Instrumental Music Shows Up
instrumental music shows up
prelude
- rise of instrumental music in the renaissance governed by
- exploitation of compositional styles and genres idiomatic to the instruments and independent of vocal music
- reliance on preexisting vocal genres
- categories of emerging instrumental music
- dance music
- arrangements of vocal music
- settings of existing melodies
- variations
- abstract instrumental works
dance music
- social dancing was popular in the renaissance especially for well-bred people - they were expected to be good dancers
- it was basically the only place you could go to find love
- suuuuper high expectations
- dance music was improvised but started to be published after the invention of the printing press
- music served two very different purposes in the renaissance
- dances for ensemble were functional and suitable for accompanying dancers
- typically plain uppermost principal melody
- homophonic
- dance pieces for solo lute are stylized and intended for the enjoyment of the listener
- earliest form to gain independence from vocal music
- each dance follows a particular meter, tempo, rhythmic pattern
- distinguished by the particularity of rhythm and form
- feature distinct sections, usually repeated, with two, three, or more sections depending on the dance
- danserye - specific parts for specific instruments aren't named in the scores until the 17th century
- most instruments were built in families covering the range from soprano to bass so that any instrument could take any part
- mixed ensembles using instruments from different families became more popular
- toward the end of the sixteenth century contrasting sounds became the rule in instrumental music, moving towards combination of strings and winds
- dances were grouped in pairs or threes - slow dance in duple meter followed by fast one in triple meter on the same tune
- pavane - stately dance in three repeated strains (AABBCC)
- galliard - followed the same form with a variant of the same melody
arrangements of vocal music
- instruments doubled or replaced voices in polyphonic compositions, reading from the vocal parts and adding embellishments
- lutenists and keyboard players made arrangements of vocal pieces, either improvised or written down as tablature (intabulations)
- examples of renaissance tendency to rework existing music
settings of existing melodies
- many instrumental settings of chansons
- could be played as background music or for their own pleasure
- catholic services could alternate between choir chant and organ cantus firmus
- lutheran hymns could alternate between unison congregation and polyphonic setting for choir or organ
variations
- combined change with repetition, taking a given element and presenting an uninterrupted series of variants on it
- achieves length and coherence in pieces without words
- variations on dance tunes written for lute
- solo lute repertory was developed independently of mainstream vocal music and became the first to harbor a style idiomatic to the instrument
- lute variations on standard poetry
- became popular with english keyboardists (virginalists)
- interest in varying melodies rather than bass patterns and bare melodic outlines
abstract instrumental works
- cultivated several types of music that were truly independent of dance rhythms or borrowed tunes
- improvising figuration on polyphonic instruments or drawing on imitative textures from vocal music
- ranked among the earliest examples of solo instrumental music and became mainstays of the repertory for solo player
- canzona - leading genre of contrapuntal instrumental music, embellished and later thoroughly reworked chansons
- long-short-short opening figure
- features a series of themes that differ from each other in melodic outline and rhythm
- giovanni gabrieli
- divided choirs