A term, first used in the 14th century, to describe the combination of simultaneously sounding musical lines according to a system of rules. It has also been used to designate a voice or even an entire composition (e.g. Vincenzo Galilei's Contrapunti a due voci, 1584, or the contrapuncti of J.S. Bach's Art of Fugue) devised according to the principles of counterpoint (Grove Music Online). The term as such is derived from the Latin contrapunctus, from contra punctum.

Within the present field of music theory, counterpoint is viewed as a separate discipline (often erroneously considered as the counterpart of harmony). 

The teaching of counterpoint focuses in general on two approaches:

1. The so called "strict" counterpoint reflecting the (vocal) polyphony of the (later) Renaissance in a modal idiom; the music of the Franco-Flemish Schools. Composers like Josquin des Prez, Jacob Obrecht and also Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina are connected with this approach.
2. The so called "tonal" or "harmonic" counterpoint reflecting the music of the (later) Baroque era, in a major-minor coloured idiom. Within this approach the "harmonic polyphony" of Johann Sebastian Bach is considered the pinnacle of musical craftmanship.

Contrapuntal music can be considered to be part of the larger phenomenon of polyphony, which is a term used to designate various important categories in music: namely,

• music in more than one part,
• music in many parts, and
• the style in which all or several of the musical parts move to some extent independently.

Polyphonos (‘many-voiced’) and polyphonia occur in ancient Greek without any connotations of musical technique. After classical antiquity, forms of the adjective came into use in modern languages, designating both non-musical phenomena such as birdcalls, human speech and multiple echoes, and musical phenomena such as instrumental range and tonal variety, as well as the various tunes playable on an automatic musical device (Oxford Music Online).

Article Grove Music Online: https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.06690

Within Hanze Library: https://doi-org.nlhhg.idm.oclc.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.06690