Madrigal comedy is a term for a kind of entertainment music of the late 16th century in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, in which groups of related, generally ''

a cappella Music performed a cappella ( , , ; ), less commonly spelled acapella in English, is music performed by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Rena ...

'' madrigals were sung consecutively, generally telling a story, and sometimes having a loose dramatic plot. It is an important element in the origins of opera. The term is of 20th-century origin, popularised by

Alfred Einstein Alfred Einstein (December 30, 1880February 13, 1952) was a German-American musicologist and music editor. He was born in Munich, and fled Nazi Germany after Adolf Hitler, Hitler's ''Machtergreifung'', arriving in the United States by 1939. He is b ...

. The first collection of madrigals, sung as a set and telling a coherent (and highly comic) story, was ''Il cicalamento delle donne al bucato'' (the gossip of women at the laundry), by

Alessandro Striggio Alessandro Striggio (c. 1536/1537 – 29 February 1592) was an Italian composer, instrumentalist and diplomat of the Renaissance. He composed numerous madrigals as well as dramatic music, and by combining the two, became the inventor of madrigal ...

, which was written in 1567. Amfiparnaso Orazio Vecchi Venice 1597 prologue stage

Later madrigal comedies are sometimes divided into acts, including a prologue, and while not "acted" in the sense of an opera, they may have been performed on stage with elaborate painted backdrops (for example, the woodcut showing the prologue of Orazio Vecchi's '' L'Amfiparnaso'' (1597): a singer is evidently in costume in a backdrop showing a city street). Vecchi's direction in the score, however, is for the singers not to act, but for the audience to fill in the action internally, using their imagination. He speaks to the audience in the prologue to the work: "the spectacle I speak of is to be seen in your mind; it enters not through your eyes, but through your ears: instead of looking, listen, and be silent." The form was popular especially in the 1590s and few years after 1600, only in Italy, but seems to have fallen out of favor with the advent of opera right at 1600, although ''a cappella'' madrigals were also disappearing at this time as well. The music of madrigal comedies is light, and the subject matter was invariably comic. Principal composers of madrigal comedy included Alessandro Striggio,

Adriano Banchieri Adriano Banchieri ( Bologna, 3 September 1568 – Bologna, 1634) was an Italian composer, music theorist, organist and poet of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He founded the Accademia dei Floridi in Bologna. Biography He w ...

Giovanni Croce Giovanni Croce (; also Ioanne a Cruce Clodiensis, Zuanne Chiozotto; 1557 – 15 May 1609) was an Italian composer of the late Renaissance music, Renaissance, of the Venetian School (music), Venetian School. He was particularly prominent as a madr ...

, and Orazio Vecchi.

References and further reading

* Articles "Madrigal comedy", "Madrigal," "Alessandro Striggio" in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. *

Gustave Reese Gustave Reese ( ; November 29, 1899 – September 7, 1977) was an American musicologist and teacher. Reese is known mainly for his work on medieval and Renaissance music, particularly with his two publications ''Music in the Middle Ages'' (1940 ...

, ''Music in the Renaissance''. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. * ''The New Harvard Dictionary of Music'', ed. Don Randel. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1986. {{Authority control Madrigals Comedy genres European court festivities