Madrigal

The “madrigal” of the 14th century

See the detailed article Madrigal of Trecento

The term of madrigale appeared for the first time at the 14th century, period Italian of the Ars nova. It was a profane form of poetry in which the role of the music was limited, subjected to the verbal expression. The appearance of the first madrigaux ones corresponded to the poetic rise taken in Italy as of the end of the 13th century, thanks to Pétrarque, Dante and Boccace, and answered at the same time the innate taste of the Italians for the melody and vocal virtuosity. Its exact origin is as discussed as its etymology. One thinks however that it could come from a progressive transformation of the term cantus materialis , in opposition to that of cantus spiritualis .

To a poem of two, three or four stanzas of three worms including/understanding each one seven or eleven feet and finished by a ritornello , corresponded a musical composition in two sections, one reserved for the stanzas, the other, shorter, with the ritornello, a finale being used as conclusion. The polyphony with two or three votes, rather elementary since it was generally reduced to parallel fifths and Unisson S, left the primacy to the left higher, very decorated and enriched by many singing exercise S. the most former madrigalist appears to have been Casella (death before 1300), friend of Dante which speaks about him in an episode of the Purgatory, but whose no work is preserved. On the other hand, the manuscript of the Vatican “Rossi 215” indicates that the madrigal knew its greater vogue about 1330-1340. Thanks to this document published without name of author, one found those which contributed to its creation: Giovanni da Cascia, known as Jean of Florence (first third of the 14th century), Piero, Jacopo da Bologna. As for the organist plugs Francesco Landini (1325 approx. - 1397), most famous representing of Ars nova florentine, it is regarded as the “Italian Machaut”.

Then the fashion of the madrigal decreased quickly, and it disappeared from the music during all the 15th century.

The golden age of the madrigal: the 16th century

The musical form which, appeared for the first time under the name of madrigale in 1510, was so brilliantly to illustrate the 16th musical century of which it remains one of the characteristics, has of another bond with that of Ars nova only the name and a certain spirit linking poetry and music. Its evolution was inflected by the social and human phenomenon consisted the movement of the Renaissance. The primacy of the individual on the universal one involved a discovery of the diversity of the human feelings and, consequently, psychology. At the same time, escaping from the religious influence, the profane expression continued to lead to a design of the role of the music in connection with its new public. Thus, already broken with the practice of the motet of church has cappella, the madrigalists went, under the influence of this new spirit, to give to Italy the “chamber music” of which the immediate vogue that she knew is the best proof than she met a true need.

Born from the subtle change of a composition to three or four votes of popular nature, the frottola , combined with a more rigorous Harmony inherited the Flemish polyphony, the madrigal are an absolutely free pipe fitting, on subjects profane - pastoral, sentimental, even erotic. The continuous musical composition marries the poem, without structure or versification preestablished on the level of the words as well as of the general direction. The chromatism with expressive goal succeeds the diatonism, allowing more subtlety. The counterpoint combining up to eight differentiated votes, of equal importance, combined with an achieved science, ensures the balance of the unit. One all in all attends the blooming of a form of art higher than the type-setter applies to texts of high-quality. It is one of the reasons for which the Italian language played a crucial role and held a place of foreground in the European culture.

It was enough one century - three generations - so that the madrigal answers its destiny, i.e. cease completely to exist after having reached with its achievement. How to explain this fate, if different from that of the Continuation of dances, for example, which gave rise to the form Sonate and to its derivative and sudden of the misadventures which ensured its perpetuation until modern times?

An “experimental” kind

Formed in Italy starting from foreign elements, since its creators were generally of Flemish origin, the madrigal became a specifically Italian expression, illustrated with such a magnificence that he exerted in his turn a capital influence on the foreign music. But the work of the madrigalists, if perfect that it was, ressortissait primarily with the experimental field, caused by this spirit of research which applied to all the levels of the composition: the knowledge of the human heart, hitherto very limited, generated new expressions which required in their turn of the new and effective formulas musical able to answer the various restorations, in the fields sound, harmonic, melody. The freedom even of this form made it possible each Compositeur to give free course to its invention and to be devoted unconstrained to all the possible experiments. Thus, to refine the expression, the lines of song became purer and more elegant, the polyphony grows rich, the harmony gained in subtlety, in particular by an increasingly erudite use of the chromatism. This technical control then allowed an in-depth work on the reports/ratios of the word and the music.

Thoroughly, as if they ground the various parts of a new tool, the creative madrigalists of the lyric and dramatic style prepared the opera of which they improved the elements, leaving it to their successors to assemble them. Having answered so that one waited of him, the kind did not have any more a raison d'être.

Claudio Monteverdi

The history of the Italian madrigal can be summarized very whole in the work of Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643). Entered as of its beginnings on one level and in a masterly way the field of the traditional polyphony, he was very quickly regarded as the largest “modern” type-setter of his time. Its eight books the madrigaux one are a sum of this kind and correspond to the essential phases of its evolution.

PRIMA prattica , including/understanding the first four books, consists of an exploitation of the resources of the traditional polyphonic style, imported by the foreign madrigalists who had settled at the beginning of the century in Italy: Costanzo Festa (1480 approx. - 1545), Philippe Verdelot (1470 approx. - front 1552), Jacques Arcadelt (1505 approx. - approx. 1568), Adrian Willaert (1490 approx. - 1562) and Cyprien de Rore (1516 approx. - 1565); creators of an expressive musical style, they had released the properly Italian character of what one had called since 1530 the “new madrigal”.

The assisted prattica (books V and VI) mark the rupture with the tradition and inaugurates a revolutionary position, direct consequence of the step of the type-setter to arrive at the dramatic ideal which it set. All the harmony and bold language, which seem today as many flashes of genius, appeared debatable, if not contestable then. One was not accustomed yet to as well freedoms taken with the rules of the polyphony, as Monteverdi transcends, exceeds at only end to serve the dramatic significance. To do this period belong of large Italian madrigalists such as Claudio Merulo (1533-1604), Palestrina (1525-1594), Marc' Antonio Ingegneri (1547 approx. - 1592), Andrea (between 1510 and 1515-1586) and Giovanni Gabrieli (1557? - 1612), Philippe de Monte (1521-1603), Orazio Vecchi (1550 approx. - 1605, which, with Amfiparnasso, gave a kind of musical interpretation of the Commedia dell' arte ) and especially Luca Marenzio (1553 or 1554-1599) and Carlo Gesualdo (1560 approx. - 1613), which carried to their perfection all the characters stylistics of the madrigal up to that point outlined.

The stile concitato (animated style) of books VII and VIII devotes finally the triumph of the monodie accompanied, and Monteverdi took care to specify its matter in the foreword of the book VIII where he says in particular: “The innovative spirits will be able to seek new things relating to the harmony and to acquire the certainty which the modern type-setter builds his works while basing himself on the truth. ”

The polyphonic madrigal, forsaken with the profit of the instrumental polyphony, henceforth becomes a kind of cantata dramatic, even of small opera. The most accomplished prototype is perhaps It combattimento di Tancredi E Clorinda (the Combat of Tancrède and Clorinde); it marks the starting point of a renewal whose Monteverdi let foresee the width: “It appeared insane to me to state that it is of me that research first and the first tests in this kind came, if necessary for the musical art and fault of which one can say honestly that this art was remained imperfect until now since there were only the two kinds, namely the soft one and the moderate one. ” One had already arrived in 1638, the madrigal was going from now on to be erased in front of the progress which it itself had brought, not without to have caused a flowering of masterpieces, in particular in England where all large type-setters - William Byrd (1543 approx. - 1623), Thomas Morley (1557 approx. - 1602?), Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625), Peter Philips (1560 or 61-1628), Thomas Weelkes (1576 approx. - 1623), John Wilbye (1574-1638) - illustrated themselves in this kind that they adapted to their own universe by mingling an aristocratic style with completely popular accents.

If it is now with the row of one completed time the most glorious witnesses, the madrigal, by its history even, appears of a curious topicality. Indeed, exact prototype of the spirit of search and renewal for its time, it can be considered, at least in its spirit, as having played in its time a part comparable with that of experimental works which we currently know. Except for the difference, however, that each one of these pages was a work in oneself, whereas “Movements”, “Fragments”, “Thingummies” seem to us generally a dubious draft of a future music. But it is not impossible only, when it profits from the prospect due to the retreat and the selection for time, the abundant apparently disordered musical production of these last decades will appear related to a unit and a logic which it is still impossible to foresee. It is probable that the whole of the components of the new music will leave this apparent disorder then, just as three centuries an essential share of music is from the crucible made up at the 16th century by the madrigal.

Source

Copy article of France Yvonne Bril in Encyclopedia Universalis.

External bonds

Translations in English of madrigaux of the Fourth Book of Monteverdi http://marshall.charles.googlepages.com/home6

Simple: Madrigal

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