Leggiadre Ninfe - Luca Marenzio (1553-1599)

Luca Marenzio, born circa 1553 to a poor family in Coccaglio, Italy, rose to prominence as a composer of madrigals, spending most of his career in Rome in the employ of aristocratic families. Despite the fact that he spent most of his life in Italy, Marenzio’s impact on the musical world at large was widespread. A collection of madrigals published by Nicholas Yonge in England in 1588 contained 57 pieces by 18 different composers, with Marenzio’s publications coming in as the second most prevalent in the book, behind English composer Alfonso Ferrabosco. Marenzio’s impact on the Renaissance scene is quite large, and the pieces he wrote excel at having soaring melodies, rich harmonies that were prevalent elsewhere in the evolving musical world. On a return trip from Poland that was said to have ruined Marenzio’s health, Marenzio fell ill and past away shortly after returning in 1599.

Leggiadre Ninfe (Graceful Nymphs), one of Marenzio’s compositions, first published in a collection of madrigals titled Il quinto libro de madrigali a sei voci, volume 3, (translated: The fifth book of madrigals for six voices) was published near the end of his life. On a return trip from Poland that was said to have ruined Marenzio’s health, Marenzio fell ill and passed away shortly after returning in 1599. The piece features rich harmonies, polyphony, meter changes (both written and unwritten), and requires vocal flexibility to sing. The piece often features melismas and embellishments that require strong, jaunty singers to sing correctly. It also features relatively decent ranges, and while the majority of the piece sits in each vocal part’s tessitura, it does contain ranges that can be uncomfortable for young singers, especially given the light, dance-like quality of the piece. The piece features two equal soprano lines, an alto line, two equal tenor lines, and a bass line. While the soprano, alto, and bass generally sit in a comfortable range, the tenor lines require tenors that can have a true, rich, and light quality in their upper registers, making the piece difficult if the tenor section consists mostly of baritones.

            The piece opens with a call and response between the sopranos/alto and the tenors/bass. The women’s chorus leads off the madrigal, with the men’s section taking their lead and following. All the voices come together for a mixed-meter section before divulging into a contrapuntal section, led by the bass and second soprano. The piece slowly adds in eighth-note melismas and sixteenth-note embellishments, before coming to the B section, where the meter changes and the voices come together for the first major homophonic section. Afterwards, trios and duets between like parts (sopranos with sopranos, tenors with tenors) dominate the following entrances, with the lower voices (altos and basses) providing foundations until they sing their entrances. Finally, the piece closes with a section exclaiming, “Long live Dori”. The phrase is likely an exclamation to the sea-nymph, Dori, a phrase which has since been attributed as an adoration to the compiler’s wife, Elisabetta Giustinian.

Works Cited

Fellows, E. H. (1967). English Madrigal Verse (3rd ed.). (F. W. Sternfeld, & D. Greer, Eds.) Oxford.

Ledbetter, S., & Jackson, R. (1980). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Vol. 20). (S. Sadie, Ed.) London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd.

Ledbetter, S., Chater, J., & Jackson, R. (2001). Marenzio, Luca. Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online.