MONTEVERDI, CLAUDIO (1567–1642)

MONTEVERDI, CLAUDIO (1567–1642), Italian composer of madrigals, operas, and sacred music; one of the most pivotal figures in the history of music. Claudio Monteverdi's music was a primary force in the change in style and aesthetics that marked the transition from the Renaissance to the baroque—the shift from the stile antico (old style) or prima prattica (first practice), as represented by Giovanni Perluigi da Palestrina (1525–1594) and Orlando di Lasso (1530–1594), to the stile moderno (modern style) or seconda prattica (second practice). Under the influence of humanistic discoveries—in particular notions about Greek drama—Monteverdi's contemporaries sought new ways to move the passions of the listener. The Renaissance ideal of complex vocal polyphony was abandoned in favor of a simple texture, often featuring one melodic line and a bass (monody) so that the music could respond spontaneously to the rhythms and meaning of the text. Rigid rules of counterpoint were discarded in favor of a freer treatment of dissonance and chromaticism. Monteverdi's adventurous tonal style and his use of irregular rhythms, dance patterns, and frequent shifts of texture not only enriched the newly invented genre of opera but transformed genres that had developed during the preceding century, including the madrigal, motet, and mass.

Monteverdi was born in Cremona and baptized on 15 May 1567. The young musician's genius was so precocious that his first collection of vocal compositions, the Sacrae cantiunculae, was published when he was fifteen, when he was still a student of Marc'Antonio Ingegneri, the maestro di capella of Cremona Cathedral. While still in Cremona, he published his first book of madrigals in 1587 and a second on 1 January 1590. In 1590 or 1591, Monteverdi began a lengthy association with the city of Mantua and the Gonzaga family, entering the service of the Vincenzo I Gonzaga, duke of Mantua. His third book of madrigals, dedicated to the duke on 27 June 1592, featured texts by Tarquato Tasso (1544–1595) and Giambattista Guarini (1538–1612). Guarini's poetry would do much to shape what Gary Tomlinson had referred to as the "epigrammatic" style that characterized the fourth book of madrigals (1603). Monteverdi was appointed maestro della musica in Mantua in 1601, and went on to dedicate his fifth book of madrigals (1605) to Vincenzo Gonzaga. During this period, Monteverdi's unconventional style had attracted the attention of a conservative Bolognese theorist, Giovanni Artusi, who attacked Monteverdi (among others) for his rejection of tradition; the often vitriolic exchanges between the two—which include Monteverdi's preface to the fifth book of madrigals and his brother Giulio Cesare's addendum to the Scherzi musicali (1607; Musical jokes)—provide insight into this new aesthetic in which words might be understood as the mistress of the music.

Monteverdi's duties at court included the composition of a variety of dramatic entertainments. His Orfeo (1607), described as a favola in musica (fable in music), has long been considered the first great opera. The libretto by Alessandro Striggio was certainly influenced by that of Euridice (1600) by Ottavio Rinuccini (c. 1562–1621), one of the early Florentine operatic experiments. But Monteverdi's Orfeo was the first to truly transform the pastorale play with music into a compelling, through-composed entertainment. Expressive monody, juxtaposed with dancelike madrigals and brief arias, vividly depict Orpheus's joy, subsequentdespair, and musical virtuosity, as in the famous aria "Possente spirto" (Powerful spirit) addressed to Pluto; the highly dramatic use of a large instrumental ensemble (recorders, cornettos, trombones, and a basso continuo group of harps, harpsichords, and plucked instruments) captures the contrast between the pleasurable earthly existence and Pluto's underworld. In 1608, Monteverdi provided wedding entertainments for Prince Francesco Gonzaga and Margherita of Savoy, including the Ballo delle ingrate (Dance of the ingrates), and the opera Arianna, from which only the lament (which famously brought tears tothe eyes of the court ladies) has survived.

In 1613, Monteverdi was appointed maestro di cappella of San Marco in Venice, a declining institution that he revitalized by hiring new musicians, expanding the music library, and raising the standards of performance. He was responsible for directing and composing music for all major church ceremonies and activities, such as masses, vesper services, feast days, and weddings. While maintaining his connections with Mantua and Florence, Monteverdi continued to publish madrigals: books 6 and 7 were published in 1614 and 1619 respectively, and his earlier madrigals were reprinted in both Venice and Antwerp around this time. The eighth book of madrigals (1638), known as the Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi (Madrigals of love and war), is a compendium of works written earlier. Monteverdi's attention to poetic detail is apparent in this volume, which includes settings of poems not only by Guarini, Tasso, and the revered Petrarch (1304–1374), but also the infamous Giovanni Battista Marino (1569–1625), whose influence on Monteverdi's aesthetics has frequently been observed. In book 8, Monteverdi invents a number of novel musical strategies to illustrate the popular topoi of love and war. Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624/5; The battle of Tancredi and Clorinda), drawn from Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, is noteworthy for the use of the stile concitato (agitated style) as discussed in the preface to book 8, in particular the innovative string techniques used to represent the battle scenes, including the use of pizzicato (plucking the strings) and col legno (striking the strings with the wood of the bow). Love is well represented by the Lamento della ninfa, in which the hypnotic soprano's complaint, set over a repeated descending bass pattern, became the model for numerous such laments.

When he was in his seventies, Monteverdi published his most important collection of sacred music, Selva morale e spirituale (1640; Spiritual and moral forest), and also profoundly influenced Venice's emerging opera industry. His 1639–1640 revival of Arianna was followed by a trilogy of three-act operas in Venetian style: Il ritorno di Ulisse in Patria (1639–1640; The return of Ulysses to his homeland); the lost Le nozze di Enea con Lavinia (1640–1641; The wedding of Aeneas and Lavinia); and L'incoronazione di Poppea (1642–1643; The coronation of Poppea), which some music historians believe was probably finished by Francesco Sacrati and others. Unlike in Orfeo, much of the expressive power of these works is concentrated in the closed forms (arias and duets) rather than recitative, as would become the norm in baroque opera. All three were written to librettos by members of the Venetian Accademia degli Incogniti, a group of freethinking patricians involved in both opera and publishing whose staunch patriotism, interest in the erotic, and playful attitude toward the classics seem to have inspired the composer at the height of his creative powers. From the representation of chaste marital fidelity in the recasting of Homer (in Il ritorno) to the seemingly immoral endorsement of physical love in imperial Rome (in Poppea), the surviving Venetian operas provide an eloquent testimony to Monteverdi's understanding of complex human emotions and his incomparable genius.

MONTEVERDI, CLAUDIO (1567–1642)

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