Madrigal is a form of vocal chamber music that originated in Northern Italy during the

14th century, it declined and all but disappeared in the 15 th century, flourished anew in the 16 th,
before being transplanted in England where it had a final flowering and ultimately achieved its
international status in the late 16th and early 17th century. It is written during Renaissance and
early Baroque eras. It is originally an Italian polyphonically and revived as a looser polyphonic
form. Both earlier and later madrigals were monostrophic and dealt with nature and love.
(Palisca, Claude V., 1974)

It is a piece about several solo voices set to a short poem, usually about love using the
vernacular language. Madrigals are usually sung during courtly social gatherings and meetings
of learned and artistic societies. Lute and harpsichord are mostly used as accompaniment to the
madrigal. Since lute is one of the most popular instrument during the renaissance period. Lute is
a stringed instrument with a pear-shaped body that has frets and a varying number of strings.
(Banzon Victoria, 2005)

During the 12th and 13th centuries, the lyric poet or poet-musicians of France are called
the troubadours and trouveres. Troubadours are the lyric poets in the northern part of France
while those that are writing in the southern part of France are called trouveres. Troubadours are
usually noble and have a high social status but they could come from any social background as
long as they conformed to courtly love and courtly ideals. Their main topic is usually about love,
in various aspects and styles. They also wrote songs that are strophic. Its principal genres are
canso which is a courtly love song, dansa, a mock-popular song based on dance form, descort
which is a discordant in verse form or feeling, escondig, a lover’s apologia, gap that means
challenge, pastorela which is an amorous encounter between a knight and a shepherdess, a
plank or a lament, sirvantes which is a satirical poem written in local language and set to music
from a borrowed melody, tenso, partimen and joc-partit, that are songs of debate and last are
vers which is an early term used by the troubadours. (Banzon Victoria, 2005)

The French of the trouveres are not standard but more of a collection of the related and
regional languages. Their traditions are like those of the troubadours and parallel exist.
Including the fact that it is an essentially courtly poetry celebrating love or fine armor in a refined
mode of expression. (Banzon Victoria, 2005)

The earliest example of madrigal dated from 1520’s in Italy and 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 origin of the term
madrigal is uncertain, but many believe that it came from the Latin word matricale which means
“in the mother tongue”. (Cane Mark A., 2007)

The 14th century madrigal is usually consists of a variable number of 11- syllable lines,
arranged as either two or three tercets, always followed by a couplet known as ritornello. The
musical form mirrors the poetic structure exactly: the tercets consistently share the same music,
while that of the ritornello is different. The tercets can be sung to a single florid music over a
bass that can be sung or played, while the ritornello was simpler in terms of musicality and often
played in constrasting meters. The poem is generally divided in two or three parts. The main
melodic interest is concentrated in a top voice, which is more florid than the other parts. The
lower part was sometimes sung but more often played in instruments. A typical two stanza
madrigal has an AAB form with both stanzas (AA) being sung to the same music, followed by a
one- or two-line coda (B), or concluding phrase, the text of which sums up the sense of the
poem. (D’ Accone, Frank A., 1998)

Florence, where a new style of lyric poetry influenced the madrigalists, produced the
greatest madrigal composer of the 14th century, Francesco Landini. His madrigals along with
those of his contemporaries Giovanni da Cascia, Jacopo da Bologna and others are found in
the Squarcialupi Codex, a famous illuminated manuscript. (Cane Mark A., 2007)

During most of the 15th century, Italian music was dominated by the foreign artists mainly
from northern France and the Netherlands. In the late 15 th century, however, the native tradition
and poetry was revived by the noble patronage in Mantua and Florence. The Florentine carnival
song and the Mantuan frottola, a type of secular song, were important forerunners of the 16 th
century madrigal. Although the early frottola poems that are made does not have any literary
value, in some of the later frottola poetry with higher literary value began to appear. (Cane Mark
A., 2007)

The humanists of the Renaissance, led by Pietro Cardinal Berobo, sought to improve the
quality of poetry being set to music by reviving the madrigal. Putting aside the popular, often
obscene, poetry used in the frottola, composers went to back to 14th century sonnets and
canzones of Petrach or to be contemporary poets who imitated his manner but in a loose
succession of 7- and 11- syllable lines in irregular rhyme schemes. Soon, the polyphonic setting
of any serious poems was called madrigal. The non-repetitive nature of the poetry obliged
composers to give each line its own music, permitting them to characterize the mood and
meaning of each. (Palisca, Claude V., 1974)
 The 16th century madrigal is based on a different poetic form from its predecessor; it
includes not only the settings of poems called madrigals but also settings of other poetic forms
such as canzone, sonnet, sestina and balata. The poetic form of the madrigal proper is
generally free, but quite similar to that of a one- stanza canzone: typically, it consists of a 10-
line stanza or 7 or 11 syllables per line, with the last two lines forming a rhyming couplet. The
16th century madrigal is also characteristically of higher literary quality than its immediate
predecessors. The favorite poets of the madrigal composers are Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio,
Jacopo Sannazzaro, Pietro Bembo and Ludovico Ariosto. (Cane Mark A., 2007)

Unlike the 14th century madrigal, the musical style of the new madrigal was increasingly
dictated by poem. Early in the century the madrigal more closely resembled the simple,
homophonic style of the frottola. But under the influence of the polyphonic style of Franco-
Flemish composers working in Italy, it became more contrapuntal, and the text, accordingly, was
less syllabically declaimed. Both of these early styles are represented among the works of the
first generation of 16th century madrigal composers. Examples of the new madrigal began
appearing as early as 1520’s, but a volume with a madrigal in its title was not printed until 1530.
More than 3000 such volumes were published the next century. (Cane Mark A., 2007)

The earliest composers of the revived madrigal included the Italian Costanzo Festa and
the Franco-Netherlanders Philippe Verdelot, Adrian Willaert and the celebrated Jacob Arcadelt,
whose works were reprinted many times. Another Franco-Netherlander, Cipriano de Rore was
the first to use chromatic harmony as a means of further enhancing the texts. (D’ Accone, Frank
A., 1974)

Madrigals were written for as few as three or as many as eight parts, although a four-
part texture were generally prepared before 1550, a five-part thereafter. They were often sung
by solo voices, one to a part, but were also performed with instruments that are either
substituted for some of the voices or doubled the various parts. (D’ Accone, Frank A., 1998)

Adrian Willaert developed a more learned style, using much fugal imitation, without
sacrificing the expression. In his Aspro core e selvaggio (a sonnet of Petrarch), he succeeded in
paralleling the poet’s description of Laura – her “harsh heart and cruel will” and her “sweet
angelic face” – through major chords and wider intervals for the first image and minor chords
and half steps for the melody of the second. Efforts such as these to render the poetic images
harmonically and also graphically led to a style that has been called “mannerism”. (D’ Accone,
Frank A., 1998)
 Adrian Willaert’s pupil Cipriano de Rore brought the madrigal to a new height of
expression through their sensitive handling of text declaration and the introduction of word
painting. Emotional words such as joy, anger, laugh and cry were given special musical
treatment but not at the expense of continuity. Another Willaert pupil, Andrea Gabrieli, was one
of the creators of Venetian style, in which polychoral or multiple choir effects and brilliant contrst
of musical texture are characteristics. Perhaps the greatest madrigal composer of the 16 th
century was Luca Marenzio, who brought the madrigal in to perfection by achieving a perfect
equilibrium between words and music. Later in the century composers like Don Carlo Gesualdo,
prince of Venosa, subjugated the music entirely to text, leading to the excesses that eventually
exhausted the genre. (Cane Mark A., 2007)

The final phase of the madrigal in the late 16 th and the early 17th century, is characterize
by extreme chromaticism, harmonic and rhythmic disassociation of small bits of texts and music
and vocal virtuosity, as in the works of Giaches de Wert, Luzzasco Luzzaschi and Carlo
Gesualdo. Claudio Monteverdi was particularly daring in employing dissonances not practiced in
stricter contrapuntal styles, as in his famous Cruda Amarilli. He also apllied the term madrigal to
pieces for one or few voices accompanied by a thorough bass of lutes, harps and harpsichords
and sometimes featuring solo parts for violins. Strophic poetic forms among these compositions
showed that the term now embraced serious Italian vocal music in general. (Palisca, Claude V.,
1974)
Introduction

Christmas time is a day that we always look forward to. It is a time wherein everyone is
happy and the virtue of generosity is always present. We also look forward to the happy
Christmas songs or carols that are usually lively and about the birth of Christ. So during the
renaissance period carols and carolers are also present singing madrigals.

Madrigal is a poem or music that originated in Italy during the 14 th century, declined in
15th and was revived during the 16th or 17th century. It is a song that shows the sentiments of
each poetic lines and verses. It is about love and is usually sung in the vernacular language. It
is usually a solo piece with different variations of sounds. It is usually accompanied by the
instruments used during the renaissance period specially the lute. The 16 th century madrigal is
freer than the 14th century. Many musicians contributed on the revival of the madrigal and most
of them used the techniques of Petrach.

The madrigal are mostly concentrated in Italy and France but bloomed in England and
also reached other countries like Germany.
Summary

Madrigal is a type of poetic music in which two or more voices sing separate melodies to
a literary text. Madrigals are generally sung with one voice per part without instrumental
accompaniment but if it has, it is usually a lute which is a popular type of stringed instrument
during the renaissance period.

In France, madrigals are usually composed and sung by the troubadours and trouveres.
Their music is about love in every aspects and styles. The troubadours usually have a high
social status and regarded as a noble. They can come from any level of social status as long as
they know the ideas of the court as well as the courtly love. The trouveres doesn’t necessarily
used the standard language but used the regional languages.

Madrigals in the Italy refer to the 14th century and the 15th and 16th century. The 14th
century madrigals are about pastoral love texts with two or more voices, but this type died out
during the 15th century and were revived during the 15 th and 16th century which is freer in terms
of its stanzas than the first one. It is refined and has a more serious tone. By the mid-16 th
century the madrigals became more complicated. They are characterized by as many as six
different lines sung simultaneously often in imitation of each other. A close connection existed
between the music and emotional content of the word.

While English madrigals took on their own characteristics, including frivolous lyrics and
refrains from non-sense syllable.
Analysis reflection

Madrigal is a very important type of music during the 13th – 17th century in the western
part of the world. Just like any other type of music that is created during the early times, it
influenced the modern type of music now a day. It is usually sung in occasions such as social
gatherings and meetings of an artistic society, which shows that it is an important part of their
culture and shows their beliefs and tradition. Their musicians are regarded as a high member of
the society and are considered nobles. This shows that during the early times, people gave high
respect to music and must only be composed and sung by the people who learned courtly
ideals and courtly love. Since a person who composed madrigal knows this kind of virtue then
the song itself is complex and full of emotion.

Madrigal’s main topic is usually about love in various aspects and styles. It shows the
technicality of their music during the renaissance period. It also represents the love of the
composer to its own region and language since it usually uses the vernacular language. It also
shows the evolution of the poems to music since it starts with the poetic lines being sung by a
person without accompaniment. While the madrigal itself evolves too, from its composition, its
content and to the way it was sung, everything was also changed to satisfy the needs and wants
of the listeners or audiences. In Italy, madrigal declined and died out for at least a century until
composers try to change it and deliver it differently but still influenced by the styles of the early
composers. It died out maybe because of the lack of complexity and evolution at that time, also
it may be because the listeners eventually get tired of the same music every now and then.

Now madrigals are still present and are continuously evolving, it is now usually sung
during Christmas and shows love in terms of giving and sharing as well as thanking God for
giving us a savior.
References

Books

Banzon V., Bautista J. & Josephine C. (2005). Exploring with MAPEH. Manila, Vibal Publishing
House Inc.

Encyclopedia

Signed

Cane Mark. “Madrigal.” The World Book Encyclopedia. Volume 13. Chicago. World Book Inc.
2007

D’ Accone, Frank. “Madrigal.” Academic American Encyclopedia. Danbury. Grolier International

Palisca, Claude. “Madrigal.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Volume 6. Chicago. Encyclopædia

Unsigned

“Madrigal.” The Encyclopedia Americana. Danbury. Grolier International Inc. 1981

Research in Mapeh

Madrigal (music)

Submitted by:

Maila Angela Benrado

Submitted to:

Mrs. Cynthia Aape

August 5, 2010