CHAPTER 12: THE RISE OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC

I. Time Period (after 1450/during Renaissance Period)

II. Music Development

A. Instruments
a. Trends of Renaissance instruments

i. Books in the vernacular described instruments and offered instruction.

1. Musica getutscht und ausgezogen (Music Explained) by Sebastian
Virdung, Germany, 1511, was the first.
b. Haut and bas (high and low) continue as designations for loud and soft.
c. Consorts
i. Instrument families were built in sets of different sizes, covering a wide
range.
ii. Mixed consorts were also used.
iii. Most musicians played several instruments.
d. Wind and percussion instruments

i. Instruments from the Middle Ages: recorders, transverse flutes, shawms,

cornetts, trumpets
ii. New instruments: the sackbut (early form of trombone) and crumhorn, an
instrument with an enclosed double reed Percussion instruments were
more refined and diverse than in the past, but parts were never written out
for them.
e. String instruments

i. Plucked
1. The lute was the most popular household instrument Lutes have six
courses of strings and a round back.
2. Vihuela was a guitar-like Spanish instrument with a flat back.
ii. Bowed
1. The viol (viola da gamba or leg-viol) had frets and was played in
consorts.
2. The violin descended from the medieval fiddle and was developed
in Italy for dance music.
f. Keyboard instruments
i. Organ
1. Large church organs, similar to today's, were installed by 1500.
2. Pedal keyboards were used only in Germany.
3. Builders added more stops (ranks of pipes).
4. The portative organ was still popular
ii. Clavichord
1. Soft-sounding solo instrument for small rooms
2. Tone is sustained until player releases the key.
3. Player can control volume and can create vibrato.
iii. Harpsichord family
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1. Includes harpsichord, virginal (England), clavecin (France),

clavicembalo (Italy)
2. Louder than clavichord but without the nuances of dynamics or
vibrato
3. A second keyboard attached to two sets of strings produced a
louder sound for contrast.
4. Strings are plucked, so the pitch isn't sustained.

g. Types of Instrumental Music

i. Dance music
ii. Social dancing was important for people of "breeding" Instruments at
first used vocal models for music.
iii. Musicians improvised, as in the Middle Ages, but music in
improvisational style was printed in books.
1. Composed for ensemble, lute, or keyboard
2. Embellishment of melodic line was a common technique.
3. Adding one or more contrapuntal lines to a bass line
iv. Works for lute or keyboard became stylized, not meant for actual
dancing.
v. Each dance has a unique character, defined by meter, tempo, rhythmic
pattern, and form.
vi. Form usually consisted of repeated sections of four-measure phrases.
vii. Basse danse and branle were favorite dances of the late fifteenth and
early sixteenth centuries.
1. Basse danse (low dance): stately couples dance, gradually raising
and lowering the body in five kinds of steps
2. Branle: one of the basse dance steps, eventually becoming its
own genre
viii. Dance pairs
1. Pairs were usually on the same theme but with contrasting tempo
and meter.
2. Pavane and galliard were a favorite pairing.
3. Pavane: stately dance in three repeated strains Galliard: livelier
dance using the same form and melody
4. Passamezzo and saltarello were popularly paired in Italy.

h. Arrangements of vocal music

i. Some music was labeled "for singing and playing."

ii. When performed on instruments, players embellished vocal music.
iii. Intabulations: arrangements of music notated in tablature
1. Used for plucked and keyboard instruments
2. Because plucked instruments could not sustain pitches, arrangers
adapted pieces to compensate.
i. Settings of existing melodies
i. Chant settings for organ (organ verses or versets) to alternate with choir as
part of an "organ mass"
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ii. Organ chorales

1. Published after the 1570s but likely improvised earlier
2. Use various techniques
iii. In nomine settings
1. A popular cantus-firmus theme, derived from the Sanctus of John
Tavener's Missa Gloria tibi trinitas
2. Tavener transcribed his mass for instruments.
3. Hundreds were published, especially for viol consort.
j. Variations
i. Presenting a theme and then continuing with an uninterrupted series of
variants on that theme demonstrates the imagination and skill of
composers and performers
ii. Variations on dance themes
1. Forms that used repeating sections would be varied in the
repetition.
2. Variations on repeating bass lines (ostinatos), e.g., passamezzo
iii. Sets of variations on standard airs
1. In Italy, the Romanesca and Ruggiero were popular.
2. In Spain, Guárdame las vacas was shows the melody and bass plus
the opening of each variation).
a. Called differencias in Spanish
b. is the standard air, used for singing poetry.
c. Narváez states the bass clearly but varies the melody from the
start.
d. Each variation uses its own unique figure throughout.
k. English virginalists (harpsichord composers)
i. Parthenia (1613), the first published book for, contains variations, dances,
preludes, and fantasias.
1. Variations were often based on dances or familiar songs.
2. The melody can vary.
3. Each variation uses one type of figuration.
ii. Byrd's Pavana Lachrymae from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book
1. Based on Dowland's Flow my tears (NAWM 58)
2. The second of each pair of phrases is more active than the first.
a. Called differencias in Spanish
b. is the standard air, used for singing poetry.
c. Narváez states the bass clearly but varies the melody from the
start.
d. Each variation uses its own unique figure throughout.
l. Abstract instrumental music
i. Improvisation and vocal models inspired new, purely instrumental genres.
ii. Performers and composers used expressive effects
m. Introductory and improvisatory pieces
a. Keyboard and lute players often improvised the introduction to
a song.
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b. In the early sixteenth century, collections of freely composed

compositions in improvisatory style began to appear in Spain
and Italy.
c. Titles varied: prelude, fantasia, ricercare

n. Toccata was the chief keyboard genre.

i. Name derives from the Italian tocare ("to touch")
o. Ricercare
i. Evolved into a motetlike succession of imitative sections
ii. Successive themes, each developed imitatively and overlapping
iii. The earliest are for lute, possibly the origin of the name (to "seek out" the
tuning of the instrument).
iv. By 1540, the genre could be composed for keyboard or ensemble as well.
p. Canzona
i. The earliest were intabulations of imitative French chansons (canzona in
Italian).
ii. By the midcentury the songs were reworked, much as the sources for
imitation masses were.
iii. By 1580 original compositions in this style appeared.
iv. They were light, fast-moving, strongly rhythmic pieces.
v. The typical opening rhythmic figure was a half-note followed by two
quarter notes.

B. Music in Venice
a. The city of Venice
i. An independent state run by several important families, with an
elected leader called the doge ("duke")
ii. One of the chief ports of Europe
iii. Controlled territories in surrounding areas
b. Patronage of the arts
i. The government spent lavishly on public music and art.
ii. Through the arts, the city could maintain the illusion of greatness
despite wars and misfortunes that diminished its position in the
sixteenth century.
c. Church of St. Mark
i. The private chapel of the doge
ii. The location of great civic and religious ceremonies
iii. A permanent ensemble was instituted in 1568.
1. Cornetts and sackbuts were the core.
2. Violin and bassoon were also included.
3. For major feast days as many as twenty-four
instrumentalists might be added.
iv. Polychoral motets
1. Works for two or more choirs (up to five in Gabrieli's
music)
2. Divided choirs, cori spezzati, had been common
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3. Forces could be placed in the two organ lofts of St. Marks,

one on each side of the altar, and another on the floor.
v. Ensemble canzonas
1. Instrumental version of divided choirs
2. Gabrieli's Sacrae symphoniae (Sacred Symphonies, 1597)
uses two groups of four instruments, with organ
accompaniment.
3. groups alternate stanzas and join together for the final
stanza.
4. Instruments are not specified, but they would probably
have been cornetts and sackbuts.
5. The organ doubles the lowest note in the ensemble (basso
seguente).
C. Instrumental Music Gains Independence
a. In the sixteenth century, instrumental music began to be cultivated for its
own sake, not for dancing or related to vocal music.
b. Abstract forms developed in the sixteenth century continued to be used in
the Baroque period and even into the nineteenth century.
c. Although some sixteenth-century music continued to be played in the
seventeenth century, it was not until the late nineteenth century that
scholars revived it.

III. Most important people and their works

1. Michael Praetorius's (ca. 1571-1621) Syntagma musicum (A
Systematic Treatise of Music, 1618) includes woodcut illustrations
of instruments of the time.
2. Luys de Narváez (fl. 1526-1549) published a version of Josquin's
Mille regretz using figures such as runs and turns to fill in long
notes.
3. Claudio Merulo (1533-1604) composed organ toccatas from his
Toccata IV in the Sixth Mode, 1604).
a. Exploits the organ's ability to sustain tones, especially in
suspensions
b. Uses a variety of textures, figurations, and embellishments
c. A contrasting middle section uses imitation.
d. The third and final section slows the harmonic progression
while increasing the liveliness of the figuration, leading to a
dramatic climax.
4. Giovanni Gabrieli (ca. 1555-1612)
a. Worked for St. Mark's from 1585 until his death (see HWM
biography, page 283 and HWM Figure 12.9)
b. Composed for multiple choirs
c. Composed the earliest substantial collections for large
instrumental ensemble
d. Works include about one hundred motets, over thirty
madrigals, and almost eighty instrumental works.
CHAPTER 12: THE RISE OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC