Vicentino versus Palestrina: A computational investigation of voice leading across changing vocal densities

This paper details a corpus study examining Renaissance voice-leading practices. Palestrina’s masses are searched for progressions matching contrapuntal ‘rules’ taken from Vicentino (1555). Vicentino’s treatise provides a quasi-systematic organization of contrapuntal rules according to the minimum size of the vocal texture in which they ought to be set. Palestrina’s realizations of these progressions illustrate the exact size of vocal texture employed, enabling a direct comparison of theory and practice. The analysis reveals a general agreement, but suggests that Vicentino’s taxonomy is too strict. The results are examined in the context of uncovering guiding theoretical and perceptual principles.