More Voices

Bach's four and five-part contrapuntal writings indicate a clear inclination to group voices into harmonic blocks.

Figure: Example of linked voices in a four-voice, slow tempo, instrument-non-specified fugue: J. S. Bach, Die Kunst Der Fugue, Contrapunctus XIX BWV 1080

3#3

Through music history, when music turned to a more ``vertically oriented'' homophonic style composers kept considering the human aural perception limits when it came to speed and harmonic density. The faster was the speed and the simpler were the harmonies and the polyphonies.

This was the way of the nature and there were no recording technology to experiment on those limits. Actually there is no evidence that the question of human perception limits ever arose.