During the Renaissance, culture, science, and philosophy experienced a rebirth. As the name for the period suggests, there was a strong move away from the old Medieval traditions towards a new enlightened era.
For the world of music, it meant that the development of existing instruments or the creation of new ones was in full flow. Ensembles, both instrumental and vocal, established themselves. Composers pushed the boundaries of modality and structure in elaborate and exciting directions.
It should be noted that the orchestra did not exist during the Renaissance period. There were some monumental developments during this time; however, the orchestra was not one of them.
What occurred in the next period, the Baroque, was built on the innovation of the Renaissance, so while orchestral music and orchestras were not around, their foundations were already being laid. It was Monteverdi’s scoring for his opera Orfeo around 1600 that helped us begin to recognize what can be termed an orchestra.
Renaissance Orchestral Instruments
It was the instrumental developments that facilitated the birth of the orchestra. In the orchestra of the Classical period, for example, you’d hear violins, violas, cellos, and double basses.
They would be complemented by a selection of woodwind, brass, and sometimes percussion. The violin was one of the most vital instrumental innovations to emerge from the Renaissance.
String Instruments
Before the advent of the violin, the viol family was the go-to selection of string instruments. Viols were radically different from the violins, violas, and cellos that eventually replaced them.
In the first instance, they were fretted instruments with most commonly six strings. The frets helped players with intonation but also placed restrictions on the performer in ways that the later violin did not.
Strings were often of gut, and the backs of the viols were mostly flat. They were also played using a bow with the viol placed between the player’s knees.
The sound of a viol is quite distinct from a contemporary string instrument—more nasal and less sonorous, but immensely popular. During the Renaissance and into the next period of music, the viols were often formed into consorts, which may have included additional instruments and an early keyboard instrument too.
Violins were first created in Italy, which was in many respects the cultural heart of the Renaissance. Catherine Medici is credited with having a considerable influence over the violin’s development, whose creators included many famous Italians such as Andrea Amati, Giovanni Maggini, and Antonio Stradivari, who is perhaps the most famous of all.
Violins and cellos took hold of composers’ and audiences’ hearts notably towards the close of the Renaissance and never looked back.
Woodwind Instruments
In terms of wind instruments during the Renaissance, there were many. In a similar way to the viol family, many of these early instruments evolved into the ones seen in today’s orchestras.
One such instrument is the Shawm. This was a highly sought-after instrument during the Renaissance. It was a double-reed instrument similar to the oboe, and its tonal qualities were quite penetrating and harsh, intended for open-air performances.
The shawm dates back to the early Christian Era and the Crusades. The Middle Eastern origins in instruments like the zurla are very close.
Another lesser-known double reed instrument from the Renaissance was the Dulcian. These instruments were the predecessors of the bassoon and emerged in the first half of the 16th century.
Like the Shawms, there was a family of these instruments, with the larger ones often constructed in three separate pieces. The sound is remarkably close to today’s bassoon, if slightly less woody.
One of my favorite Renaissance instruments that would become a key player in the later orchestral scene is the sackbut. The name does sound faintly comical, but its origins are French.
From the saqueboute (Fr.), we derive a pull-push that goes a long way to illustrating exactly what this instrument is. Today, we’d call it a trombone, but it sounds somehow warmer, more mellow than contemporary instruments. This is partly due to it being made with thicker walls and with a narrower bell.
A contemporary of the sackbut is the more familiar trumpet and horn. Both of these instruments would have been natural instruments, meaning that they had no valves. Essentially, they were excellently curled tubes of metal with a mouthpiece at one end and a modest bell at the other.
Their range of notes was limited to ones that could be produced from the overtone series. The way around this was to create different lengths or sizes of natural horns and trumpets to comply with other keys or modes.
A further look into the brass section of the future orchestra takes us to the wonderfully and aptly named Serpent. This, at first glance, looks like a contraption that Heath Robinson might have imagined.
It is, as you’d expect, shaped like a snake and made of wood covered in black leather. The sound is not produced by a reed but something resembling a cupped, brass mouthpiece similar to that of a tuba. The Serpent produces rich, resonant bass notes and can be seen as the forerunner to the tuba.
Other Instruments
The recorder and the transverse flute were both instruments that featured throughout the Renaissance. These woodwind instruments were simple in construction, with the transverse flute later developing into the orchestral flute of today. They produce a pleasingly rounded tone and are instruments of considerable agility in the hands of a competent player.
Different sizes of each would have been in circulation then just as they are now. Another close ally to these two instruments was the Cornett. It too was wooden and came in both curved and straight varieties.
Percussion Instruments
Finally, we come to the percussion section. As the orchestra evolved, the percussion section noticeably increased in size and capacity. During the Renaissance, percussion instruments were varied and included familiar ones like the tambourine. My all-time favorite are the drums they called Naker Drums.
The construction of the Naker Drums closely resembles that of modern timpani. They were commonly a metal body covered with skin that could be tightened or loosened to alter the pitch of the drums. Often, these drums would have been used for military parades or to accompany more powerful consorts.
One last intriguing instrument to add to our collection is the Rommel-Pot. Sometimes called a rumble-pot, this curious addition to the percussion section probably heralded from Asia or Africa, possibly both. It is a friction drum that is made with a skin stretched over a pot, jug, or other type of sound box.
Often a stick with or without a chord is placed through the center of the membrane. Rubbing the hand over the skin creates friction that causes a sound to be created. In a contemporary percussion setting, it would be similar to the Lion’s Roar. This gives you by far the best idea of how it sounds.