Renaissance Music: History, Characteristics, and Genres
Renaissance Music: An Overview
Renaissance music is European classical music written during the Renaissance period, approximately between 1400 and 1600. Defining the beginning of this era is challenging due to the gradual evolution of musical thought in the 15th century. The acquisition of “Renaissance features” in music was a gradual process.
General Characteristics
Style
A growing dependence on the third as a consonant interval is a prominent characteristic of Renaissance music. In the Middle Ages, thirds were considered dissonances. Polyphony, which had been in use since the twelfth century, became quite elaborate, with an increasing number of independent voices in the fourteenth century.
The beginning of the fifteenth century resulted in simplification, with voices often striving to be softer. This was possible because of the greatly increased vocal range in music, unlike the Middle Ages, where the narrow range necessitated frequent crossing of parts, requiring a greater contrast between them.
The modal characteristics (as opposed to tonal) of Renaissance music began to diminish towards the end of the period with the increasing use of intervals between the fifth and fundamental movement. This has since become one of the defining characteristics of tonality.
Genres
The most important liturgical forms that were maintained during the Renaissance were the Mass and the motet, with some innovations towards the end. For example, in the Mass, the imitative method replaced the technique of a single cantus firmus, and composers began writing for 5 or 6 voices. Composers of sacred music began to adopt non-religious forms, such as the madrigal, for their own compositions. Common sacred genres were the spiritual madrigal and the tombstone.
During this period, church music had increased diffusion due to the novelty of musical print, and a wide variety of forms emerged. It is likely that a large amount of popular music from the late Middle Ages has been lost due to a lack of documentation.
Non-religious music includes songs from the Renaissance for one or more voices in forms like the frottola, the madrigal, the caccia, la chanson in its various forms (rondeau, virelai, bergerette, ballad), the canzonetta, carol, the villanelo, the villota, and the lute song.
Instrumental music includes music for ensembles of recorder, viola da gamba, and other instruments, as well as dances. The most common genres were the toccata, the prelude, the ricercar, and canzona. Common dances included the bassadanza, the pavan, the galliard, the allemande, and the courante.
Towards the end of the period, the first dramatic forms of opera emerged, such as monody, the madrigal comedy, and the intermedio.
Theory and Notation
Compositions of the Renaissance were written in separate parts only; overall scores were very rare, and bar lines were not used. The figures were generally larger than those used today; the unit was the semibreve pulse, or round. As was the case from the Ars Nova, each breve (square) could amount to two or three semibreves, which could be regarded as equivalent to a modern “beat,” though a note value and not a time signature.
It can be summarized as follows: as at present, black eighth notes can amount to two or three that would be written as a “triplet.” By the same logic, there can be two or three shorter values of the figure below, the “minimum” (equivalent to the modern “white”) of each semibreve. These different permutations are called “tempus perfect/imperfect,” according to the ratio of short-semibreve, and “prolatio perfect/imperfect” in the case of the relationship semibreve-minimum; all possible combinations exist between them. The lists three “one gets called” perfect, “and two-one” imperfect.
To single figures, there were rules that reduced by half or doubled the value (“imperfections” or “alterations,” respectively) when they were preceded or followed by certain figures. The figures with the black head (like black notes) were less common.
This development of white mensural notation is the result of the widespread use of paper (replacing parchment), which was weaker and could not withstand the pen filling in the notes; notation of the preceding period, written on parchment, was black. Other colors, and later, the filling of the notes (blackening) were used to indicate imperfections or abnormalities, etc.