Res facta

(Lat.: ‘a made thing’).

A term first used by Tinctoris in his Terminorum musicae diffinitorium (c1472), where it is equated with cantus compositus and defined as ‘a composition produced through the relation of the notes of one part to another in multiple ways, commonly called res facta’. The term next appeared in Tinctoris's counterpoint treatise (Liber de arte contrapuncti, 1477, II.xx): ‘counterpoint, both simple and diminished, is made in two ways, in writing or in the mind’ (xx.2); ‘written counterpoint is commonly called res facta’ (xx.3); and ‘res facta differs from counterpoint in that all the parts of a res facta, three, four or more, should be mutually related, so that the order and law of concords … should be observed between each and all [parts]’ (i.e. not, as in counterpoint, just between each single voice and the tenor). The apparent contradiction between the second and third statements can be removed either by ignoring Tinctoris's distinction between counterpoint and composition (Sachs) or by allowing that Tinctoris did not wholly accept the common equation of res facta with written (rather than mental) counterpoint (Bent, 380; Blackburn, 1987, p.255).

Ferand, taking the ‘written’ qualification as primary, offered two conflicting meanings for the term: ‘a written contrapuntal composition, plain or florid, as distinguished from improvised counterpoint, again either simple or florid; or it may mean florid, in contradistinction to simple counterpoint, whether written or improvised – depending on which Tinctoris we believe’ (p.143). Neither meaning quite agrees with either of Tinctoris's definitions, although Sachs adopted the first, equating counterpoint with res facta (i.e. composition) and mente with improvisation. Bent, however, reaffirmed Tinctoris's distinction between counterpoint and composition (accepted by Blackburn, 1987) and suggested that the contradictions are most easily reconciled by recognizing res facta as an already common term, commonly but imprecisely used to mean written counterpoint, a usage that his reservation could not prevent. Ferand’s rendering of mente as ‘improvisation’ (accepted by Blackburn 1987, p.250 and Sachs) introduced notations of unprepared performance which Bent cannot reconcile with Tinctoris’s strict regulations for sung counterpoint (1983, p.378). For Tinctoris, counterpoint is a ‘moderated and rational singing together’, governed by the same rules whether devised in writing or in the mind, a note-against-note, fundamentally two-part process (Liber de arte contrapuncti, I.i.3). Counterpoint (noun) is a product of ‘singing on the book’ (cantare super librum, verb) according to these rules which, to observe cumulatively when adding two or more counterpoints to a tenor, required foreknowledge and preparation, not the spontaneous, uncontrolled improvisation (sortisatio, ‘sodaine’ music) envisaged by Ferand on the basis of later testimony which would fall outside Tinctoris’s understanding of counterpoint, and further complicated by Ferand’s confusion with cantus fractus. Tinctoris does not say that res facta is necessarily written, only that written counterpoint is commonly so called. Res facta, composition, could indeed be written and probably usually was, but Tinctoris does not make writing essential to its difference from counterpoint (Bent). Tinctoris not only distinguished written counterpoint from mental (scripto vel mente); the same counterpoint, with the same sounding results, subject to the same rules, could be mentally conceived and then written down. From asserting that the nature of its preparation required res facta to be written, Blackburn thence equated it with what Listenius (1549) called opus perfectum et absolutum, a composed work in written form, musica poetica as distinct from musica practica (1987, pp.250, 256; MGG2).

The regulated dyadic successions of counterpoint, whether simple or diminished, underlie (but are not the same as) multi-part composition. Composition can in turn be reduced to its underlying counterpoint as prose can be parsed down to its underlying grammar (Bent, 382). Counterpoints added to a tenor relate primarily to it; their relationship to each other was governed by different (and often unspecified) considerations of intervallic compatibility. Tinctoris commended those singers who go beyond the minimum requirements for successively constructed counterpoints and strive towards mutually controlled relationships between all parts in a contrapuntal texture, avoiding ‘similarity between each other in the choice and ordering of concords’; in so doing, they would approach the conditions that distinguish composition (res facta) from counterpoint (Bent, 375, 378; Blackburn, 252). The more a well-controlled multi-voice counterpoint ‘sung on the book’ by experienced singers aspires to the ‘mutual obligation’ (not elucidated) that characterizes res facta, the less easily might the two be distinguished.

If Tinctoris intended that strictly contrapuntal relationships should apply between any pair of parts, the results would have to be what has been called ‘non-quartal’ harmony, that is, avoiding 4ths between any pair within a three-part texture; since his five-part example does have 4ths between some pairs of parts it seems likely that he meant something less limited. In Liber de arte contrapuncti he discussed the 4th among the consonances (I.v), classifying it as a consonance because of the simple ratio of its acoustic (i.e. harmonic) perfection, while rejecting it as an ‘intolerable discord’ for purposes of counterpoint (II.x). He confined its use to upper parts, over 3rds and 5ths, thereby going beyond previous two-part counterpoint teaching to rationalize some relationships between non-contrapuntal parts that would earlier have been construed as resulting from two superimposed dyads, each upper part related primarily to the tenor but not, by the same or by the same or by any specified criteria, to each other. Conversely, a 5th and a 6th over the same tenor are incompatible even though each would be acceptable on its own with the tenor. It must be by such regulated use of intervals that are unacceptable when supported (the 4th) or that are acceptable only in combination (the 5th and 6th) that Tinctoris intended to extend control of the relationships beyond the primary contrapuntal pair. Such preparation presumably gave rise to the common usage that Tinctoris sought in vain to refine, which suggests that it was usually, but not necessarily, written; the fact of writing does not in itself turn counterpoint into res facta. The way in which Tinctoris negotiated these distinctions between counterpoint, sung, written and mental, and the difference in principle if not always in practice between counterpoint and composition (res facta), permit a hierarchical representation of his definitions (Bent, 383).

The cognate vernacular French term chose faite is first recorded in an inventory of Charles the Bold, also in 1477 (Staehelin, 201). It continued in common use into the 16th century, clearly referring to written compositions irrespective of their technical status, and distinguished by French theorists as a vernacular term. From at least the late 13th-century Montpellier manuscript (F-MOf 196) the noun chose, used alone, designated a composition, while the verbs facere and faire (‘make’) denoted what composers do.

Several further 16th-century usages depart from Tinctoris in distinguishing written res facta from part-music improvised in the more conventional sense (Ferand). Various 19th-century misunderstandings were followed by an (equally unfounded) early 20th-century revival of the term to distinguish a composition from its ornamented versions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG1 (E.T. Ferand)

MGG2 (B.J. Blackburn)

E.T. Ferand: ‘What is Res Facta?’, JAMS, x (1957), 141–50

M. Staehelin: ‘Bermerkungen zum Verhältnis vom Werkcharakter und Filiation in der Musik der Renaissance’, Datierung und Filiation von Musikhandschriften der Josquin-Zeit: Wolfenbüttel 1980, 199–215

M. Bent: ‘Resfacta and Cantare super librum’, JAMS, xxxvi (1983), 371–91

K.-J. Sachs: ‘Arten improvisierter Mehrstimmigkeit nach Lehrtexten des 14. bis 16. Jahrhunderts’, Basler Jb für historische Musikpraxis, vii (1983), 166–83

B.J. Blackburn: ‘On Compositional Process in the Fifteenth Century’, JAMS, xl (1987), 211–84

M. Bandur: ‘Res facta/Chose faite’ (1992), HMT

R.C. Wegman: ‘From Maker to Composer: Improvisation and Musical Authorship in the Low Countries, 1450–1500’, JAMS, xlix (1996), 409–79

J.A. Owens: Composers at Work: the Craft of Musical Composition, 1450–1600 (New York and Oxford, 1997)

MARGARET BENT