Main musical FORMS of the RENAISSANCE

The first step to be able to create conscientiously is understanding. Art is a way of expression and although it may sometimes seem like a coincidence, true communication begins with a reason, an idea to be shared. When we come across something new we must first learn about it, know what it is about, what its rules are... it is from this knowledge that we can begin to transform it at will.

This is the case in the evolution of music, where the first stages consisted of knowing about sound and its possibilities, and then creating things with a purpose, giving it a shape. In this article by a TEACHER we will talk about Renaissance musical forms and we will understand more about this stage in the history of music.

Index

1. What is the musical form
2. Context and ideology of Renaissance music
3. The main musical forms of the Renaissance: religious music
4. The profane music of the Renaissance

The musical form is related to technical musical elements and factors such as the

Since music sometimes arises for a reason, the musical form also tells us things about the context in which it was created.

Before starting to talk about the musical forms of the Renaissance, it is important to know this stage better. The Renaissance was born in Italy and expands throughout Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries, in the years 1400 to 1600 approximately. It was an important stage for the arts, since the mentality arises to give importance to the human being and to his intellectual capacity for the study, the discovery of the world and the creation. Therefore, the music takes more complexity during this time.

During the Renaissance we can notice that religion is an extremely important factora, being the main generative motif for musical works. As for specific musical characteristics, they begin to play with elements such as the polyphony and counterpoint, techniques where melodic lines are combined to play with sound, tensions and resolutions in relation to their intervals.

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Thanks to the strong influence on the part of religion, many forms were dedicated to liturgical purposes that were inherited from earlier times, we can notice a clear inheritance of Gregorian chant. Within these religious forms, the most important are the mass and the motet.

The mass

The works for the Mass cover the complete cycle of the Mass, all the stages from the beginning to the end. This music was composed so much for the voice a cappella (without instrumentation), as for singing accompanied with instrumentation. The texts, as in the plain song, they were still in Latin.

Unlike other times where music was monodic (a single melodic line), voices with different tessitura were already used to create polyphony and even used techniques such as Canyon, where a melodic motif is repeated with displacement in time.

Within the form of the mass, there were the following variations: mass motto, mass cantus firmus, mass paraphrase and mass parody. These types of mass differ depending on the treaty and the arrangement received by the voices and the motifs of the works. In several cases, these themes came from pre-existing melodies, taken from plain chant or profane and popular songs.

The motet

They are called motet to pieces with sacred texts in Latin, taking inspiration from biblical themes. Unlike many works in the mass, the motet were mostly original compositions. This musical form comes from medieval times, but in the Renaissance it reaches a greater complexity, even combining up to 12 voices.

The religious Christmas carol (Spain), spiritual madrigal, lauda (Italy) or the Lutheran choir are other musical forms, also of character sacred but that already have texts in the language of the original country, in contrast to the mass and the motet that still had texts in Latin.

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Another of the musical forms of the Renaissance are those that were made without the influence of religious motives. By profane music we mean works outside of a religious context. These also made use of polyphony and differ in ways depending on the country of origin. For example, in France the chanson, in Spain the romance and carol, in Italy the villanella, la frottola and the madrigal, among others.

Instrumental music

Many instrumental forms are derived from imitations of vocal forms, maintaining the idea of ​​polyphony. In these we find forms like the ricercare, fantasy and canzona.

On the other hand we find forms dedicated to dance and that used to be less complex. Some examples are the alemanda, la bajadanza, la gallarda and la pavana.

Finally, there were forms dedicated to improvisation within which we can mention the toccata, the prelude, the recercada, the romanesca and the passamezzo.

The Renaissance was a time that opened the gap for music to take more drive to develop for ages to come. By learning about the musical forms we can observe how these characteristics built a base from the which composers and performers were able to take ideas to expand the limits of creativity in the times by come.

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