5. Démodée

As John Dunstable stood between mediaeval and Renaissance harmonic styles, so Monteverdi straddles the Renaissance and Baroque.

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

Palestrina as the last Renaissance polyphonist:

Monteverdi moves towards the baroque, a style described – in his phrase – as the seconda practica (as compared with the old-fashioned, Renaissance modal polyphony, the prima practica):


But, as a true representative of an interregnum, he was also not bad at Renaissance polyphony:


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