Two specific genres are associated with the great amount of Renaissance church music: the motet, a polyphonic choral work on Latin text; and the Mass, similar to the motet, but longer in length. Polyphonic Mass settings are for the fixed sections of the Mass, or the "Ordinary." These five parts include the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. Secular compositions were geared toward the professional, the amateur, court occasions, the home, and dancing. Those pieces written for one voice with instruments, as well as those unaccompanied for a group of solo voices (a cappella) were placed in this secular music category. Music was set to poems in different languages, such as with the madrigal. Begun in Italy in 1520, and later important in England, the madrigal was originally a light composition with simple melodies and harmonies. Also associated with courtly love poetry is the Burgundian chanson, a vocal French song that is associated with Ockeghem. Combining music with poetry helped lead to the development of opera in the Baroque. An all-encompassing term defining vocal style is "word painting," which was very much exploited in the Renaissance, gives a description of physical images with the text.

Although vocal music dominated the Renaissance period in music, instrumental music began to evolve, too. Musical instruments had been forbidden by the church in the Western world because they would promote dancing and other secular activities. Music was at one time understood to be only for the church. Slowly, voices and instruments started to mix. The chief job of instrumentalists was to accompany vocal works, and the instruments used were determined by the occasion. Loud instruments were used for outdoor events, like the shawm and sackbut (early oboe and trombone). For indoor use, soft instruments were played, such as the string instruments.

Recorders and viols, as well as the harpsichord, organ, and lute, are the primary instruments associated with the Renaissance.


Musical Terms

A Cappella: Literally meaning "in the manner of a chapel," this term denotes choral music without instrumental accompaniment. A cappella was used to describe only sacred music until the 19th century.

Chanson: A song set to French text. This term comes from the Middle Ages and denotes a simple repeating song, and a type of song with accompaniment from France and northern Italy from the 14th through 16th centuries. Refers to a wide range of music and poetry from all classes of society.

Dissonance: A chord that sounds restless and unstable, usually resolved to justify the sound for the listening ear. Opposite consonance.

Dynamics: The different levels of volume in music, such as piano and forte.

Lute: European string instrument of antiquity and the chief domestic instrument during the 16th and 17th centuries. Played by plucking with the fingers, a lute had frets, or strips of wood or metal on the fingerboard.

Madrigal: Italian composition for several unaccompanied voices based on secular texts. Dating from the 13th and 14th centuries and associated mainly with Francesco Landini, madrigal is a poetic and musical form that became more complex with Renaissance composers Orlande de Lassus, Giovanni Palestrina, and Alessandro Gabrieli. In the 17th century, the madrigal was taken over by the cantata.

Motet: A major vocal musical genre prominent from the 13th through the 18th centuries; a form of short, unaccompanied choral composition.

Polyphony: Music that combines several melodic vocal or instrumental lines at the same time. Each line keeps its musical identity throughout the piece. The term polyphony is often used simultaneously with counterpoint, but the former loosely applies to music from before 1600, while the latter denotes a type of tonal music.

Sackbut: English name for the early trombone, which was used during the 15th century.

Shawm: Woodwind double-reeded instrument used from the 13th through 17th centuries, which was the early form of the oboe. Used as an outdoor instrument because of its piercing tone.

Texture: General pattern of sound created by the combination of different parts in a musical passage.

Viol: A family of bowed string instruments utilized from the 16th through 18th centuries and made in various sizes. The Italian name viola da gamba (leg viol) means instruments that are played resting on or between the legs. Its strings are lighter than those of the modern violin family.