The FrancoFlemish Generation 15201550

1
The Franco-Flemish Generation 15201550

• General Stylistic Features
• The imitation Mass replaced the cantus firmus
  Mass as the dominant Mass type
• Chant melodies were freely treated when used as
  subjects for Masses and motets
• Musica ficta had been undermining the theory of
  modes

2
Franco- Flemish Composers

• Nicolas Gombert
• Probably a pupil of Josquin
• Jacobus Clemens
• (ca. 15101556, also known as "Clemens non Papa")
• Adrian Willaert (ca. 14901562)
• Saint Mark's Cathedral in Venice (152762)

3
St. Marks Cathedral, Venice
4
Venice's St. Mark's cathedral

• was the most prestigious post
• held by Willaert
• Willaert taught Italian musicians
• Andrea Gabrieli
• Giovanni Gabrieli

5
Gabrieli

• Giovanni playing
• his lute

6
Frottola - characteristics

• Four-part strophic songs
• Syllabic text-setting style
• Homophonic
• Melody in the top voice
• Simple diatonic harmonies
• Sung in Italian

7
NAWM 35, Io non compro più speranza

• Optional
• Hemiola
• root-position chords
• voice with lute

8
Lauda

• Religious counterpart of the frottola
• Popular
• nonliturgical
• devotional song with
• text in Latin or Italian

9
Madrigal

• Most important genre of Italian secular music in
  the sixteenth century
• Not related to the fourteenth-century madrigal
• More elevated and serious than frottola texts

10
The Petrarchan Movement

• Cardinal Pietro Bembo (14701547)
• techniques
• rhythm
• accent patterns
• sound qualities of vowels and consonants

11
Example NAWM 37, Aspro core e selvaggio by
Willaert (ca. mid-1540s)

• Optional
• Text by Petrarch

12
Other Developments in Madrigals

• Chromaticism
• revival of the Greek chromatic and enharmonic
  genera
• microtonal keyboard instruments and Greek
  tetrachords
• Chromatic notation noteheads filled in (i.e.,
  black) for the faster note values allowed for
  "eye music," for example, night could be notated
  in black notes

13
Concerto delle Donne

• Women's ensemble
• Group of trained singers serving as
  ladies-in-waiting

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Carlo Gesualdo, prince of Venosa (ca. 15611613)

• The Black Prince
• Murdered his wife and her lover but did not go to
  jail
• Extreme Chromaticism

15
NAWM 40, Io parto (late 1590s)

• By Carlo Gesualdo
• Madrigal
• Extreme chromaticism used for expressive effect.

16
Claudio Monteverdi (15671643)

• We will cover Monteverdi in chapter 9

17
Secular Song Outside of Italy

• France
• Parisian chanson
• Over 1500 published by Pierre Attaingnant (ca.
  1494ca. 1551)
• The first French music printer

18
Claudin de Sermisy (ca. 14901562

• NAWM 41, Tant que vivray
• Chanson
• Melody is in the top voice
• Diatonic harmony with 3rds and 5ths
• The composer attempts to capture the optimism of
  the poem

19
Musique Mesurée

• The French language does not have the long and
  short vowels of ancient Greek or Latin, so poets
  assigned lengths to French vowels (vers mesuré)
• gave long notes to long vowels and short notes to
  short vowels of vers mesuré

20
Vers Mesuré rhythm
21
NAWM 42, Revecy venir du printans

• Claude le Jeune (15281600)
• Chanson
• vers mesuré
• similar to the hemiola effect in Cara's frottola
  (NAWM 35)

22
Villancico

• principal genre of secular polyphony
• Form of villancico is short strophic song with a
  refrain, usually aBccaB

23
England and English Madrigals

• Musica transalpina
• 1588 collection of Italian madrigals translated
  into English
• Inspired English madrigal compositions from the
  1590s to the 1630s
• Thomas Morley (15571602
• Thomas Weelkes (ca. 15751623)

24
English Lute Songs

• John Dowland (15621626)
• Thomas Campion (15671620)
• Lute accompaniments are subordinate to the voice
  part
• Publishers put the lute part below the voice part
  so singers could accompany themselves

25
NAWM 44, Flow my Tears

• John Dowland, from his Second Booke of Ayres
  (1600)
• Lute Song
• Written in tablature

26
The Rise of Instrumental Music

• Historical Background
• Before 1450 most were transcriptions of vocal
  pieces
• Instruments continued to perform music written
  for voice

27
Syntagma musicum

• (A Systematic Treatise of Music, 1618)
• Michael Praetorius (ca. 15711621)
• includes woodcut illustrations of instruments of
  the time

28
Instruments

• "chests" or "consorts
• Wind instruments included double reeds (shawms)
• capped-reeds (krummhorn)
• transverse flutes

29
Brass

• cornetts (wood or ivory with cupped mouthpieces)
• trumpets
• sackbuts (ancestor of the modern trombone)

30
Viols

• Viols

• Violin

31
Viols

• Fretted neck
• Six strings tuned a perfect fourth apart with a
  major third in the middle
• Delicate tone, played without vibrato
• Viola da gamba (leg viol) played with the
  instrument between the legs
• Viola da braccio (arm viol) played with the
  instrument supported by the arm

32
Keyboard instruments

• Church organs by about 1500 were similar to
  instruments of today
• Pedal keyboards were first used in Germany and
  the Low Countries

33
Clavichord

• Used a metal tangent to strike the string

34
Harpsichord

• Used a quill to pluck the string
• Other names virginal, spinet, clavecin,
  clavicembalo

35
Lute

• The most popular household instrument

36
Sonata

• Originally instrumental

37
Giovanni Gabrieli (ca. 15571612)

• Nephew of Andrea Gabrieli
• Organist at St. Mark's in Venice

38
Sonata Pian' e Forte from Sacrae symphoniae (1597)

• Among the first instrumental ensemble pieces to
  designate specific instruments
• Instruments included cornett and sackbuts in
  different sizes
• One of earliest instances of dynamicsnotation
  indicated pian (soft) for groups alone and forte
  (loud) for both instrumental groups together

39
Preludes and Other Introductory Pieces

• Improvisatory pieces among the earliest examples
  for solo players
• Titles included prelude, preambulum, fantasia,
  ricercare

40
Toccatas

• (from the verb toccare, to touch)
• Chief form of improvisatory keyboard music in the
  second half of the century

41
Ricercari (also ricercar)

• Ricercari used series of fugal sections

42
Dance Music

• Pavane and galliard pairing a favorite
  combination in France and England
• Passamezzo and saltarello combination popular in
  Italy

43
Variations, Improvised on a Tune to Accompany
Dancing

• English keyboard players (virginalists),
  especially William Byrd (15431623
• Most comprehensive collection of keyboard music
  is the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (manuscript,
  hand-copied between 1609 and 1619)
• Most of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book variations
  are on slow dance tunes or familiar songs

44
NAWM 47, Pavana Lachrymae by William Byrd

• Variation on John Dowland's air, Flow, my tears
  (NAWM 44)
• The original air used the form of the pavane,
  with three repeating strains
• Byrd adds a variation after each strain
• The right hand retains the melody
• Both hands play decorative turns, figurations,
  and scale patterns in imitation

45
William Byrd