Medieval Music

1450-1600 - Means rebirth Emergence of the idea of the universal (Renaissance) man - every educated person was expected to be interested/ knowledgeable in everything, including music and the arts

Painters/Sculptors: Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian

Boticelli

Michelangelo

Raphael

Cultured princely courts compete in all of the arts, including increasing the number, quality & type of musiciansMusic is common at public events & as an courtly & merchant entertainmentWomen acceptance as virtuoso singers.

Printed music books became available and affordable.

Characteristics of Renaissance music: Vocal music continues to be more important than instrumental - words and music have a close relationship Word painting when music enhances the meaning and emotion of the text . no extreme contrasts of dynamics, tone color or rhythm

Texture mostly polyphonic but fuller than Medieval .Choral pieces have four, five or six independent parts sung as a cappella.Imitation of voices is common: each has the same melodic line in turn as in a round.

Homophonic texture ( succession of chords) in dance like music only

Rhythm and melody: each melodic line has great rhythmic independence and moves more with a gentle flow than a sharply defined beat.Melodies are easy to sing because the melody usually moves along a scale with a few large leaps.

Renaissance Mass Five main sections:

Kyrie eleison( Lord, have mercy),Gloria( Glory be to God on high)Credo ( I believe in one God, the Father Almighty)

Renaissance MassSanctus ( Holy, Holy, Holy) concludes with the Hosanna in the highestAgnus Dei( Lamb of God)

Monophonic chant opening, voices set in various registers( high vs. low voices).Alternation of homorhythmic and polyphonic textures. Full, consonant harmony.

Palestrinas Pope Marcellus Mass dedicated to his patron Pope Julius 3rd.

Sung in A Cappella . Only sung by a male choir ( highest voices were sung by boy sopranos or male falsetists), text was set syllabically.

Renaissance Mass

Instrumental dance:Galliard in triple meterPavane- processional court dance was performed by pairs of dancers a arranged in formal patterns.

SecularRonde- round dance , performed in a circle.Saltarello- very fast moving dance in duple rhythm

saltarello

MotetWords are proclaiming humanistic and emotional spirit of a new age.Meter change from duple to triple and back.

Ave Maria

Instruments duplicating or substituting for the voices. John Farmer (1591-1601) most popular composer of English madrigals.

Pierre Passereau in France

Fair Phyllis

Pierre Passereau

The words describing the Phylliss lover wandered up and down is rendered musically by a downward movement of the notes, repeated at various pitch levels and imitated in all the parts. Renaissance madrigal inspired composers to develop new genre of combination music and poetry called opera.

lute

recorder

dulcian