Music in the Renaissance

Background

  • The Renaissance dates from the 18th century and reflects the revival of interest in the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome that profoundly influenced the culture and thinking of the century and a half following the Middle Ages in Europe.
  • The period is also called the Age of Humanism because of the emphasis on nature, potential, and accomplishments of man in literature, art and music, science, and philosophy.
  • Renaissance art, sculpture, and architecture embody the ideals of balance, clarity, and emotional restraint that characterized the classicism of the Greeks.
  • In music, where no ancient models survived, that aesthetic found expression in a style that evolved from concepts of consonance and dissonance developed in the Middle Ages but with new emphasis on harmonious sonorities.
    • The predominant texture consisted of the soprano, alto, tenor, and bass voice parts creating a highly contrapuntal web in which the lines diverge, converge, cross, echo, and imitate each other, sometimes with great rhythmic independence, sometimes moving together in the manner of a hymn.
  • Instrumental music continued to be of secondary importance to composers, whose approach to writing for instruments was usually the same as that for voices. Some composers, however, began to explore shaping musical material in ways that exploited the unique features of the instruments on which it would be performed.

Church Music Evolution

  • Most church music at that time was about forgiveness. The only time in the year where music was a little more joyful was during Christmas with the Christmas carols. These songs ended up having a transformative impact on the melody and the texture of songs.
  • In 900, monks started to add extra voices to the main melody (polyphony) but it was always assumed that the main melody was the bottom one and that the accompaniment would sit on top.
  • Gradually, between 900 - 1500 when two voice parts became 3 and more, the main melody was just left behind inside the texture. This is how the third line down of a 4 vocal piece is called the tenor from tenir, which means that it holds the main tune.
  • The main melody had been brought up sporadically earlier but it is really during the 16th century that it was definitively brought up.
  • Polyphony on the other hand, became less and less used in singing. Musicians and singers would find it easier to sing the main melody and have an instrument play the accompaniment, since instruments had been clearly improved by then.

The Violin and Catherine de Medici

  • In the late 15th century, European musicians came up with the idea of taking a bow of stretched horse hair to play on their lutes and vilhuelas (guitar) producing what we called the viola de gambas and the viols.
  • The idea of the bow had already been seen centuries before in China. The lyra, the Arabic rebab and the veille are the ancestors of the violin. There were very popular in Italy during the Renaissance and kept evolving. But it is only in the early 16th century that the violin makes its first appearance.
  • A few famous violin makers of the time still big today are the Stradivari and the Guarneri.
  • At first, violins were mostly used just for instrumental music and to accompany a singer but eventually it also got used to accompany dances.
  • In Europe back then, music and the other arts were sponsored by royalty which competed in maintaining courts as well as chapels. This factor stimulated the development of secular forms of artistic expression as well.
    • Catherine de Medici, who was the wife of King Henri II of France had an important role in the arts in France. She brought Italian fashion to the French court (she was wearing some of the earliest high heels) and was a huge collector of art. She was also a violin lover and owned the 1546 Amati violins.
    • To show her political dominance she would organize many festivals. She also hired Italian dancers, choreographers and a band of violinists. With Italian-born choreographer, composer, conductor and violinist Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx, she created the first ballets.
    • The most famous is the “Ballet Comique de la Reine” which performed in Paris in 1581 for a royal wedding. It combined poetry, design and dance with “geometric dance patterns involving representations of Mercury Pan, Minerva, Jupiter and the evil sorceress Circe from Homer’s Odyssey.”
    • The part of the choreographed dances and steps created in this ballet accompanied by strings will play an important role in the evolution of the Suite and its successors, the Sonata, Concerto, and Symphony.

The Reformation, Luther, and the Bass Line

  • The Roman Catholic Church remained an important institution during the Renaissance, but it was diminished in influence in consequence of the wealth and power of families such as the Medici of Florence or the Estes of Ferrara.
    • These families’ courts became centers of culture, learning and military might. The Medici family patronized people like Galileo or Michelangelo and Da Vinci. The Ferrara family also commissioned work on instruments helping the development of violins for example.
  • The Reformation, which began with Martin Luther’s criticisms of the Catholic Church abuses, had its greatest impact in Germany. Other breakaway movements followed in France and Switzerland, as well as in England, where Henry VIII defied the authority of the pope and declared himself head of a new Anglican church. Wars between Catholics and Protestants are part of the history of many of the countries that broke with Rome.
  • Martin Luther, besides being a professor of theology and a monk, was also a composer. He believed that everyone should be able to sing the songs of the church and wanted to make it more available and clearer in terms of words. Luther collected many popular folk tunes to which he inserted holy texts. He also wrote his own songs to be sang in church.
    • What you can see in his songs is the main melody sitting on top and the bass line supporting the harmony and movements of the chords. This will be an adopted form until the mid 20th century for chorals. It also meant a retreat from the complex polyphonic form.
    • In only 50 years music saw a dramatic change from polyphony ornamented music, to one clear melody with words, a bass and chords.
      • Protestant composers had to change their style to show that they were following the protestant musical trend while composers from catholic churches could be put to death if they were composing simpler music following the musical trend of the protestants.