canzona, a genre of Italian instrumental music in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 18th- and 19th-century music, the term canzona refers to a lyrical song or songlike instrumental piece.
In the 14th century the Italian scholar, poet, and humanist Petrarch frequently used the canzona poetic form, and in the 16th century canzoni were often used as texts by madrigal composers. In the late 16th century, the term canzona or its diminutive, canzonetta, referred to polyphonic songs whose music and text were in a lighter vein than the madrigal. These include the canzoni villanesche (“rustic songs”) popular in mid-century.
The instrumental canzona derived its form from the French polyphonic chanson known in Italy as canzon(a) francese; many early canzonas were instrumental arrangements of chansons, alternating between polyphonic and homophonic (based on chords) sections. Typically, the opening motif consisted of one long and two short notes of identical pitch. Although Italy remained the principal home of the canzona, it spread to other countries, notably Germany.
In the late 16th century two varieties emerged: for keyboard and for instrumental ensemble. The keyboard canzona was more intensely polyphonic and, in its frequent treatment of a single theme, prepared the way for the fugue; in early 17th-century Germany “canzona” was in fact often synonymous with “fugue.” Notable composers of keyboard canzonas include the Italians Girolamo Cavazzoni, Andrea Gabrieli, Claudio Merulo, and, especially, Girolamo Frescobaldi and the German Johann Jakob Froberger.
Unlike the keyboard canzonas, which emphasized unity of musical texture, the ensemble canzonas of Giovanni Gabrieli and Frescobaldi, with their contrasting tempos, metres, and rhythms, led the way to the trio sonata, the dominant chamber genre of the Baroque era. Toward the middle of the 17th century, the multisectional canzona was systematically transformed into a four-movement instrumental composition, as a rule for two treble and two bass instruments, known as the sonata da chiesa, or church form of the trio sonata, although the term canzona was still occasionally used for a movement in fugal style.