Madrigal
The Madrigal, ballett and ayre
All three of these styles are peculiar to the Renaissance period and represent the three major styles of secular (non-religious) music of the period. This was the music of the privileged classes, the nobility and the rich.
Madrigal
| Lassus 1532 - 1594 | Willam Byrd 1543 - 1623 |
|---|---|
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Interest in this style of composition arose after the publication in 1588 of a book of Italian madrigals with translated English words. Listen to such an example by the composer Lassus, ‘The echo’. This is built on the antiphonal style of composition favoured in Italy in church music of the time and consists of two groups: a main choir with an echoing smaller group. This example is sung by an amateur choir. Notice the homophonic singing and the antiphonal (echo) effects.
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(Singers from the National Youth Choir of Scotland)
English composers took up the style and produced many examples of the madrigal. A most important feature of these compositions was that they were through composed, usually with texts based on mythology, were contrapuntal in style with the voices interweaving with one another and usually contained passages of word painting, where the music illustrates the meaning of a particular word. For instance, the word ‘shake’ might be illustrated by trills, running by descending scales and so on. In other respects the story of the music was often reflected in the sound: death or sadness by a minor key and discords, and happiness by a bright major key and a dance-like style. A major collection of these works, ‘The Triumphs of Oriana’, was first published in 1601 and contains 29 madrigals by 26 different composers of the time. Listen to ‘As Vesta was from Latmos Hill descending’ by Thomas Weelkes. This contains all the main features of a madrigal of this time. Sung by four voices, there is much counterpoint and word painting. Listen for phrases such as ‘running down amain’, descending scales, ‘two by two’ with two voices, ‘three by three’ with three voices and so on.
Listen to the entire madrigal.
Now listen to another example, ‘All creatures now are merry, merry-minded’. As you would expect from the title, this is in a bright-sounding major key with much word painting, imitation and counterpoint.
Ballett
This was a light-hearted madrigal that was strophic in style (verse repeating and the same music for each verse), with each verse ending with a fa-la chorus.
The music was often more homophonic in style (more chordal) than the madrigal proper above. Listen to an example of a verse from Thomas Morley’s ‘Now is the month of maying’.
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Listen to another short example with a mix of homophonic and polyphonic writing and a fa-la chorus at the end.
Ayre
John Dowland was the most prolific writer of this style of composition. Ayres were most frequently performed by a solo singer accompanied by a lute. However, the music was written as a solo line on one page of a book with the harmony on the facing page. As a result these works were also performed by solo singer and instruments such as viols or with the harmony parts sung by other voices. Here is an example of one of the best known of these works, ‘Come again sweet love’. This is often sung as a solo with lute accompaniment but in this excerpt the solo line is clearly heard while the harmony parts are sung by other voices along with a lute.
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For other examples of the solo versions visit solo song.