# Does anybody talk about Renaissance music? Or even listen to it?



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

I was doing some google searches and stuff and found scant posts about Renaissance composers and even then they were usually very short, many not even making it to a second page. Is the language of Renaissance music just too unfamiliar to people? Do people not want to take the time to read a book or two to understand the historical context in which it was developed and performed? Are people not interested in the evolution from Renaissance to baroque to classical, etc.? Is it because it's largely purely vocal? (especially the earlier Renaissance music).

I'd like to hear what people think because I've been reading a lot about the Renaissance period and I'm finding it fascinated and I personally love getting an understanding of how music evolved in this pivotal period.


----------



## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Dedalus said:


> I was doing some google searches and stuff and found scant posts about Renaissance composers and even then they were usually very short, many not even making it to a second page. Is the language of Renaissance music just too unfamiliar to people? Do people not want to take the time to read a book or two to understand the historical context in which it was developed and performed? Are people not interested in the evolution from Renaissance to baroque to classical, etc.? Is it because it's largely purely vocal? (especially the earlier Renaissance music).
> 
> I'd like to hear what people think because I've been reading a lot about the Renaissance period and I'm finding it fascinated and I personally love getting an understanding of how music evolved in this pivotal period.


You can check this one out - Everyone who took part in the thread is really on top of their game - If you're looking for kindred souls, start here -









For Love of Early Music


By early music I mean anything pre 1600. Usually starting after 1100, but Jordi Savall and others can find some good stuff before that. There is already a group for Early Music - https://www.talkclassical.com/groups/early-birds.html . This is a thread where we can discuss our favourite pieces...




www.talkclassical.com


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Dedalus said:


> Is it because it's largely purely vocal?


There's also something about the general style I think Berlioz sums up a bit accurately-

"It is quite possible that the musician who wrote these four-part psalms, in which there is neither melody nor rhythm, and in which the harmony is confined to perfect chords with a few suspensions, may have had some taste and a certain amount of scientific knowledge; but genius - the idea is too absurd!
There are, moreover, people who sincerely believe that Palestrina deliberately wrote in this way in order that his music might be perfectly adopted to his own pious ideal of the words of the text. They would soon see their mistake if they were to hear his madrigals, in which the most frivolous or gallant words are set to exactly the same music as those of the Bible. For example, he has set the words, _"Alla riva del Tebro, giovainetto vidd' io vago Pastore,"_ etc., to a solemn chorus, the harmony and general effect of which are identical with those of his so-called religious compositions. The truth is that he could not write any other kind of music; and, far from pursuing any celestial ideal, his works contain a quantity of formulas adopted from the contrapuntists who preceded him, and of whom he is usually supposed to have been the inspired antagonist. If proof is wanted, look at his _Missa ad fugam_.
How, then, do such works as these, clever though they may be as regards to their conquest of contrapuntal difficulties, contribute to the expression of religious feeling? How far are such specimens of the labor of a patient chord-manufacturer indicative of single-minded absorption in the true object of his work? In no way that I can see. The expressive accent of a musical work is not enhanced in any way by its being embodied in a perpetual canon. Beauty and truth of expression gain nothing by the difficulties which the composer may have had to overcome in producing them, any more than his work would be increased in value from the fact that he had been suffering physical pain while he was writing it. If Palestrina had lost his hands, and been forced to write with his feet, that fact would not have enhanced the value of his works or increased their religious merit."


----------



## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

I like to listen to Renaissance music, but I'm not so far into it that I study the composers or their lives. I read a biography of Michaelangelo; does that count?


----------



## Philidor (11 mo ago)

Dedalus said:


> Do people not want to take the time to read a book or two to understand the historical context in which it was developed and performed?


I am interested in the music of the Renaissance and I am willing to read books on it and I am listening to this music occasionally.

What are your ideas to support this interest at this virtual place?


----------



## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

The "For Love of Early Music" thread is great but it was started 4 years ago, it's 16 pages deep, and it has 300 plus posts.

Think in terms of having a new thread created - "The Listener's Guide to Renaissance Music" - Get someone like @Taggart or @SanAntone to start the thread off and keep it focused - Someone who can really play the game needs to guide the discussion lest it wander aimlessly into incoherency. 

Start from the beginning and work your way through the composers chronologically - Find the most important works - Post links or videos of significant compositions - and discuss as appropriate.


----------



## josquindesprez (Aug 20, 2017)

No worries, plenty of us find renaissance music much more interesting than the music of Berlioz... 😂


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Dedalus said:


> I was doing some google searches and stuff and found scant posts about Renaissance composers and even then they were usually very short, many not even making it to a second page. Is the language of Renaissance music just too unfamiliar to people? Do people not want to take the time to read a book or two to understand the historical context in which it was developed and performed? Are people not interested in the evolution from Renaissance to baroque to classical, etc.? Is it because it's largely purely vocal? (especially the earlier Renaissance music).
> 
> I'd like to hear what people think because I've been reading a lot about the Renaissance period and I'm finding it fascinated and I personally love getting an understanding of how music evolved in this pivotal period.


Funny you should mention it because earlier this week I was listening to some nice Renaissance music on this CD


----------



## Philidor (11 mo ago)

josquindesprez said:


> the music of Berlioz...


... is no yardstick for good music ...


----------



## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> The expressive accent of a musical work is not enhanced in any way by its being embodied in a perpetual canon. Beauty and truth of expression gain nothing by the difficulties which the composer may have had to overcome in producing them, any more than his work would be increased in value from the fact that he had been suffering physical pain while he was writing it. If Palestrina had lost his hands, and been forced to write with his feet, that fact would not have enhanced the value of his works or increased their religious merit."


Hear hear. I do find it interesting that Berlioz is simultaneously expressing and puncturing myths of musical romanticism, re: the tortured/suffering genius.


----------



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I have not spent time reading and learning much about the classical music period, but Renaissance music is one of my favorite eras. I adore the vocal works of Tallis, Josquin, Ockeghem, Isaac, La Rue, Gombert, Clemens non Papa, Palestrina, de Lassus, Byrd, Victoria, Gabrieli, Gesualdo, and others. I'm not sure I have ever heard a vocal work from the period that I did not enjoy.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

There was a 'group' for lovers of medieval and renaissance music under the old regime - it was called 'Early Birds', founded by Taggart.


https://www.talkclassical.com/forums/early-birds.83/



Early Birds includes a number of threads on topics to do with the Renaissance era of music, such as a thread which lists the Early Music 'Composer Guestbooks' on Talk Classical - https://www.talkclassical.com/threads/early-music-guestbooks.75706/

Composer Guestbooks of Renaissance Composers often have examples of music to listen to and sometimes discussion of matters relating to the era.

Early Birds would be easier to dip into than the 'For Love of Early Music' thread, though you might find the first few pages of that thread quite helpful as they include some recommendations that you might enjoy.








For Love of Early Music


By early music I mean anything pre 1600. Usually starting after 1100, but Jordi Savall and others can find some good stuff before that. There is already a group for Early Music - https://www.talkclassical.com/groups/early-birds.html . This is a thread where we can discuss our favourite pieces...




www.talkclassical.com




People still post on it from time to time, which shows that there are lovers of Renaissance Music on Talk Classical still.

I wish you every enjoyment in your listening.


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Yes and yes. As part of my studies I learned to transcribe various early forms of notation into modern notation, which contributed to appreciation and understanding.


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

I think Berlioz was reflecting the aesthetic ideals of his own time, and what he says is more about him than about the music he speaks of. I also don't think he had access to the amount of music we do, and _certainly _couldn't hear as much as we do today. If he could listen to the plethora of composers all day on Spotify, would he have had a different opinion? It doesn't really matter. His opinion is his, based on what he knew and thought at the time, and has no bearing on what we might enjoy today. In other words: his loss really.


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Dedalus said:


> I think Berlioz was reflecting the aesthetic ideals of his own time, and what he says is more about him than about the music he speaks of. I also don't think he had access to the amount of music we do, and _certainly _couldn't hear as much as we do today. If he could listen to the plethora of composers all day on Spotify, would he have had a different opinion? It doesn't really matter. His opinion is his, based on what he knew and thought at the time, and has no bearing on what we might enjoy today. In other words: his loss really.


Yes to all of that. It's far from certain Berlioz would even be able to read Renaissance notation — certainly not the early stuff. Ockeghem's Missa Prolationum, for example, would likely have been incomprehensible to him. I'm not sure how much music of that era was readily available in modern notation, although certainly the RCC greatest hits would have been. The music available to us in modern notation from the early Renaissance and before entailed thousands upon thousands of hours of work by musicologists with specialized knowledge.


----------



## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

I listen to prog rock band Renaissance. Does that count?


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

I listen to it, but don't talk so much about it. Maybe once a year I have a period of listening to renaissance (and earlier) vocal music, around Easter or Christmas f.ex. Motets by Lassus and Josquin, masses by Ockeghem and Victoria. I've tried to find the point were Monteverdi madrigals turn into baroque...Ah...John Dowland <3


----------



## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> I've tried to find the point were Monteverdi madrigals turn into baroque...


I don't remember the particular madrigal but it's at the exact point immediately following the verse which begins _Abra cadabra ora vado in barocco. _


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Dedalus said:


> I think Berlioz was reflecting the aesthetic ideals of his own time, and what he says is more about him than about the music he speaks of. ...


There's of course nothing objectively wrong with Berlioz' music or the music he speaks of in terms of aesthetic ideals. My problem is with arguments of certain Renaissance (and pre-Renaissance) music enthusiasts such as tdc. They seem like attempts to glorify it at the expense of composers of other eras of music. I mean those people who try to make it seem like the Renaissance masters have actually been admired for hundreds of years of history since their time, or people who talk as if music in the Renaissance period was actually considered high in position in 'the pantheon of the arts' whereas music in other periods was not.


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

I've spoken to a few knowledgeable people who's knowledge of music I respect (as it far surpasses my own) about that Berlioz quote. I guess I couldn't stop thinking about it. The best answer came from and exchange with one particular person, who's opinion I fear to butcher by paraphrasing so I'd like to quote the exchange with a few irrelevant parts edited out. 



> I already knew his quote (it is from his Memoirs).
> Berlioz was quite a talented writer and I often enjoy reading his writings.
> Even if I don't completely agree with him here, I can't say his arguments are totally wrong or invalid. He clearly know the music he is talking about, but the aesthetic gap between this admirer of Gluck and Renaissance music is too wide. His opinion is completely understandable considering his own artistic ideal.
> Anyway, the way he is roasting Palestrina is so funny I'll forgive him.
> ...


I liked this exchange not least because he actually likes Berlioz and enjoys his writing and agrees with some of his points. I found this exchange helpful for me to know how to think of this quote from Berlioz, who I have no dislike of (I love Harold en Italie) yet still love Renaissance music. So I have decided to post it here (with permission) in case it helps anybody else or gives somebody something to disagree with


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

.


----------



## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

For me I have be in the right mood, for Renaissance , on this moment I am not in that mood .


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

I've been reading a book about Renaissance music, which is what prompted this thread and my deeper interest in it. I have already learned and listened to some guys like the early Renaissance Guillame Dufay, the Franco-Flemish Johannes Ockeghem and Josquin des Prez, Cipriano de Rore, and Adrian Willaert. And what I'm reading now is talking about anthologies of secular music by composers including Palestrina Giovanna Maria Nanina, Francesco Soriano, and Giovanni Antonia Dragoni (what a name). This anthology resulted in a further two new anthologies with a younger generation of composers including Felice Anerio, Marenzo, and Giovanni Battista Moscaglia.

What gets me is that there are SO many names I've never heard before. This book says "These Roman madrigals were characterized by clarity of contrapuntal writing combined with lyricism and continuity of flow: the classic example is Palestrina's five-voice _Vestiva i colli" _What I have come to understand is that the church basically ordered a change in music such that the words would be easier to understand and so a simpler music began to arise so that the music didn't overshadow the words of the voices which were suppose to fill the hearts of the religious (or whatever). But also that there first arose "famous" composers in this era, who were sought after by various courts and diocese and whom to have in your employ was seen as a very impressive asset. I want to end this quite random info dump with a quote about the composer who "most came to embody the particularly Roman secular idiom" who was the Brescian Marenzia. A typical work of his is _Che fa oggi il mio sole_ which "uses a different texture for each word or phrase and highlights words like "sole" or "canto" with roulades while also containing seeds of the declamatory style with repeated chords, which was to gain favor in the late 1580's."

It's quotes like these, and just the information generally about the music, the composers, the time period, the audience, the employers of composers, and the musical atmosphere as a whole that help me greatly to understand what I'm listening to when I listen to Renaissance music. It makes it much more fascinating compared to if I were to just turn on some Palestrina. There are reasons for the way they did things, and they are fascinating reasons, and it transports me back to another world. To use a trite quote "I feel the air of another planet". A planet that is very far from my own in time, but was just as real with real people who really enjoyed this music. People who I would like to step inside, if only briefly, to feel what they felt when listening to Renaissance music.


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

This is the piece mentioned above as a classic example of Palestrina's Roman madrigals. I find it very beautiful but also somewhat alien. I may or may not actually feel like I am transported to another time. But the important part is that it makes me feel something that other music does not. The same with other kinds of music that make me feel things that only they can make me feel. In any case, I find it hard to believe anybody listens to this and finds it, if not beautiful, at least not unpleasant.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Dedalus said:


> I've been reading a book about Renaissance music, which is what prompted this thread and my deeper interest in it. I have already learned and listened to some guys like the early Renaissance Guillame Dufay, the Franco-Flemish Johannes Ockeghem and Josquin des Prez, Cipriano de Rore, and Adrian Willaert. And what I'm reading now is talking about anthologies of secular music by composers including Palestrina Giovanna Maria Nanina, Francesco Soriano, and Giovanni Antonia Dragoni (what a name). This anthology resulted in a further two new anthologies with a younger generation of composers including Felice Anerio, Marenzo, and Giovanni Battista Moscaglia.
> 
> What gets me is that there are SO many names I've never heard before. This book says "These Roman madrigals were characterized by clarity of contrapuntal writing combined with lyricism and continuity of flow: the classic example is Palestrina's five-voice _Vestiva i colli" _What I have come to understand is that the church basically ordered a change in music such that the words would be easier to understand and so a simpler music began to arise so that the music didn't overshadow the words of the voices which were suppose to fill the hearts of the religious (or whatever). But also that there first arose "famous" composers in this era, who were sought after by various courts and diocese and whom to have in your employ was seen as a very impressive asset. I want to end this quite random info dump with a quote about the composer who "most came to embody the particularly Roman secular idiom" who was the Brescian Marenzia. A typical work of his is _Che fa oggi il mio sole_ which "uses a different texture for each word or phrase and highlights words like "sole" or "canto" with roulades while also containing seeds of the declamatory style with repeated chords, which was to gain favor in the late 1580's."
> 
> It's quotes like these, and just the information generally about the music, the composers, the time period, the audience, the employers of composers, and the musical atmosphere as a whole that help me greatly to understand what I'm listening to when I listen to Renaissance music. It makes it much more fascinating compared to if I were to just turn on some Palestrina. There are reasons for the way they did things, and they are fascinating reasons, and it transports me back to another world. To use a trite quote "I feel the air of another planet". A planet that is very far from my own in time, but was just as real with real people who really enjoyed this music. People who I would like to step inside, if only briefly, to feel what they felt when listening to Renaissance music.


Palestrina is probably the most divisive Renaissance composer.
“Renaissance” is a term used for music from Dufay to Monteverdi. That’s a lot of different music, it’s not obvious that there’s much shared.


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Palestrina is probably the most divisive Renaissance composer.
> “Renaissance” is a term used for music from Dufay to Monteverdi. That’s a lot of different music, it’s not obvious that there’s much shared.


There were definitely large differences based on region and time. It's like 2 centuries we're talking about, and the Renaissance started in Italy and slowly seeped its way around Europe at different rates. It's a complicated picture, for sure. But there's no doubt (imo) that there is something shared by the styles of music during this period. Labeling is always a fool's errand, there's always exceptions. But as a whole I think it makes sense to give a name to the style of music that started in Italy, and in Franco-Flemish areas and went around everywhere. I'm not an expert so I don't have a perfect picture (still reading this book after all) but yeah. I think there's utility in the word "Renaissance music" even if it's pretty slippery and fuzzy around the edges.


----------



## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

As for the "status" of music in particular periods, this is not so easy to evaluate. Should one go by famous philosophers or theoreticians or by "sociology", i.e. how important music was in practice? (E.g. for Kant in the 1780s music clearly was a lesser art but this does hardly mean that it was so in practice and Kant was an old guy and behind his time as the status of music among writers and philosophers changed at about the same time with the beginning of the romantic movement.)
Music was always present in church (and there was almost always a heated discussion about limiting it because it distracted from devotion, texts etc.) and it was especially important during the reformation and counter-reformation which means roughly 16th and 17th century because both factions used it to make church attractive. Of course music was always more ephemeral in a sense. They did overhaul interiors but once a church or palace is built, it will stand for centuries and this also holds somewhat for sculptures and some paintings. At least some of the composers around 1500 were superstars (maybe not quite to the extent of Michelangelo) and could behave accordingly. (Didn't apply to most local musicians but the same is true for most painters and sculptors not as famous as Rafael, Dürer or Michelangelo)


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Dedalus said:


> There were definitely large differences based on region and time. It's like 2 centuries we're talking about, and the Renaissance started in Italy and slowly seeped its way around Europe at different rates. It's a complicated picture, for sure. But there's no doubt (imo) that there is something shared by the styles of music during this period. Labeling is always a fool's errand, there's always exceptions. But as a whole I think it makes sense to give a name to the style of music that started in Italy, and in Franco-Flemish areas and went around everywhere. I'm not an expert so I don't have a perfect picture (still reading this book after all) but yeah. I think there's utility in the word "Renaissance music" even if it's pretty slippery and fuzzy around the edges.




Why do you say this renaissance style in music started in Italy? What are you thinking of? Why aren’t Machaut’s motets Renaissance style?


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Dedalus said:


> This is the piece mentioned above as a classic example of Palestrina's Roman madrigals. I find it very beautiful but also somewhat alien. I may or may not actually feel like I am transported to another time. But the important part is that it makes me feel something that other music does not. The same with other kinds of music that make me feel things that only they can make me feel. In any case, I find it hard to believe anybody listens to this and finds it, if not beautiful, at least not unpleasant.


Palestrina’s instrumental music is less of a problem for me than his masses, possibly because shorter. Still a bit sweet though.


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Why do you say this renaissance style in music started in Italy? What are you thinking of? Why aren’t Machaut’s motets Renaissance style?


Hey I'm no expert. If I'm wrong about something feel free to say so. I think it's pretty well agreed (afaik) that the Renaissance in general began in Italy. Renaissance music is something different, I will grant. From what I've read, it was Franco-Flemish composers who traveled to Italy for work and a lucrative marketplace for what they had to sell. These Franco-Flemish guys basically brought that style with them, and after a generation or so that became the predominant style in Italy and that helped it to spread throughout the rest of Europe. The catholic church's adoption of this style has to have played a huge role. And I say "style" but there was no single style, obviously the style was evolving the whole time, so it's a complicated picture. But the simple story as I understand it is that some Franco-Flemish guys like Ockeghem and Des Prez went to Italy and spread their style there which then became the style around Italy and most importantly Rome, and that went everywhere else. Oh and there was Guillaume Dufay before even the Franco-Flemish guys. As to why Machaut's motets aren't Renaissance I have no idea how and where they draw the line. Maybe they are. It doesn't make that much difference since time doesn't conform to the boxes we like to put them in but just moves along in a steady stream.

What's your opinion? Do you think Machaut should count as Renaissance as well?


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Dedalus said:


> What's your opinion? Do you think Machaut should count as Renaissance as well?


No idea. Nothing really seems to hang on it. You find all the time that musical people use concepts from history of ideas which don’t really correspond to anything very fundamental in the musical style. Concepts like “renaissance”, “romantic” “modern” etc were about ideas and music isn’t really about ideas, it’s about style. So the fit isn’t very good.


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> No idea. Nothing really seems to hang on it. You find all the time that musical people use concepts from history of ideas which don’t really correspond to anything very fundamental in the musical style. Concepts like “renaissance”, “romantic” “modern” etc were about ideas and music isn’t really about ideas, it’s about style. So the fit isn’t very good.


Ah, well, I've already said that I think there's utility to the term. If it makes it easier to communicate and quickly refer to some vague span of time in the history of music or a vague reference to style, then that's still something. It is a rather _large_ span of time after all. And if there are outliers before or after who also have traits we associate with the time period or the style, that's just something we have to live with. I'm not sure what alternative you're suggesting other than just not have names for periods of music whatsoever, or for styles. Specifically speak of composers and their pieces only. This line of thinking leads to rejecting the idea of an early, middle, or late period of a single composer like Beethoven or Mozart's career. History is made up of single data points, sure, but it gets rather difficult to have a meaningful conversation about things without being able to simplify it by making arbitrary (at least somewhat) categories.

If you have an alternative to having names for broad categories, as imperfect as they are, I'd like to know it.


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Machaut's music is universally categorized as medieval. There are principles of dissonance treatment, voice-leading, and notation at work in his music that distinguish it from music of the Renaissance. The differences are clearly audible and to some like me who really like Machaut, especially his chansons, delicious. Scrumptiously crunchable dissonances combined with sinuous lyricism.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Palestrina’s instrumental music is less of a problem for me than his masses, possibly because shorter. Still a bit sweet though.


Palestrina's instrumental music?? To my knowledge only a handful of uncertainly ascribed ricercari for organ has survived, and they are not even as interesting as the ricercari by Willaert eg..


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> Machaut's music is universally categorized as medieval. There are principles of dissonance treatment, voice-leading, and notation at work in his music that distinguish it from music of the Renaissance. The differences are clearly audible and to some like me who really like Machaut, especially his chansons, delicious. Scrumptiously crunchable dissonances combined with sinuous lyricism.


But you were the one who was asking why Machaut's motets weren't considered Renaissance style!!! What??? I'm so confused. 😵 Why ask the question if you were so certain that Machaut was firmly classified as medieval? Did you expect me to have an answer that would change your mind? I would just listen to the consensus, personally. What else is one to do?


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Dedalus said:


> But you were the one who was asking why Machaut's motets weren't considered Renaissance style!!! What??? I'm so confused. 😵 Why ask the question if you were so certain that Machaut was firmly classified as medieval? Did you expect me to have an answer that would change your mind? I would just listen to the consensus, personally. What else is one to do?


I believe you haven't had your morning coffee. That wasn't me. You're thinking of Mandryka's post #29.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Machaut's music is universally categorized as medieval. There are principles of dissonance treatment, voice-leading, and notation at work in his music that distinguish it from music of the Renaissance. The differences are clearly audible and to some like me who really like Machaut, especially his chansons, delicious. Scrumptiously crunchable dissonances combined with sinuous lyricism.




Probably. What's interesting to me is that the term "renaissance" which is I think fundamentally an epistemological idea (embracing logic, empirical methods) gets used for a style idea like the sort of dissonance in a piece of music. These ideas seem prima facie unrelated, if they were concurrent it's just a matter of coincidence -- isn't it?

So when we say Machaut is medieval or Ciconia is renaisance, we're saying something potentially misleading and confusing -- as if these composers' music were somehow responding to a philosophical approach. But I don't think it was like that, they were just working with tastes in harmony, rhythm etc which are independent of ideas.


We might as well talk about renaissance clothes or hair dos. As if a fashion for wigs and ruffs had something to do with metaphysics.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

.


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> I believe you haven't had your morning coffee. That wasn't me. You're thinking of Mandryka's post #29.


Ah, you are quite right. I'm a bit embarrassed haha.


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Probably. What's interesting to me is that the term "renaissance" which is I think fundamentally an epistemological idea (embracing logic, empirical methods) gets used for a style idea like the sort of dissonance in a piece of music. These ideas seem prima facie unrelated, if they were concurrent it's just a matter of coincidence -- isn't it?
> 
> So when we say Machaut is medieval or Ciconia is renaisance, we're saying something potentially misleading and confusing -- as if these composers' music were somehow responding to a philosophical approach. But I don't think it was like that, they were just working with tastes in harmony, rhythm etc which are independent of ideas.
> 
> ...


I think there is a little bit of the "idea" part of the Renaissance in the music we call Renaissance music. The idea of looking back to the past in order to find some lost ideal. Some composers were trying to rediscover lost Greek musical practices. Gesualdo in particular comes to mind, I think he wanted to find a third type of music that was in some Greek texts that refer to diatonic, chromatic, and I believe enharmonic was the third. Even just generally it seems unlikely that the whole cultural shift of the Renaissance in the ideas of the day and of the learned people and elites wouldn't have had some effect on both the demand of the audience and the creative impulses of composers. Just what effect the Renaissance ideas had on music is pretty hard to say since music is such an abstract art. But it has to have had _some_ effect. (I would think)


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> Probably. What's interesting to me is that *the term "renaissance" which is I think fundamentally an epistemological idea* (embracing logic, empirical methods) gets used for a style idea like the sort of dissonance in a piece of music. *These ideas seem prima facie unrelated, if they were concurrent it's just a matter of coincidence -- isn't it*?
> 
> 
> We might as well talk about renaissance clothes or hair dos.


It's not an epistomological term in music, at least not in any primary sense. It just means music composed during the historical period known as the Renaissance. Nevertheless, the change in the treatment of consonance and dissonance from medieval to renaissance music is a paradigm shift whereby some of the fundamental principles of counterpoint and harmony that would hold from then until circa 1900 were established. Technically speaking, it's (arguably) as significant as the mastery of perspective in painting.

Are these ideas prima facie unrelated — coincidence? I certainly wouldn't venture an argument to the contrary. If it's a coincidence it seems an apt one in the sense of being as clear and dramatic as changes in other fields. So even if it's unrelated or coincidental it still feels of a piece in some undefinable way with developments in philosophy and art(?)

Edit: I was busy typing when Dedalus's post went up. It makes a couple of nice and valid points.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Too difficult! I now must go to my dentist, but I will think about it while being probed and polished.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Some old threads about Early Music, garnered from the erstwhile Early Birds Social Group:



https://www.talkclassical.com/threads/threads-on-early-music-on-the-main-forum.76630/


----------



## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Ars nova/14th century like Machaut is usually not yet considered renaissance. The matching of different art forms is often problematic. "musical renaissance" did


Mandryka said:


> Probably. What's interesting to me is that the term "renaissance" which is I think fundamentally an epistemological idea (embracing logic, empirical methods) gets used for a style idea like the sort of


That's historically highly dubious anyway. There was no scientific revolution (it was all gradual) and even if one grants that there was one, it was in the high baroque late 17th century (and these guys like the alchymist Newton and monadist Leibniz held FAR more colorful metaphysics than the scholastics who were rather down to earth. (And there was no general move towards more "logic" or empiricism in the late 15th and early 16th century. To the contrary, the scientists became more neoplatonic (Copernicus heliocentric circles were empirically inadequate and didn't save the phenomena as precisely as Ptolemaic astronomy had done) and the theologians at least partly more fideist (the reformers), they were far less rationalist than Thomas Aquinas and his followers).

Renaissance is a term from the history of visual arts and architecture (apparently the Ospedale degli Innocenti counts as first Renaissance building), so it will never fit that well to music. Nevertheless people draw some line somewhere in the mid-15th century also for music (I don't know exactly how and for what specific technical reasons.) 


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ospedale_degli_Innocenti


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Machaut's music is universally categorized as medieval. There are principles of dissonance treatment, voice-leading, and notation at work in his music that distinguish it from music of the Renaissance. The differences are clearly audible and to some like me who really like Machaut, especially his chansons, delicious. Scrumptiously crunchable dissonances combined with sinuous lyricism.


Plenty of scrumptiously crunchable dissonances combined with sinuous lyricism in Ockeghem, at least when it's sung like this

Mort, tu as navre / Miserere - YouTube

and in Josquin when it's sung like this 

Nymphes des bois - YouTube


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> There's also something about the general style I think Berlioz sums up a bit accurately-
> 
> "It is quite possible that the musician who wrote these four-part psalms, in which there is neither melody nor rhythm, and in which the harmony is confined to perfect chords with a few suspensions, may have had some taste and a certain amount of scientific knowledge; but genius - the idea is too absurd!
> There are, moreover, people who sincerely believe that Palestrina deliberately wrote in this way in order that his music might be perfectly adopted to his own pious ideal of the words of the text. They would soon see their mistake if they were to hear his madrigals, in which the most frivolous or gallant words are set to exactly the same music as those of the Bible. For example, he has set the words, _"Alla riva del Tebro, giovainetto vidd' io vago Pastore,"_ etc., to a solemn chorus, the harmony and general effect of which are identical with those of his so-called religious compositions. The truth is that he could not write any other kind of music; and, far from pursuing any celestial ideal, his works contain a quantity of formulas adopted from the contrapuntists who preceded him, and of whom he is usually supposed to have been the inspired antagonist. If proof is wanted, look at his _Missa ad fugam_.
> How, then, do such works as these, clever though they may be as regards to their conquest of contrapuntal difficulties, contribute to the expression of religious feeling? How far are such specimens of the labor of a patient chord-manufacturer indicative of single-minded absorption in the true object of his work? In no way that I can see. The expressive accent of a musical work is not enhanced in any way by its being embodied in a perpetual canon. Beauty and truth of expression gain nothing by the difficulties which the composer may have had to overcome in producing them, any more than his work would be increased in value from the fact that he had been suffering physical pain while he was writing it. If Palestrina had lost his hands, and been forced to write with his feet, that fact would not have enhanced the value of his works or increased their religious merit."


I just can’t believe that you think what Berlioz says there is an accurate summary of the style. Why did you say that? The whole raison d’être of word setting in renaissance madrigals is to express the text in the fullest and most vivid manner.


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

I came across a section in my reading that made me ponder a few additional questions that lie outside the scope of a book about Renaissance Music.

Speaking of Monteverdi: "His career under Duke Vincenzo was not untypical: he was initially attached to the instrumentalist Giacomo Cattaneo, married his daughter, the singer Claudia (such arranged marriages were common between court musicians, not least to keep the wife active in court service), and worked his way up the ranks by service..."

Long story short he worked he say up, was over worked and underpaid, he left and his former employer begged him to come back which he did not. The part that made me wonder was the part about women often marrying other musicians or composers to stay active in court service. The thing I wonder is do women get paid for their service at court? Or is it that a father offers up his daughter to the court, and the father gets paid and then when she marries her husband keeps the money? Just what was the situation of women being employed in court settings compared to that of men? Did they get paid but not as much? (0.71 parts to the Louis d'Or? ) These questions are more general history questions than they are about music history so I understand why the book didn't go into further detail about this but it sure made me wonder. So if anybody knows anything about how this worked back then, I'd love to hear about it.


----------



## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Woman employed as singers at Italian courts, such as Claudia Cattaneo and the soprano Vittoria Archilei (1550-c. 1620) who worked for the Medici in Florence, were typically called "ladies-in-waiting" rather than "musicians". They were well remunerated, but treated differently from male singers (no surprise there) in that they were not granted properties and so did not set up independent households.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Dedalus said:


> I came across a section in my reading that made me ponder a few additional questions that lie outside the scope of a book about Renaissance Music.
> 
> Speaking of Monteverdi: "His career under Duke Vincenzo was not untypical: he was initially attached to the instrumentalist Giacomo Cattaneo, married his daughter, the singer Claudia (such arranged marriages were common between court musicians, not least to keep the wife active in court service), and worked his way up the ranks by service..."
> 
> Long story short he worked he say up, was over worked and underpaid, he left and his former employer begged him to come back which he did not. The part that made me wonder was the part about women often marrying other musicians or composers to stay active in court service. The thing I wonder is do women get paid for their service at court? Or is it that a father offers up his daughter to the court, and the father gets paid and then when she marries her husband keeps the money? Just what was the situation of women being employed in court settings compared to that of men? Did they get paid but not as much? (0.71 parts to the Louis d'Or? ) These questions are more general history questions than they are about music history so I understand why the book didn't go into further detail about this but it sure made me wonder. So if anybody knows anything about how this worked back then, I'd love to hear about it.


There is a group of singers who are committed to exploring women in 17th and 16th century music, called Dangerous Graces. The booklets of their CDs contain some good essays if I remember right - I haven’t kept the booklets.

It may also worth looking at the recording which Per Sonat made called Invisible Voices - though the music there is earlier.


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> Plenty of scrumptiously crunchable dissonances combined with sinuous lyricism in Ockeghem, at least when it's sung like this
> 
> Mort, tu as navre / Miserere - YouTube
> 
> ...


Bah! That stuff's squishy oatmeal compared to Machaut. 

Crunchier fare can be heard on most of the three and four part chansons and especially the last (isorhythmic) motet heard here: I picked all vocal performance because the homogeneous texture brings out the dissonance:


----------



## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

IMHO Renaissance music and Modern Music between 1900-1950 are the top periods in the history of CM.
You will find great Renaissance composers in Chilham"s Journey through Classical Musical and also in my thread Spanish Music through the Ages. Together these two threads cover a lot of ground


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Bah! That stuff's squishy oatmeal compared to Machaut.
> 
> Crunchier fare can be heard on most of the three and four part chansons and especially the last (isorhythmic) motet heard here: I picked all vocal performance because the homogeneous texture brings out the dissonance:



I’d be interested to know what you think of the harmonies on this excellent recording, which you should find streaming 









Ons Is Een Kijnt Geboren by Aventure


All songs on this recording come from the Koning Manuscript, which is presently kept in the Royal Library of Brussels (ms II 270). It is a two-part manuscript, the songbook...




www.challengerecords.com





It says the manuscript is from around the end of the 15th century/ start of the 16th, the music sounds earlier to me - maybe “Renaissance style” only took root gradually in Europe, some places lagged behind. The melodies may be ancient but the harmonies less so apparently. But see what you think.

The ensemble, by the way, Aventure, are exactly the sort of group which makes me interested in early music - scholar musicians researching unknown repertoire, performing with great “authenticity of the heart.” They have one just one other recording as far as I know, also outstanding.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Bah! That stuff's squishy oatmeal compared to Machaut.
> 
> Crunchier fare can be heard on most of the three and four part chansons and especially the last (isorhythmic) motet heard here: I picked all vocal performance because the homogeneous texture brings out the dissonance:


They take _inviolata genitrix_ so fast I can hardly smell the roses. Try this

Inviolata genitrix M23 - song and lyrics by Guillaume de Machaut, The Hilliard Ensemble | Spotify


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> I’d be interested to know what you think of the harmonies on this excellent recording, which you should find streaming
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'll see if I can hear this later (I haven't used streaming services.) Note, however, that the polyphonic songs in the manuscript were _compiled_ around 1500. From this information alone one can only conclude that they were composed at an indeterminate or undetermined earlier date. That date could conceivably be substantially earlier.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> I'll see if I can hear this later (I haven't used streaming services.) Note, however, that the polyphonic songs in the manuscript were _compiled_ around 1500. From this information alone one can only conclude that they were composed at an indeterminate or undetermined earlier date. That date could conceivably be substantially earlier.



The harmony through polyphony may be later than the melodies, as it were. Anyway maybe some academic type (hint hint) can find out more.

Groups like Aventure are a big part of the reason I love early music -- scholar/musicians exploring hidden byways.

That being said, on revisiting the CD I’m not sure that the harmonic language is quite as unusual as my first impression. 

I don't know if anything's known about how "renaissance style" spread around Europe. There was, as far as I know, no powerful force promoting it (no renaissance Louis XIV imposing his taste) so there was, no doubt, pockets of resistance etc.


----------



## justekaia (Jan 2, 2022)

I do not think there really exists "Renaissance Music". There is music that was composed during a period that was considered "Renaissance" for aesthetic, historical and philosophical reasons. I agree with Mandryka that Palestrina is a very divisive composer. As to de Machaut he clearly belongs to the medieval period. That being said there were extraordinary composers during that period and it is one of my favourites in the history of music. The Flemish and the Spanish are dominant IMHO. De Morales and De Victoria are among my all-time favourite composers. My compatriots De Lassus and Desprez are also great masters. And lets us not forget the English William Byrd and Thomas Tallis.
The Italian Gesualdo is a great exponent of the genre and his dissonant music shows a link with today's contemporary music.
Monteverdi and Gabrieli are late Renaissance and more a link between Renaissance and Baroque.


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> *I don't know if anything's known about how "renaissance style" spread around Europe. There was, as far as I know, no powerful force promoting it (no renaissance Louis XIV imposing his taste) so there was, no doubt, pockets of resistance etc.*


Lots is known about it. The Church is the primary actor and source of information. The constant flux of composers from Flanders into and out of the Papal choir and numerous other well-paid positions in the cathedrals of major cities is documented in employment and payment records, which are combed over by musicologists and correlated with other data from publishers and historians. Similar information is gleaned from the secular courts as well. Sometimes the dissemination of particular works can be informed by the study of manuscripts and published music by tracking anomalies like mistakes from one to another. The Church's role goes back to the early Medieval and the regularization of the liturgy, when representatives of the church went from one institution (monasteries, cathedrals, etc.) to another transcribing chant performances and copying manuscripts of official repertoire, which is how everyone ended up with the same cantus firmi and texts.


----------



## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Vincenzo Borghetti, an historian of Renaissance music, has written an interesting paper in which he traces the support and spread of ‘new’ music to the general ideological role of music in this period and the aspiration to power of princely courts.

_"From the papal court to France, from Burgundy to the Italian states, the organization of court music through the creation of chapels responded to the need to construct and to exhibit one’s princely status by investing an inherited practice with strong identitary values. Such splendid institutional display of music was in many cases inversely proportional to the legitimacy of one’s claims to royal rank, and to the political or economic fortune of a dynasty or family. The institutionalization of court chapels over the course of the fifteenth century responded to a general re-thinking of the role of music at court, which, far from being due to the artistic inclinations of individual “enlightened” patrons, participated in the transformation of the court and, specifically, the rationalization of ritual practices between the late middle ages and the modern era. Over the course of only a few decades, the establishment of a chapel able to perform polyphonic music became one of the indispensable requisites for the very exercise of princely power."_

Music and the representation of princely power in the fifteenth and sixteenth century


----------



## Yabetz (Sep 6, 2021)

I'd say there are probably more listening to and discussing Renaissance music than are listening to and discussing ~95% of the composers on this list.


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

Yabetz said:


> I'd say there are probably more listening to and discussing Renaissance music than are listening to and discussing ~95% of the composers on this list.


I mean that's obviously not fair. Nice "Gotcha" though. If we're going to be fair we better use a similar litmus test.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Renaissance_composers



I'd be willing to bet that the percentages of people who listen and talk about the composers on these lists is not favorable to your conclusion.


----------



## Yabetz (Sep 6, 2021)

Dedalus said:


> I mean that's obviously not fair. Nice "Gotcha" though. If we're going to be fair we better use a similar litmus test.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


It wasn't intended to be a "gotcha". The fact is I think that with the rise and dominance of HIP there's more interest right now in medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and modern music than in Romantic.


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

Yabetz said:


> It wasn't intended to be a "gotcha". The fact is I think that with the rise and dominance of HIP there's more interest right now in medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and modern music than in Romantic.


Err... Citation needed? Because there is no way that the Romantic era is the least popular of all the other eras. You're saying that any one of those is more popular than the Romantic era? Or are you saying all of them COMBINED is more popular? The former is ridiculous and the latter is trivial.


----------



## Yabetz (Sep 6, 2021)

Dedalus said:


> Err... Citation needed? Because there is no way that the Romantic era is the least popular of all the other eras. You're saying that any one of those is more popular than the Romantic era? Or are you saying all of them COMBINED is more popular? The former is ridiculous and the latter is trivial.


Your thesis seems to be fairly anecdotal itself. And what does it matter anyway? If you enjoy it, enjoy it.


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

Yabetz said:


> Your thesis seems to be fairly anecdotal itself. And what does it matter anyway? If you enjoy it, enjoy it.


Hmm. Tu quoque, nice. I should say now that you were the one who made the original claim and so it's you who has the burden of proof. And I'm also not sure what you were even trying to accomplish with the claim. But yeah, you're right, fair enough, I'll just enjoy the music I enjoy.


----------



## Artran (Sep 16, 2016)

Renaissance music is dope. After listening to hundreds of hours of renaissance polyphony I found most of the choral homophonic music after baroque a little bland.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Artran said:


> Renaissance music is dope. After listening to hundreds of hours of renaissance polyphony I found most of the choral homophonic music after baroque a little bland.


Howabout this Ave Regina


----------



## Artran (Sep 16, 2016)

hammeredklavier said:


> Howabout this Ave Regina


Oh, that's quite a surprise. I've listened to very little by M. Haydn, but this is really beautiful.

Do you have any tips for the 20th/21st century?


----------



## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

Artran said:


> Do you have any tips for the 20th/21st century?


Plenty indeed, just search the forum for keywords that put you in the direction of finding recommendations about modern and contemporary composers. If you're interested in polyphony you should listen to Ligeti


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Artran said:


> Oh, that's quite a surprise. I've listened to very little by M. Haydn, but this is really beautiful.
> 
> Do you have any tips for the 20th/21st century?


What about these?


John Zorn-Godard on Vimeo

Bernhard Lang - Monadologie XXXIV ... loops for Ludvik (for piano and orchestra) (2018) - YouTube

Michael Finnissy, 7 Sacred Motets, No. 5. Ave regina coelorum - YouTube
Unknown Ground - YouTube


Sakura-Variationen - YouTube

Laurence Crane 'Sparling' - YouTube


Third Practice: 12 Madrigali, no. 10 "Lentissimo" by Salvatore Sciarrino - YouTube


----------

