d

Anticipations In the case of suspensions and retardations, the embellishment is created when one part of a two-voice framework is delayed and resolves “late.” With an anticipation (ANT), the opposite happens: one part of the framework arrives “early.” Anticipations are unaccented—they appear on the offbeat or a weak beat of a measure—and are usually dissonances. They do not need to resolve in the same way other dissonances do; they are simply repeated on the next beat, where they belong in the counterpoint. Though not included in strict species counterpoint, they are frequently used by eighteenth-century composers to decorate cadences. Listen to the final measures of Purcell’s “Music for a While” to hear anticipations in the vocal line (Example 16.22). When the soprano sings “beguile” (mm. 37–38), she arrives on the A4 tonic pitch one sixteenth note ahead of the tonic chord, anticipating the resolution of to the tonic