Renaissance music
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Renaissance music is European classical music written during the
Renaissance, approximately 1400 to 1600. Defining the beginning of
the era is difficult, given the lack of abrupt shifts in musical
thinking during the 15th century. Additionally, the process by which
music acquired "Renaissance" characteristics was a gradual one, but
1400 is used here.
The increasing reliance on the interval of the third as a consonance
is one of the most pronounced features of early Renaissance European
art music (in the Middle Ages, thirds had been considered
dissonances: see interval). Polyphony, in use since the 12th
century, became increasingly elaborate with highly independent
voices throughout the 14th century: the beginning of the 15th
century showed simplification, with the voices often striving for
smoothness. This was possible because of a greatly increased vocal
range in music—in the Middle Ages, the narrow range made necessary
frequent crossing of parts, thus requiring a greater contrast
between them. |
The modal (as opposed to tonal) characteristics of Renaissance music
began to break down towards the end of the period with the increased
use of root motions of fifths. This has since developed into one of
the defining characteristics of tonality.
Principal liturgical forms which endured throughout the entire
Renaissance period were masses and motets, with some other
developments towards the end, especially as composers of sacred
music began to adopt secular forms (such as the madrigal) for their
own designs.
Common sacred genres were the mass, the motet, the madrigale
spirituale, and the laude.
During the period, secular music had an increasingly wide
distribution, with a wide variety of forms, but one must be cautious
about assuming an explosion in variety: since printing made music
more widely available, much more has survived from this era than
from the preceding Medieval era, and probably a rich store of
popular music of the late Middle Ages is irretrievably lost. Secular
music included songs for one or many voices, forms such as the
frottola, chanson and madrigal.
Secular vocal genres included the madrigal, the frottola, the caccia,
the chanson in several forms (rondeau, virelai, bergerette, ballade,
musique mesurée), the canzonetta, the villancico, the villanella,
the villotta, and the lute song.
Purely instrumental music included consort music for recorder or
viol and other instruments, and dances for various ensembles. Common
genres were the toccata, the prelude, the ricercar, the canzona, and
intabulation (intavolatura, intabulierung). Instrumental ensembles
for dances might play a basse danse (or bassedanza), a pavane, a
galliard, an allemande, or a courante.
Towards the end of the period, the early dramatic precursors of
opera such as monody, the madrigal comedy, and the intermedio are
seen.
Theory and notation
According to Margaret Bent (1998), "Renaissance notation is
under-prescriptive by our standards; when translated into modern
form it acquires a prescriptive weight that overspecifies and
distorts its original openness."
Renaissance compositions were notated only in individual parts;
scores were extremely rare, and barlines were not used. Note values
were generally larger than are in use today; the primary unit of
beat was the semibreve, or whole note. As had been the case since
the Ars Nova (see Medieval music), there could be either two or
three of these for each breve (a double-whole note), which may be
looked on as equivalent to the modern "measure," though it was
itself a note-value and a measure is not. The situation can be
considered this way: it is the same as the rule by which in modern
music a quarter-note may equal either two eighth-notes or three,
which would be written as a "triplet." By the same reckoning, there
could be two or three of the next-smallest note, the "minim,"
(equivalent to the modern "half note") to each semi-breve. These
different permutations were called "perfect/imperfect tempus" at the
level of the breve-semibreve relationship, "perfect/imperfect
prolation" at the level of the semibreve-minim, and existed in all
possible combinations with each other. Three-to-one was called
"perfect," and two-to-one "imperfect." Rules existed also whereby
single notes could be halved or doubled in value ("imperfected" or
"altered," respectively} when preceded or followed by other certain
notes. Notes with black noteheads (such as quarter notes) occurred
less often. This development of white mensural notation may be a
result of the increased use of paper (rather than vellum), as the
weaker paper was less able to withstand the scratching required to
fill in solid noteheads; notation of previous times, written on
vellum, had been black. Other colors, and later, filled-in notes,
were used routinely as well, mainly to enfore the aforementioned
imperfections or alterations and to call for other temporary
rhythmical changes.
Accidentals were not always specified, somewhat as in certain
fingering notations (tablatures) today. However, Renaissance
musicians would have been highly trained in dyadic counterpoint and
thus possessed this and other information necessary to read a score,
"what modern notation requires [accidentals] would then have been
perfectly apparent without notation to a singer versed in
counterpoint." See musica ficta. A singer would interpret his or her
part by figuring cadential formulas with other parts in mind, and
when singing together musicians would avoid parallel octaves and
fifths or alter their cadential parts in light of decisions by other
musicians (Bent, 1998). |
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