Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | N | Notes

Italian Madrigals Englished (1590).

Article Excerpt
Thomas Watson. Italian Madrigals Englished (1590). Transcribed and edited by Albert Chatterley. (Musica Britannica, 74.) London: Stainer and Bell, 1999. [Pref. in Eng., Fr., Ger., p. xix-xxi; introd., p. xxiii-xxvii; calendar on the life of Thomas Watson, p. xxviii-xxxiv; the source, p. xxxv-xxxvii; editorial method, p. xxxviii-xxxix; acknowledgments, p. xl; 6 plates, p. xli-xliii; score, p. 1-119; list of sources and abbreviations, p. 120-21; notes on the textual commentary, p. 122; textual commentary, p. 123-25; index of titles, p. 126-27. Cloth. ISMN M-2202-1953-5; ISBN 0-85249-850-0. [pounds sterling]76.50.]

Albert Chatterley's edition of the First Sett of Italian Madrigalls Englished, compiled and translated from the Italian by poet Thomas Watson (ca. 1557-1592) and published in 1590 by Thomas East (Este) in London, has much to recommend it. This important anthology, consisting of twenty-eight four-, five-, and six-voice madrigals, twenty-three of which were composed by Luca Marenzio (1553 / 54-1599), played a significant role in making Italian madrigals accessible to English audiences and musicians (the other madrigals include one each by Girolamo Conversi [fl. 1572-1575], Giovanni Maria Nanino [1543 / 44-1607], and Alessandro Striggio [?1573-1630], and two settings of the original English text "This Sweet and Merry Month of May" by William Byrd [ca. 1540-1623]). As Chatterley notes in the preface (p. xix), Watson's goal was not...