Music of the Renaissance period in Western Europe (15th and 16th century) is more and more popular, even in the United States of America. Maybe because they have almost no music of this period.
I prefer to divide the repertoire in 3 groups
Religious vocal music : masses, motets, …
Profane vocal music: chansons, madrigals; Lieder...
Instrumental music : ricercars, dances, solo-lute music, broken consort,...
Unfortunately, peoples confuse renaissance music with medieval music.
But there is a great difference concerning melody, harmony, rhythm and instruments
Although we can speak of a transitional period in the 14th century, specially in the Italian Trecento with composers like Jacopo da Bologna; Leonel Power in England and Guillaume de Machaut in France sound little medieval.
