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The Renaissance
By:
Katelyn Gutierrez
Period 6
Overview

Music continued to be dominated by
sacred church compositions
◦ BUT new growing interest in humanism
◦ Thus, more attention on secular music

Vocal music still dominant
◦ Instrumental music growing in popularity both
in the church and at court

Isorhythmic techniques = so yesterday
◦ Harmony grew “thicker”
Overview continued…

Polyphony = mainstay musical texture
◦ Both sacred and secular works

Church modal system still utilized in harmonies
◦ Shift toward major/minor system commonly used in
the Baroque period

1501: Ottaviano Petrucci
◦ First to begin printing music, making it available to
anyone who could afford it

Publishing music became more common
◦ With said publication, secular vocal music (like
madrigal and four-part instrumental ensemble music)
became their form of home entertainment
The Renaissance

“Renaissance” = rebirth of interest in
Greek and Roman antiquity
◦ Influence not only music but all arts

When you think Renaissance, you’d better
think:
◦ Columbus, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo,
Martin Luther, Copernicus and Shakespeare

It is suggested that the Renaissance
started in Italy between 1420-1470
William Byrd (1543-1623)

He was Catholic…
◦ But he was an organist/choirmaster for the
Anglican Church
Early 1570s moved to London where he
joined Chapel Royal
 During the time that practicing
Catholicism was punishable in England, he
secretly wrote vocal works to be used in
private Catholic services

The MAN
Byrd is the word…

His most famous Catholic works include
three small settings of the Ordinary
◦ One each for three, four and five voices
◦ Avoided cantus firmus
◦ Direct, simple polyphonic sections and
simpler homophonic sections
Mass for Five Voices
This is the last movement of the mass, the
Agnus Dei
 In it are simple melodic imitation between
the individual voices, sections of
homophonic and polyphonic writing

Secular Music in the Renaissance


Still less important form of musical
composition
Secular motets continued to be written
◦ New polyphonic format called the madrigal came
about in Italy and England

Other popular styles included:
◦ Frottola & canzionetta (Italy), chanson (France),
Tenorlied (Germany) and consort songs & lute songs
or ayres (England)
◦ Instrumental music began to appear more often
when commercial sale of printed music became
available
Secular continued…

“Consort” music = music for families of
instruments
◦ Keyboard and lute music became especially
popular through the end of the Renaissance
through development of consort music

Music for dancing
◦ Slower = allemande or pavane
◦ Faster = galliard, gigue or saltarello
Heinrich Isaac (1450-1517)

Flemish composer
◦ He spent more time as a court musician in
Austria and Italy

Made music for both the mass Ordinary
and Proper
◦ Including a number of motets

Often credited with fusing elements of
Franco-Flemish styles with German
musical forms
Isaac continued…

In Germany, it is common to use
polyphonic music in the mass Proper
◦ Isaac commissioned by Emperor Maximilian I
to compose new liturgical settings for created
works in German polyphonic Tenorlied style
Stallone? NO.
Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen


That’s “Innsbruck, I Must Now Leave You”
“Believe it or not, Isaac actually composed this work
when he was about to leave Innsbruck, a town of
which he was apparently quite fond.”
◦ Funny, right?!

Anyways, Bach the pirate re-harmonized this melody
as the hymn, “O welt, ich muss dich lassen” (O World,
I Must Now Leave You
◦ It was Baroque so he fixed it! *obligatory laughter*

The tune has shown up in many different hymnals
with several different texts over the past few hundred
years
Carlo Gesuealdo da Venosa (15611613)


Nobleman and composer
He was “the bad boy of the late
Renaissance”
◦ His wife was cheating, he called a hit on the
guy…she died too…wait—what?
 AKA his musical inspiration

His music included a list of innovative
madrigals on topics of love and loss
◦ Full of melancholy and reflective of the late Italian
madrigal (although somewhat extreme)
Prince of Venosa
Master of text painting techniques
 Making use of extreme dissonances,
chromatic passages, dramatic melodic and
harmonic leaps, and other nonconventional techniques

◦ There are a handful of sacred compositions
Che fai meco mio cor
That’s “What do you do to me, my
heart?”
 Published in his 4th book of madrigals
(1596)
 Musical gestures align with lyrics

EMO