By The End Of The Sixteenth Century, What Was The Prominent Makeup Of An Instrumental Ensemble?

Western musical period between the 15th and 17th centuries

Renaissance music is traditionally understood to cover European music of the 15th and 16th centuries, later than the Renaissance era equally it is understood in other disciplines. Rather than starting from the early 14th-century ars nova, the Trecento music was treated by musicology every bit a coda to Medieval music and the new era dated from the rise of triadic harmony and the spread of the ' contenance angloise ' style from Uk to the Burgundian Schoolhouse. A convenient watershed for its finish is the adoption of basso continuo at the outset of the Bizarre flow.

The menstruation may be roughly subdivided, with an early on catamenia corresponding to the career of Guillaume Du Fay (c. 1397–1474) and the cultivation of cantilena manner, a center dominated by Franco-Flemish Schoolhouse and the four-function textures favored by Johannes Ockeghem (1410's or twenty'southward – 1497) and Josquin des Prez (late 1450's – 1521), and culminating during the Counter-Reformation in the florid counterpoint of Palestrina (c. 1525 – 1594) and the Roman Schoolhouse.

Music was increasingly freed from medieval constraints, and more variety was permitted in range, rhythm, harmony, form, and notation. On the other mitt, rules of counterpoint became more than constrained, particularly with regard to treatment of dissonances. In the Renaissance, music became a vehicle for personal expression. Composers found ways to brand song music more expressive of the texts they were setting. Secular music captivated techniques from sacred music, and vice versa. Pop secular forms such as the chanson and madrigal spread throughout Europe. Courts employed virtuoso performers, both singers and instrumentalists. Music as well became more self-sufficient with its availability in printed form, existing for its own sake.

Precursor versions of many familiar modern instruments (including the violin, guitar, lute and keyboard instruments) developed into new forms during the Renaissance. These instruments were modified to answer to the evolution of musical ideas, and they presented new possibilities for composers and musicians to explore. Early forms of mod woodwind and brass instruments like the bassoon and trombone also appeared, extending the range of sonic color and increasing the sound of instrumental ensembles. During the 15th century, the audio of total triads became common, and towards the terminate of the 16th century the system of church modes began to pause down entirely, giving way to functional tonality (the system in which songs and pieces are based on musical "keys"), which would dominate Western art music for the next iii centuries.

From the Renaissance era, notated secular and sacred music survives in quantity, including vocal and instrumental works and mixed vocal/instrumental works. A wide range of musical styles and genres flourished during the Renaissance, including masses, motets, madrigals, chansons, accompanied songs, instrumental dances, and many others. Beginning in the belatedly 20th century, numerous early music ensembles were formed. Ensembles specializing in music of the Renaissance era give concert tours and make recordings, using modern reproductions of historical instruments and using singing and performing styles which musicologists believe were used during the era.

Overview [edit]

I of the most pronounced features of early on Renaissance European art music was the increasing reliance on the interval of the third and its inversion, the 6th (in the Centre Ages, thirds and sixths had been considered dissonances, and only perfect intervals were treated equally consonances: the perfect fourth the perfect fifth, the octave, and the unison). Polyphony – the employ of multiple, contained melodic lines, performed simultaneously – became increasingly elaborate throughout the 14th century, with highly independent voices (both in vocal music and in instrumental music). The outset of the 15th century showed simplification, with the composers ofttimes striving for smoothness in the melodic parts. This was possible because of a greatly increased song range in music – in the Middle Ages, the narrow range made necessary frequent crossing of parts, thus requiring a greater contrast betwixt them to distinguish the different parts. The modal (as opposed to tonal, also known as "musical key", an approach developed in the subsequent Bizarre music era, c. 1600–1750) characteristics of Renaissance music began to break down towards the end of the period with the increased use of root motions of fifths or fourths (see the "circumvolve of fifths" for details). An example of a chord progression in which the chord roots motility by the interval of a fourth would be the chord progression, in the key of C Major: "D pocket-size/Chiliad Major/C Major" (these are all triads; three-notation chords). The motility from the D minor chord to the G Major chord is an interval of a perfect fourth. The move from the G Major chord to the C Major chord is as well an interval of a perfect fourth. This later developed into one of the defining characteristics of tonality during the Baroque era.^{[ citation needed ]}

The main characteristics of Renaissance music are.:^[1]

Music based on modes.
Richer texture, with four or more than independent melodic parts being performed simultaneously. These interweaving melodic lines, a style called polyphony, is one of the defining features of Renaissance music.
Blending, rather than contrasting, melodic lines in the musical texture.
Harmony that placed a greater business organisation on the smooth catamenia of the music and its progression of chords.

The development of polyphony produced the notable changes in musical instruments that mark the Renaissance from the Eye Ages musically. Its use encouraged the use of larger ensembles and demanded sets of instruments that would alloy together beyond the whole vocal range.^[2]

Background [edit]

As in the other arts, the music of the period was significantly influenced past the developments which define the Early Mod menses: the ascension of humanistic idea; the recovery of the literary and artistic heritage of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome; increased innovation and discovery; the growth of commercial enterprises; the rise of a bourgeois class; and the Protestant Reformation. From this changing society emerged a common, unifying musical language, in particular, the polyphonic mode of the Franco-Flemish schoolhouse.

The invention of the press press in 1439 made it cheaper and easier to distribute music and music theory texts on a wider geographic scale and to more people. Prior to the invention of press, written music and music theory texts had to be hand-copied, a time-consuming and expensive process. Demand for music equally entertainment and as a leisure activity for educated amateurs increased with the emergence of a conservative class. Dissemination of chansons, motets, and masses throughout Europe coincided with the unification of polyphonic practice into the fluid style which culminated in the second half of the sixteenth century in the work of composers such equally Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Orlande de Lassus, Thomas Tallis, William Byrd and Tomás Luis de Victoria. Relative political stability and prosperity in the Low Countries, forth with a flourishing system of music education in the area's many churches and cathedrals immune the grooming of large numbers of singers, instrumentalists, and composers. These musicians were highly sought throughout Europe, particularly in Italia, where churches and aristocratic courts hired them as composers, performers, and teachers. Since the printing press made it easier to disseminate printed music, past the terminate of the 16th century, Italy had absorbed the northern musical influences with Venice, Rome, and other cities becoming centers of musical activity. This reversed the situation from a hundred years before. Opera, a dramatic staged genre in which singers are accompanied past instruments, arose at this fourth dimension in Florence. Opera was developed as a deliberate attempt to resurrect the music of ancient Greece.^[3]

Genres [edit]

Master liturgical (church building-based) musical forms, which remained in use throughout the Renaissance flow, were masses and motets, with another developments towards the end of the era, particularly as composers of sacred music began to adopt secular (non-religious) musical forms (such as the madrigal) for religious use. The 15th and 16th century masses had two kinds of sources that were used: monophonic (a single melody line) and polyphonic (multiple, independent melodic lines), with two main forms of elaboration, based on cantus firmus exercise or, beginning some time around 1500, the new style of "pervasive faux", in which composers would write music in which the different voices or parts would imitate the melodic and/or rhythmic motifs performed by other voices or parts. Several master types of masses were used:

Cyclic mass (tenor mass)
Paraphrase mass
Imitation mass

Masses were normally titled by the source from which they borrowed. Cantus firmus mass uses the same monophonic melody, ordinarily drawn from dirge and ordinarily in the tenor and most often in longer notation values than the other voices.^[4] Other sacred genres were the madrigale spirituale and the laude.

During the flow, secular (non-religious) music had an increasing distribution, with a wide variety of forms, only one must be cautious virtually bold an explosion in variety: since printing fabricated music more widely available, much more has survived from this era than from the preceding Medieval era, and probably a rich store of popular music of the late Middle Ages is lost. Secular music was music that was independent of churches. The chief types were the German Lied, Italian frottola, the French chanson, the Italian madrigal, and the Spanish villancico.^[1] Other secular vocal genres included the caccia, rondeau, virelai, bergerette, ballade, musique mesurée, canzonetta, villanella, villotta, and the lute song. Mixed forms such as the motet-chanson and the secular motet also appeared.

Purely instrumental music included consort music for recorders or viols and other instruments, and dances for various ensembles. Common instrumental genres were the toccata, prelude, ricercar, and canzona. Dances played past instrumental ensembles (or sometimes sung) included the basse danse (Information technology. bassadanza), tourdion, saltarello, pavane, galliard, allemande, courante, bransle, canarie, piva, and lavolta. Music of many genres could exist arranged for a solo instrument such as the lute, vihuela, harp, or keyboard. Such arrangements were chosen intabulations (It. intavolatura, Ger. Intabulierung).

Towards the end of the period, the early dramatic precursors of opera such every bit monody, the madrigal comedy, and the intermedio are heard.

Theory and note [edit]

Ockeghem, Kyrie "Au travail suis," excerpt, showing white mensural notation.

According to Margaret Aptitude: "Renaissance notation is nether-prescriptive by our [mod] standards; when translated into mod form information technology acquires a prescriptive weight that overspecifies and distorts its original openness".^[5] Renaissance compositions were notated simply in individual parts; scores were extremely rare, and barlines were not used. Annotation values were by and large larger than are in employ today; the primary unit of measurement of beat was the semibreve, or whole notation. As had been the case since the Ars Nova (see Medieval music), in that location could exist either ii or three of these for each breve (a double-whole annotation), which may be looked on as equivalent to the modern "mensurate," though information technology was itself a annotation value and a measure is not. The situation tin exist considered this mode: information technology is the same as the rule by which in modern music a quarter-annotation may equal either two eighth-notes or three, which would be written as a "triplet." Past the aforementioned reckoning, there could be two or three of the next smallest annotation, the "minim," (equivalent to the modern "half annotation") to each semibreve.

These different permutations were called "perfect/imperfect tempus" at the level of the breve–semibreve human relationship, "perfect/imperfect prolation" at the level of the semibreve–minim, and existed in all possible combinations with each other. Three-to-one was chosen "perfect," and ii-to-1 "imperfect." Rules existed also whereby single notes could be halved or doubled in value ("imperfected" or "contradistinct," respectively) when preceded or followed past other certain notes. Notes with black noteheads (such as quarter notes) occurred less oft. This development of white mensural annotation may exist a outcome of the increased use of paper (rather than vellum), as the weaker newspaper was less able to withstand the scratching required to make full in solid noteheads; annotation of previous times, written on vellum, had been black. Other colors, and later, filled-in notes, were used routinely as well, mainly to enforce the aforementioned imperfections or alterations and to call for other temporary rhythmical changes.

Accidentals (e.g. added sharps, flats and naturals that alter the notes) were not ever specified, somewhat equally in certain fingering notations for guitar-family instruments (tablatures) today. Even so, Renaissance musicians would have been highly trained in dyadic counterpoint and thus possessed this and other information necessary to read a score correctly, even if the accidentals were non written in. As such, "what modern notation requires [accidentals] would and so have been perfectly apparent without notation to a singer versed in counterpoint." (See musica ficta.) A singer would interpret his or her part by figuring cadential formulas with other parts in mind, and when singing together, musicians would avert parallel octaves and parallel fifths or alter their cadential parts in calorie-free of decisions by other musicians.^[5] It is through contemporary tablatures for various plucked instruments that we have gained much information almost which accidentals were performed by the original practitioners.

For information on specific theorists, see Johannes Tinctoris, Franchinus Gaffurius, Heinrich Glarean, Pietro Aron, Nicola Vicentino, Tomás de Santa María, Gioseffo Zarlino, Vicente Lusitano, Vincenzo Galilei, Giovanni Artusi, Johannes Nucius, and Pietro Cerone.

Composers – timeline [edit]

Early on flow (1400–1470) [edit]

The fundamental composers from the early Renaissance era also wrote in a late Medieval mode, and as such, they are transitional figures. Leonel Power (c. 1370s or 1380s–1445) was an English language composer of the late medieval and early Renaissance music eras. Along with John Dunstaple, he was one of the major figures in English music in the early on 15th century.^[6] ^[7]) Power is the composer best represented in the One-time Hall Manuscript, one of the only undamaged sources of English language music from the early 15th century. Power was 1 of the first composers to set divide movements of the ordinary of the mass which were thematically unified and intended for face-to-face functioning. The Erstwhile Hall Manuscript contains his mass based on the Marian antiphon, Alma Redemptoris Mater, in which the antiphon is stated literally in the tenor phonation in each movement, without melodic ornaments. This is the only cyclic setting of the mass ordinary which can exist attributed to him.^[8] He wrote mass cycles, fragments, and unmarried movements and a variety of other sacred works.

John Dunstaple (or Dunstable) (c. 1390–1453) was an English composer of polyphonic music of the late medieval era and early Renaissance periods. He was i of the most famous composers agile in the early 15th century, a nigh-contemporary of Power, and was widely influential, not but in England only on the continent, especially in the developing style of the Burgundian School. Dunstaple's influence on the continent's musical vocabulary was enormous, particularly considering the relative paucity of his (owing) works. He was recognized for possessing something never heard before in music of the Burgundian Schoolhouse: la contenance angloise ("the English countenance"), a term used past the poet Martin le Franc in his Le Champion des Dames. Le Franc added that the mode influenced Dufay and Binchois. Writing a few decades subsequently in most 1476, the Flemish composer and music theorist Tinctoris reaffirmed the powerful influence Dunstaple had, stressing the "new art" that Dunstaple had inspired. Tinctoris hailed Dunstaple as the fons et origo of the way, its "wellspring and origin."^{[ This quote needs a citation ]}

The contenance angloise, while not defined past Martin le Franc, was probably a reference to Dunstaple's stylistic trait of using full triadic harmony (three note chords), forth with a liking for the interval of the tertiary. Assuming that he had been on the continent with the Duke of Bedford, Dunstaple would have been introduced to French fauxbourdon; borrowing some of the sonorities, he created elegant harmonies in his ain music using thirds and sixths (an case of a third interval is the notes C and E; an instance of a sixth interval is the notes C and A). Taken together, these are seen as defining characteristics of early on Renaissance music. Many of these traits may have originated in England, taking root in the Burgundian School around the middle of the century.

Because numerous copies of Dunstaple'due south works have been found in Italian and German manuscripts, his fame across Europe must have been widespread. Of the works attributed to him only about 50 survive, among which are two consummate masses, three connected mass sections, fourteen individual mass sections, twelve complete isorhythmic motets and seven settings of Marian antiphons, such every bit Alma redemptoris Mater and Save Regina, Mater misericordiae. Dunstaple was one of the outset to compose masses using a single melody as cantus firmus. A practiced example of this technique is his Missa Rex seculorum. He is believed to take written secular (not-religious) music, but no songs in the colloquial can be attributed to him with any degree of certainty.

Oswald von Wolkenstein (c. 1376–1445) is one of the most important composers of the early German Renaissance. He is best known for his well-written melodies, and for his apply of three themes: travel, God and sexual activity.^[ix]

Gilles Binchois (c. 1400–1460) was a Netherlandish composer, one of the earliest members of the Burgundian school and one of the three virtually famous composers of the early 15th century. While ofttimes ranked behind his contemporaries Guillaume Dufay and John Dunstaple by contemporary scholars, his works were still cited, borrowed and used as source fabric later on his expiry. Binchois is considered^{[ by whom? ]} to be a fine melodist, writing carefully shaped lines which are piece of cake to sing and memorable. His tunes appeared in copies decades later his death and were often used every bit sources for mass composition past later composers. Virtually of his music, even his sacred music, is simple and clear in outline, sometimes even austere (monk-like). A greater dissimilarity between Binchois and the extreme complexity of the ars subtilior of the prior (fourteenth) century would be hard to imagine. Most of his secular songs are rondeaux, which became the virtually common song grade during the century. He rarely wrote in strophic grade, and his melodies are more often than not independent of the rhyme scheme of the verses they are set to. Binchois wrote music for the courtroom, secular songs of beloved and chivalry that met the expectations and satisfied the taste of the Dukes of Burgundy who employed him, and evidently loved his music appropriately. About half of his extant secular music is constitute in the Oxford Bodleian Library.

Guillaume Du Fay (c. 1397–1474) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the early on Renaissance. The central figure in the Burgundian School, he was regarded by his contemporaries as the leading composer in Europe in the mid-15th century.^[ten] Du Fay composed in most of the common forms of the day, including masses, motets, Magnificats, hymns, simple chant settings in fauxbourdon, and antiphons within the area of sacred music, and rondeaux, ballades, virelais and a few other chanson types within the realm of secular music. None of his surviving music is specifically instrumental, although instruments were certainly used for some of his secular music, especially for the lower parts; all of his sacred music is vocal. Instruments may take been used to reinforce the voices in actual performance for almost whatsoever of his works.^{[ citation needed ]} Seven consummate masses, 28 private mass movements, xv settings of chant used in mass propers, 3 Magnificats, two Benedicamus Domino settings, 15 antiphon settings (six of them Marian antiphons), 27 hymns, 22 motets (xiii of these isorhythmic in the more athwart, austere 14th-century style which gave way to more melodic, sensuous treble-dominated part-writing with phrases ending in the "under-3rd" cadence in Du Fay'due south youth) and 87 chansons definitely by him have survived.^{[ citation needed ]}

Portion of Du Fay's setting of Ave maris stella, in fauxbourdon. The pinnacle line is a paraphrase of the chant; the centre line, designated "fauxbourdon", (not written) follows the meridian line simply exactly a perfect fourth below. The bottom line is oft, but non e'er, a sixth below the top line; it is embellished, and reaches cadences on the octave. Play(help·info)

Many of Du Fay's compositions were simple settings of dirge, obviously designed for liturgical utilise, probably as substitutes for the unadorned dirge, and tin be seen every bit chant harmonizations. Often the harmonization used a technique of parallel writing known equally fauxbourdon, equally in the following instance, a setting of the Marian antiphon Ave maris stella. Du Fay may have been the kickoff composer to use the term "fauxbourdon" for this simpler compositional style, prominent in 15th-century liturgical music in general and that of the Burgundian schoolhouse in particular. Well-nigh of Du Fay'south secular (not-religious) songs follow the formes fixes (rondeau, ballade, and virelai), which dominated secular European music of the 14th and 15th centuries. He also wrote a scattering of Italian ballate, almost certainly while he was in Italy. As is the instance with his motets, many of the songs were written for specific occasions, and many are datable, thus supplying useful biographical information. Most of his songs are for three voices, using a texture dominated past the highest voice; the other two voices, unsupplied with text, were probably played by instruments.^{[ commendation needed ]}

Du Fay was 1 of the concluding composers to brand apply of late-medieval polyphonic structural techniques such as isorhythm,^[xi] and ane of the start to apply the more than mellifluous harmonies, phrasing and melodies characteristic of the early Renaissance.^[12] His compositions within the larger genres (masses, motets and chansons) are by and large similar to each other; his renown is largely due to what was perceived equally his perfect control of the forms in which he worked, as well every bit his gift for memorable and singable melody. During the 15th century, he was universally regarded as the greatest composer of his fourth dimension, an opinion that has largely survived to the present day.^{[ citation needed ]}

Centre menstruum (1470–1530) [edit]

1611 woodcut of Josquin des Prez, copied from a now-lost oil painting done during his lifetime

This department needs expansion. Yous tin can assistance by adding to it. (Apr 2020)

During the 16th century, Josquin des Prez (c. 1450/1455 – 27 Baronial 1521) gradually acquired the reputation equally the greatest composer of the age, his mastery of technique and expression universally imitated and admired. Writers as diverse as Baldassare Castiglione and Martin Luther wrote near his reputation and fame.

Late period (1530–1600) [edit]

San Marco in the evening. The spacious, resonant interior was one of the inspirations for the music of the Venetian School.

In Venice, from about 1530 until around 1600, an impressive polychoral style developed, which gave Europe some of the grandest, well-nigh sonorous music composed up until that time, with multiple choirs of singers, brass and strings in different spatial locations in the Basilica San Marco di Venezia (see Venetian School). These multiple revolutions spread over Europe in the side by side several decades, starting time in Germany and so moving to Spain, France, and England somewhat afterwards, demarcating the beginning of what we now know as the Baroque musical era.

The Roman Schoolhouse was a grouping of composers of predominantly church music in Rome, spanning the late Renaissance and early on Bizarre eras. Many of the composers had a direct connection to the Vatican and the papal chapel, though they worked at several churches; stylistically they are frequently assorted with the Venetian School of composers, a concurrent motility which was much more progressive. By far the most famous composer of the Roman School is Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. While best known equally a prolific composer of masses and motets, he was also an important madrigalist. His power to bring together the functional needs of the Catholic Church building with the prevailing musical styles during the Counter-Reformation menstruum gave him his enduring fame.^[thirteen]

The brief but intense flowering of the musical madrigal in England, mostly from 1588 to 1627, along with the composers who produced them, is known as the English Madrigal School. The English language madrigals were a cappella, predominantly calorie-free in style, and mostly began as either copies or direct translations of Italian models. About were for iii to half-dozen voices.

Musica reservata is either a way or a performance practice in a cappella vocal music of the latter one-half of the 16th century, mainly in Italy and southern Germany, involving refinement, exclusivity, and intense emotional expression of sung text.^{[ citation needed ]}

The cultivation of European music in the Americas began in the 16th century soon later on the arrival of the Castilian, and the conquest of United mexican states. Although fashioned in European mode, uniquely Mexican hybrid works based on native Mexican language and European musical practice appeared very early. Musical practices in New Spain continually coincided with European tendencies throughout the subsequent Baroque and Classical music periods. Among these New World composers were Hernando Franco, Antonio de Salazar, and Manuel de Zumaya.^{[ commendation needed ]}

In addition, writers since 1932 accept observed what they phone call a seconda prattica (an innovative practise involving monodic manner and liberty in handling of racket, both justified by the expressive setting of texts) during the late 16th and early 17th centuries.^[fourteen]

Mannerism [edit]

In the tardily 16th century, as the Renaissance era closed, an extremely manneristic mode developed. In secular music, especially in the madrigal, in that location was a trend towards complexity and even extreme chromaticism (equally exemplified in madrigals of Luzzaschi, Marenzio, and Gesualdo). The term mannerism derives from fine art history.

Transition to the Bizarre [edit]

Get-go in Florence, there was an try to revive the dramatic and musical forms of Ancient Hellenic republic, through the means of monody, a form of declaimed music over a uncomplicated accompaniment; a more than extreme contrast with the preceding polyphonic style would be difficult to find; this was also, at to the lowest degree at the outset, a secular trend. These musicians were known every bit the Florentine Camerata.

We have already noted some of the musical developments that helped to usher in the Baroque, only for further explanation of this transition, see retort, concertato, monody, madrigal, and opera, too every bit the works given under "Sources and further reading."

Instruments [edit]

Many instruments originated during the Renaissance; others were variations of, or improvements upon, instruments that had existed previously. Some have survived to the present day; others have disappeared, merely to be recreated in order to perform music of the period on accurate instruments. As in the modern day, instruments may be classified every bit contumely, strings, percussion, and woodwind.

Medieval instruments in Europe had nigh unremarkably been used singly, oftentimes cocky-accompanied with a drone, or occasionally in parts. From at least as early every bit the 13th century through the 15th century there was a partitioning of instruments into haut (loud, shrill, outdoor instruments) and bas (quieter, more intimate instruments).^[15] Only two groups of instruments could play freely in both types of ensembles: the cornett and sackbut, and the tabor and tambourine.^[4]

At the kickoff of the 16th century, instruments were considered to be less important than voices. They were used for dances and to accompany vocal music.^[ane] Instrumental music remained subordinated to vocal music, and much of its repertory was in varying ways derived from or dependent on vocal models.^[3]

Organs [edit]

Various kinds of organs were ordinarily used in the Renaissance, from large church organs to small portatives and reed organs called regals.

Contumely [edit]

Brass instruments in the Renaissance were traditionally played by professionals. Some of the more mutual contumely instruments that were played:

Slide trumpet: Like to the trombone of today except that instead of a department of the body sliding, only a small-scale office of the body near the mouthpiece and the mouthpiece itself is stationary. Likewise, the body was an S-shape so information technology was rather unwieldy, only was suitable for the slow trip the light fantastic toe music which information technology was almost unremarkably used for.
Cornett: Made of wood and played like the recorder (by bravado in one terminate and moving the fingers upward and down the outside) but using a cup mouthpiece like a trumpet.
Trumpet: Early trumpets had no valves, and were limited to the tones present in the overtone series. They were also made in different sizes.
Sackbut (sometimes sackbutt or sagbutt): A dissimilar proper noun for the trombone,^[xvi] which replaced the slide trumpet by the centre of the 15th century.^[17]

Strings [edit]

Modern French hurdy-gurdy

As a family, strings were used in many circumstances, both sacred and secular. A few members of this family include:

Viol: This musical instrument, adult in the 15th century, commonly has six strings. It was usually played with a bow. It has structural qualities similar to the Spanish plucked vihuela (called viola da mano in Italian republic); its principal separating trait is its larger size. This changed the posture of the musician in order to rest it against the floor or between the legs in a manner similar to the cello. Its similarities to the vihuela were precipitous waist-cuts, similar frets, a flat back, thin ribs, and identical tuning. When played in this style, it was sometimes referred to as "viola da gamba", in order to distinguish it from viols played "on the arm": viole da braccio, which evolved into the violin family.
Lyre: Its construction is similar to a modest harp, although instead of beingness plucked, it is strummed with a plectrum. Its strings varied in quantity from four, seven, and ten, depending on the era. It was played with the right manus, while the left hand silenced the notes that were not desired. Newer lyres were modified to be played with a bow.
Irish Harp: Also chosen the Clàrsach in Scottish Gaelic, or the Cláirseach in Irish gaelic, during the Middle Ages it was the most pop instrument of Ireland and Scotland. Due to its significance in Irish history, it is seen fifty-fifty on the Guinness label and is Ireland's national symbol even to this day. To exist played information technology is usually plucked.^{[ description needed ]} Its size can vary profoundly from a harp that can be played in i'southward lap to a full-size harp that is placed on the floor
Hurdy-gurdy: (Also known as the wheel fiddle), in which the strings are sounded by a wheel which the strings pass over. Its functionality can be compared to that of a mechanical violin, in that its bow (bicycle) is turned by a crank. Its distinctive audio is mainly because of its "drone strings" which provide a constant pitch similar in their sound to that of bagpipes.
Gittern and mandore: these instruments were used throughout Europe. Forerunners of modern instruments including the mandolin and guitar.
Lira da braccio
Bandora
Cittern
Lute
Orpharion
Vihuela
Clavichord
Harpsichord
Virginal

Percussion [edit]

Some Renaissance percussion instruments include the triangle, the Jew'south harp, the tambourine, the bells, cymbala, the rumble-pot, and various kinds of drums.

Tambourine: The tambourine is a frame drum. The skin that surrounds the frame is called the vellum and produces the beat by hitting the surface with the knuckles, fingertips, or manus. Information technology could likewise be played by shaking the instrument, assuasive the tambourine's jingles or pellet bells (if information technology has either) to "clank" and "jingle".
Jew's harp: An instrument that produces sound using shapes of the mouth and attempting to pronounce dissimilar vowels with one'due south mouth. The loop at the bent end of the tongue of the instrument is plucked in different scales of vibration creating different tones.

Woodwinds (aerophones) [edit]

Woodwind instruments (aerophones) produce audio by means of a vibrating column of air within the piping. Holes along the pipage let the player to control the length of the column of air, and hence the pitch. In that location are several ways of making the air column vibrate, and these ways define the subcategories of woodwind instruments. A player may blow across a mouth hole, as in a flute; into a mouthpiece with a single reed, as in a mod-day clarinet or saxophone; or a double reed, as in an oboe or bassoon. All 3 of these methods of tone production tin be constitute in Renaissance instruments.

Shawm: A typical oriental^{[ description needed ]} shawm is keyless and is about a foot long with seven finger holes and a thumb pigsty. The pipes were also well-nigh unremarkably fabricated of wood and many of them had carvings and decorations on them. It was the about popular double reed instrument of the Renaissance period; it was unremarkably used in the streets with drums and trumpets because of its brilliant, piercing, and often deafening sound. To play the shawm a person puts the unabridged reed in their mouth, puffs out their cheeks, and blows into the pipe whilst breathing through their nose.

Reed pipe^{[ contradictory ]}: Made from a single short length of cane with a mouthpiece, four or five finger holes, and reed fashioned from it. The reed is made past cutting out a modest tongue, but leaving the base attached. It is the predecessor of the saxophone and the clarinet.
Hornpipe: Same as reed piping but with a bell at the terminate.
Bagpipe/Bladderpipe: Believed by the faithful to take been invented by herdsmen who thought using a bag fabricated out of sheep or goat pare would provide air pressure so that when its role player takes a jiff, the player just needs to squeeze the bag tucked underneath their arm to go along the tone. The mouth pipe has a uncomplicated circular piece of leather hinged on to the bag cease of the pipage and acts like a non-render valve. The reed is located within the long mouthpiece, which would have been known equally a bocal, had it been made of metal and had the reed been on the exterior instead of the inside.
Panpipe: Employs a number of wooden tubes with a stopper at i stop and open on the other. Each tube is a different size (thereby producing a dissimilar tone), giving it a range of an octave and a half. The thespian can then place their lips against the desired tube and blow across it.
Transverse flute: The transverse flute is similar to the modern flute with a mouth hole almost the stoppered terminate and finger holes along the trunk. The player blows beyond the rima oris pigsty and holds the flute to either the correct or left side.
Recorder: The recorder was a mutual musical instrument during the Renaissance period. Rather than a reed, it uses a whistle mouthpiece as its chief source of sound production. It is unremarkably made with vii finger holes and a thumb hole.

See too [edit]

History of music
List of Renaissance composers
Music of the French Renaissance
Music in the Elizabethan era

References [edit]

^ ^a ^b ^c Fuller 2010.
^ Montagu n.d.
^ ^a ^b OED 2005.
^ ^a ^b Burkholder n.d.
^ ^a ^b Bent 2000, p. 25.
^ Stolba 1990, p. 140.
^ Emmerson and Clayton-Emmerson 2006, 544.
^ Bent n.d.
^ Classen 2008.
^ Planchart 2001.
^ Munrow 1974.
^ Pryer 1983.
^ Lockwood, O'Regan, and Owens northward.d.
^ Anon. 2017.
^ Bowles 1954, 119 et passim.
^ Betimes. n.d.
^ Besseler 1950, passim.

Sources [edit]

Betimes. "Seconda prattica". Merriam-Webster.com, 2017 (accessed 13 September 2017).
Anon. "What's with the Name?". Sackbut.com website, n.d. (accessed fourteen October 2014).
Atlas, Allan W. Renaissance Music. New York: W.W. Norton, 1998. ISBN 0-393-97169-4
Baines, Anthony, ed. Musical Instruments Through the Ages. New York: Walker and Company, 1975.
Bent, Margaret. "The Grammar of Early on Music: Preconditions for Assay". In Tonal Structures of Early Music, [second edition], edited by Cristle Collins Judd.^{[ folio needed ]} Criticism and Analysis of Early on Music 1. New York and London: Garland, 2000. ISBN 978-0-8153-3638-nine, 978-0815323884 Reissued as ebook 2014. ISBN 978-ane-135-70462-ix
Aptitude, Margaret. "Power, Leonel". Grove Music Online, edited past Deane Root. Due south.l.: Oxford Music Online, n.d. (accessed June 23, 2015).
Bessaraboff, Nicholas. Ancient European Musical Instruments, start edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Printing, 1941.
Besseler, Heinrich. 1950. "Dice Entstehung der Posaune". Acta Musicologica, 22, fasc. 1–two (Jan–June): eight–35.
Bowles, Edmund A. 1954. "Haut and Bas: The Grouping of Musical Instruments in the Eye Ages". Musica Disciplina viii:115–forty.
Brownish, Howard Yard. Music in the Renaissance. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1976. ISBN 0-13-608497-4
J. Peter Burkholder. "Borrowing." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, n.d. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
Classen, Albrecht. "The Irrepressibility of Sex Yesterday and Today". In Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Early Mod Times, edited by Albrecht Classen, 44–47. Due south.l.: Walter de Gruyter, 2008. ISBN 978-3-11-020940-2
Emmerson, Richard Kenneth, and Sandra Clayton-Emmerson. Cardinal Figures in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia. [New York?]: Routledge, 2006. ISBN 978-0-415-97385-iv
Fenlon, Iain, ed. (1989). The Renaissance: from the 1470s to the End of the 16th Century. Human & Music. Vol. 2. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. ISBN978-0-xiii-773417-7.
Fuller, Richard. 2010. Renaissance Music (1450–1600). GCSE Music Notes, at rpfuller.com (14 Jan, accessed 14 October 2014).
Gleason, Harold and Becker, Warren. Music in the Eye Ages and Renaissance (Music Literature Outlines Series I). Bloomington, IN: Frangipani Printing, 1986. ISBN 0-89917-034-X
Judd, Cristle Collins, ed. Tonal Structures of Early Music. New York: Garland Publishing, 1998. ISBN 0-8153-2388-3
Lockwood, Lewis, Noel O'Regan, and Jessie Ann Owens. "Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, due north.d. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
Montagu, Jeremy. "Renaissance instruments". The Oxford Companion to Music, edited past Alison Latham. Oxford Music Online. Retrieved September 30, 2011.
Munrow, David. Notes for the recording of Dufay: Misss "Se la face ay pale". Early Music Consort of London. (1974)^{[ full citation needed ]}
Munrow, David. Instruments of the Eye Ages and Renaissance. London: Oxford University Printing, 1976.
OED. "Renaissance". Oxford English Lexicon (Online ed.). Oxford University Printing. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
Ongaro, Giulio. Music of the Renaissance. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2003.
Planchart, Alejandro Enrique (2001). "Du Fay [Dufay; Du Fayt], Guillaume". Grove Music Online. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.commodity.08268. ISBN978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
Pryer A. 1983. "Dufay". In The New Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Arnold^{[ full citation needed ]}.
Reese, Gustave (1959). Music in the Renaissance (revised ed.). New York, New York: West. W. Norton & Company. ISBN978-0-393-09530-2.
Stolba, Marie (1990). The Development of Western Music: A History . Dubuque: W.C. Brown. ISBN978-0-697-00182-v. Leonel Power (c. 1375–1445) was 1 of the two leading composers of English language music between 1410 and 1445. The other was John Dunstaple.
Strunk, Oliver. Source Readings in Music History. New York: W.W. Norton, 1950.
Orpheon Foundation, Vienna, Austria

External links [edit]

Pandora Radio: Renaissance Flow
Ancient FM (online radio featuring medieval and renaissance music)
Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Instruments – descriptions, photos, and sounds.
"Hither of A Sunday Morning"
Renaissance Flow Music Drove of music from five countries
"The Renaissance Channel" – Renaissance Music Videos
"Before and After Internet Radio" – Medieval, Renaissance, Mod Classical music
Répertoire International des Sources Musicales (RISM), a free, searchable database of worldwide locations for music manuscripts up to c. 1800
WQXR: Renaissance Note Knives

Modern performance

Urban center of Lincoln Waites The Mayor of Lincoln's Own Band of Musick
Pantagruel – A Renaissance Musicke Ensemble
Stella Fortuna: Medieval Minstrels (1370) from Ye Compaynye of Cheualrye Re-enactment Society. Photos and Audio Download.
The Waits Website – Renaissance Civic Bands of Europe
Ensemble Feria Half-dozen – 6 voices and a viola da gamba