Mentre Vaga Angioletta Analysis

“Mentre Vaga Angioletta” is a lively love madrigal written in the late Renaissance. Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) wrote this piece for two tenors as well as musical accompaniment. This song, like other madrigals, is driven by its lyrics, and derived from a poem written by Giovanni Battista Guarini (1538-1612). The lyrics discuss the beautiful qualities of a female lover’s voice, and how the singers are taken by its delightful sound and allure. The elements of “Mentre Vaga Angioletta” create an animated, expressive piece that continually moves and highlights its lyrics. Monteverdi’s love song is filled with points of imitation. This allows the listener to become drawn into the music as he becomes more familiar with it. Often in “Mentre Vaga Angioletta”, the second line will begin a phrase which is repeated by the first line one or two beats later. This allows the first line to emphasize what sung in the second line, and makes important words or phrases stick in the listener’s mind. Additionally, the vocalists often repeat …show more content…
The pitches and the timing allow a great amount of emotion to be expressed by the performers. One does not have to speak Italian to understand the feelings the performers are conveying throughout the madrigal. For instance, when the lyrics speak of love, the song has a lightness to it, and whimsical quality. The voices are peaceful and the music seems to flow. Whereas, when the lyrics are “calm passages and quiet breaths” the voices become quieter, more gentle and subdued, as to reflect the lyrics being sung. In “Mentre Vaga Angioletta” these shifts from one emotion or concept to another are signaled by the voices coming together followed by a rest. The song has an immense amount of color due to its ever-changing nature, how its movement never becomes static, and the feeling to conveys is constantly