Final - Secular Vocal Music

Question 1

What role did women play in the world of Classical music in the Renaissance?

Answer 1

• Expected to perform to entertain guests (if requested)
• Courtesans brought to courts/social events to perform musically and sexually

Question 2

What patron is particularly responsible for the emergence of the frottola?

Answer 2

• Isabella d’Este

Question 3

What were special issues concerning gender in the Renaissance?

Answer 3

• Women were more constrained than in the Middle Ages
• Expected to maintain delicacy through instrument choice
• Ingenuity/creativity discouraged; simple beauty encouraged
• Musical performance equivalated to sexual performance

Question 4

How does the style of the madrigal change throughout the 16th century?

Answer 4

• Focused shift from overall structure/mood to individual phrases and words

Question 5

How does Carlo Gesualdo’s “Io parto” reflect the late madrigal?

Answer 5

• Extreme concern for expressing individual words at the cost of overall structure

Question 6

How is the text of “Io parto” reflected in the music?

Answer 6

• Use of rhythm, melodic motion, harmonies, and number of voices
  
  • “I depart” - followed by a pause
  • “grief” - descending line, dissonances, chromatic motion
  • “life” - lively rhythms

Question 7

What is the “Musica Transalpina”?

Answer 7

• The first major manuscript of translated Italian madrigals

Question 8

How does the typical English madrigal compare with the typical Italian madrigal?

Answer 8

• English madrigals were much lighter
  
  • more strophic, repetitive, and consonant
• Much more accesible and less intellectual
• Less reflective of the text

Question 9

What features do the frottola, chanson, and villancico share?

Question 10

What were the two basic types of variation?

Answer 10

• Based on a melody
• Based on a bass line

Question 11

What is the “Fitzwilliam Virginal Book”?

Answer 11

• A manuscript from the early 17th century containing numerous keyboard/virginal works and many variations

Question 12

How does Byrd treat Dowland’s song “Flow My Tears”?

Answer 12

• Preserved the the melodic and harmonic phrase structure
• Inserted additional material to compensate for long notes that couldn’t be held

Question 13

Why was Downland’s song set so many times in variations?

Answer 13

• Very simple with repeated used of an expressive d4

Question 14

Why are the Susato pieces typical of Renaissance dance music?

Answer 14

• They were repetitive with a clear structure

Question 15

The canzona is the counterpart to what vocal model?

Answer 15

• Chanson

Question 16

What are the salient characteristics of the canzona?

Answer 16

• Instrumental setting of a chanson
• Contrastic sections