Description
Although very different in structure and sound than in its later polyphonic sound, liturgical and sacred music from the very early Christian church--dating as early as the 3rd century CE--that was written in a monodic style of a single melody with no harmonic accompaniment, provided some of the most important genesis for the development of European choral music. Of these monophonic traditions, Gregorian chant, which was codified and popularized during the 10th to 13th centuries CE, remains the best known.
The advances of the Renaissance had an enormous impact on the choral tradition, most primarily in the development of polyphonic (i.e., multi-part) writing. In the hands of such masters as Dufay, Josquin, Palestrina, Byrd, and Tallis, a extraordinarily rich repertoire of motets, Masses, and other sacred music quickly flowered. On the secular side, the poetic madrigal became the new standard form; the madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi in particular, along with the same composer’s sacred music and operas, proved to be a revolution that helped define the sound of Baroque music. The arguably most important innovation in the Baroque era was the introduction of the figured bass, which provided a harmonic grounding. During the Baroque era, much of what remains standard choral repertoire was written; such works include the monumental choral works, including the cantatas and oratorios, of JS Bach as well as the oratorios of Handel. Classical era composers in turn built upon this legacy and added to this body of repertoire, including Haydn in his Masses and oratorios.
In the 19th century, many composers brought a very dramatic—and almost operatic sensibility to their large-scale choral works, including Brahms, Rossini, Bruckner, and Verdi. In the following century, composers as varied as Benjamin Britten and Carl Orff took up the choral medium to very different ends, while even more recently Arvo Part, John Tavener, and Eric Whitacre, among others, write works that have been warmly embraced by professional and amateur choruses alike despite great differences in their individual aesthetics.
