This study is concerned with the vertical combinations resulting from late sixteenth century cadential formulae and in passages immediately preceding these formulae. The investigation is limited to Masses dating from the last half of the sixteenth century and utilizes compositions from the following composers: Handl, Kerle, Lassus, Merulo, Monte, and Palestrina, Victoria. This study concludes that the progressions I-V-I and I-IV-I appear to be the only two root progressions receiving high enough percentages to be regarded as significant. These percentages are tempered by the fact that I-V-I and I-IV-I may be interpreted as repetitions of standardized cadential formulae found in the sixteenth century. The study also concludes that root motion by fifth accounts for no less than 67.35 per cent of the root movements analyzed during the investigation. The percentage differential between root movement by fifth and root movement by second (the interval receiving the next highest percentage) at no time drops below 40.41 per cent. The evidence indicates that root movement by fifth does account for the majority of the root motion analyzed in final cadential passages of Masses dating from the late sixteenth century. The percentage differential between root motion by second and root motion by third decreases as the chord progressions become longer. None of the differential percentages were judged to be high enough as to merit placing any significance of root motion by second over root motion by third.

By considering sixteenth-century English chorister training, modern singers of Renaissance vocal music are informed of the practical and academic demands unique to Elizabethan musicians and audiences. Clauses in relevant choirmaster contracts provide an insight into pedagogical expectations of teachers and their choristers. Studies included plainchant, grammar, Latin, rhetoric, improvisation, poetry, morality, instrumental instruction on organ and viols, and composition. For those not associated with cathedrals and collegiate chapels, Thomas Morley outlined the educational sequence of his teacher's generation in his 1597 publication, "A plaine and easie introduction to practicall musicke." Morley presented education as discourse between students and teacher, and covered the fundamentals of singing, improvisation, and composition. With the digitization of and online access to Renaissance performing sources, present-day performers can readily examine the design of sixteenth-century manuscript and printed partbooks. Performance practice recommendations can be gleaned from the physical nature of the music that once equipped the Renaissance chorister with the visual means necessary for expression. Combined with principles of chorister training, this project suggests learned choices in pronunciation, tone, intonation, phrasing, pitch, text underlay, musica ficta, rhetoric, and expression for the prima pars of William Byrd's middle period motet, "Tristitia et anxietas." With the digitization of and online access to Renaissance performing sources, present-day performers can readily examine the design of sixteenth-century manuscript and printed partbooks. Performance practice recommendations can be gleaned from the physical nature of the music that once equipped the Renaissance chorister with the visual means necessary for expression. Combined with principles of chorister training, this project suggests learned choices in pronunciation, tone, intonation, phrasing, pitch, text underlay, musica ficta, rhetoric, and expression for the prima pars of William Byrd's middle period motet, "Tristitia et anxietas."

This dissertation argues that early modern writers such as William Shakespeare, Thomas Middleton, George Herbert, John Milton, and Andrew Marvell played a critical role in the transition from the Neoplatonic philosophy of beauty to Enlightenment aesthetics. I demonstrate how the Protestant Reformation, with its special emphasis on the depravity of human nature, prompted writers to critique models of aesthetic judgment and experience that depended on high faith in human goodness and rationality. These writers in turn used their literary works to popularize skepticism about the human mind's ability to perceive and appreciate beauty accurately. In doing so, early modern writers helped create an intellectual culture in which aesthetics would emerge as a distinct branch of philosophy.