# Renaissance Music



## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

Is it still preformed live today? Any CD(s) to recommend? And how is it different from Medieval music on one side and Baroque from the other?


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## Guest (Jun 14, 2019)

There is absolutely a very much alive Renaissance Music movement. There are several outstanding groups that perform these works. I am not as steeped in musical theory and the developments, but I believe that the renaissance saw the emergence of such things as polyphony and counterpoint over the medieval period. 

Some of the better known composers of this era are people such as Tallis, Dowland, Byrd, Palestrina, Josquin, etc. That is nowhere near an exhaustive list.

For polyphonic vocal music, I highly recommend recordings by the Tallis Scholars. The Sixteen are also quite good. There are several other groups as well. 

For specific works and recordings, I recommend the Tallis Scholars singing Tallis' "Spem in alium" - a 40-part motet, which is still one of my favorite works in all of classical music. I also really enjoy Davitt Moroney's recordings of the keyboard works of William Byrd. It is available in a multi-disc set, or a single album compilation.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here's a way of seeing the differences between medieval and renaissance, through one of the biggest Christmas hits of the time, a song called Letabundus. It goes way back and in medieval times may have sounded like this






then in the 15th century a composer called William Dufay decided to pimp it up a bit, and it becomes renaissance






But only just renaissance, Dufay was right on the cusp of medieval and renaissance. You can see he's left quite a bit of the old singing in there, like a postmodern sampling thing.


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## Guest (Jun 14, 2019)

As I understand it, this was a common practice. In the Tallis Scholars' recordings (on their own Gimmell label), they will frequently begin the work with the original monophonic plainchant upon which the subsequent polyphonic work by a Renaissance composer was built. 

The work Miserere, composed by Allegri, and once only performed (by law) in the Vatican, has a combination of both - a sort of call and response. A monophonic chant, followed by a polyphonic response.

There is a lot more to Renaissance music than just the religious choral works - there is much in the way of keyboard and dance music. I am not as familiar with that side, though, so hopefully others more knowledgeable than I will chime in.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

There was a thread earlier this year that dealt with part of your question:

What is the difference between renaissance and medieval music?


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## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

A musicologist would probably shout at me, but I tend to think of the Medieval period as being characterised the development of complex and "spiky" rhythms, which the Reniassance period smoothed out to instead focus on the complex harmonies arising from interweaving melodic lines.

If I had to recommend one Renaissance CD it would be the Orlando Consort's album of Josquin motets, which you can listen to on Spotify:


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## Tero (Jun 2, 2012)

performers, in US
http://www.baltcons.com/schedule.htm


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

John Dowland, Flow my tears


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