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MADRIGAL (Ital. madrigale)
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See also:MADRIGAL (Ital. madrigale) , the name of a See also:form of See also:verse, the exact nature of which has never been decided in See also:English, and of a form of vocal See also:music.
(1) In Verse.—The See also:definition given in the New English See also:Dictionary, " a See also:short lyrical poem of amatory See also:character," offers no distinctive See also:formula; some madrigals are See also:long, and many have nothing whatever to do with love. The most important English collection of madrigals, not set to music, was published by See also: The See also:idea of compliment is essential. J. F. See also:Guichard (1730–1811) writes:
Orgon, polite marital,
A See also:Venus compare sa femme;
C'est pour la belle un madrigal,
C'est pour Venus une epigramme.
This See also:quatrain emphasizes the fact that in French a madrigal is a trifling piece of erotic compliment, neatly turned but not seriously meant. The See also:credit of inventing the old French verse-form of madrigal belongs to See also:Clement See also:Marot, and one of his may be quoted in contrast to that of Drummond:
Un doux nenni avec un doux sourire
Est tant honneste, il le See also:vous faut apprendre;
Quant est de-oui, si veniez a le dire,
D'avoir trop dit je voudrois vous reprendre;
Non que je sois ennuye d'entreprendre
D'avoir le See also:fruit dont le desir me point;
Mais je voudrois qu'en ne le laissant prendre,
Vous me disiez: vous ne l'aurez point.
In English, when the word first occurred—it has not been traced farther back than 1588 (in the See also:preface to See also:Nicholas See also:Yonge's Musica transalpina)—it was identified with the See also:chief form of See also:secular vocal music in the 16th century. In 1741 See also: Thus Josquin's Deploration de Jehan Okenheizn (see Music) might equally well be called a madrigal or motet, if the word " madrigal " were used for compositions to French texts at all. But by the middle of the 16th century the Italian supremacy in music had See also:developed the madrigal into the greatest of secular musical forms, and made it See also:independent of the form of the words; and thus when See also:Lasso sets Marot's madrigals to appropriately witty and tuneful music he calls the result a " chanson "; while when See also:Palestrina composes Petrarca's Sonnets to the Virgin in memory of Laura,, the result appears as a See also:volume of Madrigali spirituali. Elegiac madrigals, whether spiritual or secular, were thus as See also:common as any other See also:kind; so that when the Musica transalpina brought the word " madrigal " to See also:England it brought a precedent for the poet Drummond's See also:melancholy type of madrigal See also:poetry. Italian madrigals, however, are by no means always elegiac; but the See also:term always means a highly organized and flowing polyphonic piece, often as developed as the motet, though, in the mature classical See also:period, distinct in See also:style. Yet masses were often founded on the themes of madrigals, just as they were on the themes of motets (see See also:MASS; MOTET); and it is interesting, in such beautiful cases as Palestrina's Missa gia fu chi m'ebbe cara, to detect the slight See also:strain the mildly scandalous origin of the themes puts upon the ecclesiastical style. The breaking strain was put on the madrigal style at the end of the 16th century, in one way by the new discords of See also:Monteverde and (with more musical invention) Schutz; and in another way by the brilliant musical character-See also:drawing of Vecchi, whose Amfiparnasso is a veritable comic See also:opera in the form of a set of fourteen madrigals, all riotously witty in the purest and most masterly polyphonic style. It was probably meant, or at least made use of, to laugh down the earliest pioneers of opera (q.v.); but it is the beginning of the end for the madrigal as a living art. Long afterwards we occasionally meet with the word again, when a 17th or 18th century composer sets to some kind of accompanied singing a poem of madrigalesque character. But this does not indicate any continuation of the true musical See also:history of the madrigal. The strict meaning of the word in its musical sense is, then, a musical setting of an Italian or English non-ecclesiastical poem (typically a canzone) for unaccompanied See also:chorus, in a 16th-century style less ecclesiastical than the motet, but as like it in organization as the form and sentiment of the words admit. The greatest See also:classics in the madrigal style are those of See also:Italy; and but little, if at all, below them came the English. The form, though not the name, of course, exists in the 16th-century music of other See also:languages whenever the poetry is not too See also:light for it. It is important but easy to distinguish the madrigal from the lighter 16th-century forms, such as the Italian villanella and the English See also:ballet, these being very homophonic and distinguished by the strong lilt of their See also:rhythm. The madrigal has been very successfully revived in See also:modern English music with a more or less strict adherence to the 16th century principles; the compositions of De See also:Pearsall being of high See also:artistic merit, while the Madrigals spirituale in See also:Stanford's See also:oratorio See also:Eden is a See also:movement of rare beauty. (D. F. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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