Spanish Music in the Renaissance

Music in the renaissance

==========

SPANISH MUSIC IN THE RENAISSANCE

The marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile in 1469 created a dynamic alliance between the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon and ushered in an age of prosperity and political stability for Spain. Spain also benefitted greatly by the lands and riches acquired by Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the New World, and because of the prestige that Spain enjoyed during this era and the political power invested in Ferdinand and Isabella, the arts flourished greatly.

The Catholic monarchs encouraged the growth of sacred music in their court and their royal chapels grew to include a large number of composers that were in constant contact with the mainstream centers of European music. Ferdinand and Isabella established high standards of musical excellence and sought to emulate and even outdo the splendor of the Burgundian court chapel. The royal patronage of music continued with Ferdinand and Isabella’s subsequent monarchs, Charles V and Philip II. Musicians enjoyed royal patronage for their arts; there was an abundance of jobs for court musicians, and Spanish singers became especially valued in Italy. The sixteenth century saw the advent of the Spanish Empire and the beginning of the Spanish Golden Century, which would last well over 100 years. A strong nordic influence was felt in the country's Renaissance music, as artists travelled from Flanders and Germany to Spain and vice versa.

1. SECULAR MUSIC

While the Spanish monarchs may have specifically encouraged the growth of sacred music, it cannot be ignored that the developments of sacred music merely spilled over into secular music. Secular music was not only being written down, it was also being printed.

Many of the pieces are in the form of a villancico. In modern usage, the term villancico refers to a Christmas song. In the early Renaissance period, it referred to vernacular language composition with a folk-like or folk-derived melody (villano means villager), for 1-4 voices. The poetic structure of the villancico consisted of two parts, beginning with the refrain, or estribillo, which alternates with the stanza, or copla. The copla was composed of two, three, four or more verses exhibiting regular or alternating syllabic structures of five to eight syllables each and assonant rhyme structures (i.e. abba, abcb, abbc cdde, etc.). However, in spite of its appealing and popular nature of its texts and tunes, the villancico was a courtly genre. The villancico closely resembled the frottola of Italy in its musical structure and the Parisian chanson in declamation while its fixed and predictable reiteration is very similar to the French virelai or the Italian ballata.

While the overwhelming majority of Spanish songs in the cancioneros are villancicos, there are also a great number of romances. Romances were long narrative poems of many strophes usually consisting of four phrases of music. These phrases were presumably intended to be sung over and over again or as the basis for elaborate variations called glosas. While the character and texts of the romances indicate a now lost and unwritten tradition in the performance of the works, the preserved examples serve as blueprints for the sophisticated, courtly music. With harmonic basses like the villancico and Italian frottola, they also possess a supporting tenor line like the fifteenth-century chanson. Spanish composers demonstrated an expertise at writing variations, and speculation is made that this is how multistrophic romances were intended to be performed.

Five great manuscript cancioneros from the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries are the sources for information. A cancionero is a collection of diverse compositions for use by a court or cathedral, or by an aristocratic house with its own musical chapel.

1. The largest collection is the Cancionero de Palacio (compiled 1474-1516), which includes 458 pieces, including most of the works of Juan del Encina. Most of the works are in Spanish, though a few are in Latin, French, Portuguese, or a mixture of languages. The collection is a good representation of the polyphonic vocal music that could be heard at the court of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. This collection contains 460 pieces of music for anywhere between two to six voices.

* Juan del Encina: His secular music seems to have been written when he was still a young man employed by the Duke of Alba. He never published any liturgical works, or at least, none survive today.

His romances and villancicos are charming, tuneful works that establish their moods more sharply and succinctly than those of his contemporaries. His romance, Triste España sin ventura, was probably written in lament for the death of Queen Isabella or perhaps her son, Prince Juan. Encima also wrote several pieces for theater including Gasajémonos de husía and Hoy comamos y bebamos. These theatrical productions were likely written and produced entirely by Encima as entertainment for the household of the Duke of Alba.

1. The Cancionero de Segovia (compiled 1499-1503) is a collection of music by French, Franco-Flemish, and Spanish composers; the majority of the pieces are Franco-Flemish. This reveals the significance of Franco-Flemish influence on the development of polyphonic vocal style in Spain. Franco-Flemish style was dominant in Europe at the time. Composers traveling to and from Spain, which was now part of the Holy Roman Empire, carried the style with them.

2. The Cancionero de la Colombina (1451-1506) is a shorter anthology. In 1534, Fernando Colón, the second son of Christopher Columbus, bought the manuscript; it received its name from him. His collection contains some of the greatest treasures of early printed song, including 108 early Spanish songs, mainly for three voices.

3. The Cancionero de Uppsala (published 1556) is titled “villancicos by various authors, for 2, 3, 4, and 5 voices.” It was published in Venice (also called Cancionero of the Duke of Calabria) and eventually found its way to a library in Sweden, where it was rediscovered almost 100 years ago (and from whence it gets its name). While the term villancico is still used to refer to the secular compositions that make up much of the book, there is also a section of specifically Christmas-themed, religious compositions; thus, we begin to see a shift in the meaning of the term. The compositions also begin to be clearly sectional,