Music throughout the ages has changed dramatically. Starting in the Medieval period, from 400-1475, music was in the form of what is called the Gregorian chant. Instruments were very rarely used at this time. Since songs during this period were either troubadour or trouvere these chants had no real harmony. One example of this type of medieval composition is “Viderunt Omnes” by Leoninus. Like most Gregorian chants the texture of this piece is monophonic and polyphonic. “Viderunt Omnes” is a typical Gregorian chant in that it uses diatonic, not chromatic notes of the scale. Musical compositions during the Medieval period was made mostly by members of the church for the church. It was and is a very slow and steady movement that was meant to create a feeling of peace for worship purposes.
As time passed and music continued to evolve what is known as the Renaissance period emerged from 1475-1600. Music during this period was still written with worship as its intentions. Where the Medieval period had no harmony the Renaissance period introduced the use of a constant chord to form the building block of the different pieces. A good example of this period of music is “Ave Maria” by Josquin written in 1485. The many different voices the repeat the same words create a process called imitation. This particular chant is capella, meaning that it is performed by voices alone and has no musical accompaniment and with all the voices entering at different times but in harmony counterpoint i...
God. The chant was considered a very strict and functional type of music that was
In terms of the technical differences between the art music of early times and that of the modern period (i.e., after 1600) we can identify five specific features that make post-1600 styles in music sound more or less "familiar."
“For over one thousand years the official music of the Roman Catholic church had been Gregorian Chant, which consists of melody set to sacred Latin texts and sung without accompaniment” (Kamien 67). The credit for developing Gregorian chant music, also known as plain...
The isorhythmic motet is a compositional style that emerged from the movement Ars Nova in the fourteenth century. It is defined based on the use of a talea, a repeated rhythmic pattern, to the main melody of a motet that is the color or the melodic pattern. Philippe de Vitry and Guillaume Machaut are the two most representative composers of this music style. Both composers wrote sacred and secular music in a variety of styles. For the purpose of analysis, the pieces Cum statua/Hugo, Hugo/Magister invidie composed by Philippe de Vitry in 1320 and Felix virgo / Inviolata / Ad Te Suspiramus composed by Guillaume de Machaut in 1360 will serve as a subject of comparison and contrast to determine the characteristics of isorhythmic motet from
As the late Baroque period morphed into the new period known as the classical period, technological advances and new compositional techniques and ideas created new opportunities for the musicians of the period. The changes allowed for new performance techniques, forms, performance venues, and newly available compositional orchestrations to be improved and evolved into something new and improved for the new period.
Atlas, Allan W. Renaissance Music: Music in Western Europe, 1400-1600. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1998.
Before the rebirth of knowledge, the only music in England was spiritual music. Since this time period was known as the Golden Age of the A Cappella Music Style, majority of the spiritual songs were sung in the a cappella music style. A cappella is when the choir sings without an instrumental accompaniment. There were two main styles other than a cappella, motets and masses. Motets and masses are quite similar, having only a few differences. A motet is a polyphonic piece of music having four to six voices all singing one religious text (Bower). Masses happen to be longer than a motet and were very important in the services in the Catholic Church. The Catholic masses had a very specific order ...
From the Early Renaissance to the High Renaissance, there was a movement from vocal music to a combination of vocal and instrumental music (Brown, 1976). There are seven categories of instrumental music: 1) vocal music played by instruments, 2) settings of pre-existing melodies, 3) variation sets, 4) ricercars, fantasias, and canzonas, 5) preludes, preambles, and toccatas for solo instruments, 6) dance music, and 7) songs composed specifically for lute and solo voice (Brown, 1976). Italy dominated the stage for instrumental music at this time, and it was not until the last decades of the sixteenth century that English instrumental music became popular (Brow...
Atlas, A.W. Renaissance Music: Music in Western Europe, 1400-1600. 1st ed. New York: Norton, 1998.
During the middle ages, music was not very unique. A single melody, or plainchant, would be sung to words from the Bible or other religious texts. Songs were also performed at castles and marketplaces by composer-poets known as minstrels, troubadours, and trouveres. Composers included the German nun Hildegard von Bingen and the popular French trouvere Blondel de Nesle (Novak). Music either associated with the king and nobles, or it was composed for religious reasons. It was a very limited amount of creativity, only singing about heroism and nobility. Music in France had been influenced by many other European countries. They all shared the same style during that time. The instruments that were used during this time period, included wind, string, and percussion instruments.
A considerable philosophical current that shaped baroque music is the interest in Renaissance ideas that spawned from ancient Greece and Rome. Ancient Greeks and Romans considered music to be an instrument of communication that could easily stimulate any emotion in its listeners. Therefore, musicians became progressively knowledgeable of the power one’s composition could have on its audiences’ emotions. Because of this, one of the primary goals of baroque art and music was to provoke emotion in the listener, which is closely connected to the “doctrine of affections”. This doctrine, derived from ancient theories of rhetoric and oratory, was the theory that a single piece of art or a single movement of music should express one single emotion.
The Italian Renaissance and the Baroque era are two major periods in art history, some of the types of art in those periods were painting, sculpting, and architecture. During these periods, many artist gained enormous fame from creating wonderful pieces of work that represented their beliefs and artistic thinking. This essay will analyze and evaluate two pieces from those major art periods. Rembrandt 's painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp and the sculpture David, by Michelangelo. These two masterpieces shed light of their significance in art history. David represents the Italian Renaissance for it being a strong symbol of the new republic, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp depicts the focus on human progression.
John Warrack, author of 6 Great Composers, stated, “Any study of a composer, however brief, must have as its only purpose encouragement of the reader to greater enjoyment of the music” (Warrack, p.2). The composers and musicians of the Renaissance period need to be discussed and studied so that listeners, performers, and readers can appreciate and understand the beginnings of music theory and form. The reader can also understand the driving force of the composer, whether sacred or secular, popularity or religious growth. To begin understanding music composition one must begin at the birth, or rebirth of music and the composers who created the great change.
There are two distinct eras in music that have impacted it immensely throughout time. They are known as the Baroque era and the Classical era. These eras have helped mold and elevate music, building creative pathways that still hold a strong effect in present day music. The differences in both the Baroque and Classical eras are quite immense but they both hold equal importance to the history of music and are high in their overall influential worth.