Everything about Madrigali Spirituali totally explained
A
madrigale spirituale (Italian; pl.
madrigali spirituali) is a
madrigal, or madrigal-like piece of music, with a sacred rather than a secular text. Most examples of the form date from the late
Renaissance and early
Baroque eras, and principally come from
Italy and
Germany.
Madrigali spirituali were almost always intended for an audience of cultivated, often aristocratic amateurs. They were performed at private houses, academies, and courts of noblemen in Italy and adjacent countries, but almost certainly were not used liturgically. The
madrigale spirituale was an
a cappella form, though instrumental accompaniment was used on occasion, especially after
1600.
During the
Counter-Reformation, there was to some degree a reaction against the secularization of the art of music in Italy,
Spain and the southern (
Catholic) portion of Germany. While this didn't stop the composition of secular music—indeed the explosion of forms and styles of secular music continued unabated—many composers began to adapt the most advanced secular compositional forms to religious usage. On occasion, existing madrigals were merely fitted with a religious text, usually in Latin, without any other change (such adaptations are called "contrafacta"). But some of the madrigali spirituali reached heights of expressive and emotional intensity at least equal to that of the finest madrigalists in their secular compositions.
The form was probably encouraged by the
Jesuits; some collections were dedicated to them, especially in the
1570s and
1580s.
Some famous examples of
madrigali spirituali include
Lassus's sublimely beautiful
Lagrime di San Pietro (
Munich,
1595);
Guillaume Dufay's
Vergine bella, (ca.
1470) setting a poem in praise of the
Blessed Virgin Mary by
Petrarch;
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina's
First Book of Madrigals (
1581), also setting Marian poems by Petrarch;
Carlo Gesualdo's Tenebrae Responsories (
1611); and the huge collection by
Giovanni Francesco Anerio,
Teatro armonico spirituale (Rome,
1619).
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