Augmentation(ii)
- Roger Bullivant
Extract
The term describes the restatement of a cantus firmus in note values longer than when it was first sounded in a composition, a device found, for example, in a number of motets of the late Middle Ages and many masses and motets of the Renaissance. From its application to the cantus firmus, augmentation passed into the repertory of technical devices of early ricercares and fantasias, by such composers as Sweelinck and Frescobaldi (e.g. Sweelinck: ...
