Arts History450 - 1750

The Middle Ages

The Renaissance

Baroque Period

The Middle Ages

The Middle Ages:450 – 1450

During this era, the church assumed a leadership role in most fields, from politics to the arts. Throughout the period, the majority of composers were associated with and supported by the church.

Music was either secular (nonreligious) or sacred (religious). Sacred music was uniformly a cappella (singing without accompaniment) and secular music featured instruments as well as voices.

Music consisted of mainly vocal workswith few instruments used. The maininstrument during this time was theorgan.

The Middle Ages:450 – 1450

As in many non-Western cultures, music in early medieval Europe did not have a system of notation. It was not until perhaps the ninth century that a basic system of notation was developed.

Notating music was a difficult and time-consuming process. It was only in the cathedrals and monasteries that such work could be done on a regular basis.

The Middle Ages:Terms

Monophonic Texture- a single melodic line without accompaniment

Polyphonic Texture- performance of two or more melodic lines of relatively equal interest at the same time

Gregorian Chant- melodies set to sacred Latin texts, sung without accompaniment; the official music of the Roman Catholic church (named after Pope Gregory I)

Plainsong- music with no strict meter or accompaniment, sung by a single voice or unison choir; plainsong was monophonic

Solmization- a method of assigning a syllabic name to each tone of the scale (DO-RE-MI system of solfege)

The Middle Ages:Gregorian Chant

The Middle Ages: Social Classes

Nobles- knights; lived in castles; women looked on for the sick

Peasants- majority of the population (lived in one-room huts)

Clergy- monks, most education, most important musicians

Most people, including the nobility, were illiterate. For centuries, only sacred musicwas notated because of the clergy being the mosteducated people.

The Middle Ages:Important Figures and Events

Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453)

The Middle Ages:Important Figures and Events

Black Death (1350)

The Middle Ages:Composers

Perotin – (c. 1200) European composer; first known composer to write music with more than two voices

Francesco Landini – (around 1325-1397) Italian composer, organist, singer, poet and instrument maker.

The Middle Ages:Music of the Middle Ages

The Renaissance

The Renaissance:1450 – 1600

Renaissance means rebirth and revival of human creativity, a period of exploration and adventure, curiosity and individualism.

The intellectual movement during this time, humanism, focused on human life and its accomplishments.

Aristocrats and the upper middle class now considered education a status symbol, and they hired scholars to teach their children.

Music was polyphonic in texture. In music of the Renaissance, there was a new emphasis on

instrumental music. Instruments no longer merely supported voices. They now received their own parts.

The Renaissance:Renaissance Art

The Renaissance:Terms

Word Painting- musical representation of specific poetic images often found in Renaissance and Baroque music

A cappella- choral music without instrumental accompaniment

Motets- polyphonic choral compositions based on sacred texts

Madrigals- nonreligious (secular) vocal works set for 3 to 8 voices, often in Italian; the most important secular form of music of its time

The Renaissance:Instruments

Harpsichord

Organ

Lute

The Renaissance:Important Figures and Events

Christopher Columbus Leonardo Da Vinci Michelangelo Printing Press

(widened circulation of music) Shakespeare

The Renaissance:Michelangelo

Michelangelo (1475-1564) was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer.

The Creation of Adam is a fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo in 1511. It illustrates the Biblical story from the Book of Genesis in which God the Father breathes life into Adam, the first man.

The Renaissance:The Creation of Adam

The Renaissance:The Creation of Adam

Adam lies back on a barren terrain, a small piece of the newly created earth. His languid pose belies his apparent physical strength. Based on classical Greek and Roman prototypes, Adam is the ideal human male with his rippling muscles and elegant contours. However, at this particular moment, Adam is not complete. He extends his left hand out to meet the finger of God. God hovers in the air, surrounded by angels and a billowing cloak-like form. Adam is clearly made in God's image, as seen in God's muscular form. God stretches out with his right hand toward Adam, looking intently and directly at Adam, who returns the gaze with longing. As God's outstretched finger almost meets Adam's more passive finger, we are poised on the brink of creation. Adam is physically alive, but here God is about to endow Adam with what makes human beings truly alive: the spirit, the soul, and the intellect. All of man's potential, physical and spiritual, is contained in this one timeless moment.

The Renaissance:The Creation of Adam’s influence on Pop Culture

The Renaissance:The Creation of Adam

The Renaissance:Composers

Michael Praetorius (1571-1621)- German church musician who was a noted instrumental and vocal composer of the period

Palestrina (1525-1594)- Italian composer who had a vast influence on the development of Roman Catholic church music.

Baroque Period

Baroque Period:1600 – 1750

Baroque means bizarre, flamboyant and elaborately ornamented.

The baroque period is a particular style of the arts. Homophonic texture was used in the early baroque.

Polyphonic returned to favor in the late baroque. Many compositions were started being written

for specific instruments; the violin family being the most popular.

The orchestra evolved, though small in size. It consisted mainly of string instruments.

Baroque Period:1600 – 1750

During the Baroque period, royalty and church leaders were focused on being the best and brightest and showing off their finest things- including music written for them. They hired composers to write pieces that they insisted be flashier than pieces of the past. With every composition, music grew more and more showy and complicated.

Composers were treated like servants- they were only allowed to compose what their religious bosses or noble employers asked them to compose, and oftentimes, it was on VERY short notice!

Baroque Period:Terms

Fugue- Polyphonic composition based on one main theme, or subject

Opera- Drama that is sung to orchestral accompaniment, usually a large-scale composition employing vocal soloists, chorus, orchestra, costumes, and scenery

Concerto- solo parts alternated with a group of instruments

Baroque Period:Composers

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)– Italian composer who is known for his contributions to

opera– Composed one of the earliest operas on record, Orfeo

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)Known as the “father of strings” and nicknamed il Prete Rosso ("The Red Priest") because of his red hairA famous virtuoso violinist; he was born and raised in the Republic of Venice. The Four Seasons, a series of four violin concerti, is his best-known work and a highly popular Baroque piece.

Baroque Period:Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons

Baroque Period:Composers

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) – Bach marked the high point of baroque music– Bach once had to spend a month in jail because he tried to quit his job

composing and playing for a duke. During that month in jail, he wrote forty-six pieces of music, many of which are still performed today.

– Bach, a dazzling organist and church musician, had to compose all kinds of original pieces for every church service including pieces for choir, organ, harpsichord and orchestra.

– Bach was famous for his music and for something else - Bach had twenty children! Five were named Johann, two Johanna and four grew up to become famous composers.

"There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself." - Johann Sebastian Bach

Baroque Period:Johann Sebastian Bach

Baroque Period:Composers

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) – George Frideric Handel was the son of a barber-surgeon. George's

father had definite plans for his son. He wanted George to become a lawyer, but George was captured by the sound of music.

– By 1740, he had also completed the Messiah. He traveled to Ireland and it was here that Handel presented his first performance of the Messiah. It was an outstanding success. It is said that when the king first heard the music from the Messiah he was so filled with emotion that he rose to feet when hearing the "Hallelujah Chorus." This tradition continues to this day of standing when the "Hallelujah Chorus" from the Messiah is performed.

– Near the end of his life, George became blind but still continued to perform on the organ and continued to compose music by dictating it to a friend who wrote it down.

"Whether I was in my body or out of my body as I wrote it I know not. God knows." - George Frideric Handel

Baroque Period:George Frideric Handel