Following the Medieval Era’s end around 1400, the Renaissance Era lasted for about two centuries. Historians tend to disagree on when exactly Renaissance music became standard, but it wasn’t until many decades after Renaissance art and literature started that music began to change. Like the visual and literary arts, Renaissance music reflected characteristics of human development including [...]
Major Music History Periods and Representative Composers: Medieval Period: ~500 – 1400 AD (Hildegard von Bingen, Guillaume de Machaut) Renaissance Period: ~1400 – 1600 AD (Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Thomas Tallis, William Byrd) Baroque Period: ~1600 – 1750 AD (Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frederick Handel) Classical Period: ~1750 – 1825 AD (W.A. Mozart, Franz Joseph Haydn) Romantic Period: ~1825 – 1900 AD (Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert) Modern/20th Century Period: ~1900 – Present (Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copeland, Phillip Glass) When we talk about Early Music, the date range can be pretty large depending on who you ask. Some define it as all music from the “earliest times” up to the Baroque Era, some narrow the time frame to the Middle Ages through the Baroque, and some add some or all of the Classical period to the mix. For our purposes and study here, we’ll keep it within the Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods (about 500 – 1750 AD). The Renaissance era saw new developments like larger ranges for voices and instruments, more music specifically for instruments, and increased music printing. The Reformation (particularly Martin Luther and the Lutheran church services) brought about new musical forms like the chorale, while the Catholic Mass became somewhat shorter and more streamlined with the Counter-Reformation. Dance music continued to be very popular with instruments. As instrumental music flourished, more and more instruments came into use – flutes and recorders, cornets and trombones, tambourines and drums, strings, lutes and guitars. Instrument families (violin, viola, cello) were developed as well. In vocal music, the motets from the Medieval era transitioned to Renaissance motets with a slightly different writing style: Renaissance madrigals came about in Italy and England, usually based on a poem and written in overlapping sections, each based on a single text line:
The Master of the Female Half-Lengths, active ca.1530-1540, was a Dutch Northern Renaissance painter or likely a group of painters of a workshop. The name was given in the 19th century to identify the maker or makers of a body of work consisting of 67 paintings to which since 40 more have been added.
The clothing in Quattrocento and Cinquecento periods differed from each other much, but also, it had a lot of similar features. The traditional garments worn in Europe in the 1400s-1500s made a great influence on world fashion and even on modern fashion trends and ideas. Modern fashion designers today sometimes use terms like “Quattrocento palette” or “Quattrocento hairstyle”. Have you ever wondered what that means? Let’s find out together.
The most fundamental question of all in playing early music today is: how can the music be played to reflect historical practice? This is the first of three articles looking at historically-informe…
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Lute: the neck of the Renaissance lute was bent back; the strings were tuned in pairs and the fingerboard had frets. Viols: Flat back and six strings. Fretted fingerboard. Viols were held upright in front of the player rather than tucked under the chin Crumhorn: double-reed instrument Sackbut: It's an early kind of trombone. Trumpet: Without the valve system we know today (it was invented in the 19th century). The different notes were obtained by varying the lip pressure Percussion instruments: tabor, kettle drums, side drum, triangle and cymbals
1350 Boethius: De arithmetica, De musica Manuscript (V. A. 14) Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III, Naples
Unless you're someone who took secret naps in school's history classes, you would have definitely heard about 'renaissance'.
The vielle or medieval fiddle was the most popular instrument in its heyday for secular song accompaniment. It first appeared in western Europe in the 11th century and continued to be played until …
La volta (or volte or volt or, in England, lavolta) was reputedly the favourite dance of Queen Elizabeth I, performed by couples with much leaping, lifting and turning. The dance, a variation of th…
[Read part one first.] When I got back from a Minstrels of the Forest rehearsal (at John’s house) on May 19th, I decided to finish the hurdy by our next rehearsal, and in time for our next gi…
As I may have mentioned before, I am very partial to Tudor and Elizabethan church music, and want to get all excited about an aspect of this...
Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen - Musical Book (score) and Musician Angels (1512). Detail. > Photo by * Karl * (2013).
“Jeune fille à la vieille”, by Jules Richomme (1882) hurdy gurdy, 12. yüzyıl öncesine ait yaylı bir çalgıdan köken aldığı düşünülen oldu...
The vielle or medieval fiddle was the most popular instrument in its heyday for secular song accompaniment. It first appeared in western Europe in the 11th century and continued to be played until …
They simply cannot. Via Ugly Renaissance Babies.
The oud or, in Arabic, al-ʿūd, is probably best known in the west for being the predecessor of the European lute; but it does have an independent life of its own in the history of early music, root…
Concert of Women (1530-40). Master of Female Half-Lengths (active 1530-1540 in Antwerp). Oil on panel. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg. This master was a Netherlandish artist who often painted young...
Following the Medieval Era’s end around 1400, the Renaissance Era lasted for about two centuries. Historians tend to disagree on when exactly Renaissance music became standard, but it wasn’t until many decades after Renaissance art and literature started that music began to change. Like the visual and literary arts, Renaissance music reflected characteristics of human development including [...]
Musical eras and the instruments that created them are on an historical, evolving continuum. But each era, the Renaissance period included, has its own instruments. The Renaissance was a period
