ITALIAN RENAISSANCE

MUSIC
Italian music was conditioned by the role played by Flemish composers such as
Adrián Willaert and his disciples who transplanted the Dutch polyphonic style. In
less than a century, Italy replaced the Netherlands as the centre of European
musical life. There were two types of musical forms:

The frottola: Which was a type of strophic song, syllabically set to music in four
voices, with marked rhythmic schemes, diatonic harmonies and a homophonous
style with the melody in the upper voice. It has several subtypes such as the
barzelleta, the capitolo, the estrambotto, etc. It was usually performed by singing
the upper voice and playing the other three voices as accompaniment. His texts
were amatory and satirical. Its main composers were Italian.

The lauda: Religious counterpart of the frottola; it was sung at semi-public

religious gatherings a cappella, or with instruments playing the three upper voices.
It was mostly syllabic and homophonous, with the melody in the upper voice, called
music.

Lute, Italian Renaissance instrument

Instruments of the Italian Renaissance
RENAISSANCE MUSIC

MUSIC IN THE RENAISSANCE

During the 15th and 16th centuries, a cultural movement developed

in Europe: the
Renaissance. Italy was the initial nucleus of the Renaissance, which saw its
first manifestations in cities such as Florence and, later, Rome and Venice.
The men and women who led the Renaissance wanted to bring Greek
and Latin antiquity back into fashion. The Renaissance was both a
form of culture, defining an era, and a way of thinking and living.
If until then the most important musical activity took place within the
Church, during the Renaissance it spread to the palaces of the
nobility, where it began to be valued for itself, for its capacity to
transmit emotions and feelings, and to be practiced for pleasure and
for its own beauty. Princes and grand dukes maintained groups of
musicians, called CHAPELS, at their service, imitating cathedrals, in
which a variable number of singers, normally between fifteen and
twenty, made music presided over by a "CHAPEL MASTER".

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE:

 We return to the canon of Greek art and to the cultivation of Latin and
Greek.
 Medieval art is despised.
 Man is considered the center of the Universe: ANTHROPOCENTRISM,
unlike the Middle Ages which had God as the center of all intellectual activity
(THEOCENTRISM).
 For people of the Renaissance, life was worth living, while in the Middle
Ages it was considered “a valley of tears.”
 There is interest in knowing the why of things.
 Interest in Nature, and this is reflected in the paintings of the time.
 According to CASTIGLIONE (he writes “THE COURTIERSAN”) a good
courtier knows how to sing, play an instrument, recite poetry…
 Great artists of the Renaissance were: the architect BRUNELLESCHI (SEE
“Dome of the Florence Cathedral”), BOTTICELLI (SEE “Birth of Venus”),
LEONARDO DA VINCI (SEE “La Gioconda”), …
 If in the Middle Ages art was, above all, a means to honour God, in the
Renaissance the idea arose that music served to express the most profoundly human
emotions, especially if it was supported by a text, as is evident in the "madrigal".
 For the first time, composers, individual creators with their own name, such as
Josquin des Prez, appear.

THE RENAISSANCE AND MUSIC

Renaissance music was not a restoration of Greco-Latin antiquity,
since Greek and Roman music could not be known with the same
precision as their architecture and sculpture. On the contrary,
Renaissance music was rather the culmination of Gothic polyphony.
Polyphony is the compositional technique that combines several melodies
simultaneously and that was developed and perfected during the Renaissance.
Polyphony is a texture that we can find in its vocal, instrumental or mixed form.
It is classified into contrapuntal polyphony and homophonic polyphony:

- Contrapuntal polyphony, or counterpoint, is where the rhythm of the

melodies is independent; therefore, it gives the sensation that they argue
among themselves note against note, "point against point". The canon is a
good example of this type of polyphony.
- Homophonic polyphony, or homophony, is when the rhythm of the
melodies coincide, giving the sensation that the voices are united.

Characteristics of Renaissance music:

 It is polyphonic music, generally with four independent voices or parts,

that is, where all voices have equal importance. A very common resource was
to have the different voices sing the same musical motifs alternately, as if they
were imitating each other; this system is called IMITATIVE COUNTERPOINT. To
achieve variety, they mixed in a single composition parts of imitative
counterpoint, parts of free polyphony and parts of chordal texture, where all
the voices sing the same syllables at the same time.
 There is not yet a totally instrumental or totally vocal music, because all
instrumental music can be sung, or vice versa; there is only POLYPHONY.
* If you click here you will learn about the origin of Renaissance polyphony
POLYPHONYhttp://youtu.be/9CLYG71MTsY

 Although we must also point out how human voices will gradually be
replaced by instruments, which will favor the appearance of instrumental music
that accompanied the DANCES.
 Appearance of small groups of instruments, where the wind family
gradually loses importance compared to the string family (lute, viola, vihuela,
etc.).
 Search for sensual pleasure in musical listening.

FUNCTION OF MUSIC IN THE RENAISSANCE

 Music is highly valued by the Church and the nobility.

 It is believed that music perfects man, this can be verified in the work “Il
Cortegiano” by Castiglione and in the writings of Luther.
 Music not only serves to address God, but also – and increasingly – as
entertainment.
 The musician is under the protection of a PATRON and begins to be
valued and, consequently, to live better. The artist, happy with his work, begins
to sign them.
. In religious music, the greatest innovation was the appearance of choral
polyphony. In medieval music, each voice or part of the polyphony was played by a
soloist. In the Renaissance, on the other hand, several singers sing each of the voices,
thus forming a choir. The choirs were made up of men only, since female voices were
prohibited inside the churches, and usually had between 10 and 14 singers, who read
the music from large choral books placed on a revolving lectern called a "facistol".
The most representative compositions of religious music were the motet and the
mass.

FACISTOL of the Cathedral of SevilleThe

lectern is used for the choir, it usually has four sides corresponding to the book of each voice.
The oldest known lecterns date back https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siglo_XVto the 15th century
and the symbolic and ornamental motif that they all present is an eagle on a globe or pedestal
with open wings on which the book rests. During the Renaissance, double or revolving lecterns
and also quadruple lecterns began to be used, to hold four books open at a time in the shape
of a truncated pyramid, decorated with some religious, iconic or symbolic finish and mounted
on a foot, pedestal or fixed table in the middle of the choir.

Renaissance secular music, which was gaining increasing importance

over religious music, was also based on vocal polyphony. However, solo voices, not the
choir, continued to be the normal mode of performance of secular music.

The madrigal stood out as a genre and in Spain the carol.

MUSICAL FORMS OF THE RENAISSANCE

Within the RELIGIOUS MUSIC of the Renaissance we must differentiate two
stages. The first would correspond to the polyphonic music before the COUNCIL
OF TRENTO and the second stage - which is the one we will deal with - would
be the one after the Council.
The Council of Trent, as far as music is concerned, tries to create religious
music that serves as a defense against LUTHER's PROTESTANTISM, and to do
so it eliminates any profane aspect from religious polyphony and demands that
the text be perfectly "understandable", even if it remains in Latin. The Council,
therefore, gave norms that sought to eliminate from the liturgy (the Mass) what
was sensual and profane, so that the house of God could be called a “house of
prayer.” The earlier polyphony (“Ars Nova”) was considered “hellish noise”
until PALESTRINA managed to redeem it with his extraordinary “Mass of Pope
Marcellus” (“Gloria”, Mass of Pope Marcellus).

As for LUTHER, the man who carried out the PROTESTANT

REFORMATION in Germany, he was aware from the beginning of the great
didactic role of music in religion. For this reason, he kept some elements of
Catholic music for the reformist worship, but he sought out popular melodies
that were easy to interpret, to which he added lyrics from didactic-moral texts
in the German language that replaced the Gregorian chant. At first, these
songs were sung by the people in one voice and accompanied by the organ.
They were then harmonized into four voices and performed by a choir, thus
leading to the creation of the CORAL.

The CORAL is a four-voice song, with a simple melody and marked rhythm,
with a religious theme.

In Spain, the greatest representative of Renaissance polyphony was TOMÁS

LUIS DE VICTORIA, a contemporary and disciple of Palestrina.

A) VOCAL FORMS:
  THE MASS.- It is structured on the liturgical texts of this celebration:
Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus. One of the most important composers
of masses was Palestrina.

 The MOTET, which emerged in the 15th century, was a polyphonic piece,
generally performed in four voices, which almost always started from a religious text in
Latin. He reached his peak with Palestrina and Orlando di Lasso ("Cor Meum", O.
de Lasso), ("Cor meum", three-voicehttps://youtu.be/fFT1oCDW2XE motet).
 THE MADRIGAL.- It is the great profane form of the Renaissance.
Written for several voices, it is a genuinely Italian composition. In the madrigal,
based on a free poem of high literary quality, the music is rhythmically adapted
to a verse text on a love theme. On the other hand, the music tries to adapt to
the meaning of the text, highlighting its descriptive or sentimental value, that
is, if a verse expresses joy, the music will be joyful; if the following verse
expresses sadness, the music will also do so, without ever repeating the same
music for different verses. Madrigals were composed by, among others,
Monteverdi and Orlando di Lasso.
 The VILLANCICO was the preferred musical form in Spain. This composition,
whose name means "song of villains", that is, peasants who live in villages, has nothing
to do with Christmas carols.
Juan del Enzina (1468-1530), poet, musician and father of Spanish
theatre, was the most important composer of Christmas carols.

B) INSTRUMENTAL FORMS:
Music composed exclusively for instruments made its appearance during the
Renaissance. The first instruments for which musical pieces were composed were
keyboard instruments (organ and harpsichord) and the lute (the favourite instrument
in Europe); later compositions were made for monodic instruments, such as the flute,
which began to be used in groups, so that several could form an ensemble capable of
playing polyphonic pieces.

The viola, which received different names depending on its range (viola da gamba,
da braccio,...) was, along with the flute, the preferred instrument for this ensemble
music.

The Renaissance was the Golden Age of Spanish music. The Burgos-born ANTONIO DE
CABEZÓN, organist at the court of Philip II, was the great musician of his time, and his
collections of music for vihuela, an instrument that was the predecessor of the guitar,
are among the best of European instrumental music of the Renaissance.

 DANCE.-It is a work to be danced.

CLICK AND YOU WILL SEE A RENAISSANCE DANCE: Dance
 TOCATA.-It is a short work for keyboard instruments (organ, harpsichord,
clavichord) that serves as an introduction to a more complex work.
MUSICAL SCHOOLS OF THE RENAISSANCE
. Franco-Flemish school.- It developed in present-day Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg
and northern France. A series of musicians came together here who influenced the
evolution of polyphony in the rest of Europe. Featured composers: Josquin des Prez
and Orlando di Lasso (I love you).
* Josquin des Pres, "The Cricket", Il grillo

. Roman school.- It represented formal and interpretative perfection. It revolved

around musical chapels. Composers: Palestrina (motet Sicut servus). Venetian

School.- It is considered the origin of music for two or more choirs. This was helped by
the placement of the organs (one facing the other) in the chapel of San Marco. The
founder was Willaert and the Gabrieli "magnificat" and Magnifica stood

out. Spanish School.- It is characterized by depth and dramatic expression. Featured

musicians: Cristóbal de Morales "Circum dederunt me"), Francisco Guerrero
(Infant God of Wounded Love") and Tomás Luis de Victoria (motet O magnum
mysterium).

. English School.- The English madrigal enjoyed great popularity with composers such
as Morley ("It was a lover and his lass") and Weelkes (The Nightingale). In
instrumental music Dowland composed for the virginal and the lute.
Dowland ("Come again" 8madrigal": come again) was the most representative figure
of the English ayre (song accompanied by the lute). He is considered the precursor of
the accompanied melody.