Music: The Renaissance Genre

Erica Moore
Thomas Johnson Middle School
Prince George’s County

Timeframe: Approximately 2 weeks, A/B day block schedule

Music Outcome I: Perceiving and Responding – Aesthetic Education

The student will read standard notation and apply it to the performance of music.

Music Outcome II: Historical, Cultural, and Social Context

The student will demonstrate an understanding of music as an essential aspect of history and human experience.

• Expectation C: The student will identify the relationship of music to dance, theatre, the visual arts and other disciplines.
• Expectation D: The student will identify and classify significant styles and genres in music history.

National Standards:

• Understanding music in relation to history and culture
• Understanding relationships between music, the other arts, and disciplines outside the arts.
• Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
• Evaluating music and music performances.
• Singing alone, and with others, a varied repertoire of music.

Objective:

Students will learn to research and explore the Renaissance instruments, dress, and culture through the Fine Arts and academic disciplines in order to display a better understanding of the Renaissance era.

Indicators of Learning:

• Students will review and discuss the roles of music, musical performances, and people of the Renaissance era.
• Students will analyze Renaissance instruments and explain how the instruments of that genre differ from instruments of today.
• Students will be able to name four major Renaissance composers and identify their works.
• Students will learn to dance a Renaissance social dance with partners.
• Students will learn to play one Renaissance tune on their recorder.
• Students will take part in a culminating showcase (sing, display works of art, dance, present a dramatic presentation of a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or play the recorder) to show what they have learned about the music of the Renaissance.
• The students will discuss music that is inspired by literature, visual art, drama or other means of artistic expression.
• The students will discuss the fine arts as a unique means of individual creative expression.
• The students will discuss common elements in music, poetry, dance, theatre, and the visual arts.
• The students will describe ways in which the principles and subject matter of other disciplines taught in the school are interrelated with those of music.

Materials:

• Recorders
• CDs of musical selections from the Renaissance (see attached list)
• CD Player
• Dance Steps for the Pavan
• Play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• Digital Camera
• Scanner
• Music Dictionaries
• Computers with internet access
• Instrument Sound Files: http://www.s-hamilton.k12.ia.us/antiqua/instrumt.html
• Webquest: http://4dw.net/besteacher/MusicWebquest/MusicWebquest.html

Overview:

This unit will introduce common elements in music, poetry, dance, theatre, and the visual arts as well as the subject matter of other disciplines taught in the school to convey how they are interrelated with those of music.

Renaissance Composers:

The great composers of the early renaissance were Guillaume Dufay (c.1400-1474), Johannes Ockeghem (c.1410-1497), Jacob Obrecht (1457-1505), and Josquin des Prez (c.1440-1521). Many glorious masses and motets (which were short liturgical compositions) have come down to us from these great composers.

The great composers of the late renaissance were Orlando di Lasso (also known as Orlandus Lassus) (1532-1594), Jacob Handl (also known as Jacobus Gallus) (1550-1591), Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594), and Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611).

A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

The renaissance period in Western European culture is generally recognized as spanning the years between 1400 and 1600. The sacred music composed during this period was composed for the Roman Catholic Church. Much of this great body of music has survived today in manuscripts that were used in the great cathedrals and monasteries of Europe. Some instruments may have been employed, but the music was written primarily for a cappella choir (without instruments). Basically, renaissance sacred music was an extension of Gregorian chant, a style of music that was also unaccompanied by instruments. The texts were the same that were used in Gregorian chant: the Roman liturgy, sung in Latin.

Warm-Up: (Day 1)

While listening to Felix Mendelssohn’s Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, op.21, the students will be given music dictionaries to look up and define the following list of vocabulary pertinent to the Renaissance era.

Vocabulary

A Cappella
Secular
Polyphonic
Chants
Liturgy
Gregorian Chant
Madrigal
Word painting
Renaissance
Motet
Chanson
Kyrie
Sacred
Monophonic
Agnus
Gloria
Dei
Benedictus
Schaum
Sacbut
Viol
Lute
Krumhorn
Lyre
Kortholt
Dulcian
Rauschpfeife
Hirtenschalmei
Zink
Serpent
Recorder
Transverse Flute

Developmental Activity:

Play the music of John Dowland, Josquin des Prez, Claudio Monteverdi, and Michael Praetorius. Ask students to identify each piece as Choral Church Music, Dances, Lute Music, Madrigal, or Mass. Also discuss the vocabulary and how they are related to the listening examples. After the discussion, take a few minutes to play “Drop the Needle”. Play exerpts from the previously heard pieces and as an ongoing assessment, ask students to identify the composer or style of the work.

Guided Activity:

1. Listen to Greensleeves, and discuss the meaning of the words, identify Renaissance instruments, and discuss the similarities and differences between the instrumentation of then and now.
2. Have students select a performance partner to learn how to play Greensleeves on their recorders, as well as steps, and social etiquette for the Pavan dance.
3. Read a synopsis of A Midsummer Night’s Dream as well as the character descriptions. Allow students to volunteer for various roles in the play and begin.
   (Note: Teachers will need to provide the students with an explanation/interpretation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream due to the level difficulty of reading).

Independent Activities:

• Students will practice Greensleeves and the Pavan on their own and with their performance partner.
• Students will begin to think about their culminating arts projects.
• Place the students in cooperative learning groups of 3 and have them work on Renaissance Music Web Quest designed by Jean Napier-Faeih and Elizabeth Mulkey http://4dw.net/besteacher/MusicWebquest/MusicWebquest.html

Assessment:

• The class will observe each group's interpretation projects and critique them as well as the Pavan dance and Recorder performances.
• Teacher and students will assess each group by utilizing a rubric score sheet generated on trackstar.
• Students should be able to create art, music, dance, and theater that is based on the Renaissance period and demonstrates an understanding of its context.

Closure:

In a discussion, have students share their experiences of with the various fine arts connections to the Renaissance period. Restate the objective/learner outcomes.

Renaissance Extended Across the Curriculum:

To extend the interest and knowledge of the Renaissance into other disciplines, use the following projects to enrich the study of the Renaissance era.

General Music:

Design or construct an original musical instrument. Include playing technique, desired sound, and functions. Also give this new instrument a name and classify the instrument family.

Social Studies:

1. Construct a timeline that highlights significant events of the Renaissance period specifically highlighting world events around the time A Midsummer Night’s Dream was written. Students may wish to demonstrate their creativity by adding illustrations to mark the major milestones to make the timeline more attractive.

World events around the time of Shakespeare's
writing A Midsummer Night's Dream

1592

• Ruined Roman city of Pompeii discovered
• Plague kills 15,000 in London

1593

• Christopher Marlowe killed in tavern brawl
• London theaters closed on account of the plague

1594

• Tintoretto died
• Palestrina died
• First opera performed, Dafne by Jacopo Peri

1595

• Dutch begin to colonize the East Indies
• Mercator's atlas published

1596

• Tomatoes introduced into England
• First water closets installed at Queen's Palace, Richmond
• Sir Francis Drake died
• Galileo invents the thermometer

Language Arts:

1. In cooperative learning groups, write scripts cooperatively for one of the scenes in A Mid Summer Night’s Dream. Include dialogue and action cues for each of the characters. Share the scripts by reading the contents for the class.
2. Choose one of the characters from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and write a brief character sketch using appropriate and descriptive words. This assignment can be made into a guessing game activity by not revealing the name of the character the student writes about, then have the classmates try to guess the character being described as the description is read.
3. Compose a flyer announcing A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Be as creative as possible. Example: Students may wish to give the paper an aged look, or create a scroll.

Theater:

Select one of the scripts written by the cooperative learning groups, and then select the cast of characters to dramatize the story.

Technology Education:

In small cooperative learning groups, have the students create a slide show or PowerPoint presentation to demonstrate to others their interpretation of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Math and Family & Consumer Science:

For a group activity or parent-assisted activity, students may wish to prepare a Rosy Almond Cream desert for the class.

A Rosy Almond Cream

Ingredients

(6 servings)

600 ml (20 fl oz, 2 1/2 cups milk)
50 g (2 oz) ground almonds
40 g (1 1/2 oz) rice four
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 t ground ginger
350 g (12 0z) berries or currants, fresh or defrosted
75 g (3 oz) sugar
1-2 tablespoons wine vinegar (used by ancient Rome to emphasize the flavor of the fruit)
crystallized petals to decorate

Instructions

Put milk in pan with ground almonds, bring to boil, and simmer for 3 minutes. Meanwhile, mix the spices with the rice flour in a pan, and then gradually add the hot almond milk. Coo them together till the mixture thickens slightly. Add the fruit with the sugar. Cook them all together gently till the sugar is melted and the fruit will mix-- it should not totally disintegrate although it should be partially mashed. Add the vinegar to taste and spoon the desert into glasses. Chill for a couple of hours but serve at room temp, decorated with another berry or with a crystallized rose or violet petal.

Culminating Arts Projects:

After the students have read the play and a synopsis of A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. After contemplating the plots and subplots of this difficult story, have the students create a culminating art activity, which they feel best accurately, portrays the true meaning or important events of the story. Students' art forms or story interpretations may include any of the following: original musical compositions, original paintings, stained glass windows, shadow boxes, cross-stitches, posters, sculptures, watercolors, and Renaissance recipes, etc. (Examples)

1. Draw a self-portrait dressed in Renaissance clothing on a poster.
2. With a partner, make a Silhouette (Women faced left and Men faced Right)
3. Make a collage of important facts and items related to the Renaissance period.
4. Make a cartoon comic strip adaptation of one of the Scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream
5. Make a pop-up card or book cover depicting one of the scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
6. Make a dream mobile depicting the characters of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
7. Make a diorama replica illustrating of one of the scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

References and Resources:

Renaissance Music Composers: http://www.malaspina.com

Agricola, Alexander (1446-1506), Renaissance Music
Busnoys, Antoine (1432-1492), Renaissance Music
Byrd, William (c. 1542-1623), Renaissance Music
des Prez, Josquin (1440-1521), Renaissance Music
Dowland, John (1563-1626), Renaissance Music
Galilei, Vincenzo (1520-1591), Renaissance Music
Gombert, Nicholas (c. 1490-1556), Renaissance Music
Isaac, Heinrich (c. 1450-1517), Renaissance Music
Lassus, Orlandus de (c. 1532-1594), Renaissance Music
Monteverdi, Claudio (1567-1643), Renaissance Music
Morales, Cristobal de (1500-1553), Renaissance Music
Palestrina, Giovanni da (c. 1525-1594), Renaissance Music
Peñalosa, Francisco de (c. 1470-1528), Renaissance Music
Praetorius, Michael (1571-1621), Renaissance Music
Sweelinck, Jan Pieterszoon (1562-1621), Renaissance Music
Tallis, Thomas (1505-1585), Renaissance Music
Taverner, John (c. 1490-1545), Renaissance Music
Victoria, Tomás Luis de (c. 1548-1611), Renaissance Music

Felix Mendelssohn’s: The Music used in A Midsummer Night's Dream

Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, op.21
Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night's Dream, op. 61
On Wings of Song
Spring Song
String Symphony No.1 in C major (selection)
String Symphony No.2 in D major (selection)
String Symphony No.7 in D minor (selection)
Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, op. 27
Symphony No. 4 in A major op. 90 "Italian" (1st movement)

Henry, Patrick. The Listener's Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Music. New York, NY: Facts on File, 1983.
Mundy, Simon. The Usborne Story of Music. London: Usborne Publishing, Ltd., 1980.
Tintori, Giampiero. Musical Instruments. Wigston, Leicester: Magna Books, 1990.