Spotlights

Renaissance Musical Examples

Evidence of England moving towards a triadic sound, even in the Middle Ages

Anonymous: Sumer Is Icumen In [Old Middle English for "Summer is a-Comin' In"] [English song in rota design ("round")] (c1240)--[click here to see score excerpt ]

https://www.wmich.edu/musicgradexamprep/Sumer_is_icumen_in.mp4

Performance Notes:
Although this song dates from the mid-1200s, it is so far ahead of its time in regards in its use of triadic sound and imitative structure--two traits that permeated Renaissance music 200 years later. It is surprising that anyone bothered to even write it down since it is a silly secular song, and such things were rarely copied in manuscript (usually that process was for sacred music that needed to be preserved and distributed widely).

In this beautiful manuscript , you can see at the very bottom two low voices on the words "Sing cuccu...", and then the main melody for four and a half lines starting at the top of the page. Those two lower voices start the song with a 2-measure repeating ostinato ("Sing cuccu nu sing cuccu") that switches voice parts after one measure, and then the round begins on "Sumer is icumen in," with each echoing voice in the round entering successively at the point in the score where the red cross is marked.

[Transliteration of the "Middle English" into Modern English]
Summer is a-comin' in,
Loudly sing, Cuckoo!
Seeds grow and meadows blow
And the forest springs anew,
Sing, Cuckoo!-
The ewe bleats after the lamb,
The cow low after its calf. ,
The bullock jumps, the billy-goat farts,
Merrily sing, Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo, well you sing, cuckoo;
Nor will you ever stop now.

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Early Renaissance in England ("Contenance Angloise"-- the "English sound")

John Dunstable: Quam Pulchra Es [motet] (c1430)--[click here to see score excerpt ]

https://www.wmich.edu/musicgradexamprep/Dunstable_Quam_Pulchra_Es.mp4

Performance Notes:
In the early 1400s, Dunstable was noted for his new, highly-triadic sound that continental European composers called the "Contenance Angloise" ("the English way"). His Latin sacred motet Quam Pulchra Es is a blending of forward-looking triadic sounds that eventually cadence on perfect (hollower-sounding) Medieval sonorities. The words may sound sensuous, but this is a Biblical text (from the Song of Solomon/Old Testament) that metaphorically depicts the passionate love of the Israelites for their God:

[Translation: Text in Latin from the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament of the Bible]
How beautiful thou art, and how graceful, my dearest in delights.
Your stature I would compare to a palm tree, and your breasts to clusters of grapes.
Your head is like Mount Carmel, your neck just like a tower of ivory.

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Early Renaissance on the Main European Continent:

Guillaume Dufay: Se la face ay pale [love song--French chanson (ballade = AaB)] (c1430s)--[click here to see score excerpt]

https://www.wmich.edu/musicgradexamprep/Dufay_Se_la_face_chanson.mp4

Performance Notes:
Dufay was strongly influenced by Dunstable's "Contenance Angloise" (the English sound), and was one of the first continental composers to adapt aspects of it into his own music. He was one of the most revered composers of his day, excelling both in sacred and secular music.

Se la face ay pale is a 3-voice unaccompanied French chanson (love song) in the formes fixes poetic design of a ballade [AaB].

[Translation of first verse]
If my face is pale, the cause is love
That's the main reason
And it is so bitter to love that into the sea I'd like to throw myself;
Then, seeing this, she would know well, That fair lady whom I belong,
That to have any happiness without her I am not able.

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Guillaume Dufay: "Gloria" from Missa Se la face ay pale [Cyclic Mass using his song as a cantus firmus] (c1450s)--[click here to see score excerpt from the Gloria movement]

https://www.wmich.edu/musicgradexamprep/Dufay_Gloria_Missa_Se_la_face_ay_pale.mp4

Performance Note:
Dufay was the first to base a cyclic Mass on a secular tune. It is the tenor (middle voice) of his song that Dufay reuses as the cantus firmus in the tenor voice of each movement of this Mass. In the "Gloria" movement, the tune first enters in the tenor at the words "Adoramus te..."

Translation of the "Gloria" movement:

(chanted by soloist) Glory to God in the highest...
[choral polyphony] and on earth peace to men of good will...
We praise You...We bless You...We adore You...We glorify You... We give You thanks for Your great glory...Lord God, heavenly King...
God, the Father Almighty...Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of the Father...
Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father...Who takes away the sins of the world,
Have mercy on us...Who takes away the sins of the world, receive our prayer...
Who sits at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us...
For You alone are Holy...You alone are Lord...You alone, O Jesus Christ, are most high...
Together with the Holy Spirit in the Glory of God the Father. Ame

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Mid-Renaissance Composers

Josquin Desprez: Ave Maria...virgo serena [motet] (c1510)--[click here to see score excerpt ]

https://www.wmich.edu/musicgradexamprep/Josquin_Ave_Maria.mp4

Performance Note:
Josquin is the greatest composer of the mid-Renaissance, and arguably the greatest of the entire Renaissance. He worked in Italy, France and Belgium, and was one of the first composers to focus on simultaneous composition, points of imitation, and creative changes in texture to express the meaning of the text.

Ave Maria...virgo serena is a 4-voice unaccompanied motet based on the life of the Virgin Mary. The text is based on the traditional "Ave Maria" prayer but has extra words interpolated and appended to it. This is one of the earliest and most famous examples of smooth, imitative vocal counterpoint, as exemplified by then 4-voice canon in its opening section . Then, each successive section has a completely different texture.

[Translation]
Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you serene virgin.
Hail, you whose conception, full of great jubilation fills heaven and earth with new joy.
Hail, whose birth brought us joy as the dawn's light shines before the true sun appears.
Hail, pious humility, fruitful without a man whose Annunciation brought us salvation.
Hail true virginity, immaculate chastity whose purification brought our cleansing.
Hail, glorious one in all angelic virtues whose Assumption was our glorification.
O Mother of God, remember me. Amen.

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Josquin Desprez: Mille regretz [chanson] (c1510)--[click here to see score excerpt]

https://www.wmich.edu/musicgradexamprep/Josquin_Mille_regretz.mp4

Performance Note:
Josquin is the greatest composer of the mid-Renaissance, and arguably the greatest of the entire Renaissance. He worked in Italy, France and Belgium, and was one of the first composers to focus on simultaneous composition, points of imitation, and creative changes in texture to express the meaning of the text.

Although this French song appears to be more homorhythmic than Josquin's Ave Maria...virgo serena, it still interweaves beautiful vocal counterpoint within the chordal phrygian-mode harmonies.

[Translation]
A thousand regrets at deserting you and leaving behind your loving face,
I feel so much sadness and such painful distress, that it seems to me my days will soon dwindle away.

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Late-Renaissance Composers

Claude Le Jeune: Revecy venir du Printemp [chanson] (c1565)

https://www.wmich.edu/musicgradexamprep/deJeune_Revecy_venir.mp4

Performance Note:
Le Jeune was a French (Franco-Flemish) composer is known for his delightful homophonic "Parisian" chansons, of which Revecy venir du Printemp is perhaps his most famous. By the mid-1500s, French secular song composers were no longer bound by the poetic formes fixes, freeing Le Jeune to use homophonic texture and write in a complex yet playful metrical style that colorfully illustrates the words.

[Translation]

( Refrain): Here again comes the Spring, the amorous and fair season.

The currents of water that seek The canal in summer become clearer; And the sea calms her waves,
Softens the sad anger.
The duck, elated, dives in,
And washes itself happily in the water.
And the crane breaks its path,
Crosses back and flies away.

(Refrain)

The sun shines brightly
With a most serene clarity: From the cloud the shadow flies And plays and runs and darkens
And forests and fields and hillsides,
Human labor makes green again,
And the prairie unveils its flowers.

(Refrain)

The sun shines brightly
With a most serene clarity:
From the cloud the shadow flies
And plays and runs and darkens
And forests and fields and hillsides,
Human labor makes green again,
And the prairie unveils its flowers. (Refrain)

From Venus' son, Cupid,
The universe is seeded in milk,
Is warmed by his flames.
Animals that fly in the air,
Animals that slither in the fields,
Animals that swim in the seas,
Even the unsentient ones,
Once in love, are melted by pleasure.

(Refrain)

So let us laugh: and let us seek out
The frolicking and the games of Spring
All the world laughs in pleasure:
Let us celebrate the happy season.

(Refrain)

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Giovanni da Palestrina: "Agnus Dei" from Missa Papae Marcelli [Cyclic Mass] (1562)--[click here to see score excerpt ]

https://www.wmich.edu/musicgradexamprep/Palestrina_Agnus_Pope_Marcellus_Mass.mp4

Performance Notes:
This is one of Palestrina's most famous masses, written in honor of Pope Marcellus II, who reigned for three weeks in 1555. Recent scholarship suggests the most likely date of composition is 1562, during the third and closing sessions of the Council of Trent (1562-63), during which a debate occurred over whether polyphony should be banned outright in worship. Concerns were raised over two problems: 1) the use of secular songs about drinking or lovemaking being used as a cantus firmus with new devotional words; 2) whether imitation in polyphonic music obscured the words of the mass, interfering with the listener's devotion. As a result, Palestrina's setting does not use a cantus firmus, and is in a declamatory style so that the text can clearly be heard in performance, unlike many polyphonic masses of the 16th century. In the tradition of the "Prima pratica," Palestrina also carefully controlled his use of dissonance (placing it on weak beats, not leaping to dissonant pitches, or using them as passing tones, neighbor notes, or suspensions).

Like most Renaissance masses, the Missa Papae Marcelli (Pope Marcellus Mass) consists of a Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus/Benedictus, and Agnus Dei, though the third line of the Agnus Dei prayer is a separate movement (designated "Agnus II"). It is a six-voice mass, but voice combinations are varied throughout the piece, and Palestrina even scores Agnus II for seven voices--the use of the full forces is reserved for specific climactic portions in the text.

[Translation]

(Kyrie)
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

(Gloria)

Glory be to God in the highest.
And in earth peace
to men of good will.

We praise Thee; we bless Thee;
we worship Thee; we glorify Thee.
We give thanks to Thee
for Thy great glory.

O Lord God, Heavenly King,
God the Father Almighty.
O Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son.
Lord God, Lamb of God,
Son of the Father.

Thou that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
Thou that takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer.
Thou that sittest at the right hand of the Father,
have mercy upon us.

For thou only art holy,
thou only art the Lord,
thou only art the most high, Jesus Christ.
Together with the Holy Ghost
in the glory of God the Father.

Amen.

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Luca Marenzio: Cantate ninfe [madrigal] (1581)

https://www.wmich.edu/mus-history/gradex/Marenzio_Cantate_Ninfe.mp4

Performance Notes:
Marenzio is one of the most renowned of all Renaissance Italian madrigalists. Cantate ninfe is a charming 6-voice madrigal with great emotional expression of its joyful, amorous text.

[Translation]
Sing, graceful and lovely Nymphs of my new ardors.
And Cupids, joke and laugh together with my Phyllis everywhere in the countryside.
Sing and be joyous everyone, for I have reaped the desired fruits of love.

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Orlando di Lasso: Justorum animae [motet] (c1590)

https://www.wmich.edu/musicgradexamprep/Lasso_Justorum_animae.mp4

Performance Notes:
Lasso was a highly-influential French (Franco-Flemish) contemporary of Palestrina. He wrote many famous Masses and motets as well works in every main European genre and language. Justorum animae is a motet written near the end of his life that expresses its text with unique tenderness and hope.

[Translation]
The souls of the just are in the hand of God
and the torment of death shall not touch them
In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die
but they are in peace.

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William Byrd: Sing Joyfully Unto God [anthem] (c1590)--[click here to see score excerpt]

https://www.wmich.edu/musicgradexamprep/Byrd_Sing_Joyfully.mp4

Performance Notes:
Byrd is one of the most famous English Renaissance composers. During a time of religious conflict between in England, he wrote both Catholic and Anglican sacred music, as well as secular vocal polyphony, keyboard (virginal) music, and consort music.

Sing Joyfully Unto God is a fine example of a Renaissance Anglican anthem written for newly-established Church of England. It is is based on four verses of Psalm 81, and written for a six-part choir in flawless counterpoint with a madrigalesque setting of the text.

[Text]
Sing joyfully to God our strength; sing loud unto the God of Jacob!
Take the song, bring forth the timbrel, the pleasant harp, and the viol.
Blow the trumpet in the new moon, even in the time appointed, and at our feast day.
For this is a statute for Israel, and a law of the God of Jacob.
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Robert Croo (words) & Thomas Mawdyke (music): Coventry Carol [carol] (dates from the early 1500s)

https://www.wmich.edu/musicgradexamprep/Croo_Coventry_Carol.mp4

Performance Notes:
The late Renaissance composer and entrepreneur Robert Croo is known only for first publishing the words for A Coventry Carol in 1534 (the first music was added by Thomas Mawdyke in 1591). This well-known anonymous carol is from a Christmas play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, and its text refers to all the children who will die from King Herod's command to kill all children under the age of 2 to eliminate the Christ-child. The harmonies are beautiful yet haunting, and show that England in its remote location separated from the European continent, still had a modal triadic sound all its own. It alternates between a "Burden" (returning "chorus") and "Verses" (usually sung by a soloist):

[Full Burden]
Lully Lulla, thou little tiny child,
Bye bye lully lullay

[Verse 1]
O sisters too how may we do,
For to preserve this day,
This poor youngling for whom we do sing,
Bye bye lully lullay. [last line of the Burden]

[Verse 2]
Herod the king in his raging,
Charged he hath this day,
His man of might in his own sight,
All young children to slay. [last line of the Burden with new words]

[Verse 3]
That woe is me poor child for thee,
And ever mourn and say,
for thy parting, neither say nor sing,
Bye bye lully lullay. [last line of the Burden]

[Full Burden]
Lully Lulla, thou little tiny child,
Bye bye lully lullay.

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Thomas Weelkes: As Vesta Was From Latmos Hill Descending [madrigal] (1601)--[click here to see score excerpt]

https://www.wmich.edu/musicgradexamprep/Weelkes_As_Vesta.mp4

Performance Notes:
Thomas Weelkes was one of the great composers of the Elizabethan era. The madrigal As Vesta Was From Latmos Hill Descending is part of a musical collection published by Thomas Morley entitled The Triumphs of Oriana, named in honor of Queen Elizabeth I. It is written for six individual and independent unaccompanied singers, in a English style that imitates and in some ways makes fun of the more serious Italian madrigal style.

The text of As Vesta Was From Latmos Hill Descending playfully and literally describes an allegorical encounter between the goddesses Vesta and Diana who come down from the heavens to be praised, but instead find the English people worshipping and adoring their own unmarried Queen (Elizabeth I). This piece is full of clever and obvious examples of "word painting" (music illustrating the meaning of specific words--also called "musica reservata"):

[Text]--"word-painting" is described in brackets

As Vesta was from Latmos hill descending, [melody descends]
She spied a maiden Queen the same ascending, [melody ascends]
Attended on by all the shepherds' swain,
To whom Diana's darlings came running down amain, [lots of musical "runs"]
First two by two, then three by three together, [two voices only...then three only...then all together]
Leaving their goddess all alone Hasted thither; [one soprano all alone]
And mingling with the shepherds of her train, with mirthful tunes her presence entertain.
Then sang the shepherds and nymphs of Diana, Long live fair Oriana! [a VERY long ending passage]

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John Dowland: Flow, My Tears [lute ayre] (1601)--[click here to see score excerpt]

https://www.wmich.edu/musicgradexamprep/Dowland_Flow_my_tears_lute_ayre.mp4

Performance Notes:
Dowland (pronounced DOE-land) was an accomplished lutenist and the most celebrated composer of English lute ayres (solo songs with lute accompaniment). By far the most famous of these is Flow, My Tears from his Second Booke of Songs or Ayres (1600), an arrangement of a setting for viol consort that Dowland had written four years earlier (see below).

[Text]
Flow, my tears, fall from your springs!
Exiled for ever, let me mourn;
Where night's black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn.

Down vain lights, shine you no more!
No nights are dark enough for those
That in despair their lost fortunes deplore.
Light doth but shame disclose.

Never may my woes be relieved,
Since pity is fled;
And tears and sighs and groans my weary days
Of all joys have deprived.

From the highest spire of contentment
My fortune is thrown;
And fear and grief and pain for my deserts
Are my hopes, since hope is gone.

Hark! you shadows that in darkness dwell,
Learn to condemn light
Happy, happy they that in hell
Feel not the world's despite.

Here is the same melody, but set earlier by Dowland for viol consort:
John Dowland: Lacrimae pavane ["the crying pavane" for viol consort] (1596)
https://www.wmich.edu/musicgradexamprep/Dowland_Lachrimae_Pavanne_Viol_Consort.mp4

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Late-Renaissance Transition to Early-Baroque

Carlo Gesualdo: Moro, lasso al mio duolo [madrigal] (1611)--[click here to see score excerpt]

https://www.wmich.edu/musicgradexamprep/Gesualdo_Moro_lasso.mp4

Performance Notes:
In the score example, there is extreme chromaticism (10 of the 12 possible chromatic notes in just the first four chords on the words "Moro, lasso"). The lower voices depict Gesualdo's pain in slow, rhythmically free, agonizing dissonances, while the high soprano is depicting his unfaithful wife having the time of her life in rapid passages on the word "vita" (means "life" in Italian). There are many other examples of direct "word-painting" (expressing the meaning of specific words with this kind of musical symbolism).

[Translation]
Wearily I die in my agony,
Yet she who could give me life,
Alas, kills me and will not help me.
O sorrowful fate,
She who could give me life,
Alas, gives me death.

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Renaissance Musical Examples