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(Note the last example, where the intentional contrast between piano and forte is distinctly indicated.)

In 1593 Florentino Maschera, one of the celebrated organists of his time, published a book of ‘Songs to play’ (Canzoni a sonar). The work consisted of seventy-one pieces which had family names for their titles, a custom that was often repeated in the first half of the sixteenth century. It is important to note that these pieces were printed in separate parts, so that they may be considered as the first specimens of independent though not direct writing for the violin. These canzoni were vocal in character and there was little that suggested instrumental technique. The style was that of the vocal compositions of the time—contrapuntal.

A genuine and daring innovator in the field of violin music was Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), who in some violin passages went up as high as the fifth position. Besides broadening the technique of the left hand, he demanded tremolos for dramatic effects in accompanying recitative:

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This passage from Combattimento di Tanceredi e Clorinda (1624) offered so many difficulties to the musicians that at first they refused to play it. As we shall see presently, however, Monteverdi was not the first to introduce this effect (cf. p. 381). Another of his new effects was the introduction of the pizzicato, which he marked thus: Qui si lascia l’arco, e si strappano le chorde con duo diti, and afterwards Qui si ripiglia l’arco. That Monteverdi expected violins to produce a crescendo with the bow is apparent with the instruction Questa ultima note va in arcato morendo. ‘Monteverdi with his two violins “alla Francese” in the score of Orfeo (the first printed reference to the violin as an orchestral instrument in the modern sense), probably meant nothing more than that the violins were to be in the fashion of the French, but in place of accompanying a dance, the character indicated in the opera was accompanied by two violins in a particular part of its music.’[46] In other violin pieces by Monteverdi, as in his Scherzi musicali and Ritornelle (1607), we see his superiority to his contemporaries, just as in his Sonata sopra Sancta Maria detratta, etc. (1610), he showed plainly his desire to improve violin music.

III

The first attempt at independent violin composition was made by Biagio Marini (1590-1660), maestro di cappella in Santa Eufemia in Brescia and a court concert-master in Germany, who may be regarded as the first professional composer-violinist. In his early compositions the violin parts were not difficult for the players. There were mostly half and quarter notes in slow tempi, displaying the quality of vocal compositions, and without much use of the G string. Witness the following example from his Martinenga Corrente (1622):