The Renaissance is often referred to as one of the most influential periods of time throughout the development and course of human life on this planet. During this era, society saw a large awakening in interest in art, philosophy, and music. This lead to mass development and experimentation with new types of music especially. For example, people shifted their focus of creating musical pieces for a church environment and began to branch out and write for both pleasure and praise. Two composers in particular in this age, Josquin des Prez and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, were significantly involved in the transition between making music solely for religious instances and producing it for secular purposes. Their influence on the music produced …show more content…
Josquin des Prez, born in either Northern France or Sothern Belgium, is unlike most composers during this period because little is actually known of his early life. For example, it is not even known if he was born in 1440, 1455 or any date in between. What is known, however, is that in the 1470’s des Prez travelled to Italy where he began work in the court of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza composing masses, motets, and French secular polyphonic songs called chansons. Des Prez often wrote both his sacred and secular music with many overlapping vocal pieces, known as canon form. In this style the coinciding melodies blend together to create a range of melodies that is very pleasing to the ear. It is especially difficult to write in this style but Josquin des Prez shows his mastery of the skill in his motet, Ave Maria, gratia plena. In this piece, the opening bars start with the superior singing “Ave Maria” only to have the alto join in, also singing “Ave Maria”, halfway through “Maria”. This continues with the tenor then overlapping the alto, and ends when the bass overlaps …show more content…
Much like Josquin des Prez, very little is known of the early life of Palestrina. He was born circa 1525, in the village of Palestrina, Italy about 20 miles from the city of Rome. Taking a similar route to des Prez, Palestrina moved to Rome to begin his musical career. Here he composed mostly liturgical music used for worship services. Whether it was Palestrina at Saint Peter’s Basilica or Josquin des Prez at the Church of Notre Dame, both composers produced and performed music for the Roman Catholic Church. However, the two differed as des Prez was more liable to create a piece of secular music, while Palestrina focused his composition on masses, motets, hymns, and lamentations. This was likely because of Palestrina’s close ties with the church his entire life and the freer lifestyle experienced by des Prez in his travels. Palestrina, nonetheless, made just as much of an impact on the musical world as des Prez with his revolutionary rules to counterpoint for the Catholic Church. At a time when new and elaborate polyphonic was being widely produced, the Catholic Church felt as though the meaning of the song was becoming increasingly hidden behind the music itself. Palestrina set out to create a set of rules for the composition of sacred pieces that still allowed for the newfound beauty of polyphony to be written into church music, while still having the song communicate the religious texts. He did this by composing
The The Renaissance lasted from 1350 to 1550 and was known as the rebirth of knowledge in urban society. After the Middle ages occurred there was no education, no common language, and no true form of unity within the people of Europe, so the Renaissance was the reintroduction of education, language, urban society and a sense of togetherness within the countries of Europe. During the Renaissance it was important to have more than one important or major tripe or specialty the people who possessed this quality where classic Renaissance man. Many of these Renaissance men writers, artists, and inventors; Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Niccolo Machiavelli, Desiderius Erasmus, Johann Gutenberg and more. Leonardo Da Vinci had an endless curiosity for invention he enjoyed sketching nature dissected corpses and painted he studied things such as botany anatomy optics and music making him a perfect example of a Renaissance man. Michelangelo was also quite similar to DaVinci he enjoyed sculpting he was an engineer a painter and architect architect and a poet he focused on religion and actually had painted the Sistine Chapel in room. another creative inventor was Jonathan Gutenberg who invented
They were two great composers who were associated with the Sistine chapel choir Josquire Despres and Giovanni Palestrina. Their music was stunning and beautifully which was brilliantly and magnificent religious music ever created its complex polyphonic composition which it has three
During the Medieval period the Catholic Church had an enormous amount of power and control over the people of that time. The Medieval period began with the collapse of the Roman Empire around the year 450. Then with much of Europe in disarray, the Roman Catholic Church, the main unifying force at the time, unified many cultures together. “All segments of society felt the powerful influence of the Roman Catholic Church. In this age of faith, hell was very real and heresy was the gravest crime” (Kamien 63). The church controlled everything and it was of greatest importance in this period. “Very little non-Christian music from this period survived, due to its suppression by the Church and the absence of music notation…” (History of Music). The enormous Gothic Cathedrals and churches demonstrate how powerful and important the church was. The amount of physical labor put into each one shows the devotion of the people to God and the church in the medieval time period. Life in these times revolved around the church so it makes sense that the music of this time also revolved around it. The composers of this era were often involved with the church. They were usually priests, monks, or nuns. For example Hildegard of Bingen, a nun from Germany, who, wrote many musical pieces and other forms of art.
In this style of composition, it was very common for composers to use a Gregorian chant as a base to compose original pieces. As a general rule, the tenor voice sang the Gregorian chant, and the upper voices have new original material. Machaut followed this line by putting the chant Ad te suspiramus gementes et flentes on the tenor voice in his piece; whereas, Philippe De Vitry composed original music for all voices. Although the piece by De Vitry is called a motet, it might be just labeled as a polyphonic composition since all the voices have original music.
Josquin Des Prez, born in 1440/1445, was a French composer of many important masses for the 16th century. Even noticed in The New Grove HIGH RENAISSANCE MASTERS, for being one of the best composer it the later 16th century. “Josquin Desprez, one of the greatest composers of the entire renaissance and certainly the most important before the second half of the 16th century.”1 The Ave Maria Virgo Serena. was motet written for the church. Ave Maria gratia plena dominus tecum, virgo serena or Hail Mary. Full of grace, the lord is with thee serene Virgin was from a Gregorian chant. Josquin composed this piece during his service at one of the French and Italian courts. Josquin is wildly known to be a master of the Renaissance style of polyphonic vocal music. He
...n 1705, his first composed pieces where published. These pieces were his Opus 1 which was twelve Sonatas for two violins and basso continuo in conventional style. His second collection, Opus 2 was published it was the same as the format of the first. Twelve sonatas meant for the two violins and basso continuo in conventional style. Opus 3 was the breakthrough that he was looking for. It was twelve concerti for one, two and four violins. This piece was dedicated and sponsored to the Grand Prince of Tuscany, Ferdinand. Stabat Mater was one of his earliest masterpieces. Even though the piece looked like it was written in haste, the string parts were simple, movements one, two, and three were repeated in the next three, and not all the text was set it was a wonderful piece. Perhaps he wrote it that way on purpose and it was just the forced essentiality of the music.
Born in 1556, Giovanni Gabrieli was an Italian composer who worked for the St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice. During his time there, he composed works for separate choirs for both vocal and instrumental performers. One of his most famous pieces comes from his Sacrae Symphoniae completed in 1597; the Sonata Pian e Forte. Gabrieli was both a composer and organist in Renaissance and Baroque transitional period which caused elements of both periods to be demonstrated within his compositions. With instrumental music becoming more popular, it was becoming quite common during this time to have a composer who also played an instrument, especially the piano or organ. Sonata Pian e Forte gained fame from being a work that demonstrated a few characteristics and ideas about sound that had yet to be seen or often used.
The organum, which thrived at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, was one of the earliest types of polyphony. It was very much similar to a trope, as it added vertical notes onto an existing melody or plainchant. There is quite the development of the organum between the 10th and 12th centuries. French composers, Leoninus, and Perotinus, were leading contributors to the evolution of the organum advancing the terms “free organum”, and “discant organum”. Through examining the works throughout Musica enchiriadis of the 10th century, and the compositions of Leoninus and Perotinusis in the 12th century, it is made clear that the the organum endured influential alterations both melodically and rhythmically.
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...
The Renaissance means the rebirth of ancient learning. The renaissance can be divided into two parts Early Renaissance (1420-1500) and High Renaissance (1500-1520). The Renaissance era was one of the most productive time periods in history as far as the advancement of music goes. At first it was rigid, structu...
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.
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.
Vivaldi's music is particularly innovative as he gave brightness to the formal and the rhythmic structure of concertos. He repeatedly looked for harmonic contrasts, creating innovative melodies and themes. Vivaldi’ main goal was to create a musical piece meant to be appreciated by the wide public, and not only by an intellectual minority. The joyful appearance of his music reveals a transmittable joy of composing. These are among the causes of the vast popularity of his music. This popularity soon made him famous also in countries like France, at the time very closed into its national schemes. He is considered one of the authors that brought Baroque music to evolve into an impressionist style.
The Italian Renaissance included some of the greatest artists we have ever seen from Leonard Da Vinci, to Michelangelo, and Raphael. The Renaissance took place from the late thirteenth to sixteenth centuries and is know as the ‘rebirth’. The idea that the rebirth of the arts after being asleep for a thousand years is an amazing thing to grasp. This time brought back light to liberal arts, which were on the brink of being extinct. (Murray 2) What is also interesting about art during this time was that most of the art had Christian in its roots, for example, Botticelli’s The Allegory of Spring (Faure 1) is said to have had a Christian interpretation. (Murray) “Every Italian artist, willingly took the title of architect, sculptor, and painter” (Faure 2). At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Italian painters had asked the Flemish painters for their secret techniques because the Italians felt like the language of painting was one that was always meant for them. (Faure 4) The sculptors claimed their inspiration from ancient works. Lastly the Renaissance introduced idea of individualism, which helped the Italians get away from everything that was going on during that time. Art during the Renaissance included painting, sculpting and architecture, all of which were an important part in expressing the idea of individualism and making art what is is today.
Following the history of the era in literature, many authors were fascinated by the courtly tradition, chivalry and a higher love. Therefore, we have today musical compositions that speak of many of the same ideas. French composers wrote songs in the vernacular called chansons de geste . These songs spoke of the heroic acts performed by knights for their ladies in the name of love. The French have a national epic called the Chanson de Roland which related the life and death of Charlemagne’s nephew and his endeavor to rid France of the Basques.