We are focusing on vocal music and in particular sacred vocal music
One word about those employed as Renaissance musicians and not covered last week. It was a good time to be in music because there were a variety of employers
As in the past, musicians worked in churches, courts, and towns. Church choirs grew in size. (The papal choir in Rome increased from ten singers in 1442 to twentyfour
in 1483.) The church remained an important patron of music, but musical activity gradually shifted to the courts nation states became more powerful during the Renaissance.
Kings, princes, and dukes competed for the finest composers. A single court might have ten to sixty musicians, including singers as well as instrumentalists. Women functioned as virtuoso singers at several Italian courts during the late Renaissance. A court music director would compose secular pieces to entertain the nobility and sacred works for the court chapel. The nobility often brought their musicians along when traveling from one castle to another.
The two main forms of sacred Renaissance music are the motet and the mass. They
are alike in style, but a mass is a longer composition. The Renaissance mass is a polyphonic choral composition made up of five sections: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei.
Motets first developed in the late Middle Ages but flourished primarily in the Renaissance. Unlike Medieval motets, Renaissance motets are smooth-sounding and imitative in texture. Although a motet can sound like a Mass, a Mass is based on one of the five prayers of the "Ordinary" (Kyrie eleison, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei) while a motet has some other type of religious text. A motet is usually sung a cappella (without instrumental accompaniment), although instruments may "double" the voices.
One of key composers of the Motet was Josquin Desprez about 1440–1521), a contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci and Christopher Columbus. Josquin’s compositions, which include masses, motets, and secular vocal pieces, strongly influenced other composers and were praised enthusiastically by music lovers. Martin Luther, himself a composer wrote that Desprez’s "works are cheerful, gentle, mild, and lovely; they flow and move along and are neither forced nor coerced and bound by rigid and stringent rules, but, on the contrary, are like the song of the finch."
Josquin’s four-voice motet "Ave Maria . . . virgo serena" is an outstanding Renaissance
choral work and was composed around 1475. This is a good example of the polyphany style during the Renaissance. The vocal writing is smooth and the harmonies are more consonant (sweet-sounding) than works from the Middle Ages.
The short melodic phrase on Ave Maria is presented by the soprano voice and
then imitated in turn by the alto, tenor, and bass. The next two words, "gratia plena"
(full of grace), have a different melody, which also is passed from voice to voice. Each voice enters while the preceding one is in the middle of its melody. This over lapping creates a feeling of continuous flow. Josquin adapted the melody for the opening phrases from a Gregorian chant, but the rest of the motet was not based on a chant melody.
This the way it would look graphed out:
Josquin skillfully varies the texture of this motet; two, three, or four voices are
heard at one time. In addition to the imitation among individual voices, there is imitation
between pairs of voices: duets between the high voices are imitated by the two
lower parts. Sometimes the texture almost becomes homophonic, as at the words Ave,
vera virginitas. He also varies the speed for both variety and tension. Ave Maria ends with slow chords that express Josquin’s personal plea to the Virgin: "O Mother of God, remember me. Amen "
Text and Translation Latin "Ave Maria gratia plena dominus tecum, virgo serena…Ave cuius conceptio, solemni plena gaudio… coelestia terretria nova replet laetitia…Ave cuius nativitas nostra fuit solemnitas…ut lucifer lux oriens verum solem praeveniens…Ave pia humilitas, sine viro fecunditas…cuius annuntiatio nostra fuit salvatio…Ave vera virginitas, immaculata castitas… cuius purificatio nostra fuit purgatio…Ave praeclara omnibus angelicis virtutibus…cuius assumptio nostra glorificatio… O mater Dei, memento mei. Amen."
English – "Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you serene Virgin…Hail, you whose conception, full of great jubilation fills heaven and earth with new joy…Hail, whose birth brought us joy…as the dawn’s light shines before the true sun appears…Hail, pious humility, fruitful without a man…whose Annunciation brought us salvation…Hail true virginity, immaculate chastity… whose purification brought our cleansing…Hail, glorious one in all angelic virtues…whose Assumption was our glorification…O Mother of God, remember me. Amen..