MADRIGAL. The notice of this branch of musical art which will be included in the general article Music may here be anticipated by an approximately chronological list, according to nationalities, of the masters who have been chiefly distinguished for their compositions of the class :— Flanders : Egide Binchois, Brusnois, Jean Okeghem or Ockenheim, Jean Tinctor, Adrian Willaert, Cyprian di Rore, Jacques Hobrecht, Firmin Caron, Josquin des Près, Alexander Agricola, Antoine Brumel, Pierre de la Rue, Jacques Arcadelt, Claude Goudimel, Philippe Verdelot, Jacques de Wert, Hubert Waelrent, and Orlando di Lasso; Pome : Costanzo Festa, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Felice and Francesco Anerio, Giovanni Maria, Bernardino Nanini, and Luca Marenzio (styled in his own time “Il più dolce Cigno d’Italia”); Venice·. Giovanni Croce, Andrea and Giovanni Gabrielli, Costanzo Porta, Orazio Vecchi, and Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi; England·. William Cornyshe (father and son), Richard Taverner, Robert Fayrefax, Thomas Phelyppes, Richard Edwards, William Byrd, Thomas Morley, Giles Farnaby, Edward Johnson, Thomas Weelkes, George Kirbye, John Dowland, Michael Este, Thomas Tomkins, John Benet, John Hilton, John Wilbye, Thomas Ford, Thomas Bateson, Richard Allison, John Ward, and Orlando Gibbons, also John Cooper and Peter Philips, who dwelt long in Rome, and published their works under the names respectively of Giovanni Coperario and Pietro Filippi. Many of all these wrote strictly madrigals, that is, continuous compositiohs abounding in ingenious artifices of imitation of one part by another; others wrote rhythmical songs of four or more parts, or ballets, or fal-las, all of which, being for unaccompanied voices, or for viols instead of voices, are often erroneously ranked as ...madrigals, though differing entirely in structure from them. The English composers, to Byrd inclusive, produced pieces distinctly of the madrigal class, but described them by other definitions; it was in the year 1588, when Byrd published Psalms, Sonets, and Songs of Sadness and Pietie, that the word madrigal was first introduced into England by Nicholas Yonge, a merchant, a lover of music who, having received copies of some foreign compositions in his chests of merchandise, adapted English words to these, and printed a collection under the title Mmsica Transalpina, the success of which stimulated the powers of English writers that had already been proved, and excited others to emulate their example. The art of madrigal composition was never practised in Germany, and it died out in other countries early in the 17 th century. The knowledge of the works that endear the madrigal writers to lovers of a high and most pure form of music was revived, and has since been kept alive, by the Madrigal Society. This was founded in 1741 by John Immyns, an attorney, and its original members were mechanics or small tradesmen; it held its first meeting at the Twelve Bells Tavern in Bride Lane, made many migrations to other houses of entertainment, and has its present home at the Freemasons’ Tavern, where its members are of a far higher social caste than the men who associated themselves for the practice of contrapuntal vocal music when the rank and fashion of the land went to worship Farinelli at the Italian opera, and to take part with the followers of the king or the prince of Wales in supporting one or other of the opposition establishments for its performance. In 1811 the society offered a prize for the composition of a madrigal, which was won by William Beale. The same incentive has occasionally been repeated. This encouragement, and still more the love for the class of music engendered by the public performance of madrigals by large choral societies during the last fifty years, have incited later composers to more or less successful imitations of the style, especially distinguished among whom was Robert Lucas Pearsall (1795-1856).
