The Birth of Opera
Festival plays and intermezzi--Dreary character of music in
plays--Influence of Greek learning--Attempt to resuscitate
the dramatic declamation of the Greeks--Galilei and his
"Ugolino"--Caccini's Nuove Musiche--Peri's setting of
"Daphne"--Production of Rinuccini and Peri's "Eurydice"--The
character of the new music.
The modern opera was the result of a deliberate attempt to revive the
Greek drama, and that attempt was caused chiefly by dissatisfaction with
the music of medieval festival plays. The direction of the attempt was
guided by the revival of Greek learning in Italy, a revival of which the
reader has already been informed in Chapter VI. In order, however, that
the reader may have a clear understanding of the conditions which led to
the birth of opera, it is necessary that the author should briefly
review the state of vocal music employed in plays in the sixteenth
century. The reader will best understand this by recollecting that the
entire art music of the time was colored by the use of the
ecclesiastical scales and the complete devotion of composers to church
counterpoint. The result was that in the beginning there was no
difference, except in the subjects of the libretti, between the
religious dramas, from which the oratorio was developed, and the secular
plays with music, which may be regarded as the forerunners of the opera.
These plays contained no recitative, because recitative had not yet been
invented. They consisted of dialogue interspersed with choruses, and
these choruses were always written, like the madrigals and other secular
songs of the time, in one or the other of the ecclesiastical scales and
in three, four, or five part polyphony.
Accounts have come down to us from a time as early as 1350 of the
employment of plays with musical accompaniment performed to bring to a
close the carnival festivities in Florence. This accompaniment at first
consisted of a single chorus sung at the end of a scene, to a text
bearing some relation to that of the play. The absurdity into which it
fell at times may be understood from the fact that the text sung in a
polyphonic chorus was frequently supposed to be the utterance of one of
the personages of the drama. Toward the end of the fourteenth century
the custom of introducing these pieces of music grew until they were
known as intermezzi. The intermezzo grew in importance till it became a
separate play of lighter character than the principal drama. As our
fathers used to go to the theatre to see "Richard III.," followed by a
one act farce, so these medieval Italians went to see a serious drama
relieved by a humorous or fanciful intermezzo; the difference being that
the intermezzo was performed between the acts of the play. The
intermezzo subsequently rose to such an importance that it developed
into opera buffa, the comic Italian opera. But for the present we are
concerned with it only as a forerunner of opera.
In 1589 Giovanni Bardi, Count of Vernio, wrote, as the festival play for
the marriage of the Grand Duke Ferdinand with Christine de Lorraine,
"L'Amico fido" with "grand, spectacular intermezzi." There were five
intermezzi: "The Harmony of the Spheres," by Rinuccini, Cavaliere, and
Malvezzi; "The Judgment of the Hamadryads," by Rinuccini and Marenzio;
"The Triumph of Apollo," by Rinuccini, Marenzio, and Vernio; "The
Infernal Regions," by Strozzi and Caccini; and "The Fable of Arion," by
Rinuccini, Cavaliere and Marenzio. This production naturally stimulated
the movement in the direction of true opera, while it served to
emphasize the utter unfitness of the extant style of music for dramatic
purposes. The more frequently the composers undertook to set to music
dramatic libretti, even of the simplest nature, the more firmly they
became convinced that their music was not the right kind. The musical
artists of the time had followed the methods of the religious drama,
described in the chapter on the birth of oratorio, and were now
gradually awakening to the fact that its style of music was incapable of
illustrating the human passions and emotions of the secular drama. The
dissatisfaction first found general voice in 1579, when a festival play,
with music by Claudio Merulo and Andrea Gabrieli, was performed in honor
of the marriage of Francesco I., Duke of Tuscany, with Bianca Capella,
of Venice. The text of the choruses was full of joyous praise of the
beauty of the bride; the music was in strict canon and in four parts,
and made the wedding songs sound like funeral hymns. The artistic
nobility of Florence was deeply displeased, and it was then that the
Count of Vernio and a circle of his friends set out to see how they
could improve the state of dramatic music.
The reader will recollect that in Chapter VI I spoke of the great
influence of the revival of Greek learning in Italy on the
simplification of musical style. The friends and associates of Count
Vernio were all enthusiastic students of Greek literature; and to them
the masterpieces of Æschylus and Euripides had come as revelations. It
became their fondest ambition to restore the Greek drama, but they soon
learned that in order to do this they must find their way back to
something like the Greek music used in that drama. It was in searching
for this that they hit upon the much desired substitute for the
unsuitable polyphonic choruses. The Greek drama resembled the opera
rather than the play of the present day. Music was an essential part of
it. The dramatic and lyric elements were inseparable, and the one
modified the other. The spirit of the text was as faithfully represented
in the music as it was possible to represent it with the music of that
age. We have abundant evidence that the Greek tragic writers were also
composers. H. E. Krehbiel, in his "Studies in the Wagnerian Drama," has
excellently summarized this evidence. A fragment of a theoretical work
on rhythm by Aristoxenus is filled with lamentations over the decadence
of dramatic music since the days of Æschylus. The author accuses
contemporary composers of pandering to a depraved public taste.
Sophocles was not only a poet and a composer, but an actor and a singer.
In his own drama "Thamyris" he appeared as a singer stricken blind by
the muses. Special note is made by the Greek writers that Euripides had
to call in the aid of a composer to supply the music for one of his
plays. In the Greek play the actors did not declaim their lines; they
chanted them. The odes which filled the pauses between the various
stages of the dramatic action were sung by the chorus which gravely
danced around an altar between the stage and the audience. These
choruses were sung in unison, and were accompanied by instruments.
It was this dramatic recitation in music as practised by the Greeks that
the little circle of enthusiasts, habitually assembled at the Palazzo
Bardi, set out to resuscitate. But they had no specimens of it and hence
were forced to do the best they could from descriptions. The most
significant fact that struck home into their minds was that a single
personage sang or intoned his part alone, and with an accompaniment of
lyres or instruments of that class. Of course solo singing was not
unknown to the medieval Italians. The troubadours and minstrels were
practising it, and furthermore it is inconceivable that they themselves
did not often hum the catch of a madrigal. Musical historians too often
speak of solo singing as if it were a sudden invention of the Bardi
circle. What they did was to begin the artistic cultivation of it on
certain lines and to produce something which became dramatic recitative.
Vincenzo Galilei, father of Galileo, the famous astronomer, was a most
enthusiastic advocate of the ancient music. He entered into a published
controversy with the composer and theorist Zarlino, who warmly defended
the music of his time. Galilei's "Dialogo della Musica Antica e
Moderna," published in 1581, presents Count Vernio and Pietro Strozzi,
one of the poets of the Vernio circle, as discussing ancient and modern
music. It seems strange to us to find Galilei condemning modern
music--that of the church in 1581--as suitable only for uncultivated
persons and not for the scholar. Galilei, however, was not content with
precept; he added example. He selected a passage from Dante's "Inferno"
and under the title of "Il Conte Ugolino" he set it to music for a
single voice with lute accompaniment. He was an admirable lutenist and
his performance of this, the first artistic monody of which we have any
record, must have been very effective. The work itself is lost.
Giovanni Battista Doni, in his "Compendio del Trattato de' Generi e de'
Modi della Musica" (Rome, 1635), tells us that Galilei was the "first
who composed songs for a single voice," but he declares that Giulio
Caccini, another member of the circle, "in imitation of Galilei, but in
a more beautiful and pleasing style, set many canzonets and sonnets
written by excellent poets." Caccini collected a number of these songs,
which are in pure recitative style, and published them in 1601, under
the title of "Nuove Musiche." He wrote a long preface, in which he
claimed the honor of the highest achievement in this new kind of music
and stoutly upheld its superiority to that of the contrapuntists. Here
is a specimen of this "new music," which will give an excellent idea of
the kind of musical recitation those enthusiasts of Florence evolved
from their attempts to revive the Greek drama.
[Music: Caccini "Nuove Musiche".]
Verse:
Di-te-li vo-i
se di me vi ca-le
ch'il mio Gran ma-le
vien da Gl'occhi svo-i
Di-te-li che ri-mi-ri
Di-te-li che ri-mi-ri
Men-tre chio
moro al-me
no mie-i
mar-ti-ri.
(_From Grove's "Dictionary of Music."_)
The bass part is intended to be figured by the thorough-bass system to
indicate the harmonies. The only point necessary for the reader to note
is that this recitative showed a tendency to abandon the church scales
and use the modern major and minor keys. This tendency soon became a
fixed practice, for composers learned from their dramatic experiments
that the church modes were not suitable to the embodiment of human
passions, and that they also lost much of their musical effectiveness
when not employed in polyphony. The reader will recollect what has
already been said about the change from polyphonic to monophonic
writing. This excerpt from Caccini's book is one of the earliest
specimens of monophonic composition, for it was in the search after the
Greek recitative that composers found the new thing in music. This
particular quotation presents an unusually well-formed piece for that
time, for most of the music of the Vernio coterie lacked that definite
movement which we call figure. Its rhythm was exceedingly vague, for the
purpose of the composers was to follow as closely as possible the
inflections of the voice in speech. It was their belief that this method
was the true path to dramatic expressiveness. Their theory has been
proved by the experience of their successors to be fundamentally
correct, though their practice was naturally uncertain, tentative, and
often unsuccessful. Nevertheless to Galilei, Caccini, and the other
members of the assembly at the Palazzo Bardi must be attributed the
invention of modern dramatic recitative, upon which the whole structure
of opera rests. It is not possible to tell which of these men was the
actual inventor. Probably the product was the result of consultation and
joint effort extending over some twenty years.
Although the labors of Galilei and Caccini produced recitative, it is
plain that they had not up to 1595 (or thereabout) written anything more
than scenes for a single voice. In 1592 the Pope appointed the Count of
Vernio his Maestro di Camera, and he accordingly removed from Florence
to Rome. The meetings of the Florentine coterie were held thereafter at
the palace of Giacomo Corsi, who was also an enthusiast in regard to
Greek literature and art in general. It was at the house of Corsi that
the first work of the coterie in the form of a play was made known. This
was a pastoral called "Daphne," performed privately in 1597. The book
was written by Ottavio Rinuccini, the poet, who wrote some of the
intermezzi previously mentioned, and the music was by Jacopo Peri, a
member of the coterie, not a very learned musician, but a firm believer
in the new style. The work is lost, but Peri tells us in the preface to
his later work, "Eurydice," that he wrote "Daphne" at the solicitation
of Corsi and Rinuccini to try the power of the new vocal music.
Rinuccini, in his dedication of the libretto of "Eurydice" to Mary de
Medicis, wrote:--
"It has been the opinion of many persons, most excellent queen, that
the ancient Greeks and Romans sang their tragedies throughout on
the stage, but so noble a manner of recitation has not, that I know
of, been even attempted by any one till now; and this I thought was
owing to the defect of the modern music, which is far inferior to the
ancient. But Messer Jacopo Peri made me entirely alter my opinion,
when, upon hearing the intention of Messer Giacomo Corsi and myself,
he so elegantly set to music the pastoral of 'Daphne,' which I had
composed merely to make a trial of the power of vocal music in our
age; it pleased to an incredible degree those few who heard it. From
this I took courage. The same piece, being put into better form and
presented anew in the house of Messer Peri, was not only favored by
all the nobility of the country, but heard and commended by the most
serene grand duchess, and the most illustrious Cardinals dal Monte
and Montalto. But the 'Eurydice' has met with more favor and success,
being set to music by the same Peri with wonderful art, and having
been thought worthy to be represented on the stage by the bounty and
magnificence of the most serene grand duke, in the presence of your
Majesty, the cardinal legate, and so many princes and gentlemen of
Italy and France. From whence, beginning to find how well musical
representations of this kind were likely to be received, I resolved to
publish these two, to the end that others of greater abilities than
myself may be induced to carry on and improve this kind of poetry to
such a degree that we may have no occasion to envy those ancient pieces
which are so much celebrated by noble writers."
It is evident that Rinuccini had a high opinion of the value of his
libretti. Posterity has awarded the palm, however, to Peri's music.
Peri, in his preface to "Eurydice," says he wrote "Daphne" at the
suggestion of Corsi and Rinuccini "to test the effect of the kind of
melody which they imagined to be the same as that used by the ancient
Greeks and Romans throughout their dramas." The success of the private
performances of "Daphne" led to the writing of "Eurydice," which
was prepared as the festival play for the marriage of King Henry IV., of
France, with Mary de Medicis. This work, the first Italian opera, was
produced in 1600 in Florence, after careful preparation. Its success was
immediate and almost sensational. It was pronounced by all the
dilettanti of Florence to be a genuinely new thing in art, and the
recitative music, by its fidelity to the text, made a profound
impression. Fortunately this work has been preserved and there is a
modern reprint of it. In the preface Peri set forth his theory of
recitative. It is evident that he had a deep insight into the true
nature of the new form. He tried to imitate ordinary conversational
speech with music half sung and half spoken--what came to be called
"parlando." More complex emotions seemed to him to call for a "melody
with greater intervals and a lively tempo, the accompanying instrumental
harmonies changing more frequently." It appears also from Peri's preface
that he had some assistance from Caccini in writing his score. But, as
Rinuccini credits Peri alone with the work, as only Peri's name appeared
in the published score, and as Caccini afterward set the entire libretto
to music of his own, I suspect that he, being a singer, simply helped
Peri with some of the more troublesome parts for the solo voices.
The author was present at a performance of "Eurydice," given by The
American Academy of the Dramatic Arts in New York on March 15, 1894. The
work of course sounded antiquated and tentative, and it is impossible
for us to-day to realize the impression which it must have made on the
Florentines three hundred years ago. To approach such a realization
would require the power to free one's mind from familiarity with some of
the most ordinary harmonic and melodic sequences of modern music, which
came into existence after the days of Peri. One would, furthermore, have
to bring his mind into the state of those whose only vocal music of an
artistic kind had been contrapuntal and ecclesiastical, and to whom the
vocal solo was a startling novelty. Viewed from a standpoint as near
this as a modern person can reach, Peri's recitative--and his music is
never anything more than recitative--becomes pregnant with meaning and
fruitful in possibilities. It certainly sounds somewhat timid to us,
lacking, as it does, the bold melodic sequences of later music. But it
reveals itself as a sincere and--within its limits--successful artistic
effort. It is in some measure hampered by the antiquated
conventionalities of Rinuccini's book, but we must remember that he,
too, was laboring in the field of experiment. Here is a specimen of
Peri's recitative, quoted in my "Story of Music," with harmony arranged
by Dr. F. L. Ritter.
[Music: Peri.]
Verse:
Or di soa-ve plet-tro
arma-to e' d'aurea ce-tra
con lag-ri-mo-so me-tro
can-o-ro a-man-te im-pe-tra
ch'il ciel ri-veg-gae
vi-va la sos-pi-ra-ta
Di-va
With the exception of a few measures of their choral writing, the whole
opera was in recitative of this kind. The orchestra in "Eurydice"
consisted of a violin, a large guitar, a lyre, a large lute, and a
harpsichord. These instruments played a very bald sort of accompaniment.
There was no attempt at instrumental effects, except in one place where
three flutes were employed to imitate a pandæan pipe, played by one of
the characters. The whole value of the opera lies in its vocal part.
In closing this account of the first opera, I must endeavor to convey to
the reader a clear idea of the peculiarities of its music. I have
already pointed out the fact that the composer sought to impart dramatic
significance to his music by imitating the inflections of the voice in
speech. Naturally this method precluded the possibility of arriving at
any definite musical form, such as we should now call a tune. The
composers of the time had not yet acquired such familiarity with the
monophonic style as to understand that, as I have shown earlier in this
book, all single-voiced tunes were dependent upon a harmonic basis.
Not having a definite succession of chords, they mixed their harmonies
up in unrelated masses, and the voice parts, built upon those harmonies,
were consequently shapeless. There being no definitely shaped tunes,
there could not be any strong musical contrasts. To-day a composer
expresses grief through a slow movement, such as a largo or an adagio,
and usually in a minor key, while a change to joy is indicated by a
transition to a major key, a lively movement, and an incisive rhythm.
But in Peri's "Eurydice," where everything is in recitative, such strong
contrast is impossible. When Orpheus bewails the loss of Eurydice he
does it in recitative which is somewhat broken and spasmodic in its
phrasing; when he pours out his joy at her recovery, he does it in
recitative which flows more smoothly and approaches more nearly what we
call melody. But that is as far as Peri advanced, and it is as far as he
could advance in the then state of monophonic composition. A good singer
can make Peri's recitative sound fairly expressive. Caccini's setting of
Rinuccini's poem is similar in general style to that of Peri. But as
skill in writing homophonic music developed among instrumental
composers, the opera writers began to see how they could adapt to their
needs some of the new material, and the development of operatic writing
in the direction of definite forms was remarkably rapid,--so rapid,
indeed, that it led dramatic music out of its province, as we shall see.
It should be noted, before proceeding further, that Peri called his
"Eurydice" a _Tragedia per Musica_. The other titles of the lyric drama
in its inception were _Drama per Musica_, _Melodrama_, and
_Tragicomedia_. It was about 1650 that the title _Opera per Musica_ was
first used, and this was soon afterward abbreviated to Opera. The new
style of music, the recitative, was called _Stile rappresentativo_ or
_Stile parlante_.