An Introduction to My Doctoral Dissertation

Following the defence of my doctoral dissertation, Renaissance Improvised Counterpoint: Rethinking Concept, Cognition, and Aural Foundations, I have prepared this brief introduction to its main questions, methods, and contributions.

The research approaches the subject not only through historical treatises and other sources, but also as a form of musicianship that raises concrete questions about listening, memory, learning, and real-time musical creation. The text below summarises the overall structure of the dissertation and explains how these different aspects are brought together across its five chapters.

Overview of the Dissertation

Title: Renaissance Improvised Counterpoint: Rethinking Concept, Cognition, and Aural Foundations
Author: Vicente Parrilla López
Institution: KU Leuven / LUCA School of Arts
Programme: Doctor of the Arts (PhD), docARTES
Date of defence: 11 September 2026

The dissertation examines Renaissance improvised counterpoint, understood as the historical practice of adding one or more voices to a pre-existing melody in real time, according to contrapuntal principles and stylistic conventions. Although this practice constituted a fundamental skill in the training and professional activity of Renaissance musicians, its reconstruction today presents difficulties that cannot be resolved solely through the study of the rules transmitted in theoretical sources. The research therefore begins from a central question: what kinds of knowledge and skills allow historical and theoretical knowledge of counterpoint to become operational under the temporal constraints of improvisation?

The study combines historical musicology, music theory and analysis, practice-led artistic research, and research into aural perception and learning. Its primary sources are principally sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century counterpoint treatises, with particular attention to Iberian traditions and, especially, to authors such as Mateo de Aranda, Vicente Lusitano, and Melchor de Torres. The analysis of written sources is complemented by the practical reconstruction of their musical procedures, the systematic recording of historical examples, and experimentation developed from my perspective as a professional recorder player and improviser.

One of the dissertation’s central arguments is that an essential difficulty in recovering improvised counterpoint does not lie in the absence of documentary or analytical knowledge, but in the need for such knowledge to be used immediately in musical action. From this perspective, the research pays particular attention to the interaction between aural perception, memory, theoretical knowledge, and musical practice. More specifically, it investigates the rapid recognition and control of vertical intervallic relationships between voices as one of the foundations required for contrapuntal practice in real time.

The dissertation is structured in five chapters. Chapter 1 establishes the state of the art and situates the research at the intersection of three complementary fields: historical musicology, music theory and analysis, and research carried out by performer-researchers. It also defines the principal historical sources and sets out the methodological perspective of the project, in which musical practice functions not only as an outcome of research but also as a means of enquiry.

Chapter 2 critically examines the very concept of “improvisation” as applied to Renaissance contrapuntal practices. Against a modern conception that identifies improvisation with entirely spontaneous creation or with the absence of prior preparation, the chapter investigates the role of memory, repetition, aural internalisation, and previously learned patterns. Improvised counterpoint thus emerges as an activity in which retained and practised knowledge becomes available to the performer and is reorganised in real time.

Chapter 3 translates these conceptual problems into the domain of practical training. It focuses on the perception and control of vertical intervals and proposes vertical dictation as a modern preparatory tool for developing rapid aural recognition of relationships between voices. The aim is not to reconstruct a Renaissance pedagogical method literally, but to explore what kind of aural training might help present-day musicians acquire the skills required to operate musically with the procedures described in historical sources.

An important part of this research draws on the Corpus of Recorded Counterpoint Examples (CRCE), created as part of the dissertation. This open-access resource comprises 420 recordings corresponding to 276 contrapuntal examples and is organised into six datasets based on historical sources. The recordings transform written examples from theoretical treatises into repeatable sounding material for listening, analytical comparison, and practice. The corpus therefore constitutes both a research outcome and a methodological tool for investigating the aural and procedural dimensions of Renaissance counterpoint.

Chapter 4 addresses a complementary problem: stylistic and qualitative differentiation within improvised counterpoint. Its principal point of departure is the evaluative vocabulary and musical examples of Vicente Lusitano. Through the analysis of parameters such as syncopation, dissonance, imitation, and melodic organisation, the chapter examines how different combinations and degrees of these resources produce perceptibly different stylistic effects. The dissertation thus argues that historical practice involved not simply obeying or breaking rules, but also establishing priorities between procedures and making decisions concerning the quality, variety, and musical effectiveness of the result.

Finally, Chapter 5 evaluates the methodological consequences and principal contributions of the project. The dissertation proposes that improvised counterpoint should be understood as a form of musical knowledge emerging from the interaction of historical sources, analysis, listening, memory, and practice. Reconstructing this activity therefore requires declarative knowledge of contrapuntal rules to be complemented by processes that allow such knowledge to be brought into play during musical action in real time.

Taken as a whole, the research contributes to the study of Renaissance music theory, historical improvisational practices, contrapuntal pedagogy, and historically informed performance, while also developing open-access digital and audio resources for future research. Its interdisciplinary orientation connects musicological investigation of historical sources with questions concerning musical cognition, memory, aural learning, and artistic practice, with the broader aim of recovering improvised counterpoint not only as a historical object of study, but also as a form of musical creation that can be investigated and practised in the present.

Download the Dissertation

My dissertation is publicly available through KU Leuven’s LIRIAS repository.