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Madrigaal

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Genre

Madrigaal · In Florence in the 1520s and 1530s, northern composers such as Philippe Verdelot and Jacques Arcadelt wrote part-songs on Italian poems, often in the spirit of Petrarch. This is how the madrigal arose, for four or five singers who let every word be heard. Sighs, tears and dying received a sound of their own, with grating harmonies and sudden silences. With Monteverdi and Gesualdo, the madrigal became ever more dramatic around 1600.

Listening

Listening tip. In Arcadelt's Il bianco e dolce cigno, about a swan that dies singing, listen to how the four voices mostly sing the same syllables together, so that you can understand every word, and how, at the closing line about dying a thousand times, they enter one after another.

See also

Categories: Genres