Download Chapter 14 – Renaissance Composers, Events, and Representative

Chapter 14 – Renaissance Composers,
Events, and Representative Compositions
Illustration 1: Angelico/Lippi, "The Adoration of the Magi" ca
1460
SOME IMPORTANT RENAISSANCE COMPOSERS
Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina (1525? - 1594)
Like many people from this era, Palestrina's last name comes from his birthplace
(Palestrina), a town southeast of Rome. He began performing as a musician in his early
teens. By his mid-20s, he was choirmaster at Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.
Palestrina composed over 100 masses and hundreds of other compositions, becoming
quite famous during his lifetime. While Palestrina is not purely an example of "tonal
harmony", he was very clearly conscious of the power of consonance and dissonance in
music and created his own stylized set of rules in his compositions. His distinctive use of
polyphony was studied (and is still used as the most perfect example of Renaissance
counterpoint in compositional studies).
During the era of the Counter Reformation, polyphony had become so complex and
showy that the Pope considered banning music from church. For many years it was
believed that his Missa Papae Marcelli (Pope Marcellus Mass) persuaded the Pope from
such a ban, but historians have discounted this. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful enough
composition to probably have accomplished this.
In spite of being an acclaimed composer, Palestrina nearly stopped composing because
his music position didn’t pay enough for him to live on. Fortunately for posterity, he
married a wealthy widow and was able to continue composing.
Palestrina's music heavily influenced later musicians including J. S. Bach.
Giovanni Gabrieli (1551? - 1612)
Gabrieli was probably born in Venice, Italy. By his mid 30s, he became organist at Saint
Mark's Basilica in his home city, a prestigious post he held for the rest of his life.
Gabrieli became quite well known in Venice and as composers from other parts of
Europe visited Venice, they took some of his practices back with them.
He was known for a very elaborate polychoral style--probably owing in part to the fact
that Saint Mark had multiple choir lofts. Gabrieli can almost be considered to be the first
person to compose in stereo (or even quadraphonic!) because of the interaction of the
musical parts written for the musicians in different parts of the church.
Gabrieli composed much choral music and a great deal of instrumental music, including
the Sonata Pian e Forte, which was long believed to be the first piece of music to use
dynamics (at the moment, it is believed to be the second).
Josquin DesPres (ca. 1450 -- 1521)
Josquin (as he is often known) wrote many works, both sacred and secular and highly
admired by his contemporaries and later musicians. He was born near the border of
Belgium and France and spent much of his creative career in France. He composed in all
of the common forms of the time, both instrumental and vocal music. He had command
of a wide variety of compositional styles and his music contains many different types of
compositional devices. His reputation was so great that publishers sometimes put his
name on someone else's music to generate more sales. Because of this, modern scholars
have difficulty sorting through the music attributed to him
Josquin also composed what are known as parody masses--a setting of a mass that was
based on another piece of music, often a secular one. To someone living today, when we
hear the word parody we tend to think of satire and ridicule. That was far from the case
in the 15th century--using another piece of music was considered a high tribute and was
done with seriousness and respect. Some of the tunes he used as part of his masses were
even somewhat off-color, but it certainly didn't seem to bother the musicians of the era.
Josquin is considered the first great composer of the Renaissance. Like Palestrina, his
music was highly praised and studied after his death. It is believed that he is one of the
many people who carved graffiti (specifically his name) into the walls of the Sistene
chapel--a tradition for musicians who performed there.
Thomas Morley (ca 1557 - 1602)
Morley was one of the most famous English composers of the Renaissace. His madrigals
are considered by many to be the best of the genre. He composed a great deal of sacred
music, but he is best known for his secular music, both vocal and instrumental, including
keyboard music.
Some of the madrigals were printed with the separate parts on a page facing different
directions to allow one copy of the music to work for four people sitting around a table.
While historians have not proven connections, he may well have had associations with
William Shakespeare, being one of the few contemporaries of Shakespeare to set his
music.
Morley also functioned as an editor in the collection of madrigals entitled "The
Triumphs of Oriana". Oriana was a nickname for Queen Elizabeth and each of the
madrigals in the collection include the phrase "Long live fair Oriana."
Illustration 2: Table of Contents and first page of "April is in my
Mistress' Face" by Thomas Morley
You might want to note that we have seen some major changes from the composers and
music of the Medieval Era. Several of the above biographies note that the composers
became quite famous during their lifetimes. Yet--if we were to dig a little deeper into
biographies we find that fame and wealth don't yet go together. Palestrina, a very
revered musician during his lifetime could barely afford to live on his salary working for
the most important church figures of the era. Only the fact that he married a wealthy
widow allowed him to compose later in his life.
There were no copyright laws, no lawsuits over intellectual property. In general,
posterity was not yet an important factor in the lives of musicians. Surely some of them
were probably becoming aware of the fact that their music might be studied by
musicians after they had died (Giovani Gabrieli spent a lot of time editing manuscripts
of his deceased uncle Andrea, another famous composer of the time) as they likely had
studied the works of older masters in their education. Music was still mostly composed
for specific occasions and the composer was expected to dutifully crank out more music
for the next occasion.
While we are inching toward it, the potential of music (even printed music) as a
marketable commodity was still far off in the distance. When the ability to mass produce
sounds of individual performances was developed, things would change very rapidly and
drastically for musicians.
SOME IMPORTANT EVENTS OF THE RENAISSANCE
Invention of movable type
Reformation
Counter-Reformation
Founding of Jesuit Order
Vesalius' studies on anatomy
Copernican view of the solar system
Shakespeare's dramas
Exploration of the "New World"
Magellan Circumnavigates Globe
"Utopia" by More
Astronomical discoveries of Galileo
REPRESENTATIVE MUSIC OF THE RENAISSANCE
English Madrigals -- Morley, Gibbons, Weelkes, etc.
Polychoral and Brass music -- Gabrieli, Schutz, etc.
Missa Brevis -- Palestrina
Missa de Beata Virgine -- Josquin des Pres
Motets -- Dufay
Italian Madrigals -- Gesualdo, Marenzio, Monteverdi
Illustration 3: What a difference a century makes! Note the difference in handling the sense of depth
between the Veneziano painting (on the left) from 1340 and the Pesselino painting (on the right) from
1450
Material copyright 2016 by Gary Daum, all rights reserved. All photos and illustrations by Gary Daum unless otherwise
noted. Unlimited use granted to current members of the Georgetown Prep community.