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The invention of movable type for printing made accessing printed music books more accessible and affordable and therefore music spread dramatically.
Vocal music of the Renaissance was marked by smoothly gliding melodies conceived for the voice and was known as the golden age of a cappella style. (a vocal work without instrumental accompaniment). Polyphony in such works was based on a principle called continuous imitation (the motives are exchanged between vocal lines, the voices imitating one another so that the same theme or motive is heard now in the soprano or alto and now in the tenor or bass, resulting in a close-knit musical fabric capable of the most subtle and varied effects).
After the Protestant revolt led by Martin Luther (1483-1546), the Catholic Church responded with a reform movement focused on a return to true Christian piety. This movement was known as the CounterReformation (1530s-1600). Work with the poor was undertaken by the religious orders of Franciscans and Dominicans, founding the society of Jesus (Jesuits) by St. Ignatius Loyola.
Both professional and amateurs took part in music making. Professionals entertained noble guests at court and civic festivities and with the rise of the merchant class, music making in the home became increasingly popular. Most prosperous homes had a lute or keyboard instrument. Music was considered part of your upbringing for a young girl, and sometimes the young boy. The union of poetry and music lead to the chanson and the madrigal.
THE CHANSON
In the 15th century, the chanson was the favored genre at the courts of the dukes of Burgundy and the kings of France. Usually written for three voices, with one or two lower voices played on instruments. They were set to the courtly love poetry of the French Renaissance, much of which were fixed forms from the Middle Ages: the rondeau, the ballade, and the virelai.
THE CHANSON
Preeminent composers of this genre were: Johannes Ockeghem, Gilles Binchois, and Guillaume Du Fay. Mille regretz (A thousand regrets) by Josquin French chanson for 4 voices Love poem a-b-b-a form
A number dance types became popular in the 16th century. Pavane- a first number in a dance suite. saltarello- jumping dance, Italian in nature. Galliard- French dance, more vigorous version of the saltarello Allemande- German dance in moderate duple time and remained into the Baroque. Ronde- a round dance, a lively romp associated with the outdoors and performed in a circle.
Madrigal- an aristocratic form of poetry-and-music that flourished at the small Italian courts. The text consisted of a short poem of lyric or reflective character, often including the emotional words of weeping, sighing, trembling, and dying. Love and unsatisfied desire were other topics. Instruments were used often duplicating or substituting for the voices.
There were three periods of the Renaissance madrigal. The first period, the second quarter of the 16th century, the composers chief concern was the give pleasure to the performers. The middle period, 1550-1580, the madrigal became an art form in which words and music were clearly linked. The final period, 1580-1620 extended into the Baroque, and it became the direct expression of the composers personality and feelings.
Claudio Monteverdi was an Italian composer who spent time at the court of the Duke of Mantua. He was appointed the choirmaster of St. Marks in Venice in 1613 and he was a forerunner of the Baroque opera. Frequent use of word painting, a rich musical pictorialization of the imagery in the poem. Ecco mormorar londe (Here, now, the waves murmur)
Just as Shakespeare and other English poets adopted the Italian sonnet, so the composers of England took the Italian madrigal and developed it into a native art form. Important figures were Thomas Morley, John Wilbye, Thomas Weekles, and John Farmer The first collection of Italian madrigals published in England, Musica transalpina, the songs were Englished.
John Farmers Fair Phyllis was a four-part madrigal from the English composer. It is characteristic of the English madrigal in its pastoral text and cheerful mood. Farmer adopted the Italian practice of word painting. The Renaissance madrigal inspired composer to develop new techniques of combining music and poetry which prepared the way for one of the most influential forms of Western music-opera!
St. Marks church in Venice was influential to composers in this time period. The balconies and resonant acoustics inspired composers to write polychoral music, in which two or three choirs either answered each other in alternation of sang together (called antiphonal). There were also two organs at St. Marks Made for surround sound.
Because of the large forces at work, he used old contrapuntal devices and broad homophonic style in which all the voice unite on the same syllable at the same time, to make the words understandable. O quam suavis (O how sweet) form the second book of Sacrae Symphoniae published in 1615. Written for two SATB choirs and instruments for the Feast of Corpus Christi (celebration of the body of Christ, held on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday).