Renaissance Choral Music

Renaissance (1450-1600)

• Renaissance means rebirth

• During the 15th and 16th centuries, Europe experienced a new flowering of intellectual and artistic activity

• Developments in literature, the visual arts and music were stimulated by a new emphasis on the human spirit - the rise of humanism

• Everyone wants to have the best music in their courts

Musical Styles

• Burgundian School/franco Flemish - Sacred polyphony

• Conservative Catholic Tradition

• English secular songs

• Madrigal Singing - expression of text, text painting

• Venetian polychoral tradition - Italy

• Importance of text

Important Sacred Forms

• Mass - a sequence of prayers and ceremonies commemorating the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ

  • Proper - portions of the service that change throughout the year

  • Ordinary - the portions of the service that does not change: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, Angus Dei

• Requiem - Mass for the dead; comes from the Latin word requies which means rest

  • Many composer love this text due to the drama

• Motet: A sacred choral composition using a text other than the ordinary of the mass. Its a sacred composition that doesn’t use the text of the Mass ordinary.

• Anthem: sacred choral composition intended for use in the Anglican services of morning or evening prayer. Often in English

• Chorale - hymn tunes of the Lutheran Church

• Calvinist Psalm setting: Musical settings of Psalm texts

Burgundian School and Early Composers

• The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France

• Guillaume de Machuat (1300-1377)

  • Poet and musician; the leading composer of the Ars Nova in France

  • New lyricism of the 14th c.

  • Pervading use of milder sonorities of 3rds and 6ths

  • Primarily wrote polyphonic virelais, rondeaux, ballads (forms and fixes) some of which work well when performed by a chamber choir

• Messa de Norte Dame - Mass - Guillaume de Machuat

  • Through composed full mass, which is unique to him

    • Many masses pick and choose the different section from existing works. This composer wrote the whole mass to be performed as a whole

  • Hollow sounding due to open 4ths and 5th

  • No women, not tonal more modal, sounds medieval

• John Dunstable (1380 90-1453)

  • Most important English composer of the first half of the 15thc.

  • He and the English School represent the end of the Medieval polyphony and the beginning of the new Renaissance style

  • Contenance Angloise: the new pleasing sounds of 3rds and 6ths

  • His work was able to reach the continent and many started to replicate it

• Quam Pulchra es - Motet - John Dunstable

  • Alto, Tenor, Bass

  • Consonant Harmonies/ 3rds and 6ths

  • Medieval sounding ending

• Guillaume Dufay (1400-1474)

  • Born near Brussels - spent his career in NE France

  • Traveled with Bishop of Cambrai to Italy where he heard English Music

• Missa L’home arme Kyrie - Mass - Guillaume Dufay

  • The first mass where they took a secular tune and put it into the cantus firmus

    • He put the tune into the tenor (which means to hold) so it was elongated

  • Imitation of voices

  • More polyphonic than the earlier composers

• Josquin Desprez (1455-1521)

  • the first major composer whose repertory and reputation have outlived their maker

  • From the northern part of Netherlands

  • Composed over 100 motet

  • Motet: Any sacred text that is not apart of the mass

• Ave Maria - Motet - Josquin Desprez

  • There is clear imitation in the voices, especially in the beginning

  • New set of text = New idea

  • Then he pairs the voices later in the piece

  • Early style of counterpoint

• Absalon, fili mi - Motet - Josquin Desprez

Other notable composers; Contemporaries of Josquin

• Nicholas Gombert

• Pierre de la Rue

• Heinrich Isaac

• Jacobus Clemens

• Orlando Di Lasso

16th Century

• Shift from Burgundy to Italy

• influence of the Catholic Church

• Council of Trent - a council created to make the music pure in the church

  • Franco Flemish Style

  • Sanctity of Worship

  • Results - restrictions on dissonance and secular music in the church

  • Palestrina and Victoria were the role models for the council

• Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594)]

• The sacred music of Palestrina embodies the reforms called for by the council for Trent

• Middle Period (1551-1651)

READ SLIDES

• Motets

  • Alma Redemptoris Mater

  • Sictu Cervus

  • Super Flumina Babylonis

  • Tu es Petrus

• Masses

  • Missa Pape Marcella (Pope Marcellas Mass)

    • Was written for the Pope who only reigned for 22 days

    • Released many years after the Pope’s death

    • No accidentals

• Style

  • Stricly controled elody, rhtyhm and dissonance

  • Creates a sense of unparralleded devotion and restraint

  • Wondrorusly smooth and exquisitly balanced style based on Franco Flemish imatitive c.p.

  • Prevailing stepwise melodic line; leaps balanced by turn in opposite direction

  • Simplification of Counterpoint; frequent use of homophony

  • Pure diatonic harmony; complete avoidance of chromaticism

READ SLIDES

• Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)

• Born in Aval, Spain

• Music

  • Exclusively sacred, devout Catholic

• Style

  • Reverent and restrained; more so than Palestrina

• O Magnum Mysterium -

  • Mystical quality to the tone

  • Shorter lines due to the stress of the text

  • Alleluia section, new texture and shift of tone

  • Descending line is symbolic of the weaking human body

• O quam gloriosum

Protestant Reformation

• Initiated by Martin Luther in 1517; continued by John Calvin

• 95 theses - criticized the church and papacy; Pope’s authority

• Created his own version of the Mass - to involve the congregation in singing appropriate section for the service

• Sacred forms emerge

  • Anglican anthem - English

    • Full anthems (motets) - Only for Choir

      • Bow Thine Ear, Byrd 1589, Cantiones Sacred

      • Sing Joyfully - Byrd

    • Verse Anthem - for Soloist and Choir

    • Soloist will sing a verse and the choir will respond

      • Teach Me, O Lord - Byrd

  • Lutheran chorale - German

  • Chorale motet

  • Calvinist Psalm setting

• William Byrd (1543-1623)

  • Arguably the finest Elizabethan composer

  • Byrd and Tallis had a monopoly over the printing

  • Devout Catholic - Employed by Elizabeth 1st (Protestant)

    • Practiced his faith in secret

  • Catholic Church Music

    • Masses for 3, 4 and 5 voices

    • Motets

      • Haec Dies - Easter text, antiphonal

        • Has a huge shift into feeling a 6/8 in a 3/2 bar - Exaltemus

      • Ave Verum Corpus

      • O Magnum Mysterium

• Orlando Gibbons (1583-16520)

  • Studied at Cambridge University (King’s College)

  • Important composer of Anglican Church Music

    • Full and Verse Anthem

  • Oh lord Increase my Father

  • O Clap you Hands

  • Hosana to the Song of David

• Thomas Tallis (1505-1585)

  • Wrote music for Catholic and Anglican Liturgies - Was debout Catholic

  • Post - Reformation

  • If Ye Love Me

  • Imitative Motet

    • Cantiones sacrae

    • Salvatore Munda

    • O sacrum convivium

• Richard Farrant (1530-1580)

  • Call to Remembrance - Motet

• Maddalena Casulana (1544-1590)

  • Italian composer, lutenist and singer

  • First female composer to have her music printed and published in the history of western music

  • READ SLIDES

  • Morir non puo il mio cuore - Madrigal

    • Lots of dissonance

    • Pushing the ideas of modalities

• Lucrezia Orsina Vizzana (1590-1662)

  • Italian singer organist and composer

  • Entered Camaldolese convent in Bologna in 1598

  • Works are influenced by the stile moderno (secondo prattico); monteverdi

  • Amo Christum

• Caterina Assandra (1590-1618)

  • Italian composer and Benedictine nin; became a famous organist

  • Composed several motets and organ pieces

  • Assandra’s motets were among the first to be piublished in Milan

  • O dulcis amor Jesu

• Francisco de Panalosa

  • Almost an exact contempory of Josquin

• Cristobal Morales

  • Wrote almost exclusively sacred works

  • O Magnum Mysterium

• Francesca Guerrero

  • His music was widely published throughout Europe and was widely performed in Latin America for more than two centuries

Important Secular Forms

Italian Madrigals - most important secular musical form of the Renaissance

Early Madrigals

• 4 Voices, homophonic, some points of imitation

• Beginnings of the use of expressive harmonies for text painting purposes

• Poet were imitators of Petrarch (Bembo)

• Developed in Florence mainly as opposed to the frottola which developed in Mantua and Ferrara

• Words influence the music

• Il biano e dolce cigno - Madrigal - Jacob Arcadelt (1505-1568)

  • A story about how a swan dies

  • Every syllable has a note

Middle Madrigal

• 5 - 6 voices

• some immatiative textures

• More wrod painting

• trend towards faithful text declamation

• Use of rhythm (triplets) and syncopation as means of passionate expression

• Set Petrarch almost exclusively

• some chromatic experimentation

• Datemi pace - Madrigal - Cipriano de Rore

  • Dissonance

  • Each voice has a section where they stick out

  • Syncopation

Late Madrigal

• Used extremely emotion-laden texts

• Usually set to texts of minor poets

• each phrase is treated separately

• Chromaticism - seen as a deeply moving response to the text

• Io parto - Madrigal - Carlo Gesualdo

  • Chromaticism

  • dolore - chromaticism

Frottola - Predecessor of the Madrigal

• Late 15th century

• Strophic

• Italian

• Poetry is less important so sometimes of little merit

• Syllabic

• 3-4 voices

• Marked by rhythmic patters

• simple and diatonic

English Madrigal

• Based on Early Italian madrigals

• Often a refrain fa la la la

• Many were rewritten with English translations

• The entire movement ran its course in about 40 years

• 1588 - Yonge’s Musica Transalpina

• 1590 - Thomas Waton’s Italian Madrigals Englished

• 1672 - Last set of published madrigals

• Thoams Morely (1557-1602)

  • in 1593 - publisehd madrigal collections

  • Sing we and chant it - based on a Gastoldi balleto “A lieta vita”

  • Fyre Fyre: April is my mistress face, mow is the month of Maying

• Thomas Weelkes (1575-1623)

  • 1597- first ser of madrigals modeled on Marenzio’s

  • 1600 - published last collection of madrigals

  • When David Heard

    • When a king finds out the his son has died

  • As Vesta was from Latmos hill descending

    • Highlights text painting

    • Two by Two, Three by Three

  • From the collection of Triumphes of Oriana (1601)

  • Every song ends with the same ending text “Then sang the shepherds and nymphs of Diana, long live fair Oriana”

Chanson - Primary French secular form of the Renaissance

• Often in dance form

• Distinctive national style that developed during the first half of the 16th c. nearly 10,000 appeared in print or in manuscript in collection in the 16th c.

• Contrapuntal - imitative

  • for 5 voices and dense

  • Josquin - wrote 70 secular works

  • Mille regrez

    • Sounds dark and heavy

• Parisian (choral)

  • Claude de Sermissy - Tant que vivray

  • Usually in duple

  • Light and fluffy

  • 4 voices

  • Some pieces use instrumental backings

• Program

  • Bringing the story to life

  • Text painting

  • Clemente Janequin

  • La Guerres

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

• Books 1, 2, 3

  • Ecco mormorar l’onde

  • book 1 1590 written in Cermona

  • O primavera

  • Book 3

  • Prima prattica

  • Progressively more dissonance

  • Conventional use of madrigalisms

• Books 4, 5

• Si choo vorrei morire

• Book 4

• Cruda amarillo

• book 5

• Commits to secunda prattico - verbal imagru and emotional expression

• use of dissonance

• Extreme use of text apinting and importance of text

Spanish Partsongs

• Cancion

• Villancicos

• King Ferdinand of Aragon (1452-1516)

  • United modern day Spain

  • Became most powerful kingdom and family in Europe - Spain controls Many countries

• Cancion - Courtly song or chanson

  • Los sospiros

• Villancios - Developed form medieval tradition of dance music has a particular rhyme scheme and musical structure: estribilla refrain and the copla

  • Dindirin, Dindirindana

  • Riu, Riu chiu

• Juan del Encina

  • Hoy comamaos y bebamos

• The villancio tradtiion continues in o the 17th century