Renaissance Music
(1450-1600)
Early and High Renaissance(1450-1530)
• Introduction– Definition: rebirth or revival, a restoration of
vitality after a time of decline. – Process of Rebirth: turned from austere
medieval thought with its emphasis on religious authoritarianism to an emphasis on the pleasure of the senses (modeled in classical Greece and Rome).
– Humanism: an attitude placing human dignity and humane values foremost.
– Geographical Center: Italy (City States)
Florence: Lorenzo Medici
Milan: Ludovico Sforza
Ferrara: Ercole Este
• Cultural and Historical Events– Age of Discovery
• Christopher Columbus
• Ferdinand Magellan
Columbus
Magellan
Columbus’Voyages
Magellan’s Voyages
• Sir Francis Drake
• Sir Walter Raleigh
Drake
Drake’s WestIndian Voyage
Raleigh
Drake
– Heliocentric Universe
– Protestant Reformation
Martin Luther Henry VIII
GalileiCopernicus Copernicus’ Universe
Luther’s95 Theses Huldrych Zwingli John Calvin
– Catholic Counter-Reformation• a movement within the Catholic Church to reform
itself in the wake of the Protestant Reformation • Palestrina’s compositions became the musical
model
– Monarchs
Henry VIII Elizabeth ICharles V FerdinandAnd Isabella
Phillip II
– Inventions• Printing press: Chinese, Johannes Gutenberg
• Clear glass and mirror• Table fork
Gutenberg Printing Press Gutenberg Bible
• The Visual Arts– Architecture
• Return to Greek and Roman models• Movement away from Gothic pointed arches, flying
buttresses and ribbed vaulting
Bramante – St. Peter
Bramante Brunelleschi
Brunelleschi’s Florence Cathedral
St. Denis - Paris St. Mark’s - Venice
– Sculpture• Important in the early and high Renaissance• Movement toward portraying the body as though it
were made of real muscle and bone
Donatello
Donatello - David
Michelangelo
Michelangelo - David
– Painting• While Medieval artists represented their ideas as
symbols, Renaissance painters aimed for realism.• Medieval painters gave us stereotypes;
Renaissance, individual people. • Medieval artists organized space in succeeding
planes; Renaissance artists gave depth and perspective.
• Leonardo da Vinci
Da VinciThe Last Supper Mona Lisa
• Raphael
• Michelangelo
Raphael Raphael - Parnassus
Michelangelo Michelangelo – Creation of Adam
Raphael - Parnassus
Sistine Chapel
• Literature– England: Edmund Spenser, William
Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe
– France: Clement Marot, Pierre de Ronsard– Italy: commedia dell’arte
Spencer Shakespeare Marlowe
• Music in the Renaissance– Style
• Unlike visual arts, no extant Greek and Roman music models
• What they did know from the past was in two areas:
– stories of music’s compelling effects (Doctrine of Ethos) – Greek descriptions of their scales and modes
– Renaissance culture permeated with music– Musical Genres
• Vocal: Mass, motet, madrigal, chansons, chorale, anthem, hymn
• Instrumental: dances, ricercar, chaconne
– Musical Elements• Melody: small ranges, “updated” chant• Harmony: modal (early) to tonal (late), emergence
of the triad• Rhythm: steady (metered), dance rhythms
(instrumental)• Texture: Age of vocal polyphony; alternated
homophony and polyphony (late Renaissance)• Timbre: vocal and instrumental• Form: binary (dances)• Dynamics: blocked
– Composers• Early Renaissance: Guillaume Dufay (c.1400-1474)
– Sound Hallmark: Burgundian consonant sound (3rds, 6ths), fauxbourdon
– Kyrie
– Gloria
– Credo
• • High Renaissance : Josquin des Prez (c. 1440-1521)
– Sound Hallmark: imitative polyphony; balance, purity, control and clarity; integrity of the text and unstressed dissonance
– Ave Maria
Dufay
Des Prez
Late Renaissance(1530-1600)
• Style– Overview of Early and High Renaissance
• Early: clear melodies, sharply defined rhythms, fauxbourdon - use of 3rds and 6ths
• High: balance, purity, control and clarity, integrity of the text, unstressed dissonance, imitative polyphony
– Late Renaissance• composer reveals a desire to create an emotional response
in the listener • composer offers a more sensuous, sonorous experience(i.e.
consonant harmonies )• Textures increased from 3 or 4 to 5 or 6 voices• Antiphonal choirs or instrumental groups were common
• Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525-1594)– universally acknowledged Renaissance master – Most of his life was in the service of the church – first Renaissance composer whose entire work was
published as a complete edition – Created an exemplary style of church music (counter
reformation model) – Kyrie from Pope Marcellus Mass
Palestrina Pope Marcellus Mass
• Madrigal– new Italian polyphonic, secular, a capella vocal genre – late Renaissance’s entertainment music– rapidly spread north to England, France and the Netherlands
– Madrigal texts offered unique opportunities for composers to
aptly fit the music to the text – text painting, called madrigalism – Thomas Morley (c. 1557-1602)
• Now is the Month of Maying
– Thomas Weelkes (c. 1575-1623)
• As Vesta was from Latmos Hill Descending
• Instrumental Music– subordinate to vocal music ; yet growing greatly – first body of solely instrumental music originates
within the Renaissance– instruments mostly doubled the vocal parts – In solely instrumental music, the instruments usually
played together as families– Instrumental Families
• String : viol family, lute• Woodwind : transverse flute, recorder• Double Reed : shawm (ancestor of the oboe, bassoon,
English horn); crumhorn (reed in the mouthpiece)• Brass : cornets (trumpets), sackbutt (trombone)• Percussion : tambour (hand drum), tamborine, finger
cymbals• Keyboard : organ, harpsichord
String
• viol family, lute, harp
Viol Lute
Harp
Woodwind
• transverse flute, recorder, shawm, crumhorn
Flute Family Recorder Family
Crumhorn Shawm
Brass
• cornets (trumpets), sackbut (trombone), serpent (baritone)
Cornetts
Sackbuts
Serpent
Percussion
• tambour (hand drum), tamborine, finger cymbals
Tambours
Tabor and Pipe
Keyboard
• organ, harpsichord, virginal
Harpsichords Virginal
Table Organs
Organ, Germany, 1425 Organ, Switzerland, 1435
• Giovanni Gabrieli (1555-1612)– Served in San Marco Cathedral, Venice– Polychoral style– Ricercar in the 12th mode
Gabrieli
