The Renaissance was a cultural movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the
early modern period. Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its
influence affected literature, philosophy, art, politics, science, religion, and other aspects of intellectual
inquiry. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism and
human emotion in art.
Music was an essential part of civic, religious, and courtly life in the Renaissance. The rich interchange of
ideas in Europe, as well as political, economic, and religious events in the period 1400–1600 led to major
changes in styles of composing, methods of disseminating music, new musical genres, and the
development of musical instruments. The most important music of the early Renaissance was composed
for use by the church—polyphonic (made up of several simultaneous melodies) masses and motets in
Latin for important churches and court chapels. By the end of the sixteenth century, however,
patronage was split among many areas: the Catholic Church, Protestant churches and courts, wealthy
amateurs, and music printing—all were sources of income for composers.
Genres
Principal liturgical forms which endured throughout the entire Renaissance period were masses and
motets, with some other developments towards the end, especially as composers of sacred music began
to adopt secular forms (such as the madrigal) for their own designs.
Common sacred genres were the mass, the motet, the madrigale spirituale, and the laude. Renaissance
compositions were notated only in individual parts; scores were extremely rare, and barlines were not
used. Note values were generally larger than are in use today; the primary unit of beat was the
semibreve, or whole note.
A madrigal is a secular vocal music composition, usually a partsong, of the Renaissance and early
Baroque eras. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied; the number of voices varies from
two to eight, and most frequently from three to six.
Madrigals originated in Italy during the 1520s. Unlike many strophic forms of the time, most madrigals
were through-composed. In the madrigal, the composer attempted to express the emotion contained in
each line, and sometimes individual words, of a celebrated poem.
In Italy, the madrigal was the most important secular form of music of its time. The madrigal reached its
formal and historical zenith by the second half of the 16th century. English and German composers, too,
took up the madrigal in its heyday. After the 1630s, the madrigal began to merge with the cantata and
the dialogue. With the rise of opera in the early 17th century, the aria gradually displaced the madrigal.
Motet, (French mot: “word”), style of vocal composition that has undergone numerous transformations
through many centuries. Typically, it is a Latin religious choral composition, yet it can be a secular
composition or a work for soloist(s) and instrumental accompaniment, in any language, with or without
a choir. The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the invariable
portions of the Eucharistic liturgy (principally that of the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, and
the Lutheran Church) to music. Most Masses are settings of the liturgy in Latin, the liturgical sacred
language of the Catholic Church's Roman liturgy, but there are a significant number written in the
languages of non-Catholic countries where vernacular worship has long been the norm. For example,
there are many Masses (often called "Communion Services") written in English for the Church of
England. Musical Masses take their name from the Catholic liturgy called "the Mass" as well.
Masses can be a cappella, for the human voice alone, or they can be accompanied by instrumental
obbligatos up to and including a full orchestra. Many Masses, especially later ones, were never intended
to be performed during the celebration of an actual mass.