Music 326/526

Music Printing and Renaissance Instrumental Music

Music Printing

·         Printing press invented mid-15^th Century; soon after, attempts were made to print music, a much more complicated task.  Early attempts:

• Printed 3 lines of staff, drew in 4^th line and all notes by hand
• Double impression technique: staff printed in one stroke, notes printed separately.  Different colors often used: staff in red, notes in black

·         First wide-spread application of moveable type to music came in Venice by Ottaviano dei Petrucci (1466-1539)

• Printed about 60 publications including works by French (northern) and Italian Composers; Masses, motets, Italian songs called Frottolas

·         Intabulations: pieces notated in tablature, diagram showing how to produce specific pitch on a given instrument. 

·         One of the most important publications was Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A (100 Songs of Harmonic Music), commonly called Odhecaton (1501). 

·         First printed collection of part music, printed using double-impression method

·         Most included works were Northern style chansons. Some by Obrecht, Ockeghem, Josquin, and other minor composers

·         Odhecaton is laid out in “part-book” format: each part written out separately, not score form.  It was more practical for notating music where different parts are very different lengths. E.g. tenor has so few notes, it wastes space in score form

·         Most of the compositions in Odhecaton were published without texts

·         in 1525 Century a Single Impression Technique was developed in France by Pierre Haultin; he and Pierre Attaingnant did lots of music publishing in Paris

Instrumental Music of the Renaissance

General:

·         Like vocal music, there is a rise in production of instrumental music in the Renaissance, and also like vocal music, some of it is idiosyncratic to geographic regions.

·         This is the first time that composers indicate specific instruments for instrumental pieces; however, it will be another century before composers do this consistently.

Instruments

·         The “Ideal sound” in the Renaissance is very homogenous (contrasts with ideal in middle ages where “haut” and “bas” instruments were used in combination

·         to achieve homogeneity, chests or consorts of instruments were used; usually 4 to 7 sizes

·         Lute was a very popular household instrument

·         Organs had been around for centuries already, but they grew in size during the 14^th Century, and larger instruments were installed in Churches in the late Middle Ages.  The church organ was more or less in current state by ~1500

·         pedal rank added first in Germany & Low countries, later elsewhere

·         The first clavier type instruments were developed in the 14^th Century. Harpsichord and Clavichord developed further in Renaissance; they were string instruments with keyboards

·         Clavichord had strings struck by metal tangent; very soft dynamics but could make changes, also vibrato

·         Harpsichord had strings plucked by quill; very little dynamic change possible.  Second manual added different color

Instrumental Genres

·         Vocally-derived instrumental genres

·         canzona - word is the Italian version of chanson, but canzona connotes an instrumental composition

·         typically a keyboard or lute composition; earliest Italian versions were for organ

·         Ensemble canzonas: found around 1580 on, led to church sonata; they developed clear-cut sections, which became movements later

·         Ricercar - an instrumental version of the imitative motet

·         written for ensembles, keyboard or lute

·         early lute versions probably evolved from improvisation but later composers standardized with voices in paired imitation

·         this genre continues into the Baroque and contributes to the development of the fugue

·         Instrumental genres not derived from vocal works

·         Dance music

·         for lute, keyboard, or ensembles

·         often composed as a pair of dances, one slow in duple or quadruple meter, the second fast in triple meter

·         Improvisatory pieces

·         typically for lute or keyboard

·         names of genres are not standard: might be called prelude, fantasia, ricercar, toccata

·         usually an ornamented version of an existing melody or a contrapuntal piece using a cantus firmus with other lines of counterpoint added

·         Theme and variations

·         for lute or keyboard

·         simple theme with subsequent restatements using various figuration techniques suitable for the instrument