Madrigal:
A madrigal is a secular vocal music composition of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied; the number of voices varies from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six. It is quite distinct from the Italian Trecento madrigal of the late 13th and 14th centuries, with which it shares only the name. [Wikipedia]
Noted in Slaughter-House Five, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.:
And now there was an acrimonious madrigal, with parts sung in all quarters of the [railroad] car. Nearly everyone, seemingly, had an atrocity story of something Billy Pilgrim had done to him in his sleep. Everybody told Billy Pilgrim to keep the hell away.
