A new madrigal genre began to appear in Italian publications in the mid– 1540s, consisting of settings of entire multi-stanza poems, some with as many as fourteen strophes. The genre came to be known collectively as the canzone, although other multi-stanza poetic forms such as the sestina and ottava rima were also set. The genre had its first flourishing in the 1540s, but continued in popularity throughout the end of the century. Here I will address some of the compositional problems and solutions resulting from the composers' decision to write in such a large-scale form, concentrating on an early example of the genre by Lasso.

In 1557 Antonio Barrè published his Secondo libro delle muse, a cinque voci, madrig. d'Orlando di Lassus con una canzone del Petrarca (RISM 1557=1557b), a collection devoted for the most part to works of Lasso not previously published. Leading off the collection was Lasso's setting of the six stanzas of Petrarch's “Standomi un giorno,” a visionary poem which had been set to music in its entirety only once before. By 1557 Lasso had already been away from Rome for at least two years. His music in Barrè's anthology, while published in Rome, appears not to be directly connected to the composer's sojourn there. In the volume's dedicatory letter its signator, Giovanbattista Bruno, who styles himself “one who knows the author well,” stated that he had come into possession of the pieces by Lasso “many days ago in Spoleto.”