INSTRUMENTAL music from the beginning of the sixteenth century to roughly 1640 bristled with a new creative energy. In the previous century, many types of musicians—from lutenists and fiddlers to wind and percussion players—had found an increasingly enthusiastic market for their services, thus laying a secure foundation for the subsequent growth of instrumental styles. Yet, the outbursts shortly after 1500 in all branches of activity, and in all regions of Europe, remain astonishing in their scope. Almost all courtly ceremonies and private social rituals called for the participation of instrumentalists, from solo players in private settings to large mixed ensembles playing for state banquets, wedding ceremonies, theatrical productions, and even church services. The widespread circulation of instrumental music was facilitated by the advent of music printing, which created a new class of amateur players whose appetite for the latest musical tastes resulted in an entire repertory of instrumental transcriptions, arrangements, and imitations of the popular vocal music of the day. By the mid sixteenth century, instrumental styles were also often highly sophisticated artistic creations, with complex polyphonic repertories revealing a deep knowledge of both learned written styles and unwritten improvisatory practices.

It is not an overstatement to say that Renaissance European centers everywhere during this period teemed with instrumentalists, many of them highly skilled and thoroughly integrated into the mainstream of the musical culture. In fact, in many cities of even moderate size—Leuven in the Low Countries, Nordlingen in Germany, Lille in France—civic ensembles provided for citizens the primary medium for their hearing of sophisticated, up-to-date polyphony, both improvised and by leading composers. Similarly, widespread knowledge of the sacred vocal repertory of Josquin des Prez, Jean Mouton, and others, was spread largely through lutenists’ and keyboardists’ arrangements of these pieces, which allowed this music to surmount the walls of the chapel and enter into secular domestic settings and popular print culture. And popular chansons and madrigals by Crecquillon, Sermisy, Arcadelt, and Rore provided instrumentalists with an enormous repertory of “standards,” which they arranged, varied, and marketed through a profitable publishing industry.