Music in the Renaissance

by Gustave Reese

A complete analysis of the development of music during the Renaissance including a discussion of the contributions made by each country. For this study, the most fitting method has seemed to be one that might, with Browning in mind, be called the Ring and the Book technique. Part I deals at some length with the central musical language of the 15th and 16th centuries, which was developed in France, Italy, and the Low Countries, while Part II deals primarily with the music of other lands. This distinction has nothing to do with the comparative intrinsic merit of the various bodies of music, but only with the separation of local dialects from the central language. Indeed, such local productions as the 16th-century music of Spain and England provide artistic expressions quite in a class with the best music of France, Italy, and the Low Countries. The method of first taking into account only the central language has the advantage of permitting the main technical developments of the centuries under consideration to be described, as it were, in a straight line. Thereafter, the entire period is traversed again for each country dealt with in Part II. As a result, the same musical forms and processes of composition are treated several times, but each discussion is entered from a different approach and with the admixture of something individual―that is, national. The method offers advantages not only to the one whose task it is to sort out a huge amount of varied material, but also to the one who studies it: the student has the main historical outline presented to him more than once, but each time with important changes in the details by which it is filled in.

Genres: Music, History

1040 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1954

Reviews

[Genni · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s incredibly rare for me to not finish a book, but I think I’m giving up on this one at page 255. Maybe it is because I’m not as interested in Renaissance music as I thought I would be. I’m a pianist so have mostly studied music from the Baroque period on. Maybe it is because my interest in music is in that which is more closely related to my instrument. Or perhaps it is because this author’s writing is as dry as the dust on top of my tv.

[James F · Rating 3 out of 5]

While obviously somewhat outdated after sixty years, this is probably the most comprehensive book on Renaissance music available in English. It's divided into two parts; the first part is on the "central language" in France and the Netherlands and in Italy; the second, shorter part is on the "diffusion" of the language in Spain, Germany, Eastern Europe and England. The first part begins with chapters on the generations of Dufay, Ockegham and Josquin, which were the most interesting chapters; it then becomes more encyclopedia-like dealing with the Late Renaissance, in places becoming more like a listing of many composers. The second part is even more list-like. It was enjoyable reading it (while listening to many of the composers on Spotify) although in some ways it was beyond my musical knowledge as a non-musician.

[Robin Boudreaux · Rating 5 out of 5]

GREAT survey of music of the renaissance, invaluable next to the Historical Anthology of Music by Harvard press.