Musical Development of the 16th Century

Reading Madrigal Music
by composer Jacques Arcadelt 

During the 16th century, the Renaissance produced major musical development through sacred and secular music. 

    Sacred music generally involved the musical form of the motet or mass, while secular music involved the rise of instrumental music and dance music using madrigals. Secular music was intended for a non religious audience, while the sacred music serves a specific religious purpose. 

    When describing the new styles arising in the Northern renaissance, many of these new styles were expanded upon many of the musical forms developed in the early Renaissance and High Middle Ages. "Composers also continued to write madrigals (songs for three or more solo voices based generally on secular poems).. This increasing complexity produced a significant change in character of madrigals, which were especially popular in Elizabethan England"(Cunnigham). The advancement of the madrigal aided in the development of secular music composition of the 16th century. 

    One of the major advancements for musical development during this era was having printed music. The invention of the printing press allowed for music to be printed and shared throughout the people of vastly different areas. For Elizabethan music, "The self-imposed ban on the importation of foreign art-works did not extend to printed music, with the result that by the early years of the reign of Elizabeth, Italian secular music begin to circulate in English musical circles"(Cunningham).  Composers and artists were now able to share and expand their artistry, which created an increasing popularity and overall accessibility for music. 

    The article, "Continental sacred music of the 16th century" by Howard Mayer Brown, highlights the incredible talent and effort required to produce sacred music. Brown researches the details of the sacred music and compares it to secular music saying, "The problems of performing sacred music of the Renaissance are quite different from those involved in singing and playing secular music. Most of then involve questions of choral sound and balance, or such difficulties as finding the right temp, deciding in how to extrovert a fashion to phrase, and determining how much rhetoric of the text should be dramatically heightened" (Brown). It  takes extreme talent in order to correctly perform a sacred musical piece that replicates the 16th century era. 

Works Cited 

Brown, Howard Mayer. “Performing Early Music on Record-2: Continental Sacred Music of the 16th           Century.” Early Music, vol. 3, no. 4, Oxford University Press, 1975, pp. 373–77, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3125410.

Cunningham, Andrew. Chapter 14 – The Renaissance in the North