"L'Orfeo" is the earliest dramatic opera, written by Claudio Monteverdi, who was born in 1567 in Cremona, Italy. It tells the story of the myth of Orpheus, who attempted to rescue his lover Eurydice from the Underworld with the use of music. The opera was written for the Duke of Mantua's court in 1607, and the libretto was written by Alessandro Striggio.
During the Renaissance, dance music flourished throughout Europe. "Terpsichore," written by German composer Michael Praetorius, is one of the major pieces of instrumental dance music from the era and the one for which Praetorius is most famous. The composition is made up of hundreds of dances and is named after the Muse of dancing, lyric poetry, and the dramatic chorus.
During the Renaissance, the papacy patronized not only architectural, painted, and sculptural works but also music. One of these commissioned pieces of music is the "Pope Marcellus Mass" written by Roman-born composer Palestrina, formerly a member of the Sistine Chapel Choir. Palestrina wrote 104 masses and the "Pope Marcellus Mass" is the most famous. The complex composition is polyphonic, made up of six different vocal parts.
"Greensleaves" is an English ballad supposedly written by Henry III, a music lover and arranger, for Anne Boleyn, but according to TES Connect, this is probably not the case. The tune was first referred to in 1580 and has retained popularity since then. It was mentioned in Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and was a party song in the English Civil War. It is still performed today.