Research Into Madrigals

This section is an independent research page dedicated to the analysis of old english Madrigals.

"Down From Above" by Thomas Bateson, SATB in G major, 4/4

SA have the treble clef, the Tenor has a treble clef with an 8 underneath it to symbolize that the Tenor sings notes an octave bellow what is written. It is short in time length but still very good as it has a steady beat.

The Song is based on a Greek legend Danae (with two dots above the last 'e') and her father Acrisius, King of Argos (haha.)

The piece begins on the tonic, that is G whilst stating the 7th, that is the leading note (weird, I'll check that up.) In bar 3, 2nd beat we hit a D major chord root and then we go into G major again. In the 4th bar we hit E minor, A major and then D without the third. Bar 5, the F sharp is naturalized as we start to modulate. The beginning's structure is repeated in bar 6 where the Bass and Tenor leave like at the beginning where they were not present. The C sharp is still sharpened.

Here, at bar 6, the lyrics enter canonically / fugally. These lyrics are constantly repeated until they finally fall into place with each other , but a bit later. The lyrics are "[falls] Into Danae's lap amain." The music reflects the text setting in that the lyrics eventually fall in together at the same time at bar 14. The pitch also goes down instead of up connoting falling. The parts are fragmented and pass chords such as GAD (that is it has the 2nd instead of the 3rd making it a colder sound.) After this we return a G root chord at bar 14 where all the parts come together. This is enforced by the perfect cadence, the A and the F sharp come in and out of a G chord conjunctively to give a I(c) - V - I.

bar 15 then starts the next line in a similar way to "Amain" in that the parts separate off again, but this time only briefly. At bar 16, the parts move homophonically.

"Love Me Blind" Thomas Bateson

Between bars 7 and 13 the time signature goes to 34 and back to 4/4. It doesn't quite

change it completely though, i changes the accent on the notes as there are 4 bars (split into

twos on either side of 4/4) making 12 beats that can be divided into both 3 and 4.

"Ay Me Poor Heart" A Different Composer

Fugally enters a bar after each other each time a fifth down and then after that, an octave

up. At bar 8, he rhymes 'part' with 'heart' together at the same time.