1. Renaissance Music

2. Review – High Middle Ages
Texture
Monophonic
A single, unaccompanied melody
Polyphonic
Two or more simultaneous and independent melodies
Machaut’s Quant en moy c. 14th century
High Middle Ages
Can you follow the lyrics or one of the voices?
Melismatic (many notes)

3. Renaissance Music Humanist Humanist (Greek) Printing Press
Education included music
Humanist (Greek)
Pythagoras and the math behind music
Music could affect human emotion
Printing Press
Mass reproduction of music
Music affordable in homes
Music as a business (Artists to Composers)
Songs in vernacular
Secular songs

4. Renaissance Music High Renaissance Style
Fluid, smooth, carefully controlled polyphony
Occasional uses of homophony
Voices move together in same rhythm
Imitative Polyphony (Counterpoint)
Voices echo a phrase in another voice at a different pitch
Fluid, generally lacking in sharp rhythmic edges, and characterized by smooth, conjunct, carefully controlled polyphony with occasional uses of homophony.

5. Josquin Desprez Considered the greatest Renaissance composer
“Josquin is the master of the notes.” – Luther
Petite Camusette (Little Snubnose) c. 1500
Six voices
Imitative polyphony (listen for the echo)
How easy is it to follow the words?

6. Renaissance Mass Josquin Desprez Ave maris stella, c. 1500
Paraphrase mass
Based on plainchant
Imitative Polyphony
4 Voices
Can you follow the voices?
Pay attention to the lyrics
Try to pick out the bass voice, especially at the end.
What to listen for: Are the words easy to understand? As it starts it’s easy, but once all 4 voices are in it is too hard.

7. Renaissance Mass Giovanni da Palestrina Pope Marcellus, 1555
Composed to show Church leaders that music in the church was not evil
Six voices
Compare these lyrics to Josquin’s
Is this mass easier or harder to follow than Josquin’s?
Palestrina: 6 Parts. Compare the ease of understanding to the first piece. Each first syllable is on it’s own note while all other voices hold the note they are on.

8. The Madrigal
A secular, unaccompanied vocal work for four to six individual voices.
Most important genre of secular music
Often based on poetry
Word Painting
Music that reflects the meaning of a word or group of words

9. The Madrigal Cipriano de Rore Datemi pace (Give me peace) 1557
Listen for word painting
“Death” low tones
“Love” bright tones
Follow along with the lyrics. What is the song about?
What literary form is this?
Who do you think wrote the original?
Based on one of Petrarch’s sonnets. +

10. The Madrigal Carlo Gesualdo Prince, not a professional composer
Seriously disturbed
Io parto (I am leaving) 1611
Extensive word painting
Bizarre harmonics
Focus on the emotion of this song. How do you feel?
Try to summarize the plot as you follow the lyrics.
Ges-waldo
A messed up dude. Ignored his wife so she took a lover, a local Duke. Gesualdo installed a fake lock on the door and pretended to go away on a trip. His wife summoned her lover, they locked the door, thinking they were safe. Gesualdo returned in disguise, opened the door and shot the Duke twice, killing him. Then he pulled out a stilleto and cut his wife to pieces. After this he was “afflicted by demons.” He hires 10 young men to beat him three times a day and then he feels happy again, often smiling during the beating.

11. The Madrigal Thomas Weelkes English
As Vesta Was from Latmos Hill Descending
1601
Oriana is a reference to Elizabeth I
Word painting
“hill”
“descending”
“ascending”
“running down”
“two by two”
“three by three”
“all alone”
What is the last line?
Wheelks
From a collection of 23 madrigals entitled “The Triumph of Oriana”
Vesta walking down the hill with her vestal virgins. Elizabeth (Oriana) is coming up. All of the virgins leave Vesta and party with Oriana.
2 by 2 (2 voices), 3 by 3 (3 voices), “all alone” (1 voice)

12. Riddle Song Scarborough Faire
Elizabethan Era, but melody is probably older
Questions to think about:
What is he asking his true love to do?
Why?
Does he love or hate her?
What’s the deal with the herbs?