I. The Franco-Flemish Generation of 1520-1550
A. Background
1. Growing diversity of musical expression began to modify the dominant
cosmopolitan style of the Franco-Flemish masters.
2. Imitation of polyphonic models (imitation Mass) gradually replaces
cantus firmus mass
3. Composers begin to write for 5 or 6 voices rather to earlier standard
4-voices
B. Composers
1. Nicolas Gombert (1495-1556)
a. Exemplar of the northern motet style from 1520-1550
b. Supposed pupil of Josquin
c. Motet: Super flumina Babilonis exemplifies his motet style (more than
160 survive)
1. Use of continuous series of imitative sentences with
interlocking cadences
2. This is broken by a single short contrasting section in triple
meter and fauxbourdon harmony
2. Jacobus Clemens (1510-1556)
a. Also known as 'Clemens non Papa' for unknown reasons
b. Compositional output:
1. 15 Masses: all masses (but one) based on polyphonic models
2. 200 motets: similar in style to Gombert
3. 4 books of psalms (Souterliedeken) w/Dutch texts
written in 3-part polyphony using popular tunes
3. Ludwig Senfl (1486-1542[3])
a. Swiss student of Isaac
b. Worked chiefly at the Bavarian court of Munich
c. Conservative style
d. Wrote many German secular songs and sacred works for the Lutheran church
4. Adrian Willaert (1490-1562)
a. Much more progressive than conservatives Gombert, Clemens, Senfl
b. Personal history
1. Born in Flanders
2. Studied with Mouton at Paris
3. Served Cardinal Ippolito I d'Este in Rome by 1515
4. Director of music in St. Mark's church at Venice in 1527
c. Taught many eminent musicians: Zarlino, Cipriano de rore, Andrea Gabrieli
d. Primarily wrote sacred copositions
e. One of the first composers to insist that the syllables be printed
carefully under the notes with scrupulous attention
II. The Rise of National Styles
A. Rise of Italian Styles
1. Change from foreign to native musical leadership is vividly illustrated by
the position in Venice of the Flemish Adrian Willaert and his disciples
a. Willaert is made director of St. Mark's in 1527
b. Pupil A.Gabrieli (1520-1586) later holds the position
c. In 1609, Heinrich Schütz comes ot study with G.Gabrieli
d. In less than a century Italy supplants France, Flanders and the
Netherlands as the center of European musical life, primacy
endures for 200 years
B. Frottola
1. When Petrucci begins printing music at Venice in 1501 he publ. chansons,
Masses, and motets. From 1504-1514, he publ. no fewer than 11 collections
of strophic Italian songs, set syllabically to music in four parts, having
marked rhythmic patterns, simple diatonic harmonies and a homophonic style,
with melody in the upper voice.
2. Frottola: generic term for these types of songs. Word embraces many subtypes:
barzalletta, capitolo, terza rima and strambotto, as well as canzona
a. Frottola flourished in the late 15th and early 16th c.
b. Probably method of performance was to sing the upper voice and play
the other parts as accompaniment.
3. In 1509, 1511 and 1520s Francisco Bossiniensis publ. a large number of
frottole by various composers for lute and voice, preserving the vocal parts
but omitting one interior part.
4. Frottola is a historically important forerunner of the Italian madrigal
C. Lauda
1. Religious counterpart of the frottola was the polyphonic lauda: a popular
nonliturgical devotional song
2. Texts sometimes Italian, sometimes Latin
3. 4-part settings
4. Melodies taken from secular songs
5. Two books of laude were published by Petrucci in 1507 and 1508
6. Performance practice:
a. Sung in semipublic devotional gatherings
b. Either 'a cappella' or with inst. playing the lower 3 voices
7. Musical style:
a. Similar to the frottola
b. Syllabic, homophonic, regularly rhythmic
c. Melody always placed in the highest voice
d. Simple harmonic settings
e. Rarely incorporates Gregorian themes
D. France: The New French Chanson
1. French was always the language of the chanson, as Latin was of the Mass
2. French composers of Masses and motets in the early 16th c. continue to
write in a slightly modified version of the international style
3. Chanson composers, however from 1500-1550 develop a new type of chanson
that was more distinctively national in both poetry and music
4. Early publications
a. Pierre Attaignant published between 1528-1552 more than 50 collections
of chansons, about 1500 pieces altogether
b. Hundreds of transcriptions for lute and arrangements for lute and solo
voice publ. during 16th c. in Italy and France
c. Jacques Moderne at Lyons (publ. from 1532-60)
E. Later Franco-Flemish Chanson
1. Franco-Flemish composers: Gombert, Clemens non Papa, Pierre de Manchicourt
(d.1564) and Thomas Crecquillon (d.1557)
2. Tilman Susato at Antwerp publ. 14 collections between 1543-1555 of music
mostly by Franco-Flemish composers
3. Musical style
a. More contrapuntal than those by the Paris composers
b. Fuller texture, more melismatic lines
c. Less marked rhythm
F. Germany
1. Polyphony developed later in Germany than in other Western European countries
2. Monophonic art of the Minnesinger flourished at the German courts throught
the 14th c.
3. Art of the Meistersinger flourished in the cities and towns from 1450-1600
4. Franco-Flemish musicians began to be heard in Germany from about 1530
G. German Lied
1. Lochamer Liederbuch (Lochamer Songbook) of 1455-1460
a. One of the earliest collections of German polyphonic songs
b. Contains both monophonic melodies and 3-part settings with the
leading melody in the tenor part
2. Glogauer Liederbuch (1480)
a. 3-part settings
b. Melody sometimes in upper-most voice
3. First masters of polyphonic Lied
a. Isaac
b. Heinrich Finck (1445-1527)
c. Paul Hofhaimer (1459-1537)
4. Ludwig Senfl
a. Leading figure of 16th c. polyphonic Lied
5. Nuremberg as leading center of German culture during 1500-1550
6. Lied declines after 1550 as German taste veers toward Italian styles
H. Quodlibet
1. A kind of song written mostly in German: a piece made up of different songs
or fragments of songs thrown together often with the apparent aim of
making an incongruous and absurd mixture of texts.
Source:web.archive.org
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