THE BEGINNINGS OF OPERA AND ORATORIO
The forerunners of opera--The Florentine reform of 1600; the
'expressive’ style; Peri and Caccini; the first opera; Cavalieri and
the origin of oratorio--Claudio Monteverdi: his life and his works.
I
In tracing the genesis of the connection of music with dramatic
action we shall rely upon the delightful and exhaustive study of M.
Rolland entitled _L’Opéra avant l’opéra_,[125] in which he shows
our most popular species of musical art to have descended from the
pastoral play and the 'antique’ drama with music, this in turn to have
come out of the _sacre rappresentazione_ (sacred representations)
and the _maggi_, the May festivals, which still exist in Italy. The
sacred representations again were a union of the fourteenth century
_divozione_ or liturgical plays (dramatizations of the religious
offices), and the national festival of Florence, held in honor of
its patron saint, John. These remarkable festivals date back to the
thirteenth century and were staged so sumptuously and elaborately as to
require months of preparation.
Research has shown that the words of the sacred plays were at first
entirely sung, and by analogy with the traditional May festivals we
are even informed as to the nature of the melodies used. There were
traditional _cantilena_ forms for every part of the action: prologues,
epilogues, prayers, etc., and we meet already the familiar variety
of solo, duet, trio and semi-choir, even though all the voices sing
in unison. Popular songs and dance music were interpolated as well as
_Te Deums_ and _Laudi_, and the intermezzi, later so popular, were
already in evidence. The costuming and personation of characters
were consistently carried out and the properties and mechanical
devices (_ingegni teatrali_) were the creations of the genius of
such men as Brunelleschi in Florence and Leonardo da Vinci in Milan.
Parallel phenomena are the _Marienklagen_ existing in Germany from the
fourteenth century on, the music of which was similar to the liturgical
chant of the church.[126]
We have mentioned the interest which Lorenzo de Medici took in
the carnival celebrations. The sacred representations engaged his
attention no less: following the spirit of the age, he secularized
them to some extent, substituting classic myth for Christian allegory.
The fifteenth century saw the spread of Humanism in the wake of the
Revival of Learning, and the sixteenth beheld its ultimate triumph.
The theatre felt the effect of the movement no less than architecture
and sculpture. The love of show, of rich display, which obsessed the
princely despots of the period, coupled with their ardor for the
beauties of antiquity, found its expression in the classic tragedies,
the comedies and pastoral plays which now taxed the talents of
poets, of painters and of musicians. Far from being exclusive, these
spectacles became the popular amusements in such centres as Rome,
Urbino, Mantua, Venice and Ferrara. On festival occasions they assumed
phenomenal proportions, as for instance at the marriage of Lucrezia
Borgia to the son of Hercules d’Este, when five comedies by Plautus
were played in one week in a theatre holding five thousand spectators.
Music always played an essential part in the performance, though mostly
in the form of _intermedii_, which, as they assumed a more independent
dramatic character and developed their dancing features, became in
themselves the forerunners of the ballet-opera.[127]
Notable exceptions, in which the purpose of music was something more
than mere relief, were the great poet Poliziano’s _Orfeo_ given in 1474
with music by one Germi, and also a _Dafne_ produced with music by Gian
Pietro della Viola, in 1486, both at Mantua, 'that same Mantua in which
there were to be played one hundred and forty years later the _Orfeo_
of Monteverdi and the _Dafne_ of Gagliano.’ The coincidence is indeed
striking as is also the fact that the Florentine 'inventors’ of opera
in 1600 chose as their first themes the same two classic tales. It
would be interesting to compare the 1474 version of the perennial--and
ideal--operatic subject, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, with that
of the mighty Gluck; but, alas, the music has not been preserved to
us. Mr. W. J. Henderson, who has endeavored to prove this _Orfeo_ to
be the first opera of record, concludes that the _frottola_, in its
solo arrangement, formed the basis of the music; that the dialogue was
probably sung throughout; that there were choruses and ballets--all the
accessories of modern opera in fact.[128] It was nevertheless nothing
more than an 'antique’ drama with music, with the only difference that
in this case the subject was a musical one, that the leading character
represented a singer, and was in fact impersonated in the original
performance by one of the most famous Italian vocalists of the period,
Baccio Ugolino, who sang to the accompaniment of his own lyre (_lira
da braccia_). The scenery of this performance at the Palazzo Gonzaga
was simple, only one setting being required. The stage was divided, one
side representing the Thracian countryside, and the other the realm of
Pluto. But Poliziano later revised the work, dividing it into five acts
and elaborating it along the line of the _sacre rappresentazione_.
Not only at Florence and Mantua, but in Venice, in Ferrara at the court
of Hercules I, in Rome under papal auspices, in fact wherever there
was a fastidious aristocracy, these 'antique’ _comedie_ flourished.
Among artists, Leonardo da Vinci at Milan, Raphael at Rome, Andrea del
Sarto at Florence, Dosso Dossi at Ferrara, and numerous other immortal
names of the Renaissance are associated with their production, and
among musicians Alphonso della Viola, Antonio dal Cornetto, Claudio
Merulo, Andrea Gabrieli, and many more. As Humanism succumbs to the
Catholic reaction, with the pillaging of Rome by Charles V (1527)
and the taking of Florence soon after, as liberty of thought is
crushed by the Inquisition, as petty tyrants supersede broad-spirited
despots, the harmless pastoral play succeeds the _comedia_. Sumptuous
settings and meaningless music now outweigh dramatic significance.
Poets such as Ariosto and Tasso are the authors of these spectacles,
and another generation of great artists, John of Bologna, Salviati,
Bernardo Bumlalente and perhaps Michael Angelo, lavish their skill
upon them. Indeed both painters and poets in this age are musicians.
Music had at this epoch obsessed the entire thought of Italy. Painters,
writers, the _élite_, especially in the north of Italy, madly abandoned
themselves to it. Nearly all great Venetian painters of the sixteenth
century: Giorgione, Bassano, Tintoretto, Giovanni d’Udine, Sebastiano
del Piombo, were musicians. Let us recall the numerous paintings of
'concerts,’ either sacred (Bellini) or profane (Giorgione, Bonifazio,
Veronese); remember how in the 'Marriage at Canaan’ of the Louvre,
Titian holds the bass viol and Bassano the flute. Sebastiano del Piombo
was celebrated as lute player and singer, while Vasari recognized more
willing Tintoretto’s talent as a musician than as a painter. At the
court of Leo X music superseded all the other arts. The pope decreed
for two _virtuosi_, charged with the superintendence of St. Peter’s,
a stipend equal to Raphael’s. A Jewish lutenist, Giammaria, received
the title of count and a palace. A singer, Gabriel Merino, became
archbishop of Bari. Finally, it will be remembered that, when Leonardo
da Vinci presented himself at the court of Ludovico il Moro at Milan,
it was, according to Vasari, not in the capacity of painter, but as
musician. Girolamo Parabasco said, 'I am a musician, not a poet’ and
the great Tasso, 'Music is, so to speak, the soul of poetry.’
Beccari’s _Sacrificio_, produced in 1554 with music by Alfonso della
Viola (which is preserved), before Hercules II of Ferrara, the
_Aretusa_ of Alberto Lollio (1563), the _Sfortunato_ of Agostino
Argenti, and the famous _Aminta_ of Torquato Tasso,[129] given
with music at the court of the grand duke of Tuscany in 1590, are
examples of pastoral plays. Tasso’s collaborators and advisers in
this production were none other than Emilio de’ Cavalieri and Laura
Guidicioni (perhaps also Ottavio Rinuccini, at any rate a spectator)
who, we shall presently see, are to become instrumental in the
creation of true opera. In the same year these two produced privately
their pastoral plays with music, _Il Satiro_ and _Disperazione di
fileno_, the first known examples of opera, for they were set to music
throughout, and probably even in 'representative’ style, as it was
called. Five years later (1595) followed _Il Gioco della cieca_, played
before the Archduke Ferdinand, but the music of none of these works has
been preserved.
[Illustration: 'THE CONCERT’.]
_After the painting by Giorgione (Pitti Palace)._
II
The opera, then, had arrived. But, unaware of the fact, its so-called
inventors, caught in the spell of antiquarian research, their
imaginations transported by the glories of the classic past, turned
their vision back to ancient Greece--to Athens, that prototype of
their own city of Florence--where Æschylus unfolds before the eyes of
his countrymen a spectacle worthy of the gods. They see no analogy in
their madrigals and the dithyrambic chorus of the ancients, no parallel
in their _sacre rappresentazione_ to the Eleusynian mysteries and
Bacchic festivals, but, rejecting all that has gone before, attempt to
resurrect the magic power of music as an organic part of human speech,
and the revival of the greatest product of classic genius--the Greek
tragedy. Such was the purpose of the _camerata_, that genial circle
of amateurs, _literati_ and musicians which gathered at the house of
Giovanni Bardi, count of Vernio, in Florence, one of those famous
'academies’ which were the centres of the intellectual life of Italy in
the sixteenth century.
Jacopo Peri, an erudite musician and a favorite singer; his younger
colleague Giulio Caccini of Rome; the already familiar Emilio de’
Cavalieri, inspector-general of the artists in Florence; Luca Marenzio,
the most eminent musician of the city, and Christoforo Malvezzi, all
of whom had collaborated on the _intermezzi_ to Bardi’s _L’Amico fido_
in 1589, were, together with Jacopo Corsi, a wealthy and intelligent
patron of music, and Vincenzo Galilei, father of the great astronomer,
the chief members of the circle, besides the host. These men, liberal
thinkers, modernists, literati rather than professional musicians,
were out of sympathy with the pedants of the contrapuntal school,
the 'Goths’ against whom Galilei[130] had already published his
diatribe in 1551. The Latin translations of Aristoxenus’, Ptolemy’s
and Aristotle’s treatises on music, published in 1562, aroused their
keenest interest and discussion, and their admiration of the plastic
arts which had signalized the Renaissance in the preceding centuries
now found an echo in their attempt to reconstruct a lost ideal. In
1585 the great Andrea Gabrieli had written choruses for the solemn
performance of _Œdipus Rex_ at Vincenza, and in 1589 Luca Marenzio
wrote a 'Combat of Apollo and the Dragon,’ drawing his inspiration
from the descriptions of the _Nomos Pythikos_ of the Greeks (see Chap.
IV, p. 127). Convinced, despite the lack of examples, of the greater
expressive power of Greek music with the employment of simpler means,
Galilei, after long research with the aid of Bardi, now composed for a
solo voice and instrumental accompaniment Dante’s 'Lament of Ugolino,’
in the so-called _stile rappresentativo_, the representative style.
His experiment proved suggestive if not altogether successful, and
the task was next taken up by Caccini,[131] who, with probably more
natural talent than Galilei, set himself to the composition of several
_canzone_ in the new style, a simple cantilena over a figured bass
(see Chap. XI, p. 355) which provided a harmonious support to be
executed by instruments (lute or theorbo). Endowed with a beautiful
and well-cultivated voice, he achieved a genuine success among his
sympathetic circle. To make sure of himself, however, he proceeded
to Rome, where his new songs were applauded by an assemblage of
connoisseurs. Thus encouraged, he appealed to his literary friends for
verses in all metres, which he promptly set to music. Some years later
(1601) these were published under the title _La nuove musiche_ ('The
New Music’) with a remarkable preface, in which their author claims
the merit for having originated the _stile rappresentativo_, and which
contains so much technical information for singers that it may well be
considered the first vocal method. Caccini’s _arie_ were disseminated
largely through his vocal pupils, for they adapted themselves admirably
to the beautiful Italian style of singing of which he was one of the
first masters. We may mention incidentally that his daughter, Septimia,
became one of the famous singers of the period and aroused the
admiration of Monteverdi. Her sister, Francesca, achieved distinction
both as singer and composer.
Caccini, though he was probably the first to use and secure public
acceptance of the _arioso_ style, was--despite his own claims--not the
originator of the true recitative. That distinction belongs to Jacopo
Peri, a more learned musician though a less genial personality, who
meantime had begun the application of the representative style to the
drama.[132] Corsi, the successor of Bardi (now become papal chamberlain
in Rome), as host and patron, was a close friend of the poet Ottavio
Rinuccini (d. 1623). Both were familiar with the experiments of
Cavalieri in the realm of dramatic music. After joint deliberation,
the two appealed to Peri 'to give a simple proof of the power of
modern music’ by setting Rinuccini’s dramatic poem _Dafne_, a scene of
which had already been experimented with by Bardi. 'Remembering that
it was a question of dramatic poetry and that the melody must at all
times be modelled after the words,’ Peri concluded 'that the ancients
employed musical forms which, more elevated than ordinary speech yet
less regularly designed than common song melodies, were half-way
between the two.’ In an effort to forget every known style, he at
first attempted to rediscover the _diastematica_ of the Greeks, the
quarter-tone interval, in the inflections of ordinary speech. According
to his own testimony, he closely observed persons speaking, so that he
might reproduce as naturally as possible their expressions, whether
moderate or passionate. Thus he decided to have quiet expressions sung
in half-spoken tones over a resting instrumental bass. In emotional
moments, however, the voices proceeded in a more animated tempo and
by larger intervals instead of strictly conjunct motion, while the
accompaniment indulged in more frequently changing, and sometimes
dissonant, harmonies. In other words, he used what we know to-day as
recitative.
The importance of the principle thus introduced--the preference of
expressive quality to purely musical effect--cannot be plain-song germ
of romanticism itself lies in this departure, the elements of Gluck’s
reform, of Wagner’s creed, repose in the assertion of Caccini that 'one
is always beautiful when one is expressive.’
Peri’s _Dafne_, after charming the circle of intimates, was performed
at the house of Corsi one evening during the carnival of 1597, the
composer singing the rôle of Apollo, in the presence of the Grand
Duke Ferdinando de Medici, the cardinals dal Monte and Montalto,
the poets Piero Strozzi and Francesco Cini and 'a great number of
gentlemen.’ 'The pleasure and the stupor which seized the audience is
inexpressible,’ said Gagliano later in the preface to his own _Dafne_.
Every person there felt that he was in the presence of a new art.
Spurred on by this victory, Rinuccini composed his _Euridice_ for the
festivities occasioned by the marriage of Maria de Medici to Henri
IV, king of France, in 1600. Peri again wrote the music, though at
the performance, which took place on October 6 at the Pitti palace,
some of the numbers of Caccini’s version (composed after Peri’s) were
substituted because of Caccini’s influence with the singers. The title
rôle was sung by the famous Vittoria Archilei, 'the Euterpe of Italy,’
while Peri himself impersonated Orpheus. The event not only aroused the
greatest enthusiasm among the distinguished assemblage, but its echoes
resounded through all the courts of Europe and tremendously stimulated
interest in the new art.
The score of _Euridice_ has been reprinted in Florence in 1863 and may
be examined by the student. It consists of 48 small octavo pages of
simple recitative dialogue written over a figured bass, interspersed
with five-part choruses in predominatingly diatonic harmony. The
preface indicates that the figured bass was executed by a clavier,
a _chitarrone_, a _lira grande_ and a large flute (in one place a
_triflauto_--triple flute--is added), but it is not clear how the
musicians managed to produce effective harmony without written-out
parts. The impoverished quality of the music indicates a distinct
retrogression from the contrapuntal compositions of the day, and
vastly so when we consider the _a capella_ style of Palestrina. Its
striking novelty alone accounts for the extraordinary effect it had
upon the hearers. Its value was not in its intrinsic quality but in
the direction which it indicated, the path which was to lead to untold
riches of sound.
Following closely upon the heels of Peri’s work came the setting of
the same poem by Caccini, who had already produced _Il rapimento di
Caffalo_ (1597, performed 1600); Marco da Gagaliano (1575-1642) was
already at work along similar lines and in 1608 produced his _Dafne_ at
Mantua--one year after Monteverdi’s 'Orfeo’ which, however, marked so
great an advance that it might have been written a generation later.
Before discussing that master, it will be necessary to consider the
utilization of the representative style in another field--that of the
sacred drama or oratorio--by Emilio de’ Cavalieri,[133] whose dramatic
essays in connection with Laura Guidicioni have already been mentioned.
The origin of the oratorio is twofold: the prose _oratorio latino_
and the Italian _oratorio volgare_. The former is derived from the
mediæval liturgical plays already spoken of, and the 'mysteries’ and
'moralities’ of the fifteenth century are clearly forerunners of it.
The _oratorio volgare_, a didactic poem independent of scripture text,
had its point of departure in the _esercizii spirituali_ (scriptural
lessons), instituted by the priest Filippo Neri (afterward canonized)
at Rome. He became the founder of the congregation of Oratorians,
which regularly met for Bible study under his leadership. On certain
evenings of the week his sermons were preceded and followed either
by a selection of popular hymns or by the dramatic rendering of a
biblical scene. From the place in which these were first enacted, the
oratory of the church of S. Maria in Vallicella, they received their
name--Oratorio.
Just as the dramatic madrigal was built upon the style of the secular
madrigal, so these sacred dramas probably modelled themselves after
the 'spiritual’ madrigal. While Peri and Caccini were still engaged in
their experiments, Cavalieri, in 1600, staged in Neri’s oratory his
most important creation _La Rappresentazione di anima e di corpo_,
slightly antedating Peri’s _Euridice_. Like that work, it was written
in 'expressive’ style, of which Cavalieri may indeed have been the
real originator. Cavalieri’s work belongs to the province of sacred
opera, being the first of this important branch of the music drama,
which is further represented by such works as Landis’ _S. Alessio_
(1637) and Marazolli’s allegorical opera _La Vita humana_ (1658). It is
distinguished from the true non-scenic oratorio, which is associated
with the artistic personality Carissimi. To show the distinction
between his work and that of Florentines, however, we quote the
criticism of his _Il Satiro_, by Giovanni Battista Doni, the historian
of the Florentine monodists: 'It must, however, be well understood,’
he says, 'that these melodies are very different from those of to-day
(seventeenth century) which are written in the _stile recitativo_; the
others (of Cavalieri, etc.) are nothing but ariettas with all sorts
of artifices and repetitions, echoes and other similar things, having
nothing to do with the good and true dramatic music....’
On the other hand, Cavalieri’s own instructions show his wonderful
practical knowledge in the performance of opera, and give us an
exact idea of the first operatic theatre: 'The hall should not hold
more than a thousand spectators comfortably seated, in the greatest
silence. Larger halls have bad acoustics: they make the singer force
his voice and they kill expression. Moreover, when the words are not
understood the music becomes tiresome. The number of instruments
must be proportioned to the place of performance. The orchestra is
invisible, hidden behind the drop. The instrumentation should change
according to the emotion expressed. An overture, an instrumental and
vocal introduction, are of good effect before the curtain rises. The
_ritornelle_ and _sinfonie_ should be played by many instruments. A
ballet, or better a singing ballet, should close the performance. The
actor must seek to acquire absolute perfection in his voice, physique,
gestures, bearing, and even his walk. He should sing with emotion--as
it is written--not one passage like the other; and he must be careful
to pronounce his words distinctly, so that he may be heard _che siano
intese_. The chorus should not think they are excused from acting when
they do not have to sing. They must feign to listen to what is going
on; they must occasionally change their places, rise, sit down, make
gestures. The performance should not exceed two hours.... Three acts
suffice and one must be careful to infuse variety, not only into the
music but also the poem, and even the costumes....’
'Gluck and Wagner,’ says Romain Rolland, 'have added little to these
rules!’
III
The _favolo in musica_ (it was not called opera as yet) had taken
root; its first tender shoots, delectable morsels for a fastidious
intellectual aristocracy, nurtured in the soil of princely patronage,
had given evidence of hardihood. But it was an exotic, a hot-house
plant, limited by its very nature to the homes of aristocracy: in
order to flourish and grow to noble proportions it had to bathe in
the sunlight of popular favor; it required the care of a master, a
genius who substituted imagination for synthetic reason, intuition
for experiment. That master was Monteverdi. If the works of Peri and
Caccini smelt of the midnight oil, there coursed in _his_ creations the
red blood of humanity. If their music was 'representative’ of the exact
meaning of the word, attuned to the niceties of accent and inflection,
_his_ portrayed the gamut of human passions, the soul itself, even
at times violating literary fidelity to reach that greater purpose.
While they had 'thrust upon them’ the honor of creating a new method
of expression, he, the musical genius of a century, could deliberately
choose between the old and the new--and he chose the new. 'With him the
new evolution began and the new edifice, hardly risen above the ground,
became a magnificent monument. Well did he see what was lacking in the
conception of the Florentines: he understood that to fight successfully
against the resources of counterpoint new riches had to be brought,
different but equally valuable. His prodigious inventive genius
discovered them: he found them in harmony, in the expressive accent of
the monodic chant and in the variety of instrumentation.’
Claudio Monteverdi (in old prints spelled Monteverde, though by himself
as here) first saw the light of the world at Cremona, in May, 1567.
His father was probably a physician, at any rate a man of culture, who
provided for his children an education far above the average. Claudio
gave early evidence of musical talent and was placed under the tutelage
of Marc’ Antonio Ingegneri, the choirmaster of the cathedral and
musical arbiter in Cremona, with whom he studied viola playing, singing
and composition. Ingegneri was a composer of genius; his _Responsoria_,
published anonymously, were for a long time ascribed to Palestrina,
and, while worthy to be ranked with that composer’s, they contain
harmonies and modulations foreign to his style.
Here, in the master’s originality we seem to find the explanation of
his leniency toward his pupils’ vagaries, for Monteverdi from the first
showed a most persistent tendency to break the rules of counterpoint.
He first appears as composer at the age of sixteen, publishing in
1583 his _Madrigali spirituali_ for four voices and in the following
year his _Canzonette a tre voci_, which were full of irregularities
and forbidden progressions. His first book of five-part madrigals was
brought out in 1587 and it was evident that he was already reaching
out for realms unknown, though perhaps not yet equal to the leap. An
extraordinary addiction to dissonances, frequent use of the seventh in
suspensions, and a number of unpleasant progressions characterize these
otherwise beautiful madrigals, as well as the additional collections,
printed in 1590, 1592 and 1603; but they nevertheless became popular,
the last two going eventually through eight editions.
Meantime Monteverdi had become an able violist and aroused attention
to his playing in high quarters. His virtuosity opened him the doors
to the service of Duke Vincenzo di Gonzaga at Mantua, whither he went
in 1590 as violist and singer. His modernist tendencies aroused the
opposition of local musicians, which, already evident when he became
_maestro di capella_ in 1602, broke out openly as the madrigals of
his fifth book, including the beautiful _Cruda Amarilli_, made their
appearance. These drew the fire of Giovanni Maria Artusi, theoretician,
and _canonicus regulatis_ of S. Salvatore, who attacked him in a
polemic, 'On the Imperfections of Modern Music’ (1600), not mentioning
his name, but quoting his newest compositions (still in MS.) as
examples. The attack is so amusing, and its adherence to the perennial
arguments of contemporary criticism so striking that we cannot refrain
from quoting it in part.
[Illustration: CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI.]
_After a contemporaneous portrait (artist unknown)._
'Though I am glad to hear of a new manner of composition it would be
more edifying to find in these madrigals reasonable _passagi_, but this
kind of air-castles and chimeras deserves the severest reproof.’ Like
all critics he cites the example of the masters: Palestrina, Porta,
Merulo, Gabrieli, Gastode, Lasso, etc., whose works these 'moderns’
should emulate, but instead 'are content to concoct as great a noise
as possible--a confused mixture of unrhyming things, and mountains
of imperfections.’ 'Behold, for instance,’ he cries, 'the rough and
uncouth passage in the third example (by Monteverdi). After a rest
the bass attacks on a diminished fifth against the upper voice.’ Not
after a consonance, mind you, as the masters have done, but after a
rest--and, as for sevenths unprepared--preposterous!
Monteverdi had had the temerity not only to use the dominant seventh
without 'preparation’ according to the established rules, but to use
other dissonances, diminished and secondary sevenths, ninths and
elevenths in connection; he had introduced a freedom in the movement of
voices and a sequence of chords the audacity of which still startles
us to-day. 'Modern! Certainly he is modern by these tokens,’ says
Tiersot, after hearing the Paris revival of _Orfeo_. 'But truly and
spontaneously has he made his discoveries, they were so little searched
for, that neither his contemporaries, nor his successors, perhaps
not even himself, have understood their value; and it has taken us
centuries to arrive at a true appreciation of their merit.’
Monteverdi replied to his critics (for the cry had been taken up
by others and the argument developed into an open war) with the
publication of his fifth book of madrigals, containing all the
criticized compositions with not a note changed. He even travelled
to Venice to supervise the printing so as to insure accuracy. In
his preface he said that, having endeavored to express emotions
hitherto unexpressed in music, it was necessary to invent new tone
combinations. New harmonies, moreover, required new modulations. He
insisted that more than one point of view is worthy of consideration
and advised the _cognoscenti_ to study further and learn 'that the
modern composer builds upon a foundation of truth.’ These madrigals
reached eventually nine editions, were reprinted in Antwerp and
Copenhagen and spread their composer’s fame throughout Europe.
Moreover, Monteverdi stood in high favor with his patron, a man of
understanding who shared his ancestors’ leaning to lavish patronage
of the arts. He accompanied Duke Vincenzo on his war expedition to
Hungary, when in 1595 he supported Rudolph II against the Turks, and
in 1599 went with him to Flanders, whence he brought a new style of
composition, the _canto alla francese_, which he afterwards adopted in
his _Scherzi musicale a tre voci_.
His domestic circumstances, however, were none too favorable. He
had married in 1595 Claudia Cattaneo, the daughter of a violist and
herself a singer at the ducal court, where her salary even exceeded
Monteverdi’s meagre pay. She had borne him two sons and existence
became more and more difficult. In 1607 she was taken seriously ill,
and continued hardship and solicitude for his family spurred Monteverdi
to complaint, but without result. His duties were most onerous, for
besides directing the music at court he was obliged to participate in
the church service and the many special performances which the duke’s
love of festivities occasioned.
One of these occasions was the carnival of 1607, when Vincenzo,
familiar with the successes of Peri and Caccini at Florence, determined
to surpass them at Mantua, and intrusted the preparation of the work
to Monteverdi. The result was the _Favola di Orfeo_, the text for
which had been written by Alessandro Striggio, son of the famous
madrigalist. It was performed, first in the _Academia degl’Invaghite_,
and again, on February 24th, and March 1st, in the ducal theatre. Its
success was enormous; the music aroused the most profound admiration,
as did also the book, which, by order of the duke, was printed, so
that the audience might follow it during the performance. As _Orfeo_
is the only opera of Monteverdi preserved to us in its entirety, we
may examine the score in Robert Eitner’s edition with modern notation
and the figured bass harmonized, and so realize the tremendous advance
it shows, over Caccini’s 'Euridice,’ for instance (reprinted in the
same publication).[134] The style of the recitative is similar,
though it shows much greater fluency, the harmonies are beyond all
comparison richer and more varied; dissonances, especially the
diminished seventh, being used with great dramatic effect; suspensions
and anticipations are particularly frequent and there are many daring
chromatic modulations, such as from G# minor to G and from E♭ major
to E, reminding of Wagner’s use of these same progressions. Instead
of a simple figured bass we have in the instrumental numbers at least
a completely worked-out harmonic structure, and for the first time
instruments are used in definite combinations with respect to their
various _timbres_. There is an agreeably varied sequence of _toccata_
(overture), recitative, _arioso_, _ritornelle_, chorus and _sinfonie_
(at ends of acts); in fact, we find in _Orfeo_ all the elements of
the later opera, from the instrumental introduction to the final
movement, even though in small proportions and of modest pretentions.
The ternary form, later so important, opens its way here and there,
i. e. in the first movement of the second act. The great bravura aria
is also represented and offers opportunity to the skillful singer to
exhibit his technique. (Sometimes the vocal part appears in two ways;
first in the simple unadorned form, and directly under it in elaborate
coloratura arrangement, evidently leaving the choice to the singer.)
The orchestra instruments play together only in the instrumental
numbers; in the choruses they simply double the voice parts; but in
accompanying the solo voices the composer has made use of a curious
device of associating the tone quality of a certain instrument or
group of instruments with each character. This is indicated in the
table of characters, which at the same time shows the composition of
Monteverdi’s orchestra:
CHARACTERS INSTRUMENTS
Music, prologue Two _gravicembani_ (similar to spinets)
Orfeo Two bass viols
Euridice Ten violas
Chorus of nymphs and shepherds One double harp
Speranza Two small French violins
Caronte (Charon) Two _chitaroni_ (zithers)
Chorus of infernal spirits Two _organi di legno_ (small pipe organs)
Proserpina Three _bassi da gamba_ (large viols)
Pluto Four trombones
Apollo One _regale_ (reed organ)
Chorus of shepherds who dance Two cornets, a flute _alla vigesima
the _Moresca_ at the end seconda_; a_clarino_ (small trumpet)
and three muted trumpets
This recognition of a psychological correspondence between characters
or situations and the timbre of instruments is interesting because it
points the way to the dramatic utilization of orchestra color.
Directly after _Orfeo_, Monteverdi produced his _Ballo delle Ingrate_,
a ballet scene in the manner of the usual _intermezzi_. The arduous
labor and nervous strain incident to these performances forced upon him
the necessity of a rest, which he spent in a visit to his father’s
house at Cremona. There his wife, again stricken, died, and, plunged
into grief, he himself succumbed to illness. His income reduced to
his own earnings, he sent through his father an earnest appeal to the
duke for greater emolument, and, that denied, a request to be released
from further duty. But instead he was speedily summoned to return,
in order to prepare a musical spectacle for the coming nuptials of
the heir apparent, Don Francesco, and Margherita, infanta of Savoy.
His financial condition was now slightly improved and, spurred by the
prospect of greater fame, he plunged into the task of setting the music
of a new opera, _Arianna_, for which Rinuccini had been commissioned
to write the book. The work was to be staged on a scale far beyond
anything attempted till then, the best singers available were engaged,
and the rehearsals occupied five months. It is interesting to note
that another opera, _Tiede_, by Cini and Peri, competed for the honor
of the performance at these festivities, but was rejected in favor of
_Arianna_. Peri was, however, commissioned to write the recitatives for
_Arianna_.
The performance took place May 28th, 1608. The theatre, we are told by
the official historian, Follino, was not large enough to accommodate
all the nobles visiting in the train of foreign princes and the
natives had to be denied admittance. While the play itself made a
deep impression, in the music Monteverdi had surpassed himself. 'The
orchestra behind the scenes,’ continues Follino, 'accompanied the
beautiful voices throughout, following the character of the singing
most faithfully. The lament of Arianna, abandoned by Theseus, was
performed with great feeling and pictured so touchingly that all
the auditors were profoundly stirred and not a lady’s eye remained
tearless.’ This 'Lament’ afterwards became one of the most popular
pieces in Italy. After Cosimo II (de Medici) in 1613 obtained the
score of _Arianna_ from the duke and performed it in Florence it
was said that the favorite selection was heard in every house that
contained a clavicembalo or a lute.
The sumptuous ballet _Idropica_, for which Monteverdi composed the
prologue, was produced during the same festivities. The succeeding
period saw no diminution in the output of this indefatigable composer.
In 1610 we see him in Rome suing for the favor of Clement VIII, to
whom he presents his ecclesiastical compositions, which were, however,
inferior to his secular works. In 1612 Duke Vincenzo died, and
Monteverdi resigned his post to accept the most coveted musical office
in Italy--that of choirmaster at St. Mark’s, Venice. His position there
became the source of the greatest satisfaction to him, for, aside from
the fact that he received three hundred ducats yearly, and after 1616
four hundred, while finally his total income increased to six hundred
and fifty, he was honored and esteemed better even than his illustrious
predecessors, Willaert, de Rore, Zarlino, etc. He enjoyed the title of
_maestro di capella_ to the republic, brought the music of St. Mark’s,
where he had a choir of thirty singers and twenty instruments, to a
high degree of perfection, superintended the chamber music of the city
as well and earned the most general popular appreciation.
In 1621 he composed the music for a requiem in memory of Duke Cosimo
II of Tuscany, and from Strozzi’s enthusiastic description it was
a most gorgeous tone creation, better fitted for a theatre than a
church. Similarly in 1631 he was called upon to provide the music for
a great thanksgiving in St. Mark’s after the terrible plague raging
through Italy, and responded with a mass, in the _Gloria_ and _Credo_
of which he introduced a trombone accompaniment. His creative power in
the dramatic field remained unabated. _Il Combattimento di Tancredi
e Clorinda_ (half dramatic, half epic, with narrative _testo_,
connecting the speeches), composed in 1624, was followed in 1627 by _La
finta pazza Licori_ (by Strozzi and Striggio) and five intermezzi for
the marriage of Odoardo Farnese at Parma, and in 1630 by _Proserpina
rapita_. The first public opera house in Venice, the Teatro di San
Paolo, and soon after the Teatro S. Giovanni e Paolo, for which
Monteverdi furnished _L’Adone_ (1639), _Le nozze di Enea con Lavinia_
(1641) and _Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria_, which last is preserved.
Thus, even in his last two years he was occupied on a series of operas,
of which _L’Incoronazione di Poppea_ (1642) was his last great effort.
It might be added that his seventh book of madrigals had appeared in
1619 and his eighth, the famous _Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi_, in
1638.
In his _Combattimento_ Monteverdi introduced a new effect, now
familiar as the orchestral _tremolo_, which so startled the musicians
that at first they refused to play it. His own explanation for its
use is curious: 'I have recognized,’ he says, 'that our passions or
emotions are expressed in three grades: anger (violence), temperate
moderation, and humility or petition.... These three grades are clearly
reflected in music, namely, in that of excited, tender, or moderate
character (_concitato, molle e temperato_).’ Finding only the two last
represented in the older music, he studied the question of spondeic and
phyrric verse metre which the Greeks had transferred to music. Taking
the _semi-breve_ (whole note) for the unit of the former, he proposed
to break it up into sixteen _semicromes_ (sixteenths), which are to be
played in succession upon one note to obtain the faster measure, which
he calls _concitato_ (tremolo).
This is but one instance of how Monteverdi constantly sought
instructions from the ancients. In his letters of 1633 and 1634 he
tells of his labors to rediscover human melody and the music of the
passions. He had no one to guide him, and no books but Plato. The
information which Galilei conveyed interested him, but he was careful
not to be misled by the phantom of a lost art. He believed that in
following his own principles he would be more true to classic thought
than by trying to apply its formulas. He claimed that modern art has
profited more from a study of Greek thought than from old-fashioned
harmonic exercise. Thus the ancients had rendered to music the same
service which the century before they had rendered to sculpture. They
had taken it out of the studied formulas and had led artists back to
the sole observation of nature. 'Indeed, a real Renaissance opens
at the beginning of the seventeenth century with Monteverdi--the
Renaissance of the heart in the language of music.’
Monteverdi’s artistic creed and theories are to some extent perpetuated
in his _Selva morale e spirituale_, dedicated to the Empress Eleonora
Gonzaga, and published in 1640. Monteverdi died in Venice November 29,
1643, and was buried with great honors at the _Chiesa dei Frari_. With
his death we see opera finally established in that place in the heart
of the Italian people which it has held to this day. Others had already
taken up the work, notably his pupil, Pietro Francesco Cavalli, whose
genius burst upon the world in 1639 with his _Nozze di Teti_.
With the next generation the Florentine school divides into the new
Venetian school founded by Giovanni Legrenzi (1635-1672), of which
Antonio Lotti was to become the leader, and the Neapolitan, which found
its guiding genius in Alessandro Scarlatti, one of the most conspicuous
musical figures of the seventeenth century. From him and his teacher
Francesco Provenzale (_ca._ 1669) there issued a long chain of masters
and pupils--Francesco Durante (1684-1755); Leonardo Leo (1694-1744);
Francesco Feo (1685-1740); Gaetano Greco (b. 1680), etc.--who developed
the Italian opera in its narrowest sense--an opera that was purely
vocal, whose chief aim was the production of beautiful melody and which
paid a minimum of attention to orchestration and dramatic pathos. It
was a purely musical school, and even more than that of Venice removed
from the ideal of the Florentines. Against this school were ultimately
to be directed the reforms of Gluck, whose theories are solidly founded
upon the creed of Florence. Florence, then, is the true cradle of
opera, also in its more modern sense, for the precepts there laid down
have remained valid even to Wagner and the music drama of to-day.
C. S.
FOOTNOTES:
[125] In _Musiciens d’autrefois_ (3me ed., 1912), p. 19.
[126] An example of a _Marienklage_, dating from the sixteenth century,
is reprinted by Eitner in the _Publikation älterer praktischer und
theoretischer Musikwerke_, Vol. X.
[127] A description of a highly developed example of this species, the
_Ballet-Comique de la royne_, will be found in Chap. XIII, p. 401.
[128] _Cf._ W. J. Henderson: 'Some Forerunners of Italian Opera.’
(1913.)
[129] Tasso’s fervent love for music is well known and reflected in his
writings. The particular musician of his choice was Don Carlo Gesualdo,
prince of Venosa, who set the music for a number of Tasso’s madrigals.
[130] B. Florence, _ca._ 1533, d. there, 1600, was a pupil of Zarlino,
an excellent musician and an able lutenist and violinist. He published
two books of madrigals and made the first known experiments in the
“representative” style of melody. He was a deep student of Greek music,
discovered the hymns of Mesomedes (transcribed successfully only 200
years later) and published 'Dialogue on Antique and Modern Music’
(1581), a diatribe against Zarlino and his methods. His son, Galileo
Galilei, the great astronomer, is said to have constructed his first
telescope from an organ pipe belonging to his father.
[131] Giulio Caccini (surnamed Romano), b. Rome _ca._ 1550; d. 1618 in
Florence, where he had lived since 1564 and was employed at court as
a singer. During the winter of 1604-1605 he sojourned in Paris at the
request of Queen Maria (de Medici). Besides the works mentioned in our
text, he wrote _Fuggilotio musicale_ (madrigals, etc.) and a sequel to
his _Nuove musiche_.
[132] Jacopo Peri (b. Florence, Aug. 20, 1561, d. there Aug. 12, 1633)
was a pupil of Christoforo Malvezzi. He became chief director of music
at the court of Florence under Francesco, Ferdinand I and Cosimo
II de Medici. Besides his _Dafne_ and _Euridice_, he published _Le
varie musiche del Sig. Jacopo Peri, etc._ (1609), the recitatives for
Monteverdi’s _Arianna_, a war-play (_barriera_), _La precedenza delle
dame_, and a part of Gagliano’s opera, _La Flora_.
[133] Emilio de’ Cavalieri (or del Cavaliere), b. _ca._ 1550; d.
March 11th, 1662, in Rome, was, before his appointment at Florence,
organist of the _Oratorio del S. Cruciffisso_ in S. Marcello (Rome).
His earliest works are madrigals, as we know from a reference to the
“eighty-sixth, in six parts,” in his preface to the _Rappresentazione_.
[134] _Publikation älterer praktischer und theoretischer Musikwerke_,
Vol. X.