Romantic Love in Renaissance Literature and Madrigals - Essay Example

Romantic love is very appealing for a Renaissance poet and composers because of the strength and universality of this emotion. Romantic love is probably the strongest human emotion and composers had always tried to articulate it in a manner that will move the audience. This has transcended to madrigal singers who originally only sang secular music but eventually took romantic love as part of their music repertoire. Thus madrigal singers took a turn with renaissance sonnets as they began singing love songs from the traditional songs of praise.

The most plausible reason that be deduced is to this is that renaissance sonnets fit the well-crafted composition of madrigals not to mention that the loftiness of the theme of love nears the loftiness of Praise. Unlike a typical singer which we know today, madrigals are typically composed of several persons composed of four vocal parts – the soprano, alto, tenor and the pass. Soprano and alto are typically sung by women due to its high pitch while the tenor and bass are usually sung by men.

A madrigal singer attempts to express strong emotion contained in a well-composed line of which a celebrated sonnet makes a perfect fit. Madrigals can also be said as the highest form of music that typically appeals only to the cultivated and the learned due to the sophistication of its medium. It follows then that the words enunciated by a piece of madrigal music must also be equal to its form and what better lines can be sung by a madrigal than the measured meter of a sonnet. Madrigals were traditionally sung for secular purposes but eventually evolved to also sing celebrated love sonnets of renaissance literature due to the loftiness of its words and purpose that equal to praise.

Its highly structured singing made love sonnets a perfect for the medium of a madrigal thus appealing to the sophisticated audience. Today, however, madrigal has evolved further. It still sings love songs but no longer confines itself to the sonnets of renaissance literature albeit the sonnets of the renaissance literature set the bar of the lyrics that can be sung by madrigals.