Madrigal: the Marriage of Musical Textures

A New Art Form, the Madrigal

The motet of the early sixteenth century still used the cantus firmus technique, but was informed by Josquin's pervasive imitation rather than the poetic form of the stanza of the text. The Franco-Flemish chanson, although it did not use canti firmi but instead substituted newly composed melodic ideas, likewise was structured by pervasive imitation techniques rather than poetic form. In sharp contrast, the frottola, and it derivatives the Parisian chanson and dance music, unfolded in simple strophes sung in a trebled-dominated texture. Instead of the sophisticated imitative polyphonic texture pioneered by Josquin, the musical texture consisted of a soprano melody supported underneath by block chords.

From the point of view of the newly emerging madrigal, however, neither genre wholly suited. The imitative motet texture was too restrictive in expressing the sonnet and its music too rigid and technical to be highly expressive. The frottola texture, while giving the composer free rein in constructing expressive melody, was not sophisticated or interesting enough for art music. Composers drew upon both textures to express the emotive content of the sonnet, switching rapidly from one to another as the text demanded. Imitative expositions no longer shared thematic material. Instead, when imitation was used, each subject was newly composed to express the textual idea. The subjects were not derived from a cantus firmus and no two subjects within a madrigal were related to each other. Once an imitative expostion ceased to serve expressive ends, it immediately gave way to sections of chordal or frottola texture.

Important Madrigal Composers

Early experiments in the first third of the century made apparent that madrigal poetry required a marriage of the two musical textures. In the early part of the sixteenth century, northerners held the important musical posts in Italy. Northern composers working in Italy such as Adrian Willaert (c1490-1562) attempted to assimilate the madrigal, but the music frequently resembled the motet, with polyphonic musical textures that were too busy and heavy to properly treat the poetry. Other northerners such as Franco-Flemish composer Jacques Arcadelt (c1505-c1568) fared better. His madrigals featured square rhythms and homophonic texture that linked them to the frottola. The musical line did not always, however, follow the poetic line, and a pause point in the melody would sometimes occur before the line of text was stated completely.

Italian composers such as Cipriano de Rore (1516-1565) expanded the expressive character of the madrigal in the second generation. The music began to feature a combination of textures, often in alternation in the music, borrowed and reworked from the imitative style of the motet and the chordal motion of the frottola. Imitative procedures were retained, but the concept of a cantus firmus, a pre-existent melody from another often, liturgical source, was wholly abandoned. Instead, melodies were fashioned that expressed the meaning of the text. The melodies could change their contour, rhythmic values, tempo, and even keys to suit the expressive needs of the text. Madrigal melodies often introduced extensive application of chromaticism, that is, the usage of sharps and flats.

To expressive end, composers often took dramatic musical license, called tone or word painting, to create or reinforce pictorial elements of the words. A line "from the highest spire" might be supported by a melody that leaps downward from a high note or the description in the text of a babbling brook might be sung to a running line. The graphic musical representations are also called "madrigalisms." Despite expressive advances and sometimes excesses, the madrigal may be regarded as a hybrid of the two important genres of the period, the motet and the frottola, and their highly individual textures, which composers manipulated in alternation to expressive ends.

Luca Marenzio (1533-99) defined the "classic" madrigal. His efforts took the madrigal to its highest state of development. His music utilized the full arsenal of devices of the madrigal, yet his settings reflected both a finely honed sensitivity to the meaning of the text and sense of restraint and balance. His music was transmitted to England in the Musica Transalpina (1588), the book of Italian madrigals that planted the seeds of the genre among native English composers. Of all Italian madrigal composers, Marenzio exerted the greatest influence upon the English madrigalists, and his sense of balance and expression echoed in the madrigals of the English school. Thomas Weelkes and Thomas Morely were among the most prominent madrigal composers in England.