What is the difference between a madrigal and a canzonet?
A madrigal is a setting for 3–6 voices of a secular text, often in Italian. The madrigal has its origins in the frottola, and was also influenced by the motet and the French chanson of the Renaissance. It is related mostly by name alone to the Italian trecento madrigal of the late 13th and 14th centuries; those madrigals were settings for 2 or 3 voices without accompaniment, or with instruments possibly doubling the vocal lines. The madrigal was the most important secular form of music of its time. It bloomed especially in the second half of the 16th century, losing its importance by the third decade of the 17th century, when it vanished through the rise of newer secular forms as the opera and merged with the cantata and the dialogue. Its rise started with the Primo libro di Madrigali of Philippe Verdelot, published in 1533 in Venice, which was the first book of identifiable madrigals. This publication was a great success and the form spread rapidly, first in Italy and up to the end of
