Renaissance

1
Renaissance

• 1450-1600

2
Historical Background

• Humanism is the main theme running through this
  period.
  
• Artists more interested in realism (nude human
  body, no longer an object of shame as in Middle
  Ages.)
  
• Human form was revealed as a thing of beauty
• Art was appreciated for its own sake
• Education became a status symbol, people hired
  scholars to teach their children.
  

3
Historical Background

• Printing books from movable type was perfected by
  Johann Guttenberg (1473) (widened the
  circulation of music)
  
• What is the 1 printed book?
• Introduction of gunpowder brought to an end the
  age of knighthood.
  
• In keeping with the ideal of the universal man,
  every educated person was expected to be trained
  in music.
  
• Faults and hypocrisies within the Catholic Church
  became increasingly apparent and led to the
  Protestant reformation
  
• Council of Trent worked to formulate and pass
  measures aimed at purging the church of abuses
  and laxities. A number of complaints about the
  music including The Mass was profaned when
  based on secular cantus firmi or chansons
  complicated polyphony made it impossible to
  understand the words words werent pronounced
  correctly musicians were charged with
  inappropriate use of instruments, carelessness,
  and an irreverent attitude.
• Martin Luther believed that church music should
  include some songs sung in the vernacular, so he
  introduced the chorale.
  

4
Music Overview

• Musicians continued to work in churches, courts
  and towns.
  
• Music activity shifted to the courts where
  royalty competed for the finest composers.
  
• Famous people of the time Shakespeare (music was
  an integral pat of his plays)Explorers
  Columbus, Vasco da Gama Magellan da
  Vincipainter, sculptor, architect, engineer,
  scientist musician Raphaelpainter (considered
  one of the greatest of all time) and Martin
  Luther (led the Protestant Reformation).

5
Music Overview

• Church music was still very important, but now
  composers worked at the courts for the wealthy
  rulers and composed non-religious music as well.
  
• Composers sought credit for their work and
  enjoyed high status and pay.
  
• Greatest music of the period was written for
  voices and vocal music was more important than
  instrumental music and more complicated than
  ever.

6
Music Overview

• Flemish (Netherlands, Belgium, Northern France)
  composers regarded highly and held important
  positions.
  
• Italy-leading music center in the 16th century.
• Humanistic language influenced vocal music in a
  new waya close relationship was created between
  words and music.
  
• Composers wrote music to enhance the emotion and
  meaning of the text.
  
• Composers used word paintingmusical
  representation of specific poetic images.

7
Courts

• Courts employed musicians10-60 (singers
  instrumentalists.)
  
• Nobility brought their musicians along when
  traveling from court to court.
  
• Rulers of England were patrons of musicians. King
  Henry VIII was a good composer and musician.
  Wrote church music, songs, and music for dances.
  

8
Characteristics

• Texture
• Mainly polyphonic-imitation among the voices is
  common.
  
• Bass register used for the first time expanding
  the pitch range to more than 4 octaves.
  
• Choral music did not need instrumental
  accompaniment golden age of unaccompanieda
  cappellachoral music.
  
• Rhythm
• Flowing as opposed to sharply defined beat.
• Melody
• Melodic line had great independence.
• Easy to sing.

9
Sacred Vocal Forms

• Renaissance Motet
• Polyphonic choral work.
• Set to a sacred Latin text other than the
  ordinary of the mass.
  
• Renaissance Mass
• Polyphonic choral composition made up of five
  sections Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and
  Agnus Dei.
  

10
Composers

• Josquin Desprez (1450-1521)
• Master of Renaissance music
• Considered by contemporary musicians to be the
  greatest composer of this period.
  
• He achieved consummate mastery of canonic
  devices.
  
• Compositions include masses, motets and secular
  vocal pieces.
  
• 1 - Ave MariaVirgo Serena
• (Page 84)

11
Composers

• Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
• (1525-1594)
• Devoted himself to music for the Catholic Church
  in Rome.
  
• One of the foremost composers of his age
  organists and choirmaster.
  
• Most well known composer before Bach, and has
  been called the Prince of Music and his works
  the absolute perfection of church style.
  
• His style incarnates the pure a cappella ideal of
  vocal polyphony. Master of the Mass.
  
• His Kyrie (from the Pope Marcellus Mass) is his
  most famous mass.
  
• Compositions include 104 masses and 450 other
  sacred works.
  
• 2 - Kyrie from Pope Marcellus Mass-(Page 87)

12
Secular Music

• Secular vocal music became more popular
• Music was set to poems in various languages
• Combines homophonic and polyphonic textures
• Development of music printing helped spread
  secular music-thousands of song collections
  became available.
  
• Madrigal an important kind of secular vocal
  music which was a piece for several solo voices
  set to a short poem, usually about love.
  
• A madrigal, like a motet, combines homophonic and
  polyphonic texturesbut uses word painting and
  unusual harmonies more often.
  
• Originated in Italy around 1520.

13
Composers of English Madrigals

• Thomas Weelkes (1573-1623)
• One of the finest English madrigalists.
• Was an organist and church composer
• Thomas Morley (1557-1602) Earliest and most
  prolific leading figure. Refrains often sung to
  the syllables fa-la so sometimes the pieces were
  called fa-las.
• 3 - As Vesta Was Descending - Weelkes
• (written to honor Queen Elizabeth)
• (Page 89)
• 4 - Now is the Month of Maying - Morley
• (Handout Analysis)

14
Instrumental Music

• Subordinate to vocal music. Although it appears
  that there was an increase in instrumental music
  after 1450just more of it was being written
  down. Manuscripts and prints have only preserved
  a small portion and approximatedue to the
  elaborated performances with improvised
  embellishments.
• Development of music printing help spread secular
  music.
  
• Popular Instruments Recorder, shawm,
  harpsichord, organ, lute.
  
• Instrumentalists accompanied voices or played
  music intended for singingbut mostly for
  dancing.
  
• During 16th C. more music was written
  specifically for instruments.
  
• Cultivated people were expected to be skilled in
  dance (pavane, duple meter) and (galliard, triple
  meter) Dances were commonly grouped in pairs or
  threes (and precursors of the later dance
  suites). A favorite combination was a slow dance
  in duple meter and a fast dance in triple meter,
  hence this paira favorite in 16th century
  France. A favorite pair in Italy was the
  passamezzo and saltarello.

15
Instruments

• STRINGS
• Lute most popular household solo instrument.
  (Tablature, a special kind of notation developed
  which did not show the pitch of each sound, but
  the fret where the finger stopped on the string
  to produce the sound).
• Viols bowed instruments, neck was fretted, six
  strings tuned a fourth apart with a major third
  in the middlewith a more delicate tone then our
  present day violins.
• WINDS
• Recorders, Shawms (double-reed forerunners of the
  oboe)
  
• Capped-reeds krummhorn, kortholt, and
  rauschfeife
  
• Transverse flutes, cornetts (made of wood or
  ivory) with cup-shaped mouthpiece trumpets and
  sackbuts (ancestors of the modern trombone). Most
  of the winds were softer in tone than our modern
  instruments.
• A complete set of viols or recorders consisting
  of 4-7 instruments was called a consort.
  
• KEYBOARDS
• Organ By 1500 the large church organ was similar
  in essentials to the instrument we know
  todayexcept for the pedal keyboard.
  
• Medieval Portative organ was out of style, but
  small positive organs (without pedals) had reed
  pipes.
  
• TWO TYPES of STRINGED KEYBOARDS
• Clavichord metal tangent struck the string and
  remained in contact with itsoft tone, and
  performer could control the volume and achieve a
  vibratowithin limits. Solo Instrument suitable
  for small rooms.
• Harpsichord types (virginal, spinet, etc) used a
  quill to pluck the stringsbigger sound than the
  clavichord, but no shading by applying pressure.
  Suitable for solo and ensemble playing in
  moderate sized rooms.
• See Medieval and Renaissance Musical Instruments
  (Handouts and Website)
  

16
New Vocal form for Baroque Era

• The Madrigal, so characteristic f the
  Renaissance, paved the way for one of the most
  innovative and influential forms of Western music
  ??
• Tragedies and Comedies from the theatre of the
  Renaissance that were imitated or inspired by the
  Greek examples, sometimes incorporated choruses
  that were sung. Sometimes between acts of a
  comedy or tragedy, intermedi or
  intermezzipastoral allegorical or mythological
  interludesoccupied the stage. For weddings these
  intermedi became spectacular and elaborate
  musical productions.
• Madrigal cycles (this was a far reaching effort
  to adapt the madrigal to dramatic purposes)
  represented a series of scenes or moods or that
  wove a simple comic plot in dialogue. Contrasting
  groups of voices and short solos set off the
  characters. This genre was short-lived.

17
Transition into the Baroque

• The scenes and subjects in the late sixteenth
  century madrigals, intermedi, and madrigal
  comedies foreshadowed the pastoral setting of the
  early operas.
• The pastoral was a favorite literary genre of the
  Renaissance became the prominent form of Italian
  verse composition.
  
• Pastorals were poems about shepherds or similar
  rural subjects, loosely dramatic and recounted
  leisurely tales of idyllic character. The genre
  demanded the poets skill in conveying the
  atmosphere of a fairy tale, and in this imaginary
  world the poet created, music seemed not only the
  natural mode of speech but the missing link to
  the poets visions and longings.
• Pastoral poetry was at once the last stage of the
  madrigal and the first stage of the opera
  libretto.