IV
A distinct departure from the madrigal of Willaert, and one in which historians are wont to see a direct step toward the opera, is seen in the descriptive, or dramatic, madrigals of Allessandro Striggio (b. Mantua, 1535) and Orazio Vecchi. The descriptive element had indeed invaded song composition much earlier. The French ‘program chansons,’ notably those of Clement Jannequin, who attempted to reproduce in vocal music the song of birds and the noise of battle, were, perhaps, the most remarkable phenomena of this kind. Though not an Italian, Jannequin deserves notice here because of his influence in this direction. He was a pupil of Josquin and, besides a varied lot of sacred works, issued a great number of chansons which became popular as bravura pieces in instrumental form, being printed in Italy without texts in 1577 (partite in caselle per sonar). His great chansons (inventions), which stamp him the programmistic composer of the sixteenth century, include La bataille (on the battle of Marignano [1515]), La guerre, Le caquet des femmes (women’s gossip), La jalousie, La chasse au lièvre (rabbit hunt), etc., etc. A curious example is the excerpt reprinted in our supplement. In it the cuckoo’s call, the nightingale’s song, the notes of the thrush and other sounds of nature’s music are introduced simultaneously.[112]
Verdelot’s realistic description of the chase, Eckhard’s tumult of the people at St. Mark’s and Striggio’s dispute of the washerwomen at the brook are additional instances in which vocal music appropriated the dramatic elements of action, movement—the passing shapes and the play of colors. In the hands of these composers, the madrigal became a vehicle for humorous or whimsical moods no less than for the expression of tender sentiments, or ‘a charming, picturesque and dramatic symphony,’ for which Romain Rolland finds an analogy in the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ symphony of Berlioz. Such are Orazio Vecchi’s La selva di varia ricreatone (1590), ‘Musical Banquet’ (1597) and Amfiparnasso. They are in reality series of madrigals which follow out a continuous idea as in dramatic action, their text comprising the dramatic forms of monologue and dialogue, but, curious as it may seem, never set to music in the way that seems natural to us—as solos, duets, etc.—but always in madrigalesque polyphony. Thus, instead of having the singers represent the different characters of the piece, the actual practice was to have the monologue sections sung by all of them, while the dialogue would be carried on between sets of two or three singers each. For example, if Isabella (in Amfiparnasso) speaks to her lover Lucio, a group of three voices represents each of them; Isabella is characterized by a soprano and supported by an alto and a ‘quinto,’ Lucio represented by a tenor sustained by a quinto and a bass. Never did it occur to the composer, even when the text was marked Lucio solo, actually to write for a solo voice! By this we may understand what a revolution was necessary in men’s minds to accomplish the essential step to dramatic fidelity.
The following is Romain Rolland’s pen picture of the most interesting exponent of the dramatic madrigal: ‘Orazio Vecchi (b. Modena 1550; d. there 1605) was a man of the Renaissance. He possessed its superabundance of vigor, the desire for action, and a robust good humor. Chapel master at Modena, we find him on the highways and by-ways of Italy, indoors only to take part in brawls and coltellate. Commissioned as archdeacon of Correggio to correct the Gradual of the Roman Catholic church; he is occupied in 1591 with directing private and public masquerades in Modena. A writer of celebrated masses, he becomes at the same time the creator of opera buffa. Three times the Bishop of Reggio dismissed him from his function, but his reputation was enormous—the house of Este and the great Italian lords extended their favor to him, while his name spread to Austria, to Denmark and to Poland. At his death in 1605 he was regarded not only as one of the foremost musicians of the century and the inventor of musical comedy, but as one of the greatest geniuses of the age.’ Comedy is, indeed, his sphere; rarely does he ascend to the height of pathos or passion, though he amply proves himself capable of portraying earnest sentiment and sometimes pathos; but the question whether he merits the reputation of having created comic opera or not we shall leave to the judgment of the reader.
First we shall let him speak for himself. ‘I know well,’ he says, ‘that peradventure some will consider my “caprices” as unworthy and light, but they should learn that as much grace, art and fidelity is required to trace a comic part as in representing an old reasoning sage.’ And elsewhere, ‘Music is poetry by the same right as poetry itself.’ That the conscious purpose of his music was the expression of ideas is evident from these directions which preface his Amfiparnasso: ‘Everything here has a precise purpose; it is necessary to find this, and only by expressing it well and intelligently will you give life to the performance.... The moral import [of the piece] is of less consequence than the simple comedy; since music appeals to the emotions rather than the intellect, I have been obliged to compress the development of the action into the smallest space, for speech is more rapid than song. Hence it is necessary to condense, contract, suppress detail and only to take the capital situations, the moments characteristic to the subject. The imagination must supply the rest.’
Vecchi’s disciple, Banchieri, gives a clear account of the manner of performing these madrigals in the preface to La comedia di prudenza giovenile: ‘Before the music one of the singers will read in a loud voice the name of the scene, the names of the characters and the argument. The place of performance is a room of medium size, as closed-in as possible (for the sake of acoustics); in one corner of the room two large carpets are laid on the floor and an agreeable decoration is used for the background. Two seats are placed at the right and left respectively. Behind the “back-drop” are benches for the singers, who must turn toward the audience and be seated at a hand’s breadth from each other. Behind them is an orchestra of lutes, clavicembali, etc., attuned to the voices. Above is a large sheet which hides both singers and musicians. The singers (invisible) follow the music of their parts; there should be three (or better six) at a time. They must give animation to the cheerful words, pathos to the sad ones, and enunciate loudly and intelligibly. The reciting actors (alone on the scene) must prepare their rôles, know them well by heart and follow the music closely. It would not be amiss to have a prompter aid the singers, instrumentalists and reciters.’
These ‘actors’ do not, as may be supposed, perform pantomime; they simply pronounce the prologue and announce the scenes. At the end they would, perhaps, dance a few ballet steps in order to leave the spectator in a happy frame of mind. By way of example we shall briefly recount the plot of Vecchi’s chef-d’œuvre, that commedia armonica of the strangely inexplicable title Amfiparnasso. The story centers around the love intrigue of Lucio and Isabella, the daughter of Pantalone, who has determined to marry her to the pedantic Gratiano. Lucio attempts to commit suicide but is saved. Isabella, about to follow him into death, declares her love. They are married and in the last scene receive the forced consent and the presents of all concerned. Meantime, Pantalone serenades and is rejected by the courtesan Hortensia, Lelio pursues another adventure with the beautiful Nisa, and the captain, Cardone, believing himself loved by Isabella, makes advances and is promptly rebuked. Doctor Gratiano sings absurd serenades while Francatrippa, the valet of Pantalone, goes to borrow money at the Jews’ house, who reject him under pretext of the Sabbath. The book for this amazing comedy, as indeed for all the others, was written by Vecchi himself. He makes all his characters speak in their various dialects and the ‘score’ is full of humorous descriptions and characterizations. The piece had great success and, while there were many adverse criticisms, the number of his imitators attests the continued popularity of the form which he developed.
Adriano Banchieri of Bologna (1567-1634) was Vecchi’s chief disciple and one of his great admirers. He frankly imitated him in his Studio dilettevole for three voices (1603), while in his Saviezza giovenile he yields to the influence of the Florentine reform (of which later) and endeavors to present a compromise between the ‘representative’ and the polyphonic styles. He was, moreover, a musician of great merit, composed, like Vecchi, numerous organ pieces and was the author of a number of theoretic works and polemics. The vogue of the dramatic madrigal continued throughout the north of Italy for twenty years after Vecchi’s death; in Bologna it survived to the end of the seventeenth century. Whatever its importance in the development of the opera, however far removed from realistic action, the dramatic principle is there—we have, in fact, a musical drama, or, at least, a dramatic symphony, especially if we regard the voices which accompany the characters in the nature of instruments.
And here it behooves us to record another peculiar fact: These minor voice parts were often actually played on instruments, not only in the dramatic madrigal, but in the other vocal forms as well; sometimes because of the lack of singers and sometimes for the sake of variety. The first recorded instance of this kind of solo singing was supposed to have occurred in 1539 when Sileno sang in an intermedio the upper part of a madrigal by Francesco Corteccia (d. 1571), accompanying himself on the violone, while the other parts, representing satyrs, were taken by wind instruments. Caccini, the reputed inventor of ‘monody,’ in an intermezzo by Pietro Strozzi performed at the marriage of Duke Francesco and Bianca Capello (1579), himself sang the rôle of Night with an accompaniment of viols. These instances are, however, not isolated. The experiment proved popular and became common practice. A number of the frottole, villanelle, madrigals, etc., which came from Petrucci’s press, appeared, indeed, in the guise of lute arrangements.[113]
But all this was as far from true ‘monody,’ or solo melody, as the dramatic madrigal was removed from opera, for the mere emphasizing of an upper part, which was developed out of, or as counterpart to, another, could not make it express the sentiment intended by the text or follow the accents and natural inflections of the spoken word. Monody was as much a lost art as the Greek tragedy, which the ‘inventors’ of opera thought they were reviving from a slumber of well-nigh two thousand years. Its reinstatement was the result of a deliberate reform, a revolt against the prevailing polyphonic method, accomplished by a limited number of individuals. Even if the analytical historian must reject the possibility of the sudden invention of an artistic form, we cannot deny the merit of the most definite step toward the creation of opera to the Florentine camerata, an account of whose activities we shall reserve for a later chapter. Our object in this discussion has been to emphasize the fact that monody, the most natural form of musical expression, was not an arbitrary invention such as the contrapuntal style evidently was; that it lay, indeed, at the very foundation of that style, but was so effectually displaced by it that only the faintest memories of it survived. It was from these memories that the new art of the seventeenth century, with its new dramatic significance, sprang—just as the Ars nova, the new art of the fifteenth century, had sprung from their source. The intervening space of two centuries was a period of prodigious development both in secular and church music, and of the most active exchange between the two. But in this exchange the church unquestionably remained the debtor, for it acquired from the secular art most of its really vital elements, even dramatic force. Only thus could it become the ideal expression of that new religious spirit with which both the Catholic and Protestant faiths were to be imbued. The development of this religious art, which forms the parallel to the movements just described, is our next subject.
C. S.
FOOTNOTES:
[98] The word monody may be applied to the purely melodic, unaccompanied music of ancient times and the plain-song era, which, however, is better described as homophony, in contradistinction to monody in the present sense, namely, solo melody with instrumental accompaniment. In monodic music the upper voice predominates throughout and determines the harmonic structure. In vocal polyphony, or counterpoint, the principal voice (cantus firmus) was usually in the tenor, and had no such determining significance.
[99] Dante’s ballate were everywhere known and sung, according to Saccheti’s novels, and when Dante overheard a blacksmith singing his song he scolded him for having altered it. Dante himself was, according to an anonymous writer of the thirteenth century, dilettore nel canto e ogni suono.
[100] F. J. Fétis: Hist. Gén. de la Musique, V. 308.
[101] Joh. Wolf: Geschichte der Mensuralnotation von 1260-1450 (2 vols., 1904).
[102] Cf. H. Riemann: Handbuch der Musikgeschichte I², pp. 305 ff.
[103] H. Riemann: Op. cit., I², pp. 305 ff.
[104] H. Riemann: Op. cit., I², pp. 305 ff.
[105] J. A. Symonds: ‘Renaissance in Italy,’ Vol. II.
[106] During 1471 to 1488 Josquin was at the papal chapel in Rome. His popularity there is illustrated by the following episode. When a motet was performed in a distinguished social circle it passed almost without notice until the hearers became aware that Josquin was its composer, when all hands promptly proceeded to express their admiration of it.
[107] B. Chioggia (Venice), 1517; d. Venice, 1590; was a pupil of Willaert. In 1565 succeeded Cipriano de Rore as maestro at St Mark’s. Most of his compositions have been lost. His theoretical works were of the greatest importance. Like M. Hauptmann later, he already recognized but one kind of third, the major, and distinguishes the thirds of the major and minor triad not by size but by position, upon which principle he based the entire theory of harmony. Only the introduction of the thorough bass soon after, which reckoned all intervals from the bass up, prevented a development of this rational theory. (Cf. Riemann: Gesch. der Musiktheorie, pp. 369 ff.)
[108] Cf. Chap. X, pp. 284 ff.
[109] The frottola ‘stood midway between the strict and complicated madrigal and the villotta or villanella, which was a mere harmonization of a tune; and in fact as the use of counterpoint increased it disappeared, its better element went into the madrigal, its lower into the villanella.—Grove’s ‘Dictionary.’
‘If we consider the frottole as contrapuntal exercises they appear very meagre. If, however, we consider them as attempts to free the cantabile melody, the declamatory rhythm which is analogous to the verse metre, from the imitative web, and as an attempt to endow musical pieces with architectural symmetry in the construction of its consecutive (not simultaneous) elements they are significant phenomena.’—Ambros.
[110] ‘History of Music,’ III, 303.
[111] The inscription Cromatici, a note nere on the title page of some of di Rore’s madrigals, which has been thought to indicate the chromatic nature of these compositions, refers, as Riemann clearly shows (Handbuch der Musikgeschichte II¹. 411), simply to the color of the notes, croma being a current name for the eighth note since early times.
[112] Musikgeschichte in Beispielen. Excerpt, etc., in Handbuch der Musikgeschichte, II¹. 407 ff.
[113] That these vocal compositions were often performed entirely by instruments is indicated by the direction which we meet frequently on sixteenth century title pages: ‘practical for all instruments.’ The kind of instruments was not indicated and the choice was left to the direction of the performer. Not till the end of the century did musicians begin to discriminate and to recognize the value of instrumental timbre. In the intermezzi arrangements of madrigals, etc., were often performed by many instruments, as for instance in those produced in 1565 by Striggio and Fr. Corteccia (d. 1571), who assembled an orchestra of 2 clavicembali, 4 violini, 1 liuto mezzano, 1 cornetto muto, 4 tromboni, 1 flauti diritti, 4 traverse, 1 liuto grosso, 1 sotto basso di viola, 1 soprano di viola, 4 liuti, 1 viola d’arco, 1 lirone, 1 traverso contralto, 1 flauto grande tenore, 1 trombone basso, 5 storte, 1 stortina, 2 cornetti ordinarii, 1 cornetto grosso, 1 dolzaina, 1 lira, 1 ribecchino, 2 tamburi.
CHAPTER X
THE GOLDEN AGE OF POLYPHONY
Invention of music printing—The Reformation—The immediate successors of Josquin; Adrian Willaert and the Venetian school; Germany and England—Orlando di Lasso—Palestrina; his life—The Palestrina style; the culmination of vocal polyphony—Conclusion.