Leonard de Hodemont’s Sacri Concentus. An analysis through the harmonic vectors

Abstract

Leonard de Hodemont’s (c1575-1636) Sacri Concentus consist in 58 compositions
for voices, instruments and continuo. They belong to a landmark in the evolution of
musical language. The paper tries to position them in the evolution towards the tonal
language. To this effect, it examines the degrees utilized as roots and the proportion
of dominant vs subsdominant vectors. This analysis allows an evaluation of the language
of these works without recourse to a vocabulary belonging to tonal analysis.