Madrigal, << MAD ruh guhl, >> is a type of music in which two or more voices sing separate melodies to a literary text. Madrigals generally are sung with one voice per part and without instrumental accompaniment.
The term madrigal is applied to two types of Italian songs. The first developed in the early 1300’s. Most had pastoral (rural) love texts, with melodies for two or three voices. This type died out by the middle 1400’s. In the early 1500’s, a new musical and poetic form developed. The texts to these madrigals were refined, serious poems. By the mid-1500’s, madrigals had become more complex. They were characterized by as many as six different musical lines sung simultaneously, often in imitation of each other. A close connection existed between the music and the emotional content of the words.
By the early 1600’s, the madrigal had become almost obsolete in continental Europe. However, the form became popular in England following the publication of a collection of Italian madrigals with English words called Musica Transalpina (1588). English madrigals took on their own characteristics, including frivolous lyrics and refrains of nonsense syllables.
