HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL PERIOD

Medieval period consists of liturgical music, songs, and instrumental pieces from about
400 A.D. to 1400. Medieval music was an era of Western music, including liturgical
music (also known as sacred) used for the church, and secular music, non-religious
music. Medieval music includes solely vocal music, such as Gregorian chant and choral
music (music for a group of singers), solely instrumental music, and music that uses
both voices and instruments (typically with the instruments accompanying the voices).
Gregorian chant was sung by monks during Catholic Mass. The Mass is a reenactment
of Christ's Last Supper, intended to provide a spiritual connection between man and
God. Part of this connection was established through music.[1] This era begins with
the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century and ends sometime in the
early fifteenth century. Establishing the end of the medieval era and the beginning of
the Renaissance music era is difficult, since the trends started at different times in
different regions. The date range in this article is the one usually adopted
by musicologists.
During the Medieval period the foundation was laid for the music notation and music
theory practices that would shape Western music into the norms that developed during
the common-practice era, a period of shared music writing practices which
encompassed the Baroque music composers from 16001750, such as J.S.
Bach and Classical music period composers from the 1700s such as W.A.
Mozart and Romantic music era composers from the 1800s such as Wagner. The most
obvious of these is the development of a comprehensive music notational system which
enabled composers to write out their song melodies and instrumental pieces on
parchment or paper. Prior to the development of musical notation, songs and pieces
had to be learned "by ear", from one person who knew a song to another person. This
greatly limited how many people could be taught new music and how wide music could
spread to other regions or countries. The development of music notation made it easier
to disseminate (spread) songs and musical pieces to a larger number of people and to a
wider geographic area. However the theoretical advances, particularly in regard
to rhythm the timing of notes and polyphony using multiple, interweaving melodies at
the same time are equally important to the development of Western music.

COMPOSER OF MEDIEVAL PERIOD

Hildegard von Bingen (1097 1179) German writer, mystic,

composer and polymath. Hildegard wrote many liturgal songs, which
pushed the boundaries of traditional Gergorian Chant. Her greatest
work was Ordo Virtutum (Play of the Virtues) a morality play.
 COMPOSITIONS OF MEDIEVAL PERIOD

Medieval music is music composed during the medieval period in Europe, which lasted
around a thousand years until the 15th century.
Medieval music (particularly liturgical music), I would research musica ficta, organum,
cantus firmus, plainsong chant, antiphonal chant, syllabic chant, neumatic chant,
melismatic chant, Ars Antiqua and Ars Nova, and the Mass. The church was the place
for learning back in the day, so music theory was built up around singing styles in the
Catholic Mass. An introduction with the church modes and the hypomodes would be a
good idea if this is your bag. I cannot say the same for popular music, as most people
couldn't read, nor write during the time, and I am not well acquainted with surviving
examples of Medieval popular music.

CHARACTERISTICS OF MUSIC ( MEDIEVAL PERIOD)

During the earlier medieval period, the liturgical genre, predominantly Gregorian chant
done by monks, was monophonic ("monophonic" means a single melodic line, without a
harmony part or instrumental accompaniment).

History of Renaissance Period

The Renaissance may be describe as an age of Curiosity and individualism, Exploration
and Adventure, The rebirth of human creativity.

-The Renaissance is the time of the Humanism. The intellectual movement called
humanism focused on human life and its accomplishments. The humanists were
captivated by cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. The humanist treated the Virgin
Mary as a beautiful woman.

Many prominent Renaissance composers, who held important posts all over Europe,
came from Flanders.

Due to the lost of power of the church and the new humanistic ideas, musical activity
gradually shifted from the church to the court. Education was considered a status
symbol by aristocrats and the upper middle class. Also, every educated person was
expected to be trained in music.

Musically, the Renaissance period is sometimes called the golden age of a

capella choral music because the music did not need instrumental accompaniment. The
texture of the Renaissance music is chiefly polyphonic. Renaissance composers often
used word painting, a musical representation of specific poetic images.
Certain elements made Renaissance music sounds fuller than medieval music:
-Composers considered the harmonic effect of chords rather than
superimposing one melody above another.
 -Typical choral pieces have four, five, or six voices parts of nearly equal melodic
interest.
-The bass register is used for the first time.
-Renaissance melodies are usually
Composers of Renaissance Period

John Dunstable (1390 1453) English composer of polyphonic

music. Dunstable had a big influence on the development of
music through his creation of chords with triads, which became
known as the Burgundian School: la contenance angloise or the
English countenance e.g Quam pulchra es.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525 1594) Italian

Renaissance composer of sacred music. Palestrina was a
prolific composer of masses, mottets, madrigals and offertories.
An influential work was Missa Papae Marcelli (Pope Marcellus
Mass).

William Byrd (1543 1623) English composer of the

Renaissance. He wrote in many of the forms current in England
at the time, including various types of sacred and secular
polyphony. He helped the development of Anglican church
music, and also secular vocal music with his use of Tudor
consort and keyboard fantasia.

COMPOSITIONS OF RENAISSANCE PERIOD

During the latter part of the 15th century, French rhythmic sophistication, Italian
cantilena, and English harmony finally found common ground in the style of
Renaissance polyphony that, under the aegis of Flemish musicians, dominated Europe
for nearly two centuries. Often referred to as modal because it retained the medieval
system of melodic modes, Flemish polyphony was characterized by a highly developed
sense of structure and textural integration. Although the older cantus firmus technique
was never totally abandoned, Renaissance polyphony is identified above all with
imitative part writing, inspired no doubt by earlier canonic procedures but devoid of their
structural limitations. After a canonic or freely imitational beginning, each of the subunits
of such a polyphonic piece proceeds unfettered by canonic restrictions, yet preserves
the fundamental equality of the melodic lines in accordance with contrapuntal rules
amply discussed by various 15th- and 16th-century theorists and ultimately codified by
the Italian theorist Gioseffo Zarlino. Through the works of Giovanni da Palestrina, the
model composer of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, Renaissance modal counterpoint
has influenced the teaching of musical composition to the present, suggesting the near
perfection with which it conveys some fundamental aspects of the historic European
ideal of composition as the art of lasting musical structures.
Whereas imitative polyphony affected virtually all 16th-century music,
modal counterpoint was paramount in sacred pieces, specifically the motet and mass,
probably because of its close kinship with the traditional modality of liturgical plainchant.
In contrast, the beginnings of functional harmony (chordal relationships governed by
primary and secondary tonal centres) manifestedthemselves first in the polyphonic
French chanson; its Italian counterpart, the madrigal; and related secular types. Under
the influence of less sophisticated music, such as that of the Italian frottola, a popular
vocal genre, these secular polyphonic genres favoured rather simple bass lines
highlighting a limited number of related harmonies. Thus, undisturbed by the theoretical
writings from the pens of church-employed musicians, secular musical practice in the
later Renaissance laid the foundations for the harmonic notions that were to dominate
three centuries of Western art music. The increasing emotionalism of texts taken from
the leading Italian poet of the 16th century, Torquato Tasso, and his immediate
successors acted as a further stimulant, as Italian composers, searching for appropriate
musical symbols, discovered the expressive possibilities of chordal progressions.

THE MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF RENAISSANCE MUSIC

1. Music still based on modes, but gradually more accidentals creep in.
2. Richer texture in four or more parts. Bass part is added below the tenor.
3. Blending rather than contrasting strands in the musical texture.
4. Harmony. Greater concern with the flow and progression of chords.
5. Church music. Some pieces were intended for 'a cappella' performance. Mainly
contrapuntal. Lots of imitation. Some church music was accompanied by
instruments - for example polychoral pieces in antiphonal style (Antiphonal -
Questions and Answers, Stereo Effect).
6. Secular music (none-religious music. Sacred music is to do with the church)
There was lots of vocal pieces and dances, and lots of instrumental pieces
(However a lot of the instrumentals were in a vocal style, but sonic were suited to
instruments. Vocal music was by far the more important.)
7. The characteristic timbres of Renaissance musical instruments - many forming
families.
 HISTORY OF BAROQUE

Baroque music is a heavily ornamented style ofmusic that came out of the
Renaissance. While it is often considered to be part of the era of Classicalmusic, it is
important to note that Baroque predated the Classical period: the Baroque period lasted
from 1600 until 1750, while the Classical period spanned 1750-1820.

COMPOSERS OF BAROQUE PERIOD

Henry Purcell (1659-1695) English composer of the baroque

period. Purcell wrote some early baroque classics such as Te
Deum and Jubilate Deo. He also wrote for theatre and Englands
first opera.

Bach (1685 1750) German composer of the Baroque period.

One of the most prolific composers of all time. Bach brought
Baroque music to its pinnacle of musical maturity. Famous works
of Bach include: Brandenburg Concertos, the Mass in B minor, St
Matthews Passion, St Johns Passion; Bach also wrote organ
pieces and over 300 sacred cantatas.

George Frederick Handel (1685 1759) German born composer

who spent a lot of time in England. He wrote operas and
oratorios. Famous works include Messiah Hallelujah
chorus, Music For The Royal Fireworks, Jephtha, Chaconne
Variations in G Coronation Anthems, Zadok the Priest.

COMPOSITIONS OF BAROQUE PERIOD

Inevitably, the strong desire for heightened expression through harmony led at first to
new, mostly chromatic, chord progressions. Eventually it precipitated the total
abandonment of traditional polyphony about 1600 in the monodic experiments of the
Florentine Camerata, a group of aristocratic connoisseurs seeking to emulate the Greek
drama of antiquity. The accompaniment for these passionate and heroic solo recitations
is based on a simple basso continuo. Only the bass part was written down; it was
played by low, sustaining instruments bowed or blown, while plucked or keyboard
instruments supplied the chords suggested by the bass and melody lines. The small
figures used to indicate the proper harmonies gave the system
the alternative name figured bass. Monody had its historical antecedents in mid-16th-
century solo lute songs and in the plentiful arrangements of polyphonic vocal
compositions for single voices accompanied by plucked instruments and for solo
keyboard instruments. But it was the attempt to resurrect the spirit of antique drama in
the late Renaissance that created the textural revolution that has been equated with the
beginnings of modern music: the monodic style with its polarity of bass and melody lines
and emphasis on chords superseded the equal-voiced polyphonic texture of
Renaissance music. Monteverdi, the undisputed master of the monodic style,
recognized the possibility of two basic approaches to composition: the first, or
polyphonic, practice and the second, or monodic, practice. Thus, with
penetrating analytical insight he formulated the basic stylistic dialectic that has since
governed the course of Western music.
The emergence of an essentially nonpolyphonic style went hand-in-hand with the rise of
a variety of specifically instrumental idioms. Not only did accompanied vocal music offer
instrumentalists various opportunities for improvisation; the basically chordal style
also facilitated the emergence of virtuosity in the modern sense of the term, especially
among keyboard artists. But as the singer and composer Giulio Caccini demonstrated in
the preface to his influential collection Le nuove musiche (The New Music; 1602),
singers, too, put their newly found freedom to good improvisational and ornamentational
use. In short, after two centuries dominated by the highly structured, rationalistic
polyphony of the Renaissance, the performing musician reiterated his creative rights.
Inevitably, under such forceful pressures, the teaching of composition, previously tied to
the laws of modal counterpoint, quickly shifted to the harmonic challenges of the figured
bass.
Because the bass-oriented music of the 17th century relied primarily on chord
progressions as fixed by the bass notes, it was structurally quite open-ended; i.e., the
new technique suited any number of formal patterns. Even so, the incipient rationalism
that was to reach its peak in the 18th century soon led to the consolidation of broadly
accepted structural types. Indeed, the very concept of musical form, as generally
understood from the late 17th century on, was intimately tied to the growing importance
of instrumental music, which, in the absence of a text, had nothing to rely upon save its
own organically developed laws. At least for a while, vocal music, which had been so
largely responsible for the monodic revolution, continued to adhere to the Monteverdian
principle that the words must act as the mistress of harmony. Both melody and
harmony, therefore, reflected often minute affective textual differentiations. And as late
as the early 18th century similar musico-rhetorical considerations led to Affektenlehre,
the theory of musical affects (emotions, feelings), developed primarily in Germany.
Following this theory, German musicians dealt with composition systematically in terms
of a specific but broadly adopted expressive vocabulary of melodic, rhythmic, and
harmonic figures. Meanwhile, the Italians laid the foundations for such lasting categories
of instrumental music as the symphony, the sonata, and the concerto. In each instance
the structural outline was harmonically determined through juxtapositions of principal
key areas acting as focal centres of tonality. As for tempo, the earliest 17th-century solo
sonatas had relied on drastic short-range changes in accordance with a
general predilection for instant sensations. Subsequently, as musical composition fell
in line with the prevailing rationalistic trend, tempo served above all as a means of
differentiation between the various movements, or self-contained sections,
that constituted the large-scale works of the Italian string school and of French and
German instrumental composers as well. Texture, too, was used to provide contrast,
particularly within a given movement, as in the concerto grosso with its alternation
between small and large groups of players (concertino and tutti).
Interrelated with the spectacular rise and amazing vitality of instrumental music was its
unprecedented variety. By the early 18th century, composers drew freely upon
everything from contrapuntal forms like the fugue (an adaptation of the imitative
techniques of the Renaissance motet within the context of functional harmony) to
stylized popular dances, such as those that make up the suites and partitas of J.S.
Bach. The figured bass era took full advantage of the possibilities of variety and contrast
through judicious manipulations of all elements of composition. Whereas accompanied
solo music pitted bass against treble (the latter often split up into two parts, as in the trio
sonata), composers generally liked to juxtapose figured bass and polyphonic textures.
Melodically, the far-flung phrases of Italian bel canto, the florid singing style
characteristic of opera seria (17th- and 18th-century tragic opera), had little in common
with the concise, symmetrically balanced phrases found in music of popular inspiration,
whether in opera buffa (Italian comic opera) or the many types of dances. As for the
latter, their impact on sophisticated 18th-century music is evident not only in many
dance-inspired arias and concerto movements but also in certain polyphonic
compositions. Both the chaconne and passacaglia, related polyphonic types, were
based on dancelike ostinato patterns, often with specific harmonic implications. Perhaps
the most famous example is Bachs Chaconne for solo violin, which concludes
the Partita in D Minor.
Even though the Baroque preoccupation with style worked somewhat to the detriment of
structural definition, certain closed forms did gradually emerge. The da capo aria
distinguished clearly between an initial section (A), a contrasting section (B), and the
repeat (da capo) of the initial section, as a rule with improvised vocal embellishment. In
instrumental music, the French opera overture began with a slow, stately introduction
followed by a fast, often fugal movement, whereas its Italian counterpart had a tripartite
fast-slow-fast scheme. Dance-based suite movements were binary in outline: the first of
the two sections, each separately repeated, moved to the dominant key (a fifth above
the tonic or principal key) or to the relative key (i.e., a minor third above the tonic in the
case of a minor key); the second section, after some modulatory activity (i.e., passing
through several key areas), returned to the central key. Even more decisive in its far-
reaching historical consequences was the structural organization of a number of the
keyboard sonatas of the composer Domenico Scarlatti. These works consisted of
single, essentially binary movements, the first section of which differentiated not only
between two key areas but two contrasting thematic ideas as well.
 THE MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF BAROQUE MUSIC

1. The Basso Continuo (Figured Bass).

2. One mood throughout the entire piece.
3. Important String sections.
4. Modes were replaced by the Major/Minor key system.
5. Many different forms are used (e.g. Binary, Fugue)
6. Many types of music, e.g. The Chorale, Opera, the Dance Suite.
7. Energetic rhythms (Exuberance), long melodies, many ornaments, contrasts
(especially dynamics, but also in timbres).