Renaissance

Dunstable Veni Creator Spiritus (transition from Medieval.) is very nice. (I replaced the link and now there's no score, but, hey . . .take dictation! right?) Check out the cadence in bar 9 (17 seconds in). [Suspension --> 7 --> 6 --1.] That dates the piece as being closer to the medieval era. Another example is the Leading tone to the fifth between bars 42 and 43 (at about 1:23). The reason I told you in class to avoid that, is, well, it sounds like this, and I want you to get the hang of the later high renaissance style. Finally, this piece is not nearly as imitative as later renaissance music tends to be. Not that there's anything the matter with that . . .

Dufay Nuper rosarum flores (allegedly composed to the same 'architectural proportions as the Duomo in Florence. No really. Allegedly.) Want to read about it? Here. But don't say I didn't warn you. There is a pretty good case to be made that Dufay takes a lot of the (to us) arcane technical metrical and proportional concerns of the Medieval Era and applies it to a Renaissance sensibility of consonance and dissonance between interrelated voices. And here is his faaaabulous Missa L'Homme Armée. Notice how gosh darn modal this is. It's hard to think of chords at all until the cadences. Josquin (below) is also mostly like that, but as you get into the later renaissance, you really do start to hear progressions of chords more and more in the counterpoint. I think.

And here's an Ockeghem mass. (see the entry on the medieval page about prolation) I always feel I'm supposed to love him more than I do. I'm not sure why. It just seems a little wandering to me. Josquin revered him, though, and he should know, I guess. I'll try to talk about prolation in class. If I don't get to it, prod me. Erm, verbally, please.

Josquin Missa La Sol Fa Re Mi. (recording here) Follow the bread crumbs to the other parts of this mass. Try listening to this as a vast re-harmonization/counterpoint exercise by following the score and finding the eternal descending theme. Then just forget about the theory of it all and listen to it for, like, 'fun'. Josquin is regarded by many as one of the best composers of this period, and I highly recommend following him around on youtube. Here are some more pieces. Finally, if you're into it, this is a cool and very moving piece dedicated to Ockeghem. He's deliberately imitating O's style so it sounds a little less like himself. And, again with the prolation . . . they were into that sort of the thing at certain moments apparently.

William Byrd, Mass for 3 voices The first two movements . . .. follow the subsequent links for the rest. Also there are 'William Byrd channels' on youtube. Like, crrrrazy! And while we're on the subject, the piece by Byrd most performed today is his Ave verum corpus. Most likely because of the simultaneous F# and F-natural in the 'miserere' section. Must be that. IN any case, it's a great example of a mostly homophonic piece with suuuper voice leading only possible if you've, you know, studied counterpoint. And stuff. And OK, here's a lot more (instrumental, even . . . check out those tubas!) And still more . . .including a bunch of secular stuff because, well, you know . . they're British.

Tomas L. d. Vittoria's O Magnum Mysterium A classic. There's a lot to learn from following this one along. The cadential overlaps are super pretty. The changes between overt canonic polyphony, less canonic polyphony, and overt homophony are beautifully staged. You know, if you like that sort of thing.

Another one of my personal favorites is Thomas Tallis' If Ye Love Me. It also begins and ends in homophony, and the canonical part is so super smooth, it's all very soothing. It's part of the English Anthem tradition, which called for short pieces on religious texts to be inserted into the service at various places. (As opposed to the Roman Catholic masses whose texts were usually the substance of the service itself.) This recording is, well, a little English, and I'm used to hearing it a step or two higher, but it's lovely nonetheless. Seeing as the choir that's performing was founded in the 1440's . . .perhaps they know a thing or two . . . And as long as we're on the subject, here's the famous Spem in Alium, written for QE1's birthday. It was written to be sung by several choirs spaced around the cathedral and ends up being about 43 separate parts. With no parallel fifths or octaves thank you very much. Also this is lovely.

And as long as we're getting all British . . . there's Tomas Weelkes who wrote some sacred music and also wrote several secular madrigals including this that sounds almost like a round, so goofy is it.

Palestrina has lots and lots to listen to -- he is the guy that Johann Fux based his Gradus ad Parnassum guide to counterpoint on, so clear is the composer's writing. Start with Sicut Cervus. It's an anthem-length piece that's very easy to follow, and an excellent lesson in long-tone sustained voices mixed with voices moving at other speeds. It's also just astonishingly pretty.

Other Palestrina to listen to includes, well everything. But you can also go to his most famous piece, the Pope Marcellus Mass, a very, very clean piece of 6-part writing. No problem, right? Also it's in myxolydian mostly. Cool, no? Check out the cadence at 3' 23". To stay in a myxolydian mode, sometimes you just got to have a leading-tone-less approach from a fifth below instead of above. (sounds plagal in other words.) Basically this means that your 'teacher' lied to you about cadential formulae. Well, maybe lied is a bit strong. Or maybe not . . . .bwa ha ha. Oh and say did you count how many chromatic alterations there are in that movement? Hmm? Noam sane?

Anyway, one thing to notice from all the larger pieces is how much they do in fact rely on sustained tones in one or two voices.

Oh, and keep in mind that all of these versions are somewhat edited. Often modern versions are in slightly different keys one from another. This is because women have slightly different ranges than boys, and also because we have little idea what actual pitch was in those days -- all we know is that it pretty certainly varied.

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LATER CHROMATIC STUFF

It's interesting to listen to the following chromatic stuff after having labored to find appropriate modal modulations in your own exercises. Notice that most, though not all of the examples following have chromaticism in mostly homophonic parts and more modally stable times during the imitatively contrapuntal sections.

So:

Orlando di Lasso (the same guy whose duets we studied) wrote a highly chromatic collection called Prophetia Sybillarum [score] [Various youtube recordings]. These are very much in the madrigal style as opposed to the sacred mass style. As such, they do not seem as beholden to any one mode. Or, if they do, it's very difficult to discern what with all the third relations hither and yon.

Some wildness: Here is a piece by Gesualdo, O Vos Omnes. It's not particularly imitative, but the individuality of the voices still qualifies it as counterpoint. What's striking about it is the deliberate modal shiftiness. Speaking of which, here's another even more striking one, this time, more imitative. Notice the wildly unprepared dissonance on the word 'dolor' which, as it happens means 'sadness' so it's ok. This one is a Madrigal, and madrigals are often such slaves to word painting that late renaissance composers like Gesualdo often loved to utilize episodes of chromaticism to contrast to more diatonic sections. Like this. Check out the stuff around 1'40". Wa wa wee wa.

One of the classics in this sub-genre is Marenzio's Solos e Pensoso (and yes, that's a mezzo clef) It's difficult to find a starting pitch that works for all voices. Either you need a very light soprano or a very low bass . . . . The beginning is the classic part, but the rest is kinda ordinary . . . .