Finalis

The note on which a melody ends

In the music of the Middle Ages, especially in Gregorian chant, a melody is assigned to a mode, and for this assignment it counts above all on which note it closes. This closing note is called the finalis. It is the centre of the mode. From it the other notes are ordered and it is decided how far the melody reaches up and down.

Authentic and plagal

Medieval teaching knows eight church modes, arranged in pairs, as the table shows. The four main modes with the finales D, E, F and G are called authentic: their range lies above the finalis. Each has a plagal “subordinate mode” with the prefix “hypo”, which has the same finalis but lies about a fourth lower. The finalis alone therefore does not distinguish the two; only the range, the ambitus, does.

The count from one to eight is the medieval one. The Swiss humanist Heinrich Glarean added four further modes to it in 1547 in his “Dodecachordon”, among them those on A and C. These are today called Aeolian and Ionian and correspond to natural minor and major.

Finalis and tonic

In the modern major–minor system everything runs towards the tonic, which is confirmed by the cadence. The finalis fulfils the same task for a single-line melody, without chords and without the leading-tone function in the later sense. The names are therefore not interchangeable. If you read chorales, you find the mode via the closing note, and in listening the end of the melody gives the orientation.

Common mistakes

• Equating the finalis with the opening note: a melody can begin on another note, it closes on the finalis.
• Reading the mode off the ambitus alone: only finalis and ambitus together give the mode. Dorian and Hypodorian share the finalis D.
• Taking the finalis for the “root in the major–minor sense”: it has the role of the closing note, but no chord function like the tonic.