Comparison of two late Renaissance madrigals

Compare the similarities and differences between two late Renaissance madrigals: Adrian Willaert’s madrigal Aspro core e selvaggio e cruda voglia
(prima prattica) and Carlo Gesualdo’s madrigal Beltá, poi che t’assenti (seconda prattica).
Preparation:1.Listen to the songs, study the scores, and familiarize yourself with the texts and translations.
2.Read the accompanying excerpts to understand the background of the composers and the pieces as well as any general discussion of the general
traits of these types of song in the style of these two composers. You may also want to look through the appropriate sections in the
Burkholder/Grout/Palisca or another general music history textbook.
3.Analyze the two compositions keeping mind the accepted rules of composition in the mid to late 16th century. Consider the following musical
elements as discussed on the posting “Critical Listening”: Sound: number of voices, texture, instrumentation (which includes voices); Form: how the
pieces are structured, does it relate to the form of the poetic text? Do poetic lines affect the structure of the madrigal?; Harmony: the mode of each
piece, cadences, vertical sonorities; Rhythm: mensurations indicated by the modern time signatures, rhythmic complexity of the melody lines both
between melodic parts within each song and the two songs in comparison to each other; Melody: melodic shape, ranges of voices and voice
crossings (if applicable), melodic rhythm in comparison to poetic rhythm of the text; Text: does the music amplify the meaning of the words, poetic
form (rhyme scheme, meter of the words), how punctuation conforms to the musical aspects; and any other musical characteristic that attracts your
attention. You may or may not use all of these elements to guide your analysis, or you may consider other musical elements suggested to you through
your own observations of the score and recordings. You may wish to deal with only a few musical elements that strike you as important in your 3-5
pages.

 

 

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