1450 to 1600!
In the traditional period division of Western music history, it refers to the music of the 15th and 16th centuries. The Renaissance movement formed the second peak of European culture after ancient Greek culture. It was mainly characterized by facing the world and inheriting classical culture. In terms of music, ancient Greece has handed down no useful examples. Therefore, the musical art of the Renaissance is not so much the rebirth of the Greek classical style as the creation of a new style. From aristocratic style to popularization; from religious feelings to advocating rationality and pursuing the development of human nature, emphasizing the expression of directly perceptible human mood and emotions, which is opposed to the medieval art trend with factors such as mystery, abstraction, and confinement of emotions.
Renaissance music originated in the "New Art" period when polyphony in Italy and France developed in the 14th century. Composers such as Italy's F. Landini and France's G. de Machaud became the masters of Renaissance music. pioneer. The 15th-century Dutch music theorist J. Tinctoris first proposed the concept of music "revival" in the preface of his book "Equilibrium". This concept was systematically elaborated in the 16th century. The Italian music theorist G. Zalino at that time, based on the views of contemporary art historian Vassali, while criticizing medieval music art, described ancient music art as "the pinnacle of perfection." Many papers of this period had an obvious tendency to worship ancient music, but this did not lead to blind obedience to the authority of classical music. The study of ancient musical art, which unified music and poetry, provided a rational basis for the emergence of opera from the late 16th century to the early 17th century.
The development of industrial technology in the 15th and 16th centuries brought great changes to music and art. With Venice as the center, the music score printing industry was born, and music had a more unified version, which was more widely and rapidly disseminated; a large number of amateur music lovers gradually formed in the city, giving secular polyphony a dominant position. . With the rapid development of natural science and the exploration of artistic techniques, a series of innovations have appeared in the practice of music and art. Mainly reflected in the following five aspects: ① The secular genre has been greatly developed. Canon-style hunting songs in Italy in the 14th century, dramatic polyphonic pastorals in Italy in the 16th century, French ballads that are poetic and good at describing life scenes, etc., have all developed rapidly. These new genres express humanistic thoughts and feelings and are full of freshness. ②Religious polyphonic music has also undergone many changes under the influence of secular art and humanistic worldview. The single-movement Mass in the Middle Ages gradually developed into a formal Mass with a 5-movement suite structure. Each movement is run through a "fixed tune" taken from Gregorian chants, and some are also taken from secular songs. By the 16th century, the use of fixed tunes became less and less, and the monotonous "fixed rhythm" and other structural patterns of medieval motets were gradually abandoned. The new motets paid more attention to the vividness of the high-pitched melody and the fluidity of the rhythm. It itself is no longer bound by religious rituals. The social significance of the four-part Protestant chant produced during the Reformation far exceeds that of religious music. ③Lute performance gradually broke away from the imitation of singing and became instrumental music. Composers' further exploration of instrumental melodies and textures promoted the formation of instrumental styles, and early instrumental genres such as preludes, toccatas, fantasies, and variations for keyboard instruments emerged. ④In music creation, the range of sounds and expression techniques have been expanded. In polyphonic writing, four voices are generally used, and imitation techniques in polyphony are produced. At the same time, in order to make the music clearly express the content of the lyrics, harmonious polyphonic thinking emerged, becoming the pioneer of main-key music. Vocal music and instrumental music gradually separated and became independent, and singing and playing skills became increasingly perfect. ⑤Music theory research is developing rapidly under the influence of natural science. Major and minor thirds (and their inversions major and minor sixths) were considered consonant intervals, and the potential for forming triads was more fully understood, and rules for the use of dissonances were developed. The popular Ionian mode and Aeolian mode are added to enrich the traditional church mode system. Use variations of semitones and modulations more freely. Bar lines and scores are used. What is more far-reaching is the creation of main melody music, which laid the foundation for the main harmony style.
Obviously, the Renaissance was not just about restoring ancient philosophy and art and looking back on the lost "golden age", but an era full of inventions and accelerating change.
Although these innovations in genres and creative techniques are not completely unrelated to medieval art, due to the opposition between humanism and scholasticism, the music art of the Renaissance underwent a revolution, both in content and form. It was not just a progressive development based on the foundations of medieval music. During the Renaissance, a large number of outstanding music masters emerged, some of whom formed schools of music.
There are mainly the following factions:
Flemish School The representative figure at the beginning of the "Flemish Period" in the history of European music is G. Diffe. He comprehensively absorbed the achievements of the Belgian composer J. Chiconia, the British composer J. Dunstable and the French "New Art". He wrote both religious music and secular music. The main genres are masses and scriptures. Songs and ballads. Dufe's most important innovation was the fixed-rhythm motet of the Chiconian era. The three-part ballads he wrote embody the beauty of singing and his attempts at imitating polyphony. The period from 1460 to 1490 was represented by J. Okegang. He mainly wrote masses, but also ballads and motets. His four-part works mostly used imitation techniques. From about 1480 to 1520, Flemish influence spread throughout Europe. The representatives of this stage were Josquin Despres, J. Obrecht and H. Isaac. They not only wrote masses , motets, ballads, and also use the form of Italian and German folk songs to make the works more infectious. O. di Lasso and P. de Monte mark the peak of Flemish late music creation. They extensively absorbed the essence of musical art from France, Germany, and Italy, inherited and developed the achievements of their predecessors, enriched the polyphonic texture, and formed a new combination of polyphonic music and main-key music.
The Venetian School of Music was formed in the first half of the 16th century and is represented by two students, A. Gabrieli and G. Gabrieli, under the guidance of the Flemish musician A. Villarte. They made important contributions to the development of instrumental music genres, writing ensembles for brass and strings, canzonas for organ, preludes, fantasies, toccatas, etc., and created a double choir format that emphasized the human voice. The contrast between areas, between the band and the chorus, and between the solo and the lead, enriches the color changes, enhances the drama, and is full of life.
The Roman School of Music is mainly engaged in religious music creation, with G.P. da Palestrina as its founder. His ecclesiastical polyphonic works inherited Flemish counterpoint techniques and were strongly influenced by secular styles. He sought the balance between polyphony and harmony, simplified overly complex polyphonic textures, avoided dissonant intervals and dramatic effects, and used The natural sound system and clear-structured musical form formed a new polyphonic style that is quiet, bright, clear and harmonious, and set a precedent for a cappella singing. Under the influence of Palestrina, the Roman School of Music was formed, represented by composers such as G.M. Nanino and F. Soriano.
The "Florentine Companions" art group existed from about 1573 to 1587 at the home of Count Bardi in Florence, consisting of the composer and singer G. Caccini, the lute player and the composer V. García. Represented by Lilai and amateur composer P. Strozzi, an art group called themselves "Florence Partners" was formed. They studied ancient Greek music and proposed to restore the form of combining ancient music with drama and poetry. They advocated highlighting the melody and only accompaniment of the counterpoint parts. This created the style of main melody music and digital bass, which contributed to the birth of the opera genre. It builds a bridge between Renaissance music and modern music.
In addition, French composer C. Janequin and Italian composers L. Marenzio and C. Gesualdo have also made outstanding achievements in the creation of ballads, madrigals and other genres, and have It influenced the secular music creation in Britain, Germany and other countries.
The music of the Renaissance period showed its independent historical characteristics with its great creativity in technology, secularization and realistic spirit in content, and the great achievements of musicians in connecting the past and the future. It promoted the development of European music and became The beginning of modern bourgeois music culture.
Ficino, like Villa before him, regarded the revival of excellent Latin literature and plastic arts as the main achievement of their Renaissance era.
One of the reasons why Renaissance people valued Latin so much was that it was the lingua franca of a small group of learned men; it was spoken by the educated elite.
Another reason is that in Europe, especially in Italy, modern countries or city-states were being formed, and these countries needed a group of professional managers who were well versed in Roman law. Men of this class were advocates of the new secular scholarship, which, like professional religious studies, was based on Latin.
Renaissance people usually regard Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio as the pioneers of humanism. In the Renaissance era, the original meaning of the term "humanism" refers to academic research that is full of human nature, that is, research that is consistent with human dignity. Many of us now misunderstand this term and think that the characteristic of the Renaissance is that people broke through the shackles of the Middle Ages, replaced religion with secularity, and realized that they are the measure of all things and that people are the purpose of their own existence. Humanistic studies are certainly different from theological studies, but differences do not mean incompatibility. The new secular knowledge is not opposed to the old theology, but coexists with each other. Secular knowledge such as law and medicine is not new knowledge. The innovation of humanistic scholarship is to study language, literature and philosophy in a new context. This is an important reason why they admire classical antiquity and its great Latin scholars. Humanists were often amateurs in theology or medicine who devoured grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and the writings of Latin or Greek writers in the hope of recreating the wisdom and elegance of ancient times. Invented textual proofreading and linguistic methods. They cited classical writers extensively, but did not draw a clear line between pagan and Christian classics. In fact, from a historical point of view, the classical heritage was not abandoned by the Middle Ages. At that time, people were still reading Latin and Greek texts such as Aristotle and Cicero, just as medieval artists were not interested in classical art and classical literature. Legends and history are ignored. The difference between Renaissance humanists and medieval theologians and classical students was that they discovered from classical antiquity the absolute standards for judging human cultural activities. They thus reconstructed a value system that was different from the value structure on which the medieval ideals of chivalry and nobility were based.
Personal talent is more important than birth background is an important criterion in this system. Humanism grew up in the soil of the Italian city-states. This soil flows with the nutrients of ancient Rome, contains the legacy of democracy and government, and represents the new ideals of self-reliance and civic morality.
While praising the achievements of his era, Ficino proudly said that all of this happened in the city-state where he lived: Florence. He did not boast. Florence was indeed the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance. Even the word humanism originated from Florence Prime Minister Leonardo Bruni. In the first half of the 15th century, Florence had become an important center for studying the classical world, thus laying the foundation for the future development of the Renaissance. It was also in Florence that people first connected classical ancient culture with artists, which gave birth to the idea that artists are also respected creators, paving the way for artists to get rid of the status of craftsmen lower than mental workers.
The leader of Florentine humanism was Bruni's mentor Salutati. Salvador studied law in his early years and served as Prime Minister of Florence from 1375 until his death in 1406. Sacrifice carried forward the ancient humanist tradition founded by Petrarch. He once persuaded the Florentines to hire Greek scholar Chrysoloras to teach Greek literature, ancient philosophy and art knowledge in the city of Florence. Best known for his translations of Homer and Plato, Hearst's erudition inspired Florentines to have a keen interest in all aspects of the classical world. The intellectual class in Florence is composed of notaries, lawyers and other mortals. In their minds, the classical world represents the advanced civilization of mankind, and re-creating this wonderful world is their dream day and night.
To realize this cultural dream requires an economic foundation. Not only did Florence establish a prosperous industry and commerce, but an upper class emerged that absorbed the wealth of Tuscany. The Buddhist city at that time was quite similar to London and Paris, the capitals of European empires in the 19th century. The money of the city-state was not controlled by the monarch, but in the hands of the upper class. Cosimo de Medici, the founder of one of the main branches of the Medici family that ruled the city, was a giant in the business community. He made a special contribution to the Italian Renaissance. He loved classical art, heavily funded scholars, collected Latin manuscripts everywhere, paid for scholars to translate Greek texts, encouraged architects to absorb classical forms, and sculptors to imitate ancient figures.
Without his money, the pursuit of classical ideals by humanists and artists would have been in vain.
The Renaissance was an era of producing and consuming luxury goods, a society that built churches and palaces, and admired paintings, sculptures and books. The middle and upper classes demand cultural products in large quantities, and society can quickly meet their needs. Salutati’s protégé Bruni described the life in Florence in this way in a letter. What he saw before his eyes were all the joys and conveniences of Florence: wealthy doctors, delicious food, golden bottles of wine, and if a person fell ill, he would be served by a good chef. Cook with a spoon to suit the patient's taste. As you can imagine, life in other Italian cities is similarly luxurious.
Bruni inherited his teacher's teachings, elevated humanism to an ideological system, and dedicated his wisdom to the city-state. In 1427, he became Prime Minister of the Republic of Florence, and like his teacher, he remained until the end of his life. He invented the new historical method of the Renaissance, and his twelve-volume "History of the People of Florence" (1610) was the first history of Florence in the West based on collated historical materials. Machiavelli, the author of The Prince, took his political thought and historical methods as the forerunner. Bruni's historiographical contributions directly coincide with his views on the political organization of Florence. The people of Florence knew that their city-state was based on the Roman Republic, so it was natural for them to associate Florence with the Roman Empire. However, Bruni subverted this traditional view, quoting classical writers, and explaining that Florence itself It is the foundation of the Republic of China. When he wrote about the medieval history of the city-state, he did not blindly follow the accounts of earlier chroniclers. He consulted the archives of the city hall and used original historical materials to improve his narrative. The method that Petrarch used to revise Cicero's text Bruni applied to writing his historical masterpiece. There is another novelty in Bruni's historical work. He convincingly portrays democracy and rule as the most praiseworthy political virtue. Here, he implies that the conflict between harmony and monarchy is the struggle between harmony and virtue and the evil of despotism. The far-reaching significance of this point of view is that it opens up the historical perspective that history is the history of civilization and social characteristics. Such a history is no longer a history of a series of political events, or a history of God's intervention in human affairs. Such a history can include the art of political administration, as well as literature and art.
Bruni translated Greek classical works such as Plato, Aristotle and Plutarch in elegant Ciceronian Latin style. For Italians like Bruni, it was natural to adopt the political theories of Plato and Aristotle about city-states and apply them to their own city-states, because, The Italian city-states are similar to the Greek cities of Athens and Sparta. During the first forty years of the 15th century, Bruni wrote a series of treatises arguing that the city of Florence was a completely autonomous political system, without need for theological justification or the need to be placed in the context of church-city relations. He argued that the duty of citizens was to defend the country during war, not to allow the state to make huge fortunes and recruit uncredited mercenary captains. This argument anticipates Machiavelli's famous assertion.
The upsurge of advocating Latin goes hand in hand with advocating vernacular literature. Bruni used Italian to establish biographies of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, the three pioneers of the Renaissance, to deepen people's appreciation of Italian artistic achievements. The Florentine painter and architect Vasari followed in the footsteps of Bruni and published the first biography of a painter, sculptor and architect in the West in 1550, fully affirming the great artistic achievements of his predecessors and himself. These biographies, like the works created by Renaissance artists that we see in the exhibition hall, especially the portraits and self-portraits, are the eyes of the times. From them we can see how confidently the men and women of the Renaissance viewed their time. of.
One of the reasons why Renaissance people valued Latin so much was that it was the lingua franca of a small group of learned men; it was spoken by the educated elite. Another reason is that in Europe, especially in Italy, modern countries or city-states were being formed, and these countries needed a group of professional managers who were well versed in Roman law. Men of this class were advocates of the new secular scholarship, which, like professional religious studies, was based on Latin.
Renaissance people usually regard Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio as the pioneers of humanism.
In the Renaissance era, the original meaning of the term "humanism" refers to academic research that is full of human nature, that is, research that is consistent with human dignity. Many of us now misunderstand this term and think that the characteristic of the Renaissance is that people broke through the constraints of the Middle Ages, replaced religion with secularity, and realized that they are the measure of all things and that people are the purpose of their own existence. Humanistic studies are certainly different from theological studies, but differences do not mean incompatibility. The new secular knowledge is not opposed to the old theology, but coexists with each other. Secular knowledge such as law and medicine is not new knowledge. The innovation of humanistic scholarship is to study language, literature and philosophy in a new context. This is an important reason why they admire classical antiquity and its great Latin scholars. Humanists were often amateurs in theology or medicine who voraciously studied grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and the works of Latin or Greek writers in the hope of recreating the wisdom and elegance of ancient times. Invented textual proofreading and linguistic methods. They cited classical writers widely, but did not draw a clear line between pagan and Christian classics. In fact, from a historical point of view, the classical heritage was not abandoned by the Middle Ages. At that time, people were still reading Latin and Greek texts such as Aristotle and Cicero, just as medieval artists were not interested in classical art and classical literature. Legends and history are ignored. The difference between Renaissance humanists and medieval theologians and classical students was that they discovered in classical antiquity the absolute standards for judging human cultural activities. They thus reconstructed a value system that was different from the value structure on which the medieval ideals of chivalry and nobility were based.
Personal talent is more important than birth background is an important criterion in this system. Humanism grew up in the soil of the Italian city-states. This soil flows with the nutrients of ancient Rome, contains the legacy of democracy and government, and represents the new ideals of self-reliance and civic morality.
While praising the achievements of his era, Ficino proudly said that all of this happened in the city-state where he lived: Florence. He did not boast. Florence was indeed the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance. Even the word humanism originated from Florence Prime Minister Leonardo Bruni. In the first half of the 15th century, Florence had become an important center for studying the classical world, thus laying the foundation for the future development of the Renaissance. It was also in Florence that people first connected classical ancient culture with artists, which gave birth to the idea that artists are also respected creators, paving the way for artists to get rid of the status of craftsmen lower than mental workers.
The leader of Florentine humanism was Bruni's mentor Salutati. Salvador studied law in his early years and served as Prime Minister of Florence from 1375 until his death in 1406. Sacrifice carried forward the ancient humanist tradition founded by Petrarch. He once persuaded the Florentines to hire Greek scholar Chrysoloras to teach Greek literature, ancient philosophy and art knowledge in the city of Florence. Best known for his translations of Homer and Plato, Hearst's erudition stimulated Florentines' interest in all aspects of the classical world. The intellectual class in Florence is composed of notaries, lawyers and other mortals. In their minds, the classical world represents the advanced civilization of mankind, and re-creating this wonderful world is their dream day and night.
To realize this cultural dream requires an economic foundation. Not only did Florence establish a prosperous industry and commerce, but an upper class emerged that absorbed the wealth of Tuscany. The Buddhist city at that time was quite similar to London and Paris, the capitals of European empires in the 19th century. The money of the city-state was not controlled by the monarch, but in the hands of the upper class. Cosimo de Medici, the founder of one of the main branches of the Medici family that ruled the city, was a giant in the business community. He made a special contribution to the Italian Renaissance. He loved classical art, heavily funded scholars, collected Latin manuscripts everywhere, paid for scholars to translate Greek texts, encouraged architects to absorb classical forms, and sculptors to imitate ancient figures. Without his money, the pursuit of classical ideals by humanists and artists would have been in vain.
The Renaissance was an era of producing and consuming luxury goods, a society that built churches and palaces, and admired paintings, sculptures and books. The middle and upper classes demand cultural products in large quantities, and society is quick to meet their needs.
Salutati's protégé Bruni described the life in Florence in this way in a letter. What he saw before his eyes were all the joys and conveniences of Florence: wealthy doctors, delicious food, golden bottles of wine, and if a person was sick, he would be served by a good chef. Cook with a spoon to suit the patient's taste. As you can imagine, life in other Italian cities is similarly luxurious.
Bruni inherited his teacher's teachings, elevated humanism to an ideological system, and dedicated his wisdom to the city-state. In 1427, he became Prime Minister of the Republic of Florence, and like his teacher, he remained until the end of his life. He invented the new historical method of the Renaissance, and his twelve-volume "History of the People of Florence" (1610) was the first history of Florence in the West based on collated historical materials. Machiavelli, the author of The Prince, took his political thought and historical methods as the forerunner. Bruni's historiographical contributions directly coincide with his views on the political organization of Florence. The people of Florence knew that their city-state was based on the Roman Republic, so it was natural for them to associate Florence with the Roman Empire. However, Bruni subverted this traditional view, quoting classical writers, and explaining that Florence itself It is the foundation of the Republic of China. When he wrote about the medieval history of the city-state, he did not blindly follow the accounts of earlier chroniclers. He consulted the archives of the city hall and used original historical materials to improve his narrative. The method that Petrarch used to revise Cicero's text Bruni applied to writing his historical masterpiece. There is another novelty in Bruni's historical work. He convincingly portrays democracy and rule as the most praiseworthy political virtue. Here, he implies that the conflict between harmony and monarchy is the struggle between harmony and virtue and the evil of despotism. The far-reaching significance of this point of view is that it opens up the historical perspective that history is the history of civilization and social characteristics. Such a history is no longer a history of a series of political events, or a history of God's intervention in human affairs. Such a history can include the art of political administration, as well as literature and art.
Bruni translated Greek classical works such as Plato, Aristotle and Plutarch in elegant Ciceronian Latin style. For Italians like Bruni, it was natural to adopt the political theories of Plato and Aristotle about city-states and apply them to their own city-states, because, The Italian city-states are similar to the Greek cities of Athens and Sparta. During the first forty years of the 15th century, Bruni wrote a series of treatises arguing that the city of Florence was a completely autonomous political system, without need for theological justification or the need to be placed in the context of church-city relations. He argued that the duty of citizens was to defend the country during war, not to allow the state to make money and recruit uncredited mercenary captains. This argument anticipates Machiavelli's famous assertion.
The upsurge of advocating Latin goes hand in hand with advocating vernacular literature. Bruni used Italian to establish biographies of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, the three pioneers of the Renaissance, to deepen people's appreciation of Italian artistic achievements. The Florentine painter and architect Vasari followed in the footsteps of Bruni and published the first biography of a painter, sculptor and architect in the West in 1550, fully affirming the great artistic achievements of his predecessors and himself. These biographies, like the works created by Renaissance artists that we see in the exhibition hall, especially the portraits and self-portraits, are the eyes of the times. From them we can see how confidently the men and women of the Renaissance viewed their time. of.