# Renaissance or classical - which era had more "great" composers?



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

As part of my ongoing ideological war on behalf of Renaissance music, I ask:

*Did the Renaissance have more "great" composers than the classical era? *

Under normal circumstances, we would count exactly three classical era composers as great: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven. For the purposes of defending the CPP against threats, I imagine that partisans will want to dilute "great" to include a few more.

The Renaissance can match three with its eyes closed: Josquin, Palestrina, Byrd, Tallis, Ockeghem, Gesualdo, Dowland...

This could matter. Despite my objections, we remain for some reason fixated on "great composers" rather than "great works." Perhaps the big forgotten names of the Renaissance should get some of the "I worship at the altar of the transcendent genius" hype.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

I would definitely say Renaissance wins here, but it's not even close to a fair comparison. The Renaissance lasted several centuries; the Classical was just about 50 years long (~1770 through ~1820-ish... give or take a couple decades).


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Short answer, the Renaissance had more great Renaissance composers, while the Classical period had more great Classical composers. First of all the Renaissance period was much longer than the Classical period. Secondly, the music in the Classical Period was far more advanced than the Renaissance and had much more variety and genres. If it weren't for Mozart and Beethoven, many composers of the period like Clementi would be considered masters, and held in much more esteem, and prominent now rather than under the shadow of someone else. The Renaissance period didn't have a couple of composers who dominated the field, and the recognition was shared amongst more individuals.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

science said:


> As part of my ongoing ideological war on behalf of Renaissance music, I ask:
> 
> *Did the Renaissance have more "great" composers than the classical era? *
> 
> ...


Three points:

Adding CPE Bach is not dilution, at least Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven didn't seem to think so.

Josquin, Palestrina, Lassus and Dufay do get the hype. You're just hanging out with the wrong crowd apparently. 

Given changes in society and institutions, comparisons across centuries tend to be fruitless and pointless.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I would add CPE Bach, JC Bach, Michael Haydn, Gluck, Boccherini to the list of classical era great composers


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

EdwardBast said:


> Josquin, Palestrina, Lassus and Dufay do get the hype. You're just hanging out with the wrong crowd apparently.


Now, no matter what you say, I think TC is a good place.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Among the best classical era composers was Joseph Martin Kraus, the "Swedish Mozart." I would place him ahead of some of the names proposed for that era. Here's a symphony he wrote for Haydn, who thought highly of it and performed it at Esterhazy. Many years after Kraus's untimely death, Haydn remarked to a Swedish diplomat: "The symphony he wrote here in Vienna especially for me will be regarded as a masterpiece for centuries to come; believe me, there are few people who can compose something like that."


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## Guest (May 14, 2019)

Comparing the number of “greats" between the Renaissance period and Classical period is a dubious exercise in my opinion.

Firstly, it assumes that the Renaissance and Classical eras are two well-defined and self-contained periods of music, each with a common approach and a common, distinguishable general sound. This is not the case. 

As has already been mentioned, the Renaissance period is much longer than the Classical period. It so long that it is sometimes split into 4 sub-periods: Early, Middle, Late, Late Rennaisance/Early Baroque. Especially In the last of these categories there are at least one or two notable composers who wrote music in both styles, like Monteverdi. 

Also, the Classical period is hardly uniform in style across its shorter time-scale. This era is often usefully split into Galante/Early Classical, Mid Classical, Late Classical, and Classical/Romantic transition, each with their own distinguishing features. 

Secondly, in terms of “greatness”, which I assume is measured by general popularity, Mozart Haydn and Beethoven tower above many of the best in the Renaissance period. It’s like comparing the height of of the top peaks in the Himalayas compared with those in the Alps. If the aim is to get a rough idea about the number of broadly comprable “greats” to Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven in term of general popularity, it's the Baroque and Romantic periods, not the Renaissance, that should be looked at.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

science said:


> As part of my ongoing ideological war on behalf of Renaissance music, I ask:
> 
> *Did the Renaissance have more "great" composers than the classical era? *
> 
> ...


That's a solid lineup, and I'd add Schutz. Maybe Allegri too - for his Miserere alone - and early Monteverdi.

The Renaissance isn't my area of interest although I know that Palestrina's influence across all Western music has been perhaps the longest lasting of any composer. I also remember reading an article on Josquin where the author argued that he was just as influential during the Renaissance as Beethoven was in the 19th century. Gesualdo is surely the odd one out, not only for reasons related to the lurid details of his life but not the least his darkly expressive music. I know that Stravinsky was an admirer.

Its quite interesting, all that united the composers you name was the dominance of the church (initially one church, Roman Catholic) and Latin, the language of liturgy. Italy was the centre of all that, and eventually most of the action moved North. Closer to our own time, you get diversity without there being any unifying factor really, not even as we had in the 19th century, a trinity in music of the three B's and such.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

If you think of the renaissance as Dufay (d. 1474) to Trabaci (d. 1647), you see it's rather longer than classical if you think of it as from CPEB (d. 1788) to Schubert ( d.1828)

Maybe Classical is just a style in music, styles come and go with the wind, they're a sort of decoration. The renaissance was a _weltanschauung_, a radical way of perceiving the universe, so it's not surprising it lasted longer and attracted greater minds.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> If you think of the renaissance as Dufay (d. 1474) to Trabaci (d. 1647), you see it's rather longer than classical if you think of it as from CPEB (d. 1788) to Schubert ( d.1828)
> 
> Maybe Classical is just a style in music, styles come and go with the wind, they're a sort of decoration. The renaissance was a _weltanschauung_, a radical way of perceiving the universe, so it's not surprising it lasted longer and attracted greater minds.


The Renaissance was a break from the Middle Ages. People were turning again to Science, not an isolated radical view of the universe, separate from ours. There was just less development in music until Bach, when a lot of possibilities were opened, and music advanced rapidly. There is incomparable more progress made in the short span from Bach to Beethoven than from Dufay to Monteverdi. A lot has to do with the Church's ban on the use of dissonance previously.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Phil loves classical said:


> the Church's ban on the use of dissonance


You don't mean that do you?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Phil loves classical said:


> A lot has to do with the Church's ban on the use of dissonance previously.


To put a finer point on Mandryka's question: What ban? Never heard that one.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> To put a finer point on Mandryka's question: What ban? Never heard that one.


The use of the tritone was banned. Also you couldn`t use more than a few imperfect consonances in a row. I also think I recall you couldn`t jump above a certain a certain interval in a single line, can`t find it now. It was just more restrictive, and hence a damper on artistic freedom.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

flamencosketches said:


> I would definitely say Renaissance wins here, but it's not even close to a fair comparison. The Renaissance lasted several centuries; the Classical was just about 50 years long (~1770 through ~1820-ish... give or take a couple decades).


That's true, though I'd say any given 50-year period in the Renaissance probably beats the whole Classical period as well. Obviously that comes down to personal taste.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Josquin and Gesualdo are 100 years apart

And the all the devil in music stuff about the tritone was from 18th century sources. It was treated carefully in Renaissance polyphony but the church did not ban it



> by the epoch of Perotin and his successors, while the tritone was typically classified in the 13th century as a "perfect discord" (along with m2 and M7), it nevertheless occurs, as do these intervals, quite frequently and prominently in practice.
> 
> Writing his retrospective exposition and defense of 13th-century style (by now the Ars Antiqua or "Ancient Art"), Jacobus includes the tritone (i.e. augmented fourth equal to precisely three 9:8 whole-tones, or 729:512, e.g. f-b) as one of the 13 basic intervals, and also proposes as a distinct 14th interval the "semitritonus" or diminished fifth of 1024:729, which he finds somewhat less discordant. Note, by the way, that these are not equal intervals in Pythagorean tuning, and that the diminished fifth (about 588 cents, 588/1200 octave) is smaller than the augmented fourth (about 612 cents -- as opposed to the even 600 cents for both intervals in the 12-tone equally tempered scale).
> 
> ...





> by 1558, Zarlino notes that while the diminished fifth is itself a "nonharmonic relation," it is pleasing as a simultaneous interval if resolved to the ditone (M3), and indeed that this dissonance may be sounded "in a single percussion" -- that is, in note-against-note, unlike the second and seventh which require a more caution treatment as ornamental tones or suspension dissonances. Likewise the augmented fourth is admitted if it resolves to the minor sixth.[7]
> 
> Zarlino takes such progressions as characteristic of both "moderns," and "older" composers, which might be translated to refer both to the Josquin generation and thereabouts, and to this theorist's model Willaert and others of his own epoch.[8]
> 
> ...


http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/harmony/tritone.html


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Bwv 1080 said:


> Josquin and Gesualdo are 100 years apart
> 
> And the all the devil in music stuff about the tritone was from 18th century sources. It was treated carefully in Renaissance polyphony but the church did not ban it
> 
> http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/harmony/tritone.html


Thanks for that. So it wasn`t technically banned. But then polyphony was according to this. So i found out you couldn`t go above the interval of the 4th.

https://world.regent-college.edu/arts-theology/the-genius-of-luthers-and-calvins-musical-reformation


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## infracave (May 14, 2019)

Phil loves classical said:


> Thanks for that. So it wasn`t technically banned. But then polyphony was according to this. So i found out you couldn`t go above the interval of the 4th.
> 
> https://world.regent-college.edu/arts-theology/the-genius-of-luthers-and-calvins-musical-reformation


I haven't found any mention of the 4th in the link you posted.
The closest thing I can remember are the rules for good voice leading from Fux qho instructs that no leap should be greater than a 6th (if I remember correctly).

Also, the catholic church didn't have a real official stance on music before the council of Trent, I think.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

You've got to be very careful with all of this. Different groups of monks had different ideas; the cathedrals had a lot of clout and were independent minded and were very able to ignore Rome. It would be wrong to get the impression of a top down quasi military management structure with the pope as the general in chief; it would be equally wrong to think of the church as a homogeneous entity, all singing from the same hymn sheet about these matters.

And "these matters" are important because singing gets bums on seats and sponsors in cathedrals, which were large operations with important turnovers and serious payrolls to find at the end of each month, with expensive ambitions about buildings etc.

And last but by no means least, the music as written doesn't show the _musica ficta. _ Neither does it often show chords aligned underneath each other like a score by Chopin. So making inferences about things like intervals is not for amateurs.

But this is a digression really. My original point, which as far as I can see has not been seriously challenged, is that the renaissance was much much longer than the flourishing of classical style, and it was much much more fundamental, and hence more likely to attract great minds. Which explains quite a lot really.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

The number of greats, though possibly interesting, is a less relevant question than: "Do you _like _Renaissance music as much as or better than Classical era music, or vice versa?"


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

infracave said:


> I haven't found any mention of the 4th in the link you posted.
> The closest thing I can remember are the rules for good voice leading from Fux qho instructs that no leap should be greater than a 6th (if I remember correctly).
> 
> Also, the catholic church didn't have a real official stance on music before the council of Trent, I think.


The 4th max. was at another site.



Mandryka said:


> You've got to be very careful with all of this. Different groups of monks had different ideas; the cathedrals had a lot of clout and were independent minded and were very able to ignore Rome. It would be wrong to get the impression of a top down quasi military management structure with the pope as the general in chief; it would be equally wrong to think of the church as a homogeneous entity, all singing from the same hymn sheet about these matters.
> 
> And "these matters" are important because singing gets bums on seats and sponsors in cathedrals, which were large operations with important turnovers and serious payrolls to find at the end of each month, with expensive ambitions about buildings etc.
> 
> ...


More fundamental, or more limited? If it was so great, wouldn't great minds after the period still want to stick with that style?


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Maybe Classical is just a style in music, styles come and go with the wind, they're a sort of decoration. The renaissance was a weltanschauung, much much more fundamental, a radical way of perceiving the universe, so it's not surprising it lasted longer and attracted greater minds.


If one looks at the Renaissance as a world view then I think you have to compare it not with the classical style in music but with the intellectual climate of which that style was a part, namely the so-called Age of Enlightenment, which was also a humanist movement with a radical way of perceiving man's place in society, which advocated freedom, democracy and reason as the primary values of society. It started from the standpoint that men's minds should be freed from ignorance, from superstition and from the arbitrary powers of the State, in order to allow mankind to achieve progress and perfection. Although great artists and thinkers abounded in all fields, philosophers such as Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire, and Montesquieu wrote of the value of the common person and the power of human reasoning in overcoming the problems of the world. This revolution in thinking inevitably led to conflict between the old order and new ideas.

The musical scene in the classical period reflected the changes occurring in the society in which the music was being written. This was the first era in music history in which public concerts became an important part of the musical scene. Music was still being composed for the church and the court, but the advent of public concerts reflected the new view that music should be written for the enjoyment and entertainment of the common person. A new form of opera, comic opera, championed middle-class values and became a powerful vehicle for social reform. It could also be argued that more extensive and varied thinking in the new age of reason liberated composers from previous conventions and emboldened them to innovate with new forms, new harmonies, and new rhythms, the effects of which have been heard for generations.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Thanks Rick, 

Let me ask a really basic question. Let’s just think of style. 

What are the essential differences between renaissance style and classical style?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

infracave said:


> I haven't found any mention of the 4th in the link you posted.
> *The closest thing I can remember are the rules for good voice leading from Fux qho instructs that no leap should be greater than a 6th (if I remember correctly).
> *
> Also, the catholic church didn't have a real official stance on music before the council of Trent, I think.


I think I remember Zarlino saying a minor 6th was the outer limit, if the voice moved contrary to the leap by step afterward(?) Anyway, that was much earlier (1558).

The Church had various stances on music before the Council of Trent, especially early on, when the chant repertoire was being standardized and notated for the first time. It apparently required travel of experts from one monastery or bishopric to another for dissemination of the standardized chant and for transcription of performances. This is all vague in my head but I think accurate.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Thanks Rick,
> 
> Let me ask a really basic question. Let's just think of style.
> 
> What are the essential differences between renaissance style and classical style?


My good man, there needs no member come from cyberspace to tell you this. A functioning ear along with a good textbook or website will do.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> My good man, there needs no member come from cyberspace to tell you this. A functioning ear along with a good textbook or website will do.


I have this little idea brewing, that at some level of abstraction, they are very similar. That's to say gothic pairs with baroque; renaissance pairs with classical.


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## infracave (May 14, 2019)

EdwardBast said:


> I think I remember Zarlino saying a minor 6th was the outer limit, if the voice moved contrary to the leap by step afterward(?) Anyway, that was much earlier (1558).
> 
> The Church had various stances on music before the Council of Trent, especially early on, when the chant repertoire was being standardized and notated for the first time. It apparently required travel of experts from one monastery or bishopric to another for dissemination of the standardized chant and for transcription of performances. This is all vague in my head but I think accurate.


Well, I think the chant repertoire was "standardized" for the first time under Charlemagne, giving birth to what we know as gregorian chant.

I don't think, however, that there has been any coercitive measures employed by the Church. That is before Trent and the infamous Index.
Anyways, if you have some references on the subject off the top of your head, i'd be interested.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

infracave said:


> Well, I think the chant repertoire was "standardized" for the first time under Charlemagne, giving birth to what we know as gregorian chant.
> 
> I don't think, however, that there has been any coercitive measures employed by the Church. That is before Trent and the infamous Index.
> Anyways, if you have some references on the subject off the top of your head, i'd be interested.


No, just a couple of early centuries of heavy-handed control and then nothing I know of before Trent.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Here is an interesting paper on the Renaissance era over time.

https://digitalcommons.cedarville.e...e=1199&context=research_scholarship_symposium


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Its been an interesting conversation. Although I am not much interested in Renaissance music for the purposes of listening at home, it can have enormous impact when heard live. This is not only in concerts but also during liturgy, which is the original purpose that much of this music served. 

This music has endured until today as part of liturgy. If you're in any major city of the Western world on a Sunday, chances are that you don't have to go very far to find a church where the music of Palestrina and others is still sung. That functional aspect of the music means that it is alive in a different way to those religious works that where designed solely for concert performance (a famous example being Verdi's Requiem).

Years ago I was at a service on Christmas day and the music - probably Palestrina or Byrd, but I can't remember exactly - combined with the ceremony moved me to tears. It had this cathartic effect that I didn't expect. 

Similarly there was a choral concert I attended that included Renaissance music and also contemporary composers influenced by them such as Whitacre and Lauridsen. During one of the old items - might have been by Schutz, hard to remember - the choir was split into two groups, one at the altar the other coming in from the sacristy. There was this otherwordly echo effect that would be impossible to replicate on a recording.

So with this music, for me its all about being there. I've not listened to it often, but when I do there is some sort of impact. As far as recordings go, I think I've now only retained a double disc set on the Alto label with Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 and a variety of key pieces by Monteverdi, Allegri, Schutz and Palestrina. In fact, I regret misding the vespers live in 2010, when there where many performances to commemorate its anniversary.

Incidentally, another composer who could be added to science’s lineup is the Spaniard, de Victoria. His Requiem is among the masterpieces of the period.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Phil loves classical said:


> Here is an interesting paper on the Renaissance era over time.
> 
> https://digitalcommons.cedarville.e...e=1199&context=research_scholarship_symposium


Just glancing at it it seems to be full of stuff from Fux! He's not an authority on Early Music, I mean Dufay and Josquin and Gombert, is he?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I think the Renaissance was more in touch with God, the classical was more about royalty. Therefore, the "greatness" is, of course, with God, not a bunch of satin-clad royals.


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## infracave (May 14, 2019)

millionrainbows said:


> I think the Renaissance was more in touch with God, the classical was more about royalty. Therefore, the "greatness" is, of course, with God, not a bunch of satin-clad royals.


And yet, Renaissance composers too were blending God with ancient mythology and sex (De Lassus' famous missa Entre vous filles de quinze ans). Burkhardt's Civilization of the renaissance in Italy also gives detailed accounts of the rampant immorality within the Church.
And even medieval motets were combining sacred plain chant lines with secular songs about whatever.

So, should we go back to gregorian chant ? Is the evolution of music a constant fall from Grace ?

Also, Churchmen whose patronage enabled Renaissance composers to thrive also were satin-clad.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Just glancing at it it seems to be full of stuff from Fux! He's not an authority on Early Music, I mean Dufay and Josquin and Gombert, is he?


I'm assuming Fux was only regarding the times of Palestrina. I didn't really do much more digging.


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## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

Considering the Renaissance period was about a century longer than the Classical period, it's not really a debate is it...


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> Just glancing at it it seems to be full of stuff from Fux! He's not an authority on Early Music, I mean Dufay and Josquin and Gombert, is he?


It's a freshman undergrad paper, so I guess we're lucky any "early" sources at all were consulted.  Not bad for an undergrad.

Fux isn't a very good or accurate distillation of the Palestrina style. A better source is Knud Jeppesen's _Counterpoint_ (1931). He was a student of Carl Nielsen.

For the style of the early 16thc, Part III of Gioseffo Zarlino's _Le Istitutioni harmoniche_ (1558) is an excellent and surprisingly engaging source. His teacher was Adrian Willaert.

Both books are available in good English translations.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

There may have been more "great" composers during the Renaissance but there is far more "great" music in the Classical 18th century. Other than an occasional university concert I have never seen nor heard any piece composed in the Renaissance in concert.


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## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

larold said:


> There may have been more "great" composers during the Renaissance but there is far more "great" music in the Classical 18th century. Other than an occasional university concert I have never seen nor heard any piece composed in the Renaissance in concert.


Because the concert hall is an invention of the Classical and Romantic period? What do you expect? Renaissance music was written either for church worship or entertainment at home.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

The Classical period is played more in these days, and I think that's for a good reason; of course, this doesn't mean Renaissance composers aren't good, it's just that (aside of the Renaissance lasting much longer as some people here stated) the Classical period just sounds better to me, Mozart became synonymous with Classical music, and it's not hard to see why-he was a musical prodigy, and the Classical period, as well as the Romantic following, are my favorite; so I'd say that relatively for the length of the period, the Classical would be better...at least in my opinion!


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

I think the classical period sounds "better" than the renaissance period only in the genres that renaissance era composers never wrote in or even knew would come to exist. Josquin alone is worth all the classical era masters' liturgical music put together, and for me the baroque era's too (except for that one guy's, and even then Josquin doesn't run his melodies and mechanical repeats into the ground the way that guy does, so it's a draw). Even Handel and Mozart's great choral works strike me as lite by comparison. 

Maybe I'm in a honeymoon phase as I only just recently started giving the Renaissance era another try. So far something about this style of composition is more immediately profound, hypnotic, and even accessible than later periods, at least once you get over that initial "sameness" of everything.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Clairvoyance Enough said:


> I think the classical period sounds "better" than the renaissance period only in the genres that renaissance era composers never wrote in or even knew would come to exist. Josquin alone is worth all the classical era masters' liturgical music put together, and for me the baroque era's too (except for that one guy's, and even then Josquin doesn't run his melodies and mechanical repeats into the ground the way that guy does, so it's a draw). Even Handel and Mozart's great choral works strike me as lite by comparison.
> 
> Maybe I'm in a honeymoon phase as I only just recently started giving the Renaissance era another try. So far something about this style of composition is more immediately profound, hypnotic, and even accessible than later periods, at least once you get over that initial "sameness" of everything.


Who who has heard them would be so rash as to claim that Beethoven's late quartets are more worthwhile than Purcell's viol fantasias or Sainte Colombe's music for one or two viols? Not me.

The same sort of thoughts in non religious vocal music. Did Schubert and Schumann write better songs than Ockeghem and Dufay? I think that would be a surprising conclusion from anyone who has given time to both.

And in opera, no one, not even Wagner, has the better of Monteverdi for depth of idea and quality of music.


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