MUSIC HISTORY EXAM 2

Renaissance Era

Se la face ay pale (chanson & mass) (15th Century)

• Written by Guillaume DuFay

• First complete mass to use secular tune for cantus firmus

• Tenor from his own ballade Se la face ay pale

• Gloria

• does not feel like it cadences through most of the piece (until after 3 mins)

Superious

Top line of music (remember S for Soprano)

Josquin Desprez

• Mid 15th c - Eary 16th C composer

• From France, but lived in italy

• Franco-Flemish Composer

• leading composer of his time, lived around the same time as Leonardo Da Vinci

• worked for leaders of Milan (Sforza family)

• wrote 18 masses

  • both secular tunes and chant

• used homophony to draw attention to different lyrics

Frottola (16th c. song style)

• 4 part strophic song

  • syllabic, homophonic

• top voice sung, every other voice is on instruments

• song themes were earthy or satirical

• ONLY WRITTEN BY ITALIANS

• Mock - popular songs, only for courtly elite

• Championed by Isabella D’Este

• was mostly written in first 20 years of the 16th c.

Isabella d’Este

• equivalent to Eleanor of Aquitaine for the renaissance

• studied music seriously

• encouraged the development of the frottola, corresponded with Italian poets, and spurred musicians at her court to set their poems to music

Madrigral

Polyphonic Genre that dominated the 16th century

Cipriano de Rore (mid 16th c. composer)

• Leading mid- 16th century madrigalist

• Flemish by birth, worked in Italy

• Succeeded Willaert at St. Mark’s, who was is teacher.

• used chromaticism to express grief and sorrow, which had been forbidden before his time

Carlo Gesulado (late 16th early 17th c. composer)

• Prince of Venosa

• Music used strong imagery and sharp contrasts

• murdered his wife after finding her in bed with her lover

• wrote “Io parto” which was slow, chromatic, and chordal

  • dissonance portrays laments

Chiaroscuro

• used beginning in Italy

• 1400s

• Naturalistic treatement of light and shade in 15th c. italian art

Concerto delle donne

• Established in late 16th c.

• Women’s vocal ensemble in italy

• performed private concerts.

• Supported by Duke Alfonso d’Este

Homophony

A musical texture in which the voices line up rhythmically rather than overlapping

Humanism

• The strongest intellectual movement of the Renaissance

• From the Latin phrase “studia humanitatis,” the study of the humanities, things pertaining to human knowledge.

• Humanists sought to revive ancient learning, focusing on classical Latin and Greek writings, and to broaden intellectual life and the university curriculum.

Imitative Counterpoint

voices imitate or echo a motive or phrase in another voice, usually at a different pitch level, such as a fifth, fourth, or octave away.

Clement Janequin (late 15th c. - mid 16th c.)

• Wrote lyrical love songs, narrative songs, bawdy songs

• Composed 250 chansons in his time as priest in Bordeaux

• Spent the last 10 years of his life in paris as “the composer to the king”

• known for featuring imitations of bird calls, hunting calls, street cries, and sounds of war in his descriptive chansons

Chromaticism

• inspired by ancient Greek practice

• the use of two or more successive semitones moving in the same direction.

Thomas Morley (late late 16th early 17th c)

• Earliest and most Prolific English Madrigal

• wrote canzonets and balletts, borrowing the lighter Italian genres of canzonetta and balletto.

• wrote a treatise covering singing, descant, and composition.

Lute Songs

• Early 1600’s English Style development

• serious and literary text

• Solo Song w/ accompaniment

• Rhythm and melody are independant

• Often called “Ayres”

• Leading composer of this genre is John Dowland

Contenance Angloise

• Coined by Martin le Franc

• English guise or quality (when referring to french music)

• consisted especially in the frequent use of harmonic thirds and sixths, often in parallel motion, resulting in pervasive consonance with few dissonances

• included a preference for relatively simple melodies, regular phrasing, primarily syllabic text setting, and homorhythmic textures.

Old Hall Manuscript

• Oldest collection of English part music written by a scribe

• Early 15th c

• Music is sacred and contains music from the ordinary

• significant because composer names are mentioned

Paraphrase

• when a chant is elaborated in the top voice using a technique now called

• the melody is given a rhythm and ornamented by adding notes around those of the chant.

Faburden

• The contrapuntal style that evolved into a practice of improvised polyphony known as faburden, in which a plainchant in the middle voice was joined by an upper voice a perfect fourth above it and a lower voice singing mostly in parallel thirds below it, beginning each phrase and ending phrases and most words on a fifth below.

• referred to by name in 1430s, but was used much earlier

• was primarily based off of a rules based system that people without knowledge of how to read music could read sonoriously.

Motet

a primarily sacred, polyphonic vocal composition, often unaccompanied

Isorhythm

• Developed by De Vitry in early 14th c

• motets use equal rhythm either within only tenor or are used to reinforce rhythms happening in upper voices

• can be isolated to a voice itself or upper voices can rhythmically line up

Thomas Tallis

• 16th c

• catholic

• wrote in ther vernacular and wrote for protestant style composers

• served in the Chapel Royal for over forty years under every sovereign from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I

Anthem

• English version of motet

• texts come from bible or book of common prayer

• likely going to be in english (vernacular)

What are the types of Anthems

Under Elizabeth I….

• Full anthem: choir only

• Verse Anthem: soloist or choir alternating

Formes Fixes

all derived from genres that revolved around dancing

• fell out of fashion in the late 15th century

Hemiola

• cross-rhythms of three quarter notes, an effect

William Byrd

• 16th-17th c composer

• wrote for anglican and catholic services as part of his job in the royal chapel

• had the monopoly of being the english printer for 21 years

• Wrote over 180 motets

• 3 masses

• many anthems and secular works

• voice and instrumental works

Counter reformation

• Society of Jesus (Jesuits)

• Council of Trent

  • 8 year period where councils and musicians from all over meet to discuss

    • Instruments are no longer banned in the church

  • Aimed for more accessible text and wanted it to be heard

  • Addition of instruments

  • banning of “Sequence” and tropes

  • some restrictions on polyphonic music