Survey histories that set the music of the Renaissance period in context and include substantial sections on the Renaissance are J. Peter Burkholder, Donald Jay Grout, and Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music, 8th ed. (2010); Barbara Russano Hanning and Donald Jay Grout, Concise History of Western Music, 4th ed. (2010); Thomas Forrest Kelly, Early Music: A Very Short Introduction (2011); K. Marie Stolba, The Development of Western Music: A History, 3rd ed. (1998).

Books that treat only the Renaissance period are Leeman L. Perkins, Music in the Age of the Renaissance (1999); Allan W. Atlas, Renaissance Music: Music in Western Europe, 1400–1600 (1998); Howard Mayer Brown and Louise K. Stein, Music in the Renaissance, 2nd ed. (1999).

More specialized books include Fiona Kisby (ed.), Music and Musicians in Renaissance Cities and Towns (2001), an interdisciplinary treatment that includes the work of urban historians and musicologists; Jeffery T. Kite-Powell (ed.), A Performer’s Guide to Renaissance Music, 2nd ed., revised and expanded (2007); and Jeremy L. Smith, Thomas East and Music Publishing in Renaissance England (2003). Lewis Lockwood, Music in Renaissance Ferrara 1400–1505: The Creation of a Musical Center in the Fifteenth Century, rev. ed. (2009); and Paul Merkley and Lora L.M. Merkley, Music and Patronage in the Sforza Court (1999), examine the period from the perspective of two noted Italian centres of musical development, Ferrara and Milan. Dolores Pesce (ed.), Hearing the Motet: Essays on the Motet of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (1998), treats the nature of that highly significant vocal genre. Volumes such as Matthew Spring, The Lute in Britain (2001); and Alexander Silbiger (ed.), Keyboard Music Before 1700, 2nd ed. (2004), treat individual instruments. Richard Sherr (ed.), The Josquin Companion (2000); David Fallows, Josquin (2009); and Glenn Watkins, Gesualdo: The Man and His Music, 2nd ed. (1991), and The Gesualdo Hex: Music, Myth, and Memory (2010), are among many works that discuss the lives and music of individual Renaissance composers.