music history test 2

What does Renaissance mean?

“Rebirth”; a term used for the period after the Middle Ages.

What centuries are associated with the Renaissance?

The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

What did Renaissance scholars and artists aim to restore?

The learning, ideals, and values of ancient Greece and Rome.

What was Humanism?

An intellectual movement that emphasized human knowledge and the recovery of ancient Greek and Roman learning.

Did Humanism eliminate the Church?

No. The Renaissance continued to include strong religious interests and traditions.

What musical qualities became important during the Renaissance?

Consonance, clarity, direct appeal to the listener, natural declamation of words, and emotional expressivity.

What is a point of imitation?

One voice introduces a musical idea and other voices take it up.

What was one major effect of music printing?

It helped spread musical ideas and made music more widely available.

Who was an important early music printer?

Ottaviano Petrucci.

What did Petrucci publish in 1501?

The Odhecaton.

What was the contenance angloise?

Characteristic quality of early-fifteenth-century English music, marked by pervasive CONSONANCE with frequent use of HARMONIC thirds and sixths, often in parallel motion.

What English musical qualities especially impressed Continental composers?

Lively consonances, including prominent thirds and sixths.

Who was an important English composer associated with the contenance angloise?

John Dunstable.

What was the effect of the English presence in France after Agincourt?

English music and musicians spread onto the Continent and influenced Continental music.

What were the Burgundian lands?

Territories ruled by the dukes of Burgundy, including parts of France and the Low Countries.

Why were Burgundian courts important to music?

They supported composers and musicians and became a major conduit for a new international style.

What was a chapel in a Renaissance court?

A musical establishment with salaried composers, singers, and sometimes instrumentalists for church services and court entertainment.

What helped create the international style of the fifteenth century?

The exchange of English, French, Burgundian, and Italian traditions, genres, and ideas.

What was a chanson?

A French secular polyphonic song, often setting a poem.

What were the formes fixes?

Fixed poetic and musical forms inherited from the trouvères, including the rondeau, ballade, and virelai.

What is fauxbourdon?

A technique in which a melody is supported by parallel sixths, with an unwritten middle voice a fourth below.

What were the four standard voice parts?

Bassus, tenor, altus, and superius/cantus.

What is a cyclic Mass?

A Mass in which multiple movements are unified by recurring musical material or another organizing principle.

What is a cantus firmus Mass?

A Mass whose movements are based on a preexisting melody used as a structural foundation.

What is a motto Mass?

A Mass whose movements are connected by a recurring musical motive or idea.

Who were major Burgundian composers?

Guillaume Du Fay and Gilles Binchois.

What was Binchois especially known for?

Secular chansons.

What was Du Fay known for?

Sacred music and works in a variety of genres.

What characterized Ockeghem’s style?

Independent contrapuntal voices and a full, thick, darker sonority.

What is canon?

A technique in which one voice imitates another according to a rule. (5th apart)

What is a mensuration canon?

A canon in which the voices perform the same melody at different mensurations.

What is a double canon?

A work organized around two simultaneous canonic relationships.

What is Josquin des Prez known for?

His influential polyphonic style, extensive use of imitation, and close relationship between text and music.

Why was Josquin especially influential?

His music was widely printed and imitated.

What is paraphrase in Renaissance Mass writing?

Using a preexisting melody as the basis for a new polyphonic setting, reshaping it throughout the work.

What is parody/imitation in Renaissance Mass writing?

Building a Mass movement from material taken from an existing polyphonic composition.

What three national secular genres became prominent in the sixteenth century?

The Italian madrigal, Spanish villancico, and French chanson.

What was the villancico?

A major Spanish secular polyphonic genre.

Who was associated with the Spanish villancico?

Juan del Encina.

What was the frottola?

An Italian secular song genre, generally simple, strophic, syllabic, and largely homophonic.

How did the frottola differ from the lauda?

The frottola was secular; the lauda was religious.

What is the Italian madrigal?

A sixteenth-century Italian secular vocal genre that set short poems and increasingly focused on expressing the text.

What influenced the development of the madrigal?

Humanism and the desire for a close relationship between music and text, including poetry associated with Petrarch.

How was the madrigal often structured?

It was commonly through-composed rather than strophic.

What was the goal of madrigal composers in relation to text?

To shape music according to the sound, syntax, images, and meaning of the words.

What is word painting?

Musically representing or illustrating the meaning or imagery of a text.

Who was an early important madrigal composer?

Jacques Arcadelt.

What did Cipriano de Rore emphasize in madrigals?

A closer bond between music and text and the expression of contrasting feelings and images.

What was notable about Gesualdo’s madrigals?

Extreme chromaticism and dramatic contrasts used to express intense passions and poetic ideas.

How did Monteverdi help lead music toward the seventeenth century?

He experimented with dissonance, new textures, and speechlike rhythms.

What was the concerto delle donne?

Three trained female singers at the Ferrara court who performed highly virtuosic music.

What characterized the French chanson in the sixteenth century?

Light, tuneful, often homophonic and syllabic writing, frequently in a lively rhythmic style.

Who were important French chanson composers?

Clément Janequin and Claudin de Sermisy.

What was Janequin known for?

Descriptive chansons that used musical sound to imitate or depict subjects.

What was the lute song or air?

A personal solo song accompanied by lute.

Who were important English lute-song composers?

John Dowland and Thomas Campion.

What is instrumental music?

Music intended primarily for instruments rather than voices.

Why is less early instrumental music preserved?

Much instrumental music was improvised or transmitted through memory rather than written down.

What are the five broad categories of sixteenth-century instrumental music?

Dance music, arrangements of vocal music, settings of existing melodies, variations, and abstract instrumental works.

What is intabulation?

An instrumental arrangement of a vocal composition, often written in tablature.

What are divisions or diminutions?

Techniques of elaborating a melody with faster notes and ornamental patterns.

What is a consort?

An ensemble of instruments of the same or related family.

What is a broken consort?

An ensemble combining different types of instruments.

What is a pavane?

A slow dance in duple meter.

What is a galliard?

A lively dance in triple meter.

What is a variation form?

A form in which a melody or harmonic pattern is repeated with changes and elaborations.

What is a diferencias?

A Spanish variation form.

Who was associated with diferencias for vihuela?

Luys de Narváez.

What is a toccata?

An abstract instrumental genre associated with keyboard playing and free, virtuosic writing.

What is a prelude?

A short instrumental piece that can introduce another work or serve as an independent piece.

What is a fantasia?

An abstract instrumental work characterized by imaginative contrapuntal or free writing.

What is a ricercare?

An abstract contrapuntal instrumental genre.

What did the canzona develop from?

The French chanson.

Why was Venice’s Saint Mark’s important to instrumental music?

Its spatial architecture encouraged divided ensembles and distinctive instrumental sonorities.

Who was important to the Venetian polychoral/instrumental style?

Giovanni Gabrieli.

What event began the Protestant Reformation?

Martin Luther’s challenge to Church practices in 1517.

What was Luther’s view of salvation?

Salvation came through faith alone.

What did Luther emphasize as the authority for Christian belief?

Scripture.

What is a chorale?

A strophic church hymn intended for unison congregational singing in the Lutheran tradition.

What was Luther’s goal for congregational music?

To involve the congregation in worship through accessible hymn singing.

What was the German Mass of 1526?

Luther’s German-language order of worship incorporating congregational music.

What is a contrafactum/contrafacta?

A new sacred text fitted to an existing melody.

What is Ein feste Burg?

A well-known Lutheran chorale associated with Martin Luther.

What did Calvin emphasize in worship?

Focus on God and avoidance of worldly distractions.

What kind of music did Calvin favor?

Psalms sung to monophonic tunes by the congregation.

What was the French Psalter?

A collection of French metrical psalms for Protestant worship.

What is the Old Hundredth?

A well-known psalm tune associated with the Reformed tradition.

Why did Henry VIII break with Rome?

Primarily for political reasons.

What happened to English church music after Henry VIII’s break with Rome?

Latin was replaced, but much church music retained characteristics of the Catholic tradition.

What happened under Edward VI?

England moved toward Protestant worship.

What happened under Mary?

Catholic worship was restored.

What happened under Elizabeth I?

A religious compromise was established.

What are the two main types of Anglican service music?

The Service and the anthem.

What was the Great Service?

A contrapuntal, often melismatic setting of the Anglican liturgy.

What was the Short Service?

A more chordal and syllabic setting of the Anglican liturgy.

Who was a major English church composer of this period?

Thomas Tallis.

What was the Counter-Reformation?

The Catholic response to the Protestant Reformation.

What was the Council of Trent?

A major Catholic council held from 1545 to 1563 that addressed doctrine and church reform.

What musical issues concerned Catholic reformers?

Secular melodies used in sacred works, polyphony obscuring the words, and inappropriate practices.

Did the Council of Trent completely ban polyphony?

No.