All Modern Music Comes From Musi In The Elizabethan Era

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From Madrigals to Now Ever since the Renaissance period in the 14th century, the madrigal has been alive and still continues to live on today through modern-day music. A madrigal is a multi-voice song based off of poetry that’s sung a cappella is the simplified definition from “Songs”. The madrigal was first born 1520 in Italy as a pastoral song. According to Brewer, “The Italian madrigal is written in lines of either seven or 11 syllables and is comprised of two or three tercets, followed by one or two rhyming couplets.” From Italy the madrigal diffused to England and gained the characteristics we know as Elizabethan. The poem portion of the English madrigal is in iambic pentameter. It’s described by Brewer that it’s made up of “three stanzas: a tercet, quatrain, and sestet. All three of the lines in the opening tercet are refrains.” All modern-music comes from …show more content…

The ability and knowledge of how to sing was just as important as reading literature. This value with the rise of wealthy aristocrats lead to music patronage shifting from the church to royalty. Along with this move, vocal parts changed. Back in the Elizabethan era choral music was sung a cappella, without accompaniment. Music also, was almost always sung in multiple parts. The most common form of vocal parts in this time period was SATB. “SATB is a quick and short way for referring to the four vocal parts making up a choir: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass”(Williams). Throughout the Elizabethan era with composers Jacques Arcadelt and Cipriano de Rore, texts received more emotion with more meaning to the lyrics. Along with that, one or two more vocal parts were added to the choir creating formats like SSATB or SSATTB. Even with these added parts, choirs were small with only a few singers to a part. The number of singers depended upon the talent and skill of each individual

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