Cruda Amarilli

Cruda Amarilli

The madrigal is a distinctive type of secular song that originated in Italy. It was an aristocratic form of poetry and music that flourished at small Italian courts. In the piece, Cruda Amarilli, Monteverdi uses many musical devices that are typical of a madrigal. The lyrics in this song are repeated, the music accompanies the text in interesting ways, and there is a wide range of vocal notes. After listening to the piece just once you can immediately feel the unrequited love Monteverdi is displaying through his words and music. The music and instrumentation in this piece aid the voices to establish form and mood through word painting. He uses word painting and cadences to develop a theme of unrequited love.

In Cruda Amarilli, Monteverdi uses rich affective dissonance in order to create the same degree of tension as its predecessor. With this tension he creates a feeling within the listener. He does this through word painting. As an aspect of secular music, Monteverdi uses word painting to reflect the meaning of the words in Cruda Amarilli. The music and the words work together to display the meaning, by making the listener hear the words as if they are actually doing what is being said.

Starting with “Piu candida e piu bella” stanza and ending with “Ma del’ aspido sordo”stanza, you get a feeling of a mood change. At the beginning the words sound beautiful, but then in the end the word start sound sneaky like a poisonous snake. He does this through word painting, making the s’ sounds in the second stanza seem stealthy. Following those two stanzas, he again uses word painting in the stanza, “E piu sorda e piu fera e piu fugace.” At the beginning of the stanza the music is stealthy, then becomes untamed and wild, leading to a rise in voice to become elusive. Again in the last stanza Monteverdi uses word painting along with a dissonance to create his theme of unrequited love. “I’ mi morro” is repeated many times