Gagliano: Madrigals, Part 4

Il quarto libro de madrigali a cinque voci, the fourth of six books of madrigals by the Florentine composer Marco da Gagliano, was published in 1606. The book is distinguished by the excellence of its music as well as by its varied settings of texts by some of the most celebrated poets of the day. Five of the madrigals use texts by Giovanni Battista Guarini, three by Giambattista Marino, one each by Gabriello Chiabrera, Cosimo Galletti, and Alsaldo Cebà, and a final two-part madrigal for six voices sets a sonnet by the great fourteenth-century poet Francesco Petrarca. In addition to fourteen madrigals by Gagliano, the book contains three by guest composers Luca Bati and Giovanni and Lorenzo Del Turco. Gagliano’s madrigals in book 4, in contrast with those of his earlier books, are lighter and show the clear influence of the contemporary canzonetta, which is manifested in their brevity; the discrete sectioning of the music, frequently with concurrent rests in all the voices that separate the presentation of individual poetic lines; the omnipresent syllabic setting of words; and the simpler and shorter motives that are most often presented in a homophonic texture. In some of these madrigals, motives shaped by the melody and rhythm of spoken language might serve well in monodies. Indeed, in his magisterial study of the madrigal, Alfred Einstein went so far as to suggest that some of these madrigals have the effect of polyphonic, imitative arrangements of Florentine monodies.