Page 88 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

Listening Cue
Thomas Weelkes, As Vesta Was from Latmos Hill Descending (1601)
Genre: Madrigal
Texture: Changes according to the dictates of the text
Download 14
what to listen for: A one-to-one relationship between text and music in which the music acts out, like a mime,
each word or phrase of the text
READ . . . a detailed Listening Guide of this selection online.
LiSTEN TO . . . this selection streaming online.
WATCH . . . an Active Listening Guide of this selection online.
DO . . . Listening Exercise 4.4, Weelkes, As Vesta Was from Latmos Hill Descending, online.
The importance of the madrigal—and the Renaissance generally—is that it established a “vocabulary” of expression for music. Listeners came to expect that certain kinds of music would heighten the meaning of certain phrases of text—fast, rising music would accompany and signal growing excitement, for example. By the succeeding era (the Baroque period), these gestures had be- come so well established that the musical message could be conveyed without the text, namely, in purely instrumental pieces. This vocabulary of expressive gestures, an outgrowth of Renaissance humanism, continued “to be spoken” by composers through the twentieth century. It remains today the basis of our TV music and film scores.
practice . . .
your understanding of this chapter’s concepts by reviewing Checklists of Musical Style for the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and working once more with the chapter’s Active Listening Guides online.
do . . .
online multiple-choice and critical thinking quizzes that your instructor may assign for a grade.
66 chapter four music in the middle ages and renaissance
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Listening to Music with Craig Wright
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