By the fifteenth century the medieval period had given way to the Renaissance, with its revival of learning and humanism. Life in the West did not exactly get less dangerous, but it did get more colorful, maybe even more fun. Epochal developments of the time included the printing press, which revolutionized the dissemination of knowledge. There was a comparable revolution in the arts. Painting saw the development of perspective and an unprecedented realism. In music there was a flowering of magnificent polyphonic sacred works, bolstered by the continuing development of notation. Popular music burgeoned as well; often the same composers wrote both sacred and secular pieces. All composers of the Renaissance wrote music we call modal, that is, based on scales beyond the major and minor ones that music largely settled into after the seventeenth century. Modes tend to leave the music less tonally clear, sometimes giving it a floating quality.
The sacred choral works of the Renaissance have a distinctive purity and ethereal beauty. If you died and went to heaven and it sounded like that, it would seem just right—and that was essentially the intention of the composers. The secular music, on the other hand, the dances and love songs, have a fullness of sound that sets them off from medieval music. The work ranges from the sexy chansons of Josquin and others to the variously rowdy and tender work of the English madrigalists, who splendidly set to music some of the finest poetry in the language.
At the summit of the Renaissance musical repertoire stands the art of Franco-Flemish genius Josquin des Prez, whose work epitomizes these changes. Josquin absorbed the polyphonic art he inherited from the past and added his own innovations. Dazzling whether writing a traditional polyphonic sacred work or a ribald chanson, Josquin turned away from the exquisite but relatively impersonal church music of the time, bringing to everything he did a distinctive voice that marked him off not only as a master but as a striking personality.
Josquin was born ca. 1440 probably in Condé-sur-l’Escaut, and died there in August 1521, the most celebrated composer of his age. History first catches up with him in his early twenties, as he was beginning over three decades of wandering from one court and chapel job to another around Europe, including five years in the papal chapel in Rome. In his later years he returned to Condé and became provost of the collegiate church.
The few stories of Josquin that survive reveal him as somebody who knew his value and annoyed superiors when he did not jump as ordered. A letter putting forward another composer for a prince’s chapel notes, “It is true that Josquin composes better, but he composes when he wants to and not when one wants him to, and he is asking 200 ducats in salary while Isaac will come for 120.” (The prince had good taste; Josquin got the job.) Another story has him walking around his choirs as they rehearsed new pieces, making changes on the fly.
A familiar musical form in those days was the motet, a sacred choral work of moderate length. Josquin produced some of the greatest of the genre. For an ideal introduction to the depth and breadth of his art, begin with the exquisitely tender Ave Maria, gratia plena, one of Josquin’s most celebrated motets, and add the elegaic Absalon, fili mi. From his secular work try the dashing little chanson “El grillo” (The Cricket), with its droll imitations of its subject. In another realm of feeling is the lovely love song, “Mille regretz”: “A thousand regrets at deserting you / and leaving behind your loving face.”
On the more austere and churchly side of the Renaissance spectrum is the Franco-Flemish Johannes Ockeghem (1410–1497), once wrongly thought to have been a teacher of Josquin—though he was an influence on the younger man. Ockeghem was a wizard of a composer, adept in the polyphonic devices of the time, especially elaborate canons. His Missa prolationum is made entirely of mensuration canons, a difficult and esoteric technique in which the canonic answer enters faster than the original melody and catches up, so they end together. Ockeghem’s Ave Maria shows the often dark and intense cast of his work, and his beautiful long-sustained melodies.
Have a listen also to the prolific Flemish master Orlando di Lasso, a.k.a. Orlande de Lassus (1530/32–1594). After various peripatetic jobs around Europe, he settled at the court of Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria in Munich. Lassus was another composer equally adept at sacred and secular music. For a sample of his lighter things, try a couple of his many irresistible madrigals. “Bonjour mon coeur” (Good day, dear heart) is an exhilarating stretch of verbal and musical flirting. The lyric of “Matona, mia cara” depicts an attempt at seduction by an occupying German soldier serenading an Italian lady—“Matona” is his attempt at “Madonna.” He assures her that if she comes downstairs, he’s man enough to ficar tutte notte. Some performances censor this text—avoid those. Among the sacred works of Lassus is the Lagrime di San Pietro, completed weeks before he died. Wielding the old polyphonic style with his customary vigor, he sets a collection of verses of eccentric religious obsession: each lyric concerns the same moment, when the disciple Peter meets the eyes of the risen Christ and feels the full weight of his betrayal. (All the aforementioned Renaissance composers and some of the noted pieces can be heard on the Hilliard Ensemble’s recorded compendium Franco-Flemish Masterworks.)
Finally there’s the legendary Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina (1525–1594), whose sacred music is the distillation of Renaissance polyphony, the purest and most serene music of the era. In its polished perfection it became the main model for the study of writing polyphony, and it remains so today. The most famous of Palestrina’s many mass settings is the Missa Pappae Marcelli (Pope Marcellus Mass), not just because of the music but because of an old myth that the piece forestalled an edict by the Council of Trent banning polyphonic music in services. That isn’t so, but if anybody could have saved polyphony had it needed saving, Palestrina was the man.
Now we’ll move on to more familiar territory, the grand and dramatic work of the baroque, whose leading figures are two of the giants of all time: Bach and Handel.