In the late 1300's, the idea began in Italy to try to revive the ancient Greek and Roman cultures (the word Renaissance means “rebirth”) to bring back their glorious past. Meanwhile, in France, a similar movement was emerging. Renaissance artists strove to interpret the world around them rather than make art for pious reasons. These new attitudes created new musical ideas.

PARAPHRASING- The procedure of embellishing plainchant with extra notes and graceful rhythms.

HOMOPHONY- The polyphony of inner voices often became very simple and would move together, which created a melody with simple chords.

Dufay was an influential figure in Italy during the Renaissance. He worked in Italy where he came to know and be supported by much of the nobility there. One of his more well known compositions was "Ave Maris Stella".

"Ave Maris Stella” is a Gregorian hymn dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It was sung on all of her special feast days.
-This is a hymn, a short tune sung through many stanzas and ending with “Amen”
-This is in the dorian mode (one of the earlier modes).
-Stanzas 1,3,4 are sung in Gregorian style.
-Stanzas 2,4,6 are paraphrased melodies of the original hymn with homophonic accompaniment. Let's listen!

"AVE MARIS STELLA"
(performed by the Mater Dei Choir section leaders Matt Keeny, Patrick Forsell, Elizabeth Gearhart and Stephanie Griffen)

Renaissance composers took a relaxed attitude to both authority and intricacy of the church. Isorhythm was abandoned in favor of a simpler style of polyphony. Their works began to increase in texture and in length. A good example of this was the "chanson", a simpler polyphonic song with less complicated rhythms. Instead of rhythmic or polyphonic complexity, Renaissance composers focused instead on creating large works.

The Mass was the largest and most important of all church services. It contained many parts set to music. In the renaissance the old plainchants were abandoned in favor of new music and five parts of the Mass were selected to be given new compositions. This setting of the mass has retained it's form down to the present day, through settings by Bach Mozart Liszt and many morel. These five sections were used as “The Mass” until modern times:

    1. Kyrie- A simple prayer, asking for mercy (first from God and then from Jesus).
    2. Gloria- A longer hymn, giving glory to God.
    3. Credo- A recital, professing ones faith in the Christian beliefs.
    4. Sanctus- From the Latin root, "holy", another shorter hymn of praise.
    5. Agnus Dei- Translated in English, "Lamb of God", this closing prayer is asking for peace.

Texture is the balance between the vertical (harmonic) and horizontal (melodic) elements in a given musical work. By the Renaissance period, the three main textures, (monophonic, polyphonic and homophonic) were being used:

1. Monophonic- A single melody. When you’re singing in the shower that’s monophony. Other examples include chant.

2. Polyphonic- Multiple interwoven melodies. Although most examples are more complicated. The Catholic Church often used polyphonic textures for its Masses.

3. Homophonic: A prominent melody accompanied by chords. Often the rhythm is more independent of the main melody.

Around 1500 a new style emerged for Masses, motets, and chansons. The chief characteristic of the "High Renaissance" style was a careful blend of two kinds of texture: imitative counterpoint and homophony.

One of the most famous Renaissance composers in the mid Renaissance, Josquin Des Prez wrote 18 settings of the Mass. "Pange Lingua" is one of his more notable masterpieces. It derives it’s melodic material from a hymn called “pane lingua” ("sing, my tongue"). It is a four part mass (a mass for a choir with four voice parts). We will listen to the "Kyrie" (the opening part of five parts):

-The men in the choir sing line 1 of the hymn in monophony before the mass starts.
-Next we have a point of imitation, a short passage of imitative polyphony covering one phrase and using a single motive. The Kyrie has one point of imitation (on "Kyrie").  Eventaully each of the four voices, will come in at this point of imitation.
-This motive is a paraphrase of the original Kyrie plainchant. The Christe section also has two points of imitation. On “Christe” and “Elison” . -The second Kyrie has a new point of imitation (i.e new music) followed by free (not derived from the plainchant) material (aba’).

"PANGE LINGUA"
(performed by Siglo de Oro)

Renaissance composers were inspired by Roman and Greek civilizations. These civilizations felt that music was capable of arousing emotions. With this inspiration they realized that both words AND music were capable of expressing emotion. Composers tried to match words with music which led to two important developments:

1. Declamation- Setting words to rhythms and melodies that approximate normal speech. This technique arouse out of the desire for the words to be clearly heard.

2. Word Painting- The process of matching the music to the meaning of the words being set. Words such as “fly” or “glitter” were set to rapid notes, “up” and “heaven” were set to high ones. Words like “grief” or “torment” were set to more dissonant harmonies.

"Mille Regrets"
(performed by Profeti Della Quinta with Giovanna Baviera, Doron Schleifer, Jacob Lawrence and Elam Rotem)