Italian Madrigal | Music 101 - Lumen Learning

Home » Where Was The Madrigal First Developed » Italian Madrigal | Music 101 - Lumen Learning

Maybe your like

Skip to main content Music 101

Medieval & Renaissance

Search for:

Italian Madrigal

It’s time to move from the sacred music heard in churches and cathedrals to the secular music performed for entertainment at court. Though there were many kinds of secular pieces, we’re going to focus on the genre that became the most popular by the end of the Renaissance, the madrigal.The madrigal not only surpassed the other genres of secular vocal music of the day in popularity, it also contributed to the development of opera in the early Baroque. We’ll learn first about the madrigal in its country of origin: Italy. A later reading assignment will discuss the evolution of the madrigal in England, where the genre changed to suite English tastes.

Read this article on Italian Madrigal. Please read the “Background” section carefully. You can skim through the section on composers until you reach the last paragraph that deals with late Renaissance composers. That last paragraph deals with one of the composers we’ll study in more detail—Claudio Monterverdi—so give that paragraph a careful read. Then finish this reading off by reading “Texture” and “Text” in the section on “Musical Style.”

Candela Citations

CC licensed content, Original
  • Authored by: Elliott Jones. Provided by: Santa Ana College. Located at: http://www.sac.edu. License: CC BY: Attribution
Licenses and Attributions CC licensed content, Original
  • Authored by: Elliott Jones. Provided by: Santa Ana College. Located at: http://www.sac.edu. License: CC BY: Attribution
Previous Next

Tag » Where Was The Madrigal First Developed