Renaissance Period (1450-1600)
characteristics of Renaissance Music
The beginning of the musical Renaissance is a matter
of debate. Some historians place it at about 1400 with the generation
of Gilles Binchois, also known as Gilles de Binche or Gilles de Bins (c.1400-1460) and Guillaume Dufay (c.1398-1474).
Others set the beginning with the rise of imitative counterpoint at
about 1450, while still others place it around 1500 when humanism created
a strong link between music and poetry. It is, nonetheless, commonly
accepted that the flourishing of secular music associated with the
Renaissance period occurred in the early 15th century, mainly in the
Court of Burgundy. Some of the salient characteristics of the period—fascination
with classical antiquity, erosion of the authority of the church, burgeoning
humanism, emergence of affluent urban centers, and the creation of
important universities—were manifest in the northwestern area
of present-day France.
Guillaume Dufay and Binchois
During the Renaissance, the
polyphonic experiments of the Middle Ages reached fruition.
During no other time in history has polyphonic music been produced more abundantly and beautifully.
For several reasons, the Renaissance is considered
the Golden Age of
Choral Music. First, more choral music—mainly for small ensembles—was written in this period than at any other time in music history. Most of these compositions were performed a cappella, meaning without accompaniment. Second, all
of the important forms of the age (motet,
anthem, chanson, and madrigal) were choral music forms. Third, across Europe, instruments were still in the process of becoming standardized. It would take another 150 years for the modern orchestra to start taking shape.
Gregorian chant was still used as the basis of many polyphonic church compositions. The chant evolved into the tenor part. During the Renaissance, composers of sacred music
continued the practice of keeping the original chant as the basis for
the main melody; they called this chant the cantus firmus. The cantus firmus did not necessarily have to
occupy the tenor part, although that was still the most common place
||Polyphonic church composition
Although Renaissance composers, particularly sacred
music composers, continued to use church modes, they slowly started
adopting modes that are equivalent to our present major and minor scales. Probably the most important development in Renaissance
music, due in part to the work of Dunstable and other English composers,
was giving harmony a much more important role within the composition.
||Modes equivalent to present major
||Modes equivalent to present minor
of Renaissance Music
Below are some of the basic characteristics
of the music.
- Mostly polyphonic, with the cantus firmus (chant
melody) in the lowest voice.
- All sorts of imitation between the voices, some of it
very complicated, is an important to organizing element.
- Composers often use pre-existing music and often include
the entire piece within a larger composition.
- Compositions have a number of sections. Often, each
section is the setting of only one line of a text, with rarely any
repetition of music from one section to another.
- Repetition and contrast are used in dance forms.
- Melody is the most important factor in Renaissance
music. Harmony and/or rhythm cannot be easily separated from the melody.
- Melodies, even those for instruments, are very vocal
in style. The range is rarely more than one octave.
- Rhythm is free from strict meters, and the rhythmic
phrases are generally long and overlap between the voices.
- Rhythms are often very complicated.
- Harmony is a result of the various lines sounding
together, but not as a purposeful chord.
- Texture is mostly polyphonic, until the 16th century,
when some sections are homophonic for contrast and variety.
- For much of the Renaissance, the human voice was the
chosen timbre. Instruments may double the voices in both sacred and
- Instruments started to be used without voices in the
16th century, particularly the organ and harpsichord.
- Toward the end of the 16th century, ensembles of string
or wind instruments were popular with composers and audiences.
- The lute was the most popular stringed instrument. The vihuela—considered by many to be the precursor of the modern classical guitar—evolved in the mid 1400s in Spain.
||Tiento I by Luys Milan (1500-1560)