Music-100 Midterm Review

motet

A polyphonic composition using scales used church notes

Explain the characteristics of Renaissance Music

Characteristics of Renaissance Music Words and Music In the Renaissance, as in the Middle Ages, vocal music was more important than instrumental music. The humanistic interest in language influenced vocal music, creating a close relationship between words and music. Renaissance composers wrote music to enhance the meaning and emotion of the text. "When one of the words expresses weeping, pain, heartbreak, sighs, tears and other similar things, let the harmony be full of sadness," wrote Zarlino, a music theorist of the sixteenth century. By contrast, medieval composers had been relatively uninterested in expressing the emotions of a text. Renaissance composers often used word painting, a musical depiction of specific words. For example, the word high might be set to a high note, and the word arch might be heard with a series of notes that form the curved shape of an arch. Yet despite this emphasis on capturing the emotion and imagery of a text, Renaissance music may seem calm and restrained to us. While there is a wide range of emotion in Renaissance music, it is usually expressed in a moderate, balanced way, with no extreme contrasts of dynamics, tone color, or rhythm. Texture The texture of Renaissance music is chiefly polyphonic. A typical choral piece has four, five, or six voice parts of nearly equal melodic interest. Imitation among the voices is common: each presents the same melodic idea in turn, as in a round. Homophonic texture, with successions of chords, is also used, especially in light music, like dances. The texture may vary within a piece to provide contrast and bring out aspects of the text as it develops. Renaissance music sounds fuller than medieval music. The bass register was used for the first time, expanding the pitch range to more than four octaves. With this new emphasis on the bass line came richer harmony. Renaissance music sounds mild and relaxed, because stable, consonant chords are favored; triads occur often, while dissonances are played down. Renaissance choral music did not need instrumental accompaniment. For this reason, the period is sometimes called the "golden age" of unaccompanied—a cappella—choral music. Even so, on special occasions instruments were combined with voices. Instruments might duplicate the vocal lines to reinforce the sound, or they might take the part of a missing singer. But parts written exclusively for instruments are rarely found in Renaissance choral music. Rhythm and Melody In Renaissance music, rhythm is more a gentle flow than a sharply defined beat. This is because each melodic line has great rhythmic independence: when one singer is at the beginning of his or her melodic phrase, the others may already be in the middle of theirs. This technique makes singing Renaissance music both a pleasure and a challenge, for each singer must maintain an individual rhythm. But pitch patterns in Renaissance melodies are easy to sing. The melody usually moves along a scale with few large leaps.

Concerto Grosso

In a concerto grosso, a small group of soloists is pitted against a larger group of players called the tutti (all). Usually, between two and four soloists play with anywhere from eight to twenty or more musicians for the tutti. The tutti consists mainly of string instruments, with a harpsichord as part of the basso continuo. A concerto grosso presents a contrast of texture between the tutti and the soloists, who assert their individuality and appeal for attention through brilliant and fanciful melodic lines. The soloists were the best and highest-paid members of the baroque orchestra because their parts were more difficult than those of the other players. Concerti grossi were frequently performed by private orchestras in aristocratic palaces.

What are the sections that make mass ordinary

Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus

What was a revolutionary Musical advancement that took place in School of NorteDam France

The first measurement of rhythm

Alleluia: Vidimus Stellam (We have Seen Star) by Anonymous

The long series of tones on ia is a wordless expression of joy and religious ecstasy. -------------------------------------------------An elaborate and jubilant Gregorian chant is the Alleluia from the Mass for Epiphany. -----------------------------------------------the monophonic texture of the chant is varied by an alternation between a soloist and a choir singing in unison. The chant is in A B A form; the opening alleluia melody is repeated after a middle section that is set to a biblical verse.

estampie

(Thirteenth Century) a medieval dance, is one of the earliest surviving forms of instrumental music. In the manuscript for this estampie, a single melodic line is notated and, as usual, no instrument is specified. In our recording, the melody is played on a rebec (a bowed string instrument) and a pipe (a tubular wind instrument). Because medieval minstrels probably improvised modest accompaniments to dance tunes, the performers have added a drone—two simultaneous, repeated notes at the interval of a fifth, played on a psaltery (a plucked or struck string instrument). The estampie is in triple meter and has a strong, fast beat.

fugue

. A fugue is a polyphonic composition based on one main theme, called a subject. Throughout a fugue, different melodic lines, called voices, imitate the subject. The top melodic line—whether sung or played—is the soprano voice, and the bottom is the bass. The texture of a fugue usually includes three, four, or five voices. Though the subject remains fairly constant throughout, it takes on new meanings when shifted to different keys or combined with different melodic and rhythmic ideas. The form of a fugue is extremely flexible; in fact, the only constant feature of fugues is how they begin—the subject is almost always presented in a single, unaccompanied voice. By thus highlighting the subject, the composer tells us what to remember and listen for. In getting to know a fugue, try to follow its subject through the different levels of texture. After its first presentation, the subject is imitated in turn by all the remaining voices.

troubadours and trouveres

A large and highly important body of secular songs was created by poet-composers who were called troubadours and trouvères, active in courts of the nobility and in towns during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Troubadours lived in southern France and wrote poems in the Provençal language; trouvères flourished in northern France and wrote in Old French. The terms troubadour and trouvère come from words meaning "to invent" or "to find." Most troubadour and trouvère songs were about courtly or idealized love for an unattainable noble lady. Other songs deal with the Crusades, political satire, and dance. Troubadours and trouvères came from diverse social backgrounds: some were nobles, such as William IX, Duke of Aquitaine (1071-1126), the first known troubadour, and Prince Jaufre Rudel (mid-twelfth century), a troubadour who died during the second Crusade around 1147. (Jaufre Rudel is the subject of Kaija Saariaho's opera, L'amour de loin (Love from afar), studied in Part VI, "The Twentieth and Beyond.") Others came from modest backgrounds, such as the troubadour Bernart de Ventadorn (c. 1140-1200), son of a baker, and the trouvère Guillaume le Vinier (c. 1190-1245), whose parents were middle-class. The written music notation of troubadour and trouvère songs indicates the pitches of the melodies, but not the rhythm. We do not know whether these melodies were performed with a clear beat and meter, or in the free rhythm of Gregorian chant. Troubadour and trouvère songs are notated as single melodic lines; their texture is monophonic. However, instrumentalists probably accompanied the singers. These songs were performed either by their composers or by wandering minstrels (see p. 74). There were women troubadours, called trobairitz, and trouvères, who addressed their songs to men. The example we are about to study is a song by Beatriz, Countess of Dia.

Organum

Medieval music that consists of Gregorian chant and one or more additional melodic lines. Between 900 and 1200, it became truly polyphonic, and the melody added to the chant became more independent. Instead of moving strictly parallel to the chant, it developed a melodic curve of its own. Sometimes this line was in contrary motion to the chant, moving up as the chant moved down. The second line became even more independent around 1100, when the chant and the added melody were no longer restricted to a note-against-note style. Now the two lines could differ rhythmically as well as melodically. The chant, on the bottom, was generally sung in very long notes while the added melody, on top, moved in shorter notes.

acapella

No instruments

word painting

Renaissance, a musical depiction of specific words. For example, the word high might be set to a high note, and the word arch might be heard with a series of notes that form the curved shape of an arch. Yet despite this emphasis on capturing the emotion and imagery of a text, Renaissance music may seem calm and restrained to us. While there is a wide range of emotion in Renaissance music, it is usually expressed in a moderate, balanced way, with no extreme contrasts of dynamics, tone color, or rhythm.

Church modes

The "otherworldly" sound of Gregorian chant results partly from the unfamiliar scales Like major and minor scales, church modes consist of seven different tones and an eighth tone that duplicates the first an octave higher. However, their patterns of whole and half steps are different. The church modes were the basic scales of western music during the Middle Ages and Renaissance and were used in secular as well as sacred music. Much western folk music follows the patterns of the church modes.

mass

The mass, the highlight of the liturgical day, was a ritual reenactment of the Last Supper. Some texts of the mass remained the same from day to day throughout most of the church year, whereas other texts were meant only for particular feasts, such as Christmas, Epiphany, or Easter.

Renaissance Era

What years were the renaissance era Year (1450-1600) The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Europe have come to be known as the Renaissance. People then spoke of a "rebirth," or renaissance, of human creativity. It was a period of exploration and adventure—consider the voyages of Christopher Columbus (1492), Vasco da Gama (1498), and Ferdinand Magellan (1519-1522). The Renaissance was an age of curiosity and individualism, too, as can be seen in the remarkable life of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), who was a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist—and a fine musician as well. During the Renaissance, the dominant intellectual movement, which was called humanism, focused on human life and its accomplishments. Humanists were not concerned with an afterlife in heaven or hell. Though devout Christians, they were captivated by the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. They became intoxicated with the beauty of ancient languages—Greek and Latin—and with the literature of antiquity. Humanism strongly influenced art throughout the Renaissance. Painters and sculptors were attracted to subjects drawn from classical literature and mythology. Once again they depicted the nude human body, which had been a favorite theme of antiquity but an object of shame and concealment during the Middle Ages. Medieval artists had been concerned more with religious symbolism than with lifelike representation. They had conceived of a picture as a flat, impenetrable surface on which persons or objects were shown. Renaissance painters like Raphael (1483-1520) and Leonardo da Vinci were more interested in realism and used linear perspective, a geometrical system for creating an illusion of space and depth. During the Renaissance, painters no longer treated the Virgin Mary as a childlike, unearthly creature; they showed her as a beautiful young woman. The Catholic church was far less powerful during the Renaissance than it had been during the Middle Ages, for the unity of Christendom was exploded by the Protestant Reformation led by Martin Luther (1483-1546). No longer did the church monopolize learning. Aristocrats and the upper-middle-class now considered education a status symbol, and they hired scholars to teach their children. The invention of printing with movable type (around 1450) accelerated the spread of learning. Before 1450, books were rare and extremely expensive because they were copied entirely by hand. But by 1500, 15 million to 20 million copies of 40,000 editions had been printed in Europe.

What years were the renaissance era

Year (1450-1600)

drone

a constant note sustained in the musical piece

tutti

players in the concerto grosso

madrigal,

renissaince, non religous music in english thats polyphonic

Gregorian chant

which consists of melody set to sacred Latin texts and sung without accompaniment. (The chant is monophonic in texture.) The melodies of Gregorian chant were meant to enhance specific parts of religious services. They set the atmosphere for prayers and ritual actions. For centuries, composers have based original compositions on chant melodies. (Since the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965, however, most Roman Catholic services have been celebrated in the native language of each country, and so today Gregorian chant is no longer common.) Gregorian chant conveys a calm, otherworldly quality; it represents the voice of the church, rather than that of any single individual. Its rhythm is flexible, without meter, and has little sense of beat. The exact rhythm of chant melodies is uncertain because precise time values were not notated. But its free-flowing rhythm gives Gregorian chant page 68a floating, almost improvisational character. The melodies tend to move by step within a narrow range of pitches. Depending on the nature and importance of the text, they are simple or elaborate; some are little more than recitations on a single tone; others contain complex melodic curves.

baroque era

year (1600-1750) Though the word baroque has at various times meant bizarre, flamboyant, and elaborately ornamented, modern historians use it simply to indicate a particular style in the arts. An oversimplified but useful characterization of baroque style is that it fills space—canvas, stone, or sound—with action and movement. Painters, sculptors, and architects became interested in forming a total illusion, like a stage setting. Artists such as Caravaggio, Gentileschi, Bernini, Rubens, and Rembrandt exploited their materials to expand the dramatic potential of color, depth, and contrasts of light and dark; they wanted to create totally structured worlds. Such a style was very well suited to the wishes of the aristocracy, who also thought in terms of completely integrated structures. In France, for example, Louis XIV held court in the palace of Versailles, a magnificent setting that fused baroque painting, sculpture, architecture, and garden design into a symbol of royal wealth and power. The aristocracy was enormously rich and powerful during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. While most of the population barely managed to survive, European rulers surrounded themselves with luxury. There were many such rulers. Germany, for example, was divided into about 300 territories, each governed separately. Kings and princes proclaimed their greatness by means of splendid palaces and magnificent court entertainments like balls, banquets, ballets, operas, and plays. Indeed, entertainment was a necessity; most courtiers did no real work and tried to avoid boredom as much as possible.

middle ages

year (450-1450) A thousand years of European history are spanned by the phrase Middle Ages. Beginning around 450 with the disintegration of the Roman empire, the early Middle Ages was a time of migrations, upheavals, and wars. But the later Middle Ages (until about 1450) were a period of cultural growth: Romanesque churches and monasteries (1000-1150) and Gothic cathedrals (1150-1450) were constructed, towns grew, and universities were founded. The later Middle Ages also witnessed the Crusades, a series of wars undertaken by European Christians—primarily between 1096 and 1291—to recover the holy city of Jerusalem from the Muslims. During the Middle Ages a very sharp division existed among three main social classes: nobility, peasantry, and clergy. Nobles were sheltered within fortified castles surrounded by moats. During wars, noblemen engaged in combat as knights in armor, while noblewomen managed estates, ran households, and looked after the sick. In peacetime, the nobles amused themselves with hunting, feasting, and tournaments. Peasants—the vast majority of the population—lived miserably in one-room huts. Many were serfs, bound to the soil and subject to feudal overlords. All segments of society felt the powerful influence of the Roman Catholic Church. In this age of faith, hell was very real, and heresy was the gravest crime. Monks in monasteries held a virtual monopoly on learning; most people—including the nobility—were illiterate. In the fourteenth century, an age of disintegration, Europe suffered through the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453) and the black death—or bubonic plague (around 1350)—which killed one-fourth of its population. By this time, both the feudal system and the authority of the church had been weakened. From 1378 to 1417, two rival popes claimed authority; and at one time there were three. Even devout Christians were confused. Literature of the time, such as Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1387-1400) and Boccaccio's Decameron (after 1348), stressed graphic realism and earthly sensuality rather than virtue and heavenly rewards.