The Renaissance (1450 1600) The Baroque (1600 1750) The Classical (1750 1810) The Romantic(1810 1910)

910) The Twentieth century

Lesson 1 What came before Baroque To develop an understanding of the development of early music and its influence on the music that followed.

What do we know already?

Religious

Renaissance Music

Secular

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dont know a great deal about musicmaking in the early part of this period, because only church music was important enough to be written down, and only a tiny bit of that has survived. the early part of the medieval period, church music comprised just one melody line, called plainchant. This was Monphonic in texture. Create a diagram to show monophonic music.

In

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slowly, the idea of combining two or more lines together began to be used in the big churches. This was the start of polyphony but was called an organum. was another popular kind of religious music called a motet, in which each of the vocal lines could have its own words so you could have three texts going at once, sometimes in different languages! This was true Polyphony - create a diagram to show polyphony.

There

From the beginning of the 12th century non-church, secular music started to be written down. It was music made in royal and noble households. Like early church music, this was at first made out of just one melodic line, sometimes with an instrumental drone. Much of this music was based on dance forms and was homophonic in texture the same rhythm! - Create a diagram to show this texture. Many songs were about courtly love a kind of idealised relationship in which the lady is always out of reach, and the man devotes his life to trying to please her. Theme and Variations were very popular and these were usually written for the lute or keyboard (virginal).

The Renaissance started in Italy, but soon spread to the rest of Europe. It was a period in which modern trade and banking were taking off. This new self-confidence led people to create a new sort of art, less governed by the Church and medieval ways of thinking. Artists found a model for this new creativity in the sculpture, philosophy and literature of the Greeks. This is why the period is called the Renaissance: the word means rebirth, and it seemed that the glories of classical Greece were being reborn.

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composers shared in this excitement. But there was a basic difference between the visual art and the music. The paintings of the time are full of memories of ancient Greece. But theres nothing Greek about renaissance music there couldnt be, because no one knew what Ancient Greek music sounded like! was the most important composer of church music. Also Thomas Tallis and William Byrd.

Palestrina

Title

Description tempo, Type of music texture, structure, (religious or timbres, rhythm. Secular)

Title

Description tempo, texture, structure, timbres, rhythm.

Type of music (religious or Secular)

Title

Description tempo, texture, structure, timbres, rhythm.

Type of music (religious or Secular)

There are two main types of Renaissance music: church music, or sacred music, and non-church or secular music. (There was folk music too, but that was for common people, so no one wrote it down.) To hear whats special about renaissance music, listen first to this piece of medieval church music, written around 1360 by the French composer Machaut. Its very grand but to our modern ears the harmony is very strange. This is because the religious composers of the time didnt think in our major and minor scales they thought in scales called modes. Now listen to this piece of church music by the Italian composer Palestrina, written two hundred years later. It still sounds very old, but its somehow more normal. This is because music was moving towards the major and minor scales we use today. Also, the rhythms are much smoother.

IF YOU HAD to choose one art form that sums up the baroque era, it would be opera. Look at the image above of the interior of a baroque palace. Now listen to this overture (the introductory bit of music that starts an opera), composed by the French Baroque composer Rameau. Notice what they have in common. They both express a grand, pompous feeling. Theyre meant to impress you. In the baroque era, society was changing. The Church and the aristocrats were being challenged by the new middle class, so they had to assert their authority by creating grand spectacles. This is why baroque church music often sounds just as grand as baroque opera!

Heres a very famous example of baroque church music, composed by the English composer Handel. But baroque music isnt all grand. It can express feelings too, much more strongly than renaissance music. Lets compare the two. This first example is a secular song for a group of voices by Monteverdi. (Secular means not connected to the church). Although Monteverdi is called a baroque composer, these little songs, which he wrote in about 1585 when he was a young man, are basically in a renaissance style. It's pretty, but not very emotional.

The Renaissance (1450 1600) The Baroque (1600 1750) The Classical (1750 1810) The Romantic(1810 1910) The Twentieth century

Lesson 1 What came before Baroque? We should have an understanding of the development of music before baroque.