The Renaissance saw music freed from the constraints of the Medieval Church, resulting in greater variety of range, rhythm, harmony, form and expressiveness. Indeed, music was now seen as a vehicle of personal expression rather than God's transmission of scared tones to monastic scribes.
While the variety of Renaissance music is considerable, it exhibited a fairly consistent continuity of style throughout the era. Here's a taste of the music of the late English Renaissance and example music composed for home use:
Lesson for Two Lutes | Anonymous, c. 1600 | England (1:25)
Renaissance Style
Sacred vocal music was polyphonic and characterized by imitative counterpoint. Vocal range expanded to include the bass register, creating a full sonority. Rhythm was marked by a fluid and flowing rhythm in polyphonic styles. The a cappella choir of four or more voices was considered to be the ideal musical combination in Roman Catholic Churches and, eventually, served as a model for instrumental ensembles. The Italian term, a cappella, translates as "in chapel style," but today simply means singing without instrumental accompaniment.
Secular songs were created for home entertainment, used vernacular text and featured lighter and simpler textures than sacred music. Near the end of the Renaissance, homophonic textures were increasingly employed in secular song.
The Wedding at Cana | Paolo Veronese, 1528–1588 | Louvre Museum
Pleasant Wedding | Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1525-1569 | Bagpipe musicians providing entertainment on the left. | Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien
Harmony
Renaissance style is characterized by expressiveness within well-defined limits of clarity and balance: a harmonious succession of sounds. Most Renaissance music was composed in layers of melodic lines, and harmony, especially in sacred polyphony, was the result of vertical combinations of voice parts. These vertical combinations were written according to principles of harmonic consonance and melodic movement rather than by chance as in the Middle Ages. Modern harmony was still a mere twinkle in the eyes of guitar and lute players.
Renaissance Guitar | Anonymous, 16th c. | Guitars were considered a lessor member of the lute family and mainly used for strumming | Wikimedia Commons
Guitar and Lute Factor
The seeds of modern chord progressions appeared in secular music of the late Renaissance (c. 1550), especially in lute song and solo lute, guitar and vihuela music. The popular lute solo, Bianco Fiore (White Flower), written during the sixteenth century, exhibits clear chord progressions and homophonic texture:
The Spanish musician Juan Bermudo, writing in his Declaración de Instrumentos Musicales (Osuna, 1555), discusses chord strumming by guitarists with disdain:
"...it is not desirable music and the ear is not made for them. The strummed villancicos do not have a very good basis in music..."
First Chord Book
The first chord method book, Guitarra Española y Vándola, was published in 1596 by Dr. Juan Carlo y Amat (1572-1664). The writing was on the wall for organized harmony. Eventually harmonic practices were formalized into functional harmony, i.e., the basis of harmonic writing from about 1650 to 1900.
Guitar Chords (1598) | Dr. Juan Carlo y Amat, 1572-1664 | Guitarra Española y Vándola. p. 34 | Wikimedia Commons
Expression
Sacred vocal music of the Middle Ages avoided displays of emotion and did little to dramatize lyrics. In contrast, Renaissance composers sought to express the meaning of the text through the music. Word painting, or musical illustration of lyrics, was frequently used. For example, the phrase, "descend to the depths of hell" might use a descending scale to dramatize the meaning of the lyrics.
To get a sense of Renaissance vocal style, we'll listen to an example of a secular part song, Mille Regretz, by the Flemish composer Josquin des Prez (c. 1450-1521). Josquin was among the most influential and innovative composers of the Renaissance, credited with pioneering the polyphonic style of choral music emulated by generations of composers after him. He spent his life serving in noble's courts in Italy and France and the Papal choir. Des Prez was adept with both secular and sacred music: admired by the Catholic Church and Martin Luther for his sacred music, and by aristocrats and the middle class for his popular song.
Mille Regretz was written for home performance with mixed male and female voices. If women were not available for soprano and alto, it was common to substitute an instrument, or a man could sing female parts using falsetto.
Mille Regretz is sung a cappella with four voices resonating in a straightforward polyphonic texture. Notice the deep bass, gently flowing rhythm and melancholy mood of the lines. The French text translates as "one thousand regrets to leave you and your fair face. My grief is such that my days shall soon be at end."
Mille Regretz | Josquin des Prez, c. 1450-1521 (2:26)
Rise of Instrumental Music
Vocal music dominated both sacred and secular music during the early Renaissance, with instruments chiefly relegated to accompaniment duties.
The sixteenth century saw the development of idiomatic instrumental styles in lute, guitar and keyboard families. Initially instruments imitated the sound of vocal music, especially the SATB choir, playing intabulations: arrangements of vocal or ensemble pieces for keyboard, lute, or other plucked string instruments. The vocal piece heard above, Mille Regretz, was a popular intabulation. Soon instrumental writing developed its own style by employing techniques unique to instruments: fast scales, chord strums, arpeggios, rapid ornamentation, etc.
Dances and theme and variation forms were especially popular for instrumental writing. The Ground to Greensleeves is an example of the theme and variation form: the Greensleeves melody is presented in straightforward fashion and followed by variations on the stated theme. Each variation is the Greensleeves melody repeated but altered by adding running scales, arpeggios and new rhythms. Finally, the theme is restated at the end. Greensleeves was a popular household jam tune during the seventeenth century and sets of variations over a repeating eight measure bass line or "ground" were all the rage.
The Ground to Greensleeves | Anonymous, c. 1600 | England (2:04)
As we work through the Renaissance, we'll take a closer look at the choral, solo song and instrumental music of this era.
Vocabulary
a cappella, word painting, intabulation, theme and variation, Josquin des Prez
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Renaissance Style
Harmony
First Chord Book
Expression
Josquin's Mille Regretz
Rise of Instrumental Music
