Medieval music consists of songs, instrumental pieces, and liturgical music from about

500 A.D. to 1400. Medieval music was an era of Western music, including liturgical
music (also known as sacred) used for the church, and secular music, non-religious
music. Medieval music includes solely vocal music, such as Gregorian chant and choral
music (music for a group of singers), solely instrumental music, and music that uses both
voices and instruments (typically with the instruments accompanying the voices).
Gregorian chant was sung by monks during Catholic Mass. The Mass is a reenactment of
Christ's Last Supper, intended to provide a spiritual connection between man and God.
Part of this connection was established through music.[1] This era begins with the fall of
the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century and ends sometime in the early fifteenth
century. Establishing the end of the medieval era and the beginning of the Renaissance
music era is difficult, since the trends started at different times in different regions. The
date range in this article is the one usually adopted by musicologists.

During the Medieval period the foundation was laid for the music notation and music
theory practices that would shape Western music into the norms that developed during
the common-practice era, a period of shared music writing practices which
encompassed the Baroque music composers from 1600–1750, such as J.S. Bach and
Classical music period composers from the 1700s such as W.A. Mozart and Romantic
music era composers from the 1800s such as Wagner. The most obvious of these is the
development of a comprehensive music notational system which enabled composers to
write out their song melodies and instrumental pieces on parchment or paper. Prior to
the development of musical notation, songs and pieces had to be learned "by ear", from
one person who knew a song to another person. This greatly limited how many people
could be taught new music and how wide music could spread to other regions or
countries. The development of music notation made it easier to disseminate (spread)
songs and musical pieces to a larger number of people and to a wider geographic area.
However the theoretical advances, particularly in regard to rhythm—the timing of notes
—and polyphony—using multiple, interweaving melodies at the same time—are equally
important to the development of Western music
Who are the famous composer of Renaissance period

Josquin des Prez- Known simply as Josquin, he was one of the most important
composers of the mid-Renaissance period, around 1500. He was of Flemish descent,
which is in the area now known as the Netherlands. You may recall that Dufay traveled
and composed here, and his influence on Josquin is clear.

Renaissance Music (1450-1600)

Renaissance means rebirth. They were interested in Ancient Greece and Rome. There
were many voyages of discovery, and scientific advances.

Composers of the Period

Composer

Nationality

Composer

Nationality

Josquin Netherlands Downland* English

Lassus Netherlands Welkes English

Tallis* English Gibbons English

Byrd* English Palestrina* Italy

Morley* English G. Gabriela* Italy

Bull English Monterverde* Italy

The composers marked with asterisks are the most important to know.

Church Music The style of renaissance church music is described as choral polyphony
(polyphonic, counterpoint, contrapuntal), meaning more than one part. Homophonic
means moving in chords. Monophonic means one melody line. Choral polyphony was
intended to be sung a cappella (without instruments). The main forms were the mass
and the motet. They had four parts, based on modes, but composers gradually added
more accidentals.
One of the most noticeable differences between Medieval and Renaissance styles, is
that of musical texture. Whereas a Medieval composer tended to contrast the separate
strands of his music, a Renaissance composer aimed to blend them together. Instead of
building up the texture layer by layer, he worked gradually through the piece, attending
to all parts simultaneously. The key device used to weave this kind of texture is called
imitation. Composers were becoming more interested and aware of harmony (how
notes fit against each other).

German Chorales

German Chorales are Protestant hymns.

Secular Music

This was music independent of churches (i.e. none religious). The main type was the
song, lied (German), frottola (Italian), chanson (French), madrigal (Italian) and villancico
(Spanish).

Elizabethan Madrigals

In 1588 a collection of Italian Madrigals with English words was published in England,
and it sparked off an interest in English Madrigal writing. They were performed in rich
people's homes. There are three kinds of madrigal:

1.The Madrigal Proper - This kind was 'through-composed' (The music is different all the
time.) There is a lot of word-painting music that illustrates words. E.g. Thomas Weelkes
'As Vesta was from Latmos Hill descending.

2.The Ballett - It was sometimes danced as well as sung. The texture is mainly chordal.
Whereas a madrigal proper is through-composed, a ballett is strophic (two or more
verses set to the same music. The most noticeable feature of a ballett is the 'fa-la-la'
refrain.

3.The Ayre - An Ayre could be performed in a variety of ways: By solo voice with lute
accompaniment; by a solo voice with other accompaniment (e.g. viols); all the parts
sung by voices (with or without instruments).

16th Century Venice

Lots of polychoral (more than one choir) music.

Instrumental Music until 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 - but here they only doubled the voices. During the 16th
Century, however, composers took greater interest in writing music for instrument. A lot
of these instruments were intended for outside. Some examples:

•Lute

•Viol

•Crumhorn

•Rackett

•Sackbut (Early trombone)

•Trumpet (Valveless)

English Consorts a consort is a group of instruments playing together. A whole consort

consist of instruments all from the same family, but a broken consort has instruments
from more than one family.

Variations and the Ground Bass

A ground is a tune repeated over and over in the bass, with musical material changing
above. Variations are alterations in the tune. You can of course do variations on the
bass.

Elizabethan Keyboard Music

A popular instrument was the virginal, and a famous collection was the 'Fitzwilliam
Virginal Book', which contained over 300 pieces for the virginal. A lot of the music was
programmatic (It tells a story, is descriptive), e.g. 'The King's Hunt', by John Bull.

The Main Characteristics of Renaissance Music

1.Music still based on modes, but gradually more accidentals creep in.

2.Richer texture in four or more parts. Bass part is added below the tenor.
3.Blending rather than contrasting strands in the musical texture.

4.Harmony. Greater concern with the flow and progression of chords.

5.Church music. Some pieces were intended for 'a cappella' performance. Mainly
contrapuntal. Lots of imitation. Some church music was accompanied by instruments -
for example polychoral pieces in antiphonal style (Antiphonal - Questions and Answers,
Stereo Effect).

6.Secular music (none-religious music. Sacred music is to do with the church) There was
lots of vocal pieces and dances, and lots of instrumental pieces (However a lot of the
instrumentals were in a vocal style, but sonic were suited to instruments. Vocal music
was by far the more important.)

7.The characteristic timbres of Renaissance musical instruments - many forming

families.
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 bourgeois class; 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, written music 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, 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.
Troubadours and Trouvères (Provençal trobar,”to find” or “to invent”) , lyric poets
and poet-musicians who flourished in France from the end of the 11th century to the
end of the 13th century. The troubadours, who were active in Provence in southern
France, took their inspiration from the ancient Greek conception of the lyric poem as a
vocal composition (see Lyric). Written in the Provençal language (see Occitan), the lyrics
of the troubadours were among the first to use native language rather than Latin, the
literary language of the Middle Ages. These poems incorporated new forms, melodies,
and rhythms, either original or borrowed, from the informal music of the people. The
earliest troubadour whose works have been preserved was Guillaume IX of Aquitaine
(1071-1127). Of the more than 400 troubadours known to have lived, the majority were
nobles and some were kings; for them, composing and performing songs was a
manifestation of the ideal of chivalry. Troubadour music gradually disappeared during
the 13th century as the courts of southern France were destroyed in the religious wars
that ended in the defeat of the Albigenses by the papal power.

Originally, the troubadours sang their own poems to their assembled courts and often
held competitions, or so-called tournaments of song; later, they engaged itinerant
musicians, called jongleurs, to perform their works. The subjects included love, chivalry,
religion, politics, war, funerals, and nature. The verse forms included the canso (stanza
song), tenso (dialogue or debate), sirvente (political or satirical canso), planh (complaint
or dirge), alba (morning song), and serena (evening song). The musical accompaniments
were generally played on stringed instruments such as viele (medieval fiddle) or the
lute. The notation of the songs indicated pitch but not time value or rhythm. About 300
melodies and about 2600 poems of the troubadours have been preserved. The music of
the troubadours is considered one of the major influences in the development of
medieval secular music (see Music, Western).

The trouvères were court poet-musicians of northern France. Their songs were strongly
influenced by those of the troubadours, a group first brought to northern France about
1137 by Eleanor of Aquitaine, granddaughter of Guillaume de Poitiers. Eleanor came to
the court of France, at Paris, as the queen of King Louis VII, bringing with her a number
of poets and musicians whose work was characteristic of her homeland in southern
France. The northern poet-musicians copied and adapted the works of the troubadours,
finally developing their own genre, which although similar in subject and musical form
to that of the troubadours, placed more emphasis on heroic epics. The trouvères wrote
in the northern French language (also called langue d'oïl). About 1400 melodies and
4000 poems by them have survived. The most famous trouvère was Adam de la Halle.

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Baroque Music, music of Europe from about 1600 to about 1750. Critics applied the
term baroque to the period long after it ended, as a negative epithet. From the
perspective of the classical style, which followed the baroque and was characterized by
symmetry and balance, many critics found the music of the preceding period over-
exuberant and somewhat grotesque. Not until well into the 19th century was the
baroque age viewed as something other than a period of artistic decadence following
the Renaissance. (The term baroque, which may derive from a Spanish or Portuguese
word for an irregularly shaped pearl, was also applied to art and architecture of this
time period. See also Baroque Art and Architecture.)

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Die Kunst der Fuge (“The Art of Fugue”), BWV 1080, once thought to date from
Bach’s final year, is now known to have been compiled over a period of a decade or
more. Around 1740 Bach assembled the core of the collection: a series of fugues and
canons of increasing complexity, all based on the same principal theme. In the first
version of the collection, the fugues include pieces for one, two, and three subjects. At
the very end of his life Bach picked up the collection once again, this time with an eye to
publishing it, perhaps as yet another part of the Clavierübung series. He revised and
expanded the music, and added a climactic concluding fugue for four subjects, the last
of which spelled in music his own name: B A C H (with B as B-flat and H as B-natural in
the German scale). Bach died before bringing the gigantic quadruple fugue to an end,
however, and the music breaks off, unfinished, in the 239th measure. The incomplete
collection was printed after his death by members the family. Although The Art of Fugue
is commonly performed on various combinations of instruments—strings, brass,
woodwinds, full orchestra, or even saxophone quartet—it is clear that Bach intended
the piece for keyboard (harpsichord or possibly organ).

J. Method of Composing

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