Renaissance

Demon Music will release Renaissance, an 11-disc M People career-spanning box set in February that features albums, remixes, rarities and two DVDs.

Jérôme Lejeune continues his History of Music series with this boxed set devoted to the Renaissance. The next volume in the series after Flemish Polyphony (RIC 102), this set explores the music of the 16th century from Josquin Desprez to Roland de Lassus. After all of the various turnings that music took during the Middle Ages, the music of the Renaissance seems to be a first step towards a common European musical style. Josquin Desprez’s example was followed by every composer in every part of Europe and in every musical genre, including the Mass setting, the motet and all of the various new types of solo song. Instrumental music was also to develop considerably from the beginning of the 16th century onwards.

The word Renaissance, meaning rebirth, is applied to the era that spans the Thirteenth to the Seventeenth Centuries, an era characterized by a cultural awakening, the world breaking free from the Dark Ages, looking brightly to the future. Originally used in the art world, “renaissance” has since been applied to all endeavours of mankind. For us, 1450 to 1600 is considered to be the Musical Renaissance; an era that witnessed the invention of movable type, Columbus’ voyage to the New World and Martin Luther presenting his 95 Theses, driving a wedge into The Church and rendering unto the good Renaissance folk a new world order.

Classical rock ensemble formed as an outlet for a pair of ex-Yardbirds, but later driven by Annie Haslam's three-octave voice and John Tout's piano.
The history of Renaissance is essentially the history of two separate groups, rather similar to the two phases of the Moody Blues or the Drifters. The original group was founded in 1969 by ex-Yardbirds members Keith Relf and Jim McCarty as a sort of progressive folk-rock band, who recorded two albums (of which only the first, self-titled LP came out in America, on Elektra Records) but never quite made it, despite some success on England's campus circuit…

A captivating live-in-the-studio release from 70s prog rock icons Renaissance performing to a small gathering of friends at the historic De Lane Lea Studios (used by everyone from The Beatles to Queen, Jimi Hendrix & Pink Floyd)!…

This is the first Renaissance album: the singer is Jane Relf, not Annie Haslam. A completely different bunch of musicians, compared to the Renaissance of the 70's. Jane Relf's vocals are not really always in the foreground: other musicians also sing on this album. Considering the year (1969), the sound is very progressive and ambitions, comparing to the other major progressive bands such as Genesis and Yes, that are starting and doing a proto progressive sound. Although the line-up is completely different from the classic Renaissance albums, this is as good as the others.