Compare and contrast two works from the same genre from different eras. Essay examples

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Compare and contrast two works from the same genre which were written at least a generation or half a century apart. Consider and explain similarities and differences with regard to musical style and historical context.

The Renaissance and Baroque era entailed very different characteristics, due to the Renaissance composers writing more freely and being more individual then those of the Baroque era where they followed more ‘rules’ and experimented less. This essay will show the difference in two pieces by different composers, even though they were written less than a century apart. Giovanni Gabrieli was an Italian composer born in 1554 and wrote many works in the ‘in between’ stage of Renaissance and Baroque. He was a composer and
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The melodic material for the second subject is then derived from this to give a sense of unity throughout the piece. This is different to the cadenza like rhythms in Sonata pian’e forte which uses rhythmic and melodic imitation almost immediately followed by a suspension in bar 3. Most of the time the piece is in free polyphony, although homophonic at times (bar 40).The tutti section starting in bar 26 is full of antiphonal exchanges of the sam descending phrase starting in trombone 5. This is interesting because two coros would have been separated to create a unique sound in the space between them. This is known as cori spezzati which was developed in the Renaissance period and commonly used in churches and cathedrals.4 The rich and expressive climax starting in bar 72ff is very typical of sacred music of the time because of the blending of the sounds rather than contrasting, and the clear I-V-I cadence in C major (bar 73) gives a sense of finishing. This piece is through-composed which is uncommon of this era, although he uses motifs and alters them in other parts to create harmonic interest e.g. the descending phrase in bar 26 is inverted and used again in bar 28. Bars 1-14 is the opening subject by coro 1 in the Dorian mode but starting on a G, consisting of slightly unusual phrase lengths of five bars. The following twelve bars is the answer by choir 2, still in the Dorian mode, but a repeating note idea in the trombones is