illustrative of the sense of the line, which refers to a multiple, repetitive act—and underscores the
“charming” double entendre: lo piccolo morte (“the little death”) was the standard Italian euphemism for
the climax of the sexual act.
Because it so privileged the humanistic axiom that music should be the servant of the oratione, the
sense of the poetry, and therefore “imitate” it, the madrigal became a hotbed of musical radicalism and
experimentation. Because of its “literary” premises, it was tolerant of audacities that in any other genre
would have been thought blunders or (at the very least) lapses of style. Any effect, however bizarre or
however it transgressed the rules demanded by the universal standard of the ars perfecta, could be
justified on a “literary” basis.
Real crimes against perfection begin to show up in the 1560s, beginning with the madrigals of
Cipriano de Rore (1516–1565), the Flemish associate (and pupil?) of Willaert. He was unusual among
the oltremontani for the enthusiasm with which he followed the literary premises of the madrigal into
uncharted musical terrain. Dalle belle contrade d’oriente (“From the fair regions of the East”) comes
from Rore’s fifth and last book, published posthumously in 1566.
EX. 17-14A Jacques Arcadelt, Il bianco e dolce cigno, mm. 1–10The whole poem consists of one sustained, multileveled antithesis: narrated recollection of physical
pleasures at the beginning and the end as against the sudden outpouring of emotional anguish in the
middle, expressed in “direct discourse” or actual quoted speech. The multiple contrast is expressed with
unprecedented violence in the music. The narrative portions at the two ends are full of delightful
descriptive effects: the rocking rhythms where the poet speaks of enjoying bliss in his lover’s arms
(“fruiva in braccio... “), the tortuous imitative polyphony where the intertwining of the lovers’ limbs is
compared with the snaky growth of vines.