Renaissance

History and character

The musical Renaissance conventionally runs from about 1430 (the generation of Guillaume Dufay and John Dunstaple, with the “contenance angloise” of sweet thirds and sixths) to about 1600. It is the age of imitative vocal polyphony: Franco-Flemish composers (Johannes Ockeghem, Jacob Obrecht, Josquin des Prez, Adrian Willaert, Orlando di Lasso) active all over Europe and above all in Italy; the Roman school of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (Missa Papae Marcelli, 1562), a model of clear counterpoint after the Council of Trent; the Venetian school (Willaert, Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli) with the split choirs of San Marco; Tomás Luis de Victoria in Spain; William Byrd, Thomas Tallis (Spem in alium, a motet for 40 voices) and John Dowland in England.

Alongside sacred music (masses, motets) a secular repertoire flourishes: the Italian frottola and villanella, the French chanson (Clément Janequin, Claudin de Sermisy), the Italian madrigal (Arcadelt, Cipriano de Rore, Luca Marenzio, Carlo Gesualdo with his extreme chromaticism, Claudio Monteverdi in his early books), and the English madrigal (Morley, Weelkes). Music printing (Ottaviano Petrucci, Venice, Odhecaton 1501) spreads music throughout Europe. Instrumental music grows: lute and keyboard tablatures, ricercares, canzonas, toccatas, fantasias, paired dances (pavane and galliard, passamezzo and saltarello) and variations on basses or airs (romanesca, passamezzo, folia, ruggiero).

The aesthetic: balance between the voices, clarity of the text, measured use of dissonance, modes instead of keys, non-equal tunings (meantone temperament) and an ideal of “variety” and “affects” that, toward the end of the century, opens the way to the second practice and accompanied monody: this is where the Baroque is born. Today this repertoire is performed according to historically informed criteria (ensembles such as The Tallis Scholars, The Sixteen, La Venexiana, Jordi Savall's Hespèrion XXI, Huelgas Ensemble).

Scales and keys

The system is modal. Each mode has a finalis (concluding note), an ambitus (range of the melody: authentic from the finalis to the upper octave, plagal a fourth lower) and a reciting tone (tenor/repercussio). “Chords” are a consequence of counterpoint, but for study purposes we label them with the triads the mode produces (Roman numerals in minor are relative to natural minor).

Dorian (mode I authentic, II plagal) — finalis D

• Formula 1 2 b3 4 5 6 b7; T S T T T S T. Notes: D E F G A B C (often with B flat by musica ficta: it then coincides with natural D minor).
• Characteristic note: major 6 (B): noble gravity, the mode most used in chant and polyphony.
• Triads: i (Dm) ii (Em) III (F) IV (G) v (Am) #vi° (B°) VII (C). Reciting tone of mode I: A.
• Use: “grave” masses and motets; in a cadence the seventh is raised (C#) to obtain the leading tone.
• Example: the Gregorian sequence Dies irae is in mode I (Dorian); Palestrina and Victoria often use its formulas in their Masses for the Dead.
• Common mistake: raising B to B natural and C to C# together everywhere: it turns into a “Baroque” melodic minor.

Phrygian (III authentic, IV plagal) — finalis E

• Formula 1 b2 b3 4 5 b6 b7; S T T T S T T. Notes: E F G A B C D.
• Characteristic note: b2 (F) falling to the finalis: sorrow, compunction, mysticism.
• Triads: i (Em) bII (F) III (G) iv (Am) v° (B°) VI (C) vii (Dm).
• Use: the Phrygian cadence (the bass falls F–E by semitone while the soprano rises D–E: the major sixth opens out into an octave). Phrygian cannot have a leading tone: the cadence is always by semitone in the bass.
• Example: Josquin des Prez — Missa Pange lingua, on a Gregorian hymn of mode III (Phrygian).

Lydian (V, VI) — finalis F

• Formula 1 2 3 #4 5 6 7. Notes: F G A B C D E. With Bb (very frequent, to avoid the tritone F–B) it becomes F G A Bb C D E = F major.
• Characteristic note: #4 (B natural), rarely kept in polyphony.
• Triads: I (F) II (G) iii (Am) #iv° (B°) V (C) vi (Dm) vii (Em).

Mixolydian (VII, VIII) — finalis G

• Formula 1 2 3 4 5 6 b7. Notes: G A B C D E F.
• Characteristic note: b7 (F), raised to F# in cadences (musica ficta).
• Triads: I (G) ii (Am) iii° (B°) IV (C) v (Dm) vi (Em) bVII (F).
• Use: festive, bright masses and motets.

Aeolian and Ionian (Glarean, Dodecachordon, 1547)

• Aeolian (IX, X), finalis A: A B C D E F G = natural minor. Ionian (XI, XII), finalis C: C D E F G A B = major.
• Glarean adds them to the theory, acknowledging an already widespread practice; over the course of the sixteenth century Ionian and Aeolian (and Dorian and Mixolydian “transposed” with a flat in the key signature) become more and more frequent: they are the ancestors of the major and minor keys.

Musica ficta and transposition

• Ficta: unwritten accidentals that the performer adds for two reasons: causa necessitatis (avoiding tritones and diminished fifths, “mi contra fa”) and causa pulchritudinis (leading tone raised in cadences: C# in Dorian, F# in Mixolydian, G# in Aeolian). Modern editions print them above the staff.
• Transposition: a flat in the key signature (cantus mollis) moves the mode up a fourth (Dorian on G: G A Bb C D E F).

Hexachords and solmization

Theory is taught with the hexachords of Guido of Arezzo (ut re mi fa sol la) on C (natural), F (soft, with Bb) and G (hard, with B natural); the semitone is always “mi–fa”.

Late sixteenth-century chromaticism

Gesualdo (Moro, lasso, 1611) and Marenzio use extreme chromatic progressions for the “affects” of the text (sorrow, death): triads a semitone apart or a chromatic third apart, a prelude to the Baroque.

How to choose

For a piece “in the style”: choose the mode from the text and the affect (Phrygian for weeping, Mixolydian for celebration, Dorian for gravity), keep to the ambitus, cadence on the finalis and on the inner notes of the mode (fifth, third), and apply ficta only in cadences.

Harmony

Harmony as counterpoint

• Perfect consonances: unison, fifth, octave (forbidden in parallel succession between two voices). Imperfect: thirds and sixths (preferred in succession). The fourth against the bass is a dissonance.
• Treatment of dissonance (Palestrina's style, later codified by Fux, Gradus ad Parnassum, 1725): passing notes on weak beats; suspension (consonant preparation – dissonance on the strong beat – resolution by descending step: 7–6, 4–3, 9–8, 2–3 in the bass); the changing note (cambiata) and the anticipation in cadences.
• The complete triad as the reference sonority (Zarlino, Le istitutioni harmoniche, 1558, recognizes the major and minor third as the basis of harmony).

Cadences (clausulae)

• Clausula vera: two voices moving from the major sixth to the octave (the tenorizans descends by step to the finalis, the cantizans rises by semitone), often with a 7–6 suspension before. With the bass leaping a fourth/fifth, the “perfect” V–I cadence is born.
• Phrygian cadence: bass falling by semitone (F–E), soprano rising by whole tone.
• Plagal cadence: the final “amen” IV–I.
• Evaded cadences (fuggire la cadenza, Zarlino) to keep the phrase going.
• Cadential hierarchy by mode: in Dorian the main cadences are on D, A, F; in Phrygian on E, A, C (and G); in Mixolydian on G, D, C.

Textures

• Imitation (point of imitation): each phrase of the text has a motive that enters in turn in the voices.
• Homorhythm (chordal, “falsobordone”): for long texts or solemn passages (Gloria, Credo, “Et incarnatus est”).
• Cantus firmus: a Gregorian or secular melody in long notes in the tenor (masses by Dufay and Josquin: Missa L'homme armé).
• Split choirs (Venice): two or more choirs in dialogue, a forerunner of the concertato style.
• Harmonic rhythm: changes of sonority every half note or whole note; cadences punctuate the phrases of the text.

Typical progressions

Rhythm and groove

• Tactus: the pulse of the singer's hand (downstroke and upstroke), about 50–80 per minute; all polyphony is coordinated around it.
• Mensural notation: long, breve, semibreve, minim, semiminim; perfect or imperfect tempus (breve = 3 semibreves, or 2), major or minor prolatio; proportions (sesquialtera 3:2) for triple passages.
• Sacred polyphony: continuous flow, accents given by the text, few metric syncopations, the “natural” rhythm of the words; the voices enter staggered.
• Dances: pavane (duple, slow and processional), galliard (triple, leaping, with frequent hemiolas 6/4 ↔ 3/2), basse danse, saltarello, allemande, branle, moresca; paired slow-fast on the same material.
• Hemiola: two bars of 3 felt as three bars of 2 before the cadence: the typical “acceleration” of galliards and madrigals.
• Swing: none; but the flexibility of the text creates a natural rubato.

Drums

Percussion in the Renaissance

In vocal and sacred polyphony there is no percussion: the rhythm comes from the voices and the text.

In dance music and outdoor music, percussion instruments were used, documented above all by iconography and treatises (e.g. Thoinot Arbeau, Orchésographie, 1589, which describes drum rhythms for the dances):

• Tabor (small drum played with one stick while the other hand plays the three-hole pipe, “pipe and tabor”).
• Nakers (a pair of small kettledrums of Middle Eastern origin), tambourine, side drum with fifes (fife and drum).
• Modern ensembles add percussion to the dances on the basis of these sources: the practice is reconstructed.

How they think

• Pavane: drum on the first beat of each whole note with a long–short–short figure (the “dactylic” rhythm indicated by Arbeau).
• Galliard: accents on the hemiolas, a stroke on the leap of the dance (the dancer's “cadence”).
• Percussion doubles the rhythm of the feet; it does not fill: no continuous “drum kit” patterns.

Typical mistakes

Using percussion in sacred music; programming identical loops for minutes on end; using orchestral timpani (they belong to another era).

Bass

• The bassus voice (or contratenor bassus in the fifteenth century) gradually becomes the harmonic foundation: from the mid-sixteenth century it often moves by leaps of a fourth and fifth in cadences.
• Instruments: bass voice (F2–D4), bass viola da gamba, violone, bass trombone (sackbut), dulcian/Renaissance bassoon, organ (pedals or left hand), lute and harp in the low registers.
• Function: in counterpoint the bass and the tenor support the cadence (the bass leaps a fifth, the tenor descends to the finalis).
• In basses for variations (passamezzo, romanesca, folia) the bass is the fixed element over which the melody is improvised.

Harmonic instruments

• Voices: the true “harmonic section”. Polyphony in 4 parts (cantus, altus, tenor, bassus), then 5–6 voices and beyond (Tallis, Spem in alium for 40 voices).
• Organ: supports the choir (doubling the voices, colla parte), alternates verses with the choir (alternatim), plays toccatas, ricercares, intonations.
• Lute (6 courses, tuned in fourths with one third: G C F A D G in the lute in G): tablatures of motets and chansons, accompaniment of the voice (Dowland).
• Harpsichord, virginal, spinet: dances, variations (Fitzwilliam Virginal Book), fantasias.
• Consort: homogeneous families (viols, recorders, crumhorns) or mixed (the English “broken consort”) playing chansons and madrigals or dances in 4–6 parts.
• Harp and vihuela in Spain.
• Voicing: close voices in the middle register, full thirds and sixths, doubling of the finalis and the fifth in cadences; the final third often omitted in the fifteenth century, then increasingly present (Picardy third).

Melody and vocals

• Vocal melody: by conjunct motion with small, compensated leaps (after a leap, return by step in the opposite direction), within the ambitus of the mode, a gentle melodic arch; leaps of a sixth only ascending minor ones, never of a seventh or a tritone.
• Text: syllabic in long sections, melismatic on key words (Amen, Kyrie, Alleluia); madrigalisms (word painting): rising lines on “heaven”, descents on “hell”, chromaticism on “sorrow”, rests on “sigh”.
• Voices: cantus/superius (soprano, boy trebles or falsettists), altus (countertenor), tenor, bassus. In sacred polyphony the performers were male (boy trebles and falsettists for the high parts); madrigals were also sung with one voice per part in court settings, with women singers (e.g. the “concerto delle dame” of Ferrara).
• Imitation: each voice states the same motive; entries at the distance of a fourth or fifth.
• Ornamentation (diminution): singers and instrumentalists added fast passages according to treatises such as those of Diego Ortiz (Trattado de glosas, 1553) and Giovanni Bassano.
• Intonation: the voices tend toward pure thirds (5:4) of the meantone temperament: this is why the sound of a good Renaissance choir is so “steady”.

Instruments

Voices (cantus, altus, tenor, bassus), positive and church organ, regal, harpsichord, virginal, spinet, clavichord, lute, theorbo (late in the century), vihuela, 4-course Renaissance guitar, harp, viols (treble, tenor, bass), lira da braccio, violin (from the mid-century), recorders (consort), Renaissance transverse flute, cornett, trombone (sackbut), bombard and shawm, crumhorn, dulcian, bagpipe, pipe and tabor, nakers, tambourine, bells.

Synths and sounds

• Augmented Voices — Choir for sketching polyphony: For hearing a 4-voice motet in the DAW: one track per voice, soft attack (50–100 ms), minimal vibrato, church reverb. It does not replace a quality sampled choir.
• Mellotron V — Period flutes and voices: Tape-style recorder and choir patches give an “antique” color to crossover or progressive arrangements (1970s style) of Renaissance dances.
• Piano V — Score study: For reading and checking the voice leading of a polyphonic score; choose a soft timbre and little reverb so you can hear each line clearly.
• B-3 V — Study “positive” organ: With only the 8' and 4' registers (drawbars 00 8000 000 or 00 8800 000), Leslie stopped and percussion off, it imitates a positive organ to support a choir; for a real pipe organ you need a dedicated library.

Song structure

Sacred forms

• Mass: Kyrie (tripartite: Kyrie – Christe – Kyrie), Gloria, Credo, Sanctus with Hosanna and Benedictus, Agnus Dei. Types: cantus firmus mass (Missa L'homme armé), parody mass or imitation mass (reworks a polyphonic motet or chanson), paraphrase mass (Gregorian melody distributed among the voices, e.g. Josquin's Missa Pange lingua), “sine nomine” mass.
• Motet: Latin text, successive sections, each with its own point of imitation; often in two parts (prima and secunda pars).
• Hymns, Magnificat, Lamentations, psalms (alternatim with plainchant).

Secular forms

• Madrigal: “durchkomponiert” form (each line with new music), 4–6 voices.
• Chanson: strophic or free forms, often more rhythmic and syllabic.
• Frottola, villanella, canzonetta, balletto (with the “fa-la-la” refrain).

Instrumental forms

• Ricercare (imitative, forerunner of the fugue), canzona (da sonar, livelier, born from the chanson), toccata, fantasia, tablatures.
• Paired dances (pavane–galliard, passamezzo–saltarello) and variations on ostinato basses or airs.

Proportions

A Palestrina motet: 4–8 textual sections, 80–150 bars (in modern transcription), duration 3–7 minutes. A complete mass: 20–35 minutes. A pavane: three sections (strains) of 8 or 16 bars, each repeated with variations.

Mixing and mastering

Sonic goal

Transparency of the polyphonic lines, fusion of the voices in a reverberant space (church, chapel), natural intonation and timbre, restrained but lively dynamics (Renaissance polyphony moves mostly between p and f). References: the recordings of The Tallis Scholars, The Sixteen, Huelgas Ensemble, Hespèrion XXI (Alia Vox).

Choir and voices

• Miking: main pair 2–4 m from the choir and 2.5–3.5 m high (A–B omni at 40–60 cm, or ORTF); ambience pair 8–15 m back in the nave; light spot mics per section only if the balance requires it.
• EQ: high-pass 60–80 Hz (traffic rumble, ventilation); −1/−2 dB at 200–300 Hz if the church booms; +1 dB at 8–12 kHz for air if the voices are distant. No extreme EQ.
• Compression: none. Minimal manual automation on entrances.
• Reverb: the real church (2.5–6 s decay). In the studio: a convolution of a church or chapel (Altiverb, Space Designer) or an algorithmic “Cathedral/Church” with 3–4 s decay, pre-delay 20–30 ms, return high-passed at 150 Hz.
• Panning: semicircular layout (sopranos L, altos center-left, tenors center-right, basses R) or split choirs on either side; in single-pair recordings the image comes from the physical layout.

Instruments

• Lute and vihuela: close pair (50–80 cm, ORTF or XY), high-pass 60–80 Hz, finger noise left natural; room reverb (1–1.5 s).
• Viols and consort: pair at 1.5–2 m, A–B; −1 dB at 300 Hz if the bass viol swells.
• Recorders, cornetts, sackbuts: mics farther away (1.5–3 m) to avoid breath noise and harshness; high-pass 120 Hz on soprano recorders.
• Positive organ and harpsichord: pair at 1–2 m; the harpsichord is rich in transients: no compression, possibly −1/−2 dB at 3–5 kHz if it is biting.
• Dance percussion: light spot mic, no compression, natural reverb.

With virtual libraries

• Sampled choirs (e.g. chamber choir or “early music” choir libraries): use the library's distant mics and a single church reverb for all voices; draw the dynamics (CC1) phrase by phrase; one track per voice to keep the polyphony readable.
• Tuning: if the library or synth allows, try quarter-comma meantone temperament (pure major thirds) and a pitch of A=440 or A=466 (recurring in “high pitch” practice for some repertoires, to be evaluated case by case).
• Early instruments (lutes, viols, recorders) in dedicated libraries; keep the same acoustic space.

Buses and groups

Voice bus (or per choir, if split), instrument bus, one common reverb. No limiter on the buses.

Sidechain

No.

Master

• Chain: optional balancing EQ, no compression or at most 0.5–1 dB very slow, transparent limiter as protection.
• Indicative target: −23/−18 LUFS integrated (commercial choral recordings are often between −22 and −16), true peak −1 dBTP, LRA 6–14 LU.
• Silence before and after each piece to let the church tail fade (do not cut it).

Common mistakes

• Compressing the choir: it loses fusion and breath.
• Spot mics too present (individual singers are heard, the “unity” is lost).
• Reverb too long for fast parts (madrigals, chansons): the imitation gets confused.
• Removing too much low end: the church loses body.
• In the DAW: rigid quantization and no breaths between phrases.

Reference tracks for the mix

• Allegri — Miserere (The Tallis Scholars, 1980).
• Palestrina — Missa Papae Marcelli (The Tallis Scholars or The Sixteen).
• Tallis — Spem in alium (recordings by English ensembles).
• Gesualdo — Tenebrae Responsories (The Hilliard Ensemble, ECM, 1991).
• Dowland — Lachrimae (Hespèrion XX, Jordi Savall).

Reference listening

• Guillaume Dufay — Nuper rosarum flores (1436)
• Johannes Ockeghem — Missa prolationum (c. 1470–1480)
• Josquin des Prez — Ave Maria... virgo serena (c. 1485)
• Josquin des Prez — Missa Pange lingua (c. 1515)
• Clément Janequin — La guerre (La bataille de Marignan) (c. 1528)
• Thomas Tallis — Spem in alium (c. 1570)
• Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina — Missa Papae Marcelli (1562)
• Orlando di Lasso — Prophetiae Sibyllarum (c. 1550–1560)
• Tomás Luis de Victoria — Officium defunctorum (1605)
• Giovanni Gabrieli — Sonata pian' e forte (1597)
• John Dowland — Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares (1604)
• Carlo Gesualdo — Moro, lasso, al mio duolo (1611)