Mus. [It.:—L. cantus firmus firm song, i.e., ‘the melody which remains firm to its original shape while the parts around it are varying with the counterpoint’ (Grove, Dict. Mus., I. 306/1).]
a. ‘The simple unadorned melody of the ancient hymns and chants of the church’ (Grove); plain-song. b. Hence applied to any simple subject of the same character to which counterpoint is added.
a. 1789. Burney, Hist. Mus., III. iii. 261. Making supplications to St. John in a fragment of simple melody, or Canto fermo.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes (1858), 253. His Divine Comedy … is, in all senses, genuinely a Song. In the very sound of it there is a canto fermo; it proceeds as by a chant.
1879. Grove, Dict. Mus., I. 306. His [Palestrina’s] motet ‘Beatus Laurentius’ is still more completely founded on the canto fermo, since the tune is sung throughout … in the first tenor, while the other four parts are moving in counterpoint above and below it.
