Stylems, Italian Music from the "Trecento"

Music of the Trecento refers to Italian secular (and some sacred) polyphony of the 14th century, roughly from the 1320s through about 1420. It is often called the Italian Ars Nova and is best known for three vernacular song forms: the madrigale, the ballata, and the caccia. Stylistically, Trecento music favors melodically flowing upper voices, clear text declamation in Italian, and sweet-sounding cadential formulas—most famously the “Landini cadence.” Texts tend toward courtly love, pastoral, and urban vignettes (street cries, hunts), while the music explores two- and three-voice counterpoint with lively syncopations and occasional hocket. Our understanding of the repertory rests on lavish manuscripts such as the Rossi Codex (early) and the Squarcialupi Codex (early 15th century), which preserve hundreds of works by major Florentine and northern Italian composers.