A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Vertical and Horizontal Methods of Composition

VERTICAL (or PERPENDICULAR) and HORIZONTAL METHODS OF COMPOSITION. Two highly characteristic and expressive terms, used by modern critics for the purpose of distinguishing the method of writing cultivated by modern Composers from that practised by the older Polyphonists.

The modern Composer constructs his passages, for the most part, upon a succession of Fundamental or Inverted Chords, each of which is built perpendicularly upwards, from the bass note which forms its harmonic support, as in the example on p. 520 of the present Appendix.

The Polyphonic Composer, on the other hand, thinking but little of the Harmonies upon which his passages are based, forms them by weaving together, horizontally, two or more Melodies, arranged in contrapuntal form—that is to say, in obedience to a code of laws which simply provides for the simultaneous progression of the Parts, with the certainty that, if they are artistically woven together, the resulting Harmony cannot fail to be pure and correct; as in the example on pp. 580 and 581 of this Appendix.

[ W. S. R. ]