Madrigal
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A madrigal is a form of
As written by Italianized Franco–Flemish composers in the 1520s, the madrigal partly originated from the three-to-four voice frottola (1470–1530); partly from composers' renewed interest in poetry written in vernacular Italian; partly from the stylistic influence of the French chanson; and from the polyphony of the motet (13th–16th c.). The technical contrast between the musical forms is in the frottola consisting of music set to stanzas of text, whilst the madrigal is through-composed, a work with different music for different stanzas.[5] As a composition, the madrigal of the Renaissance is unlike the two-to-three voice Italian Trecento madrigal (1300–1370) of the 14th century, having in common only the name madrigal,[6] which derives from the Latin matricalis (maternal) denoting musical work in service to the mother church.[2]
Artistically, the madrigal was the most important form of secular music in Italy, and reached its formal and historical zenith in the later 16th century, when the madrigal also was taken up by German and English composers, such as John Wilbye (1574–1638), Thomas Weelkes (1576–1623), and Thomas Morley (1557–1602) of the English Madrigal School (1588–1627). Although of British temper, most English madrigals were a cappella compositions for three to six voices, which either copied or translated the musical styles of the original madrigals from Italy.[2] By the mid 16th century, Italian composers began merging the madrigal into the composition of the cantata and the dialogue; and by the early 17th century, the aria replaced the madrigal in opera.[6]
History
Origins and early madrigals
The madrigal is a musical composition that emerged from the convergence of
Second, Italy was the usual destination for the
Third, the printing press facilitated the availability of sheet music in Italy. The musical forms then in common use — the frottola and the ballata, the canzonetta and the mascherata — were light compositions with verses of low literary quality. Those musical forms used repetition and soprano-dominated homophony, chordal textures and styles, which were simpler than the composition styles of the Franco-Flemish school. Moreover, the Italian popular taste in literature was changing from frivolous verse to the type of serious verse used by Bembo and his school, who required more compositional flexibility than that of the frottola, and related musical forms.[6][8]
The madrigal slowly replaced the frottola in the transitional decade of the 1520s. The early madrigals were published in Musica di messer Bernardo Pisano sopra le canzone del Petrarcha (1520), by
In the 1533–34 period, at Venice, Verdelot published two popular books of four-voice madrigals that were reprinted in 1540. In 1536, that publishing success prompted the founder of the
Mid-16th century
Although the madrigal originated in the cities of Florence and Rome, by the mid 16th-century Venice had become the centre of musical activity. The political turmoils of the
Unlike Arcadelt and Verdelot, Willaert preferred the complex textures of polyphonic language, thus his madrigals were like motets, although he varied the compositional textures, between homophonic and polyphonic passages, to highlight the text of the stanzas; for verse, Willaert preferred the sonnets of Petrarch.[6][11][12] Second to Willaert, Cipriano de Rore was the most influential composer of madrigals; whereas Willaert was restrained and subtle in his settings for the text, striving for homogeneity, rather than sharp contrast, Rore used extravagant rhetorical gestures, including word-painting and unusual chromatic relationships, a compositional trend encouraged by the music theorist Nicola Vicentino (1511–1576).[9][13] From Rore's musical language came the madrigalisms that made the genre distinctive, and the five-voice texture which became the standard for composition.[14]
1550s–1570s
The latter history of the madrigal begins with Cipriano de Rore, whose works were the elementary musical forms of madrigal composition that existed by the early 17th century.
In Venice,
In the 1560s,
Turn of the century
At the end of the 16th century, the changed social function of the madrigal contributed to its development into new forms of music. Since its invention, the madrigal had two roles: (i) a private entertainment for small groups of skilled, amateur singers and musicians; and (ii) a supplement to ceremonial performances of music for the public. The amateur entertainment function made the madrigal famous, yet professional singers replaced amateur singers when madrigalists composed music of greater range and dramatic force that was more difficult to sing, because the expressed sentiments required soloist singers of great range, rather than an ensemble of singers with mid-range voices.
There emerged the division between the active performers and the passive audience, especially in the culturally progressive cities of Ferrara and Mantua. The emotions communicated in a madrigal in 1590, an aria expressed in opera at the beginning of the 17th century, yet composers continued using the madrigal into the new century, such as the old-style madrigal for many voices; the solo madrigal with instrumental accompaniment; and the concertato madrigal, of which Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) was the most famous composer.[6]
In Naples, the compositional style of the pupil Carlo Gesualdo followed from the style of his mentor,
Transition to the concertato madrigal
In the transition from Renaissance music (1400–1600) to Baroque music (1580–1750), Claudio Monteverdi usually is credited as the principal madrigalist whose nine books of madrigals showed the stylistic, technical transitions from the polyphony of the late 16th century to the styles of monody and of the concertato accompanied by basso continuo, of the early Baroque period. As an expressive composer, Monteverdi avoided the stylistic extremes of Gesualdo's chromaticism, and concentrated upon the drama inherent to the madrigal musical form. His fifth and sixth books include polyphonic madrigals for equal voices (in late-16th-century style) and madrigals with solo-voice parts accompanied by basso continuo, which feature unprepared dissonances and recitative passages — foreshadowing the compositional integration of the solo madrigal to the aria. In the fifth book of madrigals, using the term seconda pratica (second practice) Monteverdi said that the lyrics must be "the mistress of the harmony" of a madrigal, which was his progressive response to Giovanni Artusi (1540–1613) who negatively defended the limitations of dissonance and equal voice parts of the old-style polyphonic madrigal against the concertato madrigal.[22][23]
Transition from the concertato madrigal
In the first decade of the 17th century, the Italian compositional techniques for the madrigal progressed from the old ideal of an a cappella vocal composition for balanced voices, to a vocal composition for one or more voices with instrumental accompaniment. The inner voices became secondary to the
The madrigalist Giulio Caccini (1551–1618) produced madrigals in the solo continuo style, compositions technically related to monody and descended from the experimental music of the Florentine Camerata (1573–1587). In the collection of solo madrigals, Le nuove musiche (The New Music, 1601), Caccini said that the point of the composition was anti-contrapuntal, because the lyrics and words of the song were primary, and balanced-voice polyphony interfered with hearing the lyrics of the song. After Caccini's developments, the composers Marco da Gagliano (1582–1643), Sigismondo d'India (1582–1629), and Claudio Saracini (1586–1630) also published collections of madrigals in the solo continuo style. Whereas Caccini's music mostly was diatonic, later composers, especially d'India, composed solo continuo madrigals using an experimental idiom of chromaticism. In the Seventh Book of Madrigals (1619), Monteverdi published his only madrigal in the solo continuo style, which uses one singing voice, and three groups of instruments — a great technical advance from Caccini's simple voice-and-basso-continuo compositions from the 1600 period.[6]
Beginning around 1620, the aria supplanted the monodic-style madrigal. In 1618, the last, published book of solo madrigals contained no arias, likewise in that year, books of arias contained no madrigals, thus published arias outnumbered madrigals, and the prolific madrigalists Saracini and d'India ceased publishing in the mid-1620s.[6]
In the late 1630s, two madrigal collections summarised the compositional and technical practises of the late-style madrigal. In Madrigali a 5 voci in partitura (1638),
English madrigal school
In 16th-century England, the madrigal became greatly popular upon publication of Musica Transalpina in (Transalpine Music, 1588), by Nicholas Yonge (1560–1619) a collection of Italian madrigals with corresponding English translations of the lyrics, which later initiated madrigal composition in England. The unaccompanied madrigal survived longer in England than in Continental Europe, where the madrigal musical form had fallen from popular favour, but English madrigalists continued composing and producing music in the Italian style of the late-16th century.
In early 18th-century England, the singing of madrigals was revived by
Continental Europe
In the 16th century, the musical form of the Italian madrigal greatly influenced secular music throughout Europe, which composers wrote either in Italian or in their native tongues. The extent of madrigalist musical influence depended upon the cultural strength of the local tradition of secular music. In France, the native composition of the
In German-speaking Europe, the prolific composers of madrigals included Lassus in Munich and Philippe de Monte (1521–1603) in Vienna. The German-speaking composers who studied the Italian techniques for composing madrigals, especially in Venice, included Hans Leo Hassler (1564–1612) who studied with Andrea Gabrieli, and Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672) who studied with Giovanni Gabrieli. From northern Europe, Danish and Polish court composers went to Italy to learn the Italian style of madrigal; while Luca Marenzio (1553–1599) went to the Polish court to work as the maestro di cappella (Master of the chapel) for King Sigismund III Vasa (r. 1587–1632) in Warsaw.[6] Moreover, the rektor of the University of Wittenberg, Caspar Ziegler (1621–1690) and Heinrich Schütz wrote the treatise Von den Madrigalen (1653).[28]
Madrigalists
Trecento madrigal
Early composers
- Jacques Arcadelt – I Libro a 4, 1543. Author of the most reprinted book of madrigals.
- Cosimo I de Medici
- Costanzo Festa – I Libro a 3, 1541.
- Bernardo Pisano
- Cypriano de Rore- I Libro a 5, 1542
- Philippe Verdelot – I Libro a 5, 1535. One of the first madrigalists, also associated with the Medici court
- Adrian Willaert – Franco-Flemish composer, founder of the Venetian School
Late Renaissance composers
- Andrea Gabrieli – I Libro a 3, 1575
- Orlando di Lasso
- Francisco Leontaritis
- Philippe de Monte – author of the largest number of madrigal books.
- Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina – famous mostly for his sacred music, he also wrote at least 140 secular madrigals.
- Giovan Leonardo Primavera
At the Baroque threshold
- Camillo Cortellini – I Libro a 5 e 6, 1583
- Carlo Gesualdo – I Libro, 1594
- Sigismondo d'India – I Libro a 5, 1606
- Luzzasco Luzzaschi – I Libro a 5, 1571
- Luca Marenzio – I Libro a 5, 1580
- Claudio Monteverdi – I Libro a 5, 1587
- Giaches de Wert – I Libro a 5, 1558
Baroque madrigalists
The a capella old-style madrigal for four or five voices continued in parallel with the new concertato style of madrigal, but the compositional watershed of the seconda prattica provided an autonomous basso continuo line, presented in the Fifth Book of Madrigals (1605), by Claudio Monteverdi.
Italy
- Agostino Agazzari – I Libro a 5, 1600
- Adriano Banchieri
- Giulio Caccini
- Antonio Cifra – I Libro a 5, 1605
- Sigismondo d'India
- Marco da Gagliano – I Libro a 5, 1602
- Alessandro Grandi
- Marco Marazzoli
- Domenico Mazzocchi – Madrigali a 5, 1638
- Claudio Monteverdi
- Giovanni Priuli – I Libro, 1604
- Paolo Quagliati – I Libro a 4, 1608
- Michelangelo Rossi
- Salamone Rossi – I Libro a 5, 1600. His Secondo Libro, 1602, is the first example of madrigals published with continuo.
- Claudio Saracini
- Barbara Strozzi – I Libro a 2-5vv with bc, 1644
- Orazio Vecchi – I Libro a 6, 1583
Germany
- Hans Leo Hassler – I Libro, 1600
- Johann Hermann Schein
- Heinrich Schütz – I Libro a 5, Venice 1611.
English madrigal school
- Thomas Bateson
- William Byrd
- John Dowland
- John Farmer
- Orlando Gibbons
- Thomas Morley
- Thomas Tomkins
- Thomas Weelkes
- John Wilbye
Some 60 madrigals of the English School are published in The Oxford Book of English Madrigals
English composers of the classical period
19th-century composers
- Robert Lucas de Pearsall
- Vincent d'Indy
20th-century composers
Contemporary
- Gavin Bryars
- George Crumb
- Emma Lou Diemer
- Mauricio Kagel
- Morten Lauridsen
- György Ligeti
- Paul Mealor
- Moondog
- Henri Pousseur
- Ned Rorem
Musical examples
- Stage 1 Madrigal: Arcadelt, Ahime, dov'e bel viso, 1538
- Stage 2 Madrigal (prima practica): Willaert, Aspro core e selvaggio, mid-1540s
- Stage 3 Madrigal (seconda practica): Gesualdo, Io parto e non piu dissi, 1590–1611
- Stage 4 Madrigal: Caccini, Perfidissimo volto, 1602
- Stage 5 Madrigal: Monteverdi, Il Combatimento di Tancredi et Clorinda, 1624
- English Madrigal: Weelkes, O Care, thou wilt despatch me, late 16th century/early 17th century
- Nineteenth-century imitation of an English Madrigal: "Brightly dawns our wedding day" from the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera, The Mikado (1885)
References
Notes
- ^ Hobson, James (2015). Musical antiquarianism and the madrigal revival in England, 1726-1851 (Ph.D.). University of Bristol. Retrieved 2 October 2022 – via EThOS.
- ^ a b c J. A. Cuddon, ed. (1991). The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. p. 521.
- ISBN 0-333-23111-2
- ISBN 0-19-311306-6.
Durchkomponiert (G.) Through-composed; applied to songs with different music for every stanza, i.e. not merely a repeated tune.
- ^ Brown 1976, p. 198
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v von Fischer & et al. 2001
- ^ Atlas 1998, p. 433.
- ^ a b Brown 1976, p. 221
- ^ a b c Randel 1986, p. 463
- ^ Atlas 1998, pp. 431–432.
- ^ Atlas 1998, pp. 432ff.
- ^ Brown 1976, pp. 221–224.
- ^ Brown 1976, pp. 224–225.
- ^ Einstein 1949, Vol. I, p. 391.
- ^ Brown 1976, p. 228.
- ^ Reese 1954, p. 406.
- ^ Atlas 1998, pp. 636–638.
- ^ Campion, Thomas. First Booke of Ayres (1601), quoted in von Fischer & et al. 2001
- ISBN 9781561592630.
- ^ Einstein 1949, Vol II, pp. 867–871.
- ^ The Madrigals of Michelangelo Rossi, Brian Mann, Ed. University of Chicago Press, 2003.
- ^ a b c d Arnold & Wakelin 2011
- ^ Artusi 1950, p. 395.
- OCLC 318558558. Retrieved 3 October 2022.
- JSTOR 733505– via JSTOR.
- JSTOR 3686537– via JSTOR.
- JSTOR 765866– via JSTOR.
- ^ Von den Madrigalen. Leipzig: Digitalisat. 1653.
Sources
- ISBN 978-0-19-957903-7. (subscription required)
- Artusi, Giovanni (1950). "Della imperfezioni della moderna musica". Source Readings in Music History. Translated by Oliver Strunk. New York: W. W. Norton.
- Atlas, Allan W. (1998). Renaissance Music: Music in Western Europe, 1400–1600. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-97169-4.
- Brown, Howard Mayer (1976). Music in the Renaissance. Prentice Hall History of Music Series. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-608497-4.
- ISBN 0-691-09112-9.
- ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription required)
- ISBN 0-674-61525-5.
- ISBN 0-393-09530-4.
Further reading
- Iain Fenlon and James Haar: The Italian Madrigal in the Early 16th Century: Sources and Interpretation. Cambridge, 1988
- Oliphant, Thomas, ed. (1837) La musa madrigalesca, or, A collection of madrigals, ballets, roundelays etc.: chiefly of the Elizabethan age; with remarks and annotations. London: Calkin and Budd
- Choral Public Domain Library contains scores for many madrigals
External links
- Tovey, Donald Francis (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). p. 295. .
- Early Music; free recordings of English Madrigals, free recordings of German Lieder and free recordings of Spanish Madrigals, from Umeå Academic Choir, Academic Computer Club, Umeå University, Sweden
- The Italian Madrigal Resource Center