Madrigal

Origins and early madrigals#

The madrigal is a musical composition that emerged from the convergence of humanist trends in 16th-century Italy. First, renewed interest in the use of Italian as the vernacular language for daily life and communication, instead of Latin. In 1501, the literary theorist Pietro Bembo (1470–1547) published an edition of the poet Petrarch (1304–1374); and published the Oratio pro litteris graecis (1453) about achieving graceful writing by applying Latin prosody, careful attention to the sounding of words, and syntax, the positioning of a word within a line of text. As a form of poetry, the madrigal consisted of an irregular number of lines (usually 7–11 syllables) without repetition. Second, Italy was the usual destination for the oltremontani (“those from beyond the Alps”) composers of the Franco-Flemish school, who were attracted by Italian culture and by employment in the court of an aristocrat or with the Roman Catholic Church. The composers of the Franco-Flemish school had mastered the style of polyphonic composition for religious music, and knew the secular compositions of their homelands, such as the chanson, which much differed from the secular, lighter styles of composition in late-15th- and early-16th-century Italy. Stylistically, the music in the books of Arcadelt and Verdelot was closer to the French chanson than the Italian frottola and the motet, given that French was their native tongue. As composers, they were attentive to the setting of the text, per Bembo’s ideas, and through-composed the music, rather than use the refrain-and-verse constructions common to French secular music.

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 Sack of Rome (1527) and the Siege of Florence (1529–1530) diminished that city’s significance as a musical centre. In addition, Venice was the music publishing centre of Europe; the Basilica of San Marco di Venezia (St. Mark’s Basilica) was beginning to attract musicians from Europe; and Pietro Bembo had returned to Venice in 1529. Adrian Willaert (1490–1562) and his associates at St. Mark’s Basilica, Girolamo Parabosco (1524–1557), Jacques Buus (1500–1565), and Baldassare Donato (1525–1603), Perissone Cambio (1520–1562) and Cipriano de Rore (1515–1565), were the principal composers of the madrigal at mid-century. 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. 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). From Rore’s musical language came the madrigalisms that made the genre distinctive, and the five-voice texture which became the standard for composition.

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.

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. In the 1620s, Gesualdo’s successor madrigalist was Michelangelo Rossi (1601–1656), whose two books of unaccompanied madrigals display sustained, extreme chromaticism.

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 monodic and concertato styles 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.

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 soprano and the bass line; functional tonality developed, and treated dissonance freely for composers to emphasise the dramatic contrast among vocal groups and instruments. The 17th-century madrigal emerged from two trends of musical composition: (i) the solo madrigal with basso continuo; and (ii) the madrigal for two or more voices with basso continuo. In England, composers continued to write ensemble madrigals in the older, 16th-century style. In the Eighth Book of Madrigals (1638), Monteverdi published his most famous madrigal, the Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, a dramatic composition much like a secular oratorio, featuring musical innovations such as the stile concitato (agitated style) that employs the string tremolo. In the event, the evolution of musical composition eliminated the madrigal as a discrete musical form; the solo cantata and the aria supplanted the solo continuo madrigal, and the ensemble madrigal was supplanted by the cantata and the dialogue, and, by 1640, the opera was the predominant dramatic musical form of the 17th century.

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 catch clubs and glee clubs, leading to an upsurge of interest in the form and creation of musical institutions such as the Madrigal Society, which was established in London by attorney and amateur musician John Immyns in 1741. In the 19th century, the madrigal was the best-known music from the Renaissance (15th–16th c.) consequent to the prolific publishing of sheet music in the 16th and 17th centuries, even before the rediscovery of the madrigals of the composer Palestrina (Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina).

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 chanson disallowed the development of a French-style madrigal; nonetheless, French composers such as Orlande de Lassus (1532–1594) and Claude Le Jeune (1528–1600) applied madrigalian techniques in their musics.

Trecento madrigal#

• Francesco Landini
• Jacopo da Bologna

Early composers#

• Jacques Arcadelt – I Libro a 4, 1543. Author of the most reprinted book of madrigals.
• Francesco Corteccia – court composer to 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
• Antonio Caldara
• Antonio Lotti
• 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#

• Samuel Wesley
• Thomas Attwood Walmisley
• Joseph Barnby
• John Wall Callcott