Books › The violin and its music, 1881 › scan 66
Scan 66
The violin and its music, 1881
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 44. See the scan on archive.org.
1opens up a period rife with interest relative to our subject. Then it was that the madrigal began to receive the serious attention of the Flemish composers. It had existed among them in a more or less crude shape since about the middle of the fifteenth century, but the time had come when it was to play an important part in musical history, now that it was dressed in much of the learning belonging to the Flemish motett. With it the social element was entered, and the foundation laid of high-class chamber music. The term madrigal originally meant a pastoral song; there were simple and accompanied madrigals; the former were first introduced, and in their character partook greatly of the music composed for the Church. It is not possible to say when or where the Flemish madrigal was first heard in Italy; we are left to form an opinion from a loose collection of dates and the circumstances attending them. Taking into consideration the advanced state of culture at Ferrara, and the worldwide reputation that Court obtained for its art patronage, and that of music more particularly, it would seem highly probable that it was to that city the madrigal was taken from the Netherlands. That the madrigal was sung at Mantua early in the sixteenth century is evidenced by the presence there of Berchem, who composed a great number.
3It is to the Netherlander Adrian Willaert we must now turn, since it was he who gave to the madrigal a form in which originality was so mani-
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.