Unit IV: The Renaissance

1
Unit IV The Renaissance

• Chapter 16
• Renaissance Secular Music

2
Music in Court and City Life

• Courts entertained by professionals, often
  employed as servants
• The emerging merchant class indulged in music
  making, often using the lute to accompany
  themselves
• Women emerged as performers

3
The Lute
4
The Chanson

• Favored by Burgundian and French courts
• Usually 3 voices, with one or more of the lower
  voices instrumental
• Texts of courtly love (unrequited)

5
The Chanson

• Formes fixes give the chanson its form
• rondeau
• ballade
• virelai

6
Instrumental Dance Music

• Period of explosion of instrumental music
• Types
• Pavane - slow, ceremonial
• Salterello - fast, vigorous
• Galliard - Even faster, French
• Allemande - Moderate duple
• Ronde - Round dance from outdoor celebrations

7
Susato Three Dances

• Example of a Ronde written in 1551
• Binary Form (2 sections, each repeated, A-A-B-B)
• See Listening Guide 8, pp. 99-100 (CD 1/38-41)

8
The Italian Madrigal

• Courtly secular music
• Wide variety of emotions expressed
• Text painting
• Instruments often doubled or substituted for
  voices
• At first aristocratic entertainment, later a
  vehicle for virtuosity

9
Claudio Monteverdi

• 1567-1643
• Court composer to the Duke of Mantua 1601-1613
• Choirmaster of St. Marks in Venice 1613-1643

10
Monteverdis Madrigals

• Published 8 books of madrigals between 1587 and
  1643 which span his career and connect the
  Renaissance with the Baroque
• Expressive word painting
• Rich chromatic harmonies
• Monteverdis madrigals represent the form at its
  most mature stage See Listening Guide 9
  pp.102-103 (CD 1/29-31)

11
Ecco mormorar londe

• Second Book of Madrigals (1590)
• Poetry by Torquato Tasso idealizes the study of
  nature and is written for five singers who toss
  their ideas about in groups of two or three until
  the last line.
• Note many instances of word painting, typical of
  the madrigal style

12
The English Madrigal

• Musica Transalpina (1588) brought the Italian
  madrigal to England, texts Anglicized
• John Farmer
• d. 1601
• Active in Dublin and London
• Published his only collection of 4 part madrigals
  in 1599

13
Fair Phyllis

• See Listening Guide 10, p.104-105, (CD1/32-33)
• Pastoral text
• Alternating textures
• Cadences on the weak beat of the measure
• Changes to triple meter
• Word painting

14
From Renaissance to Baroque

• Venetian Polychoral School
• Centered in St. Marks Basilica

15
Venetian Polychoral School

• Antiphonal singing by 2 or more choirs
• Homophonic
• Concerted music