Here we are at week 3, sorry I missed last week. This week is Italian instrumental renaissance music, and how glad I am considering the past two parts have been Gregorian Chant. This week has many smaller pieces with many different composers, so the format will be slightly different here. Rather than writing my usual biographical paragraphs for each composer I will just write about the renaissance and its effect on music at the time, then will move on to musical analysis.

The renaissance is the term given to the cultural movement of the 14th century. It was sparked by the rediscovery of Greco-Roman literature and art, largely due to the migration of Greek scholars after the Fall of Constantinople by the Turks. This rediscovery was the catalyst for freer art, politics, science, religion, education and philosophy. This cultural boom began in Italy, specifically the city-state of Florence, before moving throughout the entirety of Europe to varying degrees. There are many brilliant people of the renaissance, with my particular favourite being Machiavelli, I really love how he wrote and what he wrote. He is just one of many many great minds from around this period and I highly recommend you doing more research into this time period because it is fascinating. The demand for great art massively increase and produced a never before seen flow of money between the upper and lower classes, this time period can be seen as very capitalistic. The Italian political landscape was the most fertile land for the renaissance to occur, the city-states made possible the freedom of expression (and all the money) possible. The impact of the renaissance is quite controversial and still widely disputed, though personally I love the idea of it and choose to believe.

In terms of music the renaissance had a significant impact. The freedom of expression and humanistic influences were seen just as much in music as they were for art and philosophy. Music rose as a form of entertainment and activity for all classes, this was helped by the popularisation of the printing press. Opera also has its roots during this time due to the rediscovery of ancient Greek music. The music is an intertwining mix of sacred (choral) music and secular (instrumental) music to form something new entirely. There is a greater flow throughout the piece and more complex harmonies, medieval music was written in lines like poetry, whilst renaissance music is written more like music where the end of the line isn’t a full stop. The renaissance period lasted from 1400-1600 until baroque period took over (we are not quite there yet though).

The Music

I’ll begin with my general thoughts before talking in more detail about the longer sections. Overall the variation compared to Gregorian chant is very refreshing, and even compared to other pieces the variation is not bad. I felt as though each piece had one continuous rhythm with rises and falls, not dissimilar to Gregorian chant with the tenor keeping the rhythm and the other lines giving pitch and depth. The drums I found to be particularly great, I find it a shame that they are often ignored in later periods (as far as I have seen). I could definitely hear the freedom from the sacred musical constraints which really adds to the possibilities of the music. In general I found it much more similar to music from later down the time-line.

Music for Shawms and Sackbuts – Heinrich Isaac: I found this variance of tone, pitch and volume to be so so refreshing. However I still found it lacking in emotion, it’s not exciting or saddening, it’s just very well written music. I would liken it to pop music, which in the time I suppose it was, this is the music that would’ve been playing the parties and balls held by the rich families. In summary it was nice.

Music for Recorders – Francesco Bendusi: Ignoring the flashbacks from playing recorder at primary school I found this music to have great rises and falls of pitch. I couldn’t help but see the similarities it has to Gregorian chant, except with recorders. It had a tenor that kept a very consistent tune and then the other recorder playing off this baseline. It sounds very fantastical and I quite enjoyed it.

Music for flutes, harp, lute and bagpipes – [unknown]: This section of music contained my piece of the day (La Parma). In general I felt this music was very relaxing with excellent rhythm and harmonies between the instruments, to me it sounded like a duet. The instruments weren’t two halves of the same coin, because they each bought something different to the music, this is going to sound poetically tragic but I’ll quote my notes: “it’s like love”. I suppose I mean this in a holistic way, it’s the combination of the instruments that makes something great, individually they would’ve been standard, boring even. Anyway, I didn’t know bagpipes weren’t exclusively Scottish so that was nice to learn. At first I didn’t like the bagpipes too much (in this style of music), one bagpipe was playing a constant undertone, whilst the other one (?) sounded like an amateur reading their notes from paper, it didn’t have a good flow. The bagpipes did grow on me however and it didn’t sound so bad toward the end.

Music for Crumhorns, Citterns and Percussion – Filippo Azzaiolo: I actually really enjoyed this music. It put a massive smile on my face, the instruments are kind of comical but the overall rhythm I found to be fantastic. Special shout out to Gentil madonna, which was almost my piece of the day.

Suite of Dances – [unknown]: I loved the drums in these pieces, it kept a good beat and tempo through out. I found this music to be very pleasant, it’s like music you would hear at an Italian restaurant or something, it’s very low-key scene setting music. If I was throwing a ball in Italy during renaissance times this would be the music I would play as the guests are arriving.

Anyway, that’s done for this week. I really enjoyed this week, and I apologise for the messed up format we should be back to normal for next week, which is collection of masses. Not sure if I am looking forward to that, though we shall see. Thank you for reading!