Madrigal

Several voices set love poetry, with the words leading the harmony.

Related

RenaissanceMadrigalWord PaintingVoice

The Renaissance madrigal is one of the few secular polyphonic genres, setting love poetry, satire and nature for several voices. The meaning of the words shapes the music.

Origins

Italy had a fourteenth-century madrigal, but the new madrigal began again in Florence and Venice in the sixteenth century. Petrarch's sonnets supplied the texts, and Arcadelt, Marenzio and Gesualdo set them for four to six voices. Printing made madrigal books bestsellers; Musica transalpina carried the Italian madrigal to England in 1588, where Morley and Weelkes took it up.

Listening features

Four to six voices usually sing unaccompanied, imitating one motive and then separating. Composers paint the words: a sigh falls by a second, flight becomes a quick run, death brings a sudden silence or a chromatic turn. Rhythm follows the poem rather than a fixed bar. Later madrigals add continuo, and the top voice becomes more prominent.

Composers and works

Marenzio's Solo e pensoso sets a Petrarch sonnet with restraint. Gesualdo's Moro lasso uses chromaticism and broken harmony to magnify pain. Monteverdi's Ecco mormorar l'onde imitates waves, while Morley's Now is the Month of Maying shows the lighter English side.

Lineage

It grows from the fourteenth-century madrigal and frottola and leads to the English madrigal, the madrigal comedy and early opera; the continuo madrigal points toward the cantata.

Misconceptions

A madrigal is not a shepherd's folk song; its texts are mostly literary poetry. It is not necessarily unaccompanied, since later examples use continuo. Nor is it always sad: lively dance-like pieces are common.

Sources

• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry "Madrigal" — definitions checked, not quoted
• Tim Carter, Music in Late Renaissance and Early Baroque Italy (Amadeus, 1992) — repertory checked, not quoted

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.