Renaissance
From DIMA
Author : Elena-Maria Șorban
Definition
The RENAISSANCE IN MUSIC comprises (1.1.) the cultivated secular and religious compositions, in European national languages and Latin, respectively, (1.2.) of the period 1400>1600, (1.3.) ideologically dominated by humanism, (1.4.) having a genesis predominantly by author, (2.1.) with specific modal language, (2.2.) measured or metrically diversified rhythm, (2.3.) morphologies according to motifs or versified, with predominantly evolutive syntax, (2.4.) predominantly imitative polyphony, (2.5.) timbral typologies predominantly of vocal ensemble, (2.6.) predominantly professional performances, (2.) based on written documents.
The term Renaissance was given by Giorgio VASARI, in his work Vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori Italiani (1550, rev.1568).
Stylistic features
1. Features related to content
The main literary themes of Renaissance music are:
- man – in relation with God (in Latin), his art, daily life, feelings and emotions, especially love and dance (in national languages);
- nature, whose beauty is set in contrast with the misfortune and unhappy feelings;
- history, especially the heroic deeds in the crusades.
2. Features related to composition, language and performing
2.0. Composition principles: prevails the relation with the text, while variation, gradation, contrast are subordinated to the text; repetition is present in the strophic genres, and in the genres having imitative writing, it is correlated with the variation.
2.1. Sonorous language: the system of the 12 modes is developed. Intense chromatizations are used in the second half of the 16th century, being characteristic for the madrigals of Ferrara, some pieces by LASSUS (Prophetiae Sibyllarum, München, ~1560) and for GESUALDO’s personal style.
2.2. Rhytmics. In the religious genres and some of the secular, polyphonic ones, the rhythmic frames are only for guidance, the rhythmic being characterized by fluency, similar to Gregorian liturgical monody, associated also with the prose structure of the texts. In the strophic genres, with versified texts, the rhythm is metrical, relatively simple and with symmetries.
2.3. Morphologies and syntaxes: according to the musical genres, predominantly motivic or strophic. In the polyphonic writings are typical the individual articulations of the voices, the simultaneous ones having cadential functions. The initial articulations have firmer melodic profiles, even thematic, and the middle ones are loose.
2.4. Characteristics
The polyphony is diversified through the aspects:
- heterogeneous polyphony, as a stylistic continuation of Ars Nova;
- polyphony having a strict imitation, canonical, developing the polyphonic English style of the 13-14th centuries;
- imitative polyphony, in chains of imitations;
- counterpoint polyphony;
- combination of counterpoint polyphony with imitative polyphony, generating permutable polyphonic techniques.
The technique of cori spezzati, especially in Venice, in choral ensembles (usually on 8 voices) or choral-instrumental.
2.5. Timbres
2.5.1. Timbral typologies
Characteristic are the vocal and vocal-instrumental ensembles.
2.5.2. Vocal culture
The role of the larynx, glottis and vocal cords in producing the sound was studied by Leonardo da Vinci and other scientists, in anatomic dissections.
In the choral writings appears around 1450, the term "bass" for the voices below the tenor.
There is mentioned, in two of the pieces of the Trent Codices (middle of the 15th century), the presence of children’s voices (pueri), and then by the indication mutate voces, is implied the passing to men’s voices.
The issue of the registers for choir members is discussed by Conrad von Zabern, in the treatise De modo bene cantandi. Also in the 15th -16th centuries are documented mentions on the difference between voce da camera and voce da chiesa, more powerful.
One of JOSQUIN’s students mentions that the beginning of singing lessons started in childhood, by imitating the teacher and specific exercises. The Renaissance brings back to attention the ancient Greek idea of vocal hygiene, with indications to avoid debauchery, muscle cramps, eating recommendations, mentions on influences produces by meteorological conditions, recommendations against hoarseness.
2.5.3. Specific music instruments: the same as in the previous and following stylistic transitions
2.6. Performing music
2.6.1. General aspects
Music is usually performed by professional musicians.
2.6.2. Improvisation aspects
The musical treatises begin the differentiation between the oral (contrappunto alla mente) and written improvisatory practices (ex. Prosdocimus de Beldemandis, Contrapunctus, Padova, 1412; TINCTORIS, Liber de arte contrapuncti, 1477).
In the 16th century, the theory accentuated the clarification of the ties between improvisation and the counterpoint technique: Vicente LUSITANO, in Introdutione facilissima et novissima de canto fermo (1553) offers the first presentation of the technique procedures of improvisation on cantus firmus, with the movement of the voices and harmonic dissonances.
Musical genres
Religious genres
Missa – preserves the five-part structure of the Ordinary fixed during Ars Nova, with free or canonical (called missa ad fugam) imitative writing.
Motet – may use texts proper to the missa, with a structure and writing analogous to the missa.
Hymn – on medieval strophic liturgical texts, has a musical writing in which the verses alternate the monadic original with the polyphonic process.
Secular genres
Chanson- continues the tradition of the previous century, as French semi-cultivated secular genre; it is characteristically polyphonic in the 15th century, and iso-rhythmic, with strophic forms, in the 16th century.
Lied- is a German secular semi-cultivated genre, continued from the previous century, having a monody accompanied either homophonous or polyphonic, usually in verse form.
Madrigal – is characterized by (a) an elevated poetic content, (b) conveyed with illustrative means of musical language, (c) imitative polyphonic structure with homophone sections, (d) continuous development. It has distinct historical-stylistic stages:
- Trecento madrigal, having a fixed poetic form, and heterogeneous polyphonic structure;
- madrigal of the 16th-17th centuries, in Italian, frequently on texts of the 14th century and especially on sonnets by Petrarca, composed by PALESTRINA, MARENZIO, GESUALDO;
- transition madrigal to Baroque, with concert, dramatic, declamative, chromatic, vocal-instrumental, arioso features, sometimes with religious content, represented by LUZZASCHI, MONTEVERDI.
Frottola and villanella are choral genres, sometimes accompanied by instruments, secular, semi-cultivated, of Italian origin, written to entertainment, usually with homophonic structure and strophic forms with chorus.
Special references
1. Reference editions
- Antologie Palestrina. Selecţie, studiu introductiv şi cronologie de Dan VOICULESCU, multiplicată, Cluj-Napoca, 1978
- Antologie renascentistă, întocmită de Dan VOICULESCU, multipl., Cluj-Napoca, 1975
- HONTERUS, Johannes, Odae cum harmoniis, Horațiu, 1548, Brașov; ed.București, 1983
- PALESTRINA, G. P., Opera omnia, Roma, 1939-1963, ed. Raffaele Casimiri
2. Bibliography
- BÁRDOS, Lajos, Modális harmoniák...Palestrina énekkari műveinek alapján,Budapest, 1979
- BESSELER, Heinrich, Peter GÜLKE: Schriftbild der mehrstimmigen Musik. In: MB III/5, Leipzig, 1973.
- BOWLES, Edmund Addison, Musikleben im 15.Jahrhundert. In: MB, Leipzig, 1977
- BROWN,Howard M.:Music in the Renaissance,PrenticeHall,1976;trad.magh.Budapest, 1980.
- COMES, Liviu, Melodica palestriniană, Bucureşti, 2002
- FINSCHER, Ludwig, Die Musik des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts, NHMw 2
- HAMM, Charles, A Chronology of the Works of Guillaume Dufay. Based on a Study of Mensural Practice, New Jersey, 1964
- KITE-POWELL, Jeffery, ed., A Performer’s Guide to Renaissance Music, Indiana, Bloomington, 2nd edition, 2007 ○
- PALADI, Marta: Orlando di Lasso, Bucureşti, 1972
- REESE, Gustav, Music in the Renaissance, New York, 1959
- SALMEN,Walter:Musikleben im 16.Jahrhundert. In:MB, Leipzig, 1983
- WATKINS Glenn, Gesualdo da Venosa,Budapest, 1980 ○
3. Audio/video recordings
- Burgundische Liebeslieder des 15, Jahrhundert, Studio der fruehen Musik, Telefunken
- Court Music for King Matthias, Camerata Hungarica, Hungaroton
- Glogauer Liederbuch, Archiv
- Lochheimer Liederbuch, Archiv
- Pariser Theaterlieder des 15. Jahrhunderts, Studio der frühen Musik, Telefunken
- Storia della musica italiana, ed. Cesare Valabrega, RCA Italiana
- HERZOG, Werner, Tod für fünf Stimmen, *ZDF, 2001
4. Web sites
- www1.trentinocultura.net/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=22652&mode=2
- www.books.google.com/books?id=p10RAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA63&lpg=PA63&dq=Palestrina+opera+omnia
- www.fondpalestrina.org/
- http://palestrina-operaomnia.info/