Madrigal (music)

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A madrigal is a type of secular vocal music composition, written during the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Throughout most of its history it was polyphonic and unaccompanied by instruments, with the number of voices varying from two to eight, but most frequently three to six. The earliest examples of the genre date from Italy in the 1520s, and while the center of madrigal production remained in Italy, madrigals were also written in England and Germany, especially late in the 16th and early in the 17th centuries. Unlike many other strophic forms of the time, most madrigals are through-composed, with music being written to best express the sentiment of each line of a poetic text. The madrigal originated in part from the frottola, in part from the resurgence in interest in vernacular Italian poetry, and also from the influence of the French chanson and polyphonic style of the motet as written by the Franco-Flemish composers who had naturalized in Italy during the period. The madrigal is related mostly by name alone to the Italian trecento madrigal of the late 13th and 14th centuries.[1]

The madrigal was the most important secular form of music of its time. It reached its fullest development in the second half of the 16th century, losing its importance in the early 17th century, when forms such as the solo song became more popular. After the 1630s it merged with the cantata and the dialogue, and the solo madrigal was replaced by the aria due to the rise of opera as an important genre.[2]

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Origins and early madrigals

Pietro Bembo in a painting by Titian. Madrigals came about in part because of Bembo's advocacy of the Italian language as a vehicle for poetic expression.
Pietro Bembo in a painting by Titian. Madrigals came about in part because of Bembo's advocacy of the Italian language as a vehicle for poetic expression.

In the early 16th century, several humanistic trends converged which allowed the madrigal to form. First, there was a reawakened interest in use of Italian as a vernacular language. Poet and literary theorist Pietro Bembo edited an edition of Petrarch, the great 14th century poet, in 1501, and later published his theories on how contemporary poets could attain excellence by imitating Petrarch, and by being carefully attentive to the exact sounds of words, as well as their positioning within lines. The poetic form of the madrigal, which consisted of an irregular number of lines of usually 7 or 11 syllables, without repetition, and usually on a serious topic, came into being as a result of Bembo's influence. [3][4][5]

Second, Italy had long been a destination for the superbly-trained composers of the Franco-Flemish school, who were attracted by the culture as well as the employment opportunities at the aristocratic courts and ecclesiastical institutions – Italy was, after all, the center of the Roman Catholic Church, the single most important cultural institution in Europe. These composers had mastered a serious polyphonic style suitable for setting sacred music, and also were familiar with the secular music of their homelands, music such as the chanson, which differed considerably from the lighter Italian secular styles of the late 15th and very early 16th centuries. [6]

Third, printed secular music had become widely available in Italy due to the recent invention of moveable type and the printing press. The music being written and sung, principally the frottola but also the balleta, canzonetta, and mascherata, was light, and typically used verses of relatively low literary quality. These popular music styles used repetition and soprano-dominated chordal textures, styles considerably more simple than those used by most of the resident composers of the Franco-Flemish school. Literary tastes were changing, and the more serious verse of Bembo and his school needed a means of musical expression more flexible and open than was available in the frottola and its related forms. [7][8]

The first madrigals were written in Florence, either by native Florentines or by Franco-Flemish musicians in the employ of the Medici. The madrigal did not replace the frottola right away; during the transitional decade of the 1520, both frottole and madrigals (though not yet in name) were written and published. The earliest madrigals were probably those by Bernardo Pisano, in his 1520 Musica di messer Bernardo Pisano sopra le canzone del Petrarcha, which was also the first secular music collection ever printed containing only the works of a single composer. While none of the pieces in the collection use the name "madrigal", some of the compositions are settings of Petrarch, and the music carefully observes word placement and accent, and even contains word-painting, a feature which was to become characteristic of the later madrigal. [9]

The first book of madrigals labeled as such was the Madrigali de diversi musici: libro primo de la Serena of Philippe Verdelot, published in 1530 in Rome. Verdelot, a French composer, had written the pieces in the late 1520s, while he lived in Florence. He included music by both Sebastiano and Costanzo Festa, as well as Maistre Jhan of Ferrara, in addition to his own music. In 1533 and 1534 he published two books of four voice madrigals in Venice; these were to become extremely popular, and indeed they were, in their 1540 reprint, one of the most widely printed and distributed music books of the first half of the 16th century. They sold so well that Adrian Willaert made arrangements of some of these works for single voice and lute in 1536. Verdelot published madrigals for five and six voices as well, with the collection for six voices appearing in 1541.[10]

Particularly popular was the first collection of madrigals by Jacques Arcadelt. Originally published in Venice, in 1539, it was reprinted throughout Europe for many years after, becoming the most often reprinted madrigal book of the entire era.[11] Stylistically, the music in both Arcadelt's and Verdelot's books was more akin to the French chanson than either the Italian frottola or the sacred music of the time, such as the motet. This may be unsurprising considering that the native language of both Arcadelt and Verdelot was French, and both had written chansons themselves when in their homeland; however, they were carefully attentive to text setting, in keeping with the ideas of Bembo, and they through-composed the music, writing new music for each line of text, rather than using the refrain and verse constructions that were common in French secular music.[12]

[edit] Mid-century madrigal

While the madrigal was born in Florence and Rome, by mid-century the centers of musical activity had moved to Venice and other cities. The mercenaries of Charles V sacked Rome in 1527, and a period of related political turmoil in Florence, culminating in the Siege of Florence (1529-30), in which Verdelot himself may have perished, reduced that city's significance as a musical center. In addition, Venice was Europe's center of music publishing; the grand Basilica of St. Mark's was just beginning the period in which it attracted musicians from all over Europe; and Pietro Bembo himself had returned to Venice in 1529. Adrian Willaert and his associates at St. Mark's – younger men such as Girolamo Parabosco, Jacques Buus, Baldassare Donato, Perissone Cambio, and Cipriano de Rore – were the primary representatives of madrigal composition at mid-century. Willaert preferred more complex textures to Arcadelt and Verdelot; often his madrigals were similar to motets, with their polyphonic language, although he varied texture between homophonic and polyphonic passages as necessary to highlight the text. For verse he used Petrarch in preference to Petrarch's 16th-century imitators; many of his madrigals set Petrarch's sonnets.[13][14][15]

Cipriano de Rore was the most influential of the mid-century madrigalists after Willaert. While Willaert was restrained and subtle in his text setting, striving more for homogeneity than sharp contrast, Rore was one to experiment. He used extravagant rhetorical gestures, including word-painting and unusual chromatic relationships, a trend encouraged by visionary music theorist Nicola Vicentino.[16][17] It was from Rore's musical language that "madrigalisms", so distinctive of the genre, first came about; and it was also with Rore that five-voice texture became the standard.[18]

[edit] The madrigal from the 1550s to the 1570s

The later history of the madrigal begins with Rore. All of the different trends in madrigal composition, which by the early 17th century had diverged into many different forms, are present in embryonic form in Rore's enormously influential output.[19][20]

Many thousands of madrigals were written in Italy in the 1550s; the entire repertoire is yet to be studied exhaustively. Some famous names of the period, besides Rore, are Palestrina, who wrote some secular music early in his career; the young Orlande de Lassus, who wrote many well-known examples, including the highly experimental and chromatic Prophetiae Sibyllarum, and who, on moving to Munich in 1556, began the history of madrigal composition outside of Italy; and Philippe de Monte, the most prolific of all madrigal composers, whose first publication dates from 1554.[21][22] In style, the madrigals of the 1550s varied from the conservative and elegant style of Palestrina and some of the others working in Rome, to the highly chromatic and expressive work by Lassus, Rore, and others working in the cities of northern Italy.

Late in the 16th century, while "classic" madrigals continued to be written throughout Italy, different styles of madrigal composition developed somewhat independently in different geographic areas. In Venice, composers such as Andrea Gabrieli continued to write madrigals in the classic tradition, but with the bright, open, polyphonic textures for which he was famous in his motets and other works. At the court of Ferrara, the presence of three uniquely gifted female singers – the concerto delle donne – attracted a group of composers who wrote highly ornamented madrigals, often with instrumental accompaniment, to be performed by members of this group. These composers included Luzzasco Luzzaschi, Giaches de Wert, and Lodovico Agostini, but the fame of the group was so widespread that many composers visited Ferrara both to hear and write for them, and in some cases founded similar groups of their own in other cities (for example, the Medici attempted to imitate the group in Florence, and had Alessandro Striggio write madrigals in a style like Luzzaschi's).[23][24] Rome, the ostensibly conservative center of the Roman Catholic Church, was itself the home of one of the most famous madrigal composers of the era, Luca Marenzio. Marenzio came closest to unifying all the different stylistic currents of the time, writing madrigals which attempted to capture every nuance of emotion in the poems using every musical means then available. Marenzio wrote over 400 madrigals during his short life.[25]

Yet another trend in madrigal composition after mid-century was the re-incorporation of lighter elements into the form, which had been predominantly a serious genre since its inception. Where verse by Petrarch had been the standard, and themes of love and longing and death had been typical, by the 1560s composers had begun bringing back elements of some lighter Italian forms, such as the villanella, with their dancelike rhythms and verses on carefree subjects. Some of the composers who wrote in this manner included Marc'Antonio Ingegneri, the teacher of Monteverdi, Andrea Gabrieli, and Giovanni Ferretti. The canzonetta was a specific offshoot of the madrigal in this vein.[26]

[edit] The madrigal at the end of the 16th century

The change in the social function of the madrigal at the end of the 16th century contributed to its development into new dramatic forms. Since its invention, it had served two principal roles: as a pleasant private entertainment for small groups of skilled amateur musicians; and as an adjunct to large ceremonial public performances. The first use, the private one, was by far the most common throughout the life of the madrigal, and it was through these enthusiastic gatherings of amateurs that the madrigal acquired its fame. However, in the last two decades of the century, virtuoso professional singers began to replace amateurs, and composers wrote music for them of greater dramatic force. Not only was this music harder to sing, but the sentiments expressed tended to require soloists rather than equal members of an ensemble in order to be dramatically convincing. Also during this period a division between performers and passive audiences – not the large audiences present at a public ceremonial spectacle, as seen earlier in the century, but relatively small, intimate gatherings, with performers and listeners, a situation recognizably modern – began to be seen, especially in such progressive cultural centers as Ferrara and Mantua. Much of what was once expressed in a madrigal in 1590, could twenty years later be expressed by an aria in the new form of opera; however, the madrigal continued to live on into the 17th century, in several forms, including old-style madrigals for many voices; a solo form with instrumental accompaniment; and the concertato madrigal, of which Claudio Monteverdi was the most famous practitioner.[27]

Naples was the home of the notoriously murderous nobleman Carlo Gesualdo, who not only killed his wife and her lover in flagrante delicto but wrote some of the most extravagantly expressive and harmonically experimental music prior to the 19th century.[28] Gesualdo's style followed directly from Luzzaschi's, and he named the older composer as his mentor: the two worked together at Ferrara in the early 1590s, giving Gesualdo ample opportunity to absorb the chromaticism and textural contrasts of the Ferrarese, including Luzzaschi and Alfonso Fontanelli. Gesualdo published six books of madrigals during his lifetime, as well as some sacred music in madrigalian style (for example the Tenebrae Responsories of 1611). No one followed Gesualdo down this path of mannerism and extreme chromaticism, although composers such as Antonio Cifra, Sigismondo d'India, and Domenico Mazzocchi selectively used some of his techniques.[29][30][31]

Of all the composers of madrigals of the late 16th century, none was as central a figure as Claudio Monteverdi. Often credited as a central actor in the transition from Renaissance music to Baroque music, he integrated, in 1605, the basso continuo into the madrigal form. Much later he composed the book Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi (1638) (Madrigals of War and Love), which is, however, an example of the early Baroque madrigal. Some of the compositions in this book bear little relation to the a cappella madrigals of the previous century.

[edit] English madrigal school

Main article: English Madrigal School

In England, the madrigal became hugely popular after the publication of Nicholas Yonge's Musica Transalpina in 1588, a collection of Italian madrigals fitted with English translations; this publication initiated an entire school of madrigal composition in England. The unaccompanied madrigal survived longer in England than in the rest of Europe. There, composers continued to produce works in the late-16th century style of the genre after the form had gone out of fashion on the Continent.

[edit] Musical form

Late madrigalists in particular were ingenious with so-called "madrigalisms" — passages in which the music assigned to a particular word expresses its meaning, for example, setting riso (smile) to a passage of quick, running notes which imitate laughter, or sospiro (sigh) to a note which falls to the note below. This technique is also known as "word-painting" and can be found not only in madrigals but in other vocal music of the period.

[edit] Madrigals today

Nowadays, madrigals are often sung by high school or college madrigal choirs often in the context of a madrigal dinner which may also include a play, Renaissance costumes, and instrumental chamber music.

[edit] Madrigal composers

[edit] Early composers of madrigals

[edit] The classic madrigal composers

[edit] The late madrigalists

[edit] Composers of Baroque "concerted" madrigals (with instruments)

[edit] English madrigal school

Some 60 madrigals of the English School are published in The Oxford Book of English Madrigals

[edit] Contemporary

[edit] Media

[edit] References

  • James Haar, Anthony Newcomb, Massimo Ossi, Glenn Watkins, Nigel Fortune, Joseph Kerman, Jerome Roche: "Madrigal", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed December 30, 2007), (subscription access)
  • James Haar, Anthony Newcomb, Glenn Watkins, Nigel Fortune, Joseph Kerman, Jerome Roche: "Madrigal", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1561591742
  • Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0393095304
  • Alfred Einstein, The Italian Madrigal. Three volumes. Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1949. ISBN 0-691-09112-9
  • Allan W. Atlas, Renaissance Music: Music in Western Europe, 1400–1600. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1998. ISBN 0-393-97169-4
  • Howard Mayer Brown, Music in the Renaissance. Prentice Hall History of Music Series. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey; Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1976. ISBN 0-13-608497-4
  • The New Harvard Dictionary of Music, ed. Don Randel. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1986. ISBN 0674615255

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ James Haar, Anthony Newcomb: Grove online
  2. ^ Massimo Ossi, Grove online
  3. ^ James Haar, Anthony Newcomb: Grove online
  4. ^ Atlas, p. 433
  5. ^ Brown, p. 221
  6. ^ James Haar, Anthony Newcomb: Grove online
  7. ^ James Haar, Anthony Newcomb: Grove online
  8. ^ Brown, p. 221
  9. ^ James Haar, Anthony Newcomb: Grove online
  10. ^ James Haar, Anthony Newcomb, Grove (1980)
  11. ^ Harvard Dictionary of Music, p. 463
  12. ^ Atlas, p. 431-432
  13. ^ Atlas, 432ff
  14. ^ Brown, 221-224
  15. ^ James Haar, Anthony Newcomb, Grove (1980)
  16. ^ Harvard Dictionary of Music, p. 463
  17. ^ Brown, p. 224-5
  18. ^ Einstein, Vol. I, p. 391
  19. ^ Brown, p. 228
  20. ^ James Haar, Anthony Newcomb, Grove (1980)
  21. ^ Reese, p. 406
  22. ^ James Haar, Anthony Newcomb, Grove (1980)
  23. ^ Newcomb, 1980, pp. 54-55
  24. ^ James Haar, Anthony Newcomb, Grove (1980)
  25. ^ Atlas, pp.636-638
  26. ^ Harvard Dictionary of Music, p. 463
  27. ^ James Haar, Anthony Newcomb, Grove (1980)
  28. ^ Einstein, Vol II, p. 688ff
  29. ^ Bianconi, Carlo Gesualdo, Grove online
  30. ^ James Haar, Anthony Newcomb, Grove (1980)
  31. ^ Einstein, Vol II, p.867-71


[edit] External links