2. Vocal Music  During the Renaissance, secular vocal music became increasingly popular  Music was set to poems in various languages, including: Italian, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, and English  The development of music printing helped spread secular music

3. Vocal Music  Music was an important leisure activity, every educated person was expected to be able to play an instrument and read notation  Renaissance secular music was written for groups of solo voices and for solo voice with accompaniment  Word painting was common

4. Vocal Music  An important kind of secular vocal music during the Renaissance was the madrigal  A madrigal is a piece for several solo voices set to a short poem, usually about love  A madrigal combines homophonic and polyphonic textures

5. Vocal Music  The Renaissance madrigal originated in Italy around 1520  Madrigals were published by the thousands in 16 th century Italy, where they were sung by cultivated aristocrats  In 1588 a volume of translated Italian madrigals was published in London  This triggered a spurt of madrigal writing by English composers

6. Vocal Music  For about 30 years there was a constant flow of English madrigals and other secular vocal music.  The time of Queen Elizabeth I (1533- 1603) and William Shakespeare (1564- 1616) was as much a golden age in English music as it was in English literature.

7. Vocal Music  Among the finest English madrigalists was Thomas Weelkes (about 1575- 1623)  He was an organist and church composer  Weelkes was baptized in the little village church of Elsted in Sussex on 25 October 1576

8. Vocal Music  In 1597 his first volume of madrigals was published  At the end of 1598, at the probable age of 22, Weelkes was appointed organist at Winchester College  During his Winchester period, Weelkes composed a further two volumes of madrigals (1598, 1600)  Weelkes' fourth and final volume of madrigals, published in 1608, carries a title page where he refers to himself as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal

9. Vocal Music  A simpler type of secular vocal music than the madrigal was the ballett (or fa- la)  It is a dancelike song for several solo voices  In contrast to most Renaissance music, the ballett was mostly homophonic in texture, with the melody in the highest voice

10. Vocal Music  The same music is repeated for each stanza of the poem, and the syllables fa- la are used as refrain  Like the madrigal, the Renaissance ballett originated in Italy  The ballett was cultivated in England from around 1595 to the 1620s

11. Vocal Music  Among the most widely performed of all balletts is one by Thomas Morely  He lived from 1557-1603  He was an English composer best know for his madrigals  Morley lived for a time in the same parish as Shakespeare, and a connection between the two has been long speculated, but never proven