Unit Summary
Renaissance Music
The transition from the Medieval (500-1450 C.E.) period to the Renaissance (1450-1600 C.E.) was gradual rather than sudden. Nevertheless, the changes in attitude and technique were significant. In particular, the Renaissance saw a gradual increase in the cultivation of secular music overall, and in instrumental music in particular. However, religious vocal music remained the dominant type of music.
Major Developments
- The gradual acceptance of the major chord as a consonant sonority.
- The cultivation of the motet, a sacred form with original words and music
- The increased use of imitative counterpoint.
- The chorale is an important form of sacred music in the Protestant tradition
- The emergence of the madrigal as an important form of secular vocal music, in Italy and England particularly
- A greater standardization of instruments and their use in consorts of similar instruments in different ranges.
Renaissance instruments to know by sight and sound
- Wind instruments
- recorders
- crumhorns
- sackbuts
- cornets
- Bowed Strings
- Keyboard instruments
- organ
- harpsichord (more important in Baroque)
- Plucked Strings
Some important composers
- Guillaume Dufay (ca.1400-1474), sacred and secular music
- Josquin des Prez (ca. 1445-1521), sacred and secular music
- Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina (ca. 1524-1594), principally sacred music
- Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612), polychoral sacred music for voices and instruments
- Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), early madrigals and church music in Renaissance style
- Carlo Gesualdo (1560-1613), intensely expressive madrigals and some sacred music
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