Interrelationships between verbal and musical grammars

Abstract

This paper is part of a research on the theory of European melody carried out by a group made up of Rossana Dalmonte, Carlo Jacoboni and myself. Three repertoires have so far been taken into consideration: Lutheran Chorales, French Chansons of the eighteenth century and a collection of arias by Giovanni Legrenzi taken from his Cantatas op. 12 published in 1676. The general aim of our research is to discover the rules and conventions governing the production and the reception of European melodical structures. The method used in the analysis consists of a description of the repertoire under consideration, based on a hierarchical set of rules expressed in generative form. The description must be exhaustive and the rules must be necessary and self-consistent. These requirements are checked by a computer programme able to produce melodies in the style of the repertoire.