The Renaissance Period was a vibrant time when knowledge and fine arts

flourished. Artists like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael, and Titian
were painting some of humanity's most awe-inspiring works of art. Wars like the War of
Roses were fought between clashing dynasties in their arduous quests to rule, and
great changes were made in the church during the Protestant Reformation. Generally
classified as taking place between 1400 and 1600, these 200 years mark an incredible
transformation and advancement in the world. And among those transformations was
that of great music notation and composition. If it weren't for these great Renaissance
composers, whose ground-shaking, mold-breaking musical ideas opened a floodgate of
musical curiosity, the world of classical music we know today might be drastically
different.
The Renaissance: the artistic frontier. These are the voyages of the master
composers of the Renaissance (1450-1600). Their 150-year mission: to explore strange
new music; to seek out new styles and new rhythmic and harmonic applications; to
boldly go where no composer had gone before. And they succeeded! Each composer
built on existing musical constructs, while bringing their own new ideas to advance the
richness and purpose of music. Most wrote sacred music, like masses and motets,
which are unaccompanied choral compositions based on a sacred Latin text. Others
also wrote secular music, like chansons, which are choral compositions with French text
and are usually based on a set form, like verse-chorus-verse.

Composers in the Renaissance Period

1. William Byrd (1543–1623)

William Byrd is perhaps the greatest
English composer of all time. With hundreds of
individual works, Byrd seemingly mastered every
style of music that existed during his lifetime,
outshining Orlando de Lassus and Giovanni
Palestrina. He was a pupil working under Thomas
Tallis, also on this list. Apart from his choral
works, Byrd is considered by many to be the first
"genius" of the keyboard. Many of his piano works
can be found in "My Ladye Nevells Book" and the
"Parthenia."
2. Josquin Des Prez (1440–1521)

Widely recognized by just his first name,

Josquin Des Prez was Europe's most sought-after
musician during his lifetime. His popularity, no doubt,
was a result of his diverse interests, combining many
contemporary styles of music. His originality and his
ability to unveil the meaning and emotions of a text
through music, both sacred and secular, added to his
popularity. While he may not be the most well-
documented composer, his reputation is strong, and
much of Josquin's music survives today, with his
masses and chansons being the most popular.

3. Thomas Tallis (1510–1585)

Thomas Tallis, an English composer,

flourished as a church musician and is considered
one of the church's best early composers. Tallis
served under four English monarchs and was
treated very well. Queen Elisabeth granted him and
his pupil William Boyd exclusive rights to use
England's printing press to publish music—a first of
its time. Although Tallis composed many styles of
music, the majority of it is arranged for choir as
Latin motets and English anthems. While Tallis'
music is well-known, not much is actually known
about his life.

4. Pierre de La Rue (1460–1518)

Pierre de La Rue, a Frenco-Flemish

composer and singer, wrote many styles of
music (almost as much as Josquin). La Rue's
repertoire consists entirely of vocal music. His
style of voicing shows that he preferred low
 voice types, often composing Cs and B-flats below the bass clef. His most
popular work, the "Requiem," and one of the earliest surviving Requiem masses,
emphasizes the lower voices. Along with low voicing, various rhythmic patterns
and long, flowing melodies are main characteristics of La Rue's music.

5. Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643)

Linking the Renaissance to the

Baroque, Claudio Monteverdi's revolutionary
music included the first dramatic opera,
"Orfeo." An Italian composer, string player, and
choirmaster, he was considered a pioneer in
the realm of opera and an artist who served an
integral transitional role between the
Renaissance and Baroque periods. Much of
Monteverdi's early years were spent
composing madrigals: nine books in total.
These books clearly mark the change in
thinking and compositional style between the
two musical periods. Book 8, "Ottavo Libro,"
includes what many consider to be the perfected form of the madrigal, "Madrigali
dei guerrieri ed amorosi."

6. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1526–1594)

With over hundreds of published

works, Italian composer Palestrina was the
most famous representative of the Roman
School of musical composition, greatly
influencing the development of music in the
Roman Catholic Church. Because the voicing
is extremely well balanced and beautifully
harmonized, Palestrina's polyphonic music is
smooth, pure, and transparent in sound.
7. Orlando de Lassus (1530–1594)

Orlando de Lassus, a Netherlandish or

Franco-Flemish composer of the late
Renaissance, was known for his smooth,
polyphonic style. His beautiful motets combined
the rich northern style of polyphony, the superb
French style text-setting, and the expressive
Italian melody. With over 2,000 written works for
all styles of music, including all Latin, French,
English, and German vocal genres, Lassus
easily remains one of Europe's most versatile
composers.

8. Giovanni Gabrieli (1553–1612)

Giovanni Gabrieli, an Italian composer

and organist, also bridges the Renaissance to
the Baroque and is most known for his mastery
in the style of the Venetian School. Gabrieli
preferred composing sacred works; using the
unusual layout of the San Marco Basilica in
Venice, Italy, he was able to create stunning
musical effects. Unlike those before him,
Gabrieli meticulously created and planned the
use of antiphone (a choir or group of
 instruments first heard on the left, followed by a response from another group of
musicians on the right).

9. Gregorio Allegri (1582 – 1652)

It would be a mistake in this article not to

include the “Miserere” by the Italian composer
Allegri. He was by all accounts a devoted and
pure man whose compositions were dominated
by vocal works, this perhaps being the most
renowned. It is a setting for nine voices of the
51st Psalm (Miserere mei, Deus, secundum
magnum misercordiuam tuam). The story that
has encircled this composition is that Mozart had
heard the work performed on a visit to the Sistine
Chapel in Rome and was so impressed by the
beauty of the work notated it afterwards with only
one hearing. True or not what we have is a
choral composition that represents one of the
most stunning settings of this text and one of the
most exquisite works from the Renaissance.

10. Guillaume Dufay (1400-1474)

Much like the original captain,

Guillaume Dufay was a leader of new things
and a world traveler. He is nearly synonymous
with the music of the early Renaissance.
Dufay was born in France, one of the key
capitals of development during the
Renaissance. He served in the clergy as a
canon, where he wrote sacred and secular
 music. Much of his music was written for four voices, which was becoming a
characteristic of early Renaissance music. After learning the ranks a bit, Dufay
traveled to Italy, where he spent a good portion of his life. Later, he returned to
his native France, but continued to travel throughout the European continent,
particularly in Burgundy, now known as the area in Belgium and the Netherlands.

11. John Dunstable (1390 – 1453)

English composer of polyphonic music.

Dunstable had a big influence on the
development of music through his creation of
chords with triads, which became known as the
Burgundian School: la countenance angloise or
“the English countenance” e.g Quam pulchra es.

12. Thomas Morley (ca. 1557-ca. 1602)

Morley has been called the father of the

English madrigal. He was the earliest and the
chief figure in the wholesale transplantation of
the Italian madrigal tradition to England, and the
quick assimilation of Italian styles and forms into
a burgeoning English tradition was largely of his
doing. Single-handedly he translated the Italian
canzonet into a native form, the English short
ayre, in his Canzonets of 1593 and 1595. In the
latter collection he also included nine two-part
instrumental fantasias, which, though bearing
fanciful Italian titles, are marvelous examples of
 a new and sprightly English counterpoint. In these canzonets, as in the Madrigals
to Four Voices and Ballets to Five Voices, Morley obviously patterned his works
after Italian models, even paraphrasing a few, but he surpassed these models in
harmonic variety and tonal sophistication.

13. John Dowland (1562- 1626)

Dowland worked during a time of

musical transition and absorbed many of the
new ideas he had encountered on the
Continent. His 88 lute songs (printed 1597–
1612) particularly reflect those influences. The
early songs are presented with an alternative
version for four voices. Possessing enchanting
melodies, they show simple strophic settings,
often in dance forms, with an almost complete
absence of chromaticism. Later, in such
through-composed songs as “In Darkness Let
Me Dwell” (1610), “From Silent Night” (1612),
and “Lasso vita mia” (1612), he introduced the
Italian declamatory style, chromaticism, and
dissonance; no alternative four-voice versions
are given.

14. Johannes Ockeghem (1425-1495)

Ockeghem was a Netherlandish

composer who spent most of his creative life
at the French court. Johannes Ockeghem
was born in the Netherlands, possibly in
Hainaut. Nothing is known about his early
 years, although he undoubtedly studied music in one of the cathedral schools for
which his homeland was justly famous.

15. Clément Janequin (c. 1485- 1558)

He worked in Bordeaux in the service of

Lancelot du Fau, who became bishop of Luçon,
and later for the bishop of Bordeaux. He
entered the priesthood and in 1525 became
canon of St. Emilion. Variously employed after
1529, when the bishop died, he was at times a
student and settled in Paris in 1549. From
about 1555 he was singer, and later composer,
to Henry II, although not a full-time servant of
the King. He died a pauper.

16. Jean Mouton (1459- 1522)

Composer. A leading French

musician of the Renaissance, best known
for his motets. According to most sources
Mouton was born near Haut-Wignes,
France, and studied music and theology at
the Church of Notre Dame in Nesle,
 becoming master of the chapel there in 1583. This was followed by tenures as
choirmaster at Amiens Cathedral and the Church of St. Andre in Grenoble. From
1502 Mouton was official court composer to Kings Louis XII and Francois I,
providing secular as well as sacred music for royal functions. In this capacity he
was introduced to Pope Leo X, an admirer who awarded him the honorary title of
apostolic notary, and he likely performed for Henry VIII during the English
monarch's meeting with Francois at the Field of the Cloth of Gold (1520). Around
1519 he was named canon at St. Quentin, where he died and was buried.

17. Claudin de Sermisy (c.1490-1562)

Claudin de Sermisy is a singer and composer who,

with his contemporary Clément Janequin, was one of
the leading composers of chansons (part-songs) in
the early 16th century. His name was associated with
that of the mid-13th-century Sainte-Chapelle, Louis
IX’s magnificent palace chapel, as early as 1508, and
in 1510 he is listed as a singer in Queen Anne of
Brittany’s private chapel. After her death, Sermisy is
believed to have become a member of the chapel of
Louis XII in 1515, and he remained in royal service
under Francis I and was appointed assistant chapel
master by 1533. That year he also became a canon of
the Sainte-Chapelle, where he was buried in 1562.

18. Loyset Compère (born c. 1445- 1518)

Little is known of Compère’s early life.

The French poet and chronicler Jean
Molinet, who seems to have known the
composer, reported that his family was from
Saint-Omer (in France), though it is known
that later in life he became a naturalized
French citizen. During the mid-1470s
Compère was a member of the chapel choir
of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, duke of Milan,
but, when the duke was murdered in 1477 and the choir was reduced, Compère
was among those who were listed to leave the court. By 1486 he was a chantre
ordinaire in the service of the French king Charles VIII. Compère became a
naturalized French citizen in 1494 and probably traveled with Charles during the
French invasion of Italy (1494). Compère was subsequently a dean of Saint Géry
in Cambrai (1498–1500) and provost at Saint Pierre in Douai (1500–1503/04). An
18th-century history of this period indicates that the composer had earned
bachelor’s degrees in canon and civil law. He was also canon and chancellor at
Saint-Quentin, and his remains are buried in the church there.