Characteristics of English Madrigals

Essay from the year 2015 in the subject Musicology - Miscellaneous, Education University of Hong Kong (Department of Cultural and Creative Arts), course: MUS2253 The Phenomenon of Music in Renaissance and Baroque, language: English, abstract: English madrigals are sang in English. There are ample word painting just as that in 16th century Italian madrigals (Burkholder et al., 2010). However, unlike 16th century Italian madrigals that were tending towards polyphonic and then monody, English madrigals remained homophonic, which may be influenced by English part-songs (Whent, n.d.). Besides these, English madrigals can receive ample influence from Italian balletto and share many of its features.