Music of the Renaissance
(1450-1600)
Renaissance
means “Rebirth”
New scientific & geographical
exploration
Copernicus
 Columbus
 Magellan

Power Shift

“The” Church (Catholic Church) loses
some power to secular governments
(Nobility of court system - Kings, Queens, etc.)
– Still important patron of the arts
– Authority challenged
• Martin Luther (1483-1546)
HUMANISM
New intellectual movement
 Focused on human accomplishments
 Rediscovery of Greek and Roman
books and culture via the Middle East

Resulting Changes in Art

Artists make art that has to do everyday
HUMAN feelings
 Artists look back to Greek and Roman Art
– Ancient Greek and Roman music had a
“RHETORICAL” quality
•
Meant to represent a feeling or idea
– Ancient Greek and Roman visual art was about
mythological subjects or real people of nobility;
these people were represented in a life-like
manner with an emphasis on sensuality of
HUMAN body
How did Renaissance composers
write more rhetorical music?


More “life-like” text rhythms
Word Painting
1. Literal or mimetic correspondences
example: “alone”
2. Figurative or symbolic depiction (punning
& double meanings)
example: “high on the mountaintop”
3. Emotional connotations
example: (chromaticism) on “pain and sorrow”
Word Painting

Musical representation of specific
images - for example, a falling melodic
line ot accompany the word descending
- often found in Renaissance and
Baroque music
THOMAS WEELKES (c. 1575-1623)
As Vesta Was from Latmos Hill Descending
madrigal genre
 a cappella vocal composition
 text is a sonnet (Renaissance poem) in
the vernacular (English)
 sung 1 on a part in intimate setting
 includes both imitative polyphony and
homophony
 lots of examples of text painting

Madrigal

Composition for several voices set to a
short secular poem, usually about love,
combining homophonic and polyphonic
textures and often using word painting;
common in Renaissance music
A cappella
(literally means“of the church” in Latin, but can
refer to both sacred and secular music)
 Choral
music without instrumental
accompaniment
As Vesta was from Latmos hill descending
She spied a maiden Queen the same ascending,
Attended on by all the shepherds’swain;
To whom Diana’s darlings came
running down amain
First two by two, then three by three together
Leaving their Goddess all alone, hasted thither;
And mingling with the shepherds of her train,
With mirthful tunes her presence did entertain.
Then sang the shepherds and nymphs of Diana:
Long live fair Oriana!
JOHN WARD
(English Renaissance Madrigalist)
 Upon
a bank with roses set about
Upon a bank with roses set about,
Where pretty turtles joining bill to bill
And gentle springs steal softly
murmuring out,
Washing the foot of pleasure’s sacred
hill,
There little Love sore wounded lies,
His bow and arrows broken,
Bedewed with tears from Venus’s eyes
O grevious to be spoken.
JOHN FARMER
(English Renaissance Madrigalist)
 Fair
Phyllis
Fair Phyllis I saw sitting all alone
Feeding her flock near
to the mountain side.
The shepherds knew not
wither she had gone,
But after [her], her lover Amyntas hie’d.
Up and down he wandered
while she was missing;
When he found her,
oh, then they fell a-kissing.
JOSQUIN DESPREZ
(c. 1440-1521)
 Two
types of SACRED
Renaissance music GENRES
–MASS
–MOTET

SACRED Renaissance music DOES
NOT use Text Painting
– Emphasis is on musical structure and
religious “otherworldly” musical qualities
Motet
 Polyphonic
choral work set to a
sacred Latin text other than that of
the mass; one of the two main
forms of sacred Renaissance music
Rhythm
"speech-like" and gently flowing rhythms
Melody
longer melodies with larger rangers (more higher and lower notes);
smooth,more scalar melodies(pitch movement by step) with arch-like
shapes
Form
lots of imitation of tiny bits of melody
Dynamics
mostly at one level, changes are made in the volume by adding together
more voices
Texture
mostly polyphonic (some homophony, more imitative polyphony)
Harmony
very consonant (secular music uses dissonance for text painting)
Timbre
almost all vocal music; use of full mixed (men and women/children)
choirs or small groups (1 on a part) ; a cappella
Musical Rhetoric
•Refers to the emotive (causing a listener to
feel a specific way) or persuasive (causing
the listener to "see" a scene or "hear" a story)
power of music
•An example of musical rhetoric is the way a
composer tries to "paint" a picture of a scene,
story, or idea in the listener's mind of a written
text, which is either sung or given to the
listener in the form of a program.
FRANZ SCHUBERT Erlköing (The Elfking)
 Lied
(leet) / Lieder (leader)
– An art song with a German text
ANTONIO VIVALDI First Movement: Allegro
from La Primavera [Spring],
Concerto for Violin and String
Orchestra, Op. 8, No. 1 from
The Four Seasons
Spring has come, and joyfully,
The birds greet it with a happy song.
And the streams, fanned by gentle
breezes,
Flow along with a sweet murmur.
Covering the sky with a black cloak,
Thunder and lightning come to
announce the season.
When these have quieted down, the
little birds
Return to their enchanting song.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Painter, sculptor,
architect, engineer,
& scientist
 A “Renaissance”
Man
– Emphasis on
education

Mona Lisa
– Real person
Botticelli (1445-1510)

The Birth of Venus
(1485)
– Mythological deity
– Emphasis on reality &
sensuality of human
body

La Primavera (147778)
– Mix of real people &
mythological
characters
– Depiction of everyday
HUMAN emotions
Michelangelo
(1475-1564)

David (1504)
– Biblical character
– Real person
– Emphasis on reality
& sensuality of
human body
Raphael (1483-1520)

Aristotle and Plato
(1511)
– Greek and Roman
influence
– Real persons

The School of
Athens (1511)
– Greek and Roman
influence
– Emphasis on reality
with use of
perspective
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Playwright who writes
about real and
mythological persons
– Example: Romeo &
Juliet
• Focuses on
everyday
HUMAN feelings