# Why don't you like pre-18th century music?



## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

With a few threads active now about the popularity of modern music and how to get to like it, I think it might be enlightening to turn the spotlight on older music.
Whatever the debate about how popular modern music is (or should be), I don't think anyone would argue that the music written between roughly 1700 and 1900 (ie, Romantic, Classical, and late Baroque) is more popular than the music written before 1700. In the arguments about modern music, various claims get made about 18th/19th century music vs 20th/21st century music, and I'm curious whether similar claims can be applied if we bring pre-18th century music into the discussion.

So this is a question aimed at those whose tastes don't really extend any further back than Vivaldi and Bach: what is it about early Baroque, Renaissance, and Medieval music that doesn't appeal to you? And if you also don't (generally) like modern music, are your reasons similar?


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I love pre-18th century music. I started a thread on some neglected eras in music or something before. I like Renaissance generally more than Baroque and Romanticism, mainly just for the sonority and harmonies


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## Johnnie Burgess (Aug 30, 2015)

Nereffid said:


> With a few threads active now about the popularity of modern music and how to get to like it, I think it might be enlightening to turn the spotlight on older music.
> Whatever the debate about how popular modern music is (or should be), I don't think anyone would argue that the music written between roughly 1700 and 1900 (ie, Romantic, Classical, and late Baroque) is more popular than the music written before 1700. In the arguments about modern music, various claims get made about 18th/19th century music vs 20th/21st century music, and I'm curious whether similar claims can be applied if we bring pre-18th century music into the discussion.
> 
> So this is a question aimed at those whose tastes don't really extend any further back than Vivaldi and Bach: what is it about early Baroque, Renaissance, and Medieval music that doesn't appeal to you? And if you also don't (generally) like modern music, are your reasons similar?


The music before Vivaldi and Bach is harder to listen to because it is harder to find.


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

Good question! I am someone who finds it very hard to appreciate music even before Mozart. Actually, originally I even found Mozart very hard to appreciate. I guess appreciating older music is for me as hard as appreciating modern music for a lot of other people. Why do I find old music hard to like? It's hard to say. My first response is simply that the music is so old... But I can appreciate the works of Plato and Aristotle, so in other areas I don't have problems appreciating old and even ancient age. It feels like music has become music for me only since the 19th century: in previous times music was for the aristocracy or church and I don't belong to those groups. At this moment I can't come up with a better answer...


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Weird. I came back into Classical Music via folk. The link was early music with people like David Munrow moving between Classical and folk. So I've stayed with early music - mainly Renaissance and onwards and eventually reached the Baroque. We enjoy the Scots Baroque which is also heavily folk influenced.

I think it's a matter of taste. You get folk groups who start out in one style and get bored and try something new. If you like the old stuff, you often don't like the new. Somebody coming to it fresh may prefer the old style and dislike the new. Classical Music is exactly the same. Some people are always looking for the next big idea while others are happy with what they like.


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## josquindesprez (Aug 20, 2017)

I was about to scoff at Johnnie Burgess's reply, since I've been able to track down a lot of renaissance and early baroque music without much trouble, and this is the era I most enjoy listening to. But at the same time I suspect (and could be very wrong) that most people think orchestra when they think classical music, so they go to hear the symphony orchestra, which isn't going to put on a Palestrina mass. At least where I live, there's no pre-Bach to be heard performed live anywhere.

Why don't other people like pre-18th century music? Not sure, but maybe it's similar to the complaints people sometimes make about Classical-era music around here, that "it all sounds the same," there doesn't seem to be much variation, or development, or whatever else. I mean, they're all very, very wrong, and should feel very, very bad to feel that way, but that's my sense.

When I joined the site, I found this nifty list of the best pre-1700 works and it's not a bad list (though missing a few highlights), so clearly the members here have a decent sense about what is worth hearing. But deprofundis seems to be the only one who posts a whole lot on the era. I'd personally love to hear from people who know Renaissance and early Baroque music well and could talk about the theoretical (musical) foundation of those works, something readable for the listener with a decent musical background.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Recordings are easily available and have been since the 1960s - not least because early music is cheap to record (you don't need an orchestra, the musicians come with their own instruments.) It's hard to imagine anyone saying it all sounds the same, for one thing we're talking about a period which lasts 600 years!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I think the issue is that early music isn't glamorous. A lot of listeners like the comfort of the star system and lavish advertising, which ain't there for Medieval or Renaissance really.
.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I love the sheer sound of a great deal of Renaissance music, especially choral, and I will listen until I tire of the sound. How quickly I tire tends to be a matter of formal structure: in general, I prefer music with a clear sense of forward motion, of progression toward a goal, and an overall structure that's highly articulated in pursuit of that. Renaissance music, in works of any size, is apt to become amorphous, less goal-driven, less governed by long-term structural thinking than Baroque, Classical and Romantic music. Often it relies on stock formal devices such as imitation and standardized cadences, which occur over and over and become monotonous for me unless there's plenty of contrast in rhythm and texture from section to section.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I Renaissance music, in works of any size, is apt to become amorphous . . . less governed by long-term structural thinking than Baroque,


I wonder if this is true, I don't feel able to comment. Is a mass by Josquin, the Gaudiamus or the Pange Lingue say, less structured than a mass by Bach? It's not obvious to me, but I may be being stupid,


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Taggart said:


> Weird. I came back into Classical Music via folk. The link was early music with people like David Munrow moving between Classical and folk. So I've stayed with early music - mainly Renaissance and onwards and eventually reached the Baroque. We enjoy the Scots Baroque which is also heavily folk influenced.
> 
> I think it's a matter of taste. You get folk groups who start out in one style and get bored and try something new. If you like the old stuff, you often don't like the new. Somebody coming to it fresh may prefer the old style and dislike the new. Classical Music is exactly the same. Some people are always looking for the next big idea while others are happy with what they like.


An interesting topic. I was listening to Gesualdo, Lassus and Richard Thompson's "1000 Years of Popular Music" this weekend.

David Munrow's "Art of Courtly Love" and "Art of the Netherlands" came out while I was in college, and those albums developed a following on my campus. That's where my enjoyment of the sound - similar to what Woodduck describes - began. Of course nobody in 1327 or 1587 would have called that music classical. It was religious or secular/popular. And as Taggart says, in many ways the secular /popular music is as close to folk music as it is to Bach and Mozart. Take someone like Dowland as an extreme case.

I think Woodduck's comments have merit, although I am not so negative. There is an absence of harmonic progression. Instead we are asked to appreciate polyphony (at least by the time of the Renaissance - I don't turn to medieval music very often) without the harmoic grounding that Bach offers. We also must adjust to modal scales. While these may not be as foreign to our ears as twelve tone, they differ in profound ways from most of the music we hear. I know I have my limits. I enjoyed the Lassus, but struggled with the Gesualdo.

I'm teetering on the edge of my knowledge with the above, so please excuse any generalizations.


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

All you have to do is add a beat!!!!


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## josquindesprez (Aug 20, 2017)

Question coming from ignorance here, but in literature we sometimes talk about things in terms of parataxis or hypotaxis. Do these concepts exist in discussions of music theory? And would it be fair to consider Renaissance music more paratactic, while Romantic music would be more hypotactic? And possibly more contemporary music veers toward parataxis once again?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I love early music through to baroque, so can only imagine why someone wouldn't. But I wonder if it has something to do with the world-view having shifted because of the romantic movement, the effects of which are still being felt. 

Medieval music has some nice love songs but its 'significant' music is religious,depends on traditions and allusions, and may not be understood. 
Baroque music seems to be exploring the art of music as much as anything - the emotion is there but it's 'ordered', whereas nineteenth century music seems more personal and sensuous and shows more individual differences and is therefore (possibly) easier to relate to. 

I know little, and am probably grossly oversimplifying. Still, I always found I had to work hard to get students to appreciate Milton or even Pope but they usually took to Keats or Wilfred Owen.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> Renaissance music, in works of any size, is apt to become amorphous, less goal-driven, less governed by long-term structural thinking than Baroque, Classical and Romantic music. Often it relies on stock formal devices such as imitation and standardized cadences, which occur over and over and become monotonous for me unless there's plenty of contrast in rhythm and texture from section to section.


Okay, let's take advantage of this thread, and those knowledgeable about this music can point us towards the more interesting stuff. I like to bounce around to different eras in my listening, but I don't want to waste time with the mundane stuff. I'll take all of the innovative vocal, organ, and keyboard music I can find time to listen to. I don't listen to all those Vivaldi concerti, so I've time for earlier music.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> I wonder if this is true, I don't feel able to comment. Is a mass by Josquin, the Gaudiamus or the Pange Lingue say, less structured than a mass by Bach? It's not obvious to me, but I may be being stupid,


It's _differently_ structured, with a different expressive purpose: not so much moving toward something as always already there (like God, presumably). But it's textural structure - polyphony - may be intricate and highly inventive, as in Josquin. Bach himself harks back to this older concept of "pure" counterpoint in _Art of the Fugue,_ but his fugues may also be more modern in generating cumulative excitement toward a climactic stretto, as in his "St. Anne" Prelude and Fugue in Eb for organ. This winding up of tension for a triumphant payoff was an innovation of Baroque music. Classical sonata form took musical narrativity a step further, climaxing, probably, in Beethoven; Romanticism variously retained the principle of goal-directedness, sometimes strictly (Brahms), sometimes more casually, loosening it into freer structures dictated by dramatic (Wagner) or literary (Berlioz, Schumann) ideas.


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## 89Koechel (Nov 25, 2017)

Wow, good question. I like Gesualdo (in a way), and those Gregorian Chants ... Well, maybe we expect MORE from music from a certain period, than it can deliver, so to speak.


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

In my opinion it's a more a matter of history. Up until the late Renaissance composers didn't have a lot of artistic freedom. Using a tritone could get you burned as a heretic. The majority of music that has survived from that time is sacred, which is beautiful but operated within a strict set of rules. Music was supposed to serve and clarify the texts it was set to, not be pleasing to the ear. 
When comparing this with the general distaste for modern classical music, the same basic principle is there- much of it is not intended to be pleasing to the ear in a traditional sense. The difference is, modern music places emphasis on beauty of structure, which makes it cool to analyze if you know what you're doing, but most people don't, and judge it solely on what it sounds like.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Gordontrek said:


> modern music places emphasis on beauty of structure, which makes it cool to analyze if you know what you're doing, but most people don't, and judge it solely on what it sounds like.


And they should. Music is for listening. Fortunately for some, we like the sound of it.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> This winding up of tension for a triumphant payoff was an innovation of Baroque music.


I can see why you say this. There are I think a few examples of 16th century music based on imitative counterpoint which have powerful end climaxes, it seems more common in the 17th. It's late here now, I'll think about it tomorrow some more.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Gordontrek said:


> . Music was supposed to serve and clarify the texts it was set to, not be pleasing to the ear.


I've never come across this idea before.


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> I've never come across this idea before.


The Medieval church was suspicious of music because it is so powerful. They didn't want members to be "seduced" by it. I think I misspoke a little- they appreciated the beauty of music, but were careful about using it. Basically, it was supposed to serve God and not man.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

“what is it about early Baroque, Renaissance, and Medieval music that doesn't appeal to you?” 

While I have heard more Baroque than Renaissance and Medieval music and greatly marveled at its inspiration, polyphony and purity, I sometimes find it too dominated by the Church and its dominance in just about everything culturally... I’m reminded of it always lurking in the background, always watching, the religious conflicts of that age, the Church’s permissions and denials that often controlled people’s lives, the burnings of the accused heretics, the problem that some people had by going outside of that control or being a little bit too independent—the overall power it had—and I’m sometimes reminded of it on a deeply subconscious level when hearing the music, including the religious persecution that was going on on both sides during that period, going back to Luther’s time and even before. 

But there were still some emancipated souls during that period, without mentioning names, who were still able to function within that religiously dominated society, and I’ve enjoyed the music because of the peace that is so often within it. I’m generally attracted more to the Baroque because a great deal of it is secular. It’s also that I feel there’s a spiritual reality beyond dogma that is even deeper than the rampant sectarianism that can be found within any religious organization. Religious dogma too often divides humanity, while deeply felt spiritual inclinations seek to unite humanity by recognizing that the same light exists within everyone, and that it’s possible for each person to recognize that in someone else across all cultures and beliefs. In the meantime, I’m very conscious of what unconscious influences I allow into my consciousness and I like to guard the boundary at the door. If there is any truth to reincarnation, I feel that I may have been there.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I love early baroque music and find much to enjoy in earlier music as well. It's enjoyable stuff, and I don't give any thought to the Catholic Church, dogma, etc. when I'm listening.


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

I generally like the Baroque writing but not the period instruments. I have the opposite problem with a lot of modern music. The instrumentation and orchestration are great, but the melody is not apparent or is grating sometimes.


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## Botschaft (Aug 4, 2017)

For me it is not so much a matter of disliking pre-18th century as it is of preferring post-17th century music. I can like a lot of early music.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> It's _differently_ structured, with a different expressive purpose: not so much moving toward something as always already there (like God, presumably). But it's textural structure - polyphony - may be intricate and highly inventive, as in Josquin. Bach himself harks back to this older concept of "pure" counterpoint in _Art of the Fugue,_ but his fugues may also be more modern in generating cumulative excitement toward a climactic stretto, as in his "St. Anne" Prelude and Fugue in Eb for organ. This winding up of tension for a triumphant payoff was an innovation of Baroque music. Classical sonata form took musical narrativity a step further, climaxing, probably, in Beethoven; Romanticism variously retained the principle of goal-directedness, sometimes strictly (Brahms), sometimes more casually, loosening it into freer structures dictated by dramatic (Wagner) or literary (Berlioz, Schumann) ideas.


Woodduck, you have put into words my feelings much more eloquently then I could:tiphat:


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## steph01 (Dec 21, 2016)

I'm not sure anyone would dislike Henry Purcell in the same way someone might dislike Stravinsky. Henry Purcell's _My Heart is Inditing_ for example would be easily accessible to someone who had previously only heard post-baroque classical music.

Going back before the Restoration there's lots of vocal polyphony, organs and viols etc. But again, I'm not sure many people would say the music of William Byrd of Thomas Tallis is something they really dislike, they just might not like listening to it as much as e.g. classical orchestral works.


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## Taplow (Aug 13, 2017)

I love the music of the renaissance. Not quite as keen on early baroque. I think this has much to do with exposure – I've been exposed to more renaissance than early baroque – but there is also maybe an element of what Woodduck has said, too. I find the progressive aspect of early baroque harder to fathom and so it holds less interest for me. I quickly become bored with seemingly endless Saint-Colombe viol sonatas, for example. Conversely I find the tropes of renaissance harmony and cadence to be uplifting, reassuring, beautiful.

As a child (11-13) I played in a recorder consort. Yes, I know what you're thinking, kids and recorders. But this was different. We played a full range of quality instruments (I played bass, any of the F instruments really), all of us were musically trained and could read scores, and we played the music of Holborne, Dowland, Byrd and the like. Byrd was a master of counterpoint and exhilarating to perform. Not too long after this, in the late 70's, I discovered David Munrow and his wonderful recordings. These got me further hooked on early music, and period performance at time when it was still nascent at best.

So my exposure to and love for early music started when I was young, and this is probably an important point. Most people won't have such exposure, being instead force-fed a diet of Mozart and Beethoven before all else. Meanwhile this love of mine has not waned. Of the 325 composers featured in my CD collection, between 45-50 are pre-baroque (where the composer is known).


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Taplow said:


> I love the music of the renaissance. Not quite as keen on early baroque. I think this has much to do with exposure - I've been exposed to more renaissance than early baroque - but there is also maybe an element of what Woodduck has said, too. I find the progressive aspect of early baroque harder to fathom and so it holds less interest for me. I quickly become bored with seemingly endless Saint-Colombe viol sonatas, for example. Conversely I find the tropes of renaissance harmony and cadence to be uplifting, reassuring, beautiful.
> 
> As a child (11-13) I played in a recorder consort. Yes, I know what you're thinking, kids and recorders. But this was different. We played a full range of quality instruments (I played bass, any of the F instruments really), all of us were musically trained and could read scores, and we played the music of Holborne, Dowland, Byrd and the like. Byrd was a master of counterpoint and exhilarating to perform. Not too long after this, in the late 70's, I discovered David Munrow and his wonderful recordings. These got me further hooked on early music, and period performance at time when it was still nascent at best.
> 
> So my exposure to and love for early music started when I was young, and this is probably an important point. Most people won't have such exposure, being instead force-fed a diet of Mozart and Beethoven before all else. Meanwhile this love of mine has not waned. Of the 325 composers featured in my CD collection, between 45-50 are pre-baroque (where the composer is known).


Just a brief note to say that I think Ste. Colombe' music for two equal Viols is not totally without interest.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> Just a brief note to say that I think Ste. Colombe' music for two equal Viols is not totally without interest.


I can get bored with viol music myself but thanks for posting this - I didn't know about it and am listening to it on YouTube now. 




It's fab!  :tiphat:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> I can get bored with viol music myself but thanks for posting this - I didn't know about it and am listening to it on YouTube now.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes those two together - Savall and Kuijken - is the one that turned me on to the music.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

The Church has always recognised the power of music. St Augustine said - "Singing is for one who loves" and there is the ancient proverb "One who sings well prays twice". However, as @Gordontrek said, it is important that the music does not obscure the sense of the text whether by excessive melisma or polyphony. We have the example of the round:

Life is butter
Life is butter
Melancholy flower
Melancholy flower
Life is butter melon
Life is butter melon
Cauliflower
Cauliflower

where the arrangement of the syllables to notes totally obscures the sense of the words.

@Larkenfield commented that the behaviour of the various churches gets in the way of appreciating the music. The question is is Gesualdo' work any less musical because of his crimes or is Bull's any less elegant because of his libertine behaviour?

You have to appreciate the music on its own merits.

There is quite a lot of secular music available. Some of it - L'homme armé - even survives because of its use in parody masses! Some religious composers used their techniques to develop things like the rota or round _Sumer is icumen in _. We also have dance music with examples of saltarello and estampie going back to the early 13th century.

The Roman de Fauvel following on from the Carmina Burana of the Golliards was influential as we can see form the inclusion of two motets in the Robertsbridge codex. There's also the Chantilly Codex of the late 14th Century. One name that keeps cropping up is of course Jordi Savall who covers the whole range from early medieval to high Baroque.

There's plenty of early music available- just relax and treat it like music and enjoy. :tiphat:


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

As an aside, a quick Google search suggests that this site does not yet have any threads devoted to campanology, which surprises me. Bell ringing is a fascinating topic, imo.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Blancrocher said:


> As an aside, a quick Google search suggests that this site does not yet have any threads devoted to campanology, which surprises me. Bell ringing is a fascinating topic, imo.


So start one! :tiphat:


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

I love pre-1700 music because I get bored of listening to the same thing or the same techniques over and over again. I pretty much can't stand romantic-era music at this point, it sounds so generic.

just thinking of keyboard music alone....Buxtehude, William Byrd, Louis Couperin, Froberger, and don't forget Purcell. They can really be a breath of fresh air.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> I love pre-1700 music because I get bored of listening to the same thing or the same techniques over and over again. I pretty much can't stand romantic-era music at this point, it sounds so generic.
> 
> just thinking of keyboard music alone....Buxtehude, William Byrd, Louis Couperin, Froberger, and don't forget Purcell. They can really be a breath of fresh air.


The techniques of Renaissance are even more more limited, but I can where you're coming from since Romantic music (and Classical period) could be much overplayed on the radio relative to Renaissance for some tastes.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

When I was in Russia (SPB) in 2000 the concert hall was packed out to listen to 5 Englishmen sing 2 hours of madrigals.

my Russian friend dragged me along assuming because I was also English like the singers - I would be certain to enjoy this feast of singing.

wrong!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Phil loves classical said:


> The techniques of Renaissance are even more more limited, .


I'd be surprised if you weren't right, just because of a whighish prejudice, though informally it doesn't feel that you're right when I listen to eg Moro, Lasso (Gesualdo) or, for something more substantial, Josquin's Missa Gaudeamus. Anyway this isn't a matter of opinion, someone will have studied the question I expect.


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## musicrom (Dec 29, 2013)

My biggest problem with pre-1700 music is that I typically don't like the use of voice as an instrument, and most of the music from back then was vocal. In general, I enjoy the instrumental music from back then, but this repertoire is pretty limited.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

musicrom said:


> My biggest problem with pre-1700 music is that I typically don't like the use of voice as an instrument, and most of the music from back then was vocal. In general, I enjoy the instrumental music from back then, but this repertoire is pretty limited.


I wonder if you would enjoy this, I do


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Was relistening to Victoria’s Requiem, and I gotta say it has become one of my favourite work of all time . I wouldn’t mind being castrated, locking myself in a room and listening to it forever.


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