Powerpoint for Wright Listening to Music

1. Chapter 5: The Renaissance Era in Music
1450 - 1600

2. The Renaissance Period
• Time frame
• Began in Italy around 1350
• Later spread to northern Europe
• Musical developments began around 1450
• Renaissance Definition: “Reawakening”
• Inspired by ancient Greece and Rome
• Personal achievement, intellectual
independence, discovery

3. New Attitudes
Humanism – prime importance placed on human
rather than spiritual matters
Exploration – men like Cortez and Columbus seeking
riches and new lands
Classicism – inspired by antiquities
Reformation – 16th
Cent. Mvt. for reform in Catholic
Church, which ended in founding of Protestant Church
Education – invention of printing press made books
accessible for many more people

4. Renaissance = “Rebirth”
Revival of ancient Greek and Roman culture, especially art and
literature
New focus on human experience
scientific method based on observation
arts guided by sensory experience
How do the figures below change as time progresses?
1. Medieval 2. Early Renaissance 3. High Renaissance

5. Humanism
Culture celebrated human
form in all its fullness
Michelangelo’s David

6. Humanism
• Definition: Emphasis on personal achievement,
intellectual independence, discovery, science
• New genre of painting – the portrait
–Depicted worldly people enjoying the good life
• The “Humanities:” The study of the arts, letters, and
historical events that have enriched the
human spirit over the centuries

7. Spoleto Italy’s “Duomo” 12th c.
Typical mix of Medieval/Ren. art
12th C. Christ 15th
C. Life of the Virgin

8. Renaissance Musical Style
• Melody
– Stepwise (conjunct)
motion
– Moderately narrow
range
– Normally diatonic,
some chromaticism in
madrigals

9. Renaissance Harmony
–Less dissonance
than medieval
music
–Consonant triad
becomes the
foundation of
harmony
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihhHn6rfrDo

10. Rhythm
Duple meter common
as triple meter
Rhythm in sacred
music relaxed, without
strong downbeats
Rhythm in secular
music (vocal and
instrumental)
Lively
Frequent use of
syncopation

11. Renaissance Musical Style
• Color
– More instrumental music
survives than from the
Middle Ages
– Unaccompanied (a
cappella) vocal music
predominant
• Texture
– Imitative Polyphony
– Four to five lines most
common
– Homophonic texture
inserted for variety

12. Imitation
• Type of polyphonic
texture
• Melodic voices enter
one after another on
different pitches
• Voices take turns vying
for attention of
audience

13. Josquin Desprez (ca. 1455-1521)
First master of high Renaissance
musical style, Born in northern
France, moved to Italy as young
man
Compared in greatness to
Michelangelo, wrote both sacred
and secular music
• Excelled in writing Motets:
– Compositions for polyphonic
choir with a Latin text on a
sacred subject
– Intended for religious services
http://www.youtube.com/
El Grillo: the Cricket performance

14. Josquin: Ave Maria (Hail Mary), c. 1485
Listening Guide p. 77-78, cd 1 #9
• Genre: Sacred motet
• Texture: Mostly imitative
counterpoint (polyphonic)
• Standard four voice parts: soprano,
alto, tenor, bass
• Use of imitation: a polyphonic
procedure where one or more musical
voices enter and duplicate the
melody, vying for the attention of
listeners
• A cappella: unaccompanied singing

15. • Music reflects the text

16. The Reformation
Began October 31, 1517 when
a German Catholic monk
named Martin Luther nailed his
95 theses to the church door at
Wittenberg, in Saxony,
Germany, to express his
concern with growing
corruption within the Church
He was particularly troubled by
the church selling indulgences
Much of northern Europe
joined the Reformation, in
which the Lutheran Church was
founded

17. Counter-Reformation
• The Catholic Church’s answer to the
Reformation
• Council of Trent, 1545-63
– Met to reform worship and practices of
the Church, many recent popes had
been out of control
– Considered banning complex
polyphonic music from church
– Sometimes, drinking songs or popular
songs were set over the Gregorian
chant, with lewd texts intact.

18. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
(1525?-1594)
Born in Palestrina, Italy, Grew up in Rome,
choir boy, organist, teacher and maestro
(distinguished music leader)
Called “the savior of church music” as he
was the composer who convinced the C-R
that music could be written in a
worshipful, easily understood manner
Widowed, considered taking holy orders,
but married a wealthy fur merchant’s
widow instead
Last years at St. Peters very productive,
wealthy, happy
Palestrina Italy

19. Giovanni Palestrina (1525-1594)
• Composed Misse Papae Marcelli (Mass for Pope
Marcellus), 1555
• Conformed to all the requirements for proper church music
prescribed by the Council of Trent
• Simple counterpoint
• Exceptional clarity of text
• Clarity of expression through music, dignified

20. Palestrina:Pope Marcellus Mass
• Gloria, Agnus Dei – page 80-
81 cd 1/10-11
– Hymn in honor of the
majestic Christ, “Glory to
God in the highest…”
– Text is clearly declaimed,
sung in block chords
– Music’s rhythm
emphasizes the accents of
the Latin text

21. (No notes)
Gloria, Agnus Dei
Palestrina Pope Marcellus Mass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUiYFNIIl8s

22. Popular Music in the Renaissance
• 1460: Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press
• 1501: First printed book of music in Venice
– Encouraged amateur music making

23. Popular Renaissance Dance
Genres:
• Pavane
solemn dance, slow duple meter, formal stepping
and stopping
• Galliard
lively dance, fast triple meter, kicking and leaping
steps
• Jig
very fast dance in compound meter

24. Pavane and Galliard,
page 82, cd #1/12 - 13
• Pavane is in slow duple meter, 3 phrases, each
one repeats
– ornamentation of repeats
• Galliard is in fast triple meter, 3 phrases, each
one repeats
– ornamentation of repeats
• (Listen to these on your cd’s)

25. No notes for this slide
YouTube video of Pavane and Galliard
•Listen for meter, tempo
•Observe how different the dances
look
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXZrT4fMgFk

26. Will Kemp’s Jig
• Will Kemp's Jig is the amazing story
of a man who once danced all the
way from London to Norwich (it is
about 80 miles (132 km) and it took
him nine days) and of how, in one
town, a young lady came out and
danced a mile with him to keep him
company. That was in 1580, and he
made a 100 pound bet, that he could
do this in less than 10 days. He won
the bet and the jig was written to
remember this story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdQavYTexfI

27. Genre: Madrigal
• Originated in Italy c. 1530, quickly spread to other
countries in Europe. Wildly popular
• Short composition set to one-stanza love poem, 1
singer per part, a social art including men and
women
• Great variety in declamation and word painting
• Realized ideal of music as expression of emotions

28. Word Painting
• The process of depicting the text in music, be it
subtly, overtly, or even jokingly, by means of
expressive musical devices

29. Thomas Weelkes, Madrigalist (1576-
1623)
Born in Surry, England
Educated at Oxford, where he
composed 2 volumes of
madrigals – some of his best
music composed at this time
Became organist, choral master
at Chichester Cathedral,
eventually dismissed for
drunkenness and profanity of
language.

30. • Queen Elizabeth, also known as
the “Virgin Queen.”
• England prospered under her long
reign. “Vesta,” the Roman
goddess of home and hearth, and
her attendants, have a chance
encounter with the queen, in this
madrigal.
“As Vesta Was Descending…”

31. Weelkes, “As Vesta Was Descending”
Listening Guide p. 83-84 cd 1 #14
• Simple rhythms
• Clear harmonies
• Crisp, engaging melodic motives
• Accurate declamation
• Frequent word painting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_VkA_qk9os