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Because music is an abstract art, the effect
of Renaissance humanism on music between about 1420 to 1600
differs from its influence on the visual and literary arts.
In secular song a new emphasis on human feelings and experience
did put a high priority on matching music to its text and
conveying the latter clearly, without the complications of
excessive POLYPHONY; and this trend parallels the realism
and expressiveness found in painting and poetry of the period.
In liturgical music, however, the same principles led to the
liberation of music from the repetitive texts and structures
of medieval church music. For example, basing all five movements
of a Mass-ordinary setting on a single melody (cantus firmus)
was a purely musical achievement, by which composers asserted
themselves as creative artists, not simply church functionaries.
Renaissance music was therefore differentiated from the late
medieval style that preceded it by such purely musical features
as its greater melodic and rhythmic integration, enlarged
range and texture, and subjection to harmonic principles of
order. After 1500 this integrated style developed into distinct
vocal and instrumental idioms, and vocal music, under the
influence of humanism, became increasingly devoted to the
expression of texts. By 1600 harmony had come to dominate
polyphony, and instrumental music was liberated from the forms
and styles of vocal music. At that point, Renaissance musical
style was eclipsed by a new style--the baroque.
THE 15TH CENTURY
While other Renaissance artists sought to revive ancient Greek
and Roman ideals, musicians had never lost them--the mathematical
systems of Pythagoras had shaped music throughout the later
Middle Ages. The process of musical change was therefore gradual,
not revolutionary, and distance from Rome seems to have encouraged
both originality and the enrichment of the tradition. About
1400, for example, English composers such as John DUNSTABLE
introduced a sensuous, consonant harmony based on intervals
of the third and the sixth. After about 1420, composers of
the empire of Burgundian School, led by Guillaume DUFAY, cultivated
a polyphonic style whose intricacy linked it to music of the
previous century but whose pleasing sound and harmonic structure,
along with the equal importance of all the voices, were humanistic
features. Other composers of this school--for example, Gilles
BINCHOIS, Heinrich ISAAC, JOSQUIN DES PREZ, and Jacob OBRECHT--cultivated
such musical forms as the CANZONE, CHANSON, MASS, and MOTET.
Johannes Tinctoris (c.1435-1511) was the leading writer on
music theory in this period. Late in the century, musical
contact between Burgundy and Italy influenced the Italian
part song (the secular frottola and the sacred lauda).
THE 16TH CENTURY
The frottola developed into the MADRIGAL, a setting of lyric
poetry for four or five voices. Despite its Italian origins,
this genre was dominated at first by Franco-Netherlanders
such as Adrian WILLAERT, with some contributions by Italians
such as Costanzo Festa (c.1490-1543). In France, Italian-influenced
settings of French lyrics gave way, in the royal court at
least, to the more artificial settings (musique mesuree) of
verse based on Greek models, by Claude Lejeune (1528-c.1600).
Church Music
During this period the musical terms mass and motet acquired
their modern meaning: the former a musically unified setting
of the ordinary, the latter, a setting of scripture or sacred
poetry, and both written in flowing, imitative counterpoint
for four to six voices. This style was established by Josquin
des Prez and refined by William BYRD, Roland de LASSUS, Giovanni
Pierluigi da PALESTRINA, and Tomas Luis de VICTORIA. A pupil
of Willaert, Gioseffo Zarlino (1517-90), formulated the principles
of this style in his writings.
Later in the century, the Reformation fostered a simpler,
more pietistic musical style, first in Protestant, then in
Roman Catholic churches. Examples include German Lutheran
chorales by Johann Walter (1496-1570), French Calvinist psalms
by Louis Bourgeois (c.1510-c.1561), Anglican anthems by Orlando
GIBBONS, Thomas TALLIS, and William Byrd, and the pure counterpoint
of Palestrina's late works.
Secular Music
The cross-currents of humanism and religious reform created
a climate where separate but equal styles of sacred and secular
music could flourish independently of each other. Music printing,
beginning with a collection of polyphonic chansons published
at Venice in 1501, gradually revolutionized the dissemination
and social role of music, adding to its courtly and liturgical
functions the new ones of middle-class home entertainment
and devotion.
While churches pursued pious simplicity, the madrigal blossomed
into a sensuous harmony and a luxurious complexity of rhythm
and counterpoint, typified by the madrigals of Luca MARENZIO.
The French chanson, medieval in origin, received conservative
treatment from Northern composers such as Jan SWEELINCK and
Italian influences from Lassus and Lejeune. Madrigal style
eventually reached Germany and England in songs by Hans Leo
HASSLER, Thomas MORLEY, Thomas WEELKES, and John WILBYE. Solo
songs (airs) with lute accompaniment became popular in Spain,
France, and England, reaching their peak in the works of John
DOWLAND.
Musical instruments rose above their old role of merely reinforcing
voice parts. A new, idiomatic treatment of instrumental sound
can be heard in such genres as the prelude and fantasia for
vihuela (a type of guitar) of Luis Milan (c.1500-c.1561);
the organ ricercari (instrumental pieces in motet style) and
tocatte of Marco Antonio Cavazzoni (c.1490-c.1560) and Claudio
Merulo (1533-1604); the harpsichord dances and variations
of John BULL and William Byrd; the ensemble canzone (instrumental
chansons) and ricercari of the GABRIELI family; and the fantasias
for viols by Byrd and Gibbons.
Decline of Polyphony
In the later 16th century, Greek-inspired neoclassicism, sometimes
called Mannerism, reacted against the complications of polyphony.
Greek musical theory inspired the experiments in chromaticism
of Lassus and Carlo GESUALDO. The monody of Giulio CACCINI
and the invention of dramatic RECITATIVE by Jacopo PERI represented
attempts to revive Greek musical practices. Zarlino's theoretical
system was attacked in the name of ancient music, and the
concept of polyphony was questioned on the same grounds. Solo
song and recitative with simple instrumental accompaniment
supplanted Renaissance polyphony by about 1600. The last great
madrigalist of the Renaissance, Claudio MONTEVERDI, was also
the first great composer of the baroque era.
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