Renaissance Sacred Music
1400s-1600s
• Musical Context – achievement of middle age
o Rhythm becomes as important as pitch
o Musica mensurabilis – music that can be measured in time
o More rhythmic independence thanks to developments in notation
o Motetus – polyphony of words
o Polyphony – counterpoint – harmony
o Interval 3rd
• Historical/ Religious Context
o End of The Western Schism (Papal Schism) 1417
o New world – Columbus 1492 -> Economic growth – Europe as world power
o Renaissance – rebirth – look back at Greece and Rome – arts
o Humanism – Intellectual movement, focus on human knowledge
o Invention of print with movable type -Guttemberg 1450
o Music printed for the first time with movable type in 1501 (Petrucci, Venice)
o Protestant denominations
o Church Counter-Reformation - Council of Trent (1545-1563)
• Josquin des Prez (c. 1450-1521)
"Ave Maria...virgo serena."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-pVbpV4yuk
“Missa Pange Lingua”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zxnFVWZVcE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usUEuuUcaSg
• Gianluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525-1594)
"Missa Papae Marcelli"
Kyrie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n8XdKkrqgo
Gloria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k3bfqQ1SpU
• Tomás Luis de Victoria (c. 1548-1611)
O magnum mysterium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xPh-fXYAc4
Ave Maria: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqEMrc1XXSQ
• Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli (Venice)
Andrea Gabrieli - Jubilate Deo (1587) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUmTjrTk8Uc
Giovanni Gabrieli: O Jesu mi dulcissime (1597) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oE8s72r72g