Renassiance

Course Documents and notes

1/23 Musicianship

Trained at Choir school and cathedral school

Unwritten practices
Improvisation and embellishments
Plainchant added polyphony (4th,5th...)
Faburden / fauxbourrdon

Medieval Renaissance
text Not priority priority
harmony Unstable intervals Stable intervals
rhythm hocket

art flat vanishing point

No individuality individuality

Humanism-secularism
Gentalment-Learn to write properly
-history, grammar, poet, speak, language, debating...etc.

Aristotle- ethos- music effects ethetic

Boethius- Musica mundana (music of universe, spheres...)
- Musica humana (music of human body, soul...)
- Musica instrumentlis (music of instruments)
Ptolemy- music of sphere (astronomy), Pythogarean tuning (ratio)
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2/6

English Sound Reviews

-sweet intervals- 3th and 6th, triadic sound.
-Faburden-> parallel motion
Discant
Treble-dominated style- beautiful newly created melody in upper voice.
Panconsonance, homogenous sound.
Clear declamation- mimic natural speech rhythm
- imitate natural motion

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2/8

Dufay- Burgundian Court- French

100 years war ended- Dunstable visited French
- Dunstable influenced DuFay
- Blend French Ars Nova style (angular melody, rhythmic complexity)

English Consonance + French complexity + Italian melodic line

Dufay example 18a → 18b

(Dufay adopted same melody form chanson to Kyrie)

Example 18b- section duration proportion:

A : B : C
3 : 2 : 1
3x3/2 : 3x2/4. : 3/2

→ triad (consonance)
→ Melodic line

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2/13

Dufay-Nuper rosarum flores-

*Isorhythmic motet
*ratio 6:4:2:3, 4x7, 2x7
*the musical proportion reflects the cathedral's structure
*Leon Alberti (Dufay's colleague) man and his creations need reflect a celestial
and universally valid harmony, one that was expressed through numerical ratios.

• Mediecal theory- Bible-God created all things in measure and

number and weigh
• medieval clerics: biblical exegesis and religious number symbolism.
• Dufay's motet is a spiritual vehicle with a symbolic message
 • the dimensions of the biblical Temple of King Solomon produced the
proportion 6:4:2:3.
• Natural ratios reflect physical word that echos with human soul.

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2/15

15th
Isorhythm- after duets, the bass part is slower, therefore the duration is different
double leading tone, hocket disappeared. Prexist materials are used freely.
Equal voices
Paraphrase- more freely using the borrowed material

"L'homme arme"- ABA

Jean de Ockeghem- numbers, myserty, niddles,
- travel to lots of courts
- drop the bass, much lower range

Dufay
Ockeghem

Example.21-Busnoys- Missa L'homme arme

- L'homme as invertion at bass (Agnus I)
- AngusIII continues the lost section in Agnus I
-structure is more freely
Example.23- In hydraulis (water organ, used by Pythagorean)
- based on ratios
- D-C-D-> A-G-A=> 5th=> 3:2
Time signature=> Triple to Duple=> 3:2

Example.24 Double gaint canons

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2/20

Johannes Ockeghem- Fors seulement

Ex.25a- chanson
Ex.25b- Kyrie - Imitation Mass- chanson (25a)
- used 3 voices (Dufay only used tenor)
- Imitation within the voices
- only cadence at phrase end, rather than consistent cadence
- solid four voices, bass drop down, thicker
 13 Motets, 10 Mass, 20 chansons

Josqiun Des Prez 1450-1521

French-Flemish
High renaissance style
Most renown composer
Works for French and Italy courts
95 Motets, 18 Mass, 70 chansons, Italian-style fort
Wrote public music (instruments)- 95 motet- motet's text is more free (secular)

Josqiun des Prez and "Perfect Art"

Ave Maria- Imitation, contrapontal duets,
homorhythmic passages (emphasize text)
Clear declamation of latin (art imitate natural art music speech...)
Fauxbourdon (trinity, conception)

Symbol- voices form high(heaven) to low(earth)

Clear cadence
Each phrase has different texture(canon, pair duet, homophony...)

Canon->cadence->pair duets (see the notes of the book!!)

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2/22

Ex.40 Josquin- Miserere mei, Dius

Imitation
Declaration of Latin language - same motif imitates Latin language
Recurring motif(refrain)
-structure and texture reflect

Paraphrasing-
plainchant, secular, carved (borrowed from patron's name), Humh(經⽂)

Ex.42 Josquin- Missa Pange lingua

Derive 6 phrases

Ex.39
Imitation from top to bottom

High Reniassance

More tonal sound

Move away from formes fixes to monophonic music
Melody less randomly melosmatic rather than bass on rhythm od language of
word painting.
Express meaning of words, not just declaimation

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2/27
Portestant Reformation
October 31/ 1517
Witttemburg- Martin Luther
Switzerland-

Luther's ldea spread

• Sale of Indulgences 贖罪卷
• Humanism- human centered thinking, question god
• Printing
• Corruption

How to attain salvation

-Rome- faith is formed by love and good works

Luther- faith alone, through world of God(remove church, prest, andpope),

individual can persuit God

Chorales

Contrafactum- put text in a popular tune

Gesangbuch
Form- AAB- Minnesingers and Meistersingers
Chorale motets- Johann Wlther
monophony

Singing in Cilvin's church

Simple, unison (no polyphony, instruments), metrical psalm
Mucis should not be too fancy nor complex that distract people

Reformation and Himanism

-individualism
-personal responsibility
-education

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2/28 (read handout today)
Post-Josquin (Composers who adire Jospiun but did something new )
-Nicholas Gombert, Andrian Willaert, Clement non Papa, Cristobal Morales...
-pervasive imitation(Jospiun: structral imitation- paired duet, strated from)
phrases
-overlaping cadence
-overlaping phrase
-dense
-rare homophony
-harmonically weired
(handout Gombert ex.50, ex.61, ex.86)

Council of Trent

No secular songs, no complexity, simple, text not be interfered

Gioseffo Zarlino& Le institutione harmoniche
• Control disonance(增減⾳程)
• no big leaps of 7th, M6>8ve, m6 only ascend
• No dissonace should be longer than a minim, then resolved
• In duple meter- 1st and 3rd beats(string beats) should be consonance

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3/6

Eton college
Eton chapel- worship Marry.
Wall paintings- gooden legend(Mary's Maricles)- worked with music to highten
the devotion

Reformation- get rid of churchical music

Eton Chiorbook
Compiled 1490~1502 for use at Eton Chapel
Lost of Marian antiphons
• Motets
• Magnificats
• 1 passion

126 page remain

Reconstruct repertoire sung for the Tudors at the turn of 16th
Composer from all over

Ex. No.9 salve regina- chiorbook(handout)

Eton style
-high register
-Florid and high treble
-many parts (up to 13)
-early: polyphonic, non imitative
-middle: imitativem, cantus firmus
-late: no CF techniques, more imitatioin
Irregular, intricate rhythms
panconsonant

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Book notes p78~88

15~16th- structure as the major impulse

1.Egidius of Murino: Compose Motet-

- (1) select tenor melody (cantus firmus: fixed melody)
- (2) put it in rhythm
- (3) add 1~3 voice parts

2.Caput Mass= cyclic tenor Mass, Caput= head

-join five unchanging sections of the Mass through the use of a common
tenor: a fragment from a liturgical melody
• Add the fourth voice below the tenor cantus firmus- more possibility of
music, especially cadenze.
• The text of cantus formus could contain all sorts of meaning, including
personal.

L'Homme Armé (The armed man)Tradition

Guillaume Dufay - Missa L'Homme Armé

* same cantus formus appears at Agnus Dei with longer duration (p.83)
Agnus Dei III
3.Canon
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Book note 131~136 2/20

Josqiun des Prez and "Perfect Art"

Ave Maria- Imitation, contrapontal duets, homorhythmic passages

•
•

Test

Slow tenor?
Homophony?
Traidic?
5th and 4th intervals?
Melodic upper parts?
Hokcet?
Double leading tones?

Medieval- melody free not gorvern by text, slower

Isorhythm end- 1450