Sometimes the Music Wins

Abstract

This study applies Kofi Agawu’s proposed method for analyzing texted music (1992), in which the music and the text are analyzed separately before they are considered together, to an early madrigal by Willaert. Focusing primarily on counterpoint, I offer a detailed study of Willaert’s complex compositional technique. I show that he responded to the poem in many ways, but at the same time he made many purely musical decisions. Finally, I consider what his motivations for these decisions might have been and enumerate musical means he used to respond to the different aspects of his text.