The Art of Music. Vol. 01 (of 14), A Narrative History of Music. Book 1, The Pre-classic Periods / A Comprehensive Library of Information for Music Lovers and Musicians

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III

Adrian Willaert (1480-1562), the founder of the so-called Venetian school, whose activities as a church composer we shall recount in the next chapter, is generally considered the father of the new madrigal. Though others went before him, it was he who endowed it with the freshness and vitality which made its extraordinary vogue possible. Master Adrian, says Ambros, ‘found in the smaller frottole of a Marco Caro and others many noble, serious expressions of sentiment. This colorit, this peculiar tone, he retained, together with the manner of treating Italian verse; but in place of the timid, poor and often clumsy technique of the Italians he applied to them the entire Netherland mastery of accomplished counterpoint—and the madrigal was ready.... The madrigal was to express only the pure and the profound. The cor gentile was the center of this poetry and music—the heart moved by noble love, with its joys and pains, its love, hope, longing, suffering and anger. The ‘tone’ of the madrigal is ever one of tender emotion, never of vehement passion.... It should never burst out in unbeautiful, violent expressions.’ Analyzing one of his madrigals, Riemann say that ‘on the whole there is so much originality, so much individual endeavor, that the lack of flowering fancy and warm blood is willingly overlooked. We feel as one does in the case of moderns, for instance Berlioz, that we are in the presence of a distinguished personality.... Willaert is great by virtue of the various impulses that he gave, as teacher, as eminent artist, but not really because of his compositions. If we compare him to the passionate Verdelot, the daring Arcadelt, the solemn Festa, the supple Gero, or the genial Rore, commanding all the nuances of expression, any one of these will be found more telling, but ... in all of the works of these, his pupils, we find the traces of his genius.’ Riemann has here named the greatest of the madrigalists, some of whom we must now consider further. They were all not only learned contrapuntists, but consummate masters of style, as is shown by the restraint with which they applied their skill, and they have left us works ‘which for purity of style and graceful flow of melody can scarcely be exceeded.’

Philippe Verdelot’s madrigals appeared even before those of Willaert (1538), but few have been preserved with all parts complete. He probably lived in Italy during 1525-1565 (Florence and Venice). His second book of five-part madrigals appeared in 1536 and in the same year Willaert published lute arrangements of Verdelot’s madrigals. Besides nine books of madrigals (four to six parts) he left motets for up to eight parts and a large mass, Philomena.

But the success of his madrigals was even surpassed by those of Jacques Arcadelt. A native of the Netherlands (b. 1514), the latter died in Paris after 1557. He appears as singer at the court of Florence from 1540 to 1549, when he became one of the papal singers of the Sistine Chapel in Rome and singing master to the boys at St. Peter’s. Besides compositions which appeared in miscellaneous collections, he published independently five books of four-part madrigals (1537-1544), another for three parts, all of which went rapidly through many editions, besides three masses and a book of motets. One of his madrigals, Il bianco et dolce cigno, a notable example of the style, is reprinted by Burney.[110] The well-known Ave Maria, which has been edited by Sir Henry Bishop and transcribed by Liszt, is now thought to be of doubtful authorship.

Constanzo Festa, of Rome (where he was papal chapel singer from 1517 till his death in 1545), the first Italian representative of the imitative vocal style in church composition, is with Willaert and Verdelot the originator of the new madrigal; his Amor che mi consigli, published in 1531, even points to him as the first in the field. His works are distinguished by rhythm, grace, elegance, simplicity and purity of harmony. Burney further assures us that ‘the subjects of imitation in it are as modern, and that the parts sing as well as if they were a production of the eighteenth century.’ His madrigal Quando ritrovo la mia pastorella (‘Down in a Flow’ry Vale’) was for a long time the most popular piece of its kind in England. He was less happy in his motets, in which he followed the absurd custom of setting the voice to different texts. A celebrated Te Deum by him is still sung by the pontifical choir upon the election of a new pope. Festa attained the dignity of maestro at the Vatican, being at that time the only Italian to hold such a position.

The most distinguished pupil of Willaert was Cipriano di Rore (b. ca. 1516 at Mechlin or Antwerp). After leaving Willaert’s tutelage in Venice he went to the court of Hercules II at Ferrara in 1542, where, in the same year, his first book of madrigals was brought out. After sundry travels in his native country, he was made maestro di capella to Duke Ottavio Farnese at Parma, returning to Venice as Willaert’s successor upon the latter’s death. He enjoyed great distinction as a composer of originality—of his ecclesiastical works we shall speak in Chapter X. As a composer of madrigals and ricercari (see Chap. XI, p. 356) he followed in his master’s footsteps. Eight books of four to five-part madrigals, published from 1542 to 1565, of which the four-part ones were issued in score form in 1577 as an aid to the study of counterpoint, constitute the bulk of his secular works. It will be well to mention here that Monteverdi, a half century later, acclaimed ‘the divine Cipriano di Rore’ as the founder of the new art, because of his endeavors in establishing the supremacy of melody.[111]

Luca Marenzio (b. near Brescia, 1550-1560) was probably the most distinguished of all the madrigalists, though he by no means limited himself to this field. His contemporaries called him il piu dolce cigna (the sweetest swan), divino compositore, etc., and he enjoyed the highest musical eminence. About 1584 he was maestro to Cardinal d’Este, later at the court of Sigismund III of Poland received the unusual salary of 1,000 scudi, and was organist of the papal chapel in Rome from 1585 till his death in 1594, caused, it was said, by a broken heart because of his love for a relative of Cardinal Aldobrandini whom he could not marry. His printed compositions comprise no less than eighteen books of madrigals (4 to 6 voices) and many ecclesiastical works.

Of further names we need only mention Constanzo Porta, of Padua (1530-1601); Giovanni Croce, of Venice (1557-1609); Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli (of whom we shall speak in a later chapter); Claudio Merulo, of Correggio (1553-1604), and Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa (1560-1614), ‘the most daring and most genial harmonist of the sixteenth century,’, and finally the princely Lassus and the great Palestrina himself, as a few of the endless host of madrigal writers. Not thousands, but tens of thousands of madrigals were composed in this period; it was the accepted medium for the expression of every poetic idea, every pretty sentiment. People sang madrigals at home and abroad, in society and for private pastime; in short, its popularity has not been surpassed even by the modern song.