European music during the Renaissance

=> Background

The word "Renaissance" dates from the eighteenth century and mirrors the restoration of enthusiasm for the old style civic establishments of Greece and Rome that significantly impacted the way of life and thinking about the century and a half after the Middle Ages.

The period is additionally called the Age of Humanism due to the accentuation on the nature, potential, and achievements of man in writing, craftsmanship, music, science and reasoning.

The medieval approach to understanding the world, which was based on religion, speculative systems of divine order and harmony, was overpowered by theories from scientific observation origins.

Learning was exceptionally esteemed and, due to the innovation of printing, got accessible to a wide people.

Other significant innovations are the telescope and instruments for navigation utilized by pioneers, for example, Columbus and Magellan.

The Catholic Church stayed a significant foundation during the Renaissance, yet lessened in impact in result of the riches and influence of families, for example, the Medici of Florence and the Estes of Ferrara, whose courts became focuses of culture, learning, and military power.

The Reformation, which started with Martin Luther's reactions of Church mishandles, had its most noteworthy effect in Germany.

Other breakaway developments followed in France and Switzerland, just as in England, where Henry VIII opposed the authority of the pope and pronounced himself leader of another Anglican church.

Wars among Catholics and Protestants are a piece of the historical backdrop of a significant number of the nations that broke with Rome.

As for the arts, where no old models survived, that musical 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 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.

In setting religious texts, composers aimed for an atmosphere of serenity and spirituality, in the setting of secular texts, for vivid representation of words and images. Instrumental music continued to be of less relevance to composers, whose approach to instruments was usually the same as that for voices.

For instance, distributed assortments of dances required vague instruments of soprano, alto, tenor, and bass range—fundamentally vocal pieces without words.

Nonetheless, a few composers started to investigate molding melodic material in manners that utilized the one of a kind highlights of the instruments on which it would be performed.

=> Milestones in Music

First printed collection of polyphonic music by Ottaviano Petrucci, Venice, 1501; in 1520s and 1530s music printing houses founded in London, Paris, Venice, Rome, Nuremberg, and Antwerp.

Publication of tutors on composing music and playing instruments.

Founding of first conservatories of music in Naples and Venice, 1537.

Early development of the violin, 1550s.

Florentine Camerata meets in the home of Giovanni Bardi and speculates about the correct performance of Greek drama leading to the creation of recitative style singing and the invention of opera.

=> Music Styles

Motet: setting of Latin sacred text; principal performance medium a cappella chorus of soprano, alto, tenor bass; texture of imitative counterpoint. Josquin des Prez set the model for the Renaissance motet.

Mass: setting of texts of the Mass Ordinary; principal performance medium a cappella chorus of soprano, alto, tenor bass; texture of imitative counterpoint. Almost all Renaissance composers wrote masses.

Madrigal: setting of secular text; principal performance medium a cappella chorus of soprano, alto, tenor bass; texture of imitative counterpoint; main secular genre in Italy and England; use of word painting to illustrate text images.

Chanson: a cappella setting of secular text; principal performance medium a cappella chorus of soprano, alto, tenor, bass; principal secular genre in France.

Chorale: setting of German sacred text; introduced by Martin Luther for congregational singing.

Canzona: instrumental adaptation of the chanson. Giovanni Gabrieli’s canzones were probably composed for religious celebrations at St. Mark’s in Venice.

Dances: instrumental works to accompany dancing, often paired as a slow dance with gliding movements followed by a faster dance with leaping movements.

=> Major Figures in Music

Johannes Ockeghem: composer of sacred and secular music, active in Antwerp; teacher of many early Renaissance composers.

Josquin des Prez : Franco-Flemish composer.

Giovanni Gabrieli: Italian composer; director of music at St. Mark’s in Venice.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525–1594): Italian composer of sacred and secular music; credited with introducing Counterreformation reforms following the Council of Trent; referred to by contemporaries as The Prince of Music.