Madrigals
The madrigal has always had a cherished place with English musicians. It is a form of vocal chamber music that originated in northern Italy during the 14th century, enjoyed a resurgence in the 16th, and ultimately achieved international status in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
Madrigals are usually partsongs, making much use of contrapuntal imitation, and were the most important secular vocal music of their time. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied; the number of voices varies from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six.
They originated in Italy during the 1520s and became hugely popular in England after the publication in 1588 of Nicholas Yonge's Musica Transalpina, a collection of Italian madrigals with English translations. The English Madrigal School that emerged corresponds to what is arguably the richest period of English musical composition. Thomas Morley, the most popular and Italianate of the Elizabethan madrigalists, assimilated the style and adapted it to English taste, which preferred a lighter mood of poetry and of music. Other English madrigalists include John Wilbye, Thomas Weelkes, Thomas Tomkins, and Orlando Gibbons.
One of the more notable compilations of the time was The Triumphs of Oriana, a collection of madrigals compiled by Thomas Morley, which contained 25 different works by 23 different composers. Published in 1601 possibly as a tribute to Elizabeth I of England, each madrigal contains a reference to Oriana, a name used to reference the Queen. The idea was inspired by the Venetian Il Trionfo di Dori of some years before.
Madrigals with multiple verses and fa-la refrains are sometimes called ballets. They are described by Morley as “…songs, which being sung to a ditty, may likewise be danced…. a slight kind of music it is, and as I take it devised to be danced to voices”. Morley’s only book of ballets was published in 1595, in separate English and Italian editions.
Madrigals continued to be composed in England through the 1620s, but the rise of opera and the baroque eventually rendered the style obsolete.
The madrigal has always had a cherished place with English musicians. It is a form of vocal chamber music that originated in northern Italy during the 14th century, enjoyed a resurgence in the 16th, and ultimately achieved international status in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
Madrigals are usually partsongs, making much use of contrapuntal imitation, and were the most important secular vocal music of their time. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied; the number of voices varies from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six.
They originated in Italy during the 1520s and became hugely popular in England after the publication in 1588 of Nicholas Yonge's Musica Transalpina, a collection of Italian madrigals with English translations. The English Madrigal School that emerged corresponds to what is arguably the richest period of English musical composition. Thomas Morley, the most popular and Italianate of the Elizabethan madrigalists, assimilated the style and adapted it to English taste, which preferred a lighter mood of poetry and of music. Other English madrigalists include John Wilbye, Thomas Weelkes, Thomas Tomkins, and Orlando Gibbons.
One of the more notable compilations of the time was The Triumphs of Oriana, a collection of madrigals compiled by Thomas Morley, which contained 25 different works by 23 different composers. Published in 1601 possibly as a tribute to Elizabeth I of England, each madrigal contains a reference to Oriana, a name used to reference the Queen. The idea was inspired by the Venetian Il Trionfo di Dori of some years before.
Madrigals with multiple verses and fa-la refrains are sometimes called ballets. They are described by Morley as “…songs, which being sung to a ditty, may likewise be danced…. a slight kind of music it is, and as I take it devised to be danced to voices”. Morley’s only book of ballets was published in 1595, in separate English and Italian editions.
Madrigals continued to be composed in England through the 1620s, but the rise of opera and the baroque eventually rendered the style obsolete.
The madrigal has always had a cherished place with English musicians. It is a form of vocal chamber music that originated in northern Italy during the 14th century, enjoyed a resurgence in the 16th, and ultimately achieved international status in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
Madrigals are usually partsongs, making much use of contrapuntal imitation, and were the most important secular vocal music of their time. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied; the number of voices varies from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six.
They originated in Italy during the 1520s and became hugely popular in England after the publication in 1588 of Nicholas Yonge's Musica Transalpina, a collection of Italian madrigals with English translations. The English Madrigal School that emerged corresponds to what is arguably the richest period of English musical composition. Thomas Morley, the most popular and Italianate of the Elizabethan madrigalists, assimilated the style and adapted it to English taste, which preferred a lighter mood of poetry and of music. Other English madrigalists include John Wilbye, Thomas Weelkes, Thomas Tomkins, and Orlando Gibbons.
One of the more notable compilations of the time was The Triumphs of Oriana, a collection of madrigals compiled by Thomas Morley, which contained 25 different works by 23 different composers. Published in 1601 possibly as a tribute to Elizabeth I of England, each madrigal contains a reference to Oriana, a name used to reference the Queen. The idea was inspired by the Venetian Il Trionfo di Dori of some years before.
Madrigals with multiple verses and fa-la refrains are sometimes called ballets. They are described by Morley as “…songs, which being sung to a ditty, may likewise be danced…. a slight kind of music it is, and as I take it devised to be danced to voices”. Morley’s only book of ballets was published in 1595, in separate English and Italian editions.
Madrigals continued to be composed in England through the 1620s, but the rise of opera and the baroque eventually rendered the style obsolete.
