Keith CHAPIN, Temporal Modes and Symbolic Stakes: Strict Composition in Early Nineteenth-Century Europe

Abstract

This article examines the different notions and practices of ‘strict style’ that were in
circulation in the early nineteenth century. ‘Strict style’ could refer 1) to a
composer’s self-restriction to relatively fixed rules of dissonance control and part
writing, 2) to the cultivation of certain stylistic features, such as the combinations
and inversions of themes or the independence of multiple melodic lines within a
texture, and 3) to a certain character or aesthetic of strictness, a mood or a register.
These three approaches can be conceived as defining a continuum, with technical
understandings of the ‘strict style’ at one end and aesthetic ones at the other. In
addition, choice of approach had a bearing on the temporal character of the music
and, as a consequence, on the symbolic import. While the technical understanding
tended to demand tight control of the temporal flow, as in stile antico compositions,
and thus to offer a sonic image of stability and conservative values, the aesthetic
understanding allowed great latitude of choice and thus permitted composers to
fashion the highly teleological compositions that symbolized both modern times
and an appropriate rewriting of counterpoint.