Renaissance music is European music Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 9th century to present times. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common practice period written during the Renaissance The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historic era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not uniform across Europe, this is a general use of the. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult Music historians divide the European classical music repertory into various eras based on what style was most popular as taste changed. These eras and styles include Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and 20th century. Some of the terms, such as "Renaissance" and "Baroque", are borrowed from Western art, given the gradually adopted "Renaissance" characteristics: musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.

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Style and trends

Renaissance The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historic era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not uniform across Europe, this is a general use of the
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Architecture Renaissance architecture is the architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, in which there was a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance architecture followed Gothic architecture and was Dance During the Renaissance period, there was a distinction between country dances and court dances. Court dances required the dancers to have been trained and were often for display and entertainment, whereas country dances could be attempted by anyone. At Court, the formal entertainment would often be followed by many hours of country dances which Literature Renaissance Literature refers to the period in European literature, which began in Italy during the 14th century and spread around Europe through the 17th century. The impact of the Renaissance varied across the continent; countries that were predominantly Catholic or Protestant experienced the Renaissance differently compared to areas where the Music Painting Renaissance art is the painting, sculpture and decorative arts of that period of European history known as the Renaissance, emerging as a distinct style in Italy in about 1400, in parallel with developments which occurred in philosophy, literature, music and science. Renaissance art, perceived as a "rebirth" of ancient traditions, took Philosophy Renaissance philosophy was the period of the history of philosophy in Europe that falls roughly between the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment. It includes the 15th century; some scholars extend it to as early as the 1350s or as late as the 16th century or early 17th century, overlapping the Reformation and the early modern era. Among the Science During the Renaissance, great advances occurred in geography, astronomy, chemistry, physics, math, manufacturing, and engineering. The rediscovery of ancient scientific texts was accelerated after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the invention of printing which would democratize learning and allow a faster propagation of new ideas. But, at Technology Renaissance technology is the set of European artifacts and customs, spanning the Renaissance period, roughly the 14th through the 16th century. The era is marked by such profound technical advancements like the printing press, linear perspectivity, patent law, double shell domes or Bastion fortresses. Draw-books of the Renaissance artist- Warfare Early Modern warfare is associated with the start of the widespread use of gunpowder and the development of suitable weapons to use the explosive. Gunpowder was first invented in China and then later spread to western nations of the Middle East. It then found its way into Eastern Europe following the invasions of the Mongols, who had employed
Regions

England The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the early 16th century to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that many cultural historians believe originated in Tuscany in the 14th century. This era in English cultural history is sometimes referred to as "the age of France French Renaissance is a recent term used to describe a cultural and artistic movement in France from the late 15th century to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that many cultural historians believe originated in northern Italy in the fourteenth century. The French Renaissance traditionally extends from the Germany The German Renaissance, part of the Northern Renaissance, was a cultural and artistic movement that spread among German thinkers in the 15th and 16th centuries, which originated from the Italian Renaissance in Italy. This was a result of German artists who had traveled to Italy to learn more and become inspired by the Renaissance movement. The Italy The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe. The term renaissance is in essence a modern one that came into currency in the Netherlands Northern Europe The Northern Renaissance is the term used to describe the Renaissance in northern Europe, or more broadly in Europe outside Italy. Before 1450 Italian Renaissance humanism had little influence outside Italy. From the late 15th century the ideas spread around Europe. This influenced the German Renaissance, French Renaissance, English Renaissance, Poland The Renaissance in Poland lasted from the late 15th century to the late 16th century and is widely considered to be the Golden Age of Polish culture. The Kingdom of Poland (from 1569 known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth), ruled by the Jagiellon dynasty, actively participated in the European Renaissance. A century without major wars - only Spain The Spanish Renaissance refers to a movement in Spain, emerging from the Italian Renaissance in Italy during the 14th century, that spread to Spain during the 15th and 16th centuries. The year 1492 is commonly accepted as the beginning of the influence of the Renaissance in Spain

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 The Middle Ages is a period of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The period followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, and preceded the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period in a three-period division of history: Classical, Medieval, and Modern. The term "Middle Ages" (medium aevum) was coined in, thirds had been considered dissonances: see interval In music theory, the term interval describes the relationship between the pitches of two notes). Polyphony In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony), 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 In addition, from the end of the eighteenth century, the term began to be used in ethnomusicological contexts to describe pitch structures in non-European musical cultures, sometimes with doubtful compatibility (as opposed to tonal Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center", or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840 (Reti, 1958; Simms 1975, 119; Judd, 1998; Dahlhaus 1990). Although Fétis used it as a general term for a) characteristics of Renaissance music began to break down towards the end of the period with the increased use of root motions of fifths. This later developed into one of the defining characteristics of tonality.

Genres

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 A madrigal is a type of secular vocal music composition, written during the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Throughout most of its history it was polyphonic and unaccompanied by instruments, with the number of voices varying from two to eight, but most frequently three to six. The earliest examples of the genre date from Italy in the 1520s,) for their own designs.

Common sacred genres were the mass The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the fixed portions of the Eucharistic liturgy to music. Most Masses are settings of the liturgy in Latin, the traditional language of the Roman Catholic Church, but there are a significant number written in the languages of non-Catholic countries where vernacular, the motet The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian mottetto was also used. If the word is from Latin, the name describes the movement of the different voices against one another, the madrigale spirituale A madrigale spirituale is a madrigal, or madrigal-like piece of music, with a sacred rather than a secular text. Most examples of the form date from the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras, and principally come from Italy and Germany, and the laude Laude are the most important form of vernacular sacred song in Italy in the late medieval era and Renaissance. They remained popular into the nineteenth century.

During the period, secular music had an increasing distribution, with a wide variety of forms, but one must be cautious about assuming an explosion in variety: since printing Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction 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 The frottola was the predominant type of Italian popular, secular song of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. It was the most important and widespread predecessor to the madrigal. The peak of activity in composition of frottole was the period from 1470 to 1530, after which time the form was replaced by the madrigal, chanson A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specialising in chansons is known as a "chanteur"; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier and madrigal A madrigal is a type of secular vocal music composition, written during the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Throughout most of its history it was polyphonic and unaccompanied by instruments, with the number of voices varying from two to eight, but most frequently three to six. The earliest examples of the genre date from Italy in the 1520s,.

Secular vocal genres included the madrigal A madrigal is a type of secular vocal music composition, written during the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Throughout most of its history it was polyphonic and unaccompanied by instruments, with the number of voices varying from two to eight, but most frequently three to six. The earliest examples of the genre date from Italy in the 1520s,, the frottola The frottola was the predominant type of Italian popular, secular song of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. It was the most important and widespread predecessor to the madrigal. The peak of activity in composition of frottole was the period from 1470 to 1530, after which time the form was replaced by the madrigal, the caccia, the chanson A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specialising in chansons is known as a "chanteur"; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier in several forms (rondeau The rondeau was a Medieval and early Renaissance musical form, based on the contemporary popular poetic rondeau form. It is distinct from the 18th century rondo, though the terms are likely related. With the virelai and the ballade, it is one of the three formes fixes of French music and poetry in the 14th and 15th centuries, virelai A virelai is a form of medieval French verse used often in poetry and music. It is one of the three formes fixes , and was one of the most common verse forms set to music in Europe from the late thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, bergerette, ballade The term ballade was used to describe one type of musical setting of French poetry common in the 14th and 15th centuries. One of the formes fixes, the ballade typically featured a prominent upper voice, which was texted, and two lower voices which may have been vocalised or performed with instruments. Guillaume de Machaut is the most famous, musique mesurée), the canzonetta, the villancico The villancico was a common poetic and musical form of the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America popular from the late fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. With the decline in popularity of the villancicos in the 20th century, the term became reduced to mean merely "Christmas carol". Important composers of villancicos were Juan del Encina,, the villanella In music, a villanella is a form of light Italian secular vocal music which originated in Italy just before the middle of the 16th century. It first appeared in Naples, and influenced the later canzonetta, and from there also influenced the madrigal, the villotta Villotta is a kind of popular song found mainly in northern Italy, especially near Venice. Often using folk music or folk songs in dialect, the structure of the modern villotta entails four hendecasyllabic lines of verse followed by a refrain.[citation needed] Villotte from the sixteenth-century are typically strophic dialect songs that frequently, and the lute song The lute song was a generic form of music in the late Renaissance and very early Baroque eras, generally consisting of a singer accompanying himself on a lute, though lute songs may often have been performed by a singer and a separate lutenist. A bass viol was very often used to support the bass line in performance. Mixed forms such as the motet-chanson The motet-chanson was a specialized musical form of the Renaissance, developed in Milan during the 1470s and 1480s, which combined aspects of the contemporary motet and chanson and the secular motet also appeared.

Purely instrumental music included consort A consort of instruments was a phrase used in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to indicate an instrumental ensemble. These could be of the same or a variety of instruments. Consort music enjoyed considerable popularity at court and in households of the wealthy in the Elizabethan era and many pieces were written for consorts music for recorder The English Flute or recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes — whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle and ocarina. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple. It is distinguished from other or viol A viol is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, stringed musical instruments developed in the mid-late 15th century and used primarily in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The family is related to and descends primarily from the Spanish vihuela . Some degree of developmental influence, if only in playing posture, is credited to the Moorish and other instruments, and dances for various ensembles. Common genres were the toccata Toccata is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtuosic passages or sections, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer's fingers. Less frequently, the name is applied to works for multiple, the prelude A prelude is a short piece of music, the form of which may vary from piece to piece. While, during the Baroque Age, for example, it may have served as an introduction to succeeding movements of a work that were usually longer and more complex, it may also have been a stand alone piece of work during the Romantic Era. It generally features a small, the ricercar A ricercar is a type of late Renaissance and mostly early Baroque instrumental composition. The term means to search out, and many ricercars serve a preludial function to "search out" the key or mode of a following piece. A ricercar may explore the permutations of a given motif, and in that regard may follow the piece used as, 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."

Ockeghem, Kyrie "Au travail suis," excerpt

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 semibreve. 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 enforce 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).

It is through contemporary tablatures for various plucked instruments that we have gained much information about what accidentals were performed by the original practitioners.

For information on specific theorists, see Johannes Tinctoris, Franchinus Gaffurius, Heinrich Glarean, Pietro Aron, Nicola Vicentino, Tomás de Santa María, Gioseffo Zarlino, Vicente Lusitano, Vincenzo Galilei, Giovanni Artusi, Johannes Nucius, and Pietro Cerone.

Composers of the Renaissance—timeline

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Join us as we take a look at this incredible Sri Lankan songwriter/poli​tical activist and down right . renaissance. woman. Maya was born in London, but since six months of age had been living with her family in their native Jaffna, Sri Lanka. ... While working on a video document of the event and directing their . music. videos, Maya was introduced to the band Peaches, who in turn introduced her to the Roland MC-505 sequencing drum machine and encouraged Maya to experiment with ...

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What kind of music was played at Renaissance and Elizabethan Era weddings?
Q. What kind of music was played at Renaissance and Elizabethan Era weddings? Fast, slow, happy, sad, etc. Thanks! I do choose best answers! This is a website that I can download the songs free. It's for a school project. Any of them stick out?
Asked by Tyler - Wed Nov 18 19:57:52 2009 - - 1 Answers - 0 Comments

A. I'm sure that happy, fairly fast music would have been played at the weddings; it was a cause for celebration! Music was very popular and important in those day, and most people would have been able to sing or play an instrument in the times when there weren't ipods or even record players. If it was a royal wedding in a church, there would probably have been glorious, solemn and celebratory church music, but afterwards at the reception, people would have sung and danced to music. Here's some more information: at the most elegant of weddings, usually those of the nobility, the processional included musicians who played lutes, flutes and viols. It was very common of that time for commoners to have music played for them whenever… [cont.]
Answered by Sybaris - Sat Nov 21 11:45:52 2009

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