Italian Opera to Handel's Time

Work of Monteverde—His development of recitative and orchestration—Cavalli and his attempts at melodic form—Alessandro Scarlatti—Recitative stromentato and aria da capo—Tune for tune's sake—Reign of the singer—Operatic law in the eighteenth century—The Opera Buffa.

THE rapidity with which the new style advanced may be judged from the fact that seven years after the production of "Euridice" we meet with an opera containing a duet, and a few years later with one containing instrumental descriptions. The composer, who appears to have been the first gifted with a real genius for operatic composition, was Claudio Monteverde (1568-1651). Already many other composers had sought to follow Peri, and Mantua, Bologna, and Venice became homes of opera. Monteverde was a student of the old contrapuntal style, but his entire genius was out of sympathy with it. He became chapel master to the Duke of Mantua, and at his invitation prepared, as one of the festival plays for the marriage of Francesco Gonzaga with Margherita, Infanta of Savoy, in 1647, his "Arianna," which, according to the testimony of a contemporary, "visibly moved the whole theatre to tears." The lament of Arianna over the departure of her faithless lover must have amazed the public of that day by its simple, melodious pathos. It approaches the modern arioso in style, and is really expressive. So successful was "Arianna" that Monteverde was asked to compose another opera for 1608. This was his "Orfeo," the libretto being on the same story as that of Peri's "Euridice."

The work begins with a prelude, eight measures in five part harmony for trumpets and other instruments, followed by a short passage of contrasting nature. This is to be played three times before the rising of the curtain. After this overture there is a prologue of five speeches in recitative delivered by a character called La Musica Prologo, who represents the genius of music. In his prologue he invites attention to the story which he relates. The opera begins with a recitative by a shepherd, and this is followed by a five part chorus, with accompaniment of the full orchestra, consisting of the instruments enumerated in Chapter XI. The work then proceeds in recitative, varied by choruses, duets, and trios. There are no solo arias. The aria form had not yet been developed. Here is part of a duet from Monteverde's "Orfeo."

[Listen: Monteverde's "Orfeo"]

APOLLO AND ORPHEUS ASCEND TO HEAVEN,
SINGING:—

[Monteverde's "Orfeo".]

Duet:

Saliam Saliam Can-tan - - - - - - - d'al cie - - - - - lo

- - - - - Saliam - - - - - - Can-tan - - - - - - d'al cie lo

Dove ha vir-tu ve-ra-ce De-gno pre-mio di se

di-let to e pa-ce

- - - - - - - -

Dove ha vir-tu ve-ra-ce De-gno pre-mio di se

di-let - to - e pa-ce.

The opera ends with a dance. In his "Tancredi e Clorinda," an intermezzo produced in Venice in 1624, Monteverde introduced special instrumental effects which were to become of so great importance in opera. These effects I have already described in Chapter XI, and it is necessary to add here only the statement that they were used, not simply as descriptive of action, but also to aid in conveying to the minds of the auditors the impetuosity and passion of the combatants in the remarkable scene of the fight. It gives one something of a shock to find Monteverde indicating the galloping of horses and the fierceness of their riders, rudely indeed, but with the same musical methods as Wagner employed, with their modern development, in his "Ride of the Valkyrs." Monteverde was, indeed, the Wagner of his time. He broke so completely away from old conventions that Artusi, a writer of Bologna, accused him of having lost sight of the true office of music, "to please the ear."

One of the remarkable things (remarkable at that time) done by Monteverde was to introduce the chord of the dominant seventh unprepared. I shall not undertake to explain the nature of this novelty in harmony, lest I merely confuse the lay reader, but shall ask him to content himself with the statement that such an introduction produced one of those sharp dissonances so common in the music of today, and used to express passion. Monteverde began to use these dissonances in his madrigals, of which the Fifth Book, published in 1599, aroused Artusi's ire. But the tremendous effect of the dissonant progressions in "Arianna" quite demolished all the arguments of the opponents of the novelty. Their employment was one of the practices which led directly away from the tonality of the old ecclesiastical scales and toward the modern major and minor keys. Dr. Parry's comments on the work of Monteverde are so pertinent and so lucid that I cannot do better than to quote a part of them:—

"The methods of choral art did not provide for dramatic force or the utterance of passionate feeling; and under such circumstances it was natural that Monteverde should misapply [in his madrigals] his special gifts, which were all in the direction of dramatic expression. The new departure, when it came, was his opportunity. He was not ostensibly a sharer in the first steps of the movement; but directly he joined it he entirely eclipsed all other composers in the field, and in a few years gave it quite a new complexion. For whereas the first composers had not laid any great stress on expression, Monteverde's instinct and aim were chiefly in that direction; and he often sought to emphasize his situations at all costs. His harmonic progressions are for the most part as incoherent as those of his predecessors, and, as might be expected with his peculiar aptitudes, he did very little for design. But he clearly had a very considerable sense of stage effect, and realized that mere monotonous recitative was not the final solution nor even the nucleus of dramatic music. It is true he introduces a great quantity of recitative, but he varies it with instrumental interludes which now and then have some real point and relevancy about them; and with passages of solo music which have definite figure and expression, and with choruses which are more skilfully contrived, and to a certain degree more effective, than those of his predecessors. By this means he broke up the homogeneous texture of the scenes into passages of well-defined diversity, and interested his auditors with contrast, variety, and conspicuously characteristic passages, which heighten the impression of the situation as all stage music should."

Soon after the production of Monteverde's "Tancredi e Clorinda" the opera ceased to be a strictly aristocratic form of entertainment and became public and popular. In 1637 the Teatro San Cassiano was opened to the public as a regular opera house. Opera houses became numerous. Up to 1727 no less than fifteen operatic enterprises were started, and up to 1734 four hundred operas by forty composers had been produced. This, however, carries us far ahead of the period which we are now discussing. The statement is made merely to show that only those Italian composers can now be mentioned who made actual contributions to the development of the lyric drama.

The next who did so contribute after Monteverde was his pupil, Francesco Cavalli (1599-1676), a native of Crema, a town near Venice. He was at one time chapel master of St. Mark's. His first opera, "Le Nozze di Tito e di Peleo," was produced in Venice in 1639. Its recitatives are varied in style and it has instrumental interludes, notably one for hunting horns, of striking character. But it was in his "Giasone," produced in 1649, that Cavalli's most influential music appeared. He was opposed to the banishment of rhythmical music and song-forms from opera simply because the Greeks did not have them. Instrumental forms were beginning to show the influence of folk-music and the popularity of the early collections of dance tunes suggested to Cavalli the possible effectiveness of something similar in vocal style. In his "Giasone," therefore, he foreshadowed the aria da capo (aria with a repeat at its close of the passage with which it began) by making a return to the first part. Cavalli's melodies show a strong movement toward clearness of rhythm and definiteness of shape, though the style continued to be tentative and uncertain. But it is easy to perceive that even in his day Italian opera had begun the movement toward elementary rhythms and harmonies and tunefulness for tune's sake, which were to be its special characteristics for more than two centuries. The improvements in the dramatic recitative and the choral part of oratorio made by Carissimi, Cesti, and Stradella (see [Chap. XV].) also influenced composers of opera. The general tendency was in the direction of definitely shaped melodies as a substitute for the formless recitative of Peri and Monteverde. The recitative itself became more characteristic and was diversified with short arioso passages. Furthermore the accompaniment of the recitative was much improved. Peri and Caccini fashioned the slight chords of their accompaniments to recitative so that they might be played on one instrument, for they were jealous of the slightest instrumental interference with their newly invented stilo parlante. Monteverde improved the instrumental part of opera, as we have seen, and frequently accompanied his solo parts with small groups of instruments. Meanwhile Giovanni Gabrieli wrote his church music with orchestral accompaniment, and the opera composers began to see how grand dramatic effects might be produced by using similar means. The result is that in the latter half of the sixteenth century we find different kinds of recitative clearly defined and the aria da capo thoroughly established. The composer who exhibited the most complete mastery of these forms, and who was so influential that he became the founder of the great Neapolitan school of opera writers, was Alessandro Scarlatti.

He was born at Trapani in Sicily in 1659. The record of his early life is lost, but his career as a famous composer seems to have been fairly begun when he produced his opera "Pompeo" at Naples in 1684. He wrote 115 operas, of which 41 are extant in score. They have all ceased to be performed, but their historical interest is great. Scarlatti died Oct. 24, 1725. It is hardly necessary for the purposes of this volume to specify in which operas the special features which he contributed to the development of the form are to be found. It will perhaps be more instructive to the reader to enumerate these features and explain them. Scarlatti made a systematic distinction of the characteristics of three kinds of vocal music in opera. Two of these were recitative, which had hitherto been treated in one way, the accompaniment being confined to a small group of instruments, or one instrument alone, playing chords. In one of Scarlatti's operas appeared recitative accompanied by the whole orchestra, and he made a clear distinction in the character and purpose of two kinds of recitative. The first of these was the recitativo secco, which means "dry recitative." This is the pure dialogue form of recitative, used to carry on the ordinary passing conversation of the scene. It was accompanied in the early works by the harpsichord generally, and it is the custom to this day in artistic opera houses to play the chords to the recitativo secco in "Don Giovanni" on the piano. In England it became the custom to play these chords in broken form on the double bass and violoncello, but this custom has not prevailed elsewhere. Recitativo secco is not used so much now as it was in the earlier days of opera, but short passages of it are found in many modern works, even those of Wagner, while in oratorio it is not at all infrequent. Here is an example of it from Mozart's "Don Giovanni":—

[Listen: Mozart's "Don Giovanni"]

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[Mozart's "Don Giovanni">[

Don Giovanni.	Leporello, where are you?
Leporello.	I'm here, to my misfortune, and you, Sir?
Don Giovanni.	I'm here.
Leporello.	Who's dead, th'old man, or you Sir?

Alessandro Scarlatti was the first to make systematic use of that richer form of recitation known as recitativo stromentato. Indeed, some historians declare, and with fairly good ground, that he invented this species. Recitativo stromentato is recitative with an especially designed orchestral accompaniment instead of the simple chords of the secco style. Usually the most significant orchestral passages are placed in the pauses between the phrases uttered by the voice. The whole recitative thus becomes more passionate, more varied, and more filled with meaning. The extreme development of recitativo stromentato is to be found in Wagner's later dramas, in which entire scenes are made of it. Excellent examples of it in its customary modern form, however, are to be found in his earlier works. Here is one from the first act of "Lohengrin":—

[Listen: Wagner's "Lohengrin"]

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[Wagner's "Lohengrin".]

German: So fra-ge ich wei-ter ist die kla-ge dir be-kannt

English: Then fur-ther I ask thee if the charge to thee is known

Strings

die schwer hier wi-der dich er-ho-ben?

that dark-ly is al-leged a-gainst thee?

StringsWoodwinds

Was ent-geg-nest du der kla-ge?

Canst thou meet the ac-cu-sa-tion?

StringsWoodwinds

So be-kennst du dei-ne Schuld?

Then thy guilt dost thou con-fess?

StringsStrings & Woodwinds

It will readily be perceived that these improvements in diversification of the recitative gave the Italian opera a livelier musical character, and made it appeal more directly to the popular taste. But significant as Scarlatti's labor in this department was, its influence did not equal that of his development of the aria da capo. We have already seen that Cavalli made a step in the direction of this form by repeating the first part of a tune to make its close. It was Alessandro Scarlatti, however, who completely established the position of the aria in opera and defined its form. He himself was a noted singer and a teacher of singing, and he saw in the aria abundant opportunity for the display of pure vocal ability. His success in making music that enabled singers to reveal the beauties of their voices decided the direction in which Italian opera was to move until almost the present day, and led to the birth of a numerous body of composers upon whom I am fond of placing the title "Neapolitan school." The theory of the aria da capo is a purely musical one, and its inventors did not perceive that it was distinctly opposed to dramatic fidelity. The conception of a melody in three sections, of which the first and third are the same and the middle one strongly contrasting, belongs to the realm of absolute music. When the composer asks a soprano to be mildly pathetic in the beginning of an air, work herself into a passion in the middle, and suddenly become mildly pathetic again at the close, simply in order that she may repeat the opening measures, he violates emotional truthfulness and is guilty of false art. The Italian opera writers seem to have arrived at a realization of this fact very soon, and finding that their symmetrical tunes pleased the public, they threw overboard all pretence of dramatic sincerity and wrote the tunes for their own sake, no matter whether they fitted the spirit of the text or not. Francesco Rossi, Antonio Caldara, Antonio Lotti, and Giovanni Maria Buononcini were among Alessandro Scarlatti's immediate successors, and all of them devoted themselves to producing operas which consisted of strings of arias, duets, etc., united by brief passages of recitative.

One important result of this practice was that the voices and abilities of the principal singers had to be considered in order that the arias might be effective. The singers were thus enabled to make such great personal impressions upon the public that they soon became the reigning power in opera, and actually made laws for the composers. This was the period of the famous male soprano singers Farinelli, Cafarelli, Senesino, Gizziello, and others, whose marvellous singing was due to long processes of training, and who were the adored and inexorable monarchs of the musical world. The state of Italian opera in the time of Handel (1685-1759) is more easily described than imagined. I have already told how the famous composer of "The Messiah" began his career as an opera composer. He wrote some forty operas, all of which have now only an historical interest. Arias and duets from them are frequently heard in concert, and are excellent examples of the manner in which composers treated text in those days. To two lines of text one frequently finds half a dozen pages of music, the words apparently being employed simply to give the singer syllables to pronounce. It must be said for Handel that he was too great a composer to turn out mere rubbish. While he displayed remarkable dexterity in writing passages of pure vocal exhibition work for the singers, he contrived to put a considerable quantity of very good music into his operas. Nevertheless he was under the control of the singer and the formulæ of the time.

The laws of Italian opera in that day prescribed six persons—three men and three women—as the proper number of singers. The men were always sopranos or tenors. The use of the baritone voice was quite unknown; sometimes a bass part was written for one of the men, but as there are only a few fine bass parts in any of the old operas, and no records of the fame of any great basses except Boschi, we must conclude that only the male soprano and tenor had any wide vogue. In Handel's "Teseo" there was neither bass nor tenor; all the parts were sopranos and contraltos. Of course there were male characters, so it is easy to conceive how far away from anything like dramatic truth the whole thing must have been. The common use of the baritone voice, the voice of the average man, did not begin till the latter part of the last century. The French composers, who, as we shall see, clung more faithfully to dramatic fidelity than the Italians, were the first to use it extensively. Gluck made frequent use of it, but it remained for Mozart to discover the full scope of its usefulness.

The rules made by the singers and in force in Handel's time did not stop at the distribution of the voices. They prescribed also the kinds and number of arias, duets, etc. There were five kinds of aria: aria cantabile, aria di portamento, aria di mezzo carattere, aria parlante, and aria di bravura. Aria cantabile was slow and flowing and usually pathetic in style. Aria di portamento was also slow, but with stronger rhythm and wider intervals. Aria parlante was declamatory. Aria di mezzo carattere was an air of medium character, containing a fusion of styles. Aria di bravura was one in which every possible opportunity was given the singer for a display of agility in the way of runs, trills, jumps, et cætera. The rules also commanded that every scene in an opera should end with an aria, and that in each act every principal singer should have one aria. No singer could have two arias in succession, nor in any circumstances might two arias of the same kind stand together. The hero and heroine had each to have one aria di bravura and one duet. The opera ended with a dance and chorus. At one time no trios, quartets, or concerted pieces were allowed.

A natural result of such rules was that opera librettos were very poor stuff generally, and had little dramatic sense or force. Composers often took a lot of good airs and duets from operas which had failed, and strung them together with new text to make a new opera. It was an experiment of this kind which led Gluck, as we shall see, to doubt the possibility of producing anything artistic according to the extant methods of Italian opera. As Gluck's movement of reform was undertaken in Paris, and as his works lie rather in the line of development of French opera than of Italian, I shall recount the story of his battle in the narrative of the growth of the French school. It is sufficient for the present to say that his labors had no very serious influence on Italian composers. They continued to write tune for tune's sake, and their modifications in style and form would have come about without the intervention of Gluck.

Immediately after Handel the Neapolitan school of composers was conspicuous through its development of opera buffa, comic grand opera. The principal writers were Logroscino, Leo, Hasse, and Pergolesi. The last was popular both as a serious and a comic writer somewhat later than 1770. Later still came forward Sacchini, Galuppi, Paisiello and Piccini. The last named, a contemporary of Gluck and Mozart, and Gluck's opponent in Paris, was a most melodious writer. He deserves special mention for his development of the operatic finale. His finales were long concerted pieces in which the various voices were united in rich harmonies so as to produce a strong effect.

Italian Opera to Handel's Time

[Chapter XX]