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The Medieval Period began with the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century and ended
with the emergence of the Renaissance in the early fifteenth century. Establishing exactly
when the Medieval Period ended and the Renaissance began can be disputed, but music
historians reckon the ‘musical medieval period’ did not end until 100 years later than in other
disciplines.

The earliest evidence of music being written down in the Western world is in the form of
Gregorian chant which dates from Medieval times. During the Middle Ages, new types of
singing emerged, namely organum, the singing involving multiple melodic parts and
polyphony.

Instruments used in Medieval times included many that still exist in a more elaborate form,
such as the flute and recorder as well as early versions of the guitar, violin and cello, such as
the lute, lyre, gittern and psaltery. Many plucked and bowed stringed instruments have since
become obsolete.

Medieval music was both sacred and secular. During the early medieval period,
liturgical music, predominantly Gregorian chant, was monophonic – melody without
harmony. Polyphonic genres began to develop during the high medieval era, becoming
prevalent by the later 13th and early 14th century.

The thriving of the Notre Dame school of polyphony from around 1150 to 1250 coincided
with the equally significant achievements in Gothic architecture and the centre of activity was
at the cathedral of Notre Dame itself. Sometimes the music of this period is called the
Parisian school, or Parisian organum, and represents the beginning of what is conventionally
known as Ars antiqua. This was the period in which rhythmic notation first appeared in
western music, mainly a context-based method of rhythmic notation known as the rhythmic
modes.

This was also the period in which concepts of formal structure developed which were detailed
in proportion, texture, and architectural effect. Composers of the period,
included Léonin, Pérotin, W. de Wycombe, Adam de St. Victor, and Petrus de Cruce (Pierre
de la Croix).

Medieval secular music was usually passed along orally and very rarely
written down, so little has survived.
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Renaissance music
Renaissance music is vocal and instrumental music written and performed in Europe during
the Renaissance era. Consensus among music historians has been to start the era around 1400,
with the end of the medieval era, and to close it around 1600, with the beginning of
the Baroque period, therefore commencing the musical Renaissance about a hundred years after
the beginning of the Renaissance as it is understood in other disciplines. As in the other arts, the
music of the period was significantly influenced by the developments which define the Early
Modern period: the rise of humanistic thought; the recovery of the literary and artistic heritage
of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome; increased innovation and discovery; the growth of
commercial enterprises; the rise of a bourgeoisclass; and the Protestant Reformation. From this
changing society emerged a common, unifying musical language, in particular,
the polyphonic style (this means music with multiple, independent melody lines performed
simultaneously) of the Franco-Flemish school, whose greatest master was Josquin des Prez.
The invention of the printing press in 1439 made it cheaper and easier to distribute music and
musical theory texts on a wider geographic scale and to more people. Prior to the invention of
printing, songs and music that were written down and music theory texts had to be hand-copied,
a time-consuming and expensive process. Demand for music as entertainment and as a leisure
activity for educated amateurs increased with the emergence of a bourgeois class. Dissemination
of chansons, motets, and masses throughout Europe coincided with the unification of polyphonic
practice into the fluid style which culminated in the second half of the sixteenth century in the
work of composers such as Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Orlande de Lassus, Thomas
Tallis and William Byrd. Relative political stability and prosperity in the Low Countries, along with
a flourishing system of music education in the area's many churches and cathedrals allowed the
training of large numbers of singers, instrumentalists, and composers. These musicians were
highly sought throughout Europe, particularly in Italy, where churches and aristocratic courts
hired them as composers, performers, and teachers. Since the printing press made it easier to
disseminate printed music, by the end of the 16th century, Italy had absorbed the northern
musical influences with Venice, Rome, and other cities becoming centers of musical activity. This
reversed the situation from a hundred years earlier. Opera, a dramatic staged genre in which
singers are accompanied by instruments, arose at this time in Florence. Opera was developed as
a deliberate attempt to resurrect the music of ancient Greece (OED 2005).
Music was increasingly freed from medieval constraints, and more variety was permitted in
range, rhythm, harmony, form, and notation. On the other hand, rules of counterpoint became
more constrained, particularly with regard to treatment of dissonances. In the Renaissance,
music became a vehicle for personal expression. Composers found ways to make vocal music
more expressive of the texts they were setting. Secular music (non-religious music) absorbed
techniques from sacred music, and vice versa. Popular secular forms such as the chanson and
madrigal spread throughout Europe. Courts employed virtuoso performers, both singers and
instrumentalists. Music also became more self-sufficient with its availability in printed form,
existing for its own sake. Precursor versions of many familiar modern instruments (including
the violin, guitar, lute and keyboard instruments) developed into new forms during the
Renaissance. These instruments were modified to responding to the evolution of musical ideas,
and they presented new possibilities for composers and musicians to explore. Early forms of
modern woodwind and brass instruments like the bassoon and trombone also appeared;
extending the range of sonic color and increasing the sound of instrumental ensembles. During
the 15th century, the sound of full triads (three note chords) became common, and towards the
end of the 16th century the system of church modes began to break down entirely, giving way to
the functional tonality (the system in which songs and pieces are based on musical "keys"),
which would dominate Western art music for the next three centuries.
From the Renaissance era, notated secular and sacred music survives in quantity, including
vocal and instrumental works and mixed vocal/instrumental works. An enormous diversity of
musical styles and genres flourished during the Renaissance. These can be heard on recordings
made in the 20th and 21st century, including masses, motets, madrigals, chansons,
accompanied songs, instrumental dances, and many others. Beginning in the late 20th century,
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numerous early music ensembles were formed. Early music ensembles specializing in music of
the Renaissance era give concert tours and make recordings, using modern reproductions of
historical instruments and using singing and performing styles which musicologists believe were
used during the era.

Contents
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Overview[edit]
One of the most pronounced features of early Renaissance European art music was the
increasing reliance on the interval of the third and its inversion, the sixth (in the Middle Ages,
thirds and sixths had been considered dissonances, and only perfect intervals were treated as
consonances: the perfect fourth the perfect fifth, the octave, and the unison). Polyphony – the
use of multiple, independent melodic lines, performed simultaneously – became increasingly
elaborate throughout the 14th century, with highly independent voices (both in vocal music and in
instrumental music). The beginning of the 15th century showed simplification, with the
composers often striving for smoothness in the melodic parts. This was possible because of a
greatly increased vocal range in music – in the Middle Ages, the narrow range made necessary
frequent crossing of parts, thus requiring a greater contrast between them to distinguish the
different parts. The modal (as opposed to tonal, also known as "musical key", an approach
developed in the subsequent Baroque music era, ca. 1600–1750) characteristics of Renaissance
music began to break down towards the end of the period with the increased use of root
motions of fifths or fourths (see the "circle of fifths" for details). An example of a chord
progression in which the chord roots move by the interval of a fourth would be the chord
progression, in the key of C Major: "D minor/G Major/C Major" (these are all triads; three-note
chords). The movement from the D minor chord to the G Major chord is an interval of a perfect
fourth. The movement from the G Major chord to the C Major chord is also an interval of a perfect
fourth. This later developed into one of the defining characteristics of tonality during the Baroque
era.
The main characteristics of Renaissance music are (Fuller 2010):

 Music based on modes.

 Richer texture, with four or more independent melodic parts
being performed simultaneously. These interweaving melodic
lines, a style called polyphony, is one of the defining features of
Renaissance music.
 Blending, rather than contrasting, melodic lines in the musical
texture.
 Harmony that placed a greater concern on the smooth flow of
the music and its progression of chords.
The development of polyphony produced the notable changes in musical instruments that mark
the Renaissance from the Middle Ages musically. Its use encouraged the use of larger
ensembles and demanded sets of instruments that would blend together across the whole vocal
range (Montagu n.d.).
Genres[edit]
Principal liturgical (church-based) musical forms which remained in use throughout the
Renaissance period were masses and motets, with some other developments towards the end of
the era, especially as composers of sacred music began to adopt secular (non-religious) musical
forms (such as the madrigal) for religious use. The 15th and 16th century masses had two kinds
of sources that were used, monophonic (a single melody line) and polyphonic (multiple,
independent melodic lines), with two main forms of elaboration, based on cantus firmus practice
or, beginning some time around 1500, the new style of "pervasive imitation", in which composers
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would write music in which the different voices or parts would imitate the melodic and/or rhythmic
motifs performed by other voices or parts. Four main types of masses were used:

 Cantus firmus mass (tenor mass)

 The cantus firmus/imitation mass
 The paraphrase mass
 The imitation mass (parody mass)
Masses were normally titled by the source from which they borrowed. Cantus firmus mass uses
the same monophonic melody, usually drawn from chant and usually in the tenor and most often
in longer note values than the other voices (Burkholder n.d.). Other sacred genres were
the madrigale spirituale and the laude.
During the period, secular (non-religious) music had an increasing distribution, with a wide
variety of forms, but one must be cautious about assuming an explosion in variety:
since printing made music more widely available, much more has survived from this era than
from the preceding Medieval era, and probably a rich store of popular music of the late Middle
Ages is lost. Secular music was music that was independent of churches. The main types were
the German Lied, Italian frottola, the French chanson, the Italian madrigal, and the
Spanish villancico (Fuller 2010). Other secular vocal genres included
the caccia, rondeau, virelai, bergerette, ballade, musique mesurée, canzonetta, villanella, villotta,
and the lute song. Mixed forms such as the motet-chanson and the secular motet also appeared.
Purely instrumental music included consort music for recorders or viols and other instruments,
and dances for various ensembles. Common instrumental genres were
the toccata, prelude, ricercar, and canzona. Dances played by instrumental ensembles (or
sometimes sung) included the basse
danse (It. bassadanza), tourdion, saltarello, pavane, galliard, allemande, courante, bransle, cana
rie, piva, and lavolta. Music of many genres could be arranged for a solo instrument such as the
lute, vihuela, harp, or keyboard. Such arrangements were called intabulations (It. intavolatura,
Ger. Intabulierung).
Towards the end of the period, the early dramatic precursors of opera such as monody,
the madrigal comedy, and the intermedio are heard.
Theory and notation[edit]

Ockeghem, Kyrie "Au travail suis," excerpt, showing white mensural notation.

According to Margaret Bent: "Renaissance notation is under-prescriptive by our [modern]

standards; when translated into modern form it acquires a prescriptive weight that overspecifies
and distorts its original openness" (Bent 2000, p. 25). Renaissance compositions were notated
only in individual parts; scores were extremely rare, and barlines were not used. Note
values were generally larger than are in use today; the primary unit of beat was the semibreve,
or whole note. As had been the case since the Ars Nova (see Medieval music), there could be
either two or three of these for each breve (a double-whole note), which may be looked on as
equivalent to the modern "measure," though it was itself a note value and a measure is not. The
situation can be considered this way: it is the same as the rule by which in modern music a
quarter-note may equal either two eighth-notes or three, which would be written as a "triplet." By
the same reckoning, there could be two or three of the next smallest note, the "minim,"
(equivalent to the modern "half note") to each semibreve.
These different permutations were called "perfect/imperfect tempus" at the level of the breve–
semibreve relationship, "perfect/imperfect prolation" at the level of the semibreve–minim, and
existed in all possible combinations with each other. Three-to-one was called "perfect," and two-
to-one "imperfect." Rules existed also whereby single notes could be halved or doubled in value
("imperfected" or "altered," respectively) when preceded or followed by other certain notes. Notes
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with black noteheads (such as quarter notes) occurred less often. This development of white
mensural notation may be a result of the increased use of paper (rather than vellum), as the
weaker paper was less able to withstand the scratching required to fill in solid noteheads;
notation of previous times, written on vellum, had been black. Other colors, and later, filled-in
notes, were used routinely as well, mainly to enforce the aforementioned imperfections or
alterations and to call for other temporary rhythmical changes.
Accidentals (e.g., added sharps, flats and naturals that change the notes) were not always
specified, somewhat as in certain fingering notations for guitar-family instruments (tablatures)
today. However, Renaissance musicians would have been highly trained in dyadic
counterpoint and thus possessed this and other information necessary to read a score correctly,
even if the accidentals were not written in. As such, "what modern notation requires [accidentals]
would then have been perfectly apparent without notation to a singer versed in counterpoint."
(See musica ficta.) A singer would interpret his or her part by figuring cadential formulas with
other parts in mind, and when singing together, musicians would avoid parallel octaves and
parallel fifths or alter their cadential parts in light of decisions by other musicians (Bent 2000,
p. 25). It is through contemporary tablatures for various plucked instruments that we have gained
much information about which accidentals were performed by the original practitioners.
For information on specific theorists, see Johannes Tinctoris, Franchinus Gaffurius, Heinrich
Glarean, Pietro Aron, Nicola Vicentino, Tomás de Santa María, Gioseffo Zarlino, Vicente
Lusitano, Vincenzo Galilei, Giovanni Artusi, Johannes Nucius, and Pietro Cerone.
Composers – timeline[edit]
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Early period (1400–1470)[edit]

The key composers from the early Renaissance era also wrote in a late Medieval style, and as
such, they are transitional figures. Leonel Power (ca. 1370s or 1380s – 1445) was
an English composer of the late medieval and early Renaissance music eras. Along with John
Dunstaple, he was one of the major figures in English music in the early 15th century (Stolba
1990, p. 140; Emmerson and Clayton-Emmerson 2006, 544). Power is the composer best
represented in the Old Hall Manuscript, one of the only undamaged sources of English music
from the early 15th century. Power was one of the first composers to set separate movements of
the Ordinary of the Mass which were thematically unified and intended for contiguous
performance. The Old Hall Manuscript contains his mass based on the Marian antiphon, Alma
Redemptoris Mater, in which the antiphon is stated literally in the tenor voice in each movement,
without melodic ornaments. This is the only cyclic setting of the mass Ordinary which can be
attributed to him (Bent n.d.). He wrote Mass cycles, fragments, and single movements and a
variety of other sacred works.
John Dunstaple (or Dunstable) (ca. 1390–1453) was an English composer of polyphonic music of
the late medieval era and early Renaissance periods. He was one of the most famous
composers active in the early 15th century, a near-contemporary of Power, and was widely
influential, not only in England but on the continent, especially in the developing style of
the Burgundian School. Dunstaple's influence on the continent's musical vocabulary was
enormous, particularly considering the relative paucity of his (attributable) works. He was
recognized for possessing something never heard before in music of the Burgundian School: la
contenance angloise ("the English countenance"), a term used by the poet Martin le Franc in
his Le Champion des Dames. Le Franc added that the style influenced Dufay and Binchois.
Writing a few decades later in about 1476, the Flemish composer and music
theorist Tinctoris reaffirmed the powerful influence Dunstaple had, stressing the "new art" that
Dunstaple had inspired. Tinctoris hailed Dunstaple as the fons et origo of the style, its "wellspring
and origin."
The contenance angloise, while not defined by Martin le Franc, was probably a reference to
Dunstaple's stylistic trait of using full triadic harmony (three note chords), along with a liking for
the interval of the third. Assuming that he had been on the continent with the Duke of Bedford,
Dunstaple would have been introduced to French fauxbourdon; borrowing some of the sonorities,
he created elegant harmonies in his own music using thirds and sixths (an example of a third
interval is the notes C and E; an example of a sixth interval is the notes C and A). Taken
together, these are seen as defining characteristics of early Renaissance music. Many of these
traits may have originated in England, taking root in the Burgundian School around the middle of
the century.
Because numerous copies of Dunstaple's works have been found in Italian and German
manuscripts, his fame across Europe must have been widespread. Of the works attributed to him
only about fifty survive, among which are two complete masses, three connected mass sections,
fourteen individual mass sections, twelve complete isorhythmic motets and seven settings
of Marian antiphons, such as Alma redemptoris Mater and Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae.
Dunstaple was one of the first to compose masses using a single melody as cantus firmus. A
good example of this technique is his Missa Rex seculorum. He is believed to have written
secular (non-religious) music, but no songs in the vernacular can be attributed to him with any
degree of certainty.
Oswald von Wolkenstein (ca. 1376–1445) is one of the most important composers of the early
German Renaissance. He is best known for his well-written melodies, and for his use of three
themes: travel, God and sex.
Gilles Binchois (ca. 1400–1460) was a Netherlandish composer, one of the earliest members of
the Burgundian school and one of the three most famous composers of the early 15th century.
While often ranked behind his contemporaries Guillaume Dufay and John Dunstaple by
contemporary scholars, his works were still cited, borrowed and used as source material after his
death. Binchois is considered[by whom?] to be a fine melodist, writing carefully shaped lines which are
easy to sing and memorable. His tunes appeared in copies decades after his death and were
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often used as sources for Mass composition by later composers. Most of his music, even his
sacred music, is simple and clear in outline, sometimes even ascetic (monk-like). A greater
contrast between Binchois and the extreme complexity of the ars subtilior of the prior (fourteenth)
century would be hard to imagine. Most of his secular songs are rondeaux, which became the
most common song form during the century. He rarely wrote in strophic form, and his melodies
are generally independent of the rhyme scheme of the verses they are set to. Binchois wrote
music for the court, secular songs of love and chivalry that met the expectations and satisfied the
taste of the Dukes of Burgundy who employed him, and evidently loved his music accordingly.
About half of his extant secular music is found in the Oxford Bodleian Library.
Guillaume Du Fay (ca. 1397–1474) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the early Renaissance.
The central figure in the Burgundian School, he was regarded by his contemporaries as the
leading composer in Europe in the mid-15th century (Planchart n.d.). Du Fay composed in most
of the common forms of the day, including masses, motets, Magnificats, hymns, simple chant
settings in fauxbourdon, and antiphons within the area of sacred music,
and rondeaux, ballades, virelais and a few other chanson types within the realm of secular
music. None of his surviving music is specifically instrumental, although instruments were
certainly used for some of his secular music, especially for the lower parts; all of his sacred
music is vocal. Instruments may have been used to reinforce the voices in actual performance for
almost any of his works.[citation needed] Seven complete Masses, 28 individual Mass movements, 15
settings of chant used in Mass propers, three Magnificats, two Benedicamus Domino settings, 15
antiphon settings (six of them Marian antiphons), 27 hymns, 22 motets (13 of
these isorhythmic in the more angular, austere 14th-century style which gave way to more
melodic, sensuous treble-dominated part-writing with phrases ending in the "under-third"
cadence in Du Fay's youth) and 87 chansons definitely by him have survived.[citation needed]

Portion of Du Fay's setting of Ave maris stella, in fauxbourdon. The top line is a paraphrase of the chant;
the middle line, designated "fauxbourdon", (not written) follows the top line but exactly a perfect fourth
below. The bottom line is often, but not always, a sixth below the top line; it is embellished, and reaches
cadences on the octave. Play (help·info)

Many of Du Fay's compositions were simple settings of chant, obviously designed for liturgical
use, probably as substitutes for the unadorned chant, and can be seen as chant harmonizations.
Often the harmonization used a technique of parallel writing known as fauxbourdon, as in the
following example, a setting of the Marian antiphon Ave maris stella. Du Fay may have been the
first composer to use the term "fauxbourdon" for this simpler compositional style, prominent in
15th-century liturgical music in general and that of the Burgundian school in particular. Most of
Du Fay's secular (non-religious) songs follow the formes fixes(rondeau, ballade, and virelai),
which dominated secular European music of the 14th and 15th centuries. He also wrote a
handful of Italian ballate, almost certainly while he was in Italy. As is the case with his motets,
many of the songs were written for specific occasions, and many are datable, thus supplying
useful biographical information. Most of his songs are for three voices, using a texture dominated
by the highest voice; the other two voices, unsupplied with text, were probably played by
instruments.
Du Fay was one of the last composers to make use of late-medieval polyphonic structural
techniques such as isorhythm(Munrow 1974), and one of the first to employ the more mellifluous
harmonies, phrasing and melodies characteristic of the early Renaissance (Pryer 1983). His
compositions within the larger genres (masses, motets and chansons) are mostly similar to each
other; his renown is largely due to what was perceived as his perfect control of the forms in which
he worked, as well as his gift for memorable and singable melody. During the 15th century, he
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was universally regarded as the greatest composer of his time, an opinion that has largely
survived to the present day.

Middle period (1470–1530)[edit]

1611 woodcut of Josquin des Prez, copied from a now-lost oil painting done during his lifetime

In the early 1470s, music started to be printed using a printing press.[citation needed] Music printing had
a major effect on how music spread, for not only did a printed piece of music reach a larger
geographic region and audience than any hand-written or hand-copied manuscript ever could, it
did so far more cheaply as well. Also during the sixteenth century, a tradition of famous makers
developed for many instruments. These makers were masters of their craft. An example is the
Neuschel family of Nuremberg, for their trumpets.
Towards the end of the 15th century, polyphonic sacred music (as exemplified in the masses
of Johannes Ockeghem and Jacob Obrecht) had once again become more complex, in a manner
that can perhaps be seen as correlating to the increased exploration of detail in painting at the
time. Ockeghem, particularly, was fond of canon, both contrapuntal and mensural. He composed
a mass, Missa prolationum, in which all the parts are derived canonically from one musical line. It
was in the opening decades of the next century that music felt in a tactus (think of the modern
time signature) of two semibreves-to-a-breve began to be as common as that with three
semibreves-to-a-breve, as had prevailed prior to that time.
In the early 16th century, there is another trend towards simplification, as can be seen to some
degree in the work of Josquin des Prez and his contemporaries in the Franco-Flemish School,
then later in that of G. P. Palestrina. Palestrina was partially reacting to the strictures of
the Council of Trent, which discouraged excessively complex polyphony as it was thought that it
inhibited the listener's understanding of the text. Early 16th-century Franco-Fleming composers
moved away from the complex systems of canonic and other mensural play of Ockeghem's
generation, tending toward points of imitation and duet or trio sections within an overall texture
that grew to five and six voices. They also began, even before the Tridentine reforms, to insert
ever-lengthening passages of homophony (a single melody line supported by accompanying
chords), to underline important text or points of articulation in a piece. Palestrina, on the other
hand, came to cultivate a freely flowing style of counterpoint in a thick, rich texture within which
consonance followed dissonance on a nearly beat-by-beat basis. Suspensions, in which a note is
held over ("suspended") until it leads to a dissonance with the other voices, which is then
resolved, ruled the day (see counterpoint). By the 16th century, the tactus was generally two
semibreves per breve, with three per breve used for special effects and climactic sections. This
was a nearly exact reversal of the prevailing technique a century before.

Late period (1530–1600)[edit]

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San Marco in the evening. The spacious, resonant interior was one of the inspirations for the music of the
Venetian School.

In Venice, from about 1530 until around 1600, an impressive polychoral style developed, which
gave Europe some of the grandest, most sonorous music composed up until that time, with
multiple choirs of singers, brass and strings in different spatial locations in the Basilica San
Marco di Venezia (see Venetian School). These multiple revolutions spread over Europe in the
next several decades, beginning in Germany and then moving to Spain, France, and England
somewhat later, demarcating the beginning of what we now know as the Baroque musical era.
The Roman School was a group of composers of predominantly church music in Rome,
spanning the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Many of the composers had a direct
connection to the Vatican and the papal chapel, though they worked at several churches;
stylistically they are often contrasted with the Venetian School of composers, a concurrent
movement which was much more progressive. By far the most famous composer of the Roman
School is Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. While best known as a prolific composer of masses
and motets, he was also an important madrigalist. His ability to bring together the functional
needs of the Catholic Church with the prevailing musical styles during the Counter-
Reformation period gave him his enduring fame (Lockwood, O'Regan, and Owens n.d.)
The brief but intense flowering of the musical madrigal in England, mostly from 1588 to 1627,
along with the composers who produced them, is known as the English Madrigal School. The
English madrigals were a cappella, predominantly light in style, and generally began as either
copies or direct translations of Italian models. Most were for three to six voices.
Musica reservata is either a style or a performance practice in a cappella vocal music of the latter
half of the 16th century, mainly in Italy and southern Germany, involving refinement, exclusivity,
and intense emotional expression of sung text.[citation needed]
The cultivation of European music in the Americas began in the 16th century soon after the
arrival of the Spanish, and the conquest of Mexico. Although fashioned in European style,
uniquely Mexican hybrid works based on native Mexican language and European musical
practice appeared very early. Musical practices in New Spain continually coincided with
European tendencies throughout the subsequent Baroque and Classical music periods. Among
these New World composers were Hernando Franco, Antonio de Salazar, and Manuel de
Zumaya.[citation needed]
In addition, writers since 1932 have observed what they call a seconda prattica (an innovative
practice involving monodic style and freedom in treatment of dissonance, both justified by the
expressive setting of texts) during the late 16th and early 17th centuries (Anon. 2017).
Mannerism[edit]
In the late 16th century, as the Renaissance era closed, an extremely manneristic style
developed. In secular music, especially in the madrigal, there was a trend towards complexity
and even extreme chromaticism (as exemplified in madrigals of Luzzaschi, Marenzio,
and Gesualdo). The term "mannerism" derives from art history.
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Transition to the Baroque[edit]

Beginning in Florence, there was an attempt to revive the dramatic and musical forms of Ancient
Greece, through the means of monody, a form of declaimed music over a simple
accompaniment; a more extreme contrast with the preceding polyphonic style would be hard to
find; this was also, at least at the outset, a secular trend. These musicians were known as
the Florentine Camerata.
We have already noted some of the musical developments that helped to usher in the Baroque,
but for further explanation of this transition, see antiphon, concertato, monody, madrigal,
and opera, as well as the works given under "Sources and further reading."
For a more thorough discussion of the transition to the Baroque specifically pertaining to
instrument music, see Transition from Renaissance to Baroque in instrumental music.

Instruments[edit]
Many instruments originated during the Renaissance; others were variations of, or improvements
upon, instruments that had existed previously. Some have survived to the present day; others
have disappeared, only to be recreated in order to perform music of the period on authentic
instruments. As in the modern day, instruments may be classified as brass, strings, percussion,
and woodwind.
Medieval instruments in Europe had most commonly been used singly, often self-accompanied
with a drone, or occasionally in parts. From at least as early as the 13th century through the 15th
century there was a division of instruments into haut (loud, shrill, outdoor instruments)
and bas (quieter, more intimate instruments) (Bowles 1954, 119 et passim). Only two groups of
instruments could play freely in both types of ensembles: the cornett and sackbut, and the tabor
and tambourine (Burkholder n.d.).
At the beginning of the 16th century, instruments were considered to be less important than
voices. They were used for dances and to accompany vocal music (Fuller 2010). Instrumental
music remained subordinated to vocal music, and much of its repertory was in varying ways
derived from or dependent on vocal models (OED 2005).
Organs[edit]
Various kinds of organs were commonly used in the Renaissance, from large church organs to
small portatives and reed organs called regals.
Brass[edit]
Brass instruments in the Renaissance were traditionally played by professionals. Some of the
more common brass instruments that were played:

 Slide trumpet: Similar to the trombone of today except that

instead of a section of the body sliding, only a small part of the
body near the mouthpiece and the mouthpiece itself is
stationary. Also, the body was an S-shape so it was rather
unwieldy, but was suitable for the slow dance music which it was
most commonly used for.
 Cornett: Made of wood and played like the recorder (by blowing
in one end and moving the fingers up and down the outside) but
using a cup mouthpiece like a trumpet.
 Trumpet: Early trumpets had no valves, and were limited to the
tones present in the overtone series. They were also made in
different sizes.
 Sackbut (sometimes sackbutt or sagbutt): A different name for
the trombone (Anon. n.d.), which replaced the slide trumpet by
the middle of the 15th century (Besseler 1950, passim).
 12

Strings[edit]
Modern French hurdy-gurdy

As a family, strings were used in many circumstances, both sacred and secular. A few members
of this family include:

 Viol: This instrument, developed in the 15th century, commonly

has six strings. It was usually played with a bow. It has structural
qualities similar to the Spanish plucked vihuela (called viola da
mano in Italy); its main separating trait is its larger size. This
changed the posture of the musician in order to rest it against
the floor or between the legs in a manner similar to the cello. Its
similarities to the vihuela were sharp waist-cuts, similar frets, a
flat back, thin ribs, and identical tuning. When played in this
fashion, it was sometimes referred to as "viola da gamba", in
order to distinguish it from viols played "on the arm": viole da
braccio, which evolved into the violin family.
 Lyre: Its construction is similar to a small harp, although instead
of being plucked, it is strummed with a plectrum. Its strings
varied in quantity from four, seven, and ten, depending on the
era. It was played with the right hand, while the left hand
silenced the notes that were not desired. Newer lyres were
modified to be played with a bow.
 Irish Harp: Also called the Clàrsach in Scottish Gaelic, or the
Cláirseach in Irish, during the Middle Ages it was the most
popular instrument of Ireland and Scotland. Due to its
significance in Irish history, it is seen even on the Guinness label
and is Ireland's national symbol even to this day. To be played it
 13

is usually plucked.[clarification needed] Its size can vary greatly from a

harp that can be played in one's lap to a full-size harp that is
placed on the floor
 Hurdy-gurdy: (Also known as the wheel fiddle), in which the
strings are sounded by a wheel which the strings pass over. Its
functionality can be compared to that of a mechanical violin, in
that its bow (wheel) is turned by a crank. Its distinctive sound is
mainly because of its "drone strings" which provide a constant
pitch similar in their sound to that of bagpipes.
 Gittern and mandore: these instruments were used throughout
Europe. Forerunners of modern instruments including the
mandolin and guitar.
Percussion[edit]
Some Renaissance percussion instruments include the triangle, the Jew's harp, the tambourine,
the bells, cymbala, the rumble-pot, and various kinds of drums.

 Tambourine: The tambourine is a frame drum. The skin that

surrounds the frame is called the vellum and produces the beat
by striking the surface with the knuckles, fingertips, or hand. It
could also be played by shaking the instrument, allowing the
tambourine's jingles or pellet bells (if it has either) to "clank" and
"jingle".
 Jew's harp: An instrument that produces sound using shapes of
the mouth and attempting to pronounce different vowels with
one's mouth. The loop at the bent end of the tongue of the
instrument is plucked in different scales of vibration creating
different tones.
Woodwinds (aerophones)[edit]
Woodwind instruments (aerophones) produce sound by means of a vibrating column of air within
the pipe. Holes along the pipe allow the player to control the length of the column of air, and
hence the pitch. There are several ways of making the air column vibrate, and these ways define
the subcategories of woodwind instruments. A player may blow across a mouth hole, as in a
flute; into a mouthpiece with a single reed, as in a modern-day clarinet or saxophone; or a double
reed, as in an oboe or bassoon. All three of these methods of tone production can be found in
Renaissance instruments.

 Shawm: A typical oriental[clarification needed] shawm is keyless and is

about a foot long with seven finger holes and a thumb hole. The
pipes were also most commonly made of wood and many of
them had carvings and decorations on them. It was the most
popular double reed instrument of the Renaissance period; it
was commonly used in the streets with drums and trumpets
because of its brilliant, piercing, and often deafening sound. To
play the shawm a person puts the entire reed in their mouth,
puffs out their cheeks, and blows into the pipe whilst breathing
through their nose.
 14

Renaissance recorders

 Reed pipe[contradictory]: Made from a single short length of cane with

a mouthpiece, four or five finger holes, and reed fashioned from
it. The reed is made by cutting out a small tongue, but leaving
the base attached. It is the predecessor of the saxophone and
the clarinet.
 Hornpipe: Same as reed pipe but with a bell at the end.
 Bagpipe/Bladderpipe: Believed by the faithful to have been
invented by herdsmen who thought using a bag made out of
sheep or goat skin would provide air pressure so that when its
player takes a breath, the player only needs to squeeze the bag
tucked underneath their arm to continue the tone. The mouth
pipe has a simple round piece of leather hinged on to the bag
end of the pipe and acts like a non-return valve. The reed is
located inside the long mouthpiece, which would have been
known as known as a bocal, had it been made of metal and had
the reed been on the outside instead of the inside.
 Panpipe: Employs a number of wooden tubes with a stopper at
one end and open on the other. Each tube is a different size
(thereby producing a different tone), giving it a range of an
octave and a half. The player can then place their lips against
the desired tube and blow across it.
 Transverse flute: The transverse flute is similar to the modern
flute with a mouth hole near the stoppered end and finger holes
along the body. The player blows across the mouth hole and
holds the flute to either the right or left side.
 Recorder: The recorder was a common instrument during the
Renaissance period. Rather than a reed, it uses a whistle
mouthpiece as its main source of sound production. It is usually
made with seven finger holes and a thumb hole.

Baroque music (US: /bəˈroʊk/ or UK: /bəˈrɒk/) is a style of Western art music composed from
approximately 1600 to 1750.[1] This era followed the Renaissance music era, and was followed in
turn by the Classical era. Baroque music forms a major portion of the "classical music" canon,
and is now widely studied, performed, and listened to. Key composers of the Baroque era
include Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel, Claudio
 15

Monteverdi, Domenico Scarlatti, Alessandro Scarlatti, Henry Purcell, Georg Philipp

Telemann, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Arcangelo
Corelli, Tomaso Albinoni, François Couperin, Giuseppe Tartini, Heinrich Schütz, Giovanni
Battista Pergolesi, Dieterich Buxtehude, and Johann Pachelbel.
The Baroque period saw the creation of tonality, an approach to writing music in which a song or
piece is written in a particular key; this kind of arrangement has continued to be used in almost
all Western popular music. During the Baroque era, professional musicians were expected to be
accomplished improvisers of both solo melodic lines and accompaniment parts. Baroque
concerts were typically accompanied by a basso continuo group (comprising chord-playing
instrumentalists such as harpsichordists and lute players improvising chords from a figured
bass part) while a group of bass instruments—viol, cello, double bass—played the bassline. A
characteristic Baroque form was the dance suite. While the pieces in a dance suite were inspired
by actual dance music, dance suites were designed purely for listening, not for accompanying
dancers.
During the period, composers and performers used more elaborate[clarification needed] musical
ornamentation (typically improvised by performers), made changes in musical notation (the
development of figured bass as a quick way to notate the chord progression of a song or piece),
and developed new instrumental playing techniques. Baroque music expanded the size, range,
and complexity of instrumental performance, and also established the mixed vocal/instrumental
forms of opera, cantata and oratorio and the instrumental forms of the
solo concerto and sonata as musical genres. Many musical terms and concepts from this era,
such as toccata, fugue and concerto grosso are still in use in the 2010s. Dense,
complex polyphonic music, in which multiple independent melody lines were performed
simultaneously (a popular example of this is the fugue), was an important part of many Baroque
choral and instrumental works.
The term "baroque" comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning "misshapen
pearl".[2] Negative connotations of the term first occurred in 1734, in a criticism of an opera by
Jean-Philippe Rameau, and later (1750) in a description by Charles de Brosses of the ornate and
heavily ornamented architecture of the Pamphili Palace in Rome. Although the term continued to
be applied to architecture and art criticism through the 19th century, it was not until the 20th
century that the term "baroque" was adopted from Heinrich Wölfflin's art-history vocabulary to

designate a historical period in music.[1]

Johann Sebastian Bach, 1748

The term "Baroque" is generally used by music historians to describe a broad range of styles
from a wide geographic region, mostly in Europe, composed over a period of approximately 150
years.[1] Although it was long thought that the word as a critical term was first applied to
architecture, in fact it appears earlier in reference to music, in an anonymous, satirical review of
the première in October 1733 of Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, printed in the Mercure de
 16

France in May 1734. The critic implied that the novelty in this opera was "du barocque",
complaining that the music lacked coherent melody, was filled with unremitting dissonances,
constantly changed key and meter, and speedily ran through every compositional device.[3]
The systematic application by historians of the term "baroque" to music of this period is a
relatively recent development. In 1919, Curt Sachs became the first to apply the five
characteristics of Heinrich Wölfflin's theory of the Baroque systematically to music.[4] Critics were
quick to question the attempt to transpose Wölfflin's categories to music, however, and in the
second quarter of the 20th century independent attempts were made by Manfred Bukofzer (in
Germany and, after his immigration, in America) and by Suzanne Clercx-Lejeune (in Belgium) to
use autonomous, technical analysis rather than comparative abstractions, in order to avoid the
adaptation of theories based on the plastic arts and literature to music. All of these efforts
resulted in appreciable disagreement about time boundaries of the period, especially concerning
when it began. In English the term acquired currency only in the 1940s, in the writings of
Bukofzer and Paul Henry Lang.[1]
As late as 1960, there was still considerable dispute in academic circles, particularly in France
and Britain, whether it was meaningful to lump together music as diverse as that of Jacopo
Peri, Domenico Scarlatti, and Johann Sebastian Bach under a single rubric. Nevertheless, the
term has become widely used and accepted for this broad range of music.[1] It may be helpful to
distinguish the Baroque from both the preceding (Renaissance) and following (Classical) periods
of musical history.

History[edit]
The Baroque period is divided into three major phases: early, middle, and late. Although they
overlap in time, they are conventionally dated from 1580 to 1630, from 1630 to 1680, and from
1680 to 1730.[5]

Early baroque music (1580–1630)[edit]

Further information: Transition from Renaissance to Baroque in instrumental music

Claudio Monteverdi in 1640

The Florentine Camerata was a group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals in late
Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss
and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama. In reference to music, they based their
ideals on a perception of Classical (especially ancient Greek) musical drama that valued
discourse and oration.[6] As such, they rejected their contemporaries' use of polyphony (multiple,
independent melodic lines) and instrumental music, and discussed such ancient Greek music
devices as monody, which consisted of a solo singing accompanied by a kithara (an ancient
strummed string instrument).[7] The early realizations of these ideas, including Jacopo
Peri's Dafne and L'Euridice, marked the beginning of opera,[8] which were a catalyst for Baroque
music.[9]
Concerning music theory, the more widespread use of figured bass (also known as thorough
bass) represents the developing importance of harmony as the linear underpinnings of
polyphony.[10] Harmony is the end result of counterpoint, and figured bass is a visual
representation of those harmonies commonly employed in musical performance. With figured
bass, numbers, accidentals or symbols were placed above the bassline that was read
by keyboard instrument players such as harpsichord players or pipe organists (or lutenists). The
numbers, accidentals or symbols indicated to the keyboard player what intervals she should play
above each bass note. The keyboard player would improvise a chord voicing for each bass
note.[11] Composers began concerning themselves with harmonic progressions,[12] and also
employed the tritone, perceived as an unstable interval,[13] to create dissonance (it was used in
the dominant seventh chord and the diminished chord. An interest in harmony had also existed
among certain composers in the Renaissance, notably Carlo Gesualdo;[14] However, the use of
 17

harmony directed towards tonality (a focus on a musical key that becomes the "home note" of a
piece), rather than modality, marks the shift from the Renaissance into the Baroque
period.[15] This led to the idea that certain sequences of chords, rather than just notes, could
provide a sense of closure at the end of a piece—one of the fundamental ideas that became
known as tonality.[citation needed]
By incorporating these new aspects of composition, Claudio Monteverdi furthered the transition
from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual
styles of composition—the heritage of Renaissance polyphony (prima pratica) and the new basso
continuo technique of the Baroque (seconda pratica). With basso continuo, a small group of
musicians would play the bassline and the chords which formed the accompaniment for
a melody. The basso continuo group would typically use one or more keyboard players and
a lute player who would play the bassline and improvise the chords and several bass instruments
(e.g., bass viol, cello, double bass) which would play the bassline. With the writing of the
operas L'Orfeo and L'incoronazione di Poppea among others, Monteverdi brought considerable
attention to this new genre.[16]

Middle baroque music (1630–1680)[edit]

The rise of the centralized court is one of the economic and political features of what is often
labelled the Age of Absolutism, personified by Louis XIV of France. The style of palace, and the
court system of manners and arts he fostered became the model for the rest of Europe. The
realities of rising church and state patronage created the demand for organized public music, as
the increasing availability of instruments created the demand for chamber music, which is music
for a small ensemble of instrumentalists.[17]

Jean-Baptiste Lully by Paul Mignard

The middle Baroque period in Italy is defined by the emergence of the vocal styles
of cantata, oratorio, and opera during the 1630s, and a new concept of melody and harmony that
elevated the status of the music to one of equality with the words, which formerly had been
regarded as pre-eminent. The florid, coloratura monody of the early Baroque gave way to a
simpler, more polished melodic style. These melodies were built from short, cadentially delimited
ideas often based on stylized dance patterns drawn from the sarabande or the courante. The
harmonies, too, might be simpler[clarification needed] than in the early Baroque monody, and the
accompanying bass lines were more integrated with the melody, producing a contrapuntal
equivalence of the parts that later led to the device of an initial bass anticipation of the aria
melody. This harmonic simplification also led to a new formal device of the differentiation
of recitative (a more spoken part of opera) and aria (a part of opera that used sung melodies).
The most important innovators of this style were the Romans Luigi Rossi and Giacomo Carissimi,
who were primarily composers of cantatas and oratorios, respectively, and the
 18

Venetian Francesco Cavalli, who was principally an opera composer. Later important
practitioners of this style include Antonio Cesti, Giovanni Legrenzi, and Alessandro Stradella.[18]
The middle Baroque had absolutely no bearing on the theoretical work of Johann Fux, who
systematized the strict counterpoint characteristic of earlier ages in his Gradus ad
Parnassum (1725).[19][clarification needed]
One pre-eminent example of a court style composer is Jean-Baptiste Lully. He purchased
patents from the monarchy to be the sole composer of operas for the French king and to prevent
others from having operas staged. He completed 15 lyric tragedies and left unfinished Achille et
Polyxène.[20] Lully was an early example of a conductor; he would beat the time with a large staff
to keep his ensembles together.
Musically, he did not establish the string-dominated norm for orchestras, which was inherited
from the Italian opera, and the characteristically French five-part disposition (violins, violas—in
hautes-contre, tailles and quintes sizes—and bass violins) had been used in the ballet from the
time of Louis XIII. He did, however, introduce this ensemble to the lyric theatre, with the upper
parts often doubled by recorders, flutes, and oboes, and the bass by bassoons. Trumpets
and kettledrums were frequently added for heroic scenes.[20]

Arcangelo Corelli

Arcangelo Corelli is remembered as influential for his achievements on the other side of musical
technique—as a violinist who organized violin technique and pedagogy—and in purely
instrumental music, particularly his advocacy and development of the concerto
grosso.[21] Whereas Lully was ensconced at court, Corelli was one of the first composers to
publish widely and have his music performed all over Europe. As with Lully's stylization and
organization of the opera, the concerto grosso is built on strong contrasts—sections alternate
between those played by the full orchestra, and those played by a smaller group. Dynamics were
"terraced", that is with a sharp transition from loud to soft and back again. Fast sections and slow
sections were juxtaposed against each other. Numbered among his students is Antonio Vivaldi,
who later composed hundreds of works based on the principles in Corelli's trio sonatas and
concerti.[21]
In contrast to these composers, Dieterich Buxtehude was not a creature of court but instead was
church musician, holding the posts of organist and Werkmeister at the Marienkirche at Lübeck.
His duties as Werkmeister involved acting as the secretary, treasurer, and business manager of
the church, while his position as organist included playing for all the main services, sometimes in
collaboration with other instrumentalists or vocalists, who were also paid by the church. Entirely
outside of his official church duties, he organised and directed a concert series known as
the Abendmusiken, which included performances of sacred dramatic works regarded by his
contemporaries as the equivalent of operas.[22]

Late baroque music (1680–1730)[edit]

 19

George Frideric Handel

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The work of George Frideric Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach and their contemporaries, including
Domenico Scarlatti, Antonio Vivaldi, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Georg Philipp Telemann, and others
advanced the Baroque era to its climax.[23] Through the work of Johann Fux, the Renaissance
style of polyphony was made the basis for the study of composition for future musical eras. The
composers of the late baroque had established their feats of composition long before the works
of Johann Fux.[19]
A continuous worker, Handel borrowed from other composers and often "recycled" his own
material. He was also known for reworking pieces such as the famous Messiah, which premiered
in 1742, for available singers and musicians.[24]