Renaissance - Music History Terms

Ballade

Du Fay - Se la Face ay Pale, one of several formes fixes (“fixed forms”) in French lyric poetry and song, cultivated particularly in the 14th and 15th centuries (compare rondeau; virelai). Strictly, it consists of three stanzas and a shortened final dedicatory stanza

Cantus Firmus Mass

Du Fay - Missa Se la Face ay Pale, Mass built on a cantus firmus

Paraphrase Mass

Desprez - Missa Pange Lingua, Mass where monophonic cantus firmus appears in all 4 voices

Ockeghem - Missa Prolationum, Mass that contains mensuration canons

Imitation Mass

Victoria - Missa O Magnum Mysterium, mass built not on a cantus firmus, but a whole damn polyphonic work

Motet

Victoria - O Magnum Mysterium, A through-composed piece in 4 or more voices with a Latin text not part of the Mass Ordinary

Madrigal

Rore - Da le belle contrade, Italian or English through composed song with 5 voices using a sonnet or other literary poem, contrasts in texture, rhythm, motive, and can use chromaticism and dissonance

Pavane

Holborne - The Night Watch and the Fairie Round, Slow dance in 2

Almain

Holborne - The Night Watch and the Fairie Round, Moderate dance in 2

Galliard

Holborne - The Night Watch and the Fairie Round, Fast dance, 2 against 3

Lute Song

John Dowland - Flow, my Tears, Strophic song with Lute as an accompaning instrument, and usually in a homophonic texture

Variation

Byrd - John Come Kiss me Now a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve melody, rhythm, harmony, counterpoint, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these

Cantus Firmus

Cantus Firmus Mass, an existing melody used as the basis for a polyphonic composition

Canon

Canonic Mass, A rule that one needs to know in order to read notation that has been abbreviated or condensed

Mensuration Sign

Canonic Mass, an early version of a time signature that works by changing the durations of the notes themselves

Mensuration Canon

Canonic Mass, deriving two voices from a single notated voice through the use of different mensuration signs

Point of imitation

All Masses, Imitation in polyphonic passages

Stretto

All Masses, Close imitation, but not strict

Renaissance Cadence

All Masses, Major 6th to Octave

Phrygian Cadence

Palestrina masses, Parallel descending half-steps in outer voices

Hexachord

All Masses, a musical scale of six notes with a half step between the third and fourth. An overlapping series of seven such scales starting on G, C, and F formed the basis of medieval music theory

Musica Recta

All Masses, Real music - notes in the gamut

First practice

16th century works, emphasizes beauty and continuity (diatonicism, continuous rhythmic flow, subtle shifts in texture)

Diminution

Later Renaissance a form of embellishment or melodic variation in which a long note or a series of long notes is divided into shorter, usually melodic, values

Musica ficta

All masses, fake music - notes outside the gamut

Second Practice

16th century works, emphasizes expressivity and contrasts (chromaticism and diatonicism, abrupt changes in rhythmic motion, dramatic textural changes)