The avatars of modality: the transition from modality to tonality in the French Baroque.

Abstract

At what point can one analyze French 17th
-century music according to the procedures of
tonal composition? An element of answer can be found in the vocal repertory of the early
years of the century, in the air de cour, heir of the Renaissance polyphonic chanson.
From a formal point of view on one hand, the practice of intabulation results into the
scheme of a melody with continuo accompaniment; from the point of view of harmonic
thinking on the other hand, various symptoms (such as cadential procedures or a
reduction of the number of the modes) show that the modal theory, already weakened by
its insertion within a polyphonic tissue, tends to transforming itself into a harmonic, bimodal system.