Renaissance Music

Sacred and Secular vocal forms

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 Franco­Flemish 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 music­theory texts had to be hand­copied, a time­consuming 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 (non­religious 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 self­sufficient 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. 

Motif
In narrative, a motif  is any recurring element that has symbolic significance in a story. Through 
its repetition, a motif can help produce other narrative (or literary) aspects such as theme or 
mood.[1]
   [2] 

A narrative motif can be created through the use of imagery, structural components, language, 
and other elements throughout literature. The flute in Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman 
is a recurrent sound motif that conveys rural and idyllic notions. Another example from modern 
American literature is the green light found in the novel The Great Gatsby by F.
     Scott Fitzgerald. 

Narratives may include multiple motifs of varying types. In Shakespeare's play Macbeth, he uses 
a variety of narrative elements to create many different motifs. Imagistic references to blood and 
water are continually repeated. The phrase "fair is foul, and foul is fair" is echoed at many points 
in the play, a combination that mixes the concepts of good and evil. The play also features the 
central motif of the washing of hands, one that combines both verbal images and the movement of
the actors. 

In a narrative, a motif establishes a pattern of ideas that may serve different conceptual purposes
in different works. Kurt Vonnegut, for example, in his non­linear narratives such as 
Slaughterhouse­Five and Cat's Cradle makes frequent use of motif to connect different moments 
that might seem otherwise separated by time and space.[3] In the American science fiction cult 
classic Blade Runner, director Ridley Scott uses motifs to not only establish a dark and shadowy 
film noir atmosphere,[4] but also to weave together the thematic complexities of the plot. 
Throughout the film, the recurring motif of "eyes" is connected to a constantly changing flow of 
images, and sometimes violent manipulations, in order to call into question our ability, and the 
    [6  ][7] 
narrator's own, to accurately perceive and understand reality.[5]

Mass

Mass is both a property of a physical body and a measure of its resistance to acceleration 
(a change in its state of motion) when a net force is applied.[1] An object's mass also 
determines the strength of its gravitational attraction to other bodies. 

The basic SI unit of mass is the kilogram (kg). In physics, mass is not the same as weight, even though
mass is often determined by measuring the object's weight using a spring scale, rather than balance
scale comparing it directly with known masses. An object on the Moon would weigh less than it does
on Earth because of the lower gravity, but it would still have the same mass. This is because weight is a
force, while mass is the property that (along with gravity) determines the strength of this force.

Madrigal
A madrigal is a secular vocal music composition of the Renaissance and early Baroque 
eras. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied; the number of voices varies
from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six. It is quite distinct from the 
Italian Trecento madrigal of the late 13th and 14th centuries, with which it shares only 
the name.[1] 

Madrigals originated in Italy during the 1520s. Unlike many strophic forms of the time, most madrigals
were through-composed. In the madrigal, the composer attempted to express the emotion contained in
each line, and sometimes individual words, of a celebrated poem.
The madrigal originated in part from the frottola, in part from the resurgence in interest in vernacular
Italian poetry, and also from the influence of the French chanson and polyphonic style of the motet as
written by the Franco-Flemish composers who had naturalized in Italy during the period. A frottola
generally would consist of music set to stanzas of text, while madrigals were through-composed.
However, some of the same poems were used for both frottola and madrigals.[2] The poetry of Petrarch
in particular appears in a wide variety of genres.[2]
In Italy, the madrigal was the most important secular form of music of its time. The madrigal reached
its formal and historical zenith by the second half of the 16th century. English and German composers,
too, took up the madrigal in its heyday. After the 1630s, the madrigal began to merge with the cantata
and the dialogue. With the rise of opera in the early 17th century, the aria gradually displaced the
madrigal.[3]

Instrumental Music

An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics, or singing, 
although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a 
Big Band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may 
refer to instrumentals.[1]
   [2]
   [3] The music is primarily or exclusively produced using 
musical instruments. An instrumental can exist in music notation, after it is written by a 
composer; in the mind of the composer (especially in cases where the composer himself 
will perform the piece, as in the case of a blues solo guitarist or a folk music fiddle 
player); as a piece that is performed live by a single instrumentalist or a musical 
ensemble, which could range in components from a duo or trio to a large Big Band, 
concert band or orchestra. 

In a song that is otherwise sung, a section that is not sung but which is played by instruments can be
called an instrumental interlude, or, if it occurs at the beginning of the song, before the singer starts to
sing, an instrumental introduction. If the instrumental section highlights the skill, musicality, and often
the virtuosity of a particular performer (or group of performers), the section may be called a "solo"
(e.g., the guitar solo that is a key section of heavy metal music and hard rock songs). If the instruments
are percussion instruments, the interlude can be called a percussion interlude or "percussion break".
These interludes are a form of break in the song.

Instruments
Instruments is an instrument created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, 
any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through 
purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical 
instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may 
have been used for ritual, such as a trumpet to signal success on the hunt, or a drum in a 
religious ceremony. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of 
melodies for entertainment. Musical instruments evolved in step with changing 
applications. 

The date and origin of the first device considered a musical instrument is disputed. The oldest object
that some scholars refer to as a musical instrument, a simple flute, dates back as far as 67,000 years.
Some consensus dates early flutes to about 37,000 years ago. However, most historians believe that
determining a specific time of musical instrument invention is impossible due to the subjectivity of the
definition and the relative instability of materials used to make them. Many early musical instruments
were made from animal skins, bone, wood, and other non-durable materials.
Musical instruments developed independently in many populated regions of the world. However,
contact among civilizations caused rapid spread and adaptation of most instruments in places far from
their origin. By the Middle Ages, instruments from Mesopotamia were in maritime Southeast Asia, and
Europeans played instruments originating from North Africa. Development in the Americas occurred at
a slower pace, but cultures of North, Central, and South America shared musical instruments. By 1400,
musical instrument development slowed in many areas and was dominated by the Occident.
Musical instrument classification is a discipline in its own right, and many systems of classification
have been used over the years. Instruments can be classified by their effective range, their material
composition, their size, etc. However, the most common academic method, Hornbostel–Sachs, uses the
means by which they produce sound. The academic study of musical instruments is called organology.

Renaissance Ensemble
Renaissance Ensemble Serbia is the first early music ensemble in Serbia and the 
second in south­eastern Europe, having been founded in 1968 (the first[1] in south­
eastern Europe was Musica rediviva, founded in Sarajevo by Bojan Bujić, Milica Zečević­
Osipov and Ivan Kalcina in 1967). Ensemble Renaissance usually focuses on the music of 
the Middle ages, Renaissance and Baroque. Occasionally, however, Ensemble performs 
modern music (like the Beatles) on ancient instruments. 

Consort
noun. a husband or wife; spouse, especially of a reigning monarch. Compare prince 
consort, queen consort. one vessel or ship accompanying another.

Types of Consort

Broken
Consorts were either 'whole' or 'broken,' the former and by far the most popular 
consisting of members of the same family, as 'consort of viols' or 'consort of recorders', 
and the latter of various instruments, as in Morley's Booke of Consort Lessons (1599), 
which is 'scored' for treble and bass viols, flute 

Whole
Most consort music is for treble, alto, tenor, and bass viols, and the two main types of 
composition are the fantasia, and that based on a cantus firmus.