Concise History of Western Music
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Chapter Index Chapter 1: Music in Ancient Greece and Early Christian Rome Chapter 2: Chant and Secular Song in the Middle Ages, 400Ð1450 Chapter 3: Polyphonic Music from Its Beginnings through the Thirteenth Century Chapter 4: French and Italian Music in the Fourteenth Century Chapter 5: England and Burgundian Lands in the Fifteenth Century: The Beginnings of an International Style Chapter 6: The Age of the Renaissance: Music of the Low Countries Chapter 7: The Age of the Renaissance: New Currents in the Sixteenth Century Chapter 8: Church Music of the Late Renaissance and Reformation Chapter 9: Church Music of the Late Renaissance and Reformation Chapter 10: Opera and Vocal Music in the Late Seventeenth Century Chapter 11: Instrumental Music in the Late Baroque Chapter 12: Music in the Early Eighteenth Century Chapter 13: The Early Classic Period: Opera and Instrumental Music in the Eighteenth Century Chapter 14: The Late Eighteenth Century: Haydn and Mozart Chapter 15: Ludwig van Beethoven Chapter 16: Romanticism and Nineteenth-Century Orchestral Music Chapter 17: Solo, Chamber, and Vocal Music in the Nineteenth Century Chapter 18: Opera, Music Drama, and Church Music in the Nineteenth Century Chapter 19: European Music from the 1870s to World War I Chapter 20: The European Mainstream in the Twentieth Century Chapter 21: Atonality, Serialism, and Recent Developments in Twentieth-Century Europe Chapter 22: The American Twentieth Century
 

Outlines:
  - Generation Post–Josquin 1520–1550
  - Secular Song in Italy
  - Secular Song Outside of Italy
  - The Rise of Instrumental Music
  Quiz
  Listening Guide
Chapter 7: The Age of the Renaissance: New Currents in the Sixteenth Century
Secular Song Outside of Italy
As the Italian madrigal continued to develop, composers in other countries worked at adapting secular song forms to their own sensibilities. In France, composers experimented with the imitative possibilities of music in the Parisian chanson and grappled with the problem of the French language's lack of accentuation in musique mesurée. In England, composers imitated Italian madrigals but eventually developed their own style of madrigal composition. Composers in Spain and eastern Europe also developed regional styles.
  1. France

    1. Parisian chanson
      1. Developed during the reign of Francis I (1515–47)
      2. Over 1500 published by Pierre Attaingnant (ca. 1494–ca. 1551)
        1. Was the first French music printer
        2. Published over fifty collections of Parisian chansons
      3. Many published in arrangements for voice and lute
      4. Style originally similar to frottola
        1. Syllabic text setting
        2. Many different types of verse forms
        3. Texts usually carrying double meanings
        4. Homophonic texture with short points of imitation
        5. Melody in the highest voice
        6. Forms made from distinct compact sections
        7. Usually in duple meter
      5. Claudin de Sermisy (ca. 1490–1562), example, NAWM 41, Tant que vivray
        1. Melody is in the top voice.
        2. The harmony consists mostly of thirds and fifths.
        3. Dissonances occur at the downbeat of a cadence, like an appoggiatura.
        4. Long notes or repeated notes end each line of text.
      6. Clément Janequin (ca. 1485–ca. 1560)
        1. Along with Sermisy, one of the principal chanson composers in the first Attaingnant collections
        2. His descriptive chansons imitate bird songs, hunting calls, battles
        3. His most famous chanson, La Guerre, depicted a battle.

    2. The later Franco-Flemish chanson
      1. Principal chanson publisher outside of Paris was a Tilman Susato in Antwerp, Belgium.
      2. Gombert, Clemens, and other Franco-Flemish composers
      3. More contrapuntal than Parisian chansons
      4. Less rhythmically marked
      5. The contrapuntal tradition continued longest further north; an example is Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562–1621).
      6. Orlando di Lasso composed chansons with French texts, close imitations, and humorous settings. Some of his chansons were in the style of the Parisian chanson but with more attention to the accents of the texts.

  2. England and English Madrigals

    1. Musica transalpina
      1. 1588 collection of Italian madrigals translated into English, published by Nicholas Younge
      2. Followed by other similar anthologies
      3. Inspired English madrigal compositions from the 1590s to the 1630s

    2. Thomas Morley (1557–1602)
      1. Composed light madrigals, balletts and canzonets
      2. Balletts modeled on Italian balletti
      3. Style: homophonic with dancelike meters
      4. Formal patterns (e.g., AABB) marked by full cadences
      5. Refrain sung to the syllables fa la leading people to call the pieces fa las

    3. Thomas Weelkes (ca. 1575–1623), example: NAWM 43, O Care, thou wilt despatch me
      1. Serious message but with fa la syllables
      2. Learned counterpoint including imitation in direct and contrary motion (especially in the opening)
      3. Chain of suspensions
      4. Harmony as intense as Italian madrigals but with a smoother effect

    4. Performance of madrigals, balletts, and canzonets usually by unaccompanied voices but appropriate for viols alone or in combination with voices (see Plate IV in CHWM)

    5. English Lute Songs
      1. In the early 1600s, the English madrigal declined in popularity and the lute song replaced it.
      2. Main composers were John Dowland (1562–1626) and Thomas Campion (1567–1620).
      3. Lute accompaniments are subordinate to the voice part.
      4. Publishers put the lute part below the voice part so singers could accompany themselves. (see illustration, p. 140, in CHWM)
      5. Example: NAWM 44, Flow my Tears
        1. Example is by John Dowland, from his Second Booke of Ayres (1600).
        2. aabbCC form similar to that of the pavane, a dance form
        3. Musical repetitions make expression of individual words impossible, but the poem has the same dark mood throughout, which Dowland portrays.
        4. This song was very popular and became the basis of variations for many composers (NAWM 46 is an example for keyboard).

  3. Germany

    1. Franco-Flemish music did not appear in Germany until about 1530.

    2. Lied (German polyphonic song) (plural: lieder)
      1. Collected in printed songbooks.
      2. Ludwig Senfl (ca. 1486–1542/3)
        1. Similar in style to Franco-Flemish motets
        2. Sometimes used folklike tenor tunes
      3. Hans Leo Hassler (1564–1612)
        1. Nuremberg
        2. Highly polished lieder
        3. Among his works: instrumental music, German lieder, Italian madrigals and canzonets, Latin motets, Masses, and settings of Lutheran chorals
      4. After 1550 Italian genres replaced the lied, or the lied took on Italian style.

    3. Orlando di Lasso (1532–1594), the chief Franco-Flemish composer in Germany
      1. Studied in Italy
      2. Published seven collections of German lieder
      3. Influenced by madrigal composition
      4. All voice parts equal with bits of imitation and echoes

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