You might have noticed that I made a "rough draft" of an essay for music history in my blog. Well, I decided that it really helped me figure things out, so I'm doing it again with the development of the Italian madrigal.
Yeah...so pretty much after that whole chant to motet ordeal, music started heading in a pretty sick direction. In the 15th century, people were starting to question the Church a bit and start writing to appease the human ear. It was a "return to the values of antiquity," which was essentially returning to humanistic values. The uninelligability of the polyphonic music coming up to that point was getting pretty damn annoying because of that whole "more than one text at a time" business. It's like that Tide pen commercial. The stupid annoying stain kept talking and talking when the guy was answering questions in his interview. How rude! But they finally saw the light and decided to remove the stain and compose with just one text (though in more than one voice). There was a focus on understanding the text (what a novel concept), a movement that involved writing the music based on the text (Before, they would fit the text in "as best as [they could]") and eventually let to word painting, which I'll explain later.
One of the main guys who got this whole thing going was John Dunstable (yep! You guessed it. He's English). He had this crazy good motet tune called "Quan pulchra es," which was pretty graphic. He based the music ENTIRELY on the text, which is adapted from the Song of Solomon 7:4-12. The first half of the piece is basically describing the sexiness of some chick (sorry to all readers of the Old Testment btw for my lack of knowledge on the meaning/story in the original text). Then, the music stops. Having lured the woman, the speaker/singers simply say(s) "Veni," or "come." (Anyone remember the movie Waiting? Yeah, it's your basic "Come on...") Then he tells her what they're going to do, which is pretty much sex. What's most interesting about this piece is that it, first of all, treats the tenor as an equal. No more holding notes forever and chillin' all the time. Now they get to start working hard. Secondly, the piece is largely homophonic and the voices sing together in the mostly same rhythms.
Well, the thing about Dunstable is he's English. Nothing against the English, but in order for anything to happen you gotta get off the Isle. The important thing about that piece back there was that it was written in 1430, which was during the time he was in the service of Duke of Bedford and chillin' in France after the English pounded the French. What? France isn't on the Isle! It's on the continent. And it's hella (yes, I just said hella) close to...oh wait, it's in the Franco-Flemish region. Why is that significant? Because he's not surrounded by a freaking body of water, that's why! Alright, so the English are occupying France and Dunstable's music takes off. The people are like "wow! That's crazy awesome. Let's put it in French and call it a chanson." Even though they didn't call it that yet.
Then came some Franco-Flemish composers like Guillaume Dufay and his successors. He's most famous for his "Missa L'homme Arme," which is a parody mass (as funny as 15th cent. masses are NOT, a parody mass is just a mass based on a borrowed theme) based on a folk song called "L'homme Arme." All the movements are tied together by that theme, giving it the label of a cyclic mass. The deal with him was that, though he was Flemish, he did the much of his work in Italy serving under several Italian families.
Whoa! I bet you were wondering when Italy would be mentioned in an essay about the Italian madrigal. There it is. You know why those Franco-Flemish musicians liked Italy? Because they liked cash and that's where the cash was. (We can thank the Mediterranean Sea for that one because of its wonderful ability to transport merchants and supplies.) But hey, doesn't every musician like Italy? Yeah! Because Italy likes us.
Then, the 16th century happened! Eleven years after the invention of the printing press (thx Guttenberg!), Ottaviano Petrucci adapted it to music notation, making music easier and cheaper to publish. He published the "Odhecaton," a series of publications of polyphonic works. The issue with this printing method was that it used "triple-impression printing," a very long and laborious way to print the music. One mistake meant starting over. So in 1528, Pierre Attaingnant adapted the technology further by making a "single-impression" music printing press.
Because of Petrucci's printing press, a Flemish composer Josquin des Prez became the rockstar of his period. Many of his works were among those published in anthologies and sold as sheet music for amateur musicians. Everyone knew about him. Total badass, right? So if you want him to be in your service, he's gonna charge a lot and act like a douche. But it's worth it. The thing with him is that his music took that whole idea of applying the text to the music to the extreme. His later chansons, one in particular called "Mille Regretz," held a more homophonic quality than his early work, a quality which lended itself nicely to the sad text in "Mille Regretz." Another crazy thing is that it's through-composed, following no form, written beginning to end in that order. But wait, that wouldn't be a chanson then, would it? Here's where the new definition of a chanson plays in: the chanson, originally a work with a specific form and based on the trouvere tradition, became simply "a polyphonic work on a French secular text."
Well, you'd imagine that those Italian families would get tired of hearing masses & chansons in French, so composers started writing in "the mother language" of Italy: Italian. (Who'da thunk it?) And so the Italian madrigal was born. That's it. Madrigal (Italian) is just a word for chanson (French), which is just a word for motet (Latin). Yeah, annoying isn't it? Yeah, well Jacques Arcadelt took Josquin's style and applied it to the Italian madrigal. His "Il bianco e dolce cigno," about "dying," a nice little euphemism for sex. Then, Cipriano de Rore took the idea of the Petrarchan sonnet (if you have to ask, you can't afford it :P actually, it's just a 14-line poem with a specific rhyme scheme and rhythmic quality) and applied it to music. He also uses the text to dictate certain concepts in the music (and beautifully, I might add).
When the madrigal finished the cycle in England during the reign of Elizabeth, it flourished as a ballett (yeah, we changed languages to English, so it's time to change the name again). This is also when the whole "fa la la la la" crap showed up in music. You know why? English isn't Italian and no one wanted to translate the text. (Lazy bastards. Now I'm stuck with that crap in "Deck the Halls.") The whole composing according to the text thing took a ridiculous turn at this point and developed into a concept called word painting (basically a madrigalism, because it started in the madrigal). Basically if I say "up," the music goes up. If I say "all," every voice plays. If I say "alone," one voice plays. See how corny and exaggerated it gets? Yeah.
So ultimately, I love the Italian madrigal, specifically during the time of the late 15th century and early 16th century, because it just kicks ass. That's when the music meant something. Before that, it was too consonant and lacking in emotion. After that, it was too retardedly cheesy. But the development of it all is a very interesting process because of the cycle from England to France to Italy and back to England.
That is all, kill me now...for now I edit all the bullshit stuff I said out :D
