Il Bianco E Dolce Cigno

Seen most commonly as a form of art and expression, the power of communication in music is often overlooked. Although music is art and very expressive, in addition, it’s constructs encompass the many ways in which music attempts to convey messages. Music is a form of a communication. One of the earliest techniques composers used to convey messages in music was through word painting. During the renaissance period composers used word painting, a technique in which the music depicts images that the text describes or evokes the mood of the text to powerfully communicate the message in the music. Throughout the sixteenth century the complexity of word painting changed in madrigalists’ works. Using the pieces Il bianco e dolce cigno by Jacques Arcadelt,

1600, the complexity of word painting will be examined through their use of musical textures, qualities, and rhythms to observe how word painting changed throughout the sixteenth century. This section will compare the quantity of musical qualities used in Arcadelt, Marenso and Gesialdo’s music to demonstrate how the complexity of word painting grew throughout the sixteenth century. Often times the lyrics of pieces affected the madrigalists’ choice of musical qualities they used to convey the text in a piece. Word painting in Arcadelt’s Il bianco e dolce cigno is demonstrated through his use tonality. In mm. 1-15 the text says,“The white and gentle swan dies singing, and I, weeping, approach the end of my life.” Immediately at the beginning of the piece we experience the major feeling key that portrays the euphemism of the swans death, which signifies climaxed love. This is emphasized even further in measure m. 15 with the strong V-I cadence of the four voices in F major, setting the piece in a happy tone. This compares to Solo e pensoso in that they both use tonality as a musical quality but Marenzo uses the contrast between major and minor

Briefly touched on in the two previous paragraphs, rhythms play a major role in word painting to illustrate lyrics. The complexity of the rhythms in the three pieces starts as more simplistic in the earliest composed piece and progresses to complex as the pieced in the later sixteenth century pieces are composed. The simplistic rhythms in early word painting are evident when looking at mm. 1-15 in Il bianco e dolce cigno. The rhythms are mostly half and quarter notes the half notes are mainly used to emphasize important words. This can be observed accordingly when words such as “weeping” and “dies” occur on half notes. The complexity of rhythms used to emphasize words builds in the later composed piece Solo e pensoso, with more use of eight notes and notes and contrasting rhythm sections that go from just half notes to many eighth notes to now illustrate words such as “readiness to flee” in mm. 26-31. Finally, in ‘Io parto’, e non piu dissi the rhythms used to portray word painting are very complex and alternate almost every six measures to communicate the lyric stanzas musically, also the sixteenth notes are now frequently used. In mm. 26-37 these aspects are evident in communicating the text “in sad laments.” Dead was I, now I am alive, for my spent spirits.” The rhythm transitions from using mainly