A Reconstruction of Late Renaissance Music in Nono's Prometeo

This paper attempts to stress that the composer Luigi Nono never overlooked early music, particularly Renaissance music, and his avant-garde works were created on the basis of late Renaissance and early Baroque music. Furthermore, this paper has tried to shed light on the relationship between music and space, which was an essential parameter of musical composition in the twentieth century as well as in the Renaissance. The sound modulated by live electronics transports the listener into synesthetic and perceptive listening and sonic space. As a result, it is demonstrated that Nono indicated the power and fascination of the voice, the polychoral structure, and the influence of the interaction between sound and space in his Prometeo.

Analysis of Ligeti’s Atmosphères by Means of Computational and Symbolic Resources

We report a music analysis study of Atmosphères (1961) from György Ligeti, combining symbolic information retrieved from the musical score and audio descriptors extracted from the audio recording. The piece was elected according to the following criteria: (a) it is a music composition based on sound transformations associated to motions on the global timbre; (b) its conceptual creative intercourse makes direct references to electronic music and sound/timbre techniques from the ancient Renaissance Music; and (c) its sonorities are explored by means of variations on the timbre contrast. From the symbolic analysis perspective, Atmosphères’ timbre content can be discussed considering the entanglement of individual characteristics of musical instruments. The computational method approaches the musical structure from an empirical perspective and is based on clustering techniques. We depart from previous studies, and this time we focus on the novelty curve calculated from the spectral content extracted from the piece recording. Our findings indicate that novelty curve can be associate with five specific clusters, and regarding the symbolic music analysis, three leading music features can be argued: (a) instrumentation changes; (b) distinct pitch chromatic set locations and (c) intensity dynamic fluctuations.

Jas, Eric. 2018. Piety and Polyphony in Sixteenth-Century Holland: The Choirbooks of St Peter’s Church, Leiden. Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music, 18. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press.

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Sangallo, Vignola, Palladio and the Roman «Accademia de lo Studio de l’Architettura».

Bernd Kulawik is a trained marine engineer who studied physics, musicology and philosophy at the Technical Universities of Dresden and Berlin. MA thesis in 1996 about Monteverdi’s «Seconda Pratica». PhD in 2002 with a dissertation about drawings in the Berlin «Codex Destailleur D» for Antonio da Sangallo the Younger’s last project for St. Peter’s in Rome. Since 1988 he worked in research libraries and institutes in Berlin, Rome, Berne, Einsiedeln and Zurich, mostly as developer for database projects. Since 2013 he could take up his research about the study of ancient architecture in Renaissance Rome which led to the rediscovery of the forgotten «Accademia de lo Studio de l’Architettura». This academy almost completely realised Claudio Tolomei’s ambitious program from 1542 formerly believed to be unrealisable. Other research interests are the history of philosophy, Renaissance music and the epistemic and technical preconditions as well as long-time perspectives of the Digital Humanities.

Renaissance Music Between Science and Art

This paper deals with the role of ancient music theory in Gioseffo Zarlino’s Istitutioni harmoniche and, within its framework, in particular with mathematical and physical considerations and their relevance to audible music. An outline of the treatise is followed by a presentation of Zarlino’s justification of music as scienza and arte. Finally, two case studies are presented on joining ancient theory with contemporary musical practice: the division of the interval and the system of the senario.

Cadences in Renaissance Music

In this chapter, we briefly compare and contrast the cadences of the renaissance with those of later periods. After discussing various types of cadences, including “cadenze fuggite” (evaded cadences) common in renaissance music, we use examples from the pieces presented in Chapters 7–10 to show how a musician can give more structure and meaning to the music by highlighting these musical punctuation marks.

The Hexachord

In Chapter 12, we present the three primary hexachords used in the Renaissance, plus basic advice on how to apply them to the music. We also consider Martin Agricola’s suggestion that the six different hexachord syllables had distinctive intrinsic qualities, which could open up new expressive possibilities for the more advanced musician approaching renaissance music.

Introduction to the Music

Chapter 6 is a guide to finding the renaissance music available for flutists to play. This chapter introduces the most common vocal and instrumental genres flutists will encounter, and offers practical advice on where to find music in both online resources and libraries. It also identifies good editions for purchase. Finally, we explain the editorial choices we made in the preparation of our editions in Chapters 7–10.