Medieval Music against Renaissance Music

Middle ages Renaissance

Perfect consonances Imperfect consonances
Wild dissonances Dissonance control
Successive composition Simultaneous composition
Layered rhythm Unified rhythm
Layered texture Unified texture
No themes or subjects Use of themes or subjects (imitation)
Motets: several texts Motets: single text
No text representation Text representation
Symbolic music: intellectual, for God to hear Sensible music: audible, for people to hear