[MUSIC] Let's talk now about the musical instruments of the renaissance. And to do that we're going back just a little bit in time. Back into the late middle ages into the mid-evil church which takes us to this instrument. The organ. Organs really came into being in churches not until the 14th century. They first appeared in the big cathedrals. And they were always placed high on the walls of the church for all to see and hear. These powerful organs were the marvel of the age. The represented cutting edge technology, a measurement of pipes, the density of materials, the distribution of a consistent and constant wind pressure. They were the space shot of the middle ages. And so they were placed high so that all could see. Here we have the earliest surviving organ, coming from the late 14th century from Sion, Switzerland. It's in playable condition, so let's hear a bit of its sound. [MUSIC] Here we see two more organs, two slightly later organs from the 15th century. On the left is a stationary one. And then on the right, a movable one. The stationary one on the left comes from England or the low countries. The one on the right comes from Germany. The one on the left, because it is stationary, is called a positive organ. The one on the right, because it can be moved around, a portative one. So, positive, portative. Here's a slide from Innsbruck, Austria, 16th century. We're moving a little later now into the Renaissance, 16th century, as it sits in what was then the Chapel of the Holy Roman Emperor in Innsbruck, Austria. It's now, of course, larger, and it sits high on a wall as we have said. And let's listen again to that same organ music. That organ music was in fact written for this particular organ by the German composer Paul Hofheimer. [MUSIC] The Gregorian Chant, is actually in the middle part, in the tenor. And up above, we have a great deal of musical ornamentation. Embellishment in this top part as you hear. All right, that was a quick introduction to the organ of the late middle ages and renaissance, but what about string keyboard instruments? Well, they existed too from the 14th century onward. Let's look at a manuscript of the 14th century, 14th century dance music written for a medieval string keyboard instrument. It actually comes from the British library in London. Notice that the musical notation above is a little bit similar to our contemporary notation. But underneath we have letter names A, Bs, Cs. I see a couple of Ds here, C B flat, A and so on. So we had a dual system. But it was eventually abandoned. The letters were dropped, leaving musical notation to develop as we know it today. Let's hear just a little bit of this dance music played by an early keyboard. [MUSIC] Pretty cool, very attractive music. But for more discussion of these renaissance instruments let's bring back our expert, Bret Herod. >> Okay. Welcome back to another segment of Introduction to classical music. Today we're gonna be dealing specifically with music of the Renaissance, and even more specifically with musical instruments and more, more, more specifically with keyboard instruments. We're gonna start with keyboard instruments. So on the screen you see a representation, a painting, 16th century Flemish painting in which a young woman is playing the harpsichord. And I have with me again today, delighted to have my friend and colleague Grant Herrod here who's an expert in this, knows far more about it than I do. To explain these sorts of things to us. So what's of interest here with this particular instrument, which I think is called a Clavichord. >> Yes, and this often played by young ladies apparently. But what strikes us most is the hand position showing very clearly. >> [LAUGH] >> That they did not use their thumbs. >> Yeah. Did you ever take piano lessons? >> Oh yeah. [LAUGH] >> So what would happen if your teacher ever saw you playing like that? >> I would have been slapped. >> Kaboom. >> Yes. >> Yeah you can't do that. Really. Through the time of Bach. Often at E. Well Bach was the first to use the film, but he was still using his 3 over 3 over 3 type of approach. But it's interesting because as we look at these keyboard instruments of the Renaissance, we see that rather early on, they had somewhat advanced instruments here. So here is a representation, a detailed diagram, of a keyboard instrument. In this case a harpsichord coming from the mid 15th century from the Court of Burgundy from someone named Arnault de Zolle. It's preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale again. Here is, as you can see, the shape of the instrument. Here are the keys down there. And if you had time, you could even watch this run up from low C up to the A at the top and the chromatic notes. It's a fully chromatic keyboard here by the mid-15th century. So Grant, one thing that always puzzled me, but probably the same thing on the loop, what are these designs here? Yes the decorated sound holes or rosettes they would be called, just like the F and C holes on string instruments, they just allow the sound to escape from the sound box. >> Okay so the sound is vibrating inside of these instruments >> And you've got to let it out in some way. >> Just like the sound hole in a guitar but, a modern guitar, but in the Renaissance everything was decorated and they would not just have a big round empty hole in their sound board? >> And the interesting thing here is, in the upper right, where the inventor, Arnault de Zolle, gives us a very clear diagram of the jack mechanism that would be the basis for sound production In the harpsichord, which exists at this time but we are going to explore it a little bit later on when we get to baroque music. This time we are going to London, to the National Gallery in London near Trafalgar Square there. And we see a painting, 16th century painting by Hans Holbein. And you can see on the screen the arrow that directs our attention to some musical materials, specifically the Lute, and Grant's going to tell us a little about the structure of the lute, how it works, and then he's going to demonstrate for us. >> You can see very clearly in the foreground the peg box, bent at an angle holding the twelve pegs of this six-course instrument. And- >> What's that mean, a course? >> The lute has pairs of strings [MUSIC] Although the top string, the treble string, is usually a single. And so they're arranged in six pairs or courses. And you see in the depiction, a lute very much like this one with frets, pieces of gut, tied around the neck. Just to show you where to put your fingers. And a round back, always made of ribs of wood, glued together over a mold. A decorated sound hole, as usual. >> Again, as we said last time, for the sound, so it can escape. Let's look at another picture here, because we see something called lute tablature, you have to be able to read this special sort of notation, right? >> That's right, it's some of the earliest music that we know was written for a specific instrument is for the lute, because of the tablature, or the system of notation, that is peculiar to the lute. And here the young lady is playing, again, this early kind of 16th century lute, but you see that she's resting it on the table. [MUSIC] And by doing so, [MUSIC] it actually makes the lute slightly more round and sound it a little louder. >> The table becomes a resonator. >> Even a modern synthetic table, but an old wooden table really enhances the sound of the lute. >> That's remarkable. Well you want to play just a little bit of something for us? Anything that strikes your fancy. [MUSIC] Lovely, and what was that by the way? Anything you made, something you just made up? [LAUGH] >> Something when I was feeling blue one day. >> I see. You made that up, okay. But it sounded very much in the Renaissance style, because it was modal, I guess. Let's see some more slides here. We're going to take a look at one that represents a typical early Renaissance dance scene. Grant, once again, here your is there up in the balcony. >> Yes, the alta capella, or loud man, again playing their schawms and slide trumpet for the accompaniment of probably. >> Mm-hm yeah. Probably a wedding scene and then here they are in the upper right in the boudoir, after the dancing in the banquet hall. Now this is an interesting slide because it's actually a cover of a record jacket, involving the ensemble Piffaro. And you are a member of that. >> I have played with Piffaro. >> How many years have you played with him? >> Probably about 20 years. >> Oh yeah. I didn't realize it was 20 years old. You must have started when you were five. >> [LAUGH] >> But what this is, is actually it was something on the wall of the town hall in Nuremberg Germany, painted by Albrecht Durer, and then later on somebody came along and did a specific painting of this larger mural. So we see a lot of musical instruments here. And again, it's this standard Renaissance band that Grant has been telling us about. So what instrument's do we see here once more? >> Right, we see the two shawms in the foreground, leaning over the balcony. Next to them is sackbut,, or the early trombone, which was a technological advancement over the earlier slide trumpet, which was slightly more cumbersome. >> So let's take a look at another slide here quickly, and as you can see, this one comes from the low countries around 1600s probably even a little bit after that. But it's a particularly good representation of some of those instruments. So what do we see here, Grant, moving right to left? >> Right, well, because it is a little later, they're probably playing five-part music. And we have a large sackbut but playing the bass, two sort of alto sized shawms on the middle lines, and on the top, a pair of cornetti. The corneto usually slightly curved with a kind of a mouthpiece on the top, and it has finger holes like a recorder or a clarinet. But the mouthpiece resembles a brass instrument. And so it has very much a sound in between a trumpet and sort of a recorder. >> We may get to hear this a little bit later on. So this is a dinosaur, in a sense, this instrument doesn't really. The Lute we still see around, the Trombone we still see around in effect for the sackbut tombone, but we don't see many- >> Yeah, the cornetto sort of died out. Right throughout the 17th century, and by the end of the 17th century hardly anyone was playing it anymore it seems. >> Well, let's have a demonstration of these various instruments now. Which should we start with? Maybe I guess historically, you want to do the- >> I'll start with the cornetto, yeah. With the finger holes and the trumpet-like mouth piece. [MUSIC] >> How many different, if you picked up the lute, the sackbut, the viola. How many different instruments- >> Let me try it one more time. >> No, no, how many different instruments do you play? >> I play a lot of them to a point. You know, but it's hard to specialize in all [CROSSTALK] >> So we're not expecting a performance. >> I'll just play it just a few notes. >> Okay. >> I'm sorry. >> No, [INAUDIBLE] it's great. Let's move on now to the brass instrument. We've got the slide trumpet, which is the precursor to the trombone, right, I mean had this. >> Right. The trumpet can't play very many notes. [SOUND] Just the sort of fanfare notes of the harmonic series, and so in the 14th century seems they developed this technology of making the trumpet longer and shorter. [SOUND] >> Really cool. So, that's how the trombone got started. >> Well, it brought the trumpet players into the sort of world of dance music, I imagine. But later part in the middle ages and the early renaissance, they discovered that a double slide made the work of changing the length of the tubing much more efficient. [MUSIC] And the trombone, or large trumpet, was invented. Again, in England and France and other countries, called the sackbut. >> Okay, well those are some of the dance instruments of the renaissance. Let's take a look at, by going to our screen now, and take a look at a manuscript. A rather fancy manuscript because it was put together for a princess of the royal house in the low countries in the late 15th, early 16th centuries. It's a so-called basch dance manual, but it's rather kind of fancy. You ever worked with this at all or maybe? >> I have. And what's curious is that, it's just, every note is the same length in a tenor range, and it seems that the early dance musicians would use this to improvise over. >> Yeah, almost like a maybe a standard blues pattern today, a certain length for one low bass note and then the next bass notes got to go through so many bars and the next bass notes gotta go- >> Very much. And, we've noticed in each of these depictions of Renaissance Minstrels playing these instruments, they are never reading music. And it seems that their specialty, like a modern Dixieland band or something was to learn a bunch of repertory, and be able to play by ear, from memory, and of course improvising dance music. >> Yeah, and of course all popular musicians operate that way today. Why would they ever need music? They're really good musicians. >> Right. >> Okay, so that's an actual dancing manual because underneath here, if you can see these other letters, you can see the r for [FOREIGN], a big sweeping bow, and then the little shake, or equivalent of the [FOREIGN]. And then two [FOREIGN] and a couple of [FOREIGN] in a row, and on. So this manuscript is giving us the steps for the dance, as well. And if you're really good, we will demonstrate the dance for you a little bit later on. And a final slide. Let's look at this one. We can't be sure this is really Queen Elizabeth or not. In some corners it's thought to be Queen Elizabeth, some not thought to be her. And it clearly a representation of a couple here dancing a galliard, which was a fast leaping dance. Galliard was preceded by a pavane. Here we can see some of the stringed instruments accompanying. But this pair of pavane and galliard became the standard dances of the Renaissance. You'll remember that we saw a dancing manual from the Renaissance. That manuscript written in silver and gold on black vellum, with the music and dance steps written in. The two principal dances of the Renaissance were, again, the Pavane and the Galliard. The pavane was a slow, stately dance recommended for processions and dances involving old people. The galliard, as we saw with our leaping queen, probably Queen Elizabeth I, was much faster and more athletic. To give you a sense of the slow, stately pavane, I conned my friend Grant Harrod to dance with me. Remember what Grant pointed out. Not only did men and women dance together, but women danced with women in the Renaissance and the Middle Ages, and men danced with men. Gender didn't matter all that much. Getting the steps right did. Again, we'll now see a Renaissance pavane, danced with music supplied by the ensemble Pifaro. [MUSIC]
