MUS 100: Chapter 5

1400-1600
-Renaissance means “rebirth”
-People molded themselves after the ancient Greeks and Romans~ in their feeling of individual and collective responsibility; in their embracing of education; and in their sense of enduring human value in the arts

1. New focus on individual achievement
2. Greater focus on the daily world than on the spiritual afterlife
3. Widespread mingling of cultures, facilitated by easier travel and spread of printed materials

-Artists and sculptors concentrated on the dignity of the individual human figure
-Painter developed techniques of perspective, three-dimensional representation, and working with oils
-Architects used buildings from antiquity as models for their new buildings
-Columns and rounded roofs replaced soaring, spiky look of medieval architecture

-In 1450 printing was invented
-Toward the end of Renaissance, the invention of the telescope and the microscope changed forever the way people looked at the world
-New lands were discovered and explored
-Members of middle class were interested in learning and culture, and the growth of education and the new availability of books helped them achieve their goals
***People began to feel more in control of their own destinies then they had in the Middle Ages

-New branches of christianity was founded in this era
-German theologian, Martin Luther, begun the Protestant movement known as the Reformation (1517)
-Anglican movement founded when King Henry VIII of England refused to accept the supremacy of the pope in Rome (1538)

-Most educated people could either play an instrument or sing written music
-Amateur music making became more and more common
-Many more individual musicians found jobs at aristocratic courts, and many towns supported musicians as public employees

Distinguished from the medieval music because the overall sound is much smoother and more homogeneous, with less contrast

Form of polyphony in which all the musical lines present part of the same musical phrase one after the other.
2 Types:
-Strict
-Free

As each line enters, the previous ones continue, so there is a constant sense of overlapping

All voices sing exactly the same thing in turn
(The strictest kind of imitation)

Only the first few notes of a melodic phrase are sung by each entering voice; the voices then continue freely

The predominant types of compositions, from the middle ages, were the same
1. Liturgical (music for church services, usually Mass)
2. Motets (settings of Latin texts that are sacred but not liturgical)
3. Secular songs

Composers began writing similar music-polyphonic, often imitative, and concentrated primarily in the three main types:
1. Mass
2. Motet
3. Secular Song

Two important composers:
-John Dunstable of England
-Guillaume DuFay of France

Roman Catholic Mass in 1400 was a long service
-Through Middle Ages, most songs had been sung in plainchant. In the 12th and 13th centuries, some parts of Mass began to be sung polyphonically

There are 5 sections of Mass
-These sections began in the 14th century
1. Kyrie (This was the only section written in Greek)
2. Gloria
3. Credo
4. Sanctus
5. Agnus
*****Known as the “Ordinary of the Mass”*******

-Common solution was to use a single melody woven into all the movements
-The source Melody usually appears in the tenor voice, but other voices are derived from it as well

1. Soprano
2. Alto
3. Tenor
4. Bass

*He was the most versatile and gifted composer of the mid-Renaissance.
-Composed prolifically in the 3 main genres
-Very famous, even today
-Only is called by his first name

-This Mass is polyphonic
1. Written in 4 voice lines
-Sopranos
-Altos
-Tenors
-Basses
2. The Mass has rhythm (plainchant is usually sung with all the notes equal in length).
-He molds and varies his phrases by adding notes or modifying notes from the chant melody.
-His composition is in five movements, setting all 5 sections of the Ordinary

1. Point of imitation or simple imitation
2. Overlapping Cadences
3. Paired Imitation

A musical passage presenting a single tiny musical phrase that is copied in the other voices

A point of imitation introduces each short melodic phrase

Just as the first group is completing its phrase and moving int a cadence, a second group enters, and so on

One pair of voices sings a phrase of imitation, then another pair enters

-Imitation was the most important concept in music during the Renaissance era
-Italy was the focal point of the Roman Catholic
-One technical change in the late renaissance music is the sound of the last chord at the end of sections. Until this time, final chords contained only the “perfect” intervals (octaves and fifths)
-The final chord should include the third, as well as the root, the fifth, and the octave of the chord

This was a Roman Catholic movement where Italy was the focal point
-It began partly in reaction to the Protestant Reformation and partly as the result of a genuine desire to reform the Catholic Church from within

It was not primarily concerned with music, but music played a role in the deliberations of the church reformers

Many complaints were heard:
-Secular songs were being used as the bases of sacred compositions
-Singers had become too theatrical and were distracting people from the liturgy
-Polyphony had become too complicated and florid, obscuring the sacred words

-He was named after his home town, Palestrina
-He was the most high regarded composer of the late renaissance choral music
-Principle characteristics of his styler were balance, control, evenness, clarity, and perfect text setting
-His music is so inspiring that is has been taken as a model of perfection for all those wishing to imitate grace and beauty of renaissance polyphony
-Wrote more than 100 settings of the Mass and several volumes of secular songs
-Composition of 250 motets

In most texts, it means “Savior of Church Music”

1. The melody moves most of the time by steps with no gaps (leaps) between the notes
2. If there is a leap, it is small and its immediately counterbalanced by stepwise motion in the opposite direction
3. The rhythmic flow is not rigid or regularly accented, but is shifting, gentle, and alive

-It usually has 4 voice parts
-Its entirely vocal and usually sung by a small choir
-All the voices sing the same text, in the same language, and always in latin
(The text was sacred)
-It may be imitative or homophonic and is usually a mix of the two

-It evolved in 2 phases
-Most influential country was Italy
-The distinctive type of secular song that developed in Italy was the Madrigal

They are secular vocal pieces for a small group of singers, usually unaccompanied
-The favorite topics were love, descriptions of nature, and sometimes wars and battles

Echoing the meaning of words in music

-If text had words like flying, rising, or soaring, the music would have fast upward scales
-If text had words like peace and happiness, the scale would be set to sweet major chords
-If the text had words like agony and despair, it scale would be set to wrenching dissonances
-Became immensely popular in 16th century and into the 17th
-English composers wrote madrigals in english that were lighter in tone and more cheerful

The contrast in poetry

He was the guiding force for the development of English madrigals
-He was a gifted composer and the author of an important textbook on music
-He was granted sole permission to print music for the whole of England
-He published more madrigals than any other English composer and established a style that was followed by most other English madrigals

The idea that originality is the most important characteristic of a composer is a very modern one.
-Most composers borrowed freely from one another.
-Borrowing from another composer was considered a mark of respect

-After the work of the late Italian and English madrigalists, the renaissance polyphonic stye had run its course
-These new ways were the foundation of a new musical style in the 17th century:
~Baroque Style
~Instrumental music became more and more prominent

Single voices were accompanied by instruments

A serious contrapuntal instrumental piece based on the style of secular songs

He was an organist and composer at St. Mark’s Church in Venice.
-He composed the “Canzona”
-Had 2 choirs lofts facing each other and he took advantage of this to place contrasting groups of instruments in the two lofts, creating and early version of stereo sound

The largest category of instrumental music during the renaissance was Dance Music
-It was because dance was a popular form of entertainment
-Dance music was usually in Binary Form (AB)
-Dances were frequently performed in pairs

– Sound is smooth and homogenous
-Harmony is still primarily based on modes (mostly church modes)
-Most prominent feature is IMITATION
-Vocal genres include mass movements, motets, and secular songs (Madrigals)
-Motets and madrigals often use word-painting, which can involve dissonance
-Instrumental music is either serious and imitative or light and dancelike