Madrigal

The madrigal is a polyphonic vocal genre for small, unaccompanied ensembles, setting vernacular poetry — Italian above all — for two to eight voices, one singer to a part. Emerging in Italy in the 1520s, it became the dominant secular chamber form of the later Renaissance, cultivated by *Adrian Willaert*, *Cipriano de Rore*, *Luca Marenzio*, *Carlo Gesualdo* and *Claudio Monteverdi*, and adopted across Europe, including the English school of *Thomas Morley* and *Thomas Weelkes*. Its hallmark is text painting: the music mirrors the imagery and emotion of individual words through chromaticism, dissonance, rhythm and texture.