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Counterpoint composed in the church modes in the strict 16th-century (Palestrina) style, as distinct from the tonal counterpoint of the Baroque. Its rules were not handed down as axioms but observed in Palestrina's music by later scholars — chiefly Knud Jeppesen — so they read as guidelines for a style rather than the stricter training laws of Fux's species. The modal practice adds devices the species omit (the lower auxiliary, the descending accented quarter passing tone, the decorated suspension resolution, points of imitation) and loosens others (near non-simultaneous fifths in inner voices, the consonant fourth, hidden fifths in thick textures) — though genuine consecutive parallel fifths stay forbidden.
Learn Fux's species first — they are simpler, stricter, and built to train the ear one layer at a time. Modal counterpoint is the more advanced, more general description of how Palestrina actually wrote, taken up once the species discipline is automatic.
A two-voice modal phrase lets both voices move in free rhythm and close with a clausula vera, where the two lines step into the final from opposite sides — the cadence of the whole style.
Modal Counterpoint is one of 228 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary, where every definition is written around how composers actually use the word.
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