Middle Ages and Renaissance

1. Middle Ages and Renaissance Worldview,Music

2. Medieval World: 476-1475 • Church is the center of life and thought • Music, sacred and secular, is mostly monophonic (monody). • Terms: reciting tone, melisma, syllabic, plainchant, Divine Office • Listening example: Anonymous, In Paradisum, 9th century • Listening example: Hildegard of Bingen, Columba aspexit, 12th century

3. Medieval Court Music • Secular composers for the voice: • Troubadours, S. France • Trouveres, North France • Minnesingers Germany • Listening Example: Bernard de Ventadorn, La dousavotz, 12th century, troubadour

4. Divine Office • Part of the liturgy • A series of 8 church services, approx. 3 hours apart, in which the Psalms were sung. • Unaccompanied • plainchant

5. The Mass • Kyrie—a sung simple prayer 3-part, or ternary, form • Gloria—a long hymn • Credo—a recitation of beliefs • Sanctus—a shorter hymn • Agnus Dei—a sung simple prayer

6. Organum • The addition of another voice to monophonic plainchant, usually at perfect interval such as the fourth or fifth, in parallel motion. • Organum is an early form of polyphony • Example: Perotin, Alleluia, Diffusaest gratia (p. 58).

7. Late Medieval Polyphony • Listening Ex. Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-1377), Chanson, Dame de qui toute me joie vient, 14th century. • Non-imitative polyphony • Form: a a b (binary); 3 stanzas, same music for first two, new music for third stanza • melismatic

8. Renaissance Music:1475-1600 • Worldview: while the Church is still highly influential, discoveries and new developments in the arts and sciences • Composers use the Mass in new ways, with paraphrase and imitative polyphony • The melodies paraphrased in the Mass could be sacred, from a hymn, or borrowed from secular tunes • homophony

9. Renaissance

10. Renaissance Music, cont. • Listening examples: • Guillaume Dufay (c. 1400-1474), 15th century, Ave Maris Stella; stanzas of plainchant alternate with homophony • JosquinDepres (c. 1450-1521), Kyrie from the Pange Lingua Mass. Early 16th century—early high Renaissance. 3-part form due to the text. This is a parody mass (uses paraphrase of an existing song)

11. High Renaissance, cont. • Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, (1525-1594) • Listening Ex. Gloria from the Pope Marcellus Mass: homophony • Listening ex. Thomas Weelkes, (c. 1575-1623), madrigal, As Vesta Was from LatmosHil Descending: secular, imitative polyphony, word painting