General Characteristics of Renaissance Music

1. General Characteristics of Renaissance Music • Overall sound is much smoother and more homogeneous • Strict and free imitation

2. Anonymous Chanson L’homme armeé • Strophic • Rhythmic drive • Almost entirely syllabic

3. Josquin Desprez (c. 1440-1521)Kyrie from the Missa L’homme armeé • Point of imitation technique • Overlapping cadences • Paired imitation • Mass ordinary • Cantus firmus mass • Three sections

4. Palestrina (c. 1525-1594)Motet Super flumina Babylonis • 5 voices, 2 independent tenors • Text/music rhythms match • Word painting • Variety of textures • Exceptional blending of imitation and homophony

5. Thomas Morley (1557-1602)Two English Madrigals • Highly imitative • Word painting • Secular

6. Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1555-1612)Canzona Duodecimi Toni • Purely instrumental • Brass choirs • Antiphonal • Overlapping cadences • Dynamic contrasts • Canzona rhythm

7. The Renaissance We begin with a brief review of the fourteenth century, which in terms of music, marked the close of the Middle Ages and the dawn of the Renaissance. • This era saw an end to the absolute authority of the medieval Church and an explosive growth in secular art. • The composers of isorhythm--the most representative compositional technique of the late Middle Ages--created awesomely complex and highly intellectualised music. • Guillaume de Machaut was the greatest composer and poet of the fourteenth century.

8. The Renaissance The Renaissance era was shaped by several social and intellectual movements and events. • Humanism was the dominant intellectual movement of the Renaissance, emphasizing human life and accomplishments rather than religious doctrine and the afterlife. • The Renaissance was an age of geographic exploration. • Classicism--the study of the language, literature, philosophy, art, and architecture of ancient Greece and Rome--held special fascination for Renaissance scholars.

9. The Renaissance • The Protestant Reformation profoundly shook the power of the Catholic Church. • The invention of the printing press made possible the broader dissemination of knowledge. • Visual art showed new clarity and perspective. • Renaissance musical composers sought to recapture the classical Greek ideal of music: both secular and religious composers sought to create more expressive, meaningful music. • Education

10. TheRenaissance Several aesthetic innovations were adopted in music during the Renaissance. 1. The music must clearly project or articulate the words. 2. Music should also reflect the meaning and feeling of the spoken or written word, e.g., through tone or word painting.

11. The Renaissance Technical innovations were also adopted. 1. The Renaissance saw much experimentation with new tunings, harmonic structures, and notational techniques. Renaissance composers adopted the Greek view of music as a sonic manifestation of the "order" of the cosmos. 2. The science of harmony began to evolve during the Renaissance. 3. Composed homophony--harmonized melody--appeared for the first time.

12. The Renaissance The most representative composer in the high Renaissance style was Josquin des Prez (c. 1440-1521). 1. Josquin was born in northern France and split his career between France and Italy. 2. He composed in the high Renaissance style: • Melodic Surface • Melodies • Harmony • Printing Press