Chapter 7: The Age of the Renaissance: New Currents in the Sixteenth Century

Generation Post–Josquin 1520–1550

  1. General Stylistic Features
    1. Church music changed more gradually than secular music.
    2. Chant melodies were freely treated when used as subjects for Masses and motets.
    3. Five- and six-voice texture became more common than four-voice texture.
    4. Treatment of text became more careful.
  2. Adrian Willaert (ca. 1490–1562)
    1. Biographical background
      1. Studied composition in Paris
      2. Worked in Rome, Ferrara, and Milan early in his career
      3. Ended his career at Saint Mark's Cathedral in Venice (1527–62)
      4. Trained many other musicians who became important composers
    2. Style
      1. Believed that text should determine every dimension of the musical form
      2. Insisted that printers put the syllables under the correct notes
      3. Insisted that composers pay attention to the stresses of the text
      4. Never allowed a rest to interrupt a word or thought
      5. Full cadences only at significant textual breaks
        1. Evaded cadences: voices give the impression they are about to cadence (usually with a suspension), but turn instead in a different direction. (CHWM, ex. 7.1a)
        2. Approach to major cadence marked by close imitations, multiple suspensions, and strategically placed dissonances (CHWM, end of ex. 7.1b).
    3. Chant sources treated freely (CHWM, ex. 7.2)
    4. Modality
      1. Willaert attempted to capture the essence of church modes in polyphony.
      2. Example 7.2 shows Willaert's approach to Mode I:
        1. Transposed up a fourth
        2. Uses the characteristic rising fifth motive (G–D)
        3. Has all the main cadences close on G (the transposed final)

© 2002 W. W. Norton & Company

Chapter 7: The Age of the Renaissance: New Currents in the Sixteenth Century

Secular Song in Italy

 

Composers and singers working in noble courts cultivated the frottola, a deliberately simple and folklike genre, but soon found inspiration in the sonnets and other poetry of Petrarch. The "Petrarchan" movement created a new genre, the madrigal, which carefully matched musical settings to the structure and meaning of the poem. By the end of the sixteenth century, madrigal composers began expanding the harmonic vocabulary to express the texts more forcefully.

  1. Italian secular song
    1. Frottola
      1. Sung at noble courts
      2. Four-part strophic songs
      3. Syllabic text-setting style
      4. Homophonic
      5. Melody in the top voice
      6. Simple diatonic harmonies
      7. Example: NAWM 35, Io non compro più speranza
    2. Lauda
      1. Religious counterpart of the frottola
      2. Performed at semi-public gatherings
  2. Madrigal
    1. Most important genre of Italian secular music in the sixteenth century
    2. Not related to the trecento madrigal
    3. Texts
      1. More elevated and serious than frottola texts
      2. Sometimes written by major poets
      3. Sentimental or erotic subjects, sometimes from pastoral poetry, with an epigrammatic ending
    4. Musical style
      1. Composers tried to make the music as elevated as the poetry.
      2. Text setting was through-composed: each line has its own music.
    5. Performance contexts
      1. Madrigals were performed at academies (literary gatherings) and in courtly settings.
      2. After ca. 1570, virtuosic professional singers performed madrigals. (see vignette in CHWM)
      3. Theatrical productions included madrigals.
    6. Two thousand collections published
  3. Early Madrigal Style (ca. 1520–1550)
    1. Composed for four voices (or instruments)
    2. Jacques Arcadelt (ca. 1505–1568, example: NAWM 36, Il bianco e dolce cigno).
      1. Transitional style
      2. Mainly homophonic
      3. Square rhythms, reminiscent of frottola
      4. Cadences mirror the meaning of the text instead of the poetic lines.
  4. Cipriano de Rore (1516–1565)
    1. Flemish, student of Willaert
    2. Leading madrigalist of his generation.
    3. His style influenced future generations.
    4. Example: CHWM 7.4 and NAWM 38, Da le belle contrade d'oriente
      1. Text is a sonnet by Petrarch, whom Rore admired.
      2. Texture varies from homophonic to imitative depending on the text.
      3. Contrasts depict clashing sentiments in the poem.
    5. Zaarlino admired Rore's text setting style (see vignette in CHWM).
  5. Northern composers working in Italy
    1. Orlando di Lasso (1532–1594) composed in many secular genres.
    2. Philippe de Monte (1521–1603) composed madrigals even after leaving Italy for Vienna and Prague.
    3. Giaches de Wert (1535–1596)
      1. Lived in Italy for most of his life.
      2. Continued to develop Rore's style.
      3. His late works influenced Monteverdi.
  6. Luca Marenzio (1553–1599)
    1. Example: NAWM 39, Solo e pensoso
    2. Text is a sonnet by Petrarch, whom he admired.
    3. Slow-rising chromatic scale in the top voice represents the poet's footsteps.
    4. Descending arpeggios in the other voices portray a desolate landscape.
  7. Carlo Gesualdo, prince of Venosa (ca. 1561–1613)
    1. Background
      1. Murdered his wife and her lover but did not go to jail
      2. Second marriage to the niece of Alfonso d'Este of Ferrara
    2. Style
      1. He composed chromatic music to portray the text.
      2. Example: NAWM 40, Io parto (late 1590s)
        1. "Dunque ai dolori resto" (Hence I remain in suffering) portrayed with half-step motion and ambiguous harmony
        2. Poetic line is fragmented but Gesualdo avoids cadences to preserve continuity.
        3. The main cadences preserve the sense of mode.
  8. Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643)
    1. Background
      1. Born in Cremona
      2. Employed by the duke of Mantua (Vincenzo Gonzaga (1590–1613)
      3. Choirmaster at St. Marks' in Venice (1613–1643)
    2. Madrigals
      1. His first five books of madrigals published 1587–1605
      2. 2 Expressive without being as extreme as Gesualdo's
      3. Used chromaticism and dissonance freely to express text (see vignette in CHWM)
      4. Declamatory text setting (like later recitative)
      5. The bass line more supportive, not equal to the other voices
      6. Ornaments and embellishments written in rather than improvised
      7. Example: NAWM 53, Cruda Amarilli

© 2002 W. W. Norton & Company

Chapter 7: The Age of the Renaissance: New Currents in the Sixteenth Century

Secular Song Outside of Italy

 

As the Italian madrigal continued to develop, composers in other countries worked at adapting secular song forms to their own sensibilities. In France, composers experimented with the imitative possibilities of music in the Parisian chanson and grappled with the problem of the French language's lack of accentuation in musique mesurée. In England, composers imitated Italian madrigals but eventually developed their own style of madrigal composition. Composers in Spain and eastern Europe also developed regional styles.

  1. France
    1. Parisian chanson
      1. Developed during the reign of Francis I (1515–47)
      2. Over 1500 published by Pierre Attaingnant (ca. 1494–ca. 1551)
        1. Was the first French music printer
        2. Published over fifty collections of Parisian chansons
      3. Many published in arrangements for voice and lute
      4. Style originally similar to frottola
        1. Syllabic text setting
        2. Many different types of verse forms
        3. Texts usually carrying double meanings
        4. Homophonic texture with short points of imitation
        5. Melody in the highest voice
        6. Forms made from distinct compact sections
        7. Usually in duple meter
      5. Claudin de Sermisy (ca. 1490–1562), example, NAWM 41, Tant que vivray
        1. Melody is in the top voice.
        2. The harmony consists mostly of thirds and fifths.
        3. Dissonances occur at the downbeat of a cadence, like an appoggiatura.
        4. Long notes or repeated notes end each line of text.
      6. Clément Janequin (ca. 1485–ca. 1560)
        1. Along with Sermisy, one of the principal chanson composers in the first Attaingnant collections
        2. His descriptive chansons imitate bird songs, hunting calls, battles
        3. His most famous chanson, La Guerre, depicted a battle.
    2. The later Franco-Flemish chanson
      1. Principal chanson publisher outside of Paris was a Tilman Susato in Antwerp, Belgium.
      2. Gombert, Clemens, and other Franco-Flemish composers
      3. More contrapuntal than Parisian chansons
      4. Less rhythmically marked
      5. The contrapuntal tradition continued longest further north; an example is Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562–1621).
      6. Orlando di Lasso composed chansons with French texts, close imitations, and humorous settings. Some of his chansons were in the style of the Parisian chanson but with more attention to the accents of the texts.
  2. England and English Madrigals
    1. Musica transalpina
      1. 1588 collection of Italian madrigals translated into English, published by Nicholas Younge
      2. Followed by other similar anthologies
      3. Inspired English madrigal compositions from the 1590s to the 1630s
    2. Thomas Morley (1557–1602)
      1. Composed light madrigals, balletts and canzonets
      2. Balletts modeled on Italian balletti
      3. Style: homophonic with dancelike meters
      4. Formal patterns (e.g., AABB) marked by full cadences
      5. Refrain sung to the syllables fa la leading people to call the pieces fa las
    3. Thomas Weelkes (ca. 1575–1623), example: NAWM 43, O Care, thou wilt despatch me
      1. Serious message but with fa la syllables
      2. Learned counterpoint including imitation in direct and contrary motion (especially in the opening)
      3. Chain of suspensions
      4. Harmony as intense as Italian madrigals but with a smoother effect
    4. Performance of madrigals, balletts, and canzonets usually by unaccompanied voices but appropriate for viols alone or in combination with voices (see Plate IV in CHWM)
    5. English Lute Songs
      1. In the early 1600s, the English madrigal declined in popularity and the lute song replaced it.
      2. Main composers were John Dowland (1562–1626) and Thomas Campion (1567–1620).
      3. Lute accompaniments are subordinate to the voice part.
      4. Publishers put the lute part below the voice part so singers could accompany themselves. (see illustration, p. 140, in CHWM)
      5. Example: NAWM 44, Flow my Tears
        1. Example is by John Dowland, from his Second Booke of Ayres (1600).
        2. aabbCC form similar to that of the pavane, a dance form
        3. Musical repetitions make expression of individual words impossible, but the poem has the same dark mood throughout, which Dowland portrays.
        4. This song was very popular and became the basis of variations for many composers (NAWM 46 is an example for keyboard).
  3. Germany
    1. Franco-Flemish music did not appear in Germany until about 1530.
    2. Lied (German polyphonic song) (plural: lieder)
      1. Collected in printed songbooks.
      2. Ludwig Senfl (ca. 1486–1542/3)
        1. Similar in style to Franco-Flemish motets
        2. Sometimes used folklike tenor tunes
      3. Hans Leo Hassler (1564–1612)
        1. Nuremberg
        2. Highly polished lieder
        3. Among his works: instrumental music, German lieder, Italian madrigals and canzonets, Latin motets, Masses, and settings of Lutheran chorals
      4. After 1550 Italian genres replaced the lied, or the lied took on Italian style.
    3. Orlando di Lasso (1532–1594), the chief Franco-Flemish composer in Germany
      1. Studied in Italy
      2. Published seven collections of German lieder
      3. Influenced by madrigal composition
      4. All voice parts equal with bits of imitation and echoes

© 2002 W. W. Norton & Company

Chapter 7: The Age of the Renaissance: New Currents in the Sixteenth Century

The Rise of Instrumental Music

 

During the years 1450–1550 more instrumental music was written down. Before this period most notated pieces of instrumental music were transcriptions of vocal works. Instruments continued to play vocal music, but composers also began composing with instruments in mind. There are five categories of instrumental music.

  1. Historical Background
    1. Before 1450 few instrumental works were notated, and most of these were transcriptions of vocal pieces.
    2. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, instrumental music was tied to vocal music.
      1. Instruments doubled or replaced voices in vocal compositions.
      2. Solo and ensemble instrumental music derived from vocal music.
    3. During the sixteenth century more instrumental music was written down.
    4. Instruments continued to perform music written for voice.
    5. Instruments (see CHWM, p. 144 and color plate V)
      1. Built in sets of four to seven like instruments spanning the soprano to the bass ranges. These sets were called "chests" or "consorts."
      2. Wind instruments included double reeds (shawms), capped-reeds (krummhorn), transverse flutes, cornetts (wood or ivory with cupped mouthpieces), trumpets, sackbuts (ancestor of the modern trombone).
      3. Viols differed from modern violin family.
        1. Fretted neck
        2. Six strings tuned a perfect fourth apart with a major third in the middle
        3. Delicate tone, played without vibrato
      4. Lute
        1. The most popular household instrument
        2. Pear-shaped, with one single and five double strings
        3. Tuned in fourths with a third in the middle
        4. Plucked with fingers
        5. Fretted neck
        6. Used for solo performance, to accompany singing, or in ensembles
        7. Music for lute notated in tablature, notation that showed where to place the finger on the string (see illustration in NAWM 44)
      5. Keyboard instruments
        1. Church organs by about 1500 were similar to instruments of today.
        2. Clavichord used a metal tangent to strike the string and had a soft tone
        3. Harpsichord used for solo and ensemble playing in moderate-sized rooms.
  2. Dance Music
    1. People of breeding were expected to be expert social dancers in the sixteenth century.
    2. The earliest type of instrumental music to gain independence was dance music.
    3. Dance medleys, sets of two or three dances
      1. Usually a slow dance in duple meter paired with a fast dance in triple meter on the same tune as a variation
      2. Pavane and galliard pairing a favorite combination in France and England
      3. Passamezzo and saltarello combination popular in Italy
      4. Dance music was eventually stylized, or composed with the features of dance music but not intended to be used for dancing.
      5. After the middle of the sixteenth century the favored pairing was the allemande, a dance in moderate duple time, with the courante. This pair formed the basis of the later dance suite.
  3. Improvisatory pieces
    1. Evidence of improvisatory practice from written dance music
      1. Ornamentation on a given melody
      2. Addition of one or more contrapuntal parts to a given melody
      3. Improvisation on a borrowed tenor
    2. Compositions in improvisatory style are among the earliest examples of instrumental music not meant for dancing.
    3. Compositions in free improvisatory style
      1. Not based on a preexisting melody
      2. No definite meter or form
      3. Luis Milán (ca. 1500–ca. 1561).
        1. Fantasias for lute based on vocal pieces
        2. Publised in his Libro de musica de vihuela de mano intitulado El Maestro (Book of Music for the Vihuela Entitled The Teacher, Valencia, 1536)
    4. Toccatas (from the verb toccare, to touch)
      1. Chief form of improvisatory keyboard music in the second half of the century
      2. Possibly based on lute improvisational style
      3. Claudio Merulo (1533–1604), Venetian organist (e.g., CHWM, ex. 7.8)
        1. Embellishments and scale passages in freely varied rhythms
        2. Sustained notes are idiomatic for the organ.
      4. Also called fantasia, intonazione, and prelude
  4. Contrapuntal genres
    1. Ricercari (also ricercar)
      1. Ricercari used series of fugal sections.
      2. Earliest were brief improvisatory pieces for lute.
      3. Keyboard ricercari used more imitation.
      4. By 1540 ricercari consisted of successions of different themes, each developed in imitation with overlapping cadences, similar to motets.
      5. More instrumental in character, the pieces used freer voice leading and instrumental embellishments.
    2. English fantasias, or "fancies" were similar to ricercari.
  5. Canzona and Sonata
    1. Canzona (canzona da sonar or chanson to be played) for both ensembles and solo instruments
      1. Styled on the French chanson
      2. Light, fast-moving, strongly rhythmic
      3. Simple contrapuntal texture
      4. Characteristic opening rhythm: long-shortshort (e.g., half note followed by two quarter notes)
      5. Earliest Italian examples written for organ
      6. Ensemble canzonas from ca. 1580
      7. Series of contrasting sections (e.g., HWM, ex. 7.11)
    2. Sonata
      1. Venetian Sonata; sacred version of the canzona
      2. Series of sections each based on a different subject or on variants of a single subject
      3. Giovanni Gabrieli (ca. 1557–1612); Sonata Pian' e Forte from Sacrae symphoniae (1597)
        1. Double-chorus motet for instruments
        2. Among the first instrumental ensemble pieces to designate specific instruments
        3. Instruments included cornett and sackbuts in different sizes.
        4. One of earliest instances of dynamics—notation indicated pian (soft) for groups alone and forte (loud) for both instrumental groups together
  6. Variations
    1. Improvisation on a tune to accompany dancing pre-dates the earliest published examples.
    2. Ostinato patterns repeated over and over in the bass could serve as a basis for variations (passamezzo antico and passamezzo moderno, which derived from the pavane).
    3. Variations on standard melodic formulas
    4. English keyboard players (virginalists), especially William Byrd (1543–1623)
      1. Most comprehensive collection of keyboard music is the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (manuscript, hand-copied between 1609 and 1619).
      2. Most of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book variations are on slow dance tunes or familiar songs.
      3. Short, simple, regular melodies were the favorite subjects for keyboard variations.
      4. Each variation preserves the main structural features of the theme.
      5. Melody may appear intact in the sets of variations or broken up by figuration.
      6. Example: NAWM 46, Pavana Lachrymae by William Byrd
        1. Variation on John Dowland's air, Flow, my tears (NAWM 44)
        2. The original air used the form of the pavane, with three repeating strains.
        3. Byrd adds a variation after each strain.
        4. The right hand outlines the tune.
        5. Both hands play decorative turns, figurations, and scale patterns in imitation.

© 2002 W. W. Norton & Company