PART 2: Video Intro

Do you like poetry?...What about love poetry?... Would you believe me if I told you that some of the most innocent sounding Renaissance lyrics actually hid a secretly obscene message?  And would you believe me if I told you that one of the most famous composers of the Renaissance was as well known in his day for his controversial, experimental compositions as he was for having murdered his wife and her lover?... But more about all that later...

First let's talk about something else: instrumental music.  This was, in fact, one of the major breakthroughs of the Renaissance: the creation of a large body of purely instrumental music, music that was idiomatic (meaning that it fit instruments naturally), and that was coherent without need for words. Instrumental music became a separate genre of music in the Renaissance, with its own cultivated forms. The most common types of instrumental music were:

• Dance music
• Variations
• Improvisations
• Borrowed music

 

DANCE MUSIC

 

Dancing was more than an important pastime in the Renaissance. It was a social grace that any self-respecting person would not dare do without! Itinerant dance instructors usually went from village to village instructing both ladies and gentlemen on the latest dances that were being done at court. (The latest dances were often posted in the newspaper so that all who attended court functions could learn them ahead of time. Pity the poor oaf who missed his dance lesson and appeared at a court function unprepared. He might be written up in the next day's newspaper--and never invited to a ball again!).  Travelling dance teachers would provide music for their lessons by playing upon a miniature violin, usually only a few inches long! When the lesson was over they would stick the tiny instrument in their pocket (pochette, in French) and be on to the next town. These tiny violins, called "pochettes," can be seen in museum collections today—absolutely perfect in every detail, fashioned and varnished just like a real violin, but doll-sized!

A Pochette

The two primary instrumental pieces of the Renaissance era were two dances: the Pavane and Galliard. They were a paired set of contrasting dances, the first being stately and slow in duple time, and the second being lively and quick in triple time. Here, for your delectation are a couple of examples of these dances. While you listen to them you can read the following hilarious account from one of the most famous of Renaissance dance tutors, Thoinot Arbeau’s Orchesography.

Pavan

Galliard

This is a dialog (the dialog format was a common format in which to present didactic material) between a dance expert and gentleman named Arbeau and his shy and awkward young student Capriol. Capriol starts out by telling Arbeau that he has just come back from Orleans, where he was a great student and very popular with his professors, who were not bothered by his rather "geeky" demeanor. But now that he has returned, he is feeling insecure about his social skills--especially with the ladies-- and comes to Arbeau for instruction and advice. You can see from this little exchange how important dancing was for the young men and women of the time:

	CAPRIOL: …I regret that while in Orleans I neglected to learn fine manners, an art with which many scholars enriched themselves as an adjunct to their studies. For, on my return I have found myself in society, where, to put it briefly, I was tongue-tied and awkward, and regarded as little more than a block of wood.  ARBEAU: You took consolation in the fact that the learned professors excused this shortcoming in recognition of the learning you had acquired.
CAPRIOL: That is so, but I should like to have acquired other skills during the hours between my serious studies, which would have rendered my company welcome to all.  ARBEAU: This will be an easy thing by reading French books in order to sharpen your wit and by learning fencing, dancing, and tennis that you may be an agreeable companion alike to ladies and gentlemen.  CAPRIOL: I much enjoyed fencing and tennis, and this placed me upon friendly terms with young men. But without knowledge of dancing, I could not please the damsels, upon whom, it seems to me, the entire reputation of an eligible young man depends.
	ARBEAU: You are quite right, as naturally the male and female seek one another and nothing does more to stimulate a man to acts of courtesy, honor, and generosity than love. And if you desire to marry you must realize that a mistress is won by the good temper and grace displayed while dancing, because ladies do not like to be present at fencing or tennis, lest a splintered sword or a blow from a tennis ball cause them injury.
What is more, dancing is practiced to reveal whether lovers are in good health and sound of limb, after which they are permitted to kiss their mistresses in order that they may touch and savor one another, thus to ascertain if they are shapely or emit an unpleasant odor as of bad meat. Therefore, from this standpoint, quite apart from the many other advantages to be derived from dancing, it becomes an essential to a well-ordered society.
CAPRIOL: Do not tantalize me by delaying any longer to grant my request to learn how the movements of the dance are performed, in order that I may master them and not be reproached for having the heart of a pig and the head of an ass!

 

Hopefully this dialog has given you a chuckle—and some insight into how important (seriously!) dancing was in Renaissance society. If you would like to learn more about Renaissance Dance, consult the Renaissance Dance Page. To learn more about Renaissance literature, see Luminarium.

There were a great variety of other dances in the Renaissance, such as the volta and saltarello which were sprightly dances calling for jumps or little leaps. As time wore on the jumps and leaps in these dances (and in the galliard) got higher and more risque—or at least, risque by Renaissance standards (in other words, you could see above the ankle of ladies when they jumped, considered rather outrageous at the time.) The Allemande (or Alman) was a more sedate, dignified dance in duple meter and binary form (AABB), and it often came paired with a Courante, a contrasting dance at a faster speed in triple meter, also in binary form (AABB). The Allemande and Courante are important because they became very fashionable dances and lasted through the Baroque period. They also established the typical binary organization of dances: AB, or, with repeats, AABB.

Dancing continued to be important as a social calling card and major pastime throughout the Renaissance and Baroque periods—we’ll return to it a bit later in this course.

VARIATIONS

Variations were also popular among instrumentalists. Below is an example of a Theme and Variations by a Spanish composer, Luis de Narvaez, written for the virginal, and called: Guardame Las Vacas.

Variation form is pretty straightforward—first a theme is stated and then a series of variations ensue. Commonly the theme was a short tune, repeated, and each of the variations (also repeated), altered or embellished the theme. Listen for how many variations you can count.

(Answer: There were three variations in this piece.)

	"Who or  what is a virginal?" you’re probably thinking right now… A virginal was the favorite keyboard instrument of Queen Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603) It was rectangular in shape with usually very elaborate ornamentation on the outside and inside (Latin mottoes, paintings, designs, etc.) The virginal is a "plucked-string" instrument: when the player struck a key, 'jack' resting on the inside end
of the key would jump up and pluck the string. These instruments were all the rage among young ladies (yes, there have been some snide remarks about the virginal being for virgins), and they developed quite a beautiful repertoire of music.

 

The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book is a collection of about 300 pieces for the virginal. It was compiled by a man named Frances Tregian who copied these pieces out while he was imprisoned in Fleet Prison in London, between 1609-1619!  It’s so strange how capricious history can be—if not for these copies made by Tregian in prison we would today have almost no music at all for virginal, because practically all other English sources for this music have been lost.

Keys to the Millennium A site devoted to early keyboards. Great pictures and clear explanations, plus a sound library of 20th century music written for these old instruments.

 

IMPROVISATION

Musicians of today—particularly jazz and pop musicians--have more in common with Renaissance musicians than they might think. That’s because during the Renaissance performers played their own compositions, and improvisation was an important skill. Our first books teaching the art of improvisation date from this period and they are very much like some of the fake books you find in music stores today. They are filled with common turns of phrase which a player could practice in different keys and with variants. At the appropriate moment, then, when you were improvising and found yourself stuck, you could simply plug in one of these little "modular" riffs. Improv manuals such as those by Ortiz or Bovicelli went methodically through all the important intervals and taught the performer how to ornament, embellish or fill in these intervals in different ways ranging from simple to extravagant. Much music of this period was written out in a sketchy way and performers understood that it was only an outline and was intended for embellishment-- much the way jazz players will play from a chart today.

BORROWED MUSIC

You may remember the example of the medieval song, "Douce Dame Jolie," which was performed in different arrangements. This kind of informal "borrowing" of a song or instrumental piece continued throughout the Renaissance. So we have harpsichord pieces which were played on the lute, and songs which were performed by instrumentalists. Borrowing literature this way was symptomatic of the fact that composers did not specify what instrumentation they wanted (a practice which later became standard during the 18^th century). But it was also a convenient way to augment your repertoire. Some musicians today still actively "borrow" pieces this way, notably classical guitarists and harpists, who don’t have a large body of literature written specifically for their instrument. Here is an example of a harpsichord piece "borrowed" by a lutenist:

Wolsey's Wilde, performed first on harpsichord and after (on the same track) on lute.

	Have you have ever visited Venice? If you have, you've no doubt seen the magnificent basilica of San Marco—right on the Grand Canal, and overlooking one of the world’s most beautiful plazas. The basilica of San Marco is famous in the history of instrumental music as being the home of several distinguished composers who, during the late Renaissance and early Baroque period were important pioneers of instrumental music.
Among the composers who worked at San Marco was Giovanni Gabrieli (1553-1612). Gabrieli was one of the first composers to exploit the acoustics of San Marco by writing in what is now called a polychoral style, meaning that the performers were split into two or more groups, and placed in different balconies of the basilica for acoustical contrast. What Gabrieli achieved by this kind of creative seating arrangement was the first "surround-sound" pieces in the history of music!  One of my Juilliard students once played a brass concert in the Basilica of San Marco and he described to me how incredibly tricky it was for everyone to stay together.  His group was divided into four sub-groups, each playing from a different corner of the Basilica.  The conductor was in the center.  The acoustics have a delay that makes it very hard to hear what the other people in the other groups are playing-- by the time you hear them (because of the delay) they've already moved on.  Their conductor therefore advised them not to listen to each other, (a violation of the Number One Cardinal Rule of ensemble playing!) but just to keep their eyes glued to him!  The result was that, from each of their corners, the performers thought they were playing dreadfully out-of-sync with the other groups, but in reality they were perfectly together.
Gabrieli is also known in musical history for a work he called Sonata pian e forte. This piece is of interest to us for several reasons. One is the use of the word sonata, a word we will begin to hear more and more from now on. The word sonata comes from the Italian "sonare," meaning "to sound." The name would translate roughly as "sounding piece," then, and it took hold as a way of distinguishing purely instrumental music from vocal music. In Italian "cantare" is "to sing," and cantata became a common term to denote a vocal piece. The use of the terms pian (soft) and forte (loud) in the title comes from Gabrieli’s very precise use of dynamics in this piece (dynamics were not generally specified in scores at this time).	An example of a Gabrieli work: Canzona Septimi Toni

 

THE MADRIGAL

One final genre to discuss here is a vocal one: the madrigal. A madrigal was similar to a frottola (remember El Grillo of Josquin from the last lecture?) but more sophisticated, more ambitous, and more serious. For one thing, the frottola, being a more populist art form, was a setting of simple and even humorous ditties, whereas the madrigalist composers set some of the most celebrated poetry of the day (Tasso, Petrarch, Ariosto).

There were also differences in style. The frottola (again, El Grillo is an example) was strophic whereas madrigals tended to be through-composed, meaning that they did not make use of refrains, or a lot of repetition in the settings.

There is a reason for this preference in how the text should be set. Think about it for a moment: you know now what a "strophic" setting means (it uses the same music for several different verses of text). Strophic music is wonderful and very effective, but it can be limited in that, if you use the music to describe or express the words too closely, it will not work for all the verses.

 

To give you an example--  Let’s say that you write a strophic song and in the first verse the music expresses the feelings of a jilted lover with a kind of minor key, slow tempo setting. Fine.  But in the second verse the words change to show how the jilted lover had the great fortune to meet a new person and fall in love all over again, and now feels happy as a clam. Fine.  Except that if the music is the same for both verses, (and it was descriptive of the sadness in the first verse) it will no longer work with the second verse because the emotional tone will be off. Do you see how tricky it can be to write strophically? And can you understand how a through-composed setting would avoid the pitfalls of strophic settings?

Now the aim of the madrigal writers ("madrigalists") was to set poetry as expressively and descriptively as they could--to make the music reflect the emotional meaning behind the words. The acknowledged masters of this art were the Italian madrigalists, and it is here that we (finally!) get to the music I mentioned at the beginning of this lecture!

One of the most celebrated of madrigal composers was Carlo Gesualdo (1561-1613), the Prince of Venosa, whose unorthodox, wild pieces have been compared to the music of Richard Wagner (who lived more than 200 years later). Gesualdo’s madrigals were controversial in his day—some people thought he was a genius and others a charlatan. He had his supporters and detractors in his personal life, too, especially after he murdered his wife and her lover (after finding them "en flagrante delicto"). Let’s listen to two pungent Gesualdo madrigals. These are the examples I alluded to before—based on poetry which, in its own veiled way, expressed erotic love.

One more example of this erotic music, by Cipriano de Rore (1516-1565), called, "Anchor che col partire." In Renaissance poetry everyone always seems to be dying. One gets the feeling that this is very morbid art—until you realize that "to die" was a cloaked metaphor for something completely different… You’ll have to figure this one out for yourself, but I can guarantee you that once you "get it", you’ll look at these words in a whole new way.

I mentioned above that the aim of the madrigalists was to set poetry as expressively and descriptively as they could. Some of them delighted in being very literal in these descriptions—for instance, they would describe the waves of the sea with a wavy musical line, or paint the ascending of a mountain with a rising melody. These kinds of literal descriptions of the words came to be called "madrigalisms." One of the classic (and humorous) examples of this kind of madrigal is "As Vesta was from Latmos Hill Descending," by Thomas Weelkes. Listen to it on your Kamien record set and be sure to follow along with the way the text is portrayed literally by the music (my favorite part is the words "all alone.")  It's quite amusing!

Not every composer favored the rather unsubtle, literal "madrigalisms" (or "word painting," as the book calls it) used by a composer like Weelkes. Afterall, as charming as Weelkes piece is, the literal quality of the word painting can make it seem a bit trite. It is not what we think of as very expressive music. The future of music in fact belonged to those composers who eschewed word painting, and who wrote madrigals with no overt devices or tricks, preferring to let the harmonies and melodies provide the real expression of the text.

Before closing out on the Renaissance I wanted to share with you another tasty little Renaissance recipe. Again, if you share this interest and have any good historical recipes to share, please e-mail me. In the meantime, Bon-appetit!

Fried Valencia Orange Sections Combine: 4 tb. brown sugar, 1/8 tsp. each of nutmeg and mace, 1/4 tsp. cinnamon. Peel and section 4 large seedless eating oranges. Roll in spice mixture. Mix 1 c. flour, 1-1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1/4 tsp. salt, 3 tb. brown sugar with blended 2 tb. corn oil, 1 egg and 1/2 c. milk. Stir well to make a batter. If batter is too thin, add flour ; if too thick add milk. Chill batter for 1-1/2 hours. Heat 3/4 to 1 c. of oil in skillet until hot (do not let it smoke.) Dip and thoroughly coat orange sections in batter, and fry until browned. Serve warm with side garnish of mustard and brown sugar in separate dishes.

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