CHAPTER 23

RENAISSANCE INSTRUMENTS

AND INSTRUMENTAL

MUSIC

INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC

• Much of the music played by instrumentalists during the Middle Ages and Renaissance was produced playing by ear, not from written scores.

• One master taught an apprentice orally, generation after generation.

• Around 1550, music publishers produced about fifteen prints of vocal music for every one of instrumental.

• The advent of music printing allowed instrumental music to circulate father than ever before.

KEYBOARD INSTRUMENTS

• The keyboard instruments of the Renaissance included organ (both positive and portative), clavichord, harpsichord, and virginal.

• Keyboard music was sometimes written in keyboard tablature, a combination of note symbols (for the fast-moving upper part) and pitch-letter names (for the lower parts).

An anonymous setting of the chant Salve, Regina, written in keyboard tablature as preserved in the Buxhiem Organ Book, a collection of 256 pieces for organ compiled in southern Germany around 1470.

Keyboard InstrumentsKeyboard Instruments

clavichordclavichord harpsichordharpsichord

virginal

FINGERING

• Renaissance performers on keyboard instruments used an essentially “thumbless” approach to the instrument.

• When running up and down the scale, they would avoid using the thumb and would continually cross 2 over 3.

STRING INSTRUMENTS: LUTE

• The lute is a pear-shaped instrument with six sets of strings called courses.– its most distinctive feature is the peg box that

turns back at a right angle to the fingerboard.

• Lute music was written in lute tablature, a system in which the fingers are directed to frets on specific strings.

LUTE TABLATURE

The beginning of Claudin de Sermisy’s chanson Tant que vivray in lute tablature (below) and modern notation (above).

A small lute and a transverse flute accompany a singer in a performance of a

Parisian chanson

VIHUELA

• The vihuela (Spanish guitar) is a plucked string instrument with a waited body, and a long poel-neck that serves as a fingerboard.

• Six-double strings.

• Our modern classical guitar is a direct descendant.

A representation of Orpheo (Orpheus) playing a vihuela

from the Spanish print Libro de musica de viheula of Luis Milán (1535/1536)

VIOL

• The viol developed in Spain around 1475.

• It generally has six strings, is fretted, and is tuned like the lute.

• The viol comes in three sizes - treble, tenor, and bass. The bass usually goes by the Italian name viola da gamba (leg viol).

VIOLIN

• The violin developed around 1520 in northern Italy– in towns such as Cremona, Brescia,

Mantua, and Ferrara.

• It was smaller than the modern violin, and this may account for the diminutive name violino (little viol)– from which the final “o” was eventually

dropped, giving us in English “violin.”

• The violin is tuned in fifths and does not have frets.

WIND INSTRUMENTS: FLUTES AND RECORDERS

• What we today call the flute (the transverse flute) was known in the Renaissance as the German flute.

• Recorders and flutes were made of wood, or occasionally of ivory. Recorders came in various sizes.

THE RENAISSANCE WIND BAND

• By around 1500 the wind band usually consisted of– one or two sackbuts (ancestor of the modern

trombone)– two or three shawms (predecessor of the oboe)– perhaps a cornett

• a wooden instrument with finger holes the tone of which is like that of a soft trumpet.

• During the sixteenth century the shawm gradually came to be called the hautbois (oboe).

• The trumpet did not participate in the Renaissance wind band– but was a separate instrument generally restricted to

playing fanfares and military signals.

INSTRUMENTAL GENRES

• The Renaissance witnessed the creation of several new musical genres.

• Many of these genres would remain in vogue for centuries hereafter.

ARRANGEMENTS, INTABULATIONS, AND VARIATIONS

• Chansons, madrigals, motets, and Masses -the four principal genres of Renaissance vocal music– were often arranged for keyboard, lute, or

guitar.

• Such arrangements were called intabulations simply because they were written in lute, keyboard, or guitar tablature.

• Composers also wrote variations on pre-existing melodies and popular bass patterns.

DANCES

• During the Renaissance, dances came to be grouped in pairs.

• A slow pavane would be followed by a fast galliard, for example.

• Toward the end of the sixteenth century the allemande sometimes came to be placed before pavane and galliard.

• The concept of a suite, or succession of dances (later to become so popular in the Baroque era) was already in place.

PRELUDE

• A prelude is a preliminary piece that allowed the performer to – warm up a bit, – quiet the audience– make sure the instrument was in tune.

• As the name suggests, the prelude served to prepare the way for a second, more weighty composition.

RICERCAR

• By the middle of the sixteenth century the ricercar (to seek out) was a one-movement composition– usually for lute or keyboard– contained a number of imitative sections.

FANTASIA

• The fantasiafantasia was a genre that continually changed its form during the sixteenth century.

• Originally the fantasia was an instrumental piece that allowed the composer to give free reign to the imagination (as it’s name suggests).

• It was free in form and somewhat spontaneous in creation.

• It gradually evolved into a work displaying imitative counterpoint from beginning to end.

CANZONA

• Originally, “canzona” was simply an Italian word designating a French chanson– more specifically the Parisian chanson of the

mid sixteenth century.

• By the end of the century, however, a canzona denoted a freely composed instrumental piece, usually for organ or instrumental ensemble.

• It imitated – the lively rhythms.– lightly imitative style of the Parisian chanson.

The beginning of Claudio Merulo’s

The beginning of Claudio Merulo’s Canzona 5

published in Venice in 1600

5 published in Venice in 1600

It exhibits the dactylic rhythm (long, short, short) typical of the Parisian chanson.