Expert: Marbeth - 5/8/2007

Question
QUESTION: Dear Marbeth,

could you please offer some tips for what to listen to in order to identify the provenance and likely composer of a Renaissance composition?  
Many thanks...
ANSWER: is this early or late Ren.?  or, in general, all?
mb

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: This is general.  I have ten listening examples and their incipets.  I need to identify them, based on their musical or textual style.  

Thanks again.  

Answer
Know, esp in the early and middle Ren., the style was primarily "universal" bcs of the wide wanderings of the minstrels.  If it's brass, esp antiphonal, it's most likely Venice/Gabrieli et al.  If it's winds (esp recorder) with some brass (sackbutt) and buzz-y stuff (krumhorn, racket), it's likely German/Praetorius (Terpsichore).  If there is a run in parallel thirds (gymel "twins"), it's likely English (Dunstable).  Vocal motets are perhaps French (de Prez, Mouton, Dufay) but could be English.  In fact, much vocal part music is English (Byrd, Bull, Taverner, Tallis).  A rhythm of quarter/dotted half -type (1, 1-2-3) is often found in English music of this period ("Scotch snap").  Dots over the barline tend to appear in French and Italian works.  Virginal music is nearly always English.  Viol music is primarily English (East, Simpson, Dowland, Jenkins), though there are some pieces by Italian (Gesualdo) and French composers (Marais).  Settings of Lutheran hymns are, almost exclusively, German (Praetorius).  Most settings of praise of the BVM are Spanish (Morales, Victoria), though mariolotry was widespread in France, as carry-over from the Middle Ages.  Missae breves are commonly German (and this predilection carries through to the many missae breves of Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Haydn, etc.), English (modern: Walton, Britton), Italian (Palestrina, Gabrieli); not seen often in French pieces of the period (those are full-on masses, such as by Josquin and Ockeghem).  Paired instrumental dances are usually German (Praetorius).  Madrigals are pretty recognizable as this genre and are preponderantly English (Morley, Gibbons) or Italian  (Monteverdi).  Exquisite mass settings are probably Palestrina (or Gabrieli).  Large-scale settings of masses are commonly Italian (Monteverdi) and have much in common with operas of this period (Coronation of Popea), as will be no surprise; many people (myself included) feel these pieces "fit" better in the early Baroque rather than late Renaissance.  There are many large-scale French masses, too, of course (Josquin, Ciconia).  

Hope this will give you a good start.  mb