The Trecento-Madrigal reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004
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Trecento-Madrigal

The Trecento-Madrigal is an Italian musical form of the 14th century (ca. 1300 - 1370), simple compositions with mostly two-, seldom three voices, wher the upper voice is the main voice. Because of its rather simple construction, a primitive rhythmic and the secular texts it was not seen to be a noble form, Francesco da Barberino in 1300 called a "raw and chaotic singalong".

At the end of the 14th and 15th century the term went out of musical use and turned into a literarical form (see poetical madrigal). Those madrigals, especially by Petrarch, became popular again from 1530 as texts for the new, and unrelated musical form, of the madrigal.

Important composers are: