The Renaissance era or the renaissance ear brought a new attitude towards music. It started in Europe, in Italy more precisely, from the 14th to the 16th century. The Italians wanted to bring “the rebirth of their past” (Kerman, p.65). This period brought the rebirth of humanism and the acceptance of the diversity of cultures. The music was designed to be played in the church during prayer times. When the Church lost its power and control, the music moved to the courts. Artists and musicians had more freedom and individualism to create the music they wanted. During the Renaissance era, musical sounds had a soft, imitative, polyphonic style. Renaissance music was church music or sacred music and secular music or non-religious music. Sacred music was still popular and included the motet, mass, madrigal, and laude genres. The motet is “a short composition with Latin words, composed of short sections in homophony and imitative polyphony”. (Kerman, p.77) The Mass is “the greatest and most important service of the Christian liturgy” (Kerman, P. 68). Instrumental music is introduced for the first time. An “instrumental genre was the dance of the pavane and the gaillarde” (Kerman, p.79). The most famous composers of the period were Dufay, Despres, Ockeghem and Dunstable. “It was in the Baroque era that the foundations were laid for some 300 years of musical expression that followed: the idea of ​​the modern orchestra was born, with the opera (including the overture, the prelude, the aria, recitative and chorus), concerto, sonata and modern cantata. The rather soft-grained viol string family of the Renaissance was gradually replaced by the bolder violin, viola, and cello, the harpsichord was invented, and significant advances were made in all instrumental groups. ...... middle of paper ...... is inherently dramatic, and great composers have found all sorts of ways to break the boundaries of conventional sonata form in order to express great musical thoughts and emotions. (Key Notes) Works Cited “History of Classical Music.” http://www.naxos.com/education/brief_history.asphttp://library.thinkquest.org/15413/history/history-bar.htm “The Classical Era” October 14. Feature-Classical » http://www.allmusic.com/blog/post/the-classical-era-3 “Musical Forms”. Rodrigo J. Alvirez. 2011 http://www.teoria.com/tutorials/forms/sonata01.phpMusic Resources. Shaffer, Kris. Unported Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. 2012 http://csutheory.shaffermusic.com/resources/analysis/form/sonata-form-introduction/http://www.key-notes.com/sonata-form.html “Listen” Kerman, Joseph. Tomlinson, Gary. 7th edition by Bedford / St. Martin's, Boston-New York.