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Music during the Renaissance period
Music during the Renaissance period
Renaissance music characteristics
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Recommended: Music during the Renaissance period
Renaissance era or rebirth ear brought a new attitude towards music. It started in Europe, Italy to be exact, from the fourteen to the sixteen century. Italians wanted to bring “the rebirth of their past” (Kerman, p.65).This period brought the rebirth of humanism and acceptance of diversity of cultures.
Music was made to be played in the church during prayer times. When church lost power and control, music moved to the courts. Artists and musicians had more freedom and individualism to create music of their choice. During Renaissance era music sounds had smooth, imitative and polyphonic style. Renaissance music was church music or sacred music and secular music or non church music. Sacred music was still popular and it consisted of motet, mass, madrigal and laude genres. Motet is “short composition with Latin words, made up of short sections in the homophony and imitative polyphony.” (Kerman, p.77)
Mass is “the largest and most important service of the Christian liturgy” (Kerman, P. 68). Instrumental music was introduced for the first time. An “instrumental genre was the dance the pavan and the galliard” (Kerman, p.79). Most famous composers of that time were Dufay, Despres, Ockeghem and Dunstable.
“During the Baroque period, the foundations were laid for the following 300 or so years of musical expression: the idea of the modern orchestra was born, along with opera (including the overture, prelude, aria, recitative and chorus), the concerto, sonata, and modern cantata. The rather soft-grained viol string family of the Renaissance was gradually replaced by the bolder violin, viola and cello, the harpsichord was invented, and important advances were made in all instrumental groups.”(Naxos)
Baroque music was more intense and the t...
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...s inherently dramatic, and great composers found all sorts of ways to burst the boundaries of conventional sonata form in order to express great musical thoughts and emotions.” (Key Notes)
Works Cited
“History of Classical Music.” http://www.naxos.com/education/brief_history.asp
http://library.thinkquest.org/15413/history/history-bar.htm
“The Classical Era” October 14th. Feature-Classical” http://www.allmusic.com/blog/post/the-classical-era-3
“Musical Forms”. Rodrigo J. Alvirez. 2011 http://www.teoria.com/tutorials/forms/sonata01.php
Musicianship Resources. Shaffer, Kris. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. 2012 http://csutheory.shaffermusic.com/resources/analysis/form/sonata-form-introduction/
http://www.key-notes.com/sonata-form.html
“Listen” Kerman, Joseph. Tomlinson, Gary. 7th edition byBedford / St.Martin’s, Boston-New York.
The "old" European attitude, and the attitude that attracts many modern performers to early music, is exactly the opposite of the modern attitude:
TitleAuthor/ EditorPublisherDate James Galways’ Music in TimeWilliam MannMichael Beazley Publishers1982 The Concise Oxford History of MusicGerald AbrahamOxford University Press1979 Music in Western CivilizationPaul Henry LangW. W. Norton and Company1941 The Ultimate Encyclopaedia of Classical MusicRobert AinsleyCarlton Books Limited1995 The Cambridge Music GuideStanley SadieCambridge University Press1985 School text: Western European Orchestral MusicMary AllenHamilton Girls’ High School1999 History of MusicRoy BennettCambridge University Press1982 Classical Music for DummiesDavid PogueIDG Books Worldwide,Inc1997
As the late Baroque period morphed into the new period known as the classical period, technological advances and new compositional techniques and ideas created new opportunities for the musicians of the period. The changes allowed for new performance techniques, forms, performance venues, and newly available compositional orchestrations to be improved and evolved into something new and improved for the new period.
Atlas, Allan W. Renaissance Music: Music in Western Europe, 1400-1600. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1998.
“For over one thousand years the official music of the Roman Catholic church had been Gregorian Chant, which consists of melody set to sacred Latin texts and sung without accompaniment” (Kamien 67). The credit for developing Gregorian chant music, also known as plain...
The music is vocal instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony and expression of emotion. The most famous music during the Renaissance is Jazz and some Rock and Roll instruments are very important during that time too it’s still important till this day. The three people I decide to tell you about are Billie Holiday, Cab Calloway, and the last person I really enjoyed learning about was Louis Armstrong.
John Warrack, author of 6 Great Composers, stated, “Any study of a composer, however brief, must have as its only purpose encouragement of the reader to greater enjoyment of the music” (Warrack, p.2). The composers and musicians of the Renaissance period need to be discussed and studied so that listeners, performers, and readers can appreciate and understand the beginnings of music theory and form. The reader can also understand the driving force of the composer, whether sacred or secular, popularity or religious growth. To begin understanding music composition one must begin at the birth, or rebirth of music and the composers who created the great change.
The Baroque era presented music that experimented with different textures and harmonies. Composers of this era had a way of intertwining old and new styles. Composers were given the option of constructing an acapella or concerto scoring. The concerto scoring could be enhanced with independent instrumental parts that worked to complement instead of double the
From the Early Renaissance to the High Renaissance, there was a movement from vocal music to a combination of vocal and instrumental music (Brown, 1976). There are seven categories of instrumental music: 1) vocal music played by instruments, 2) settings of pre-existing melodies, 3) variation sets, 4) ricercars, fantasias, and canzonas, 5) preludes, preambles, and toccatas for solo instruments, 6) dance music, and 7) songs composed specifically for lute and solo voice (Brown, 1976). Italy dominated the stage for instrumental music at this time, and it was not until the last decades of the sixteenth century that English instrumental music became popular (Brow...
Baroque era covers the period between 1600 and 1750 beginning with Monte Verdi (birth of opera) and ended with deaths of Bach and Handel. The term baroque music is borrowed from the art history. It follows the Renaissance era (1400-1600). It was initially considered to be a corrupt way of Renaissance by conservatives. The dominant trends in Baroque music correspond to those in Baroque art and literature. Some features of Baroque art included a sense of movement, energy, and tension (whether real or implied). Strong contrasts of light and shadow enhance the effects of paintings and sculptures. Opera is one of the types of music in the Baroque era. It represented melodic freedom. Baroque era was usually referred to as the thorough-bass period. In early Baroque era no tonal direction existed, but experiments in pre-tonal harmony led to the creation of tonality. [1] Baroque genre included instrumental suite, ritornello, Concerto grosso and chant. There were important composers of the Baroque period such as Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi William Byrd Henry Purcell and George Phillip Telemann. Starting in northern Italy, the hierarchical state -- led by either the urban bourgeoisie or despotic nobles -- replaced the fluid and chaotic feudal system of the middle Ages. [2] For this reason, some historians refer to the Renaissance as the Early Modern Era. Sculptors, building on the techniques of artists such as Giovanni Bernini (1598-1680), found ways to create the illusion of energetic and even violent movement in their works. Painters created larger and more crowded canvases. Virtuosity was used in all the arts. The arts became an important measure of learning and culture. Music moved from the science of number to an expressive art viewed as an equal to rhetoric.
Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven. Two composers who marked the beginning and the end of the Classical Period respectively. By analysing the last piano sonata of Haydn (Piano Sonata No. 62 in E-flat major (Hob. XVI:52)) and the first and last piano sonatas of Beethoven (Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor Op. 2, No.1, Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor Op. 111), this essay will study the development of Beethoven’s composition style and how this conformed or didn’t conform to the Classical style. The concepts of pitch and expressive techniques will be focused on, with a broader breakdown on how these two concepts affect many of the other concepts of music. To make things simpler, this essay will analyse only the first movements of each of the sonatas mentioned.
Music throughout the ages has changed dramatically. Starting in the Medieval period, from 400-1475, music was in the form of what is called the Gregorian chant. Instruments were very rarely used at this time. Since songs during this period were either troubadour or trouvere these chants had no real harmony. One example of this type of medieval composition is “Viderunt Omnes” by Leoninus. Like most Gregorian chants the texture of this piece is monophonic and polyphonic. “Viderunt Omnes” is a typical Gregorian chant in that it uses diatonic, not chromatic notes of the scale. Musical compositions during the Medieval period was made mostly by members of the church for the church. It was and is a very slow and steady movement that was meant to create a feeling of peace for worship purposes.
It was very simple vocal music that was entirely monophonic with freely moving rhythms that changed with each performance. The term monophonic means that there is only one melody being heard at a time. Every voice was singing the same notes at the same time in unison. The most important thing to note is that this music was purely sacred and was only performed in “organized religious settings” (Abel, 3) particularly the Roman Catholic Church. Currently music and religion are so closely intertwined that It’s difficult for us to look back in history and even imagine a time when religion had no music. Almost all major religions in the world today worship with music, from catholicism, to islam, to buddhism. Though, it has not always been that way. Music became the language that humans chose to use to worship their creator because of its universality. Rhetoric is usually defined as the art of persuasive speaking or writing. Music took a role that in sense was used to persuade people that god was the almighty creator. Whether this was purposeful or not, it still had an effect. It’s a fact that music makes us feel things that nothing else can and when religions claim that music is a glorious gift directly from god they can use the way music makes us
The Renaissance period started in Italy and took place between the 1400’s and the 1600’s. In French, the term Renaissance means rebirth, which is an accurate way to describe that period since it was then that many people chose to break away from the stagnation, incertitude, and extreme hardships that occurred during the Middle Ages and plagued most of Europe. The Renaissance period is noted for being a time when the population sought educational reform which increased literacy and many were able to master more than one skill set. This led to an intellectual, economic, and artistic revolution that transformed several European nations such as Italy, France, Spain, and several others. During this time, there were several developments within the Catholic Church, such as scandals and controversy. Because of that, many people were driven away from the traditions of the church and sought more freedom of expression and individualism. As economies improved, there was more wealth and a desire for self improvement which greatly influenced the arts.
From what I have read, I have reason to believe that the Catholic Church had a major influence on music because the Catholic Church desired conservative, customary music. In addition, the leaders of the church felt that certain instruments were not suitable within the congregation; since it would revolutionize the way people reason and devote to God. Countless agreed that altering traditional musicality would lead to transformations in the Mass, and variations in the Mass alarmed some. Moreover, many considered that monophonic congregational singing should be the basis of Christian worship and changes would initiate havoc and rebellion, religiously. The leaders, appointed to resolve the dilemma about music permitted only common suggestions