The First Opera.—Another of the number, Jacopo Peri (1561-1633), also a musician, took the next step by composing music of the same style to a drama, the Dafne (Daphne) of the poet Rinuccini, who was the life and soul of this attempt to revive the lost declamation of the Greeks. This was performed privately in 1595 at the Corsi Palace, and produced so strong an impression that it was repeated a number of times at the Carnival seasons of the succeeding years. In 1600, Peri was invited to compose a similar work for the marriage festivities of Henry IV of France and Maria di Medici. This was Euridice, also written by Rinuccini, which bears the distinction of being the first opera to receive public performance, and thus introducing the new art-form to the world at large. The score of Dafne has been lost, but that of Euridice still exists.
It was then known as a music drama (melo dramma or dramma per la musica); the term opera (abbreviation for opera in musica, that is, musical work) did not come into use until the middle of the century. The orchestra, which was played behind the scenes, consisted of a harpsichord, two lutes and a bass-viol. In addition, three lutes played a short ritornello (interlude) in one scene. With this exception, the instruments were used merely to support the voice; the tonality was almost exclusively minor, and the harmony of the simplest. It is thought that Peri sang the part of Orpheus and that Francesca Caccini, daughter of the composer and one of the most gifted singers of the day, sang Euridice.
Part of an Air by Caccini.
Caccini claimed the new style as his invention, and it is certain that parts of Euridice were composed by him, though Peri’s name alone appears on the title page of the published work. Emulating the success of his colleague, the former soon set the same drama to music.
Characteristics of the Early Opera.—The two settings are so similar that one might almost be taken for the other. Both display the same characteristics. Of dramatic feeling or characterization as understood at the present day there is no sign; development of musical thought, none whatever; a dreary waste of recitatives is but slightly relieved by the occasional flourishes (giri e gruppi, that is, runs and turns) allowed the singers by the taste of the times. The choruses, however, which are introduced freely, serve to vary the monotony somewhat. They exhibit a singular mingling of the old and new styles, natural under the circumstances. The voices sing either in a recitative-like unison, or begin in fugato, and later move in simple harmonic progression. Their distaste for the contrapuntal style led these reformers to reject it so far as they could. Its appearance at all is due to the fact that no other mode of writing for a number of voices had as yet been devised—a strictly harmonic treatment had not been thought of. Since, then, they were at a loss as to the management of choral masses, they were obliged to have recourse in part to old methods.
Another name associated with the Florentine school deserving mention is that of Marco da Gagliano, a priest who soon took the lead in the new movement. His first opera was Dafne (1607), composed to Rinuccini’s drama which had already served Peri; it was a common practice in those days for composers to use the same text. As a scholar and musician, Gagliano was superior to his predecessors. He shows a greater warmth of feeling and a tendency toward melody which they considered as a lowering of their ideals.
The Florentine School.—One particular characteristic of the Florentine school was a sedulous avoidance of anything like extended melody or definite form. To the composers of this school, music was not an end in itself; it was subordinate to the distinct, impassioned declamation of the poet’s verses. They held that any independent development of musical thought was a weakness; that it tended to distract the attention of the hearer from the drama, and to interfere with its logical continuity. The predominant influence was that of the scholar, not of the musician. This was to be expected from the character of the little coterie interested in the new art-form. The majority were wealthy amateurs, zealous students of the classics and aflame with the desire for the actual revival of the Greek tragedy. Peri and Caccini were the only musicians and they were strongly averse to the contrapuntal music of the day. Its persistently ecclesiastical effect debarred it from expressing the personal feeling which was the object of their research. In the effort to escape its ban, they unwittingly emancipated their art from the control of the Church, and made it accessible to mankind in general. This, therefore, is the great service of the Florentine reformers: the establishment of a purely secular school of music susceptible of indefinite development.
Making allowance for the vast difference in means due to the practical creation of independent instrumental music since the 17th century, their practice was precisely the same as that of the modern composer who writes a music drama and uses the same term to define his work. When Dafne and Euridice first saw the light, however, there was neither knowledge nor experience to point the way; it was found only after a slow and laborious process of experimentation, involving the acceptance of much that was rejected after having served its turn. Though Peri and Caccini with their confrères did not succeed in the end they had in view, they accomplished far more by originating the Opera, the point of departure for the whole modern art of music.