-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Margarita Restrepo, A new genre arrives in Spain: the madrigal in vihuela collections, Early Music, Volume 45, Issue 4, November 2017, Pages 573–589, https://doi.org/10.1093/em/cax085
Close - Share Icon Share
Abstract
Six of the seven vihuela publications that came out of Spain between 1536 and 1576 contain a group of works distinguished by two elements that were new to Spanish music: the use of through-composed forms and hendecasyllabic verse. Since these features characterize the Italian madrigal, I argue that these works announce the arrival of this new genre into Spain, and represent the first attempt to adapt the foreign genre to Spanish sensibilities, for collections of vocal madrigals only begin to appear after 1550. Often overlooked because they appear in instrumental collections, the pieces in the first three collections show that vihuelists working at Italianate courts embraced the genre in the 1530s, but adapted it to a different medium, the vihuela song, and used both voice and vihuela to express the nuances of the fine poetry they chose to set. The later three, where intabulations predominate, represent the diffusion of the genre into urban centres and indicate the Italian madrigals that appealed to Spanish audiences, mainly those by the first generation of madrigalists, which although expressive of the content and emotion of the text, represent an approach that Spaniards identified with.
