Music
- LAST REVIEWED: 10 May 2010
- LAST MODIFIED: 10 May 2010
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0011
- LAST REVIEWED: 10 May 2010
- LAST MODIFIED: 10 May 2010
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0011
Introduction
Scholarship on Renaissance music has developed enormously from the mid-20th century onward. Still important is the traditional heart of the field, studies of composers and of styles, forms, and compositions. Formal musical scholarship existed during the Renaissance; its history, the history of music theory, extends from compositional practice and notation to Renaissance natural philosophy. The social contexts of both writing and performing music comprise another large research sector. Studies of performance practice expanded as a field with the overall interest in “early music.” The history of the book, especially of music and print culture, has become a significant subject. Intersections with literary history can be seen especially in studies of vocal music in general as well as studies of musical theater, not only in the development of new genres such as opera but also in the rise of commercial theater and of public, secular musical performances as social and cultural phenomena. Music became one of many contested practices during the Reformation, issues nearly inseparable from those involved with the spread of humanist scholarship and culture. A persistent question has been the degree to which Renaissance music should be understood as part of the cultural movement of the Renaissance, as opposed to music of the same chronological era. Many scholars of Renaissance music over the past two decades and more have reacted against efforts to apply broad labels or characterizations. They have produced instead an abundance of focused studies that have remained close to the sources.
General Overviews
Atlas 1998, Brown 1999, Fenlon 1989, Perkins 1999, and Strohm 1993 are all intended to serve as potential course textbooks in music history. Brown 1999 is the most traditional of the three; Perkins 1999 updates the well-known synthetic work by Gustave Reese from 1954 of similar title. Strohm 1993 concentrates particularly on the northern polyphony for which the era was so well known. Atlas 1998 devotes more attention to issues of sources and editing. Such courses in music history are generally taught at the higher undergraduate or graduate level. Thus, on the one hand, all of these works provide useful starting points as well as syntheses of issues and topics of current and recent significance. On the other hand, for the scholar approaching the field from a different discipline, they may seem less than easy to approach because of the level of background knowledge in music that most of these authors assume of such students. In order to analyze particular compositions, readers must not only know how to read modern musical notation but also understand the general principles and terminology of modern music theory and analysis. Ongaro 2003 assumes little or no background in classical music but does so at the cost of losing the ability to speak about musical works in as much detail as similar surveys and syntheses of Renaissance painting or literature. The articles in Strohm and Blackburn 2001 offer more focused attention on particular topics.
Atlas, Allan W. Renaissance Music: Music in Western Europe, 1400–1600. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998.
Written as a textbook, this volume covers the topics with clear prose and particular attention to documentary records and the editing of musical notation.
Brown, Howard Mayer, and Louise K. Stein. Music in the Renaissance. 2d ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999.
Stein updates Brown’s popular and compact survey first published in 1976. It maintains a traditional approach focusing on major composers and the rise of regional styles.
Fenlon, Iain, ed. The Renaissance: From the 1470s to the End of the 16th Century, Man and Music. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1989.
Here the general subject is split into a number of chapters to provide a full survey, but each chapter is authored by a particular specialist; the organization emphasizes geography and region.
Ongaro, Giulio Maria. Music of the Renaissance. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2003.
This is the only work in this cluster deliberately written to provide an overview of the subject to nonmusicians; thus it is text only, without notated musical examples.
Perkins, Leeman L. Music in the Age of the Renaissance. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999.
This work is intended to serve not merely as an introduction but also as a scholarly synthesis of the subject undertaken in the light of growing volume of new research. Reviewers have often portrayed the approach as traditional, but there is considerable attention to social and cultural context. It is the lengthiest of the surveys.
Strohm, Reinhard. The Rise of European Music, 1380–1500. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Strohm focuses especially on the ecclesiastical polyphony produced by northern Europeans and spread throughout Europe and ends with a section on Italian music and the humanist movement.
Strohm, Reinhard, and Bonnie J. Blackburn, eds. Music as Concept and Practice in the Late Middle Ages. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
This collection of articles is part of the New Oxford History of Music. It deliberately includes a number of subjects that had escaped the traditional bounds of the field, including music of Muslims and Jews in its treatment of religious music, and deliberately avoiding a synoptic view of the field.
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Article
- Academies
- Aemilia Lanyer
- Agrippa d’Aubigné
- Alberti, Leon Battista
- Alexander VI, Pope
- Amsterdam
- Andrea del Verrocchio
- Andrea Mantegna
- Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt
- Anne Boleyn
- Antwerp
- Aretino, Pietro
- Ariosto, Ludovico
- Art and Science
- Art, German
- Art in Renaissance England
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- Art in Renaissance Siena
- Art in Renaissance Venice
- Art Literature and Theory of Art
- Art Market
- Art of Poetry
- Art, Spanish
- Art, 16th- and 17th-Century Flemish
- Art, 17th-Century Dutch
- Artemisia Gentileschi
- Artisans
- Ascham, Roger
- Askew, Anne
- Astell, Mary
- Astrology, Alchemy, Magic
- Augsburg
- Augustinianism in Renaissance Thought
- Austria
- Autobiography and Life Writing
- Avignon Papacy
- Bacon, Francis
- Banking and Money
- Barbaro, Ermolao, the Younger
- Barbaro, Francesco
- Baron, Hans
- Baroque
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- Barzizza, Gasparino
- Bathsua Makin
- Beaufort, Margaret
- Bellarmine, Cardinal
- Bembo, Pietro
- Benito Arias Montano
- Bernardino of Siena, San
- Beroaldo, Filippo, the Elder
- Bessarion, Cardinal
- Bible, The
- Biography
- Biondo, Flavio
- Bishops, 1550–1700
- Bishops, 1400-1550
- Black Death and Plague: The Disease and Medical Thought
- Boccaccio, Giovanni
- Bohemia and Bohemian Crown Lands
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- Borgia, Lucrezia
- Borromeo, Cardinal Carlo
- Bosch, Hieronymous
- Bracciolini, Poggio
- Bradstreet, Anne
- Brahe, Tycho
- Bruegel, Pieter the Elder
- Bruni, Leonardo
- Bruno, Giordano
- Bucer, Martin
- Budé, Guillaume
- Buonarroti, Michelangelo
- Burgundy and the Netherlands
- Calvin, John
- Calvinism
- Camões, Luís de
- Caravaggio
- Cardano, Girolamo
- Cardinal Richelieu
- Cardinals
- Carvajal y Mendoza, Luisa De
- Cary, Elizabeth
- Casas, Bartolome de las
- Castiglione, Baldassarre
- Catherine of Siena
- Catholic/Counter-Reformation
- Catholicism, Early Modern
- Cavendish, Margaret
- Cecilia del Nacimiento
- Cellini, Benvenuto
- Cervantes, Miguel de
- Charles V, Emperor
- China and Europe, 1550-1800
- Christian-Muslim Exchange
- Christine de Pizan
- Church Fathers in Renaissance and Reformation Thought, The
- Ciceronianism
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- Colet, John
- Colonna, Vittoria
- Columbus, Christopher
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- Commedia dell'arte
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- Confraternities
- Constantinople, Fall of
- Contarini, Gasparo, Cardinal
- Convent Culture
- Conversion
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- Copernicus, Nicolaus
- Cornaro, Caterina
- Cosimo I de’ Medici
- Cosimo il Vecchio de' Medici
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- Council of Trent
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- Croatia
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- Cruz, Juana de la, Mother
- Cruz, Juana Inés de la, Sor
- Dance
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- de Commynes, Philippe
- de Sales, Saint Francis
- de Valdés, Juan
- Death and Dying
- Decembrio, Pier Candido
- Dentière, Marie
- Des Roches, Madeleine and Catherine
- d’Este, Isabella
- di Toledo, Eleonora
- Dialogue
- Diplomacy
- Dolce, Ludovico
- Donatello
- Donne, John
- Drama, English Renaissance
- Dürer, Albrecht
- du Bellay, Joachim
- Du Guillet, Pernette
- Dutch Overseas Empire
- Early Modern Period, Racialization in the
- Ebreo, Leone
- Edinburgh
- Edmund Campion
- Edward IV, King of England
- El Greco
- Elizabeth I, the Great, Queen of England
- Emperor, Maximilian I
- England, 1485-1642
- English Overseas Empire
- English Puritans, Quakers, Dissenters, and Recusants
- Environment and the Natural World
- Epic and Romance
- Erasmus
- Europe and the Globe, 1350–1700
- European Tapestries
- Family and Childhood
- Fedele, Cassandra
- Federico Barocci
- Female Lay Piety
- Ferrara and the Este
- Ficino, Marsilio
- Filelfo, Francesco
- Florence
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- France in the 17th Century
- France in the 16th Century
- Francis Xavier, St
- Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros
- French Law and Justice
- French Renaissance Drama
- Fugger Family
- Galilei, Galileo
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- Gardens
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- General Church Councils, Pre-Trent
- Geneva (1400-1600)
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- George Buchanan
- George of Trebizond
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- Gournay, Marie de
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- Guicciardini, Francesco
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- Hanseatic League
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- Henry VIII, King of England
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- Hispanic Mysticism
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- Hobbes, Thomas
- Holy Roman Empire 1300–1650
- Homes, Foundling
- Huguenots
- Humanism
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- Hutchinson, Lucy
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- Ireland
- Isaac Casaubon
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- Jesuits
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- Landscape
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- Lay Piety
- Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm
- Leo X
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- Letter Writing and Epistolary Culture
- Libraries
- Literary Criticism
- Literature, French
- Literature, Italian
- Literature, Late Medieval German
- Literature, Penitential
- Literature, Spanish
- Locke, John
- London
- Lorenzo de' Medici
- Lorenzo Ghiberti
- Louis XI, King of France
- Louis XIII, King of France
- Louis XIV, King of France
- Lucas Cranach the Elder
- Lucretius in Renaissance Thought
- Luther, Martin
- Lyric Poetry
- Machiavelli, Niccolo
- Macinghi Strozzi, Alessandra
- Malatesta, Sigismondo
- Manetti, Giannozzo
- Mannerism
- Mantovano (Battista Spagnoli), Battista
- Manuel Chrysoloras
- Manuzio, Aldo
- Margaret Clitherow
- Margaret Fell Fox
- Margery Kempe
- Marinella, Lucrezia
- Marino Sanudo
- Marlowe, Christopher
- Marriage and Dowry
- Mary Stuart (Mary, Queen of Scots)
- Mary Tudor, Queen of England
- Masculinity
- Medici Bank
- Medici, Catherine de'
- Medici Family, The
- Medicine
- Mediterranean
- Memling, Hans
- Merchant Adventurers
- Merici, Angela
- Midwifery
- Milan, 1535–1706
- Milan to 1535
- Milton, John
- Mining and Metallurgy
- Mirandola, Giovanni Pico della
- Mission
- Monarchy in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, Female
- Montaigne, Michel de
- More, Thomas
- Morone, Cardinal Giovanni
- Music
- Naples, 1300–1700
- Navarre, Marguerite de
- Netherlandish Art, Early
- Netherlands (Dutch Revolt/ Dutch Republic), The
- Netherlands, Spanish, 1598-1700, the
- Nettesheim, Agrippa von
- Newton, Isaac
- Niccoli, Niccolò
- Nicholas of Cusa
- Nicolas Malebranche
- Nobility
- Opera
- Ottoman Empire
- Ovid in Renaissance Thought
- Panofsky, Erwin
- Paolo Veronese
- Papacy
- Papal Rome
- Paracelsus
- Paris
- Parr, Katherine
- Patronage of the Arts
- Perotti, Niccolò
- Persecution and Martyrdom
- Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia
- Petrarch
- Petrus Ramus and Ramism
- Philip Melanchthon
- Philips, Katherine
- Piccolomini, Aeneas Sylvius
- Piero della Francesca
- Pierre Bayle
- Pilgrimage in Early Modern Catholicism
- Plague and its Consequences
- Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Hermetic Tradition
- Poetry, English
- Pole, Cardinal Reginald
- Polish Literature: Baroque
- Polish Literature: Renaissance
- Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, The
- Political Thought
- Poliziano, Angelo
- Polydore Vergil
- Pontano, Giovanni Giovano
- Pope Innocent VIII
- Pope Nicholas V
- Pope Paul II
- Portraiture
- Portugal
- Poulain de la Barre, Francois
- Poverty and Poor Relief
- Prince Henry the Navigator
- Printing and the Book
- Printmaking
- Prophecy
- Pulter, Hester
- Purgatory
- Purity of Blood
- Quirini, Lauro
- Rabelais, François
- Raphael
- Reformation and Hussite Revolution, Czech
- Reformation and Wars of Religion in France, The
- Reformation, English
- Reformation, German
- Reformation, Italian, The
- Reformation, The
- Reformations and Revolt in the Netherlands, 1500–1621
- Rembrandt
- Renaissance Poland-Lithuania, Art of
- Renaissance, The
- Reuchlin, Johann
- Revolutionary England, 1642-1702
- Rhetoric
- Ricci, Matteo
- Richard III
- Rienzo, Cola Di
- Roman and Iberian Inquisitions, Censorship and the Index i...
- Ronsard, Pierre de
- Roper, Margeret More
- Royal Regencies in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, 140...
- Rubens, Peter Paul
- Russell, Elizabeth Cooke Hoby
- Russia and Muscovy
- Ruzante Angelo Beolco
- Saint John of the Cross
- Saints and Mystics: After Trent
- Saints and Mystics: Before Trent
- Salutati, Coluccio
- Sandro Botticelli
- Sarpi, Fra Paolo
- Savonarola, Girolamo
- Scandinavia
- Scholasticism and Aristotelianism: Fourteenth to Seventeen...
- Schooling and Literacy
- Scientific Revolution
- Scotland
- Scève, Maurice
- Sephardic Diaspora
- Sforza, Caterina
- Sforza, Francesco
- Shakespeare, William
- Ships/Shipbuilding
- Sidney Herbert, Mary, Countess of Pembroke
- Sidney, Philip
- Siena
- Simon of Trent
- Sir Robert Cecil
- Sixtus IV, Pope
- Skepticism in Renaissance Thought
- Slavery and the Slave Trade, 1350–1650
- Southern Italy, 1500–1700
- Southern Italy, 1300–1500
- Spain
- Spanish Inquisition
- Spanish Islam, 1350-1614
- Spenser, Edmund
- Sperone Speroni
- Spinoza, Baruch
- Stampa, Gaspara
- Stuart, Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia
- Switzerland
- Tarabotti, Arcangela
- Tasso Torquato
- Tell, William
- Teresa of Avila
- Textiles: 1400 to 1700
- The Casa of San Giorgio, Genoa
- The Radical Reformation
- The Sack of Rome (1527)
- Thirty Years War, The
- Thomas Wyatt
- Titian
- Toleration
- Tornabuoni, Lucrezia
- Trade Networks
- Tragedy, English
- Translation
- Transylvania, The Principality of
- Traversari, Ambrogio
- Universities
- Urbanism
- Ursulines
- Valeriano, Pierio
- Valla, Lorenzo
- van Eyck, Jan
- van Schurman, Anna Maria
- Vasari, Giorgio
- Vega, Lope de
- Vegio, Maffeo
- Velázquez
- Venice
- Venice, Maritime
- Vergerio, Pier Paolo, The Elder
- Vermeer, Johannes
- Vernacular Languages and Dialects
- Vida, Marco Girolamo
- Virgil in Renaissance Thought
- Visitors, Italian
- Vives, Juan Luis
- Walter Ralegh
- War and Economy, 1300-1600
- Ward, Mary
- Warfare and Military Organizations
- Weyden, Rogier van der
- Widowhood
- Witch Hunt
- Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal
- Women and Learning
- Women and Medicine
- Women and Science
- Women and the Book Trade
- Women and the Reformation
- Women and the Visual Arts
- Women and Warfare
- Women and Work: Fourteenth to Seventeenth Centuries
- Women Writers in Ireland
- Women Writers of the Iberian Empire
- Women Writing in Early Modern Spain
- Women Writing in English
- Women Writing in French
- Women Writing in Italy
- Wroth, Mary