The frottola (vern. Italian, "little story") was a genre of secular vocal composition popular in the late 15th and early 16th Centuries in northern Italy, associated in particular with the courts at Urbino and Mantua. Frottole are of historical import chiefly because it was in large part through them that a homophonic, "chordal" texture with the melodic voice on top (soprano) became standardized in choral music, a practice carried over into the madrigal as monody when it usurped the frottola as the dominant genre of secular vocal music.
Marchetto Cara - "O mio cieca e dura sorte"
Frottole are similar to other contemporaneous genres of Italian secular vocal music such as the balletta and villancico, from which it is distinguished by its unique metrical and rhyme schemes and its structure, in which an alternating refrain (ripresa) and verses (piedi) are bridged by a volta, or "return," foreshadowing a song structure which would become ubiquitous in popular music much later. Normally the melodic range is rather limited, and the subject matter is almost invariably amorous in nature, either directly or by innuendo.
Little is known about authentic performance practice of frottole except that it likely varied widely; some frottole by Tromboncino are intabulated, strongly suggesting instrumental accompaniment, while others are not. They were probably sometimes performed by vocal soloists rather than ensembles, according to whatever forces might be at hand.
The frottola both influenced and was influenced by composers from other parts of Europe, especially Flemish masters such as Josquin Desprez and Heinrich Isaac. Josquin wrote a large number of secular songs which are frottole in all but name, including perhaps the most famous example of all, "El grillo." The blockish, proto-harmonic texture and simple, lyrical style of the frottola would find its way into the vocal music of the coming centuries throughout the continent and is reflected to a high degree, for instance, in four-part chorale writing after the German fashion.
