So often were musica ficta adjustments taken for granted—so often, in other words, were they left to
oral tradition—that the term is often loosely (and, technically, wrongly) employed to refer only to
“chromatics” that were unnotated. Scholars who transcribe early polyphony for nonspecialist singers
cannot assume that the singers for whom they are preparing the edition will know the oral tradition
governing these adjustments, and therefore indicate them in writing (usually with little accidentals placed
above the staff). They often call this procedure “putting in the ficta,” thereby implying that the word
“ficta” applies only to what has to be “put in” in this way. They know better, of course. A C# is musica
ficta whether it is explicitly notated or not, because there is no such note as C# on the Guidonian “hand.”
A B is not musica ficta but musica recta (or vera), again whether explicitly notated or not, because there
is such a note on the hand.
So the accidentals that are explicitly signed, often very abundant in fourteenth century music and
particularly in Machaut’s music, are just as much to be considered musica ficta (unless they are Bs) as
those mentally supplied by unwritten rule. Their purpose, however, was different. Instead of being musica
ficta causa necessitatis (harmonically necessary adjustments), or even musica ficta arising out of
conventions that all competent singers knew, they represented musica ficta causa pulchritudinis—
chromatic adjustments made “for the sake of their beauty,” that is, for the sensuous enhancement of the
music.
Look now at the introitus to Machaut’s motet (Ex. 8-6). The triplum has a signed C# at the moment
when the motetus enters. It follows D. If it returned to D, then strictly speaking it would not need to be
expressly “signed.” But it does not return to D; instead, it skips to a wholly unexpected note, G#. This
note is not called for by any rule. Its only purpose is to create a “purple patch” in the harmony, especially
in view of the weird interval it creates against the F-natural in the motetus.
An augmented second is, strictly speaking, a forbidden interval on the order of the tritone (and for the
same reason: one of the voices sings mi while the other sings fa). It is clearly intentional, however, and
cannot be removed by adjustment causa necessitatis. There can be no question of adjusting the expressly
signed G-sharp, of course; why sign a note only to cancel it? The F cannot be adjusted to F-sharp for two
reasons. First, it would only produce another dissonance (and a worse one)—a major second instead of
an augmented second. And besides, the F can be construed as a fa between two la ’s (since E is la in the
hard hexachord on G) and therefore cannot be raised.
So the throb is there for its own sake. It is, literally, a heartthrob, expressing love for the Virgin the
way so many similar harmonic throbs express love for the lady in Machaut’s French songs. But it is also
there for “tonal” reasons. All of the signed accidentals in the introitus are C#s or G#s. These tones at once
depart from and emphasize the basic Dorian pitch set because they are “tendency tones,” pitches altered
chromatically in such a way as to imply—hence demand—cadential resolution to crucial scale tones.
When the resolution is evaded or delayed—as it is in the case of the triplum’s first C# (and even the G#,
whose resolution to A is interfered with by a rest where one is least expected)—a harmonic tension is
engendered that will not be fully discharged until the introitus reaches its final cadence.
CADENCES
That cadence incorporates both the C# and the G#, resolving in parallel to D and A, the notes that define
the Dorian “pentachord.” The defining or “structural” notes are each thus provided with a leading tone,
the strongest possible preparation. For this reason such a cadence has been dubbed the “double leading-
tone cadence.” Thanks to its great stabilizing power it became the standard cadence in fourteenth- and
early fifteenth-century music.