Italian Madrigals Englished (1590) (review)

Albert Chatterley's edition of the First Sett of Italian Madrigalls Englished, compiled and translated from the Italian by poet Thomas Watson (ca. 1557-1592) and published in 1590 by Thomas East (Este) in London, has much to recommend it. This important anthology, consisting of twenty-eight four-, five-, and six-voice madrigals, twenty-three of which were composed by Luca Marenzio (1553/54-1599), played a significant role in making Italian madrigals accessible to English audiences and musicians (the other madrigals include one each by Girolamo Conversi [fl. 1572-1575], Giovanni Maria Nanino [1543/44-1607], and Alessandro Striggio [?1573-1630], and two settings of the original English text "This Sweet and Merry Month of May" by William Byrd [ca. 1540-1623]). As Chatterley notes in the preface (p. xix), Watson's goal was not a literal translation of the words but rather a text that reflected (or "read") the gestures in the music, or as Watson wrote in the title "not to the sense of the originall dittie, but after the affection of the Noate." (For an excellent comparison of Watson's approach with that of Nicholas Yonge, the compiler of the two books of Musica transalpina published by East in 1588 and 1597, see Laura Macy, "The Due Decorum Kept: Elizabethan Translation and the Madrigals Englished of Nicholas Yonge and Thomas Watson," Journal of Musicological Research 17 [1998]: 1-21.)

In keeping with the high standards of Musica Britannica, this edition has a very helpful introduction, with a chronology of Watson's biography and literary works, as well as the customary critical apparatus. I would have welcomed, though, a section addressing the considerable secondary literature on Italian Madrigalls Englished, which might include, for example, Katherine Duncan-Jones's important essay, " 'Melancholie Times': Musical Recollections of Sidney by William Byrd and Thomas Watson," in The Well Enchanting Skill: Music, Poetry, and Drama in The Culture of the Renaissance; Essays in Honour of F. W. Sternfeld (ed. John Caldwell, Edward Olleson, and Susan Wollenberg, 171-80 [Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1990]). Chatterley provides explanations in the critical notes of references in some of the texts to Philip Sidney and his circle, but discussion of the political context of the edition would have been enlightening, such as the significance of its dedication to the earl of Essex (see Paul E. J. Hammer, The Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics: The Political Career of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, 1585-1597, Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999]).

Chatterley has underlaid both Watson's English lyrics (with modernized orthography and punctuation) and the original Italian (the print gives only the Italian incipits), and at the end of each madrigal, he provides the English poem in its original spelling and a translation of the Italian. With this richness it seems churlish to complain, but I would have liked to see the Italian text set forth in poetic form at the end as well to facilitate a line-by-line comparison with Watson's poetic reworkings and Chatterley's English translations.

I agree with most of Chatterley's editorial decisions. It does take a fine eye, however, to tell the difference in the size of accidentals (the smaller ones indicate editorial additions); the suppression of "extra" accidentals requires scholars wishing to study the use of accidentals at this time to consult the 1590 publication. I do regret...