Download Music culture The Renaissance (1400

Music culture
The Renaissance
(1400-1600)
The Renaissance was an exciting time in the world history. World exploration by
scientific advancement by Galileo and Copernicus led the world in new directions. Artists
such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo flourished while playwrights like Shakespeare
wrote plays and poetry.
The Renaissance saw the rise of the middle class. No longer did all of the wealth belong
to the nobility. People moved to cities, and spent more time seeing plays and concerts.
Music was now part of any good education. With the invention of the printing press around
1450, sheet music was printed and made available to everyone. By 1600, popular music of
the day was available across Europe, and the middle class learned to play instruments using
method books for recorder, lute, and guitar.
Composers like Josquin des Prez and Giovanni Palestrina led the way into a new way of
composing. Man, rather then God, became the new focus in a great deal of music. Composers
now turned to another dimension of music that had been neglected up to then. The use of
harmony changed music for ever.
Sacred Music
The sacred music of the Renaissance was a natural outgrowth of plainsong. The simple
two-line polyphony of the late Middle Ages was expanded to use up to four different vocal
parts of equal importance. This new vocal form was the motet. Contrary to the Middle Ages
ideal, the music was more important than the words. Josquin des Prez and Giovanni
Palestrina were the most famous Renaissance composers of motets.
Music began to be very ornamented at this time. Mass settings and motets had become
more and more ambitious and eleaborate as time wore on. More voices were used and
movements became longer and cleverer. Composers were more interested in showing off
than with putting forward any significant religious message. Church leaders began to worry
that people could not understand the important lyrics and at the Council of Trent, ordered
that sacred music be used to underline the text. This marked the beginning of chordally
structured music.
Secular Music
Madrigals, songs for small groups of voices without instuments, were the most popular
form of secular music. Usually about love, madrigals became an important part of the special
occasions. They were usually sung at feasts and weddings and often had verses with
repeated choruses like popular music today.
Reformation
When the Lutheran church split from the Catholic church in the 1500's, more than
religion changed. Martin Luther wanted all of his congregation to take part in the music of
his services. The new Protestant churches that formed had songs written for singing by the
whole congregation1, not just the choir. This new chorale style was the basis for many hymns
that are still sung today. The chorale was composed for voices, but two hundred years later,
Bach would use the form for his organ pieces.
1
congregation - zajednica
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Music culture
Instrumental Music
In the Renaissance, composers also began writing polyphonic pieces just for instruments.
These pieces were often written to accompany ballroom dancing and to entertain nobility at
their court. Recorders and lutes were two of the most common instruments. Recorders and
viols in all different sizes played together in groups called consorts. Other instruments of the
Renaissance were lutes, shawms, krummhorns, and small version of trumpets and
trombones. Often instruments and voices combined for variety.
recorders
Renaissance Quiz
1. What is the name for the chordal accompaniment of a melody?
 harmony
 monophony
 cacophony2
2. What style of music arose from the Reformation?
 polyphony
 chorale
 concerto
3. What instrument was popular during the Renaissance?
 clarinet
 lute
 piano
lute
2
Cacophony - neskladnost zvukova, disharmonija
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