AbstractsLaw & Legal Studies

The madrigal is the oldest of concerted secular forms. It had its origin in northern Italy, perhaps as early as the twelfth century. The early compositions had none of the elaborate devices which characterize the madrigals of the sixteenth century. Francesco di Landino, (1325-1390), an Italian, and the leading musician of the Florentine school of his time, wrote a madrigal, Tu che l'opera d'altrul, an extract of which appears in Fellowes' English Madrigal (1) Composers. Landino's life is interesting. He was blind from youth, but was organist for many years in the church of San Lorenzo in Florence. His madrigal was different from those of the sixteenth century in that it was written for two voices only, and single syllables of words were often used over several bars of music in the same manner as the church music of that early period. Each voice, in his composition, followed the other with frequent points of imitation, a characteristic which remained essential in the development of the madrigal.