
chord is d-minor (which is the tonic of the new
key--using it too much will deprive the tonic of its
freshness) Furthermore, If the sentence has to be
repeated, the return to f. (after C ~ ! ) will seem
unnatural. The best way would be to have the
sentence begin with another chord than the tonic C.
(IV F, for instance, which is nearer to the next
key . . )
This approach is demonstrated in the exercise designated
with the mark n:ij::-.n But Bloch.further notes that, since it
is very closely related to d minor, the
11
IV F
11
serves to
make the modulation smoother if also used as an interme-
diate point of reference in moving from C major to the new
key; that is, the conflicting notes can be introduced one
at a time:
11
b P
11
in the context of a stabilized F major,
and
11
c :W
11
as leading tone to d minor.
The application of this process, in Example.::#= a,
poses problems, however. Because the sentence begins with
an ~ major chord, the opening tonic of C major is not firm-
ly established and sounds quite tentative. Furthermore, by
introducing the conflicting notes so early in the passage,
Bloch has blurred the first and second parts of the modula-
tion process so that the clarity of the modulation is
85
compromised. He corrects these problems in b,
where the tonal and structural relationships are clearer.
He remarks about this final exercise:
Here the process is complete and definite.
On page 21 of the manuscript, Bloch examines the
details of modulating from a minor to e minor. As in the
previous example, there is only one neutral chord between
keys. Here, however, that chord has a functional
(subdominant) relationship to the new key, so that the
modulation is accomplished more easily. The eight-measure
"sentence" drafted as the last example on the page becomes
more convincing due in part to Bloch's very economical use
of chords in different positions as a means of shaping the
modulation.
The exercises leading from minor to e minor
represent Bloch's first illustration of modulations
preceding from the minor key. Here, too, he is concerned
only with a group of closely related keys.
86
------ ---------- --Aprt:te:d-Httttmony--p-.- -2-7 - --
_5!
87
The modulation from a minor to C major on page 22
of the manuscript forms the only instance in the section
where Bloch does not follow the procedure of beginning with
identification of conflicting notes and ending with a com-
plete "sentence." The only musical material provided is an
example, in two versions, by Suzanne, and the only commen-
tary states simply
conflicting note is g ~ = g.
In fact, there are signs of haste in the compilation of
these final pages. Fewer examples and annotations are pro-
vided, and the calligraphy also becomes uncharacteristic-
ally casual at times. Similarly, one does not sense a
degree of cogent continuity between the various stages of
the process in the demonstration of the modulation from a
minor to G major (on page 23).
88
Applied 22
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90
Bloch places greater--though still tacit--emphasis on the
concept of function. The modulation is facilitated by the
fact that the single neutral chord (I in the tonic minor)
is reinterpreted as a subdominant function (II) of the new
key; yet, Bloch provides no commentary. Pages 24 and 28,
designated for modulations between a minor to F major and a
minor to d minor, respectively, are left blank, and thus
with the examples on page 23 Applied Harmony comes to a
close.
Applied Harmony is the only manuscript in the col-
lection to represent Bloch's actual formulation for the
instruction in harmony. Its brevity stands in stark con-
trast to other sections, in which the sheer enormity of
documentation is often striking. One might describe it as
a retrospective summary. In its admirable economy, the
volume stands as Bloch's personal compendium of harmony
culled from both his own experience and from existing
practice, and recording only those principles he regarded
as essential.
The reader will look in vain for a systematic
discussion of inversions, the seventh chord, or chromatic
and enharmonic modulation. The work cannot be judged by
familiar standards. Hindemith and Schoenberg produced
extensive presentations of the discipline of harmony; but
they were writing textbooks. There is nothing to indicate
91
this was Bloch's objective: Applied Harmony does not con-
vey the spirit of a text; though put to occasional use, it
is a collection of notes the composer wrote essentially to
himself. Its value is in revealing his pedagogical tenets
and the way he went about implementing them, and perhaps
above all in the orientation of Bloch's writing. Hindemith
stated in the preface to his book, A Concentrated Course in
Traditional Harmony:
No gift whatever for composition is required of the
student. Being limited strictly to the technical
process of connecting harmonies, this book makes it
possible for any musician or music-lover without the

idea to master the exercises it

provldes.
The statement is a reflection of Hindemith's delight in
facility--as an artist and a teacher; but it marks the end
of a long line of traditional writings produced by less
eminent authors. It is a tradition on which Bloch turns
his back: the premise of his teaching is that it addresses
the gifted and sensitive student.
92
Footnotes
1
cf. Appendix, page 525.
2
The pagination of the volume requires further explana-
tion since it is two-fold. The page numbers marked on the
lower half of the pages, not in Bloch's hand, represent a
continuous page count. Bloch's own pagination (at the top
half of the pages) combines verso and recto sheets under a
single page number each, and it is to this scheme that the
volume's table of contents corresponds. Bloch happened to
omit designating a page 15, so that his pagination skips
from 14 to 16, but the accuracy of his index is not
affected by this oversight.
3
Mathias Lussy, Musical Expression, Accents, Nuances, and
Tempo in Vocal and Instrumental Music, trans. M.E. von
Glehn (London: Novello and Company, Limited, n.d.), p. 44.
4
Iwan Knorr, Aufgaben fur den Unterricht in der Harmonie-
lehre (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1903).
5
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 6th ed., s.v.
"Bloch, Ernest," by David Kushner.
6
Herbert Elwell, "Bloch at Seventy-Five," Manuscript,
Sibley Music Library, Rochester, NY. No further comment is
given as to what constitutes "second rondo form."
7
Knorr, Aufgaben, p. III. ". . theoretischen Unter-
richt sagte Meister Brahms mir einmal missmutig: Ach was,
Harmonie! Das kann man so--oder man lernt es doch nicht."
8
Ibid., p. 9.
9
Ibid.
10
That Applied Harmony must be understood as representing
an advanced approach to a "beginners" instruction is sug-
gested by the comparison with a Bloch manuscript at the
Library of Congress which contains his teaching of a young
beginning student. The volume in question is entitled
Theorie musicale et Harmonie elementaire, and Suzanne Bloch
has added to it the following note: "One of my very first
theory books written out for me by my father--about 1917 or
1918" Included is discussion of major and minor triads,
proper spacing of chords in a four-voice texture, doubling
of intervals, and the elements of part writing.
11
Knorr, Aufgaben, p. III. "Geben sie nicht zumeist an
Stelle weniger 'Gesetze' eine Unzahl von 'Regeln', die
jedes Schaffen vereiteln man sie befolgt!"
93
12
Paul Hindemith, A Concentrated Course in Traditional
Harmony Book I, Revised ed. (New York: Schott, 1968), p.
iv.
CHAPTER III
INSTRUCTION IN COUNTERPOINT
It is characteristic of the eminent composer that
he preserves the spirit of inquiry in didactic work, so
that the roles of teacher and student begin to merge. For
the accomplished artist the learning process is never ex-
hausted, and even the most fundamental exercise offers
occasion for endless discovery and renewal. Nowhere is
this quality so evident among Bloch's didactic writings as
in the manuscripts devoted to the study of counterpoint.
The collection contains twelve volumes of contrapuntal
studies--a larger number than that representing any other
aspect of his didactic work. Yet there is nothing to sug-
gest that any of these were intended for an actual teaching
situation; rather, they apparently emanated essentially
from Bloch's search to better his own skills as a composer.
Revealing is that all three of Bloch's major pedagogical
appointments are represented in these volumes. Again, in
no other branch of studies is there evidence of such contin-
uing concern. Two of the manuscripts were compiled during
Bloch's years in Cleveland. Bloch also used a section of
94
95
one of these Cleveland volumes to preserve notes he made
while on the faculty at Berkeley. But by far the most ex-
tensive and significant studies date from the late 1920s,
when Bloch was in the final semesters of his tenure at the
San Francisco Conservatory.
Bloch's approach to counterpoint is firmly rooted
in the practice of the Renaissance masters. Suzanne Bloch
recalls:
All of Bloch's pupils were exposed to polyphonic
literature. . When any of them went down to the
Public Library to look up some of this music, the
librarian would way, "You must be a pupil of
Bloch's--no one else comes for this music."
This is consistent with the conviction, expressed so often
in his writings, that the masterpieces of musical litera-
ture are to be the final authority in pedagogical inquiry
of any kind. But his lifelong interest in sixteenth-
century contrapuntal technique suggests that Renaissance
polyphony was closer to Bloch's heart than any other body
of repertory. Roger Sessions reports Bloch's comment on a
work by Lassus:
I can conceive of a day when Beethoven will seem
old-fashioned; even Bach may one day seem
old-fashioned, while Wagner has begun io seem so
already. But this can never grow old.
96
Early Manuscripts
Bloch's reverence for Lassus and other composers of
the era was first shown in the two counterpoint volumes
dating from the Cleveland years, which he continued to use
both as a record and as a source of investigation of ex-
cerpts from the polyphonic repertory. The first of these
is a manuscript book measuring 9 1/2 inches by 7 3/8 inches
in oblong, entitled Counterpoint 2 Parts. There is no date
given for the volume, but there is some evidence that it
stems from the early years of Bloch's American career. For
instance, Bloch makes annotations in the manuscript in
English, French, and German, as he did in other manuscripts
compiled at this time. And further help in establishing
chronology comes from one of the musical entries Bloch
made: on pages 9-11 he copied material from a Wagner man-
uscript preserved in the Library of Congress. It is useful
in suggesting a date because we know from an article pub-
lished by Carl Engel, chief of the music division of the
Library of Congress at the time, that Bloch visited the
Library in June of 1922,
3
and in one of the other docu-
ments in the collection, also from the summer of 1922,
Bloch makes a passing reference to these Wagner sketches.
97
TABLE 1
EXCERPTS CONTAINED IN COUNTERPOINT 2 PARTS
Orlando di Lasso "Te deprecamur" . 1
Jacobus Kerle "Sanctus de la Messa 'Regina Coeli'" . 3
Blank . . 5
Orlando di Lasso "Aegra currit ad medicum" 7
Richard Wagner "Skizze zu 'Ring' in Bleistiftschrift''. 9
Blank . . 12
Claude Le Jeune "Debat la nostre trill?" . 13
"Si Madame enst . "
"Pourquoy te tiens tu loin Psaume X". 14
Eustache du Caurroy "Ce luy qui vondra"
Claude Le Jeune "Psalm 115"
Claude Le Jeune "Psalm Deum celebrate vocantes"
"Psalm 88 0 Seigneur J'Espars"
Claude Le Jeune "Le Printemps--Secondie Partie"
John Dunstable "Crux Fidelis"
Blank .
J.S. Bach "Kleines Harmonisches Labryrinth"
15
16
17
19
23
98
Bloch's copy of the Wagner autograph, which consists
of sketches for short thematic passages from the Ring cycle,
seems curiously appended to a collection of examples from
sixteeth-century polyphony. But it does suggest something
of the true nature of the volume. Only initially was it
intended to be reserved for counterpoint in two parts; there-
after Bloch used it to record whatever material caught his
interest--indeed the concluding entries in the document are
excerpts from a three-part motet by Dunstable and a keyboard
work ascribed to J. S. Bach (see table 1). Evidently, all
of the examples, with the obvious exception of the Wagner
sketches, were copied from modern editions. Bloch often
specified the title of the published source and the exact
page from where the chosen excerpt was taken.
The volume contains no hint as to a practical reason
for compiling this material.
5
Possibly Bloch used the ex-
cerpts in his teaching; if that is the case, however, his
critical observations about the examples were made in the
lectures or presentations, for--and this is most uncharacter-
istic of excerpts copied elsewhere in his writings--very lit-
tle commentary is included in the volume itself. What this
motley collection of examples perhaps illustrates more clear-
ly is Bloch's true scholarly bent. Certainly his interest
in the Wagner autograph and in Renaissance repertory came at
a time when practicing composers were as a rule not given to
scholarship. Yet the historical perspective is the founda-
tion of Bloch's understanding of the art of counterpoint.
99
In the second of the two Cleveland volumes, a manu-
script book entitled Strict III Part-counterpoint, excerpts
from sixteenth-century polyphony are again used as the
basis for study; in fact, all musical examples in the seven
pages illustrating three-voice texture, are drawn from a
single collection: the Psalmi Poenitentiales of Lassus.
But in this case, Bloch's presentation of the material is
sufficiently methodical to offer a better view of how this
repertory came to guide his own approach to contrapuntal
writing. The initial three pages of the volume are devoted
to the examination of what Bloch calls "beginnings." He
starts by copying examples where voices enter chordally.
Next, imitative entrances are examined-- those in which all
voices enter on the same tone as well as entries separated
by the interval of a fifth. (Page numbers appearing along-
side individual examples indicate where the excerpts are to
be found in the published score.) As he progresses, Bloch
introduces imitative entries involving voice combinations
of increasing complexity. But there is no further sugges-
tion of systematic procedure applied to this collection of
examples; nor does Bloch comment on particular technical
problems involved. His implication is that only through
contiruous observation and practice will the essential
principles be revealed. He notes at the bottom of page 3:
All these beginnings are very different and have to
be studied thoroughly.
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103
Bloch continues his examination of the Psalmi
Poenitentiales on pages 4-7 of the manuscript, dealing now
with excerpts representing various musical contexts. His
presentation of this material, most of which consists of
examples from two to three measures in length, is carefully
organized. Here, as elsewhere in his writings, Bloch made
annotations using different colors: he added arabic
numbers on the staff paper in red ink, indicating specific
passages for which he provided short comments on the
respective adjacent pages.
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104
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105
As in the previous pages of the manuscript, Bloch's
role is essentially that of the observer, seeking a more
fluent command of the contrapuntal idiom. The remarks
entered in this portion of the volume concern various
aspects of musical texture. For the excerpt on the first
system of page 4 Bloch offers three comments. He identi-
fies the opening sonority as a
chord without a 3d .
and he makes note of the direct motion in the second
measure of the lower voices to the interval of a fifth;
finally, he indicates that the third chord in the second
measure is a
chord without 5th (for melodic purposes)
For the example on the second system, Bloch notes again the
direct motion to a fifth, into the beginning of the second
measure; he also points out the succession of parallel
thirds towards the end of the excerpt and the "if'6" in the
penultimate chord.
No commentary is provided for the example on the
third system, though Bloch may have been intrigued by the
delayed parallel motion of the voices in the second
measure. For the example on the fourth system, he
comments:
observe the way of "escaping" consecutive fifths!!
106
This refers to the motion between the outer voices in
measure 2 and in measure 3. Bloch selected the concluding
example on page 4 to illustrate:
escaping direct and consecutive 5th through crossing
the voices.
His transcription of this excerpt into short score, at the
end of the page, shows that in fact the progression from
the first chord to the second involves latent parallel
motion.
107
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108
The excerpt on the first system of page 5 contains
another example of
consecutive fifths (avoided through crossing--
melodic line) [also the] use of ~ 6 as final
cadence.
Bloch's purpose in selecting the example on the second
system is to illustrate again how part-writing can serve to
avoid consecutive fifths; directly beneath this excerpt, on
the third system, he shows
the same example reduced: one note against one
In the excerpt on the fourth system Bloch makes note of
consecutive fifths between the outer parts in the third
measure. Finally, the example on the lowest system
illustrates
Cons. Fifths by contrary motion
Bloch's remark ''(note the)= new sentence)" refers to the
caesura mark entered just prior to the last measure in this
excerpt. Since it suggests a structural division in the
composition, Bloch offers in this instance an explanation
for the composer's use of an ostensibly "forbidden"
progression.
109
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110
The procedure of condensing elaborate counterpoint
into note-against-note motion is a technique vital to
Bloch's method of study, as is clearly shown by page 6 of
the manuscript. As in the reduction on page 5, essentially
all dissonance--whether the result of syncopation or florid
writing--is removed, leaving only the fundamental contrapun-
tal combinations. Bloch's bar lines in the reduction are
not to be understood as a strict representation of meter.
He merely used each "measure" to isolate the basic combina-
tions of voices. Indeed, the number of actual rhythmic
units represented in each of Bloch's "measures" varies
considerably. Bloch comments on page 6:
Study: One note against one note (Transcription from
page 28 [of the published edition] to show the
framework, supressing of course the Rhythm.)
(The fourth measure of the first system on this page repre-
sents apparently the same point in the composition as the
example Bloch introduced on the last system of page 5 of
the manuscript.) Bloch continues:
Notice first of all the clearness of the (harmonic)
line in spite of the suppression of the "musical
life" in it.
He then turns his attention again to specific details of the
musical texture. He remarks on the use of raised notes,
particularly "c:W' " on the second system. On the third
system, where he enters the mark "=tf," Bloch comments that
111
. . the higher range of the tenor confers a new
character.
And he singles out certain features of the contrapuntal
writing:
Observe the few peculiarities noted as: CD Par.
fifths in contrary motion [first system, measures
4-5 and fifth system, measures 7-8] CDincomplete
chord (without 3d) [tenth measure of the first
system] Q D D ~ Hidden fifths [the final bars of the
first system; measures 2-3 of the third system;
fourth system, measures 7-9]
The use of reductions enabled Bloch to make novel
observations about the texture of sixteenth-century poly-
phony. But in fact, such reductions meant much more to
Bloch's method than mere stylistic analysis. They were
demonstrably the basis for his own approach to the study of
counterpoint by species. Bloch comments again about the
reduction on page 6:
After this scheme has been thoroughly studied, it
would be a good exercise to use it as a base for
two notes (or 4) against one--later syncopation--
Then free--Then compare and analyze the text of
Orlando di Lasso. This work ought practically to be
done with every 3 part ctp. or Fragments .
.....
Bloch concludes this discussion with one further
page of excerpts from the Psalmi Poenitentiales. He
remarks that the passage on the first system of page 7 is a
Remarkable example on practically one chord e-g-b
crossing voices.
112
He also notes that in the composition itself this particu-
lar point of imitation is repeated in measures 4-6. He re-
arranges the placement of the lower voices (to clarify the
voice crossing) on the third system of page 7, and beneath
both excerpts on this page he presents a schematic reduc-
tion of the three-voice texture.
(It would be excellent to work on the scheme--one
note against one, then ~ ' i; then syncopations and
florid.)
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114
Studies in Configuration
The seven pages of excerpts from the Psalmi
Poenitentiales constitute, as it were, a single, well-
defined pedagogical statement on the subject of counter-
point. This discussion, however, dating from the Cleveland
years, is only the first of two sections preserved in the
manuscript entitled Strict III Part-counterpoint. Bloch re-
turned to the volume later to record additional examples in
May of 1943 while he was on the faculty at Berkeley. Evi-
dently, when he resumed his teaching career after the dec-
ade in Europe, Bloch once again began to record his didac-
tic thoughts in writing. And one is newly impressed with
Bloch's sensitivity to his own pedagogical heritage and the
importance of completing a central body of manuscripts.
There are two other manuscripts dating from the
Cleveland period in which Bloch made further notes while at
Berkeley: just as he returned to the volume of Strict III
Part-counterpoint, he returned to a volume of fugal studies
yet to be discussed, and to the collection of notes enti-
tled La Forme musicale. Indeed, what we know of the chron-
ology of these three documents is due only to the fact that
Bloch, who had apparently grown more meticulous about pre-
serving his notes, dated the work he had done in Cleveland
upon taking up the pen in the 1940s--hence, for example,
the date of La Forme musicale, given as "(1921?) ."
115
The notes that Bloch preserved as he returned to
the early manuscripts appear in each case under the title
"Studies in Configuration." There are, in fact, other
volumes in the collection, also from the Berkeley years,
which bear this title. In every case, these manuscripts
are devoted solely to the analysis of works by the great
masters--Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, and others. But to say
they are analytical studies does only partial justice to
the notes they contain, for Bloch pursued a range of
inquiry in these writings much broader than what is
commonly recognized as analysis.
We know something of what Bloch meant by configura-
tion from another document in the collection--a folder con-
taining notes for a series of thirteen lectures entitled
The Esthetics of the Musical Language, which Bloch deliv-
ered in the first term of his Berkeley appointment. "Config-
uration" is featured very prominently in these lectures,
but Bloch was apparently concerned that his students might
be baffled by the expression, for he was quite deliberate
in his attempts over the course of the sessions to supply
them with an appropriate definition. In the second lecture
of the series he read to his listeners the definition from
the Oxford English Dietionary, adding his own postscript:
Configuration=arrangement of parts or elements in a
particular form or figure; the form, shape, figure,
resulting from such arrangement ...
This is precisely the problem we will have to deal
with in music=The form given to musical thoughts.
116
But it is evident from his subsequent discussion of con-
figuration that Bloch considered the dictionary explanation
not entirely adequate. He remarked later in the same
lecture:
These laws [of configuration] are, first of all of a
psychoTOgical order--and, possibly, physiological,
that is to say, they are motivated by the structure
of our body, of our senses, of our mind by our
possibilities and .... our limitations. You may
understand now . . . that they are much broader and
of a general order than purely "musical or harmonic"
problems .
It is clear from these statements that configuration
involved a decidedly philosophical dimension, and one can
appreciate that Bloch found a succinct definition of the
concept elusive. Yet his meaning emerges nonetheless: not
only was he concerned with identifying the particular. ideas
in a composition from an analytical perspective, but there
was also the matter of discovering what in the characteris-
tic shape, or "configuration," in which the composer's
ideas are cast makes them have a stronger or weaker impact
upon the audience. In short, the discussion of configura-
tion was intended to address the organic nature of compo-
sitional cause and effect.
Bloch may have justifiably felt that to obtain such
an understanding was to embrace the art of composition in a
way no "method"--i.e. no didactic discipline--could impart.
This is at the heart of his instruction and explains a grow-
ing tendency in the final years of his teaching career to
117
make analysis the focus of his pedagogical writings. A
number of extensive analytical studies, apparently made for
his own use, date from the 1940s and 1950s, and they are
based on the same mode of inquiry that one finds in the var-
ious manuscripts explicitly labeled "Studies in Configura-
tion." And it is clear from the preserved documentation of
his instruction that Bloch was a strong advocate of such
work for his students as well.
There are many features to distinguish the work in
configuration from the studies written in Cleve-
land, as is immediately obvious from Bloch's presentation
of the material. In the opening pages of Strict III Part-
counterpoint Bloch is very sparing with his verbal annota-
tions; seldom does he comment more than briefly about an
example, and some excerpts appear without any commentary at
all. Bloch's annotations for studies in the 1940s, on the
other hand, are quite extensive--indeed (possibly in gather-
ing notes for lectures) even small details are commited to
writing. This is not to say that the later studies surpass
the earlier writings in significance; certainly, though,
they are more detailed, which is again consistent with
Bloch's greater interest in analysis during these years.
Nevertheless, one can find considerable continuity
between the Cleveland contrapuntal studies and those Bloch
appended to the volume some twenty years later. As in the
earlier section of the manuscript, in "Studies in
118
Configuration" Bloch is particularly intrigued by certain
stylistic peculiarities of the musical texture. And
through the extended commentary of the Berkeley studies,
his purpose in these observations becomes clearer: he
wishes to demonstrate that behind each supposed trans-
gression of style there is a higher, ineluctable musical
logic.
119
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120
Bloch begins the "Studies in Configuration" on page
8 of Strict Three Part-counterpoint with an excerpt from a
work by Josquin. His indication reads:
Example from Josquin des Pres (1445-1521) Motet 20
"Planxit autem Part (pages 100-- ... )
Bloch's remarks concern the opening ten measures of this
section of the motet, which he copied on the first three
systems of the page.
a) [measures 1-5] Imitation at the 8ve __ (Starting
lower voice, then upper) (at one measure distance!)
(2 voices--range different ... ) (Direction
of melodic line--upward, ... then cadenth.)
b) [measures 5-10] Imitation at the 5 (Start
upper voice, then lower) (distance is 1/2 measure!!)
direction: downward--free inversion of a)
Unity--Repetition--Contrast with a) But see develop-
ment of design b) (baqf) continuity and progression
rhythmically--in c [measures 7-8] and d [measures 8-
9] (shorter and shorter)
Now, let us analyze the two very free passages ..
(meas. 3 and 9lh .. [measure 3, f1rst system] we
have a minor 9--, on a semistrong beat, the
solves in "a" truly--but the lower a is disconnect-
ed! goes to c--a "freedom" (licenseT absolutely "for-
bidden" in the "Treatises [orig.: Treatices]"!!
Let us attempt corrections!! Ex. 2 [fourth system]
we replace the a by f--which is "correct"--but which
spoils entirely-the melodic line--too many "f".! pre-
pares badly the conclusive f! Very poor-- Ex 3
[fourth system, third measure] connecting a-c with a
passing note is still "free"--but see how poor the
melodic line is now, rhythmically ... Play them!
and see the Logic and beauty of Form--in Josquin!!
[The example in measure 9, third system] brings
three sevenths, consecutively, in two open Voices!!
Aga1n, completely forbidden in "Schools" ..
Undertakers!! We try to correct it, ex. 4 [fifth
system]--It becomes quite ridiculous--distorts the
logical thematics (continuity of an idea) puts a
stupid stress on the C-BP
121
In concluding this comment, Bloch directs harsh
remarks at the scholarly community--"Dr. Beckmesser and
Cie!!"--arguing that it is the "non creative" who estab-
lish and propagate rules which are in conflict with the
works of the masters. His criticism shows the artist's
concern over the dichotomy between practice and theory--or
to use his own words, "Spirit vs. Letter"--and he included
an excerpt from one of Bach's keyboard fugues a particular-
ly vivid example of literature commonly abused by the
theorist.
The excerpt, which appears on page 9 of Strict III
Part-counterpoint, is from the C major fugue from Book Two
of the Well-Tempered Clavier. His commentary shows again
the spirit of his study of "configuration":
... it is not possible to analyze or explain this
passage in a logical way . . if one does not
consider it from a higher viewpoint, aesthetically
122
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123
On the first system of page 9 Bloch copies out the
initial eight measures of the fugue. He is particularly
interested in the sixth measure of the excerpt:
One may consider the marked d (in the Csubject)
[fourth sixteenth-note in the countersubject]tfis a
"changing note" but how about the following 9-?
[beat two of the sixth measure] . the c going to
d (9-8) [;] and how about the d c [last sixteenth of
measure six] "auxiliary note"!! ("nomencla-
ture" which does not explain anything!!)
Bloch makes "corrections," indicated on the fourth and
fifth systems of the page, and concludes:
. how absurdly poor and senseless becomes the
Csubject as a free melodic line! It falsifies every-
thing (save the Beckmersserish rules!) distorts and
interrupts the THEMATIC sense and progression.
Finally, on the bottom half of the page Bloch again writes
out the opening measures of the fugue. In this case, he
also provides a metrical reduction of the fugue subject and
countersubject, pointing out the inherent consistency and
logic in the structure of Bach's original.
Now see the analytic scheme below (Ex 3) and its
Logic--Bach relied--as always--on such higher
principles of Configuration. The hidden harmonic
sense is preserved--also the free continuity of the
melodic line. The principle is the same in
Josquin--as in Bach--as 1n any true work of Art!
Following his discussion of the fugue, Bloch re-
turns, on page 10 of the manuscript, to Josquin's "Planxit
autem David" for what constitutes his final entry in Strict
III Part-counterpoint.
124
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125
He resumes his examination of the motet where he left off
on page 8, with measures 10-21 of the tertia pars.
--Two other Voices [first system] take the same
ve
melody (as p.8, meas. 1.2.) one 8 lower. The
only change is the anticipation of a (m. 13) and the
conclusion (cadence in "phrygian mode"--13-14.)
--The sentence b), on the contrary [second system],
starts differently of c-ct and the
1m1tation, instead of 5--, is at the . .
Note also the "freedom" (7-9) meas. 16. It is what
I would rather call a rhythmic freedom--similar to
meas. 9 (page 8) and Ex. 4 [page 8]
--Similarly, meas. 17 [end of the second system],
the Entrance of Sopr. on "a", for the sake of con-
tinuity and logic of Imitation ... is absolutely
producing a double dissonance!
(4-- and 9--!!) But how logical aesthetically.
(Harmonically, it could be analyzed as a free anti-
cipation of the next "chord"--Very frequent in
Bach! See also the famous passage in Eroica, return
of Th. I, as anticipation of a motif den1ed as a
"misprint" by Schoenberg! and w1th the 8 or 9
justifying sketches given by Nottebohm!)
Also more "freedoms"--- (meas. 18-19) [third
system in full score, last system in short score--
first and second measures] all justified "aesthet-
ically" by the melodic lines and thematic
continuity.
The "Studies in Configuration" and the excerpts dat-
ing from the Cleveland period show how the polyphonic reper-
tory came to guide Bloch's understanding of counterpoint:
through conscientious investigation of the music he made
himself a true student of the Renaissance masters. Yet,
analytical studies actually form only one portion of
Bloch's didactic notes in the discipline of counterpoint.
He knew that analysis could take the student composer only
126
to a certain point in his studies; ultimately, he would
have to write his own exercises, as is amply documented in
the collection.
The earliest of these consists of a number of short
two-voice canonic studies which Bloch drafted on four loose
sheets of staff paper. They bear no date, but they are pre-
served within the pages of Bloch's volume from the 1920s,
Counterpoint 2 parts. Bloch examined the principles of can-
onic writing quite methodically in these studies. He began
with a few exercises in canon at the unison, and then went
on to compose other examples, in which imitative entries
are separated by the intervals of the second, third, fourth
and fifth, concluding with canon at the octave. It is
interesting to see Bloch proceed so systematically in his
presentation, for the physical appearance of the loose
sheets suggest that he did not intend these exercises for
any purpose other than his own occupation. They are writ-
ten in pencil--quite exceptional among Bloch's extant didac-
tic papers; moreover, the calligraphy of the exercises is
extremely casual, again unusual for the contents of the
collection. They seem to represent a range of activity
quite distinct from that which-produced the majority of the
preserved pedagogical writings--possibly the "daily bread"
in Bloch's efforts to work his hand at the fundamentals of
composition. They may have been preserved by chance, and
127
one might imagine that there were many other exercises,
equally methodical and well-reasoned, that did not happen
to survive.
The San Francisco Notebooks
There is further documentation of Bloch's contra-
puntal studies in a series of manuscript books dating from
1928. In contrast to the canonic studies, however, the
examples included in these volumes were gathered with
extraordinary attention to the state in which they were to
be preserved. Indeed, nowhere else in the collection was
Bloch mqre deliberate in preparing his papers for posteri-
ty, or more aware of the nature and significance of his
pedagogical bequest. This quality becomes manifest in two
respects: Bloch is truly exhaustive in treating and
exploring the various aspects of sixteenth-century contra-
puntal technique; and he provides for a degree of organi-
zation of the studies that is one of the marvels of the
entire collection. In the end, Bloch had compiled seven
individual notebooks devoted almost exclusively to his own
examples in counterpoint, amounting collectively to over
400 written pages and to almost 1400 exercises. There are
also three other manuscript books that are closely related
to this series of volumes. But these were created at a
later point and will be discussed separately.
128
In most cases, the precise origin of Bloch's writ-
ings from the 1920s are obscure. With the San Francisco
notebooks, however, we have help from several sources that
reveal the circumstances under which the volumes were com-
piled. In November of 1928 Bloch was awarded the grand
prize for his symphonic rhapsody, America, in a composition
contest sponsored by Musical America. The magazine devoted
special articles to Bloch's achievement, and these help
towards documenting his activities during the middle of
1928, when most of the work on the counterpoint volumes was
undertaken. Suzanne Bloch has also referred to this series
of manuscript books in a more recent article:
In his forty-eighth year he decided that he did not
know counterpoint well enough. With the classes he
conducted at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music
he started from the very beginning, going to the old
masters, studying the modes systematically, and
writing hundreds of examples. He
6
then copied the
best of them in little notebooks.
But the most important information concerning the history
of this project comes from Bloch's own annotations in the
volumes. In a prefatory note to the first of the note-
books, Bloch gives this account:
The following exercises were probabl begun when my
students began Double Ctp. at the 8v --I tried
myself and made the Ctp. on C.F. by Bellerman[n]--
Then I discovered it would be good to start again!
Hence the following studies on ~ own CF in all
modes. This study started around February 20,
1928. These exercises were copied later (June 1928)
but not corrected, in order to show improvement
coming later, through practice and "refinement."
129
In short, all entries in the manuscripts were made
after the spring of 1928. Up to that point Bloch had been
regularly drafting exercises, but not until June, when he
began copying them into the notebooks, did this project
take on its present scope and character. Bloch spent much
of the summer of 1928 aboard ship, sailing for Marseilles
from San Francisco; and the project was so much a part of
his daily routine that the notebooks become a veritable
diary of the voyage. Above an exercise drafted on June 25,
for instance, Bloch notes: "1st day on board"; alongside a
study dated July 10 he remarks "Panama canal; on July 24
(Bloch
1
s birthday) there is the entry: "Birthday on board,
Skyrockets, wine, champagne, presents, jokes, music, and
much friendship from the crowd .... 1800 feet above bottom!"
Finally, on August 2, Bloch notes "coast of Spain in
sight," and with his arrival in Europe the project came to
an end.
Thus, the San Francisco notebooks actually preserve
three layers of coexistent activity (Bloch is faithful in
providing indications that distinguish one from the other) :
first, there are the examples written in the spring of 1928
and copied into the volumes during the summer of that year;
a second layer consists of studies made in the spring, but
copied and corrected in the summer; finally there are exer-
cises newly composed in the summer. As his work progres-
sed, Bloch numbered the seven notebooks, and in most cases
130
he provided a table of contents for the individual manu-
scripts as well. The contents of the volumes, however, do
not always follow one another in perfect sequence, so Bloch
also numbered the exercises, 1-1382, to put them in proper
and unmistakable order. As Bloch informs us in his prefa-
tory note, the San Francisco studies grew directly out of
his experience as an instructor of counterpoint. There
could not be a more vivid demonstration as to the merging
of Bloch's roles as teacher and student.
It is also clear from the introductory note that
Bloch used the counterpoint text of Heinrich Bellermann for
the instruction of students at the Conservatory, and this
fact has strong implications for his didactic orientation.
Bellermann's Der Contrapunkt, first published in 1862, is a
landmark in the history of the discipline because, as has
been mentioned (cf. p. 24, above), its author was the ear-
liest among nineteenth-century pedagogues to advocate an
approach to counterpoint derived from a faithful revival of
studies in the Renaissance style as represented by Johann
Joseph Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum (1725) .
7
Essentially, it was the mighty genius and the pro-
found artistic sense of a PALESTRINA and ORLANDUS
LASSUS by which pure A capella music was elevated to
that admirable Classical stature .... in their
works reigns a balance of form and above all a flow-
ing, singable quality in every individual voicg
which we see surpassed at no point afterwards.
Bellermann believed that the key to success was in a
131
discipline of counterpoint which the modern student of corn-
position could obtain only by committing himself to "the
strict old manner"; he writes, "we should . . take from
them what we cannot learn through study of our modern
rnusic."
9
In preparing his text, Bellerrnann received decisive
guidance from Fux's celebrated work. In the decades follow-
ing its publication, Fux's text had met with unprecedented
favor; and one appreciates the significance of his achieve-
ment by considering that both Haydn and Mozart received
their contrapuntal training from the Gradus as well as
using it as a point of departure for their own teaching.
In the closing years of the eighteenth century, new peda-
gogical trends began to challenge the stylistic premises
upon which Fux had based his work. Albrechtsberger used
the Gradus in supervising Beethoven's studies, but he
adapted Fux's method and his modal cantus firrni to conform
to major and minor scales. In later years there were fur-
ther concessions in the teaching of counterpoint to contem-
porary practice.
During the nineteenth century, this tendency threat-
ened to occlude the tradition which Fux had represented.
The Renaissance style was no longer an accepted part of a
composer's training and it ceased to constitute the vital
influence that the stile antico had been for the student of
composition in former days. Theorists. were more concerned
132
with presenting a norm than with preserving an "outdated"
art. These were the circumstances which marked the publica-
tion of Bellermann's Der Contrapunkt. Aligning his method
with that of Fux, he reasserted the didactic significance
of the characteristics of sixteenth-century practice. In
the preface to the fourth edition of his work, Bellermann
makes ironic comment on the fact that such demand existed
for a book that Hugo Riemann had criticized as representing
Fux's point of view, "which was obsolete in his own
t
. nlO
1me. The argument actually represented Riemann's own
conflict between his roles of historian and theorist.
Bloch's use of Der Contrapunkt reveals his own
pedagogical priorities; indeed, his allegiance to the
didactic tradition of Fux is consistent with the concern
for integrity of style that characterizes his analytical
discussions. But despite his affinity for Bellermann's
method, there were aspects of the text by which Bloch could
not abide. Because the preservation of contrapuntal tech-
nique had become the domain of music theory, it came to
lack a certain creative dimension. Bloch's introduction to
the first of the San Francisco notebooks suggests that Der
Contrapunkt ultimately proved unsatisfactory to him. Bloch
the composer found the m u s i c a ~ invention in Bellermann's
examples inadequate, and he determined to write better
exercises. Only upon undertaking his own studies did he
become aware of the true difficulty of the task before him,
133
and this apparently gave the impetus for the compilation of
the seven notebooks now preserved in the collection.
The notebooks are of a uniform size, measuring
6 1/2 inches by 5 inches in oblong. Their contents show
that in exchanging the teacher's role for that of the stu-
dent, Bloch remained commited to a discipline of counter-
point rooted in sixteenth-century practice, for he pursued
his studies essentially in the manner laid down by Fux and
Bellermann: he began his work with two-part counterpoint--
indeed, the notebooks consist exclusively of exercises in
two voices; and in virtually every case, these exercises
are based on cantus firmi. Bloch was less exacting in his
application of species counterpoint. His main concern is
with florid writing and other more advanced techniques.
Yet, there are several examples of strict species writing
among the exercises, and we can be certain that the species
were in some fashion a part of his studies.
Bloch begins the first of the notebooks with a se-
ries of examples in double counterpoint at the octave based
on modal cantus firmi from Bellermann's Der Contrapunkt.
134
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138
Pages 1-2 of Book I contain four examples on a single can-
tus firmus in the Dorian mode, as well as a fifth exercise
on a different Dorian melody--one which Bellermann pro-
vided, as Bloch's annotation on page 2 indicates, to illus-
trate the "use of B ~ and B ~ ." On pages 3-5 of Book I
Bloch copied seven additional studies in modus dorius.
These are followed by three pages of exercises in the
Hypodorian and Phrygian modes, leading to four examples in
modus hypophrygius, on pages 9-10 of the notebook.
It was vital to Bloch's conception of this project
that the seven notebooks, in addition to preserving exer-
cises, would also chart the improvement of his contrapuntal
skills through the rigorous course of study. This attitude
is evident from the comment at the bottom of page 2, where
he writes about the second example on that page:
(compare this one so awkward with those made later!!)
The comments on pages 9-10 convey the same point:
(hard--and very imperfect! but I left it so)
See how later, I avoided all this!
And he writes at the bottom of page 9:
This is as bad almost as Bellerman[n] 's examples!!
There are very few verbal annotations in the note-
books. Where remarks do appear, they invariably convey
Bloch's critical perspective, but seldom specify on what
139
basis he found his efforts wanting. Occasionally he pro-
vides markings, like those above the examples on page 9 and
10, that point to certain problemmatic features in the writ-
ing. In the second study on page 9, for instance, Bloch is
clearly questioning his repeated use of a rhythmic figure;
and the small notes stemmed down in measures 5 and 6 of
this example evidently represent an attempt to correct the
passage. Similarly, in the first exercise on page 10 Bloch
is dissatisfied with the repetition of the melodic turn in-
volving a rising fourth in measures 4-6. In many other
cases, however, the interpretation of such markings remains
neccessarily a matter of conjecture: with the second study
on page 2 of Book I Bloch provides one kind of mark, appar-
ently to emphasize the inflexibility of the rhythmic line
in measures 2-3; a second mark, in measures 3-4, seemingly
referring to the repetition of the dotted rhythms on the
last half of both measures.
On pages 11-17 of Book I Bloch wrote out examples
for the authentic and plagal forms of modus lydius and
modus mixolydius, bringing the total number of studies in
this section of the manuscript to forty-six. But these
exercises based on melodies by Bellermann stand apart from
the rest of the material in the notebooks; for as he became
further immersed in the San Francisco project, Bloch
generally made it a point to write and use his own cantus
firmi.
140
The exercises based on cantus firmi from Bloch's
hand form a unified body of studies that occupy most of the
pages within the seven notebooks. Faithful to the tradi-
tion represented by Fux and Bellermann, Bloch wrote his
cantus firmi in strict accordance with modal practice--
specifically, with the system of six modes in their authen-
tic and plagal forms. Dates for individual exercises in
the notebooks suggest that consideration of modes also
governed the manner in which Bloch pursued his studies. It
was evidently his custom to invest a large block of time--
in some cases as much as three weeks--working exclusively
with cantus firmi of a particular mode. Consequently,
Bloch did not complete the series of exercises he had begun
in February until May. He took the same deliberate ap-
proach to compiling the fair copy of his work in the
notebooks. The initial entries were made in early June,
but it was mid-July before Bloch had worked his way again
through every mode.
Thus, the unified body of studies on Bloch's own
cantus firmi is in twelve sections--one each for the plagal
and authentic forms of the six modes. And on a given page
of a section one frequently finds two dates: the e a r l ~ e r
date indicates the time at which studies for that mode were
originally undertaken; the later relates to the copying of
the studies, as well as to any additions or revisions Bloch
may have made. The first section begins on page 18 of
141
Book I with examples in the Dorian mode. The original
exercises for this mode were drafted between February 27
and March 4. The compilation of the section commenced
around June 1, and the volume was completed on the twelfth
of that month. Bloch provides a brief table on the first
page of Book I:
[pages] [exercises]
Exercises on C.F. by Bellermann 1-17 1-46
15 c. F. by E. Bloch in MODUS DORIUS 18-19
Exercises
" " " " " "
on 15 C.F. 21-50 47-188
49 Essays
on a C.F. by
L. Hodge head "
" "
55-63 189-237
Lillian Hodgehead was an associate of Bloch's at the San
Francisco Conservatory. The use of her cantus firmus
stands out as an exception within the twelve sections that
otherwise represent entirely Bloch's own writing.
142
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146
It was generally Bloch's practice to present his
cantus firmi at the outset of a section. Exercises based
on the melodies were then copied into the pages that fol-
lowed. On pages 18-19 of Book I, Bloch wrote out sixteen
cantus firmi in modus dorius, the last of which is the
melody by Lillian Hodgehead. Atop page 18 he notated three
cadential formulae to be used for cantus firmi in the
Dorian mode, and the sixteen provided melodies incorporate
these endings. Actually, only thirteen of the sixteen
Dorian melodies are used in the exercises of Book I. The
exercises appearing on pages 29-30 deal with the third of
Bloch's cantus firmi.
Bloch evidently approached the compilation of the
San Francisco notebooks with very specific objectives in
mind, for in taking up each cantus firmus he consistently
followed a three-fold plan of study that focused on a lim-
ited number of contrapuntal procedures. The contents of
pages 29-30 typify Bloch's work throughout these volumes.
The first stage of study involves exercises in florid
counterpoint, both above and below a cantus firmus. On page
29 Bloch notated his cantus firmus on the middle staff.
The florid lines on the other staves, which Bloch desig-
nates with the letters a-f, each form a two-voice texture
with the cantus firmus.
The material on page 29 offers a particularly clear
illustration of the various layers of activity that led to
147
the preserved state of Bloch's studies. Bloch provided
markings along the left-hand margin of page 29 which cor-
respond to the annotations at the top of the page and by
this means he made a chronological record of his work. For
the exercises on the first, fourth, and sixth staves (Exam-
ples a-c), there is no marking; these were drafted in Febru-
ary. As he copied Example a into the notebook, however,
Bloch was apparently troubled by the recurrence of a
rhythmic-melodic formula, as indicated by the "){" above the
first staff. This resulted in the improved version, on the
second staff of page 29. The marking in the left-hand mar-
gin shows that the revision was undertaken in June. The
example on the third staff (marked "ossia") represents what
was evidently an intermediate stage in Bloch's work on Exam-
ple a. Bloch indicates that this version was written also
in February, but it anticipates some of the corrections he
was to make later. Finally, Bloch's markings show that the
examples on the lowest three staves (Examples d-f) were
newly composed--i.e. "additional"--when he was engaged in
the compilation of this section of the manuscript.
The examples in florid counterpoint were invariably
followed in Bloch's work on a particular cantus firmus by a
second stage of study, consisting of exercises in double
counterpoint at the octave or, less frequently, at the
twelfth. (On the first two systems of page 30 appear two
studies in double counterpoint, Examples g and h.) This
148
phase of work, in turn, typically led to a third kind of
contrapuntal exercise, which featured florid writing in
both voices, one of these voices being an ornamented ver-
sion of the cantus firmus. For the study on the lowest
system of page 30, Bloch notated in the bottom staff a
florid line from page 29 (Example e); then in the top staff
he placed a counterpoint against it by embellishing the
cantus firmus. The top voice does not depart from the
basic contour of the cantus firmus; it connects in florid
motion the notes of the original melody. In this particu-
lar case, Bloch left an indication as to how he worked out
the ornamented versions. In the top staff of Example h
(second system), he notated the whole notes of the cantus
firmus in ink. The smaller notes are written in pencil,
and represent a sketch for the ornamented cantus firmus.
Bloch's marking directly above the treble clef sign for the
final example on the page indicates that the example was
written in June. The two studies in double counterpoint
were evidently drafted in February.
Bloch's commitment to a directed manner of study
was such that the procedures illustrated on pages 29-30 in
fact characterize his treatment of virtually every cantus
firmus among those preserved in the twelve sections of the
project. He referred to this unified body of studies at
several points in the notebooks as his "regular work."
Bloch used all pages of Book I in compiling the section
149
of examples in modus darius. His first entries in the sec-
ond San Francisco notebook are concerned with material for
a different mode. Bloch provides again a brief table of
contents:
[pages] [exercises]
Modus Hy:eodorius 10 CF. by EB. 64[-65]
Exercises on
II II II II
66-101 238-392
II
Phrygius 13 CF 102
Exercises on
II II
103-131 393-522
II
Hy:eo:ehrygius [exercises] 132-143 523-582
He listed six cantus firmi in the Hypophrygian mode on a
loose sheet of staff paper which he numbered
11
132 bis.
11
This sheet is inserted in the exercises in modus hy:eo:ehry-
gius. The earlier group of studies contained in Book II
were written between March 2 and March 25. The compilation
of the notebook, with additions and revisions, was done
between June 14 and July 4. The pagination and the number-
ing of exercises continues straight through from the first
notebook to the second.
150
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159
On pages 66-67 of Book II Bloch copied studies
based on the first of his cantus firmi in modus hypodorius,
and we again see the characteristic aspects of his "regular
work." Exercises in florid counterpoint above and below a
cantus firmus, designated as Examples a-e, occupy the first
six staves of page 66. The cantus firmus is notated on the
fourth staff. The third of the exercises, Example c, is
particularly noteworthy. Bloch enters "Imitation" above
the third staff to indicate that the florid line forms a
canqn in diminution with the cantus firmus. The bracket
which is placed at the beginning of the fifth measure of
Example c corresponds to a similar marking in the sixth
measure of the cantus firmus, showing the point at which
the strict canonic relationship between the two voices
ceases.
At the bottom of page 66 appears Example f, which
is an exercise in double counterpoint at the octave. And
this is followed on page 67 by the third stage of study--
the exercises featuring florid writing in both voices. For
the studies notated on the first three systems of page 67,
Bloch uses florid lines derived from Examples a, b, and d
(page 66) in counterpoint against ornamented versions of
the cantus firmus. The material on the third system of
page 67 becomes in itself the subject of further study at
the bottom of the page, where Bloch drafts an exercise by
embellishing both voice parts of the preceding example.
160
It is clear from Bloch's annotations atop pages 66
and 67 that all exercises on these pages were written in
March. Bloch enters an additional remark on page 67:
The melody is not integrally kept, as I did
later.
He is referring to the first two studies on the page, and to
the fact that the florid lines accompanying the ornamented
cantus firmus are only loosely based on the examples from
page 66. In later months, it was invariably Bloch's prac-
tice, as has been mentioned, to leave the florid line com-
pletely intact when transferring it to the third stage of
study; he also approached some of his earlier exercises in
this manner, as can be seen from the third example on page 67.
Bloch's interest in canonic technique as part of
his "regular work" is evident in Example c on page 66. But
this is by no means an isolated instance; indeed, while
working with cantus firmi Bloch occasionally wrote extended
studies in canonic writing. The exercises based on his
sixth cantus firmus in modus hypodorius offer a particular-
ly impressive demonstration of contrapuntal skill. Bloch
began by devoting two pages of manuscript to his customary
series of exercises. He then provided a supplementary set
of studies on the sixth cantus firmus on pages 82-85 of
Book II. His annotation at the top of page 82 reads:
CF 6 (M. hypodorius) Add. June 22, 23
Canons on C.F. (very good!)
161
The cantus firmus is written out on the first staff
of page 82. Directly below it, Bloch provides an exercise
(Example h) in canon at the octave. Example i, in the
fourth system, is a study in canon at the fifth. Another
study in canon at the fifth, Example j, appears in the last
system of page 82, extending to the top of page 83. The
second system of page 83 contains Example k, a canon combin-
ing an ornamented statement of the cantus firmus with its
inversion. Example 1, on the third system, is a study in
canon at the octave. Bloch notes that the canon for
Example m, at the bottom of page 83, is "by diminution."
The canonic studies continue on page 84 with an
exercise in canon at the fifth (Example n) . Above Example
o, Bloch writes "canon by upper fifth": the order in which
the voices enter is altered so that the higher voice pre-
cedes the lower, reversing the pattern of his previous
examples in canon at the fifth. Example p, at the top of
page 85, is a second study in canon at the upper fifth. On
the second and third systems, Bloch writes out Example q--
canon at the octave. And the studies on this cantus firmus
are concluded at the bottom of the page with an exercise in
double counterpoint at the twelfth.
In short, Bloch offers a thoro:1gh exposition of
canonic technique in this series of examples--indicative of
his desire to deal comprehensively with the various facets
of contrapuntal procedure. His annotation at the top of
162
page 84 is also quite interesting: he labels the exercises
Canons and fantasies . . .
One is again reminded of the vital connection existing
b ~ t w e e n Bloch's pedagogical activity and his work in actual
composition. This is even more evident in a small number
of exercises written without cantus firmi, which are inter-
spersed among the pages of Bloch's "regular work." These
are generally somewhat longer than the studies based on
cantus firmi; Bloch often refers to them as ''motets." His
final entry for the section of Book II containing examples
in modus hypodorius is one such exercise. Bloch writes at
the top of page 101:
Motet in double ctp. 8 (in imitation)
As the annotation indicates, the study on page 101
is based on the combined techniques of double counterpoint
at the octave and canonic writing. It consists of four
large sections articulated by cadences; and Bloch's ap-
proach is such that for the beginning of each section there
is a different interval separating the entrance of the
canonic voices. (Bloch indicates the interval of imitation
with a number enclosed in parentheses. The order in which
the voices enter is similarly varied.) The exercise is
begun with canon at the seventh. At the end of the first
system Bloch introduces canon at the fourth, leading to a
163
passage in the middle of the second system which involves
canon at the third. In the last measure of the second
system, he takes up a new point of imitation in canon at
the second. Midway through the third measure on the third
system, the strict canonic relationship between voices is
discontinued in preparation for the final cadence.
Another of Bloch's "motets" appears on pages 130-
31 of Book II, among exercises in the Phrygian mode. Like
the example on page 101, this study consists of several
sections articulated by cadences. In this case, however,
in addition to using entrances at different intervals,
Bloch begins sections with different temporal intervals as
well. The opening measures of the "motet" on page 130 are
based on canon at the unison. On the second system (second
measure) Bloch gives an example of canon at the fourth.
The measure crossed out on the second system is easily
explained: Bloch had written out the ninth measure of the
study twice; only when he entered the lower voice did he
recognize his mistake, and, crossing out the duplicated
measure, he went on to the bottom system of page 130. In
the second measure of the bottom system, he introduces a
phrase in canon at the fourth, which is followed in the
next measure by a longer passage in canon at the fifth.
And in the third measure at the top of page 131, he works
with canon at the second. On the next system of page 131,
Bloch returns to the opening motive of the exercise, though
164
at this point the voices are at the interval of a third,
with only the duration of a whole note separating them. A
concluding point of imitation (third system, second
measure) involves canon at the fifth.
Despite the sheer technical facility evident in
this study, it is the composer's imagination that leaves
the greatest impression. One notices, for instance, the
tension built by the sequential scale passages leading to
the cadence in the first measure of the second system on
page 131; and the return, immediately tpereafter, of the
imitative motive with which the "motet" begins.
It is also a remarkable feature of the San Francis-
co studies that even as he was at work on such complex con-
trapuntal procedures, Bloch never neglected the fundamen-
tals of the discipline. This is illustrated in the opening
pages of the third notebook, where he copies a series of
examples in species counterpoint on a cantus firmus in the
Lydian mode. The material in Book III that pertains to
Bloch's "regular work" was drafted from March 26 to March
31 and copied on July 4 and 5. Book III is begun with this
table:
Modus Lydius 8 CF
Essays in all species .
Exercises in florid on 8 CF
HYPOLYDIUS (start)
[pages]
146
147-149
150-165
166-167
[exercises]
583-587
589-664
665-674
165
Book. II 1- - p. 1 4 7
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169
The presentation of studies in species counterpoint
commences on page 147, and for each species Bloch writes
out four examples--two above and two below the cantus
firmus. He begins with a group of exercises in note-
against-note motion, which he designates in the left-hand
margin a-d. (In the pages that follow, these letters are
used by Bloch to indicate that in some cases a given contra-
puntal line is based on that included in a preceding group
of examples.) Turning then to second species, Bloch pro-
vides two examples above the cantus firmus at the bottom of
page 147, and two below the cantus firmus atop page 148. A
group of examples in third species counterpoint appears in
the lower five staves of page 148.
The exercises at the top of page 149 show the
application of species writing in the context of triple
meter. This group of examples reflects a relatively recent
approach to instruction in counterpoint. Fux's stand,
expressed in his Gradus, was that the principles of writing
counterpoint in ternary time were self-evident as an exten-
tion of the second species; thus, as he says, there was no
reason "to arrange a special chapter dealing with it."
11
A fifth group of exercises is concerned with
counterpoint in the fourth species. As before, Bloch
copies out four examples--two above the cantus firmus at
the bottom of page 149, and two below the cantus firmus at
the top of page 150. But in this case, his contrapuntal
170
writing is more complex. The uppermost example above the
cantus firmus duplicates the contrapuntal line appearing
immediately below the cantus firmus (designated by Bloch as
Example c) at the octave through the first three measures
of the exercise. Beginning with the fourth measure, the
same correlation exists between Example c and the second
upper line. In other words, Bloch has come close to creat-
ing double counterpoint at the octave. Only on the upbeat
to the penultimate measure and the following downbeat is
the strict inversion of parts discontinued--by necessity
because the inversion of the tone d in Example c (upbeat to
the penultimate measure) would result in a freely intro-
duced fourth against cantus firmus.
The group of exercises illustrating florid
counterpoint, in the second system on page _150, consists
only of two examples above the cantus firmus, and with this
Bloch concluded the series of examples in species writing.
The study at the bottom of page 150 features the cantus
firmus in canon by diminution.
Bloch completed the section of examples in modus
lydius on page 165 of Book III, and began a new section, by
copying out two pages of studies in the Hypolydian mode.
At this point, however, his work on Book III came to a
halt, and some forty pages of the notebook remained unused.
He was to return to these empty pages later for the purpose
171
of preserving a series of contrapuntal exercises which he
refered to as "special studies." Prior to entering the
"special studies," he placed this annotation at the bottom
of page 167:
See continuation of Regular Work (Hypolydius CF 2)
Book D (IV) page 208
There is more to this interruption than is at first
apparent. As has been discussed, Bloch's dating of "addi-
tional" exercises contained in Books I-III suggests that
the compilation of these three volumes was undertaken over
a span of thirty-five days: his initial entries in Book I
are dated June 1; material pertaining to the "regular work"
in Book III was copied out on July 4 and July 5. But in
the succeeding volumes devoted to the "regular work," Books
IV-VI, one finds only two dates mentioned in connection
with "additional" exercises--July 6 and July 7. We know
from the dating of other volumes in the series that by
July 10, and perhaps as early as July 8, Bloch had begun to
work in earnest on the "special studies," which were evi-
dently intended as a supplement to the "regular work." The
"special studies" will be discussed below. What is signifi-
cant in the present context, however, is the clear indica-
tion given by the various dates entered in the notebooks
that after compiling Book III, Bloch spent approximately
two days (July 6 and July 7) working on Books IV-VI.
It is highly unlikely that he could have compiled
172
three completely new volumes containing some 650 exercises
over so short a period of time. One concludes that these
notebooks did not originate in the manner of Books I-III,
but were among the very manuscripts in which Bloch had
originally drafted his contrapuntal studies some months
earlier. Certain features of the manuscripts support such
a conclusion. In Book IV, for instance, many entries were
originally recorded in pencil; in the course of his work on
the manuscript, Bloch either wrote over these or, when nec-
essary, made erasures. In addition, the last five pages of
Book IV contain a number of annotations--eight cantus
firmi; the opening measures of a fugal exposition through
several drafts; random verbal formulations--that play no
role in the contrapuntal studies proper. Furthermore, the
volume lacks some of the organizational details which are
standard among the preceding manuscripts--such as a table
of contents. In short, one does not sense the same purpose
of writing in the fourth notebook that is characteristic of
Bloch's work in the preceding volumes of the series.
It appears, then, that Bloch's decision to leave
Book III uncompleted signals a change in his approach to
the entire project: from this point on, instead of using
new notebooks to record a fair copy of his work, he incor-
porated into the series those manuscripts already on hand.
According to Bloch's annotations, Book IV was largely
drafted between April 1 to April 21. In returning to the
173
notebook in the summer, he paginated it and numbered his
exercises to put pages and examples in sequence with the
contents of Books I-III. Bloch's dating suggests this work
was done on July 5 and July 6.
Bloch numbered the exercises so as to lead directly
from the conclusion of his "regular work" in Book III to
the first entry in Book IV. However, he paginated the
entire Book III, including the section that had remained
unused, before beginning with page 208 in the fourth note-
book, and he added an annotation below the exercises on the
first page of Book IV:
Continuation fr. III (p. 167)
MODUS HYPOLYDIUS (CF 2)
(from Ex. 674)
Exercises in the Hypolydian mode are numbered 675-710, and
are preserved on pages 208-18. On pages 219 and 220, Bloch
wrote out six cantus firmi each in modus mixolydius and
modus hypomyxolydius. Pages 211-34 of Book IV contain
examples 711-74 in the Mixolydian mode. Examples in modus
hypomixolydius, numbered 775-841, appear on pages 235-50.
On page 251 Bloch begins a series of studies in the Aeolian
mode, exercises 842-96. With the last of these examples,
on page 262, Book IV comes to a close.
174
Booll IV--p. 217

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176
That Books IV-VI represent a stage of activity dif-
ferent from the preceding volumes in the series, is also
evident from the way in which the contents of the respec-
tive compilations are presented. In copying examples in
florid counterpoint for Books I-III, Bloch consistently
uses a format in which the cantus firmus is notated once on
a page, and the florid melodies are written on the staves
above and below it. He occasionally applies this format in
Books IV-VI; but just as frequently his method is that
illustrated on page 217, where each florid line is notated
with the cantus firmus separately. The former method is
clearly more efficient for copying finished exercises; the
latter method offers obvious advantages in working at a
given one.
The examples on page 217 are designated a-d. On
page 218 appears Example e, a study in double counterpoint
at the octave. This is followed on the lower three systems
of the page by exercises combining florid writing with
ornamented versions of the cantus firmus. In the first of
these, Example f, the embellished cantus firmus is on the
top staff. Above the next exercise, Example g (in the
third system), Bloch writes "to E.G.!!" Clearly, this
refers to Edvard Grieg, for the opening measures of the top
voice resemble the opening of "In the Hall of the Mountain
King" from the Peer Gynt Suite. In the exercise in the
bottom system, Bloch places the florid line from Example a
177
on page 217 against the ornamented cantus firmus. Above
this exercise, he indicates that it is one of his "addi-
tional" examples:
Add. a (July 7)
Because he was now dealing with manuscripts which had been
compiled several months earlier, Bloch faced a definite lim-
itation in entering new exercises in Books IV-VI: they
could only be inserted where there was a previously unused
or page. there are far fewer added
examples in these notebooks than in Books I-III.
With the exception of the exercise designated "Add.
a," the examples on pages 217-18 were originally notated in
pencil. This may be indicative of the general manner in
which Bloch worked at his studies. The pencil version was
advantageous as a first step because it could be easily cor-
rected; and when he had arrived at a satisfactory draft,
Bloch confirmed the final version of the examples by copy-
ing over them in ink. Yet for the majority of the exer-
cises in Books IV-VI, there are no markings in pencil. Pos-
sibly he developed these exercises on a loose sheet before
using pen to enter them into the notebooks. Alongside a
very small number of examples, Bloch, with evident pride,
makes the comment "directly in ink."
The contents of Book V were drafted between April
21 and May 23. On July 7, Bloch added a few new studies
178
and numbered the pages and exercises. In this case he had
space to notate a table of contents as well:
[pages] [exercises]
MODUS AEOLIUS 263-269 897-907
M. HYPOAEOLIUS CF 269
Exercises 270-296 908-1013
MODUS IONIUS 2 ~ n - 3 1 8 1014-1108
II
HYPOIONIUS 319-325 1109-1141
179
Book. V--p. -i.Ct7
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181
Pages 297-98 of Book V contain the first thirteen
examples in an extended series of studies on a cantus fir-
mus in the Ionian mode. It is interesting to find Bloch so
attentive to this particular cantus firmus because the
first four notes of the melody represent the same motif
that is featured prominently in his Sacred Service. In one
of his later counterpoint notebooks, to be discussed below,
there is explicit evidence of a connection between the con-
trapuntal studies and the Sacred Service. But it is sig-
nificant that this motif appears to have fascinated Bloch
in the "regular work" as well. In fact, in the course of
Books I-VI he composes cantus firmi starting with the motif
not only in modus ionius, but also in the Hypoionian, Lydi-
an (with B ~ ) , and Mixolydian modes. On page 297 he enters
eight exercises, marked a-h, above the cantus firmus. Four
examples below the cantus firmus, i-1, appear atop page
298. The bottom system contains Example m, in double coun-
terpoint at the octave. Bloch finally uses the cantus fir-
mus in his third stage of studies and for canonic exercises
in the pages which follow.
From May 14 to May 24, Bloch drafted exercises on
the opening pages of Book VI, completing the examples in
modus hypoionius. On May 25, he began a new series of exam-
ples devoted to the study of double counterpoint at the
twelfth, and with this section the "regular work" comes to
an end. Book VI was paginated, and the exercises it
182
contains were numbered on July 7. No examples marked "addi-
tional" appear in the particular volume; there is, however,
a brief table of contents:
Hypo-ionius (suite)
(from 114 2-) . . . h
Double Counterpoint at the 12t
Studies in all modes
[pages] [exercises]
326-349 1142-1235
350-384 1236-1277
183
&wk. .YI--p. 350
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184
Book.. VI--p. 351
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189
As has been mentioned, Bloch gives little attention
to the writing of double counterpoint at the twelfth in pre-
vious pages of the notebooks. That he devotes a final sec-
tion of the "regular work" to this phase of study attests
again to his aim for a comprehensive exposition of contra-
puntal technique. On page 350 of Book VI, Bloch outlines
the basic principles of the technique in preparation for
the exercises to follow: he notes that the interval of a
sixth between the voices is to be handled with particular
care; it must be
. used as a passing note, or prepared .
He then points out that the notation of the studies is best
handled by using clefs separated by the interval of a
fifth. Next, he makes mention of the fact that the dis-
tance between voices should not exceed the interval of a
twelfth. Finally, he offers the simple scheme by which the
parts can be inverted:
One may transfer a [the lower voice] (an octave
above) [and] b [the upper voice] a fifth below = Qg
or b an octave below and a a fifth above = QD
These principles are illustrated in the exercises
on page 351. The procedure which Bloch has designated Qg
is used for the example in the top system: in the fourth
measure, what was initially the lower voice appears on the
top staff, one octave higher than originally notated; at
190
the same time, the upper voice is transposed down the inter-
val of a fifth. In the second system, he demonstrates the
use of urr midway through the example the lower voice is
transferred to the top staff, raised by the interval of a
fifth, and the upper voice is written an octave lower.
Bloch puts to use the convenience of choosing clefs a fifth
apart as a matter of practical convenience; by notating the
respective parts in tenor and bass clefs, for instance, the
voice which is transposed by the interval of a fifth is
merely copied; it occupies the same position on either
staff. Bloch's mention of the rule not to exceed the inter-
val of a twelfth between voices reverts to the typical con-
sideration involved in double counterpoint at the twelfth:
inverted, the twelfth results in the unison, and if the
voices rise above or fall below the twelfth the object of
inversion is forfeited.
At the top of page 351 Bloch writes:
(after Orlando di Lasso--no. 23)
In drafting this study, Bloch used as a model a two-part
instrumental piece from the edition of Lassus's Complete
Works (Volume I, edited by Franz Haberl). The instrumental
piece is in itself an example of double counterpoint at the
twelfth. With regard to phrase length, disposition of
voices, and rhythmic motion, Bloch's exercise on the first
system of page 351 follows Lassus's work closely. But
Bloch freely alters the melodic writing.
191
The whole-note melody appearing in the lower voice
at the beginning of the first example on page 351 serves as
a cantus firmus for the initial studies in this section of
Book VI. Below the pair of exercises in double counter-
point at the twelfth on page 351, Bloch enters a single ex-
ample in double counterpoint at the octave. With the exer-
cise at the top of page 352, he returns to the inversion at
the twelfth, and this remains his exclusive concern in the
studies that follow.
On page 353, Bloch drafts an example for the specif-
ic purpose of addressing technical problems involved in
using the interval of a sixth between voices. Unlike other
consonant intervals, the sixth results by the inversion of
double counterpoint at the twelfth in a dissonance (a sev-
enth) and thus must be treated with special care. In the
example on page 353, Bloch makes a mark (+) to indicate
intervals of a sixth between voices in measures 2, 3, and
4. His writing of the lower voice in these cases is such
that when the parts are inverted, the resulting sevenths
(in measures 6, 7, and 8) are properly prepared andre-
solved as 7-6 suspensions. Conversely, the sixths which
represent the resolution of the suspensions in measures 6-8
are variously inverted to a seventh as a passing tone
(measures 2 and 3), and to a second tone in a cambiata
figure (measure 4).
In a concluding series of examples in double
192
counterpoint at the twelfth, which begins on page 359,
Bloch introduces greater rhythmic activity in the voices.
He writes at the top of the page:
Exercises free in both parts (no CF)
The section of Book VI devoted to the study of
double counterpoint at the twelfth was completed on May 31,
and with that Bloch concluded his original draft of the
exercises constituting "regular work." The next day, he be-
gan the process of copying these exercises into notebooks,
adding to them the newly composed examples which he refers
to as "additional.'' Over a period of several weeks he thus
compiled the series designated as Books I-III, and put into
final shape three volumes already on hand (Books IV-VI).
On June 25, Bloch left for a holiday in Europe; and thus it
was aboard the vessel "Fella", that he made his final entry
in Book VI (in the lower right-hand corner of page 384),
confirming that the copying and the compilation of the
"regular work" was completed on July 7.
Perhaps as early as July 8 a new contrapuntal proj-
ect was begun--the "special studies"--that was to occupy
Bloch for the remainder of the month. The second exercise
in the series of "special studies" is dated July 10, so it
is likely that the first of these exercises was written one
or two days earlier. With his characteristic concern for
designing a compact body of documents, Bloch began entering
193
the "special studies" in the pages of Book III which he had
left unused a week or so earlier. He makes a supplementary
annotation in the volume's table of contents:
[pages]
Special Studies in Two Part Counterpoint
. Imitations by augmentation
after Josquin des Pres . . 168-175
Agnus Dei
Benedict us
(after Josquin d. P.)
II
Study of Motet
176-181
Study of First Sentence in all modes
(Darius, Phrygius, Lydius, Mixolydius)
continuation in book VII
p. 387 182-207
[exercises]
1278-1287
1288-1291
1292-1337
The "special studies'' may be divided into three
sections, each of which is devoted to a distinct aspect of
the contrapuntal art. The first section is concerned with
imitation by augmentation. The second section contains
only a few exercises, and in these the primary emphasis is
on strict canonic writing at the unison. In the final sec-
tion, the longest and most substantial of the three, Bloch
examines a variety of procedures under the heading "study
of motet." Bloch made it clear by including these sections
in Book III that he intended them as a continuation of the
"regular work"; and indeed, this material may be viewed as
a more extensive treatment of procedures Bloch had dealt
with in the earlier series of exercises. At the same time,
there is a certain orientation evident in the new project
194
that has no parallel in the 1277 exercises leading up to
it. In the "regular work," Bloch's attention is centered
upon special technical aspects involved, as a rule, in com-
bining of contrapuntal voices with a cantus firmus. The
thrust of the "special studies," on the other hand, is
toward aspects of musical structure relevant to the course
of actual composition.
The "special studies" emerge as a section distinct,
not only from the preceding material in the notebooks, but
from the entire body of Bloch's contrapuntal writings. In
the "regular work" we see Bloch pursuing his own contrapun-
tal exercises, while the manuscripts dating from Cleveland
and the "Studies in Configuration" contain analyses of the
Renaissance repertory. In the "special studies" these two
areas of inquiry are merged. It seems that Bloch examined
a given composition for the purpose of receiving instruc-
tion in a particular contrapuntal procedure, and then
worked out his own sample of the technique, incorporating
whatever aspects of the original composition he found inter-
esting. Such aspects, however, generally do not involve
the thematic or rhythmic details one might naturally expect
to find as references in comparing exercise and model.
Bloch was invariably intrigued by more subtle features of
the musical texture, and these became the basis for the
examples included in the "special studies."
195
Book. III--p. 168
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204
The first of the three sections constituting the
"special studies" begins on page 168 of Book III. Bloch
introduces the section with this remark:
. Imitations by augmentation /
from Josquin des Pres Missa L'Homme Arme
(Benedictus p. 24)
He found in the "Benedictus" an excellent example illustrat-
ing the technique of canon by augmentation. Josquin sets
this passage of the mass text in a two-voice texture. The
voices enter at the same time, and the contrapuntal line
which is stated in the first eight measures of the lower
voice appears in augmentation over the course of sixteen
measures in the upper voice.
This description serves for Bloch's example on
pages 168-69 as well. Bloch also responds to several other
features of the "Benedictus" in writing the exercise. The
exercise begins on d and is concluded on a, or as Bloch
expresses it on page 168, "(dorius--aeolius) ." In the
upper right-hand corner of page 169, he writes "8+8+(2) .''
This refers to the phrase structure--one eight-measure
unit, followed by a second eight-measure unit, after which
the final tone is held out for two measures. There is a
further point of structural articulation, as Bloch's brack-
et above the lower voice indicates, in measures 4-5 on page
168: because the two voices move in strict canon, this
cadential gesture also provides structural definition in
205
the upper voice, measures 8-9. In all these respects,
Bloch's exercise is identical with the excerpt from the
Missa l'Homme armt. Perhaps the only way in which the
exercise and its model differ with respect to structure is
that the points of arrival in measures 5 and 9 in the study
emphasize i, while in the corresponding measures of the
"Benedictus" the contrapuntal lines conclude on a. Yet,
there are no prominent similarities between the exercise
and the excerpt with regard to melodic or rhythmic
conformation.
Bloch makes a further comment pertaining to this
example on page 169:
In Josquin the_subject is kept integrally
By this he means that in the "Benedictus" the slower voice
adheres strictly to the melodic pattern introduced in the
faster voice. At the end of his own example, however,
Bloch does not maintain such a strict relationship between
the two voices. The bracket which he enters on page 168
above the lower voice (second system, first measure) marks
the point corresponding to that at which he eventually dis-
continues the canon (third measure, page 169) in order to
bring about a cadence. In a later notebook, where Bloch
also examines the writing of canon by augmentation, he com-
ments that the greatest difficulty of the technique is in
bringing the canonic texture to a satisfactory conclusion.
At the bottom of page 169, Bloch applies the prln-
ciples extracted from Josquin's work in designing another
exercise.
In this case, as his annotation indicates, a
pair of three-measure phrases in the lower voice is extend-
ed by augmentation to two six-measure phrases in the upper
voice "(3+3--6) ." He concludes the first section of the
"special studies" with eight more examples of imitation by
augmentation.
On page 176, begins the next section of exercises,
and for these uses two movements from another mass by
Josquin as a model:
Agnus Dei (after Josquin - Missa Gaudeamus - p. 77)
/
The Missa Gaudeamus and the Missa l'Homme arme are con-
tained in a single volume of the edition of Josquin's
Complete Works, the page numbers of which are referred to
by Bloch. He drafted four examples based on the Missa
Gaudeamus. Two of these, both modeled after very short
passages from the "Benedictus," are freely contrapuntal.
The other two studies--based on the "Benedictus" and the
"Agnus Dei"--are exercises in strict canon at the unison.
Josquin's "Agnus Dei" is a rather long movement in canonic
and Bloch's exercise on pages 176-77 represents a
considerably condensed version of the original design.
There are, however, general similarities so far as melodic
material is concerned.
207
In the third section of the "special studies" Bloch
uses compositions by Lassus as the basis for a series of
examples appearing under the title "study of motet." He
found models for his work in two sources. The first was a
series of two-part motets and instrumental pieces published
as Cantiones Duarum Vocum in the first volume of the Haberl
edition (Lassus's Samtliche Werke) which he had previously
drawn material from (in Book VI) for his studies in double
counterpoint at the twelfth. The other source for exer-
cises in this section is Lassus's Psalmi Poenitentiales.
Again, his reference to specific page numbers suggests that
he had Haberl's edition in his posession on board the
"Fella."
Bloch's practice in notating this portion of the
"special studies" was to copy out the opening measures of
the model into the notebook, and then to take up exercises
examining the characteristic features of the excerpt in the
subsequent pages. Bloch used his manuscript copy of the
motet solely for analytical observations, and thus the
"special studies" include analyses in greater detail than
those contained in any other section of the contrapuntal
writings. His principal concern in these pages continues
to be with various technicul aspects of contrapuntal
writing. But he also devotes considerable attention to the
question of modes.
As he did in the "regular work," Bloch presents
208
the examples representing the "study of motet" in order by
mode. In the earlier series of studies, the classification
of examples by mode was based on consideration of the melod-
ic structure and range of the respective cantus firmi. The
discussion of modal structure in the polyphonic repertory
involves entirely different criteria. Bloch tends to deal
with modes in a manner which reflects a theoretical orienta-
tion of his time: modal centers are regarded essentially
as tonal centers; he refers to "modulations" from one mode
to the next, and to "tonic" and "dominant." At the same
time, he seems to have sensed the inappropriateness of such
analysis for sixteenth-century music, and his efforts to
come to terms with the nature of harmonic structure in
Renaissance polyphony result necessarily in a dichotomy of
terms.
Bloch's discussion on page 194 (Book III) of the
fifth motet in the Cantiones Duarum Vocum is a case in
point. At the outset, he designates the excerpt as an ex-
ample in the Phrygian mode. In the upper right-hand corner
of the page he uses solfege syllables to demonstrate that,
in actuality, it is "Phrygian transposed"--on a with a key
signature of one flat. On the uppermost staff, Bloch
writes out a transposed Phrygian scale, and uses it for a
schematic outline of the beginning of the motet. He places
a mark (X) above the tone a, and (to the left) designates
a as final of "Phrygian." The same mark appears above the
209
tone , which is designated (to the right) as final of
"Aeolian." This pair of marks, in turn, corresponds to
Bloch's markings above the opening of the lower and upper
voices: thus, the lower voice, which enters on a, is to be
understood as conversely, the upper voice, en-
tering on d, is "Aeolian." Bloch refers again to the open-
ing measures of the motet ("Starts:") on the left-hand side
of the second staff, where he notates the tones on which
the voices enter. But in this case, he further designates
the "Phrygian" final with a "T," meaning tonic; the
"Aeolian" final (d) is labeled "(U-d) ,"or Unter-dominante.
Thus, in considering the excerpt from the stand-
point of mode, Bloch regarded the "Phrygian'' final as the
most important-tone in the musical texture and accordingly
placed the excerpt among other examples in the Phrygian
mode. (The end of the motet, not included in the excerpt
given here, is also on the "Phrygian" final, But on
the right-hand side of the second staff, he makes annota-
tions showing the "modern" interpretation. He reduces the
first melodic line of each voice to a schematic diagram.
(For the purposes of this diagram only, Bloch's notation is
"in C"--i.e. transposed so that it appears without sharps
or flats in the key signature.) In this case; he marks the
"Aeolian" final with "T," and above the "Phrygian" final he
writes "D," or dominant. Accordingly, in his harmonic
interpretation it. was the "Aeolian" final d which struck
210
Bloch as the most prominent tone. Hence, his comment (at
the bottom of the page) that the motet
Can be considered "Aeolian"
And as for the ending of the entire motet on the "Phrygian"
final a:
(ends then on V (Phrygian)
The rest of Bloch's observations have to do with
certain details of the musical texture. He notes that
there are subtle differences between the initial phrase in
the upper and lower voice: in the lower voice, the range
of the opening contrapuntal line extends a second above and
a fifth below the first tone of the first measure; the
range of the upper voice, on the other hand, covers a third
above and a fourth below its first tone. Bloch comments:
Thus, the imitation contains in germ the future
TONAL answer of the fugue.
He is also intrigued by Lassus's use of a variety of inter-
vals between imitative entrances of the two voices, as is
indicated by the numbers appearing between the two staves
throughout the excerpt. He notes that in the first system
the imitative points are separated by the interval of a
fourth, a fifth, and again a fifth. In the second system,
imitation proceeds by the interval of a sixth, an octave
and a fifth. He draws a schematic diagram of this
211
procedure at the bottom of page 194:
All of the structural details pointed out in the
excerpt are used for the exercise on page 195. Bloch notes
a similar variety of intervals between the points of
imitation:
. th th th th th
(about Same pattern!) 4 5 5 6 8 coda
'----J L....l ~
In the opening phrase the upper voice forms a "tonai
answer." And the entire exercise moves from Phrygian a at
the beginning to a final cadence on Aeolian d.
On page 196, there are two more examples after the
fifth motet in Cantiones Duarum Vocum. In these exercises
Bloch is less concerned with examining the established se-
quence of intervals between points of imitation. But the
study at the top of the page again features a "tonal
answer" in the upper voice, and both examples on page 196
illustrate the characteristic motion from Phrygian to
Aeolian. About the example at the top of the page Bloch
remarks:
(Aeolian . . . more than Phrygian nt start)
For this reason, he chooses for the opening point of imita-
tion in the last example on page 196 a motif from the
212
section of exercises in modus phrygius contained in the
"regular work" (Book II, page 106, exercise 410).
The exercises for the Phrygian mode in the "study
of motet" are preceded by a series of examples in modus
dorius which are studies after excerpts from six different
motets. The examples in the Phrygian mode are based on
four excerpts from compositions of Lassus. In taking up
studies in the Lydian mode, Bloch makes this comment:
(no good ex. in 0. d. L.)
Thus, for modus lydius he composes three short exercises not
based on models.
Pages 206-07 contain the study of a single excerpt
in the Mixolydian mode. In the first system on page 206
Bloch copies out the initial six measures of the tenth motet
from Cantiones Duarum Vocum. He notes that the upper voice
enters on the fifth degree of the scale ("5") and that the
lower voice enters on "T." But what appears to have cap-
tured his interest above all is the "harmonic" motion in the
excerpt, beginning in Mixolydian and concluding in "dorian."
He then pursues this particular aspect of the motet in a se-
ries of seven exercises, a-g, on pages 206-07 which are
introduced as
Ex. by EB. End in diff. modes
What is particularly challenging about the task Bloch has
213
set for himself is that the material in the first four meas-
ures of each exercise is essentially the same--clearly de-
rived from the opening measures of the motet. It then be-
comes a matter of successfully guiding this material to a
different mode in each exercise over the course of two or
three measures. On page 206, Bloch indicates that Examples
a and b conclude in the Dorian mode, and that Example c
forms a cadence in the Phrygian mode. His first two exer-
cises on page 207, Examples c and d, end in the Aeolian and
Ionian modes, repectively. For Example f, he designates
the final cadence as being in the Phrygian mode. (The last
two measures of the lower voice were erroneously notated a
third too low.) The final exercise of the series, Example
g, concludes in the Ionian mode.
With the exercises on page 207, Bloch used up the
space that had been available in Book III. He continues
his examination of excerpts in the Mixolydian mode in Book
VII, which he prefaces with this annotation:
[pages]
Ctp. 2 Voices Study of Motet (cont)
First Sentence (modus Mixolydius)
cont. fr. Book III 387[-413]
[exercises]
1338[-1382]
(The numbering of the exercises continues from the "special
stuaies" contained in Book III, but the pagination of Book
VII continues from Book VI.) Bloch drafts exercises in
modus mixolydius after two excerpts from works by Lassus,
214
and these are followed by a series of studies in the
Aeolian mode. With the section of examples in modus
aeolius he notes:
(no ex. in 0. d. Lasso)
The exercises in the Aeolian mode are therefore again not
based on any model. The final section of the "study of
motet" consists of exercises on excerpts from five dif-
ferent motets in modus ionius.
215
Book VII--p. 403
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217
Book VTT--p. 405
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219
The last of the five excerpts in the Ionian mode, a
passage in two-part texture from Lassus's Psalmi Poeniten-
tiales, appears on page 403 of Book VII, and it is intro-
duced with this remark:
(very curious and uncommon)
In examining the example Bloch divides it essentially into
two sections. He notes that the first five measures of the
excerpt are written in double counterpoint: the two contra-
puntal lines in measures 1-3 are inverted at the twelfth in
measures 4-5. And he points out that Lassus also changes
the order in which the voices enter. In measures 1-3 the
entrance of the upper voice precedes the entrance of the
lower voice by a full measure; in measures 4-5, however,
this order is reversed, as the original lower voice (now
inverted to the upper voice) begins one-half measure before
the other one.
The passage in double counterpoint gives way to a
different contrapuntal texture in the sixth measure, and
this marks the start of what Bloch regarded as the second
section of the excerpt. Here the writing consists of free
imitation characterized by short melodic patterns which are
interchanged in the two voices in relatively rapid succes-
sion. Lassus also frequently altered the interval separat-
ing the imitative voices, as well as the order in which the
voices enter. Bloch's observations on the excerpt address
220
these various aspects of texture. He indicates that in the
first point of imitation, beginning with the end of the
first system, the lower voice follows the upper voice at
the interval of a seventh. In the third measure of the
second system, as he points out, the contour of the first
imitative line is inverted: "Contrary--." His brackets in
the last two measures of the second system identify a new
point of imitation--one which (as his markings show) is
begun at the interval of a sixth, and subsequently widened
to an octave. In the third system (third and fourth meas-
ures) Bloch notes that the imitation is at the interval of
a fifth. The marks ( ~ / ) in the concluding measures of the
third system give evidence of his attention to the espe-
cially lively contrapuntal exchange between the voices at
that point. He uses another mark ( ~ ) to point out
chromaticism (such as d ~ and a ~ in the third system).
The excerpt contains many similar contrapuntal
details to which Bloch makes no explicit reference; it was
merely the general character of this passage from the
Psalmi Poenitentiales that intrigued him. His interest is
documented in two exercises which appear on pages 404-06 of
Book VII. The first entry on page 404 (top three staves)
is a diagram examining the order in which the voices enter
in measures 1-3 of the excerpt. He remarks:
note the time of possible imitation
221
The remaining space on page 404 is used for the first of
his two exercises. The exercise begins with nine measures
of double counterpoint at the twelfth, followed by sixteen
measures of free imitative counterpoint. As in the work by
Lassus, the first point of imitation (second system) shows
the two voices separated by the interval of a seventh. In
the fourth measure of the second system, the point of imita-
tion is melodically inverted. In the fifth and sixth meas-
ures of the second system the writing--particularly the em-
phasis placed on d ~ --closely resembles a passage from the
excerpt (end of the second system on page 403). Bloch
frequently introduces the raised fourth a ~ as well.
The second exercise based on this excerpt appears
on pages 405-06. Again, the study begins with a passage in
double counterpoint at the twelfth. Free imitative writing
is featured beginning with the second measure in the second
system, and it continues for the remainder of the exercise.
In this case the first imitative line is answered immediate-
ly by its inversion, and throughout the two imitative
voices are separated by the interval of a seventh.
The exercises appearing on pages 404-06 represent
the essence of Bloch's approach to the polyphonic repertory
in "study of motet." One sees clearly that it was not his
intention to use the excerpts literally in designing his
exercises. His examination of the models was rather guided
by a his creative orientation, and his observations led to
222
independent studies in composition. This orientation shows
a certain parallel to the parody technique of earlier
eras. There are three additional examples by Lassus that
Bloch copies out on pages 407, 409, and 413 of Book VII,
presumably to serve as the basis for further contrapuntal
studies. But no corresponding exercises were undertaken,
and the pages following the respective examples are blank.
Thus, it is with the exercise on pages 405-06 (exercise
1381 in the numerical order given) that the San Francisco
studies come to a close. Bloch's annotations show that the
examples on pages 404-06 were written on August 1 and
August 2, coinciding with his arrival in Europe. They
represent the conclusion of a project which had occupied
the composer over the course of six months.
There are, however, three further notebooks of
contrapuntal exercises which are of the same size as the
seven volumes containing the San Francisco studies of
1928. From Bloch's dating, we gather that these three
manuscripts were compiled in January and February of 1930.
The earliest of the three contains examples in two-part
counterpoint. On the cover of this volume Bloch entered
the number IX. Thus, there was an eighth notebook to
precede it. In fact, in reviewing the contents of the
notebooks at some later date, Bloch made an annotation (in
pencil) at the bottom of page 109 of Book II:
223
See additional book VIII
The eighth notebook seems not to have survived. But, like
Book IX, it was evidently a later addition to the series of
volumes containing two-voice contrapuntal studies. After
the completion of the "study of motet" Bloch left a substan-
tial number of pages in Book VII empty; had he done further
work in counterpoint during August of 1928, he would have
used the available space in Book VII, in accordance with
his habit, prior to beginning a new manuscript.
As for Book IX, Bloch makes it clear from his anno-
tations that its contents were intended as a supplement to
the earlier studies. The new exercises are largely devoted
to the same technical procedures he had examined in the
"special studies" included in Book III. Bo6k IX is intro-
duced with a table of contents: (Bloch does not number the
exercises contained in Book IX, and its pagination is inde-
pendent of the seven preceding manuscripts.)
Additional Counterpoint
Special Studies in Two Parts (after Josquin)
Add. to Book III--page 168--Example 1278
(27 new examples in all modes)
Ex. in basso Ostinato in all modes (15 Ex.)
Imitationes strictes a l'unisson (d'apres
Josquin Missa Gaudeamus) (add. to B.III
ex. 1288) new ex. in all modes (22)
Add. to Ex. 1289-90-91 (After Josguin)
----(Benedictus same mass) (6)
[pages]
1-18
19-30
31-50
51-54
224
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233
The contents of Book IX may be divided into four
sections, three of which are directly related to portions
of Book III. Bloch begins with three studies in canon by
augmentation (pages 1-2):
Imitations by augmentation (unisson) Jan. 9 1930
Add. to Example 1278--(Book III)
The first exercise appears in the upper two systems of page
1. The second exercise, which is written out in the third
and fourth systems of the page, is marked "Dorius-Aeolius,"
i.e. the exercise begins on ~ and ends on a. A third exer-
cise appears in the first three systems of page 2, and here
Bloch encountered a problem. In measures 13-15 of the exer-
cise the two voices cross a number of times in succession.
Following the conclusion of the exercise (in the third and
fourth systems of page 2), he enters a revision:
ossia fromtF to change the range of voices around
Yet, in measures 13-15 the upper voice consists of material
stated previously in the lower voice, and Bloch realized
that if the canonic relationship between the voices was to
be maintained, any change in the top voice would have to be
anticipated in the preceding statement of the canon. Conse-
quently he saw himself compelled to revise the concluding
eleven measures of the exercise, and he placed the mark4F
above the last measure in the first system on page 2 to
234
indicate the point at which the corrected version is to be
inserted.
Bloch's main attention in these exercises goes to
the problem of coordinating canonic voices with an overall
structure. This is particularly evident from his annota-
tions for the third exercise. In this study the augmenta-
tion of the canonic line becomes the object of the upper
voice. The whole exercise is organized in two symmetrical
parts: the first half (measures 1-8) leads to a cadence at
mid-point; the second half (measures 9-17) leads to the
final cadence. In the first half, the lower voice consists
of two four-measure phrases which are, as Bloch points out,
articulated by cadential gestures. He notes:
observe + E9 for cadences
He places one of these marks ( ~ ) above the cadential turn
in the lower voice (measure 4); the second mark (+) appears
at a corresponding point in the lower voice, (measure 8).
Bloch seems to emphasize that the first eight meas-
ures in the lower voice provide, in effect, the structure
of the entire example. The first phrase in the lower voice
(measures 1-4) is extended by augmentation in the upper
voice over the first half of the study (measures 1-8), and
when the cadential formula introduced in the lower voice
(measure 4) appears in the upper voice (measure 8), it
gains structural significance. Similarly, in the second
235
half of the study (measures 9-17) the upper voice presents
the augmentation of the phrase which had initially appeared
in measures 5-8 in the lower voice, and the cadential turn
in the lower voice (measure 8) becomes the final cadence.
(In measures 9-17 the lower voice, having already stated
both phrases of the canon, consists of a free contrapuntal
line against the canonic melody in the upper voice.) What
makes this emphasis of structure significant is that it
suggests a formula for the construction of the canons by
augmentation. The same procedure is found in Josquin's
"Benedictus" on which Bloch's initial studies examining
this technique were based (in Book III), so that he appar-
ently devised this approach in conjunction with his analy-
sis of the excerpt from Josquin's works.
Bloch wrote a total of twenty-seven examples in can-
on by augmentation in Book IX as a supplement to the exer-
cises devoted to this technique in Book III. Conversely,
the next section of exercises in Book IX, which begins on
page 19 of the manuscript, has no counterpart in the ear-
lier studies. It contains exercises placing a free contra-
puntal line in the upper voice against an ostinato figure
in the lower voice. Bloch notes on page 19 that he found
an example for this work in Josquin's Missa La Sol FaRe
Mi.
The most interesting exercises of those contained
in this section of Book IX appear on pages 23-26; in fact,
236
having been on display at one time for this reason, they
suffered damage that has somewhat impaired their legibil-
ity. suzanne Bloch added an explanatory note:
1h 1!/.JJt. /w., }o c. Ji/.> vi t-tt. rnwtlt c.:fzJ. w
m 0 /Jd itv

ltj{, 7 ,;-- t.i-,1 4wul.. l'it.l
Stvfohp:,eL). i. C<V=>e__ W>4l
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Jc,rt;L rw tkudj !zz !.-
-'<! cwu. tfZ 0 A. n<-ru .(r"'f tf4 _ }"-L. w.._,_
tLn-. '--' 1 It /J n.':J ).evt->J;,m _..;, ,.., Jt<_
"-4'7 ,.:> f.- '14fc. If_ wuJ;:u;.t -

ft h d S ide of' page 23 and the Affected were only the le - an
right-hand side of page 24.
237
Pages 23-26 are noteworthy because they represent
one of the cases in the contents of the collection where we
find an explicit connection between Bloch's pedagogical
writings and his own compositions. The exercises on these
pages feature a six-note ostinato bass in the Mixolydian
mode. Bloch comments on this Mixolydian melody at the top
of page 23:
(for possible Jewish Service) Jan 15th 1930
He did, in fact, make this six-note passage a fundamental
melodic component in his Sacred Service, completed in 1933.
Bloch writes out the ostinato on the first staff
(page 23), and he uses it as the basis for three exercises
in duple meter. He does not deviate from the melodic pat-
tern of the ostinato, but he continually varies its rhythm.
The exercises, designated a-c, begin on page 23, continue
to the first system of page 24, and are concluded at the
bottom of page 24. Exercise a appears on the staff direct-
ly above the bass. Exercise b is written out on the second
staff from the top. The notes on the latter are notated in
tenor clef (not immediately apparent due to the present
state of the manuscript) . The uppermost staff contains
Exercise c, which begins in imitation of the melodic pat-
tern of the ostinato. On pages 25-26, Bloch adds three
exercises, again marked a-c, in triple meter against the
same Mixolydian melody in the bass. Exercise a, which is
238
written directly above the bass, begins in imitation of the
ostinato line. Exercises b and c appear on the upper two
staves.
The second section of Book IX contains a total of
fifteen exercises based on four different ostinato figures.
With the third section of exercises, which begins on page
31 of the manuscript, Bloch returns to studies to supple-
ment material in Book III:
Add. to No 1288 Imitations l'unisson (after
Josquin--Missa p.7).
Modus Darius (Jan 17 )
Exercise 1288, which is based on the "Agnus Dei" from the
Missa Gaudeamus, appears on page 168 of Book III. It is
the only study in Book III devoted to the technique of
strict canon at the unison--possibly the reason why Bloch
undertook these supplementary studies (numbering twenty-two
exercises in all) in Book IX.
As in the "Imitations by augmentation," Bloch is
concerned with the problem of cadential structure. He
comments atop page 32:
The end cadences are the most difficult part of it.
Here are a few examples in modus darius
The three exercises appearing on page 32 (also marked a-c)
seem to represent only the concluding measures of what were
presumably longer studies in canonic writing. Bloch draws
brackets above the canonic lines in each exercise to
239
emphasize the way in which the strict relationship between
the voices is maintained throughout and in which the ca-
dence concluding the exercise must be anticipated by the
preceding statement of the canonic material.
On page 37 appears a study in strict canon at the
unison in modus lydius. Bloch writes at the top of the
page in pencil:
used in Sacred Service end of III!
The remark, obviously added at a later time, refers to his
use of this material in the section at the end of the third
part of the Sacred Service entitled "Lecho Adonoy," another
explicit connection between the contents of Book IX and the
Sacred Service. But this case is somewhat different from
the exercises on pages 23- 26. Bloch's use of the Mixo-
lydian ostinato figure in the earlier studies occurred
clearly in view of beginning work on the Sacred Service,
and the studies on the ostinato served as a preliminary
investigation of contrapuntal possibilities inherent in the
six-note melody. But initially he seems to have had no
intention that the exercise on page 37 would be included in
the Sacred Service, his decision to use this material aris-
ing at some later date and at a more advanced stage of work
on the composition: the two-voice texture is incorporated,
exactly as it appears on page 37, in the orchestral score
at the culminating measures of part III of the Sacred
240
Service, the only changes being that the original note
values were halved, and that the entire canon was
transposed to c (with a key signature of one sharp).
Bloch completes the studies in strict canon at the
unison on page 50 of Book IX. Pages 51-54 constitute the
final section of the manuscript, identified as follows:
Add to Nos. 1289-90-91 (after Benedictus by Josquin
from Missa Gaudeamus) (Book III)
This notation refers to six examples which, like exercises
1289-91, are freely contrapuntal. Bloch's dating indicates
that Book IX was completed on January 24. But it seems
that as early as January 19 he had begun a new project, de-
voted to the study of three-part counterpoint. The exer-
cises in three-part writing are contained in the last two
notebooks, identical in size with the others. Bloch desig-
nated them as Books I and II [of three-part counterpoint] .
In the first book Bloch undertakes a remarkably
thorough exposition of species centerpoint. The volume
opens with a brief table of contents:
III Part Ctp. Essays Jan 19 1930
Modus Dorius
Modus Phrygius
[pages]
1-34
35-56
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250
On the first staff of page 1 Bloch writes out a melody in
the Dorian mode, and it is used as a cantus firmus in the
exercises that follow. Pages 1-2 contain eleven examples
in first species: for Exercises 1-4 Bloch enters the anno-
tation "CF above"; for Exercises 5-8 his indication is "CF
middle"; for Exercises 9-11 (page 2) he notes "CF. in
Bass." At the bottom of page 2 he writes out examples in
second species counterpoint. He remarks:
Two notes ag. one--(using examples 1-11 when
possible)
As his comment suggests, Bloch returns frequently to the
first eleven studies in working out the subsequent exam-
ples. For instance, the first study in second species, on
page 2 (Exercise 12), is based on Exercise 1 from page 1;
similarly, Exercise 13 is based on the second example from
the preceding page. In these cases, Bloch devises studies
in various species essentially by embellishing the exer-
cises in note-against-note motion.
The studies in second species counterpoint are con-
eluded with Exercise 24. Beginning with Exercise 25, on
page 5 of the first book, Bloch takes up studies in triple
meter:
Three notes ag. one
In Exercises 25 and 26 the cantus firmus appears in the
upper voice. At the far right-hand side in the second
251
system Bloch gives an alternate ending for Exercise 26
("ossia") which incorporates an instance of syncopation
(adjusted to the triple meter pattern) in the middle voice.
This alternate version was added to correct an augmented
fourth between the lower g--in the
penultimate measure of the original ending. Bloch had
entered a mark to indicate his doubt about the dis-
sonance introduced on a turning note, as he also did in the
first exercise on the same page. Markings of this kind
appear with relative frequency in the first book, though
not with consistency.
The last study in triple meter, Exercise 31, is
notated on page 6. Exercises 32-37 (pages 7-8) are devoted
to third species counterpoint. For the examples on page 7,
Exercises 32-34, the cantus firmus is in the middle voice.
A mark ( appears above cambiata figures in Exercise 33.
In completing Exercise 34, Bloch noticed parallel fifths
between the outer voices leading to the penultimate meas-
ure, and he places a revised version (stems up) on the
lower staff:
ossia to avoid direct fifth between extreme parts.
On page 9 Bloch begins a series of six studies,
Exercises 38-43, in which the cantus firmus appears in
whole notes against quarter-note motion in one voice and
half-note motion in the other. These are followed on page
252
11 by exercises in fourth species counterpoint. Exercises
44-45 consist of whole notes in two voices and "Syncopa-
tions (and 2 notes here and there)" in the third voice.
Alongside Exercise 46, on page 11, Bloch notes that the
third voice now involves "only syncopations." He continues
the study of syncopation on page 13. Exercises 52-54
introduce a new texture: the cantus firmus is stated in
whole-notes and the other two voices feature syncopations
and half-note motion, respectively. He remarks:
Sync. and 2 notes (v. diff!)
He further notes of Exercise 53, in the second system:
rather theoretical! and ugly
He uses ditto marks to record the same comment next to the
exercise in the third system, but adds:
(somewhat more possible!)
His final studies in syncopation begin on page 15 with Exer-
cise 59. These examples involve quarter notes in one voice
and syncopations in the other against a whole-note cantus
firmus. They are concluded with Exercise 66.
In Exercises 67-103 Bloch is concerned with fifth
species counterpoint. These studies are introduced on page
18:
FLORID--(in one-two-three parts).
253
Exercise 67 (page 10) deals with florid writing in the
middle voice against whole notes in the outer parts. In
Exercise 68, he writes an alternate version of the pre-
ceding example ("ossia") with a different florid line in
the middle voice. In turn, Exercise 69 (at the bottom of
the page) is an embellished version of Exercise 68; it con-
sists of florid writing in both the middle and the lower
voices against the cantus firmus in whole notes.
With Exercise 103, Bloch completed his work on this
first cantus firmus. He then turned to additional studies
in florid counterpoint--Exercises 104-12--on a second Do-
rian melody. And, according to annotations in the manu-
script, on February 3 he began with examples in note-
against-note motion on a Phrygian cantus firmus. By Feb-
ruary 14 he had worked his way again through all species,
resulting in 59 exercises which complete the contents of
the first book. It is not clear if Bloch intended to work
out a similar series of studies on cantus firmi in the
other modes; if so, he must have abandoned his plans, for
the second notebook of studies in three-part writing is
devoted solely to excerpts from the polyphonic repertory.
Nevertheless, with the exercises in the first book he
explored virtually every possible combination of rhythmic
motion in a three-part texture, and in this respect the
volume indeed seems to exceed any traditional exposition of
. . 12
specles counterpolnt.
254
Bloch provided no dates for his work in Book II of
three-part counterpoint; but this second supplementary
manuscript was likely undertaken soon after the compilation
of the first. It contains excerpts from works by a number
of sixteenth-century masters. (A complete listing of the
contents of the second book is given below in Table 2.)
The composer represented most frequently is Lassus; Bloch
copied out passages from the Psalmi Poenitentiales and from
the Cantiones in three voices which were published in the
first volume of the Haberl edition. The excerpts in the
second book appear under the title
III Part Counterpoint Study of Beginnings
255
TABLE 2
EXCERPTS CONTAINED
IN BOOK II OF THREE-PART COUNTERPOINT
Lass us Psalmi Poenitentiales (p. 5)
Lass us Psalmi Poenitentiales (p. 28)
Lass us Psalmi Poenitentiales (p. 21)
Lass us "Christus resurgens" (Cantiones #27)
Lass us "0 Maria, clausus" (Cantiones #30)
Lassus "Domine Deus" (Cantiones #33)
Lassus "Cantate Domine" (Cantiones #41)
Lassus "Ecce, ecce" (Cantiones #47)
Lassus "Ego dixi" (Cantiones #50)
Lassus "Convertere, Domine" (Cantiones #51)
Lassus "Verum caro" (Cantiones #54)
Josquin
/
Missa l'Homme arme "Kyrie"
"Et in terra"
"Et in Spriritum Sanctum".
"Agnus Dei"
Josquin "Solomon autem ('from a motet')" .
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Goudimel Missa le Bien que j'ay "Et ressurexit" . 16
"Benedictus" 17
Guerra Missa Puer qui natus est nobis "Benedictus" 18
Victoria Missa Ave Maris Stella "Et ressurexit" . 19
"Benedictus" 20
Palestrina Missa 0 Regem Coeli "Crucifixus" . 21
"Benedictus" . 22
, __
;_,._
..


v J
I
,.'I.A.. .... \ '":.j
I
'J ' .. -. '"' ... c.t-
256
t.il! l N;t "'r;J'" ;;:::t:+i.; , :;:, G
Book. II--p. 11
,. , ....... h!i.- - ',_,
: ., ? .
257
The excerpt appearing on page 11 is from one of the
three-part Cantiones by Lassus, and Bloch's observations
are concerned with various aspects of the texture.
Initially he notes:
With such narrow range Imitation can may[?] be
rudimentary
and he continues:
Observe free rhythm at start
As his diagram on page 11 shows, this comment refers to the
change in the temporal interval of imitative entrances. He
then turns his attention to the harmonic structure of the
example:
Cadences too (Dorian-Lydian-V of Dorian-Aeolian)
Thus he notes that the excerpt begins in the Dorian mode
and makes reference to cadences on other modal degrees in
measures 5, 8, and 12. A final comment appears at the
bottom of the page:
Observe especially crossings and (5th 6th 7th
measures) mutations of "chords" triads by means of
standing third especially
He was intrigued by the relatively static harmonies in meas-
ures S-6, where the writing consists primarily of the ex-
change between voices of tones representing triads on d and
f.
258
The second book contains a total of twenty-two
excerpts from the literature. Bloch's object in compiling
the manuscript was to study passages representing the open-
ing of a work, or of a section of a work (as it had been in
a similar collection of material in the manuscript dating
from the early 1920s--Strict III Part-counterpoint). But
there is no further indication of any systematic choice;
rather, Bloch's plan seems to have been to examine a wide
variety of contrapuntal techniques. There are few annota-
tions in the excerpts in the second book. The extended com-
ment on page 11, which has been discussed, is an exception.
Book II of three-part counterpoint forms the con-
clusion of the series of ten notebooks devoted to the study
of contrapuntal technique, in which Bloch gave his major
attention to writing his own exercises. Such an extended
course of study would represent an admirable achievement on
any count. That Bloch decided to undertake this project in
the fifth decade of his life, having gained international
prominence as a composer as well as a teacher of composi-
tion, is even more revealing of the premise of his work:
it was clearly not a question of mastering the "rules" of
counterpoint; rather, the notebooks were compiled in
pursuit of an ever-growing artistic interpretation of the
discipline, and this orientation is the determining aspect
in Bloch's approach to the instruction of counterpoint.
259
Footnotes
1
Suzanne Bloch, "Ernest Bloch--Student of Choral Music,"
American Choral Review 10 (1968): 52.
2
Roger Sessions, "Ernest Bloch," Modern Music 5 (1927-
28): 11.
3
carl Engel, "Bloch and the Library of Congress," Musical
America 48 (Nov. 10, 1928): 6.
4
The authenticity of this work, BWV 591, is doubted.
5
Nevertheless, we do know something about Bloch's use of
the excerpts in Counterpoint 2 Parts because they are
referred to in a Bloch manuscript housed at the of
Congress. This volume, catalogued under the title Theorie
musicale pt. 2 Counterpoint has a rather com-
plex history. Apparently, it was compiled, as its title
indicates, as a continuation of another manuscript at the
Library of Congress, Theorie musical et Harmonie
elementaire No. 1 (which volume, as has been explained, was
written for the elementary instruction of Suzanne Bloch;
see Chapter II of the present study, footnote 9.) This
assumption is supported by a number of considerations: for
example, Bloch dated the cover of musicale Pt. 2
"Dec. 1918"; and commentary in the initial pages is
entirely in French.
It seems Bloch decided at some later point to use
the volume for a more extensive discussion of contrapuntal
procedure. Thus, commentary in its second half is in
English; one finds examples by pupils from the Cleveland
Institute; and Bloch erased the earlier title from the
cover, replacing it with "Counterpoint II Parts." He then
added comments to examples throughout the manuscript book,
referring to the various excerpts from the literature that
he had copied out in Counterpoint 2 Parts.
The contents of Counterpoint II Parts offer a
complete exposition of the basic principles of two-part
writing--including the five species and imitative and can-
onic procedures. Among the students represented by illus-
trative examples are Bernard Rogers, Theodore Chanler, and
Suzanne Bloch. The instruction provided, like that in the
companion volume Theorie musicale et Harmonie elementaire,
is clearly intended for the beginning student, and the fact
that these two manuscripts were separated from the prin-
cipal collection suggests that Bloch may not have regarded
them as essential to the definitive writings he himself
compiled.
6
suzanne Bloch, "Ernest Bloch--Student of Choral Music":
53.
260
7
Johann Joseph Fux, The Study of Counterpoint, trans.
Alfred Mann (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1971),
pp. vii -xvi.
8
Heinrich Bellermann, Der Contrapunkt (4th ed.; Berlin:
Verlag von Julius Springer, 1901), p. VI. "Hauptsichlich
war es aber das gewaltige Genie und der tiefe kunstlerische
Sinn eines PALESTRINA und ORLANDUS LASSUS, wodurch der
reine A-capella-Gesang zu jener bewunderungswurdigen Klassi-
citat emporgehoben wurde. . in ihren Werken hersscht
ein Ebenmass der Form und vor allem ein Fluss in dem Ge-
sange einer jeden einzelnen Stimme, wie wir ihn von keinem
... sehen."
9
b. d VII " . 11 . h h
I 1 ., p. . w1r so en . . von 1 r anne men, was
wir durch ein Studium unserer heutigen Musik nicht erlernen
konnen."
10 .. . . "
"der selbst schon fur se1ne Ze1t veraltet war. after
the entry "Bellermann" in Riemann's Musiklexicon.
11
Fux, The Study of Counterpoint, p. 49.
12 . b. . th . .
Fux presents an exerc1se com 1n1ng e var1ous spec1es
at two points in his writing, and recommends this texture
on account of its beauty. But he leaves it to the student
to make a full examination of these combinations. See Fux,
The Study of Counterpoint, p. 93; 137.