PRE BAROQUE MUSIC
BEFORE 1650Prepared by: Rommel Orbillo Maricel Asiao Geraldine Reyes
Pre-Baroque Music history
Tracing the history of Western music in the church, one quickly realizes
how much change sacred music has undertaken from the Old Testament to the Baroque Era. Yet throughout the
history, Christian music always seems to return to one thing. We will see this
music used in thanksgiving, in worship, and in prayer and with all its uses, the one thing it all comes back
to is glorifying God.
The full history of the origins of music in the
Church, "Nevertheless it is clear that although
medieval theoreticians accepted some of the
theoretical bases of ancient Greek musical theory, the practice of music was far more heavily indebted to the traditions of Jewish
music."
Early on in the Bible, evidence of Jewish music and instruments is
found. We find a wonderful example of the Israelites using
instruments to praise and thank God for parting the Red Sea.
Exodus 15:20 says "Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of
Aaron, took the timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out
after her with timbrels and with dances."
However, a more detailed description of the style of
music in Israel is found in the book of Psalms. "Certain
headings to the psalms would seem to suggest that the use
of modes, one of the most marked characteristics of all Middle Eastern music, was well known to the Levites." These Hebrew psalms later
became significant in Christian liturgy under the name of "responsorial psalmody".
In the early church, sacred music had chiefly a utilitarian purpose. "It was found that an excellent method of assisting worshippers to pray together was to base the prayer on a
very simple chant, very much in the nature of a recitation
designed on simple rhythmic and melodic lines.
At first, a soloist sang the melody, but some psalms
ended with an alleluia or some short refrain that was easily
remembered, and it soon became ordinary for this to be sung in unison. The pinnacle of reform for the liturgy and the chant appears to have been largely due to Gregory I (The Great), Pope from 590 to 604.
As Pope for just fourteen years, his accomplishments were
amazing.
"He recodified the liturgy and reorganized the Schola Cantorum; he assigned
particular items of the liturgy to the various services
throughout the year in an order that remained
essentially untouched until the sixteenth century; he gave impulse to the movement
which eventually led to the establishment of a uniform repertoire of chant for use
throughout the Church in all countries."
That is why this entire body of music is called the Gregorian Chant. Three main types of chants existed, the reciting
formulas, the melismatic songs, and the refrains sung by the choir or congregation. The melodies of these were constructed according
to Jewish fashion and the traditional standard melodic
method within a given mode.
Gregorian chants were the inspiration behind much of Western music up to the
sixteenth century. Continuing on in the Dark Ages, we find
the development of polyphony, "the simultaneous sounding of two or more melodic lines." In
the eleventh century, an Italian monk and musical theorist named Guido of
Arezzo wrote the "Micrologus", which was crucial to the
development of polyphony.
Also, he revolutionized the meaning of pitch by notation when he used horizontal lines to show the relative pitch of particular notes. Early in the twelfth century, the center of musical liveliness moved to the church of Notre-Dame in Paris until the fourteenth century when it moved to Florence, Italy. Perhaps the greatest achievement of church music in the fourteenth century was Machaut's "Notre-Dame" mass for four voices.
Entering into the Renaissance Period, we find that while secular music takes on as many new ideas as possible, the Church attempts to remain as conservative as possible. "Liturgical practice dictated
that the mass and the motet remain the chief forms of sacred vocal music.
Compared with secular music, their style was conservative, but inevitably some
of the newer secular techniques crept in and figured effectively in the music of
the Counter-Reformation within the Roman Catholic Church.
." With the outbreak in the church caused by the
Reformation, many new forms of sacred music appeared in
Protestant worship services. The German Lutheran worshipped
with hymn tunes arranged from plainsong or a secular melody.
The Anglican Church had its own form of the motet, and the
Calvinist played psalm tunes.
Into this environment, the Baroque era begins, and with it two of the most influential
composers of all time, Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. These two men received an incredible gift from God and they used it to glorify him. Both were raised
in the Lutheran Church, but because of different musical training, Handel was primarily a dramatic composer, writing
opera, oratorio, and secular cantatas while Bach works included Passions, cantatas for church services, liturgical organ pieces, and
harpsichord compositions. Their music impacted the church so much that several of
their songs appear today in hymnals.
Throughout history, the wonder and beauty of sacred music
appears. Yet from the psalms of the Old Testament and the
Gregorian Chants, to the oratorios, Passions, and hymns
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the
beauty of sacred music is that it can mold to the preference
of the time and still be used to glorify God.
PRE-BAROQUE COMPOSERS Josquin Des Pres
Thomas Tallis
Antonio Lotti
Giovanni Perluigi Palestrina
Giles Farnaby
Orlandus Lassus
John Bull
Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck
JOSQUIN DES PRES
THOMAS TALLIS
ANTONIO LOTTI
GIOVANNI PERLUIGI PALESTRINA
GILES FARNABY
ORLANDUS LASSUS
JOHN BULL
JAN PIETERZOON SWEELINCK