literally "firm chant," a pre-existing melody such as a chorale tune to which counterpoint has been set. In Italian.
(Lat.) : A melody from some other work borrowed to serve as the basis for a new polyphonic composition. Josquin's Déploration sur la mort de Joh. Ockeghem incorporates a plainchant Requiem in aeternam as cantus firmus (in the tenor voice). In the Renaissance, a great number of polyphonic masses were based on the famous song "L'Homme armé" (The Armed Man) as cantus firmus. Vestiges of the practice can be seen in the 19th-century fondness for weaving, for example, the Gregorian Dies irae into macabre compositions--as in the last movement of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique.
("fixed melody") A pre-existing plainchant or secular melody incorporated into a polyphonic composition, common from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries.
a melody used as the basis for a polyphonic composition
"Fixed Song". A pre-existingmelody, used as the foundation for a polyphonic work. Used in counterpoint, Canti Firmus were usually basedon ecclesiatical chant.
"Fixed melody", usually of very long notes, often based on a fragment of Gregorian chant that served as the structural basis for a polyphonic composition, particularly in the Renaissance.
a pre-existing melody which is made the basis of a polyphonic composition, contrapuntal voices being added to it
Main line or phrase composed in voice leading.
(kan´-tus fir´-mus). An existing melody used as the basis of a polyphonic composition for contrapuntal voices.
In music, a cantus firmus ("fixed song") is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition, often set apart by being played in long notes.