The History of Renaissance

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Historical Background

      The fifteen and Sixteen centuries was the age of curiosity and individualism. During this time is called the Renaissance period. From 1450-1600 The dominant intellectual movement was called Humanism. It focused on human life and its accomplishments. People were not concerned with an afterlife or heaven and hell. They were captivated by the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, Intoxicated with the beauty and ancient languages, with the literature of antiquity. They depicted nude human body, an object of concealment during the middle ages. The catholic church was far less powerful. The Aristocrats and upper middle class considered education a status symbol. And the first books were printed 15 to 20 million copies.

    The music in Renaissance Society occurred between 1450 and 1600 with the horizons of music greatly expanded. The invention of the printing widen the circulation of music the number of composer and performers increased. Composer and performers worked in the church, courts or towns for the first time. A single court might have ten to sixty musicians. Nobility brought their musicians with them where ever they went

    Leading Renaissance composers came from the low countries called Flanders. It was an area of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Northern France.

    Vocal music was more important than instrumental music at this time. Human interest in language influenced vocal music creating a close relationship between words and music. There is a wide range of emotion in Renaissance music usually expressed in a moderate, balanced way with no extreme contrasts of dynamics, tone color or rhythm.

    The texture of their music was chiefly polyphonic and had at least 4, 5, or 6 parts with a fuller sound than medieval times. The bass register was used for the first time expanding the pitch range to more than 4 octaves adding a richer harmony. The Choral music did not need instrumental accompaniment.

    Two main form of Renaissance music was the Motet and the Mass. They are alike in style but the mass is a longer composition. Where as the Motet is a polyphonic choral set to a scared Latin text.

    The main Renaissance Composers

Claudio Monteverdi's importance to the development of music is  his revolutionizing influence. His creative achievements altered the musical climate of his period. Growing up during the Renaissance to the Baroque age, he alone was capable of leading music successfully from polyphonic tradition to the experiments of the Florentines then to the forms of operas, cantata and orchestral inspired church music.

Although Monteverdi never wrote a single item of pure instrumental music, he revolutionized orchestral technique by inventing the tremolo and the pizzicato. Most of his later works have not survived but were dramatic works that originated the grammar of a new style of musical expression. Back To List

Giovanni Gabrieli was a Italian composer of scared and secular vocal music and some instrumental keyboard, string, and wind ensembles. His music is considered the best of the Renaissance Venetian school. He composed lively ceremonial style of cori spezzati ("broken-up choirs or groups"), in which the musicians were located in widely separated spaces. He wrote motets about hell and damnation and promoted the music of Monteverdi and young Heinrich Schutz. Back To List

Andrea Gabrieli was the uncle and teacher of Giovanni Gabrieli and a composer at the Venetian school. He studied with Adrian Willaert. He was a prolific composer of both choral and instrumental music, ranging from massive sacred works to madrigals. His larger compositions exhibits the polyclonal tradition of the Venetian school established by Willaert. Back To List

Claude Le Jeune was one of the leading French composers of his day and one of the most unusual. He was a confirmed Huguenot so had to flee locations quickly because of the Paris uprising of 1589. He was awarded the posts of "master composer" and later "Master of the King's Music" by Henry IV. He was a man of many interests and reflected these in his music. His music consists of more than three hundred Huguenot psalms and includes fine Latin settings. The tumultuous time in which he lived prevented him from gaining much acclaim but his music is being rediscovered, showing us some of the most compelling combinations of old-fashioned and novel ideas in the history of Western music. Back To List

Giovanni De Macque was a Franco-Flemish composer and organist. He made his career in Naples. He produced a large number of madrigals. He is known as the founder of the Neapolitan school of keyboard music, and was an influential early figure in the formation of the Italian Baroque style. Back To List

Luca Marenizo was originally a choir boy in Brescia Cathedral. He spent most of his later career in the service of influential ecclesiastical patrons in Rome. He was a prolific composer of vocal music and he wrote a lot of scared music. His collections of madrigals were of historical importance in the development of the Italian madrigal and were immediately circulated throughout Europe. Back To List

Carlo Gesualdo was the Prince of Venosa. He surprised his wife with her lover and had them both killed. He composed devotional works and six books of madrigals which are considered to be of advance chromatic complexity. His numerous sacred compositions include works intended for Good Friday and the Holy Saturday, as well as Marian compositions such as Ave, dulcissima Maria and Ave. His later madrigals are striking for their time in their harmonic and dramatic boldness. He was a flamboyant personality and had many love affairs.

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Copyright© Donna Cobb 2002   07/25/2002 04:46:10 PM