. In the case of a dialogue between two
actors the voices are to be divided into two groups situated so that the
musical sounds shall seem to proceed from the actors. For example, when
Lucio and Isabella converse, men's voices represent the former and
women's voices the latter. The subjoined passage of dialogue between
Frulla and Isabella, Act II, scene fifth, will show how two voices were
represented:

[Musical Notation]

In the "Fidi Amanti" of Torelli there is a scene for two men,
a satyr and a shepherd, and one woman, a nymph. In this the two men
are represented always by the tenor and the bass, the latter having
the chief burden of the delineation of the satyr. The soprano and alto
voices are reserved for the nymph. Yet in this scene whenever the
emotion becomes intense, whether sad or joyous, the four voices unite
in singing the principal phrase.

Rolland, with his customary acumen, notes that in Vecchi's five part
madrigals for the stage the employment of the odd voice is plainly
governed by musical needs. It has to be common to both personages in a
scene for two and hence it is always the least characteristic voice. Its
chief business is to fill in the harmony.

It is not essential to the purpose of this work that the story of
"L'Amfiparnaso" or any of the other important madrigal dramas should be
told. The significant points are the disappearance of the more gorgeous
elements of spectacle found in the older court shows, the rise to
prominence of the comic element, and above all the entire obliteration
of the tentative methods of solo song found in the earlier lyric drama.
The old-fashioned _cantori a liuti_ sank into obscurity as the madrigal
grew in general favor in Italy, and in the latter years of the sixteenth
century their art seems to have undergone alterations quite in keeping
with the growing complexity of madrigal forms. The madrigal was now the
solo form with an instrumental accompaniment made from the under voices,
and this solo form was not used in the madrigal drama. Its musicians had
laid aside the "recitar alla lira," so much praised by Castiglione in
1514, and were seeking for some new way of setting solo utterance to
music. The method chosen by Vecchi must appear to us to be removed from
possibilities of artistic success still further than the solo
adaptations of frottole, yet the historical fact is that his
"Amfiparnaso" had an extraordinary popularity and set a fashion.

Some of Vecch