Somebody made the following statement on another music forum I visit:


The best response I could come up with was this:




...am I wrong? Right? What Renaissance gems am I missing?

All opinions gratefully accepted

Yes, Renaissance folks did give up certain ideas from the Medieval period, some of which didn't resurface again until well into modern times. But the Renaissance was simply filled with different concerns. That doesn't mean people have to like it, but a cursory traipsing through the above composers will eventually convince any dedicated listener that the term 'Renaissance' is nothing more than a convenient temporal moniker for a wide range of compositional efforts.

Dances from Terpsicore anyone?

Or Josquin!

This is obviously a massive generalisation, but we're in that realm anyway: I think perhaps the difference between medieval and renaissance that IRF's correspondent is getting at is that renaissance music belongs more obviously to the historical continuum that extends forward to the early 20C (and later?), whereas in comparison a lot of medieval music sounds strikingly different. I wouldn't necessarily agree with that analysis now, but that was certainly my reaction on first hearing Perotin, Machaut, etc.

Cue Ollie...

I think something to be wary of is precisely the temptation to lump everything in together, giving precisely the impression IRF has gleaned: that for a few years in the Medieval Period everyone was doing deeply weird stuff until the town criers came along crying Oyez, Oyez, Hear Ye, the Renaissance hath begonnen, his Majesty hath declarèd the major third to be an consonance, throw out yer mad rhythmic experiments and Pythagorean Tunyngges.

I'm no expert but I have a funny feeling your Ars Subtilior might well have been more a bunch of wackos around Avignon who had ready access to red ink than anything we might call a Zeitgeist.

Ron also aptly reminds us that our idea of Renaissance harmony is pretty reliant on our understanding of musica ficta, which is something that has changed a fair bit in the last little while.

And if Monteverdi counts as Renaissance then so does Schütz.

You and the high horse you rode in on, Grew... don't you see I picked one author for each letter o' the alphabet, and not necessarily the 'best' or the most 'pre-eminent' one? I was roughly going by my 'favorites', to which a certain amount of being overlooked is a factor. This is to make the point that the Renaissance is not only represented by its most prominent producers.

Does that help your fluttering heart?

Now there's an irresistible challenge.....  

Heinrich Xavier Quidditch 

Um....

Oh; hey; I don't have anything especial to add; only really being getting to medieval music at the moment, except to thanks for all the names.  Gotta love all those French smoking songs....