Thesis title: La scuola romana, la semplificazione dello stile del madrigale sul finire del XVI secolo.
Toward the end of the 16th century, the madrigal reached a pinnacle of its history, adopting certain stylistic characteristics that were widely shared by composers. Rome and its courts, along with the poets and musicians who frequented them, were one of the most important centers of madrigal production.
In this context, Vincenzo Giustiniani, who lived during those years, noted a specific tendency toward simplification of the madrigal style in the Roman context; several musicological studies have investigated some possible characteristics of this trend.
This study aims to answer two questions: the first concerns the content of this simplification and the aspects of compositional technique that had to be modified to achieve it; the second is whether this stylistic approach was generally shared by composers active in Rome in the final decades of the 16th century, to the point of being considered a distinctive trait of the Roman school.
To circumvent the difficulties that an extensive and systematic analysis of the object would entail, the research focuses on a specific group of pieces characterized by the "neutral" initial condition proposed to the composers: the six stanzas of Luigi Alamanni's dialogue, Mentre ti fui sì grato, contained in the Roman collection Dolci Affetti (1582). The results of the analysis are compared, although not systematically, with the broader context of the works of the authors involved and of other illustrious masters of the Roman school.
Part I of the study, dedicated to contexts and style, outlines the fundamental conditions in which the culture of the Roman madrigal developed at the end of the sixteenth century. It also offers a summary of the references, both Roman and non-Roman, that characterized madrigal composition. It will attempt to identify the stylistic peculiarities of these references that may have complicated the perception of the compositions. Part II analyzes the six madrigals composed on Luigi Alamanni's dialogue contained in Dolci Affetti.
The results of the analysis and a broader look at the production of composers active in Rome in the late 16th century show that the adoption of specific techniques, tending to simplify the madrigal, did not concern the Roman environment in general, but only some of its musicians.
The study therefore aims to contribute to a better reconstruction of the history of the madrigal style during a crucial period in the evolution of musical taste and language, demonstrating how the creativity of musicians could both influence and fuel the evolutionary path of musical forms and practices.