Canzona

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Canzona (also canzone) is a poetic form, and a type of musical composition.

[edit] Poetry

In poetry, a canzona is a short lyric poem that developed in Provence, France, and became popular in Italy during the Middle Ages. The subject of canzoni (Italian: "songs") was usually love, nature, or feminine beauty. In form, a canzone was composed of stanzas of equal length and often closed with an envoi or shorter stanza. The number of lines per stanza was generally 14, mirroring the sonnet. Indeed, it has been postulated that the sonnet form came from the canzone. The most famous writers of canzoni were the 14th-century writers Guido Cavalcanti, Dante and Petrarch.

[edit] Music

In music, a canzona was a 16th-century multipart vocal setting of a literary canzone and a 16th- and 17th-century instrumental composition. At first based on Franco-Flemish polyphonic songs (chansons), later independently composed, the instrumental canzonas, such as the brass canzonas of Giovanni Gabrieli, influenced the fugue and were the direct ancestors of the sonata. See canzone.