Joseph.— In this example
you have set the cantus firmus in the tenor clef. Is there any special
reason for that?
Aloys.— None, except that you
should keep becoming more familiar with the different clefs.
(Gradus ad Parnassum, Mann translation, p. 38)
Johann Joseph Fux, the most influential of Baroque pedagogues, is notorious
for retaining a modal approach to counterpoint in a period when newer tonalities
(governed by key signatures, the rule of the octave, and an expanded harmonic
vocabulary) were becoming widespread. Yet it can be deduced from his treatment
of clefs that he did not fully understand the system of modes used by sixteenth-century
composers to control voice ranges in a polyhonic texture. Throughout the
treatise, Fux studiously avoids the clef configuration which is normative
for the music of Palestrina, who is nevertheless symbolically cast as mentor
in the dialogue. In the passage quoted above, the technical reasons for
placing a cantus firmus in a particular clef are simply glossed over. Ultimately,
this led Fux to deny the plagal/authentic symbiosis in polyphonic modality,
and thus disavow both the historical tradition of mode in plainchant and
the carefully reasoned arguments of Renaissance modal theorists. His use
of modes, therefore, is no more than vestigial, and illustrates a significant
difference between Renaissance and Baroque attitudes to polyphony.