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.
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 the Moresca at the end | Two cornets, a flute alla vigesima 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.
CHAPTER XII
NEW FORMS: VOCAL AND INSTRUMENTAL
Résumé of the sixteenth century—Rhythm and form; the development of harmony; figured bass—The organ style; canzona da sonar; ricercar; toccata; sonata da chiesa; great organists—The genesis of violin music; canzona and sonata—The sonata da camera; the suite—Music for the harpsichord—The opera in the seventeenth century; Heinrich Schütz.
During the sixteenth century a style of music attained perfection, and, as we have seen, two composers, Palestrina and Orlando Lassus, put upon it the final stamp of great personal genius. This style is known as the vocal polyphonic style. The music was written for choruses and for the most part was intended to be sung without accompaniment. Centuries of endeavor had gone to its development, during which composers bore in mind first and always a great ideal—the combination of many melodies in one euphonious whole. The result was a texture of music so nicely woven that in the mass of smooth flowing sound no one melody was evident to the ear, though many melodies moved simultaneously forward with seeming independence, each crossing and recrossing the others, each free to sustain a note while the others moved above and below it, all coming at certain points to dwell together in rich chords. Intended only for service in the church, it was a music perfectly expressive of a rapt and exalted state of religious devotion, from which had been expelled all the elements that might disturb and excite, all harsh intervals, all suddenness, all lively rhythm. It was woven about the Latin text of the mass and of other rites and ceremonies of the church; but except for this connection with words it was without form and unconfined. Without rhythm and without symmetrical form—the very foundations upon which most music rests—it seems like an edifice floating in mid-air, without foundation, ethereal, mystical, and perfect. Such a music could indeed be brought no further after Palestrina and Lassus; but it left to the world a model of polyphonic technique which was to aid in the development and enrichment of subsequent music, and which has had an indirect influence upon every great composer since that time.
The last years of the sixteenth century gave evidence of a rebellion from the laws of polyphonic technique; yet the musicians are at first not so much actuated by a feeling of rebellion against this established form as by an enthusiasm for other kinds of music, which, during the centuries when all musicians gave their most serious thought to the development of polyphony, had been more or less neglected—kinds of music in which solo melody and rhythm play a part. Peri, Caccini, Cavalieri, and the other brilliant young men who, just before the turn of the century, composed music in a so-called new style, are not inventors of anything new, but experimenters with the simple kind of music which must have endured among the people through all the civilized ages of man. They sought to raise simple song into an art, and their experiments turned the attention of all men to those branches of music which had for centuries been considered beneath the dignity of serious effort. At the start, spurred on by the desire to restore the combination of music and poetry which had been practised by the Greeks, they became intoxicated by the sheer beauty of the human voice in single melody, and by the ever further discovery of the power of music to express live, poignant, human emotions beyond the ascetic rapture of religious devotion. Indeed, the desire to express new emotions in melody and harmony and the sensuous delight in sound are the main causes of the remarkable developments of the seventeenth century which not only produced a new form of vocal music completely secular and independent of the church, though still bound to words, but also firmly established instrumental music untrammelled by words or adherence to text, beautiful and noble in itself alone.
Inasmuch as the marvellously perfect technique of writing polyphonic choruses for voices was suited only to the expression of the vague ecstasy which had formed it, composers were forced to invent a new technique and a new style of writing. The ways by which they arrived at this new style form the subject of this chapter. It will be seen that certain ones built directly upon the polyphonic style, that others developed solo melody and the solo adorned and elaborated by many devices; and that it was by a union of the two ways that at last the new style was made worthy and sufficient.