THE RENAISSANCE followed the medieval period, from around 1450, and led into the baroque era, which began around 1600. The Renaissance started in Italy, but soon spread to the rest of Europe. It was a period in which modern trade and banking were taking off, and cities like Florence and Venice were becoming rich. This new self-confidence led people to create a new sort of art, less governed by the Church and medieval ways of thinking.
Artists found a model for this new creativity in the sculpture, philosophy and literature of the Greeks. This is why the period is called the Renaissance: the word means ‘rebirth’, and it seemed that the glories of classical Greece were being reborn.
Europe’s composers shared in this excitement, and in the new money that the Church and rich families like the Medicis and Gonzagas could spend on art. But there was a basic difference between the visual art and the music. The paintings of the time are full of memories of ancient Greece. But there’s nothing Greek about renaissance music – there couldn’t be, because no one knew what Ancient Greek music sounded like!
There are two main types of Renaissance music: church music, or ‘sacred’ music, and non-church or secular music. (There was folk music too, but that was for ‘common’ people, so no one wrote it down.)
