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    Renaissance Instrumental Music

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    Suni Dhanna Santiago
    After 1450, instrumental music became more prominent and sophisticated. New instrumental forms developed independently of vocal music, and instruments like the lute, viola da gamba, and violin gained popularity. By the 16th century, instrumental music was composed in diverse genres like dances, variations, and abstract forms like the toccata and ricercare. Venice was a center for instrumental music, with large ensembles performing at St. Mark's under composers like Giovanni Gabrieli, who wrote some of the earliest works for divided choirs and instruments.

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    Renaissance Instrumental Music

    Uploaded by

    Suni Dhanna Santiago
    166 views3 pages
    After 1450, instrumental music became more prominent and sophisticated. New instrumental forms developed independently of vocal music, and instruments like the lute, viola da gamba, and violin gained popularity. By the 16th century, instrumental music was composed in diverse genres like dances, variations, and abstract forms like the toccata and ricercare. Venice was a center for instrumental music, with large ensembles performing at St. Mark's under composers like Giovanni Gabrieli, who wrote some of the earliest works for divided choirs and instruments.

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    After 1450, instrumental music became more prominent and sophisticated. New instrumental forms developed independently of vocal music, and instruments like the lute, viola da gamba, and violin gained popularity. By the 16th century, instrumental music was composed in diverse genres like dances, variations, and abstract forms like the toccata and ricercare. Venice was a center for instrumental music, with large ensembles performing at St. Mark's under composers like Giovanni Gabrieli, who wrote some of the earliest works for divided choirs and instruments.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    166 views3 pages

    Renaissance Instrumental Music

    Uploaded by

    Suni Dhanna Santiago
    After 1450, instrumental music became more prominent and sophisticated. New instrumental forms developed independently of vocal music, and instruments like the lute, viola da gamba, and violin gained popularity. By the 16th century, instrumental music was composed in diverse genres like dances, variations, and abstract forms like the toccata and ricercare. Venice was a center for instrumental music, with large ensembles performing at St. Mark's under composers like Giovanni Gabrieli, who wrote some of the earliest works for divided choirs and instruments.

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    RENAISSANCE INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC

     After 1450, more instrumental music was written down, indicating that music without voices
    was important. It also showed that instrumentalists were musically literate.
     New instruments and instrumental forms developed:
    o Dance music and instrumental versions of vocal music continued to be composed.
    o New forms were composed independently from vocal and dance forms.
    o Instrumental music has become as interesting and as challenging as vocal music.
     INSTRUMENTS
    o There were books that described instruments are how they’re played:
     Musica getutscht und ausgezogen (Music Explained) – first book published in
    1511; by Sebastian Virdung
     Syntagma musicum (Systematic Treatise of Music) – by Michael Praetorius;
    included woodcut illustrations of instruments
    o Haut and Bas (high and low) – loud and soft instruments
    o Consorts – instrumental families with different sizes and covered a wide range
    o Wind and Percussion Instruments
     From Middle Ages: recorders, transvers flutes, shawms, cornets, trumpets
     New: sackbut (early form of trombone); crumhorn (a double-reed instrument)
     Diverse and more refined percussive instruments but parts were never written
    down.
    o String Instruments
     Lute – the most popular household instrument; has 6 courses of strings and a
    rounded back
     Vihuela – Spanish relative of the lute; guitar-like with flat back
     Viola de gamba – 6 strings tuned in 4ths with a major 3rd in the middle (G-c-f-a-
    d’-g’); has frets and bowed underhand
     Violin – bowed, fretless, tuned in 5ths; violin, viola and cello replaced the viol
    family because their tones are brighter
    o Keyboard
     Organ – large church organs like today’s (1500); portative organ was still
    popular though
     Clavichord – solo instrument for small rooms (soft-sounding); tone is sustained
    until player releases keys; player can create vibrato and control volume
     Harpsichord – family of instruments: virginal (England), clavecin (France),
    clavicembalo (Italy); louder than clavichord but w/o vibrato or dynamic nuances;
    strings are plucked so pitch is not sustained

     TYPES OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC


    o Dance music
     Social dance was an important mark of “breeding.”
     Initially, instrumental parts copied vocal materials, but later composers used
    improvisational compositions printed in books
     Used lute , keyboard, and other ensembles
     Embellishment of melodic line was a common practice, as well as adding
    one or more contrapuntal line to the bass line.
     Later, works for keyboard and lute became “stylized” (not really intended for
    actual dancing anymore)
     Each dance has a character based on: meter, tempo, rhythmic pattern, and form
    (usually consisted of repeated sections of 4-measure phrases)
     Basse Dance (low dance) – most popular dance between late 15th century and
    early 16th c.; a stately couple dance marked by graceful raising and lowering of
    the body; had 5 different kinds of steps in various combinations
     Tielman Susato – La morisque (The Moor)
     Dance Pairs – dances were grouped in pairs or threes (ex: slow duple and fast
    triple); dances often had the same theme, the second a variation of the first
     Ex: Pavane and Galliard; Passamezzo and Saltarello (Italy)

    o Arrangements (or adaptations) of Vocal Music


     Instruments usually doubled or replaced polyphonic vocal compositions
     Adding embellishments to the vocal parts is common
     Odhecaton – Petrucci’s collection of vocal works without text which
    suggests instrumental performance
     Common were lute arrangements
     Mille regretz (Josquin’s chanson)was tabulated for the lute (Luys de
    Narvaez)
    o Settings of existing melodies
     Chanson melodies – played for pleasure as background music for other
    activities by amateurs
     Chant settings for organ to alternate with choir
     Organ chorales
     In Nomine settings – a popular cantus firmus theme from John Taverner’s Missa
    Gloria tibi trinitas (Taverner transcribed his masses for instruments)
    o Variations – a theme with a series of variants
     Variations on dance themes – variations are done on the repeating bassline
    (ostinato) Ex: passamezzo
     Romanesca and Ruggiero – standard Italian airs; uses thin melodies over a
    standard bass progression
     Guardame las vacas – by Luys de Narvaez; published in the collection Los seys
    libros del Delphin (The Six Books of the Dauphin)
    o English Virginal music - used the variation technique primarily
     Parthenia – first published book for the virginal which contained music by
    William Byrd, John Bull, and Orlando Gibbons; has variations, dances, preludes,
    fantasias
     English composers focused more on the melodies unlike their Italian and
    Spanish counterparts who worked the bass line
     Pavana Lachrymae – by William Byrd; based on John Dowland’s Flow My Tears
    o Abstract Instrumental music – new, purely instrumental genres, where composers and
    performers used expressive effects
     Ensemble works were the first body of instrumental music that was
    independent of dance and song melodies
     La Martinella – written by Johannes Martini (a contemporary of Isaac and
    Desprez)
     Introductory and improvisatory pieces – keyboard and lute players usually
    improvised the introduction to a song
     Titles included prelude, fantasia, ricercare
     Toccata – chief improvisatory keyboard genre; from the Italian word toccare
    meaning “to touch”
     Claudio Merulo – Toccata IV in the 6th mode
     Ricercare – a succession of themes that used imitation and overlapping;
    originally composed for the lute (which possibly originated the name, which
    means “to seek out” the tuning of the instrument) later also for keyboard and
    ensemble
     Canzona (It.) – imitative of the French chansons; light, fast-moving, strongly
    rhythmic pieces, the typical opening of which is a rhythmic figure of half notes
    followed by two quarter notes

     Music in Venice
    o Venice was an independent city–state run by several important families, with an elected
    leader called doge (duke)
    o One of the chief ports of Europe
    o Controlled territories in surrounding areas
    o Patronage of the arts
     Its government spent lavishly on public music and arts, through which the city
    maintained the illusion of greatness despite its wars and misfortunes.
    o Church of St. Mark
     Private chapel of the doge where great civic and religious ceremonies were
    held.
     The position of choirmaster was the most coveted musical position in Italy
    (included Willaert, Rore, Zarlino in the 16th c., and Monteverdi in the 17th c)
     Had a permanent ensemble (1568) consisting of sackbuts and cornets, violins
    and bassoons.
     Giovanni Gabrieli – worked at St. Mark’s from 1585 until his death
     Composed the earliest collections for large instrumental ensembles
     Composed for multiple choirs
     Works included about 100 motets, over 30 madrigals, and almost 80
    instrumental works
     Polychoral motets – written for cori spezzati (divided choirs), 2 choirs
    on lofts on each side of the altar and another on the ground
     Ensemble canzonas – instrumental version of cori spezzati
    (Ex: Gabrieli’s Sacrae Symphoniae, 1597 – two groups of four
    instruments, with organ accompaniment)
     Sonatas – means “to sound” or “sounded”
    o Closely related to the canzona; has several sections based on
    different subjects or variation of a subject
    o Could be used fo the Mass, like the Canzona
    o Gabrieli’s Sonata pian’eforte from Sacrae Symphoniae (among
    the first instrumental works that designated specific instruments
    and indicated dynamics)

     Instrumental music gains independence


    o In the 16th c., instrumental music began to be written for its own sake, and not related
    to vocal or dance music.
    o Abstract forms developed in the 16thc. continued to be used until the 19th c.
    o It was not until the late 19th c. when scholars revived 16th c. music.

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