In this lecture, J. Anthony Allen defines the Renaissance as a cultural rebirth occurring roughly between the 15th and 17th centuries, tracing the term’s origin to Jules Michelet’s 1855 usage. He outlines the period’s key characteristics: a renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman ideas, the transformative impact of the printing press which made music accessible to amateurs, the rise of court‑appointed composers fostering an international exchange of styles, and the profound musical consequences of the Reformation, which introduced vernacular languages and new liturgical practices. Allen emphasizes that understanding these broader political, technological, and religious shifts is essential for grasping the musical developments that will be explored later in the course.
Chapters
Okay, what is the Renaissance, or what was the Renaissance, more properly put? So we're talking about the 15th and 16th centuries. Now, some literature says the Renaissance started in the 14th century, some says 15th century. So 15th or 16th century up to the 17th century. So it followed the Middle Ages. And the term Renaissance literally means rebirth. So it's a French word meaning rebirth. It means that we're exiting from the Middle Ages, a relatively dark period in history, and kind of recapturing some of the art and culture that had been bubbling up in the Middle Ages and even before that. We first get the term Renaissance in 1855. So that came, you know, after the Renaissance period, as most names of periods do. We got the name later, but in 1855, Jules Michelet, I think we pronounce his name in his book History of France in the term Renaissance for this period, again meaning rebirth. So there was a lot going on in the Renaissance and the term rebirth really fits. So. So one of the things is that people just everyone from artists to philosophers to politicians, one of the things they were looking at was ideas and values from ancient Greece and Rome. So kind of prior to the Middle Ages, but also developing new ideas. So one of the things that we get in the Renaissance is the printing press. And that changes things radically. Right? For example, after the invention of the printing press, we start getting people printing music that came about in the early 16th century and that really made music available to amateurs. People could buy music and perform it for their own entertainment. That's not something we had ever before. If you wanted to hear music. Remember, recordings don't exist at this time. So if you wanted to hear music, period, you had to go to a concert. But now with printed music, people can play music on their own at home for entertainment. You still can't just play a recording, but you can play music at home. Other things that helped guide some of the changes artistically that happened in the Renaissance was we start to see musicians being, having court appointed positions. So that's not particularly new. We had musicians who, and composers in particular who had jobs working in churches and for courts before. But now what we have is an increasing number of composers who had jobs in courts, in other words, working for the king or queen or royalty outside of their native region. People were traveling for these jobs. So you might, an English composer might have a job in France working for that nobility there. And this created a new kind of international style, if you will. I'm hesitant to use the word style, but composers were being influenced more and more by the music of other cultures because of these travels. Kind of like how now composers are influenced by music from all over the world because of the Internet. On a much smaller scale, at this period of time, composers were starting to travel more and learn more about the music from the neighboring countries, in particular French, France, Italy and England. Now, speaking of the church, we also have in the Renaissance, the Reformation, and there's a lot of changes that happened to the Church and the Reformation. We'll talk more about that shortly. But that led to all kinds of new styles of music in the church, both Catholic and otherwise. So there's a lot of different music happening in the Catholic Church, there's different languages being used, so the music did not necessarily have to be in Latin. And that led to a lot of new and exciting things happening in music. Just to scratch the surface on some of the things that happened in the Renaissance. So before we get too much further into the music, let's talk a little bit about what's happening in Europe in this period and kind of what the political situation is and some of the big events that happened during the Renaissance outside of music. Then we'll come back to music and talk about what was happening musically. But it's important to understand some of the cultural and non musical things that are happening because they really kind of influence what we'll find in music. So off we go into that.
