Download The History of Music, Second Edition

The History of Music,
Second Edition
The Middle Ages &
the Renaissance
Teacher’s Guide
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The History of Music, Second Edition
The Middle Ages & the Renaissance
Table of Contents
Tabl
INTRODUCTION.........................................................................3
LEARNING OBJECTIVES..................................................................3
TARGET VOCABULARY...................................................................3
DISCUSSION STARTERS...................................................................3
REVIEW QUESTIONS.....................................................................4
TRANSCRIPT............................................................................7
©2005 Clearvue
6465 N. Avondale Avenue
Chicago, IL 60631
800-253-2788 • 773-775-9433
[email protected]
clearvue.com • PowerMediaPlus.com
The History of Music, Second Edition
The Middle Ages & the Renaissance
Introduction
During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, music continued to develop and change. The differences between sacred and secular music became more pronounced, with some places of worship
limiting or prohibiting music altogether.
The study of music became more important, so much so that talented musicians were sometimes
brought in from other areas to share their knowledge. The Duchy of Burgundy, an area that included Belgium, the Netherlands, and eastern France, was a fertile cultural center during the first
half of the fifteenth century, giving rise to a number of notable musicians and composers.
Although some of the music from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was purely vocal, musical
instruments continued to develop, as well. Many of the instruments from the period eventually
evolved into modern instruments like the zither, guitar, trumpet, oboe, trombone, organ, and
violin.
Learning Objectives
After completing the program and participating in discussion and activities, students will be able
to:
•
•
•
•
•
Describe notable types of singing and music from the Middle Ages and Renaissance;
Discuss the kinds of musical instruments that were popular during that time;
Understand the significance and usage of both secular and sacred music;
Recall information about influential musicians and composers from that time; and
Explain how the styles and popularity of music varied from region to region.
Target Vocabulary
plainchant
neumes
polyphony
motet
lute
psaltery
buisine
cadence
organ
fiedel
tonic
canzone
madrigal
harp
shawm
trumpet
chansons
mass
Guillaume de Machaut
Francesco Landini
Johannes Ockeghem
Josquin des Prez
Claudio Monteverdi
tromba marina
Pope Gregory the Great
Martin Luther
Huldreich Zwingli
Gregorian chant
cantus firmus
jongleurs
troubadours
minnesingers
humanism
John Dunstable
John Calvin
tonality
Guillaume Dufay
Gilles Binchois
choral music
imitative counterpoint
weak tonality
strong tonality
Giovanni Pierluigi
da Palestrina
Discussion Starters
1. Ask students to share their thoughts on the music they heard in the program. Have they ever
heard music like that before? Do they find it appealing or unappealing? Why?
2. Discuss the ways in which the music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance is different from the
music of today. Challenge the students to think of ways in which the music of today is similar to
the music from that time.
3. Think about the contrast between secular and sacred music during this time. Ask students to
talk about the secular and sacred music of today. What are their feelings about each? If any of the
students listen to both kinds of music, ask them to describe what it is they like and dislike about each.
3
Review Questions
Use these discussion topics and questions to review the program material.
1. What is plainchant? [A form of chanting adapted largely from Jewish heritage. Plainchant was
pure, unaccompanied melody practiced because the Church disapproved of any other forms of
music. It was handed down from that period to future generations.] Why was plainchant the preferred form of music in the Church? [The Church believed that music should make the listener
or participant receptive to holy thoughts and feelings. Since words were considered necessary for
this purpose, purely instrumental music was prohibited. Most musical practices other than plainchant were associated with non-Christian traditions, and the Church wanted to shield its followers
from reminders of rival faiths. So, plainchant became a symbol—a means of ensuring intellectual,
spiritual, and aesthetic solidarity within the Christian domain.] What are neumes? [Neumes are
symbols that were shown between lines of plainchant text to indicate the rise and fall in pitch
and the division of syllables.] What is Gregorian Chant? [Around the year 600, Pope Gregory the
Great attempted to organize the various chants that had spread throughout Christendom. His
compilation became known as Gregorian Chant. These bare, unadorned melodies have remained
vital to Catholic worship. Modern composers often return to them when they want to evoke a solemn, sacred atmosphere.]
2. What is polyphony? When and how did it originate? [Polyphony is the combining of two or
more musical lines. Around 850, singers began improvising melodies parallel to chant melodies.
The intervals between these parallel melodies emphasized fourths and fifths, which tend to
sound stark and hollow to modern ears but were regarded at the time as the purest, most natural sounds. These parallel melodies were a step toward polyphony.
yy. Gradually, polyphony became
more complex as parallel melodies were replaced by musical lines that moved independently.
Polyphony is one of the most distinctive characteristics of Western music.] What is cantus firmus?
[Cantus firmus is a style in which a chant is sung and played on instruments in long, sustained
notes while three faster, rhythmically regular melodies are sung above it.]
3. What is a motet and where did it originate? [A motet is a rhythmic piece of vocal music in
which each melodic line is given a different text. The rhythms were selected from several specific patterns, similar to poetic meters. Not all motets were sacred; for example, one piece might
include a Latin religious poem, an earthy French love song, and a satirical political commentary.
Motets originated in Paris around the year 1200; Paris was one of the great centers of musical
development at this time.]
4. During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, secular music began to gain popularity.
What were some of the different performers of secular music called and what did they do?
[Jongleurs were jugglers and traveling minstrels who danced, played, and sang their own songs in
the courts and on the streets. In taverns, wandering university students entertained themselves
and others with drinking songs and love songs. Some songs dealt with both subjects, and their
lyrics sometimes combined both Latin and the local language. Between 1100 and 1300, some
French noblemen started a trend—writing poems about courtly love and setting them to music.
These troubadours, as they were called, traveled throughout the country singing and playing their
pieces. By the fourteenth century, troubadours were also popular in German-speaking countries,
where they were called Minnesingers, or singers of love songs. Before long, troubadours were
traveling in many parts of Europe.]
5. Describe some of the instruments from the Middle Ages. [The psaltery was a plucked instrument similar to a modern zither and was mentioned in the Bible. The lute was a stringed instrument and is a relative of the guitar. The tromba marina was a one-stringed instrument that
4
has no modern counterpart. The medieval trumpet was made of brass or wood and the shawm, a
double-reed instrument, is the predecessor of the oboe. The buisine is the ancestor of the trombone; without a slide, the buisine could only play a few notes. The fiedel was a small-bowed
instrument that eventually developed into the viol and, later on, into the violin.
6. Which was more important in the fourteenth century: secular or sacred music? Explain.
[The fourteenth century was an experimental period, when secular music overtook sacred music
in importance. Rhythmic patterns expanded dramatically, giving rise to freer, more complex
compositions.] Who were some of the important composers of this time? [The most significant
composer
er of this time was Guillaume de Machaut, who excelled in both sacred and secular styles
and also possessed literary and political talents. Francesco Landini and John Dunstable were both
important composers as well.] Who was Francesco Landini and what type of secular song was
he known for? [Francesco Landini was a blind Italian composer who adapted the new techniques
of the fourteenth century in his own way, placing less emphasis on complexity than his French colleagues did. Landini concentrated on simpler rhythms and more direct melodies in a new type of
secular song—the madrigal.] How were John Dunstable's compositions different from the compositions of other composers? [John Dunstable, a British composer, emphasized harmony based
on thirds and sixths—intervals that sounded very different from the fourths and fifths commonly
used before. Dunstable's intervals lent a smooth, rich quality that soon attracted other composers. As the fourteenth century drew to a close, musicians became more interested in the sensuous
aspects of their art than in the technical aspects of structure. This change was especially evident
among those composers who acknowledged Dunstable's influence.]
7. What was the Duchy of Burgundy and what was its significance in the fifteenth century?
[The powerful Duchy of Burgundy was made up of Belgium, the Netherlands, and eastern France,
and was the most fertile cultural center in Europe during the first half of the fifteenth century.
Attracting artists and musicians from all over the continent, its styles became internationally
accepted.] Who were some of the notable Burgundian composers? [The leading Burgundian
composers were Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois, two learned men who developed Dunstable's
new sounds into a distinctive musical style. The music introduced by Dufay and his like-minded
contemporaries had an unprecedented richness and translucence.]
8. What is tonality? [Tonality is a fundamental aspect of Western music and most music around
the world. Tonality is the tendency of a musical composition to gravitate to one particular note
called the tonic. When a piece of music arrives at the tonic, the listener feels a sense of resolution or completion.] How does the approach to tonality affect the sound of the music? How
has the approach to tonality changed throughout time? [The approach to tonality has varied
throughout the centuries, sometimes favoring a strong pull to the tonic and at other times favoring a weak one. If the pull is strong, the music sounds direct and decisive. If the pull is weak,
the music tends to sound uncertain, as if reaching for something unattainable. During the Middle
Ages, music reflected a moderate sense of tonality—gentle rather than emphatic. However, the
new approach to harmony developing in Burgundy gave rise to a slightly stronger tonal pull, setting a trend that would govern musical development for centuries.]
9. What is choral music? When and where did it flourish? [Late in the fifteenth century, the
focus was on choral music—polyphonic works written for several singers per voice part instead of
for solo voices. The ideal was represented by a chorus divided into four equally important voice
parts—soprano, alto, tenor, and bass—with little or no instrumental accompaniment. The voice
parts wove among one another, with no one voice predominating. Rhythm was fluid and free, and
tonality was distinct. The music was smooth, homogeneous, spiritual rather than personal, creating a mystical or otherworldly effect appropriate for sacred themes.]
5
10. What were Johannes Ockeghem's contributions to music? [Ockeghem was a powerfully
influential composer and teacher of the time who pioneered choral music, a new Flemish style.
Renaissance composers strove for this ideal sound.] What other Flemish styles became popular
at this time? [The Latin Mass, an ideal vehicle for the Flemish style, soon became the chief musical form. Composers wrote hundreds of different settings of the Mass, often building them around
a particular plainchant melody, the cantus firmus.]
11. What musical developments occurred in Italy at this time? [While Flemish composers were
refining their style, a cultural revolution was taking place in Italy. A whole new philosophy called
humanism—a concern with the quality of life on earth—was developing hand in hand with
unprecedented prosperity. The Church lost its monopoly over the arts as more private individuals
began supporting artists and musicians, even posing for sculptures and paintings. All the arts were
stimulated by this explosion in ideas and opportunities. Because Italians had not reached the same
level of sophistication in music as in the other arts, the most brilliant Flemish musicians and composers were imported to serve and to teach in the Italian courts.]
12. Who was Josquin des Prez? [The Flemish composer Josquin des Prez was considered the
greatest composer of all. Regarded even today among the supreme masters, he served in the
Italian and French courts as well as in the papal chapel. Josquin's music was published and widely known throughout Europe.] What musical forms did Josquin use most? How did his music
sound? [Although he wrote Masses in the Flemish style, he focused on the motet, which, by
the year 1500, had changed since Machaut used the form more than a century earlier. Because
Josquin's music was less ornate than that of his predecessors, it more effectively reflected the
images and feelings suggested by the words. Its simplicity also underlined its sense of tonal clarity. Josquin's polyphony suggests a spiritual conversation among equal participants. Although the
voices seem to move independently, they are delicately balanced to maintain fluid continuity until
the music settles into a cadence, or temporary resting point.] What is imitative counterpoint?
[Josquin des Prez was a master of imitative counterpoint, a characteristic feature of Renaissance
polyphony. In imitative counterpoint, various musical lines enter one after the other, each starting
with the same pattern of notes so that the later entrances appear to be imitating the first.]
13. How was secular music changing during the early 1500s? What styles gained popularity? [Styles in secular music were becoming more distinctly national. These national differences
became pronounced by this time. French chansons (the word for songs) often combined imitative counterpoint with texts ranging from serious to bawdy. In Italy, most secular music had simpler polyphony, clearer rhythms, and more direct melodies. Landini's madrigals of two centuries
earlier were forgotten, but the form had evolved into sophisticated polyphonic songs for small
vocal groups based on extravagantly romantic poetry, sometimes with erotic double meanings.
Madrigals were great fun for singers and were much appreciated by the aristocrats they entertained. Composers, turning them out by the thousands, often experimented with the form. How
did Claudio Monteverdi use the madrigal? [Monteverdi, a leading Italian composer who excelled
at the madrigal, built on its close relationship between music and text and its often speech-like
character to become a pioneer in opera.]
14. Did the Protestant and Catholic Reformations affect music? [During the first half of the fifteenth century, music was profoundly affected by the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, the
religious upheavals that gave rise to many small denominations.] Who was Martin Luther? [Martin
Luther was a Protestant and a musician. Though he rejected papal authority, he retained elements
of the Latin liturgy in his own services, gradually shaping a hymn style that remained central to
German religious music for centuries. One of Luther's most famous chorales is still widely sung:
"Ein' Feste Burg ist unser Gott" ("A Mighty Fortress is Our God").] What religious figure eliminated
6
all music from worship? [John Calvin, a Protestant.] What act did Huldreich Zwingli perform
to express his feelings about music? [Zwingli saw corruption in all the arts; to demonstrate his
conviction that music should be banned from the church, he destroyed a church organ with his
own hands.] How did other religious groups feel about music at this time? [The Puritans from
England and the Moravians from east of Germany brought their strict attitudes toward music and
art to the New World. Music also became an issue as part of the reform movement within the
Catholic Church. Among the practices frowned upon were the use of secular cantus firmi in sacred
works, and complex polyphony, which was thought to draw too much attention to the music while
obscuring the words.] How did Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina attempt to accommodate the
Church? [Palestrina, an Italian composer, was a master of the Flemish polyphonic technique. His
music used a modest, introspective style close in spirit to an earlier time: to the devout serenity
of plainchant. In his more than one hundred Masses and four hundred motets, he compensated for
the lack of bold harmonic effects by emphasizing a variety of different sonorities.]
15. How did instrumental music change during the mid-1500s? [As religious choral music was
reaching its peak around 1550, instrumental styles were just beginning to take shape. Until that
time, vocal and instrumental music sounded alike. Instruments were used to accompany dancing, with much of the music improvised. As composers began to write instrumental music just for
listening, they often borrowed popular dance styles. Instrumental music was generally played by
groups of the same instrument family—string, brass, or recorder ensembles with instruments ranging from low to high. However, mixed groups of instruments occasionally played together, paving
the way for modern orchestration. The canzone (the Italian word for song) grew out of the vocal
form but soon developed into a style mainly for brass instruments—light, fast, and rhythmic. Music
was also composed for keyboard instruments. Repetition and contrast were used to create interesting instrumental pieces. Composers began to make larger works by creating variations on a
popular tune and by stringing together series of dances in contrasting tempos.] What instruments
were popular at this time? [The most popular household instrument was the lute, used alone as
well as to accompany singing. The harpsichord, clavichord, and organ were also popular.]
Transcript
Introduction
Hello, I’m Megan Keith. Welcome to The History of Music, an introduction to the Western classical music tradition. In Part Two, The Middle Ages & the Renaissance, we will learn how music survived and evolved after the collapse of the Roman Empire.
Although the Church disapproved of any music other than sacred plainchant, music continued to
develop through new melodies and instrumentation. Perhaps the most important development of
the early Middle Ages was polyphony, which is the combination of two or more simultaneous melodies.
However, not all music of this time was sacred. Secular music was starting to develop through
courtly love songs. Some nobleman, known as troubadours, began setting their own poems to
music and would travel singing and sharing their pieces.
Today’s program also highlights the many musical instruments created during the Middle Ages,
including an early version of the bagpipes, a plucked instrument called a psaltery, and a predecessor to the modern guitar—the lute.
The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries marked a turning point in musical development. A new philosophy called humanism led to a new wave of experimentation in secular music, as people began
7
focusing on life on Earth rather than just life in the afterworld. Composers like John Dunstable,
Guillaume Dufay, Johannes Ockeghem, and Josquin des Prez brought music to new heights, greatly
influencing music’s role in the early Renaissance period.
During the 1500s, different countries began showcasing different musical flavors. The French
began experimenting with counterpoint in their chansons. The madrigal became a trend in
England and Italy and the Germans created their own distinct style of polyphony. The religious
upheavals of the early sixteenth century also influenced sacred music, as new denominations had
their own ideas of how music should be played and used.
While instruments were previously used only to accompany vocal music, individual instrumental
styles finally started to take shape. Composers began combining the sounds of different groups of
instruments, paving the way for the modern orchestration we are familiar with today.
Program
Around 100 A.D., early Christians began practicing a form of chanting adapted largely from their
Jewish heritage. Called plainchant, it was pure, unaccompanied melody. Because the Church
disapproved of any other forms of music, plainchant was the only music handed down from that
period to future generations. While we know how Church music developed, little information was
preserved about music outside the Church until about the tenth century.
The Church believed that music should make the listener or participant receptive to holy thoughts
and feelings. Since words were considered necessary for this purpose, purely instrumental music
was prohibited. Most musical practices other than plainchant were associated with non-Christian
traditions, and the Church wanted to shield its followers from reminders of rival faiths. So, plainchant became a symbol—a means of ensuring intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic solidarity within
the Christian domain.
At first, no precise notation was used for plainchant. Symbols called neumes—shown between
the lines of this manuscript—indicated only the rise and fall in pitch and the division of syllables.
Around the year 600, Pope Gregory the Great attempted to organize the various chants that had
spread through Christendom. His compilation has become known as Gregorian Chant. These bare,
unadorned melodies have remained vital to Catholic worship into the twenty-first century. Modern
composers often return to them when they want to evoke a solemn, sacred atmosphere.
Around 850, singers began improvising melodies parallel to the chant melodies. The intervals
between these parallel melodies emphasized fourths and fifths, which tend to sound stark and
hollow to modern ears but were regarded at the time as the purest, most natural sounds. These
parallel melodies were a step toward polyphony—the combining of two or more musical lines.
Gradually, polyphony became more complex, as parallel melodies were replaced by musical lines
that moved independently. Polyphony is one of the most distinctive characteristics of Western
music.
Early polyphonic music was still based largely on plainchant melodies. In this piece from the
twelfth century, the chant is sung and played on instruments in long, sustained notes, while three
faster, rhythmically regular melodies are sung above it. Used this way, the chant melody is called
a cantus firmus.
By the year 1200, Paris was one of the great centers of musical development—the source of a new
type of vocal music called the motet, in which rhythm was specified for the first time. Rhythms
were selected from several specific patterns, similar to poetic meters.
Not all early motets were sacred. In some, each melodic line was given a different text. One
8
piece might include a Latin religious poem, an earthy French love song, and a satirical political
commentary.
As early as the tenth century—when information about secular music began to be preserved—
jugglers and traveling minstrels called jongleurs danced, played, and sang their own songs in the
courts and on the streets. In taverns, wandering university students entertained themselves and
others with drinking songs and love songs. Some songs dealt with both subjects, and their lyrics
sometimes combined both Latin and the local language.
Between 1100 and 1300, some French noblemen started a trend—writing poems about courtly love
and setting them to music. These troubadours, as they were called, traveled throughout the country singing and playing their pieces.
By the fourteenth century, troubadours were also popular in German-speaking countries, where
they were called Minnesingers, or singers of love songs. Here, Minnesingers are depicted at
school, learning rules of composition and performance. Before long, troubadours were traveling in
many parts of Europe.
An English piece—“Sumer is icumen in”—is perhaps the best-known work from the time. It is
believed to be the oldest surviving example of a round and an important early instance of full,
six-voice polyphony.
Instruments of the middle ages included drums and a predecessor of the bagpipe, often used by
peasants to accompany dances. The organ was widely used in Church services. Brass and wind
instruments were played during ceremonies at court.
Artists of the time often portrayed music as a gift from heaven. The angels in this painting are
performing on the principal instruments of the day. This is a psaltery, mentioned in the Bible,
which is a plucked instrument similar to a modern zither. On the right is a lute, a relative of the
guitar. Two lutes are being played in this piece. On the left is the one-stringed tromba marina,
which has no modern counterpart. A medieval trumpet of either brass or wood is on the left and,
on the right, a shawm, a double-reed instrument. Its ancestor was the Greek aulos; its modern
descendant the oboe. This medieval dance is played by four shawms, accompanied by a drum.
The angel on the left is playing a buisine, an ancestor of our trombone. Without a slide, it could
play only a few notes. The other angel has a trumpet. This humorous piece is performed by two
shawms, two buisines, and a trumpet. This angel is operating the bellows of a portable organ with
the left hand, while the right fingers one or two notes at a time.
The harp remained much like the Egyptian harp of two-thousand years earlier. Next to it is the
fiedel, the small-bowed instrument that eventually developed into the viol and, later on, into the
violin. The fourteenth century was an experimental period when secular music overtook sacred
music in importance. Rhythmic patterns expanded dramatically, giving rise to freer, more complex
compositions.
The most significant composer of this time was Guillaume de Machaut, who excelled in both
sacred and secular styles and possessed literary and political talents as well.
In Italy, the blind composer Francesco Landini adapted the new techniques in his own way, placing less emphasis on complexity than his French colleagues did. Landini concentrated on simpler
rhythms and more direct melodies in a new type of secular song—the madrigal.
In England, John Dunstable emphasized harmony based on thirds and sixths—intervals that sounded very different from the fourths and fifths commonly used before. Dunstable’s intervals lent a
smooth, rich quality that soon attracted other composers.
9
As the fourteenth century was drawing to a close, musicians were becoming interested more in
the sensuous aspects of their art than in the technical aspects of structure. This change was especially evident among those composers who acknowledged Dunstable’s influence.
The powerful Duchy of Burgundy, made up of Belgium, the Netherlands, and eastern France, was
the most fertile cultural center in Europe during the first half of the fifteenth century. Attracting
artists and musicians from all over the continent, its styles became internationally accepted. The
leading Burgundian composers were Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois, two learned men who
developed Dunstable’s new sounds into a distinctive musical style.
A fundamental aspect of Western music—and of most music around the world—is tonality: the tendency of a musical composition to gravitate to one particular note, called the tonic. When a piece
of music arrives at the tonic, the listener feels a sense of resolution, or completion.
The approach to tonality has varied throughout the centuries, sometimes favoring a strong pull
to the tonic and other times favoring a weak one. If the pull is strong, the music sounds direct
and decisive. If the pull is weak, the music tends to sound uncertain, as if reaching for something
unattainable.
During the middle ages, music reflected a moderate sense of tonality—gentle rather than emphatic. However, the new approach to harmony developing in Burgundy gave rise to a slightly stronger
tonal pull, setting a trend that would govern musical development for centuries.
In addition, the music introduced by Dufay and his like-minded contemporaries had an unprecedented richness and translucence.
Late in the fifteenth century, the focus was on choral music—polyphonic works written for several singers per voice part instead of for solo voices—and Flanders, an area within the Duchy of
Burgundy, became the center of musical activity. With Johannes Ockeghem, a powerfully influential composer and teacher of the time as its pioneer, the new Flemish style spread quickly.
Renaissance composers throughout Europe strove for a new ideal in sound.
The ideal was represented by a chorus divided into four equally important voice parts—soprano,
alto, tenor, and bass—with little or no instrumental accompaniment. The voice parts wove among
one another, with no one voice predominating. Rhythm was fluid and free, tonality distinct. The
expressive effect had an immediate impact on listeners. The music was smooth, homogeneous,
spiritual rather than personal, creating a mystical or otherworldly effect appropriate for sacred
themes.
The Latin Mass, an ideal vehicle for the Flemish style, soon became the chief musical form.
Composers wrote hundreds of different settings of the Mass, often building them around a particular plainchant melody—the cantus firmus—as a means of creating unity.
While Flemish composers were refining their style, a cultural revolution was taking place in Italy.
A whole new philosophy called humanism—a concern with the quality of life on earth—was developing hand in hand with unprecedented prosperity.
The Church lost its monopoly over the arts, as more private individuals began supporting artists and musicians, even posing for sculptures and paintings. All the arts were stimulated by this
explosion in ideas as well as opportunities.
But Italians had not reached the same level of sophistication in music as in the other arts. So the
most brilliant Flemish musicians and composers were imported to serve and to teach in the Italian
courts.
10
The development of printing and then of movable type simplified music publication. Without each
note having to be hand-copied, music could be sold and performed more widely than ever before.
How-to manuals for amateur musicians were published, along with more traditional scholarly
texts. Music now enjoyed greater prestige than ever before, and contemporary music was the
most popular of all.
The Flemish composer Josquin des Prez was considered the greatest composer of all. Regarded
even today among the supreme masters, he served in the Italian and French courts as well as in
the papal chapel. Josquin’s music was published widely and known throughout Europe.
Although he wrote Masses in the Flemish style, he focused on the motet, which, by the year 1500,
had changed since Machaut used the form more than a century earlier. Shorter and more flexible
than the Mass, the motet allowed the composer greater opportunity to invent and experiment.
Josquin des Prez was a master of imitative counterpoint, a characteristic feature of Renaissance
polyphony.
In imitative counterpoint, various musical lines enter one after the other, each starting with
the same pattern of notes so that the later entrances appear to be imitating the first. Because
Josquin’s music was less ornate than that of his predecessors, it more effectively reflected the
images and feelings suggested by the words. Its simplicity also underlined its sense of tonal clarity.
Josquin’s polyphony suggests a spiritual conversation among equal participants. Although the voices seem to move independently, they are delicately balanced to maintain fluid continuity until the
music settles into a cadence, or temporary resting point.
During the same time, styles in secular music were becoming more distinctly national. These
national differences became pronounced by the early 1500s.
French chansons—the word for songs—often combined imitative counterpoint with texts ranging from serious to bawdy. The melodies of some popular chansons were used as cantus firmi in
sacred compositions.
In Italy, most secular music had simpler polyphony, clearer rhythms, and more direct melodies.
Landini’s madrigals of two centuries earlier were forgotten, but the form had evolved into sophisticated polyphonic songs for small vocal groups based on extravagantly romantic poetry, sometimes with erotic double meanings. Madrigals were great fun for singers and were much appreciated by the aristocrats they entertained. Composers, turning them out by the thousands, often
experimented with the form.
Claudio Monteverdi, a leading Italian composer who excelled at the madrigal, built on its close
relationship between music and text and its often speech-like character to become a pioneer in
opera.
The English madrigal, another offshoot from the Italian original, acquired its own style—generally
lighter in mood and texture.
German music of the time developed more slowly, but, as musical trends spread from France and
Italy, unique polyphonic song styles emerged in Germany as well as in Spain and eastern Europe.
During the first half of the fifteenth century, music was profoundly affected by the Protestant
and Catholic Reformations, the religious upheavals that gave rise to many small denominations.
One Protestant, Martin Luther, was a musician himself. Though he rejected papal authority, he
11
retained elements of the Latin liturgy in his own services, gradually shaping a hymn style that
remained central to German religious music for centuries.
One of Luther’s most famous chorales is still widely sung—“Ein’ Feste Burg ist unser Gott’ (“A
Mighty Fortress is Our God”).
John Calvin, another Protestant, eliminated all music from worship, except for the unaccompanied singing of biblical texts. Huldreich Zwingli, who saw corruption in all the arts, destroyed a
church organ with his own hands to demonstrate his conviction that music should be banned from
the church, along with holy statues and pictures.
The Puritans from England and the Moravians from east of Germany, among the first settlers of
the American colonies, were members of religious reform groups who brought to the New World
their strict attitudes toward music and art.
Music also became an issue as part of the reform movement within the Catholic Church. Among
the practices frowned upon were the use of secular cantus firmi in sacred works and complex
polyphony, which was thought to draw too much attention to the music while obscuring the
words.
The Italian Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was the most successful of the European composers
who tried to accommodate their art to the more restrained standards of the Church. Palestrina
was a master of Flemish polyphonic technique, with a modest, introspective style close in spirit
to an earlier time—to the devout serenity of plainchant. In his more than one hundred Masses
and four hundred motets, he compensated for the lack of bold harmonic effects by emphasizing a
variety of different sonorities.
As religious choral music was reaching its peak around 1550, instrumental styles were just beginning to take shape. Until that time, vocal and instrumental music sounded alike. Instruments were
used to accompany dancing, with much of the music improvised. As composers began to write
instrumental music just for listening, they often borrowed popular dance styles.
The instrumental canzone, the Italian word for song, grew out of the vocal form but soon developed into a style mainly for brass instruments—light, fast, and rhythmic. Instrumental music was
generally played by groups of the same instrument family—string, brass, or recorder ensembles,
with instruments ranging from low to high. However, mixed groups of instruments occasionally
played together, paving the way for modern orchestration.
Music was also composed for the keyboard instruments—harpsichord, clavichord, and organ.
Repetition and contrast were used to create interesting instrumental pieces. Composers began
to make larger works by creating variations on a popular tune and by stringing together series of
dances in contrasting tempos. The most popular household instrument was the lute, used alone as
well as to accompany singing.
Toward the end of the sixteenth century, Venice—a cosmopolitan city where various cultures met
and crossed—was the center of musical experiments with large groups of instruments and voices.
The strong contrasts and vigorous expression that characterized this music forecasted a new era
in the arts, a style that came to be known as baroque.
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