Classical Music Niche Areas You Might Like: The Renaissance and Earlier

. Previous entries in this series:

• Doctor, I want to learn to select classical CDs
• Next Steps getting into classical CDs
• Classical music niche areas you might like: The Romantics

For nearly the first 15 centuries of its existence, the Roman Catholic Church dominated the politics and culture of Europe. Austere musical forms were developed in these times, mostly having to do with chanting for services (or Masses, which is to say the communion service of the catholics). No matter how luxurious the lives of the clergy themselves (especially in Rome), they preferred the lay people to live lives of ascetism, and music and dance were considered extravagances, and close to sinful. Despite this, though, music survived and flourished; dance music and folk song (songs not attributable to a particular composer, and handed down over the generations) was learned by children in their homes. Once the Church lost its hold on society a little after the end of the first millennium, as with all the arts, music had a flowering that produced an enormous volume of amazing works: songs, dances, and, a new invention: simply music just for listening. At first, monks in monasteries notated these new pieces of music for their own illicit amusement, and then gradually lay people learned how to do it, and musical pieces spread freely from court to court, for the entertainment of the nobility, and minstrels and bards spread ballads and chansons in all the taverns they visited. Until the invention of the printing press, it was difficult to collect and preserve notated music. In the 18th and 19th centuries, there were interested individuals collecting folk music all up and down Europe and even in America; this was the only way to find it, before it was lost. Often only a few aged folks knew a song, or a variant of it, and the work of the collector was just in time to prevent the complete loss of the piece. It is thanks to these people that we have much of the knowledge of folk music that we do today. Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) of Germany was such a collector, and his collection of renaissance dances entitled Terpsichore is one of the best-known. Not everyone has the genes to enjoy music of the distant past, which could feature instruments that sound strange to our ears, to say the least. But once bitten with the early music bug, it becomes a delight to listen to it more and more. Here is a dance from Terpsichore. Note the drum that adds so much to the first part, and the quite complex rhythms. It compares quite well to rhythmic music of the modern day. (Obviously, once you go to the page on the YouTube website, you can easily find numerous links to similar music, as well as a lot of information about the clips. Here are a couple more dances, performed by another group.) In the early part of the 20th century, the brilliant Italian composer Ottorino Respighi wrote a series of pieces including The Pines of Rome. Among these is a work titled Ancient Airs and Dances, in which he presents old folk tunes orchestrated to preserve some of their original modal character in some degree. Bear in mind that Respighi (1879-1936) is a modern composer, even if he found his inspiration in renaissance melodies. In the late 1500s, in England, a wonderful musical tradition was established. The music of Orlando Gibbons, William Byrd, John Dowland, Thomas Arne and Thomas Morley and others led to the music of the brilliant Henry Purcell. There are yet other names in this list: Giles Farnaby, John Bull, Thomas Tallis, John Taverner, Thomas Weelkes, John Wilbye, and Thomas Campion, some of whom specialized in vocal ensemble music, in particular, madrigals. A dance of the Renaissance was the pavane, slow and dignified, while other dances were more energetic, such as the galliard. Dowland wrote several allmains, which is probably an Anglicization of the French word Allemande, which means simply "German", describing a dance considered to be of German origin. Here is a fragment of the King of Denmark's Galliard, by Dowland, played by the King's Noyse. Next, here is a fragment of a pavane by William Byrd. (This sort of music is rare on YouTube, so I must make do with the samples given on Amazon.com.) Much of the earliest music played today is sacred music. Palestrina was a early renaissance composer who composed for the Church in Rome the greater part of his life. This is the Kyrie of one of Palestrina's masses. In England, Thomas Tallis wrote a famous motet Spem in Alium, for 40 voices. (It is written for 8 groups of 5 soloists each, not a choir as such; the music has 40 lines. I believe there were actually larger scores than this.) The Venetian composer Giovanni Gabrielli wrote for voices and brass instruments; unforgettable music that was written for performance at St Mark's Church in Venice, which has choir galleries on opposite sides of the nave, so that antiphonal effects (super stereophonic effects) were possible. Here is one of Gabrielli's famous canzonas for brass and organ, featuring the late beloved E. Power Biggs, the British-born organist who immigrated to the USA shortly before WWII. Note that this is performed on modern brass instruments, in contrast to the instruments in use five hundred years ago, which were significantly different. Orchestra of the 17th Century is a modern ensemble that attempts to reconstruct ancient instruments. Here is one of the canzonas played by them. The Renaissance was followed by the Baroque, and one of the most important composers who bridged the two periods was Heinrich Schutz of Germany, who worked at the court in Dresden, at which they attempted to create music sung in German, adapting Italian models of song-writing, to suit the sounds and rhythms of German speech. Here is an excerpt from Schutz's lovely representation of the Christmas story, The History of the Birth of Jesus Christ. A recent phenomenon is that of Hildegarde of Bingen (1098 – 17 September 1179), a nun of the 11th century whose musical compostions were startlingly original, within the context of medieval plainchant. This is A feather on the Breath of God. The group called Sequentia has realized many of Hildegarde's compositions. (It is a mystery how accurately these people can reconstruct Hildegarde's tunes. I suspect some of it is speculative.) Almost in the Baroque period is Henry Purcell, one of the most beloved of British composers. Here is the Rondeau from the suite for Abdelazar, a play. (Purcell was crazy about the Theater. His wife locked him out of the house on one occasion when he was late coming home from the theater, and he died of pneumonia.) This is popular music of the time; Purcell also wrote operas and sonatas, which were considerably more serious in style. Purcell's music has a glow to it that is irresistible. More examples will be provided presently! Archimedes