prelude

• reformation was started by martin luther in 1517

  • individualism

  • anti hierarchical

  • humanism

  • disapproval about the fancy, excessive liturgy that nobody could understand or connect to

  • discontentment around how worldly the clergy were becoming

  • disapproval about the catholic church teaming up with political powers

  • luther wasn't trying to start the reformation, he just wanted to talk

• at first the music of the reformation in germany remained similar to traditional catholic music

  • lutheran church's most distinctive musical innovation was the strophic hymn (chorale)

  • chorales became the foundation for lutheran church music until bach and beyond

• reformation church music outside germany developed along similar lines but calvin and other reformation leaders opposed the catholic church more strongly and distrusted the use of art in worship

  • calvinist churches only contributed psalters - rhymed metrical translations of psalms set to newly composed melodies or plainchant

  • psalter tunes were rarely expanded or elaborated on

  • english church music was less affected and remained closer to catholic music

• catholic reformation

  • resulted in liturgical reforms and used polyphony to reaffirm the power of music to affect the hearts and minds of the faithful

  • counter-reformation tried to win back those who left the catholic church through the beauty of liturgy, art and music

  • palestrina was the most influential composer of the counter-reformation

the music of the reformation in germany

• led by martin luther

  • humanist - relied on reason and his own reading of scripture, if a belief or practice had no basis in the bible it couldn't be true

  • directly contradicted the views of the catholic church

  • admired desprez, believed in the educational and ethical power of music and wanted the congregation to experience their faith by participating in the music

  • had more extreme views on the reformation but more moderate views on music

  • why should the devil have all the good tunes

• congregations all over germany applied luther's beliefs by keeping the latin liturgy in large churches with trained singers and adopting the german mass (deudsche messe) - followed main outline of roman mass but replaced most elements of the proper and ordinary with hymns or chorales

• chorale originally consisted of only two elements — a text and a tune, easily memorizable

• ein feste burg became the anthem of the reformation

• contrafacta - luther used many well-known secular tunes for chorales but substituted religious words

• composers began writing polyphonic settings of chorales using approaches borrowed from existing genres

  • preferred arrangement was simple chordal style with tune in the soprano

  • after 1600, it became customary to have all the parts played on the organ, while the congregation sang all the verses of the tune

• simple, singable church music deprofessionalized the church

reformation church music outside of germany

calvinism:

• largest branch of protestantism was led by calvin, who rejected papal authority and embraced justification through faith alone but also believed that some people and not others were predestined for salvation

• calvin stripped churches of everything that might distract worshippers with worldly pleasures

• the only music was psalms set to monophonic tunes in collections called psalters

• goudimel and le jeune were the primary composers of french psalm settings

church of england:

• origins lay in politics rather than doctrine

• king henry viii persuaded parliament to separate from rome and name him head of the church of england so he could marry anne boleyn

• remained catholic but adopted protestant doctrines during the reign of edward vi

• mary brought back catholicism with resistance

• elizabeth i created a middle ground to make the church of england hospitable to protestants and catholics (anglican church)

• latin sacred polyphony continued, english composers worked in relative isolation, only gradually adopting the prevailing international style of imitative counterpoint

• leading composer of the midcentury was thomas tallis

  • people thought he was catholic but others thought he simply tried to avoid religious controversy

  • composed music for the anglican service and motets to english texts, then latin hymns, then music with both english and latin words

  • obvious vocal quality of the melodies - melodic curve closely follows natural inflection

• principal forms of anglican music

  • service

    • morning and evening prayer

    • communion

    • great service - contrapuntal and melismatic

    • short service - chordal and syllabic

  • anthem

the counter-reformation

• if the text is comprehensible it's probably from the counter-reformation

• council of trent - met to find ways to purge the church of abuse and laxities

  • people complained about music being based on secular songs, polyphony distracting from the text, musicians being careless

  • the council didn't end up touching church music but merely banished from the church everything “lascivious or impure” and left it up to interpretation

• music was unchanged in catholic areas

  • willaert was the best known composer of the time - carefully molded his music to the pronunciation of the words by matching long notes to accented syllables

• palestrina

  • saved polyphony from being condemned by the council of trent by composing a six-voice mass that was both reverent in spirit and attentive to the words - pope marcellus mass

  • style was the first in western music to be preserved and imitated as a model of sacred polyphony

  • preferred to paraphrase the chant in all the parts rather than confine it to the tenor voices

  • arch curve with stepwise motion

• palestrina's contemporaries

  • tomas luis de victoria

    • exclusively sacred music

    • greater expressive intensity

  • orlande de lassus

    • wrote many secular works

    • madrigals, chansons, motets

    • no lassus style - too versatile

    • creative use of musical devices to convey the emotions and depict the images of his texts

  • william byrd

    • most important english composer since dunstable and the first to absorb imitative techniques from the continent so thoroughly that he could apply them imaginatively and without constraint

    • latin masses and motets are his best-known vocal compositions