Almost all other contrapuntal devices are derived from the principle of the canon and are discussed in the article [Contrapuntal Forms].
As a training in musical grammar and style, the rhythms of 16th-century polyphony were early codified into “the five species of counterpoint” (with various other species now forgotten) and practised by students of composition. The classical treatise on which Haydn and Beethoven were trained was Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum (1725). This was superseded in the 19th century by Cherubini’s, the first of a long series of attempts to bring up to date as a dead language what should be studied in its original and living form.
(D. F. T.)
COUNTERSCARP ( = “opposite scarp,” Fr. contrescarpe), a term used in fortification for the outer slope of a ditch; see [Fortification] and [Siegecraft].
COUNTERSIGN, a military term for a sign, word or signal previously arranged and required to be given by persons approaching a sentry, guard or other post. In some armies the “countersign” is strictly the reply of the sentry to the pass-word given by the person approaching.
COUNTRY (from the Mid. Eng. contre or contrie, and O. Fr. cuntrée; Late Lat. contrata, showing the derivation from contra, opposite, over against, thus the tract of land which fronts the sight, cf. Ger. Gegend, neighbourhood), an extent of land without definite limits, or such a region with some peculiar character, as the “black country,” the “fen country” and the like. The extension from such descriptive limitation to the limitation of occupation by particular owners or races is easy; this gives the common use of the word for the land inhabited by a particular nation or race. Another meaning is that part of the land not occupied by towns, “rural” as opposed to “urban” districts; this appears too in “country-house” and “country town”; so too “countryman” is used both for a rustic and for the native of a particular land. The word appears in many phrases, in the sense of the whole population of a country, and especially of the general body of electors, as in the expression “go to the country,” for the dissolution of parliament preparatory to a general election.