Sketch II.—Opera (Secular Musical Drama).
By MYLES B. FOSTER, Organist of the Foundling Hospital.
lthough it is stated that the ancient Greeks intoned their tragedies, and introduced, besides, some form of melody (μέλος), the whole question of the existence of opera at that period of artistic prosperity, when all forms of learning were so powerfully nourished, is a matter for speculation. Their authors certainly give us wonderful accounts of the great effects that this music had, and state that it formed an essential part of their drama, but beyond these records, in all probability much exaggerated, we have no data. Opera we must assume to be a comparatively recent invention. To the end of the sixteenth century, composers had written all their finest work for the Church, and had, very rightly, devoted their best efforts to the praise and worship of the Giver of all musical ideas and beauties.
Even that which was known as secular music, and was intended for social occasions, was written in ecclesiastical forms, and the very folksongs had their freshness rubbed off by contrapuntal developments to which they were not suited, and were dragged in their new and ill-fitting costume into the masses and motetts of the day. The Church possessed most of the art and learning of the age, and, with that, a corresponding power over the ignorant people. Thus music had been, so far, choral music; all the secular forms, villanellas, glees, madrigals, and lieder, being in from three to six parts and more. The expressive solo form (monodia), whether recitativo or arioso, was as yet unknown. As the people attained more knowledge, and with it more freedom, secular music gradually separated itself from the restraints of the Church, and, as in other parallel cases, freedom at length degenerated into licence.
At the end of the great Renaissance period, when, after Suliman had taken Constantinople, the great scholars there fled before the conquering Turks into Italy and other new homes, an impetus was given to the study of Greek literature, and a desire to repossess the Greek drama in all its original beauty and perfection was the ambition of many an Italian student. In Florence the poet Rinuccini, the singer Caccini, Galilei, the father of the astronomer, and, at a rather later date, Jacopo Peri, used to hold meetings in which they not only agreed that the existing musical forms were inadequate for a true musical drama, but they proceeded forthwith to compose pieces for one voice on what they imagined to be the Greek model.
Emilio del Cavalieri is one of the first composers known to have tried to set music to the new form of drama. The poetess Guidiccioni (mentioned in the sketch “Oratorio”) supplied the words. His first efforts were “Il Satiro” and “La Disperazione di Fileno,” and they were performed in Florence in 1590, the poems being set to music throughout.
Peri followed with his “Daphne,” in which aria parlante, a kind of recitation in strict time, first appears. It is well described by Ritter, in his “History of Music,” as “something between well-formed melody and speech.” It appears to have pleased the Greek revivalists immensely, and they quite believed it to be the discovery of the lost art. Peri composed “Euridice” in the year 1600, on the occasion of the marriage of Henry IV. of France with Maria di Medicis, and in his work we have a primitive version of all our operatic forms.
Composers now occasionally used the arioso style; but their Greek beliefs prevented them from introducing a good broad melody form. The principal numbers of “Euridice,” for example, were choruses and declamatory recitatives. The orchestra was hidden behind the scenes, the only purely orchestral piece being a little prelude (called “Zinfonia”) for three flutes.
With such material and upon so simple a basis was opera formed—an art construction which, in its more modern garb, has played a very important part in the history of European society.