Form of vocal chamber music, usually polyphonic and unaccompanied, of the 16th–17th centuries.
It originated and developed in Italy, under the influence of the French chanson and the Italian frottola . Usually written for three to six voices, madrigals came to be sung widely as a social activity by cultivated amateurs, male and female. The texts were almost always about love; most prominent among the poets whose works were set to music are Petrarch , Torquato Tasso , and Battista Guarini . In Italy, Orlande de Lassus , Luca Marenzio , Don Carlo Gesualdo , and Claudio Monteverdi were among the greatest of the madrigalists; Thomas Morley , Thomas Weelkes , and John Wilbye created a distinguished body of English madrigals.