Unger M.P. Historical Dictionary of Choral Music

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MADRIGAL. A vocal composition of Italian origin for several

voices, usually polyphonic in texture, with a secular text that is

often amorous, satirical, or allegorical. The term is applied to two

different and unrelated historic genres. The first is a poetic form

with its musical setting that flourished in northern Italy during the

14th century (see ITALIAN TRECENTO). The second is the more

familiar genre of the 16th century, which achieved international

status by 1600.

The Trecento madrigal is usually for two or (very occasionally)

for three voice parts. Its polyphonic texture is usually nonimitative

(although canonic examples do occur) and melismatic (especially

in the top voice). The text consists normally of two or three stanzas,

each with three lines of seven or 11 syllables and set to repeating

music, followed by a short ritornello. It was cultivated in northern

Italy (especially in Florence) by Giovanni da Cascia, Gherardello da

Firenze, and Jacopo da Bologna, and to a lesser extent, by Francesco

Landini (in whose hands the polyphonic ballata eclipsed the madri-

gal) and Johannes Ciconia, among others. Examples of these early

forms are found in the Squarcialupi Codex, a beautifully illuminated

manuscript. The genre disappeared about 1415.

The madrigal of the 16th and 17th centuries is related to its

Trecento counterpart only in name. Unlike the 14th-century form, it

embraced a wide variety of text types. It appears to have developed

at least partly from the frottola (1480–1530) and was influenced by

the contemporaneous French chanson. Although its construction

employs points of imitation in the manner of the motet, its overall

character is lighter. Early madrigals (written between 1530 and 1545)

tend to resemble frottole. They are basically chordal, with sections

in triple meter. Most are for four voices, diatonic, and with no real

word-painting. However, they are somewhat more polyphonic than

frottole, and are through-composed. The melody is also more free

than a normal frottola melody.

The madrigal’s early development was strongly influenced by the

ideas of Cardinal Pietro Bembo (1470–1547), a poet and literary

theorist who was instrumental in establishing the Italian language

(especially in its Tuscan form—the vernacular of Francesco Pe-

trarch, Dante, and Boccaccio) as a literary language, equal in stand-

ing with Latin. He exemplified his ideas by writing poetry modeled

after Petrarch (1304–1374)—establishing the principle of literary

272 • MADRIGAL

imitation in general, and reviving the poetry of Petrarch in particular.

As a result, texts became more serious.

With a few exceptions such as Sebastiano and Costanzo Festa

(active in Rome), the first important composers of Italian madrigals

were foreigners: Philippe Verdelot (active in Florence), Adrian

Willaert (in Venice from 1527), and Jacques Arcadelt (Florence

and Rome). At first Verdelot was seen as the leader of the new genre,

but after the publication of Arcadelt’s four-voice Primo libro around

1538 (now lost), his works eclipsed all others in popularity. By the

mid-1540s madrigals were so popular in Italy that almost every na-

tive composer was cultivating the genre.

After 1525 Petrarchism was particularly cultivated in Venetian

literary salons, resulting in a great flowering of madrigal composition

in that city. The leading composer was Willaert, maestro di cappella

at San Marco (St. Mark’s Basilica). Although he published a volume

of villanesche in 1545, his first madrigals (together with some mo-

tets, for four to seven voices) were not published until 1559. Willaert,

and especially his followers (mostly native Italians, the most famous

of whom was Cypriano de Rore), brought the madrigal to new

levels of expressiveness through careful text declamation and word-

painting. Most madrigals were now for five voices. Rore was the

leader of this expressive trend, employing a new system of rhythmic

notation (which allowed for greater rhythmic contrast), a wider range

of texts, and a more chromatic harmonic language. With more than

100 madrigals to his credit, many of which were reprinted numerous

times, he became the most famous madrigalist of his time. Cycles of

madrigals also became popular.

Other composers who followed in Willaert’s footsteps included

Philippe de Monte, the most prolific composer of the genre with

more than 1,000 madrigals for three to seven voices in 39 extant

volumes (including 5 collections of madrigali spirituali); Orlande

de Lassus, who composed nearly 260 madrigals and some villanel-

las; and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who composed both

traditional madrigals and madrigali spirituali. Additional significant

madrigal composers of the time included Baldassare Donato (Ven-

ice), Vincenzo Ruffo (Verona and Milan), Alessandro Striggio

(Florence), Costanzo Porta (Osino and Padua), Claudio Merulo

(Venice), Andrea Gabrieli (Merulo’s Venetian colleague, who

emphasized transparent textures in madrigals for three voices and

MADRIGAL • 273

timbral contrasts in works for five to 12 parts), Giovanni Gabrieli

(Venice), and Giaches de Wert (Mantua and Ferrara).

Some of these composers also cultivated a lighter, hybrid style

(employing lighter, often pastoral texts), which incorporated aspects

of the canzona or villanella. Among them were Giovanni Gabrieli,

Orazio Vecchi (who was instrumental in establishing the madrigal

comedy), and composers in Rome, among them, Giovanni Ma-

ria Nanino, Felice Anerio, and Luca Marenzio. In the course of

time, the distinction between the canzona and the madrigal became

blurred, so that by the 1580s there was little stylistic difference be-

tween the two. In a similar vein, Giovanni Gastoldi (Mantua), wrote

lighter madrigals with “fa-la-la” refrains, called balletti, which were

imitated by later English composers.

After 1580 madrigals became highly expressive, mannered, and

often virtuosic. This change can be heard in Wert’s last five books

of madrigals (1581–95), in which he moved away from the poetry of

Petrarch to more emotional texts. In these works, a sense of balance

is absent: changes are so dramatic that continuity is undermined.

Instead of prevailing imitative polyphony, Wert employs duos and

trios in dialogues, chordal passages with the top voice predominant,

parlando (recitation) style, and written-out ornamentation.

This trend toward the theatrical was cultivated by Luca Marenzio

(Rome), Luzzasco Luzzaschi (Ferrara), Carlo Gesualdo (Ferrara),

and Claudio Monteverdi (Mantua and Venice), though in somewhat

different ways. Marenzio published 17 volumes of madrigals, which

were widely disseminated. For his effective use of a wide array of

technical devices (including much word-painting) within a concise

framework, and his success at bringing literary and musical dimen-

sions into equilibrium, he is often considered the greatest madrigalist

of the 16th century. In attempts at greater dramatization of intense

texts, composers such as Luzzaschi and Monteverdi began violating

traditional rules of counterpoint. In a defense of his work, Monte-

verdi argued that he was seeking to make music the servant of the

words, and called this approach a “second practice.” Carlo Gesualdo

(who referred to Luzzaschi as his mentor), wrote six books of mad-

rigals in an increasingly unrestrained style, characterized by extreme

chromaticism and formal fragmentation. The increasing virtuosity

of many of these madrigals and the emphasis on the dramatic went

hand in hand with a trend toward professional performance; such

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madrigals also became the polyphonic precursors to the recitatives

of the next century.

Other madrigal composers of the 17th century included Felice

Anerio, Antonio Cifra, and Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583–1643),

all in Rome. Composers outside of Italy who cultivated Italianate

madrigals or related genres included, in Spain, Francisco Guerrero

(Canciones y villanescas espirituales); in German-speaking territo-

ries, Antonio Scandello, Lassus, Jacob Regnart, Jacobus Handl,

Leonhard Lechner, Hans Leo Hassler, and Johann Grabbe; in the

Lowlands, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck; and in Denmark, Mogens

Pedersøn and Hans Nielsen.

Monteverdi published nine books of madrigals, which show the

style change from the polyphonic ideal of the 16th century to the

melody- and bass-dominated textures of the Baroque, with their

implied functional harmonies. In his fifth book of madrigals (1605)

he began introducing the basso continuo as an optional support in

traditional madrigals and as an essential component in six concerted

madrigals (i.e., works with independent instrumental parts). While

Salamone Rossi had published continuo madrigals already a few

years earlier, Monteverdi’s concerted madrigals were apparently the

first of their type. Such works quickly became popular after 1600.

Composers included Vecchi, Giulio Caccini, Adriano Banch-

ieri, Heinrich Schütz, Hans Leo Hassler, and Johann Hermann

Schein. The structural support of a continuo bass in these works

allowed composers to feature duets and trios (the combinations of

two sopranos or two tenors was especially favored), a trend that led

to the solo madrigal, and ultimately to the Florentine Camerata’s

experiments with monody.

England enthusiastically embraced the Italian madrigal at the end

of the 16th century. Evidently, the initial impetus came from Alfonso

Ferrabosco (an Italian composer working at the court of Elizabeth

I from 1562 to 1578), from the cultivation of the sonnet sequences

based on Italian models (which provided texts conducive to setting

as madrigals), and from Nicholas Yonge’s 1588 publication, Musica

Transalpina, a collection of Italian madrigals, fitted with English

translations. The book was modeled after a madrigal anthology

entitled Musica divina, issued in Antwerp five years earlier, which

contained 57 madrigals, primarily by Italian composers, including

Marenzio, Palestrina, and Ferrabosco. More anthologies followed

MADRIGAL • 275

(including a second volume of Musica Transalpina). Some were

devoted to Italian works in translation, others featured madrigals by

native composers.

While the English madrigal was modeled after Italian models of

the 1570s, a few differences can be noted. In particular, they em-

ployed lighter poetry and a simpler musical language to make them

appealing to the middle class for use in the home.

Although their overall output was small compared to that coming

out of Italy, most English composers of the time wrote madrigals, the

most significant being Thomas Morley, Thomas Weelkes, and John

Wilbye. Unlike his compatriots, William Byrd, the most famous

English composer of the time, resisted Italian trends, and though

some of his pieces resemble madrigals, he never called them by that

name. Morley, on the other hand, embraced the Italian style whole-

heartedly, becoming, in effect, the “Father of the English Madrigal.”

Many of his works are still part of the standard choral repertoire.

Since he held a monopoly on music printing after 1596, he was able

to help establish the English madrigal as a distinct genre, particularly

with his 1601 publication, The Triumphes of Oriana, a collection

of madrigals by 23 composers in honor of Queen Elizabeth. More

serious madrigals for five and six voices were written by Weelkes,

Kirbye, and Wilbye. Other important English madrigal composers

included John Dowland, Orlando Gibbons, Francis Pilkington,

John Farmer, John Ward, Thomas Tomkins, John Bennet,

and Peter Philips (who lived and published in the Netherlands but

regarded himself as English). Lesser figures included Thomas Bate-

son (c. 1570/75–March 1630), Richard Carlton (c. 1558–?1638),

Michael Cavendish (c. 1565–1628), Michael East (c. 1580–1648),

Giles Farnaby (c. 1563–1640), John Jenkins (1592–1678), Robert

Jones (fl. 1597–1615), George Kirbye (d. 1634), Henry Lichfild (fl.

1613), and Thomas Vautor (fl. 1600–20).

While not adopting the newer Italian trends, English composers

continued to write madrigals through the 1620s, long after the genre

in its traditional form had gone out of fashion on the Continent

(having yielded to the melody and bass-dominated textures of the

Baroque). Thereafter the madrigal passed out of vogue in England

rather suddenly.

Madrigals were originally performed with one singer to a part in the

context of private social gatherings. However, public performances

276 • MADRIGAL

with instrumental accompaniment (sometimes in connection with

dramatic events) also occurred. These encouraged more elaborate solo

writing, as well as simpler, choral textures. Instrumental participation

was widespread, ranging from simple doubling of the vocal lines to

substituting for some of them. Intabulations of madrigals were also

common. While the madrigal repertoire is not, strictly speaking, cho-

ral music, it has been claimed by amateur chamber ensembles ever

since the advent of catch and glee clubs.

MADRIGAL COMEDY. A series of light madrigals or similar secular

vocal pieces, which outlines a story or depicts a group of characters.

Examples of the former include Orazio Vecchi’s L’Amfiparnaso

(1597) and Le veglie di Siena (1604), and Adriano Banchieri’s

La pazzia senile (1598), Il studio dilettevole (1600), Il metamorfosi

musicale (1601), and Prudenza giovenile (1607, reissued with minor

revisions in 1628 as Saviezza giovenile). Examples of the descrip-

tive form include Alessandro Striggio’s Il cicalamento delle donne

al bucato (1567), Giovanni Croce’s Triaca musicale (1595), and

Banchieri’s Barca di Venetia per Padova (1605)

MADRIGALE SPIRITUALE. A madrigal-like setting of an Italian

(occasionally Latin) devotional text, intended for nonliturgical use.

Fashionable during the Counter-Reformation, madrigali spirituali

were performed in private homes and in oratories. Some were con-

trafacta; others paraphrased biblical or liturgical texts. Compos-

ers included Costanzo Festa, Adrian Willaert, Vincenzo Ruffo,

Cypriano de Rore, Giovanni Animuccia, Philippe de Monte,

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Francisco Guerrero, Orlande

de Lassus, Luzzasco Luzzaschi, Luca Marenzio, Felice Anerio,

Carlo Gesualdo, Giovanni Francesco Anerio, and Claudio Mon-

teverdi, among others. See also LAUDA.

MADRIGALIAN VERSE. In the context of the German church can-

tata

, it refers to the poetry that Erdmann Neumeister introduced in

1700, which was suitable for recitatives

and da capo arias. Such texts

are called “madrigalian” because the rules for their composition were

the same as those for the Italian madrigal. These had been outlined al-

ready in 1653 by Caspar Ziegler (1621–90), a friend of both Heinrich

Schütz and Johann Rosenmüller: no fixed number of lines (usually

from seven to 11, rarely fewer than five or more than 16); line lengths

MADRIGALIAN VERSE • 277

of six or 10 lines for masculine endings, seven or 11 for feminine ones;

freedom of rhyme scheme (some unrhymed lines, but no more than

three in succession); iambic meter for the most part; and renunciation

of strophic structure. Whether or not such “madrigals” by post-Ziegler

poets directly influenced the operatic recitative is unclear. But after

Ziegler pointed out the relationship between the two genres, the terms

“madrigal verse” and “recitative” were usually equated. Neumeister’s

description of the recitative is very similar to Ziegler’s of the madrigal,

and Neumeister also acknowledged the similarity between the two

poetic genres.

MADRIGALISM. See WORD-PAINTING.

MAESTRO DE CAPILLA. The music director of a Spanish chapel

or church. See also MAESTRO DI CAPPELLA; MAÎTRE DE CHA-

PELLE; KAPELLMEISTER.

MAESTRO DI CAPPELLA. The music director of an Italian chapel

or church. See also MAESTRO DE CAPILLA; MAÎTRE DE CHA-

PELLE; KAPELLMEISTER.

MAGDALEN COLLEGE CHOIR. Anglican chapel choir of Magda-

len College at Oxford University. Founded in 1480, the choir consists

of 16 boy choristers (educated at Magdalen College School) and 12

adult academical clerks (undergraduates of the college). While the

choir records and tours, its main focus is providing music for daily

services.

MAGNIFICAT. The canticle of Mary, the mother of Jesus, found in

Luke 1:46–55. It is named after the first word of the Latin translation:

“Magnificat anima Mea Dominum” (My soul magnifies the Lord).

During the Medieval era, it became part of the Roman Catholic

Vespers liturgy (sung at the end of the service, with a framing anti-

phon), while Eastern Orthodox churches used it in morning services.

After the Protestant Reformation, it continued as part of Vespers in

the Lutheran liturgy, and Evensong in the Anglican rite.

Originally it was chanted to canticle tones (similar to psalm tones),

the choice of which was determined by the prescribed antiphon.

Polyphonic settings became especially popular in the Renaissance

and Baroque eras, when the Magnificat became the most commonly

set Latin text other than the Ordinary of the Mass. Since a Magni-

ficat setting had to match the mode of the accompanying antiphon,

278 • MADRIGALISM

composers often wrote several, sometimes arranging them in cycles

of eight (one for each tone).

The style of the Magnificat changed over time. During the 15th

and 16th centuries, the text was commonly treated verse by verse in

alternatim, the even-numbered verses being set polyphonically, the

odd-numbered ones left as chant. With some exceptions (notably,

parody works and compositions by English composers), settings of

the Magnificat employed the canticle tone (or at least its outline) as

a cantus firmus.

Important composers of the genre to 1600 include John Dun-

stable, Guillaume Dufay, Gilles Binchois, Orlande de Lassus,

and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, among others. Lassus was

especially prolific, with more than 100 settings to his credit (of which

about 40 are based on material other than the traditional chant).

After 1600 composers brought theatrical and concertato effects

to bear on the genre. The most notable settings of the early Baroque

include the two that end Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespers (1610),

and Heinrich Schütz’s work, SWV468 (before 1665). In the later

Baroque, the sectional structure of concertato style in the Magnificat

evolved into a sequence of discrete arias and choruses, as exempli-

fied by the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonio Vivaldi.

In the Classical era, composers often took a symphonic approach,

obscuring the verse structure in through-composed settings that

sometimes repeated music (to different sets of words) for formal

reasons. The sixth and final movement of Wolfgang Amadeus

Mozart’s Vesperae solennes de Confessore, K. 339 (1780), in which

the entire Magnificat text is cast in sonata-allegro form, is a case in

point.

While composers of the Romantic era were less interested in the

genre, those in the 20th century showed renewed interest, though

employing different approaches (resulting in works that vary greatly

in scale and complexity). Composers who wrote Magnificat settings

included Ralph Vaughan Williams (1925 and 1932), Alan Hov-

haness (1958), Lennox Berkeley (1968), Krzysztof Penderecki

(1974), and Arvo Pärt (1989).

MAHLER, GUSTAV (7 JULY 1860–18 MAY 1911). Austrian com-

poser and conductor, renowned for his large-scale symphonies and

song cycles. A great admirer of Richard Wagner, he held significant

conducting posts with opera companies in Kassel (1883–85), Prague

MAHLER, GUSTAV • 279

(1885–86), Leipzig (1886–88), Budapest (1888–91), and Hamburg

(1891–97), before becoming conductor of the Vienna Court Opera

(1897–1907). From 1898 to 1901 he also conducted the concerts of

the Vienna Philharmonic. In each position, his dictatorial manner

and uncompromising idealism invariably generated conflict, but also

raised musical standards. During his later Vienna years, he frequently

absented himself to conduct premieres of his own symphonies in

other cities. From 1908 to 1910 he conducted at the Metropolitan

Opera in New York, and from 1909 he conducted the New York

Philharmonic.

Despite his career as an opera conductor, Mahler’s compositions

are all symphonic, and are programmatic in orientation—motivated

by a quasi-religious impulse to establish a subjective foundation for

living in a world of pain and despair. Characterized by unconven-

tional orchestration and an intense rhetorical manner in which ironic

use of familiar material plays an important role, they were not fully

appreciated during his lifetime, but came into their own during the

turbulent latter half of the 20th century.

Four of his compositions involve the chorus. The dramatic cantata

Das klagende Lied, for S, A, T, [B], mixed vv., and orch. (1878–80,

rev. 1893, 1899), is one of his earliest surviving works. Mahler him-

self wrote the libretto, which is based on a fairy tale. He originally

conceived the work in three parts; later he excised the first part, and

it was the two-part version that he conducted in the work’s 1901 pre-

miere. The role of the chorus (for which Mahler wrote taxing music

in eight parts), is to provide commentary in the manner of a Greek

tragedy.

The Second Symphony (Resurrection Symphony) is a five-move-

ment work for S, A, chorus, and orch. (1888–94), in whose final

movement the singers present the first two stanzas of Friedrich Klop-

stock’s “Resurrection” ode with added text by Mahler, capturing the

autobiographical program: that life’s aspirations are not in vain.

Symphony no. 3, for A, women’s chorus, boys’ voices, and orch.

(1893–96, rev. 1906), is a vast paean to nature in six movements (the

first of which takes up about one-third of the work’s entire duration).

The symphony originally had an additional movement at the end, but

Mahler later removed it as well as the original programmatic titles,

which suggest an ascending journey through a hierarchical universe

from inanimate nature to God in heaven. A women’s chorus and a

280 • MAHLER, GUSTAV

boys’ chorus (representing laughing children and angels) enter in the

surprisingly brief fifth movement with a text from Mahler’s song

cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn.

The only other of Mahler’s 10 symphonies to use choir is the

monumental Eighth, scored for 3 S, 2 A, T, Bar., B, boys’ vv., double

mixed chorus, and orch. (1907). It is in two parts, the first, a huge

contrapuntal setting of the medieval Pentecost hymn “Veni Creator

Spiritus,” the second, a portrayal of the final scene in Wolfgang

Goethe’s Faust. The voices are integral throughout the work, which

expands on the theme introduced in his Third Symphony—that love

is a divine gift, the ultimate agent of exaltation, purification, redemp-

tion, and transfiguration.

MAILLARD, JEAN (FLOURISHED C. 1538–70). French composer.

Few biographical facts about him are known. Most of his works were

published in Paris, indicating that he may have lived there. Surviving

works include five regular masses and one requiem mass. All but

one are for four voices. Three are based on chansons. Of more than

85 motets (mostly for four or five voices), over half are freely com-

posed. The others are based on chants melodies, usually presented

in long notes in the topmost voice. Word-painting is common. Also

extant are 4 Magnificats, an eight-voice Credo, and more than 50

chansons, mostly for four voices.

MAÎTRE DE CHANT. The person responsible for training choirboys

in a French chapel or church. See also MAESTRO DE CAPILLA;

MAESTRO DI CAPPELLA; MAÎTRE DE CHAPELLE; KAPELL-

MEISTER.

MAÎTRE DE CHAPELLE. The music director of a French chapel.

The function is different from that of the Maître de chant. See also

MAESTRO DE CAPILLA; MAESTRO DI CAPPELLA; KAPELL-

MEISTER.

MALIPIERO, GIAN FRANCESCO (18 MARCH 1882–1 AU-

GUST 1973). Italian composer. Having had an inconsistent formal

music education, he studied the works of early Italian masters on his

own, which influenced his own writing. By the end of his life, he had

edited the complete works of Claudio Monteverdi, many volumes

of Antonio Vivaldi’s instrumental works, and individual pieces

by other early Italian composers. His style was also influenced by

MALIPIERO, GIAN FRANCESCO • 281