The Style of Palestrina and the Dissonance

This classic study remains one of the foremost works on the music of the sixteenth-century composer known as Palestrina. A rigorous and valuable analysis of the composer's handling of rhythm, line, and harmony, it explores his music in terms of the elements that constitute his personal style, isolating unusual vertical lines and establishing common and uncommon interval skips and rhythmic accents. A meticulous exploration of the treatment of dissonance in the composer's works is supplemented by a complete history of the evolving concept and treatment of dissonance before Palestrina that discusses the practices of composers such as Josquin Desprez, Gabrieli, Ockeghem, and Dunstable.