which had no fixed metre, so that the poem appeared more like a free,
than a versified recitation. The closing lines often expressed some witty
or happy thought like an epigram. The music was governed more strictly by
the meaning of the words than it was in the mass, and the counterpoint
was more simple and expressive. In some madrigals the voices were treated
with exquisite refinement, in a delicate web of counterpoint. Others
were composed in simple harmony, note against note. This latter style
possessed a diatonic character, out of which the chromatic element of
modern music could gradually be developed. The first hints of this new
method we owe to Willaert.
Adrian Willaert is considered, if not as the inventor of the madrigal,
at least as the composer by whom it was given its first artistic form.
It may be regarded as the highest form of chamber-music of those days,
written and composed for the refined and appreciative amateurs of the
best social circles, principally in Venice and Rome. All composers of
repute produced works in this favorite form; among others (beside the two
most prominent, Willaert and Cyprian de Rore) Constanzo Porta, Constanzo
Festa, Verdelot, Arcadelt, Orlandus Lassus, Orazio Vechi and Luca
Marenzio, the last named being the best madrigalist of his time.
There were other favorite vocal forms of a more general character,
which were composed according to a chosen metre, to which the poem was
afterward set. The name given to this species of composition was _modus_
(still to be found in the Portuguese term for folk-song, _modinha_) or
_aer_, and from this source was derived the modern name, air or aria,
which signifies the manner of singing (as we say a person has a certain
air or manner), and does not refer, as many suppose it does, to the
medium of song; that is, the sound of vibrating air.
These forms of secular song were inspired, undoubtedly, by the beautiful
poetry which enriched Italian literature at that period,--the age of
Dante, Petrarch, Torquato Tasso and Bocaccio.
Petrucci published (1504-1508) as many as eight books of Frottole, some
nine hundred numbers in all. These are characteristic, though primitive
examples of Italian music, and mark the essential difference between
that and Flemish music. The latter, like the Gothic architecture of
the North, was developed organically from germs or motives, while the
former corresponds to simpler forms, the grand curves and arches of
Roman churches, within whose walls the pure and elevated harmonies of
Palestrina have resounded through the centuries. The innovations which
resulted from these new ideas rapidly became popular, and in the course
of time, old church modes fell permanently into disuse.
The last noteworthy representatives of the polyphonic school of the
sixteenth century were Orlando di Lasso (Munich), Giovanni della Croce
(Venice) and, chiefly, Gregorio Allegri.
Allegri, a beneficed priest attached to the cathedral at Fermo, and a
member of the same family which produced the painter Coreggio, was a
composer of much distinction. He was born at Rome about 1580, and died in
1652. He was instructed in music by G. M. Nannini. During his residence
at Fermo he acted as chorister and composer for the cathedral. Certain
motetti and concerti, published at this time, attracted the notice of
Pope Urban VIII., and Allegri received from him, in 1629, the appointment
to a vacancy among the cantori of the Apostolic Chapel. Allegri's name is
chiefly associated with a Miserere in nine parts for two choirs, which
has been sung annually in the Pontifical Chapel, during Holy Week. This
is held to be one of the most beautiful compositions ever dedicated to
the service of the Roman church. There was a time when it was so much
treasured that to copy it was a crime punished by excommunication. But in
various ways it came to be known outside the Sistine Chapel. Dr. Burney
(1726-1814), the famous English historian of music, obtained a copy of
it. Mozart, when a boy of fifteen, took down the notes while the choir
sang it. Choron, the well known French musician, managed to insert it in
his collection of pieces used in Rome during the Holy Week.
In the Sistine Chapel this Miserere has always excited the enthusiasm
of musicians owing to a certain indescribable intensity of sadness that
characterizes it, and to its perfect rhythmical adaptation to the words
to which it is wedded.
We have now to deal with an epoch in the history of music which saw the
culminations of a great reform. New artistic ideas manifested themselves,
and thrust into the background the achievements of polyphonic science.
The movement had its beginnings in Florence. There, at the palace of
the Count Bardi, was formed a society of art connoisseurs, composed
principally of men of noble birth. The fundamental purpose of this
coterie was to reëstablish the Greek drama on a basis at once artistic
and modern; but the final result of their experiments and discussions
was the invention of the opera and the oratorio. Curiously enough,
through the fact that only few musicians belonged to the Bardi circle,
their ideas were able to make greater progress than they would otherwise
have done; for professional musicians in that age were not willing to
grant, even for purposes of dramatic expression, the smallest freedom
in harmonic or contrapuntal treatment. Here, for the first time in the
history of music, we may justly pay high tribute to dilettantism, since
it was owing to the efforts of these ardent Florentine amateurs that two
of the noblest and most popular branches of musical art were originated.
[Illustration: GREGORIO ALLEGRI.
From an engraving by C. Deblois. 1867.]
We find among the friends of Count Bardi the foremost men of the
time. The count himself was a gifted poet and composer. Corsi, who
afterward became president of the society, was a man of great learning.
Ottavio Rinuccini, a highly accomplished poet, supplied the libretti
for the first two operas ever performed. Pietro Strozzi was also a
poet and composer with advanced ideas. Emilio del Cavalieri, the
creator and inventor of the oratorio, was "ducal superintendent of
fine arts." Prominent in the society was also Vincenzo Galilei, father
of the immortal astronomer, and himself a distinguished composer and
clever mathematician. He and Battista Doni were the society's chief
representatives in the literary war carried on with the celebrated
Zarlino, who furiously condemned the new ideas, and prophesied the ruin
of musical art if such innovations should be permanently adopted.
The credit of having introduced a new, fresh and enlivening element into
the artistic attempts of the Bardi society is to be attributed chiefly
to Giulio Caccini and Vincenzo Galilei. The former was a composer, a
singer, and a writer on musical matters. He was generally considered to
be the staunchest defender of the new art. In his much discussed work
"Nuove Musiche," he places himself in the front rank of the battle and
urgently demands the recognition of solo song, so heartily despised
by the professional musicians of the time. Caccini, whose own singing
gave his hearers intense delight, felt that this department of the art
could never reach individual development while the Palestrina style of
composition prevailed. He had little theoretical knowledge of music; but,
following the example of Galilei, who was the first to use recitative
in his musical productions, Caccini enlarged and improved this form,
and sung his compositions to the Bardi society. His only accompaniment
was the theorbo, a species of lute, but his efforts gained enthusiastic
approval. From the small beginnings thus made he passed, in company with
Galilei, to the composition of long dramatic scenes, the text being
furnished by Count Bardi. This gave to the effort in the direction of
reform a new and unexpected significance. Galilei's chief endeavor in
his artistic experiments was to introduce the popular element into
composition; for, as he insisted, music was not simply the scientific
occupation of a few learned men, but belonged to the whole world. Hence,
almost all his music is homophonous. No doubt unison vocal music, with
little or no accompaniment, had been heard in the canzonetta, villanella,
and other forms of popular melody, ages before the birth of Galilei. That
the recognition of what we call now the "leading-note" as an essential
element of melody was no new thing, may be gathered from the words of
Zarlino, who, writing in 1558, says: "Even Nature herself has provided
for these things; for not only those skilled in music, but also the
contadini (peasants), who sing without any art at all, proceed by the
interval of the semitone in forming their closes." The germs of this
new element, destined to work one of the most sweeping revolutions
known in the history of art, are evidently in all the early attempts
of the monodists. In exchange for the contrapuntal glories of the
sixteenth century, the composers of the seventeenth offered the graces
of symmetrical form, hitherto unknown. The idea was not thrown away on
their successors. It was not long before symmetrical form was cultivated
in association with a new system, not of counterpoint, as it is sometimes
erroneously called, but of part-writings based on the principles of
modern harmony, and eminently adapted to the requirements of instrumental
music. Thus, in such slight indications of regular phrasing, reiterated
figures and prearranged plan as are shown in Caccini's unpretending
little arias, we may recognize the origin of much that delights us in the
grandest creations of modern musical genius.
The Bardi society wholly failed to attain that for which it struggled,--a
revival of the Hellenic drama; but, in the same way that their
contemporaries, the alchemists, failed to find a formula for making gold
and yet discovered a new science, so these connoisseurs, while failing to
impart Greek character to their productions, gave new individuality to
music, and introduced into it many important things.
The first embodiment, in large form, of the new ideas was accomplished
by Jacopo Peri in his opera, "Daphne," privately performed at the
Palazzo Corsi, in 1597. Later works were the "Conte Ugolino" of Galilei,
and three operas by Emilio del Cavalieri, entitled "Il Satiro," "La
Disperazione di Fileno," and "Il Giuoco della Cieca." The musical style
of these compositions was called "lo stile representativo" or "musica
parlante." The first publicly performed outcome of this little society's
activity was Peri's opera, "Euridice." The text was by Ottavio Rinuccini,
the renowned poet of the Bardi coterie. Both Caccini and Peri wrote music
to it; but the work of the latter was preferred, and it was given for the
first time on the occasion of the marriage of Henry IV. of France and
Maria di Medici, in December, 1600.
It was, however, as a result of Monteverde's great genius that the opera,
as such, was definitely established. The name "opera" was first used
in 1650. Before that time a musical drama of this kind had been known
as "melodramma" or "dramma per musica." Monteverde determined certain
laws and rules which have ever since served to determine the outlines
of the opera form. This great artist was born in 1586 in Cremona, and
pursued his first musical studies under the Cremonese theoretician,
Ingegneri. It was, perhaps, the too strict discipline of this master that
caused Monteverde to throw off the fetters which scholastic pedagogy was
accustomed to impose on rising genius. His first published compositions
were two madrigals, which gave evidence of revolutionary tendencies.
In the works of similar form which followed, however, he wholly cast
aside the many cherished traditions of the Palestrina style, and drew
on himself the condemnation of all the orthodox musicians of his time.
The great theorist, Artusi, author of "Delle Imperfezione della Musica
Moderna" (Venice, 1600) was, at first, a spirited advocate of the ideas
of Galilei and the Florentine school. Later, on the publication of
Monteverde's six volumes of madrigals, he declared himself as decidedly
opposed to the plan of renewing the Greek drama, and wrote biting
articles against Monteverde in particular. He condemned this composer's
violations of the laws of harmony and counterpoint, and, indeed, went
so far as to deny him all musical talent. Monteverde was unmoved and
uninfluenced by this adverse criticism. He felt himself irresistibly
drawn to the composition of homophonic and dramatic music, and felt
that artistic ideals could be realized only by a total disregard of the
existing canons of musical art.
Another ducal marriage, that of Francesco Gonzaga, son of the Duke of
Mantua, brought to Rinuccini the command to write a new libretto. The
poet, full of inspiration, produced two texts, one of which, "Arianna,"
was composed by Monteverde and achieved great success. The Duke of Mantua
then proved to be the general protector of the new art, for we note
that he commanded Monteverde to write operas for different occasions.
"Orfeo" (1608), "Combattimento di Tancredi" (1613), "Le nozze d' Enea,"
"Il Ritorno d' Ulisse" are all occasional works of the great reformer.
Monteverde died in 1643, and was buried in the Chiesa dei Frari.
The great success of Monteverde's works turned the tide of composition
towards the creation of operas, and the popularity of these productions
soon suggested the desirability of erecting theatres which should be
chiefly devoted to the presentation of opera. The first opera house
was built in Venice in 1637, and was called the Teatro di San Cassiano.
The owners of it were Benedetto Ferrari and Francesco Mannelli, who
wrote respectively the libretti and the music to the first two operas
represented there. Francesco Cavalli, Monteverde's favorite pupil, also
composed operas for this theatre. Two other opera houses were built
at Venice within a short space of time. For these theatres operatic
novelties were supplied in rapid succession. The names of the composers
were Carlo Pallavicini, D. Giovanni Legrenzi, Antonio Sartorio, and
Marc Antonio Cesti. Cavalli was a very prolific writer, having composed
between 1639 and 1665 not less than thirty-four operas. The best among
them were "Il Giasone" (1649) and "L' Erismera" (1665), of which the
manuscripts are preserved in the library of St. Mark at Venice. Legrenzi
wrote seventeen operas, the most successful being "Achille in Scyro"
(1664) and "I due Cesari" (1683). Opera became more and more fashionable;
and, as Venice was one of the greatest musical centres as well as one
of the most popular pleasure resorts, the city of the laguna possessed,
before the end of the seventeenth century, no less than eleven opera
houses, all of which were filled to overflowing whenever performances
were given. In Rome, the first opera house, known as the "Torre di Nona,"
was opened in 1671 with Cavalli's "Giasone"; the second, "La scala dei
Signori Capranica," was inaugurated in 1679. A third theatre was that of
the Palazzo Alberti (1696.)
From these musical centres, the love for opera soon spread to Naples, to
Bologna, to Padua, and other places. The courts at Vienna, Dresden and
Paris sought to cultivate a taste for Italian opera, and huge theatres
were built for this purpose. Ottavio Rinuccini, the poet, went to France
in the suite of Maria di Medici, and made an unsuccessful attempt to
introduce Italian opera. It was not until the time of Jean Baptiste
Lully, an Italian by birth, that the new art-form attained a firm
foothold in France.
Meanwhile, the oratorio, which, as has already been said, came into
existence almost as early as the opera, was also becoming very popular.
This species of sacred composition was the direct descendant of the
mysteries and miracle-plays of the middle ages. These mysteries were
primarily intended for the instruction of the masses in biblical
history. The dramatic facts and occurrences of the Scriptures were
treated, it is true, in a rather coarse manner, but the rugged poetry
which many of these works contain has not been justly appreciated by
either moralists or historians. A remnant of these ancient works is still
to be found in the periodical representations at Oberammergau, and some
prominent composers of the present epoch have tried to revive this old
form of art. We transcribe from the preface of the miracle-play, "Maria
Magdalena," produced with great success at Berlin and several important
English centres, the following sentences: Mysteries, or miracle-plays,
were representations of dramatic scenes borrowed from the Bible, and
were performed in the Middle Ages, chiefly by roving Franciscans. This
brotherhood, wandering from hamlet to hamlet, from place to place, saw
in these shows, performed often with great pomp in churches or public
squares, the most effectual means of spreading abroad the principles
of the Christian religion. At first, the dramas rested upon a purely
declamatory basis, but at the end of the fifteenth century choral songs
with incidental solos, accompanied by the organ and other instruments,
became incorporated in the representations. We find the embryos of
musical mysteries in 1289 at Friuli and at 1343 at Padua. In France,
too, these performances were called mysteries, and in Spain "autos
sacramentales." Lope de Vega wrote a great number of these holy dramas.
It was the universal custom at that epoch for the spectators, previous to
the beginning of the drama, to recite some antiphons having connection
with the action of the play.
We may regard it as a very striking coincidence, that in the same year
which witnessed the production of Peri's "Euridice" at Florence, the
first oratorio was performed at Rome, in the church of S. Maria in
Valicella, then recently built by St. Philip Neri, the founder of the
congregation of the Oratorians. St. Philip, a friend of Palestrina, was
a firm believer in the power of sacred music, and its utility as a means
of exciting healthy devotional feeling. For the purpose of encouraging a
general love for it, he warmly supported the guild or brotherhood called
the Laudisti. On certain solemn occasions this order paraded the streets
singing hymns of a melodious character, called "laudi spirituali,"
one of which--"Alia trinità beata"--is still to be heard as a popular
hymn-tune. It was probably in the oratory attached to the new church,
that the first oratorio was performed, in the month of February, 1600;
and it is certain that it was from the name of the edifice that this form
of composition derived its name.
The title of the first oratorio was "La Rappresentazione dell' Anima
e del Corpo" (The representation of the Soul and the Body). The words
were by Laura Guidiccioni and the music by Emilio del Cavalieri. The
subject was allegorical, and the style of the music was that of the
monodic school, a style wholly declamatory and recognizing no distinction
whatever between recitative and air. The inventor and the early masters
of the oratorio treated this "sacred drama" more in the manner of the
miracle-plays than in that of classical tragedy.
The broad distinction between the mediæval miracle play--which, for
a long time, had been popular in Italy, France, Spain, England and
Germany--and the oratorio, was that while in the former the dialogue was
spoken, in the latter it was recited to musical notes. The oratorio, in
fact, as invented by Emilio del Cavalieri was neither more nor less than
an opera, based on a sacred subject; and in Italy it never assumed any
other form. Other attempts of the same epoch were made by Kapsberger,
a German living in Rome: also by Loreto Michelangiolo Capellina, "Il
lamento di S. Maria Vergine" (1627); by Stefano Landi, "S. Alessio"
(1634); and by Michelangiolo Rossi "Erminio sul Giordano" (1637). The
most successful, however, was Domenico Mazzocchi's "Repentimento di S.
Maria Maddalena."
Another important composer in this epoch, and connected chiefly with
the early evolution of oratorio style, was Ludovico Viadana (Mantua)
who wrote concerti da chiesa (church-concertos), pieces for one or
more voices with an organ-bass, and thus introduced into chamber music
the newly invented monody of Caccini. He is also the first prominent
writer who used the basso continuo, so called because it continues with
the upper chief melody and gives it a steadfast, harmonic basis. The
long-cherished belief that Viadana was the inventor of this device is
erroneous.
The early efforts of Monteverde and Cavalli prepared the way for a
later generation of composers, whose works are even now regarded as
masterpieces of a style of composition none the less beautiful because no
longer cultivated. The most prominent composers of the brilliant period
which followed the inauguration of the monodic school were Carissimi,
Colonna, Alessandro Stradella, Francesco and Luigi de Rossi, and,
greatest of all, Alessandro Scarlatti, of whom a special biographical
account is included in the present work. Giacomo Carissimi (born in
1604 at Monino, died in 1674 at Rome) devoted himself chiefly to the
composition of sacred music. His works are characterized by sweetness and
grace, combined with a richness of instrumental accompaniment very much
in advance of the age. His chief compositions are the oratorios "Jefte"
and "Iona." Giovanni Paolo Colonna (born in 1640 at Brescia, died in
1695 at Bologna) wrote sacred music of a massive, dignified character,
and in every way worthy the school to which it belongs. The manuscript
of an "offertorium defunctorum," by Colonna, for eight voices, is in the
library of the Royal College of Music in London. This master trained a
large number of talented pupils (the Bolognese school), among others,
Clari, the composer of many fine works and especially of a collection of
charming vocal duets and trios; Giovanni Bononcini, a rival of Handel, in
London; and Perti, Aldovrandini, Passarini, Pasquale, and the celebrated
composer and historian, Padre Martini.
Alessandro Stradella, whose name has been so frequently mentioned in
connection with a fatal love-adventure, wrote many operas and oratorios.
The aria "Pietà, signore," attributed to him, is not of his composition.
For a long time it was thought to have been written by Alessandro
Scarlatti; but it is evidently in the style of Francesco di Rossi, a
canon of Bari, who died in 1688.