Chapter Six: Renaissance Music, 1450-1600
Renaissance Music
• Intellectual and artistic flowering that began in Italy,
then to France and England
• Inspiration from ancient Greece and Rome
• Emphasis on the enormous expressive power of music
• New alliance between text and music, with the
accompanying music underscored and enhanced the
meaning of the text
• Greater range of emotional expression
Humanism
• Emphasis on personal achievement, intellectual
independence, discovery
• Culture rejoiced in the human form in all its fullness
– Michelangelo’s David
• New genre of painting – the portrait
– Depicted worldly individuals enjoying the good life
• The “Humanities:” The study of the arts, letters, and
historical events than have enriched the human spirit
over the centuries
Josquin Desprez (c. 1455-1512)
• One of the greatest composers
of the Renaissance
• Worked in Italy, including in
Sistine Chapel in the Vatican
• Excelled in writing Motets:
• Use of more dramatic texts in the Old Testament
• Vivid text required an equally vivid musical setting
• Music was used to heighten the meaning of the text
• Compared in greatness to Michelangelo
Ave Maria (Hail Mary), c. 1485
• 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
• A cappella: unaccompanied singing
• Listening Example: pg. 77
• Music reflects the text
The Counter-Reformation and Palestrina (1525-1594)
• 1517: Martin Luther began the Protestant Revolution
– Wanted to end the corruption in the Roman Catholic
Church
• 1545-1563: Council of Trent, led to the CounterReformation
– Conservative changes changed religious policy as well
as art, architecture, and music
– Church leaders wanted clarity in sung text
• Giovanni Palestrina
Giovanni Palestrina (1525-1594)
• Composed Misse Papae Marcelli (Mass for Pope
Marcellus), 1555 (Listening Example: pg. 81)
• 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
Popular Music in the Renaissance
• 1460: Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press
• 1501: First printed book of music in Venice
– Encouraged amateur music making
Dance Music
• Collections of dance music were published
• Pavane: Slow, gliding dance in duple meter performed
by couples holding hands
• Galliard: Fast, leaping dance in triple meter (Listening
• Listening Example: pg. 82
The Madrigal
• Madrigal: A piece for several solo voices that sets a
vernacular poem to music; appeared c. 1530 in Italy
– Usually four to five parts
– Poems usually about love
– Fun to sing: Written within a comfortable range, triadic
melodies, catchy rhythms, music full of puns
• Music expresses the meaning of the text
– Word Painting: The process of depicting the text in music
by means of expressive musical devices; vivid imagery
– Also called Madrigalisms
As Vesta Was from Latmost Hill Descending
(1601) – Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623)
• included in Thomas Morley’s The Triumphs of Oriana
(1601)
– Collection of 34 madrigals in honor of Queen Elizabeth
(1533-1623)
– Oriana represents Elizabeth
– Queen Elizabeth played lute and harpsichord, and loved
to dance
– Listening Example: pg. 84
• Images from classical mythology
• Use of word painting
Renaissance Music
Melody
Mainly stepwise motion within moderately narrow range; still
mainly diatonic, but some intense chromaticism found in
madrigals from end of period
Harmony
More careful use of dissonance than in Middle Ages as the
triad, a consonant chord, becomes the basic building block of
harmony
Rhythm
Duple meter as common as triple meter; rhythm in sacred
vocal music (Mass and motet) is relaxed and without strong
downbeats; rhythm in secular music (madrigal and
instrumental music) usually lively and catchy
Color
Predominant sound is unaccompanied ( a cappella) vocal
music; more music for instruments alone has survived
Texture
Mainly polyphonic: imitative counterpoint for 4 or 5 vocal
lines (Masses, motets, and madrigals); occasional passages of
chordal homophonic texture for variety
Form
Strict musical forms not often used; Masses, motets, madrigals,
and instrumental dances are through composed (no musical
repetitions, no standard formal plan