RENAISSANCE INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC

 After 1450, more instrumental music was written down, indicating that music without voices
was important. It also showed that instrumentalists were musically literate.
 New instruments and instrumental forms developed:
o Dance music and instrumental versions of vocal music continued to be composed.
o New forms were composed independently from vocal and dance forms.
o Instrumental music has become as interesting and as challenging as vocal music.
 INSTRUMENTS
o There were books that described instruments are how they’re played:
 Musica getutscht und ausgezogen (Music Explained) – first book published in
1511; by Sebastian Virdung
 Syntagma musicum (Systematic Treatise of Music) – by Michael Praetorius;
included woodcut illustrations of instruments
o Haut and Bas (high and low) – loud and soft instruments
o Consorts – instrumental families with different sizes and covered a wide range
o Wind and Percussion Instruments
 From Middle Ages: recorders, transvers flutes, shawms, cornets, trumpets
 New: sackbut (early form of trombone); crumhorn (a double-reed instrument)
 Diverse and more refined percussive instruments but parts were never written
down.
o String Instruments
 Lute – the most popular household instrument; has 6 courses of strings and a
rounded back
 Vihuela – Spanish relative of the lute; guitar-like with flat back
 Viola de gamba – 6 strings tuned in 4ths with a major 3rd in the middle (G-c-f-a-
d’-g’); has frets and bowed underhand
 Violin – bowed, fretless, tuned in 5ths; violin, viola and cello replaced the viol
family because their tones are brighter
o Keyboard
 Organ – large church organs like today’s (1500); portative organ was still
popular though
 Clavichord – solo instrument for small rooms (soft-sounding); tone is sustained
until player releases keys; player can create vibrato and control volume
 Harpsichord – family of instruments: virginal (England), clavecin (France),
clavicembalo (Italy); louder than clavichord but w/o vibrato or dynamic nuances;
strings are plucked so pitch is not sustained

 TYPES OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC

o Dance music
 Social dance was an important mark of “breeding.”
 Initially, instrumental parts copied vocal materials, but later composers used
improvisational compositions printed in books
 Used lute , keyboard, and other ensembles
 Embellishment of melodic line was a common practice, as well as adding
one or more contrapuntal line to the bass line.
 Later, works for keyboard and lute became “stylized” (not really intended for
actual dancing anymore)
 Each dance has a character based on: meter, tempo, rhythmic pattern, and form
(usually consisted of repeated sections of 4-measure phrases)
  Basse Dance (low dance) – most popular dance between late 15th century and
early 16th c.; a stately couple dance marked by graceful raising and lowering of
the body; had 5 different kinds of steps in various combinations
 Tielman Susato – La morisque (The Moor)
 Dance Pairs – dances were grouped in pairs or threes (ex: slow duple and fast
triple); dances often had the same theme, the second a variation of the first
 Ex: Pavane and Galliard; Passamezzo and Saltarello (Italy)

o Arrangements (or adaptations) of Vocal Music

 Instruments usually doubled or replaced polyphonic vocal compositions
 Adding embellishments to the vocal parts is common
 Odhecaton – Petrucci’s collection of vocal works without text which
suggests instrumental performance
 Common were lute arrangements
 Mille regretz (Josquin’s chanson)was tabulated for the lute (Luys de
Narvaez)
o Settings of existing melodies
 Chanson melodies – played for pleasure as background music for other
activities by amateurs
 Chant settings for organ to alternate with choir
 Organ chorales
 In Nomine settings – a popular cantus firmus theme from John Taverner’s Missa
Gloria tibi trinitas (Taverner transcribed his masses for instruments)
o Variations – a theme with a series of variants
 Variations on dance themes – variations are done on the repeating bassline
(ostinato) Ex: passamezzo
 Romanesca and Ruggiero – standard Italian airs; uses thin melodies over a
standard bass progression
 Guardame las vacas – by Luys de Narvaez; published in the collection Los seys
libros del Delphin (The Six Books of the Dauphin)
o English Virginal music - used the variation technique primarily
 Parthenia – first published book for the virginal which contained music by
William Byrd, John Bull, and Orlando Gibbons; has variations, dances, preludes,
fantasias
 English composers focused more on the melodies unlike their Italian and
Spanish counterparts who worked the bass line
 Pavana Lachrymae – by William Byrd; based on John Dowland’s Flow My Tears
o Abstract Instrumental music – new, purely instrumental genres, where composers and
performers used expressive effects
 Ensemble works were the first body of instrumental music that was
independent of dance and song melodies
 La Martinella – written by Johannes Martini (a contemporary of Isaac and
Desprez)
 Introductory and improvisatory pieces – keyboard and lute players usually
improvised the introduction to a song
 Titles included prelude, fantasia, ricercare
 Toccata – chief improvisatory keyboard genre; from the Italian word toccare
meaning “to touch”
 Claudio Merulo – Toccata IV in the 6th mode
 Ricercare – a succession of themes that used imitation and overlapping;
originally composed for the lute (which possibly originated the name, which
 means “to seek out” the tuning of the instrument) later also for keyboard and
ensemble
 Canzona (It.) – imitative of the French chansons; light, fast-moving, strongly
rhythmic pieces, the typical opening of which is a rhythmic figure of half notes
followed by two quarter notes

 Music in Venice
o Venice was an independent city–state run by several important families, with an elected
leader called doge (duke)
o One of the chief ports of Europe
o Controlled territories in surrounding areas
o Patronage of the arts
 Its government spent lavishly on public music and arts, through which the city
maintained the illusion of greatness despite its wars and misfortunes.
o Church of St. Mark
 Private chapel of the doge where great civic and religious ceremonies were
held.
 The position of choirmaster was the most coveted musical position in Italy
(included Willaert, Rore, Zarlino in the 16th c., and Monteverdi in the 17th c)
 Had a permanent ensemble (1568) consisting of sackbuts and cornets, violins
and bassoons.
 Giovanni Gabrieli – worked at St. Mark’s from 1585 until his death
 Composed the earliest collections for large instrumental ensembles
 Composed for multiple choirs
 Works included about 100 motets, over 30 madrigals, and almost 80
instrumental works
 Polychoral motets – written for cori spezzati (divided choirs), 2 choirs
on lofts on each side of the altar and another on the ground
 Ensemble canzonas – instrumental version of cori spezzati
(Ex: Gabrieli’s Sacrae Symphoniae, 1597 – two groups of four
instruments, with organ accompaniment)
 Sonatas – means “to sound” or “sounded”
o Closely related to the canzona; has several sections based on
different subjects or variation of a subject
o Could be used fo the Mass, like the Canzona
o Gabrieli’s Sonata pian’eforte from Sacrae Symphoniae (among
the first instrumental works that designated specific instruments
and indicated dynamics)

 Instrumental music gains independence

o In the 16th c., instrumental music began to be written for its own sake, and not related
to vocal or dance music.
o Abstract forms developed in the 16thc. continued to be used until the 19th c.
o It was not until the late 19th c. when scholars revived 16th c. music.