Instrumental Music in the Sixteenth Century

Consort or chest — homogeneous groupings

• Recorders (bas)• Double reeds– shawms, racketts (haut)– crumhorns, dulcians (bas) — capped

reeds

• Cornett and sackbut• Viol or viola da gamba (bas)

Instruments

“Broken consort”

• Combines various families

• Standard broken consort included recorder and plucked and bowed strings

Keyboard instruments in the sixteenth century

• Clavichord — strings activated by tangents attached to opposite ends of keys

• Harpsichord — strings plucked by quills set in jacks

• Organ — portative, positive, and church types

Plucked string instruments

• Lute• Archlutes at

lower pitches– theorbo– chitarrone

• Vihuela

Tablature

• Special notation for plucked strings– shows placement

of fingers on fingerboard rather than pitch

– rhythm indicated by stems and flags above

• Sometimes also used for keyboard music

Instrumental genres

Instruments with voices

• Incidental doublings or substitutions– informally in secular music– church music with brass

• Independent instrumental parts– lute song– consort song– songs with keyboard

Instrumental music derived from vocal genres

• Transcriptions or ornamented version of vocal pieces

• Ricercar — polyphonic texture of motet– sometimes called fantasia– tiento — Spanish equivalent of ricercar

• Canzona — from chanson type, features familiar style and clearly marked rhythm

• England — “In nomine” based on c.f. from Benedictus of Taverner Missa Gloria tibi trinitas

• Variations on vocal melodies

Dance music — real or stylized

• Often in pairs– basse danse, branle — French – pavane and gaillarde — French (English

pavan and galliard)– passamezzo and saltarello — Italian

• Use of variation principle

Improvisatory types

• Intonazione, prelude, preambulum — to tune and introduce more formal pieces

• Fantasia — free improvisational style (term also used for ricercar type)

• Toccata — virtuosic

Questions for discussion

• What elements of instrumental practice in the sixteenth century are closest to those of the preceding centuries? Which anticipated later instrumental usage in the periods of common practice?

• What are the advantages and disadvantages of tablature notation compared to staff notation?

• How would humanist thought and sound ideals have changed the practice of instrumental music in the church compared to previous centuries?

• What ideas did vocal music contribute to instrumental musical structures and processes in the sixteenth century? What did dance contribute?