JÚLIA COELHO
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO,
FAVOLA IN MUSICA:
CHARACTER CONSTRUCTION
AND DEPICTION OF EMOTION*
ABSTRACT
La costruzione del personaggio nei primi spettacoli operistici per mezzo di gesti musicali,
è una conquista del musicista italiano Claudio Monteverdi (-), una pratica ben
visibile già nella sua prima opera L’Orfeo, Favola in Musica. Nella rappresentazione
monteverdiana del personaggio, particolarmente in quelle di Orfeo e Apollo, la scelta di
esprimere le emozioni attraverso un registro vocale specifico e impiegando soluzioni
retorico-musicali, sembra essere in relazione anzitutto con la coeva concezione estetica e
le convenzioni stilistiche del canto; tal scelta, invece, rappresenta idee su etica/carattere
(ethos), ragione (logos) ed emozioni (pathos), in maniera più sottile che nella sua ultima
opera, L’incoronazione di Poppea. Lo stile operistico di Monteverdi nell’Orfeo è dovuto
a una molteplicità di fattori, di natura culturale, personale, di condizione sociale (ad es. il
suo contatto con le attività musicali in altre città italiane, il suo coinvolgimento nelle
accademie culturali, i vincoli imposti dal suo mecenate mantovano). Essendo ancora
lontano da un tipo di scrittura libera da condizionamenti, come quella osservabile nelle
sue ultime opere destinate ai teatri pubblici, Orfeo può essere letto con il risultato
dell’incontro tra tre fattori determinanti: l’ambiente culturale e il sistema del
mecenatismo; l’estetica del canto e della recitazione; l’influenza delle accademie culturali,
in particolare dell’Accademia degli Invaghiti. Sottoponendo a nuove indagini e
considerazioni sia fonti primarie che studi contemporanei, questo studio mira ad
approfondire la posizione estetica di Monteverdi, e come essa abbia influenzato la
costruzione dei personaggi operistici e la loro realizzazione musicale, informata alla luce
dei tre fattori sopra richiamati. Un tale impatto verrà descritto attraverso l’aria di Orfeo,
Possente Spirto, e il suo duetto con Apollo, Saliam, cantando (senza tuttavia escludere
altri importanti momenti dell’opera), nei quali soluzioni musicali similari rappresentano
differenti situazioni drammatiche.
Claudio Monteverdi, L’Orfeo, Possente Spirto, Accademia degli
Invaghiti, Alessandro Striggio
PAROLE CHIAVE
Philomusica on-line. Rivista del Dipartimento di Musicologia e beni culturali
N. 17 (2018) – Electronic ISSN 1826-9001 – <http://philomusica.unipv.it>
Pavia University Press © Copyright 2018 by the Authors
J. COELHO
SUMMARY
The construction of character on the early operatic stage by means of musical gestures is
an arresting achievement of Italian master Claudio Monteverdi (-), a practice
first evident in his signature opera L’Orfeo, Favola in Musica. In Monteverdi’s depiction
of character, notably that of Orfeo and Apollo, his decisions to express emotion through
voice type and musical/rhetorical devices appear at the surface to be connected primarily
to contemporary aesthetic concepts and singing style conventions, representing the ideas
of morality/character (ethos), reason (logos), and emotion (pathos) in much subtler ways
than in his late opera L’incoronazione di Poppea. Monteverdi’s operatic style in Orfeo is
indebted to several factors, namely cultural, personal, and social conditions (e.g., his
exposure to musical activities in other Italian city-states, his involvement with cultural
academies, and the constraints resulting from his Mantuan patronage). Lacking the
freedom to write for the public theater as in his later operas, Orfeo can be seen as a result
of three determining factors: cultural environment and the patronage system; aesthetics
of singing/performance practice; and the influence of cultural academies, in particular the
Accademia degli Invaghiti. By re-examining primary sources and re-evaluating several
contemporary scholarly studies, this paper aims to further an understanding of
Monteverdi’s aesthetic position as it affected his construction of operatic characters and
their musical depiction, informed by the three factors above. Such an impact will be
discerned using Orfeo’s Possente spirto and the duet between Apollo and Orfeo Saliam,
cantando al Cielo (without excluding other excerpts of great importance in this opera) in
which similar musical settings represent different dramatic situations.
KEYWORDS Claudio Monteverdi, L’Orfeo, Possente Spirto, Accademia degli Invaghiti,
Alessandro Striggio
'
. Introduction
Claudio Monteverdi’s development of an early operatic aesthetic and style is
indebted to many different factors. To consider the context in which his dramatic
works were created – namely the varying cultural, intellectual, and musical
tendencies in the cities where he resided – can only enrich the understanding of
the composer’s artistry. The impact of these influences, prominent in the
environment in which the composer lived and worked (in this case, Mantua), is
particularly apparent in his approach to the construction of character in his first
opera L’Orfeo, Favola in Musica in the printed score.1
*
This article represents a revised and expanded version of the paper presented at the
International Conference The Making of a Genius: Claudio Monteverdi from Cremona to
Mantua in . I thank Dr. Jeffrey Kurtzman and Dr. Judith Mabary for their guidance in the
version, as well as Chris Van Leeuwen for his help with the musical examples and
substantial feedback for both the conference paper and the ensuing article.
· 310 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO, FAVOLA IN MUSICA
Despite Monteverdi’s displeasure reported in several letters, his musicianship
benefitted from the cultural environment of Mantua:2 he breathed the air of
change, surrounded by musicians and intellectuals who were acquainted with the
foundations of early opera created in Florence through the efforts of the
Camerata Fiorentina and of the newly emerging virtuosic vocal style, already
established in the late s in Ferrara and then in Mantua by the Concerto delle
Donne. It was also in the latter city that the opera Orfeo was created, under the
auspices of the Accademia degli Invaghiti in which Prince Francesco Gonzaga
(-) had a leadership role.3
To facilitate an understanding of the aesthetic influences of this opera, three
main points will be examined: first, the cultural environment and patronage
system under which Monteverdi worked; second, the overall vocal performance
practice and artistic preferences in the late s/early s period; and finally,
the intellectual milieu and the beliefs of the Accademia degli Invaghiti.4 These
1
2
3
4
Hereafter, when referring to the opera L’Orfeo, Favola in Musica, it will be abbreviated and
referred to as Orfeo. For the original ending according to the libretto, see WHENHAM,
Claudio Monteverdi: Orfeo, pp. -. As for the possible reasons for the differences in Act V
of the libretto, the surviving score, and the later edition in , see Fenlon in
WHENHAM, Claudio Monteverdi: Orfeo, pp. -. See also PIRROTTA, Scelte poetiche di
musicisti, pp. - and HANNING, Of Poetry and Music’s Power, pp.-. According to
Hanning, there is the strong possibility that Striggio was not the one writing the words for the
last act of Orfeo: the existence of a deus ex macchina in Monteverdi’s Arianna () with text
by Ottavio Rinuccini (-) is a strong indicator that the latter poet was the author of the
verses in Act V of the Orfeo. See HANNING, Of Poetry and Music’s Power, and also ID., The
Ending of L’Orfeo.
See Monteverdi’s letters: November to Cardinal Ferdinando Gonzaga translated by
Denis Stevens in MONTEVERDI, The Letters, ed. Stevens, p. . Original Italian text in
MONTEVERDI, Lettere, ed. Lax, p. ; December to Annibale Chieppio, MONTEVERDI, The
Letters, ed. Stevens, p. . Original MONTEVERDI, Lettere, ed. Lax, pp. -; and November
to Alessandro Striggio, MONTEVERDI, The Letters, ed. Stevens, p. , original MONTEVERDI,
Lettere, ed. Lax, p. .
Several other important works were composed while Monteverdi was in Mantua, for instance:
the opera L’Arianna [performed May; with libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini], the prologue to
the comedy of Battista Guarini (-) L’idropica ( June), the dramatic work Il ballo delle
ingrate ( June; libretto by Rinuccini) – all three completed for the festivities to celebrate
the marriage of Prince Francesco Gonzaga to Margherita of Savoy (-) – along with
the sacred work Vespro della Beata Vergine () and the above-mentioned opera Orfeo,
contributed significantly to Monteverdi’s reputation in the early seventeenth century and to
establishing his crucial importance to the history of Western music.
The facsimile of the preface printed in Malipiero’s edition reads as follows: «Serenissimo
signore mio signore et patrone colendissimo, La favola d’Orfeo che già nell’Accademia de
gl’Invaghiti sotto gl’auspitij di V. A. fù sopra angusta Scena musicalmente rappresentata,
dovendo hora comparire nel gran Teatro dell’universo à far mostra di se à tutti gl’huomini…».
See MONTEVERDI, Orfeo, ed. Malipiero, preface.
On Italian cultural academies during the s, see MAYLENDER, Storia delle accademie
d’Italia, and SISINNI, Le accademie del Seicento, pp. -.
Both Paolo Fabbri and Barbara Russano Hanning defend that the Apollonian ending (as a lieto
fine) in the published version is chronologically the later one, modified to please a wider
public while also providing, in the words of Hanning, «a more explicit conclusion to the action
than the dance of the Baccanti» in the original ending. In the version «Monteverdi
· 311 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
J. COELHO
considerations will help inform an analysis of Monteverdi’s construction of
character and related expression of emotional content with regard to the
characters Orfeo and Apollo in the opera Orfeo.
. Cultural Environment and Patronage System
Regarding the first point of analysis—the composer’s cultural environment and
the patronage system under which Monteverdi was employed—it is important to
begin by mentioning the importance of the transitional period in which the
composer lived: it is undeniable that Monteverdi stood astride a change between
the ‘old’ to the ‘new’ style. 5 Several sources from antiquity were discovered and
translated during the Renaissance period – among them, newfound writings of
Plato (c.-c. B.C.), Aristotle (- B.C.), and Cicero (- B.C.) –
which stimulated reflections on rhetoric and poetics and discussions of
Neoplatonism and Aristoteliniasm.6 On the latter two, the Neoplatonic concept
of imortality of the soul—through the interpretation and translations of
5
6
realized that he could no longer count on the refined sensibilities and literary acumen of the
original audience – the Invaghiti academicians – who, when they viewed the Bacchic finale of
the original production, would have had to finish the story in their minds» (HANNING, The
Ending of L’Orfeo). See also FABBRI, Monteverdi (always trans. Carter), pp. -.
See EHRMANN, Claudio Monteverdi: Die Grundbegrife, p. , who pointed out that the ‘new
style’ and the birth of a new terminology is present in the concepts of seconda pratica, the
moderna musica, and even in titles of works such as Le nuove musiche of Giulio Caccini (). Marco Scacchi was one of the initial writers to associate the first practice with the old
style and the second with the new, modern one. See PALISCA, Marco Scacchi’s Defense, pp. . The terms prima pratica and seconda pratica have been subjects of a great deal of interest
by numerous scholars through the years, whether concerning the well-known MonteverdiArtusi polemic, or by approaching terminology, characteristics, and history in relation to other
composers associated with both practices. See, for instance, ROCHE, Monteverdi and la Prima
Prattica, pp. -; See also OSSI, Divining the Oracle, §§ , , pp. - and pp. -, and
PALISCA, The Artusi-Monteverdi Controversy, pp. -. For the new practice, see BONOMO,
Melodia, ovvero seconda pratica musicale, pp. -.
The most famous response to this attack was written by Giulio Cesare Monteverdi, Claudio’s
brother (-/) in the Dichiarazione della lettera stampata nel Quinto libri
de’ suoi madregali, where he defended his brother’s views that had been stated in the
Preface to the Quinto Libro de’ Madrigali, reprinted in MONTEVERDI, Lettere, dediche e
prefazioni, pp. - and pp. -, respectively. See translation in STRUNK, Source
Readings in Music History, pp. -. Artusi’s attack and Giulio Cesare’s reply are translated
by STRUNK, Source Readings in Music History, pp. -.
For further readings on the importance and impact of rhetoric during the Renaissance as well
as its relationship with philosophy, see SANTOS, Linguagem, retórica e filosofia no
renascimento, pp. -. For issues on translations and interpretation of texts, see ibid, pp. . See also MACK, A History of Renaissance Rhetoric.
· 312 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO, FAVOLA IN MUSICA
Marsicilio Ficino [-]—and Aristotle’s writings on dramatic theory in his
Poetics played a crucial role during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.7
By the late s, the Aristotelian idea of imitation, with his well-known
teaching «ars imitatur naturam» [«art imitates nature»], began increasingly to be
paired with the new elements of astonishment, novelty, and surprise
characteristic of the seventeenth century.8 This effect of meraviglia was often
expressed through idealistic conceptions, vocal technique with emphasis on
virtuosity – including the ‘supernatural’ and crafted voices of the castrati – and
the introduction of mechanization, as utilized in the version of Orfeo in the
form of a deus ex machina with the god Apollo.9
The dichotomy and union of verisimilitude (imitation) and artificiality
(virtuosity) – with unnatural means adopted to express or imitate ‘nature,’ often
defying what was humanly possible – resulted in an aesthetic of elaboration and
complexity in terms of musical technique that, at the same time, aimed to express
(relatively) realistic emotional reactions: all of this was compatible with a
character whose supernatural qualities were outside normal (or natural) human
existence, well suited for portraying a demigod such as Orfeo.10 Monteverdi
adopted such an aesthetic when determining the content of the vocal line
assigned to this character, a semi-divine being whose humanity is revealed in his
passionate responses throughout the opera.
The display of vocal prowess was the taste of Monteverdi’s patron at the time,
Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga (-), whose fondness for the spectacular in the
arts and of magnificence in his court was not a secret. His attraction towards the
meraviglia effect could be seen in his musical preferences and in how he desired
his court to be perceived: glorious and in active competition with other powerful
families in other city-states of Italy, placing a renewed emphasis on appearance
and a strong elite cultural life. Such aspirations included the recovery of myths of
the past and their adaptation to the political and cultural conditions of Vincenzo’s
court through the lens of an increasingly absolutist ideology, using the arts for
such a purpose.11
The history of music is also the history of society, reflecting the tastes of
powerful individuals: the court of Mantua during Monteverdi’s time was not an
exception. Court life in general was organized around the prince, and there was
7
8
9
10
11
ARISTOTLE, Poetics, trans. Sachs. Such connections have been discussed in detail by scholars
such as Stefano La Via and Jon Solomon. See LA VIA, Allegrezza e perturbazione, pp. -, and
SOLOMON, The Neoplatonic Apotheosis, pp. -.
ARISTOTLE, Physica, ed. Hamesse, p. , a. In the words of scholar Marvin T. Herrick, the
concept of imitation in the eyes of Aristotle’s commentators refers to the quality of the poet
«who imitates by fabricating idealized representations of human beings in action». HERRICK,
Comic Theory, p. . Regarding imitation in Monteverdi’s music, see TOMLINSON, Madrigal,
Monody and Monteverdi’s ‘Via Naturale Alla Imitatione’, pp. -.
On the concept of ‘meraviglia’ see ROSEEN, Monteverdi, Marino and the Aesthetic of
Meraviglia, pp. -.
Paolo Fabbri utilizes the expression «l’unione del verisimile e del meraviglioso», in FABBRI,
Tasso, Guarini e il ‘divino Claudio’, p. .
See POTTER, Vocal Authority.
· 313 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
J. COELHO
no higher identity above him. In the words of Italian Renaissance historian Lauro
Martines,
luxurious ostentation at the courts was a display of power. Without such an
exhibition, there was somehow no sufficient claim of title to the possession of
power. Therefore, the need to show. At the same time, to show was to act out a
self-conception: I am prince and I can show it. The more I show it, the more I
am what I claim to be. It was a dialectic of ambition and being.12
It was a matter of power projected through propaganda in the arts, and no less
was true of the Gonzaga dynasty. According to Ian Fenlon,
one area in which music and the arts played an increasingly important role
during the period was in accentuating the aspect of despotic mythology…
[which was] further encouraged by contemporary theories of magnificence and
the tendency to generate an emphasis on the ceremonial.13
Musical patronage was, therefore, a self-serving cultural phenomenon by which
the changing production of music reflected the activities and interests of the elite.
While Orfeo was initially written and performed for the Accademia degli
Invaghiti, when analyzing the end-result one must consider the fact that its
composer was under Vincenzo Gonzaga’s patronage, whose musical interests
were clear. The preference of Duke Vincenzo towards virtuosic singing was well
documented and has been thoroughly studied;14 Florentine and Ferrarese
influence on Mantuan court music was reflected (and emulated) in new styles of
singing and theatre since the s. Vincenzo had spent a considerable amount
of time at the Este court in Ferrara, home to the Concerto delle Donne, an
ensemble formed in of three virtuoso sopranos (also called the ‘Three Ladies
of Ferrara’ or Concerto delle Dame), who inspired a large amount of highly
ornamented and vocally demanding secular music.15 Around , Vincenzo
Gonzaga established a similar group in Mantua, whose music anticipated the solo
singing in the earliest operas and reinforced the contemporary taste that favored
the high and virtuosic voice.16
12
13
14
15
16
MARTINES, Power
and imagination, p. .
and Patronage, p. .
See for example FENLON, Music and Spectacle, pp. -, and COLE, Italian Renaissance
Courts Art, Pleasure and Power.
The three ladies were initially Laura Peverara (-), Anna Guarini (-), and
Livia d’Arco (-).
This ensemble was part of the context of Musica secreta [Secret Music] in Ferrara, in which
Duke Alfonso II (-), zealous of the singing and playing of his Concerto delle Donne,
allowed only selected guests to hear them in his private events. As with well-treasured secrets,
the legendary fame of these women spread throughout and beyond Italy, inspiring performers
and composers with their dazzling technique. Their reputation laid the foundations of a rich
repertoire for female high voices and played a crucial role in establishing solo-song repertoire
in the new virtuosic and highly ornamented Baroque style. It is without a doubt that the artistic
influence of this all-female ensemble was essential in establishing a tradition that lasted for
many decades: the art of florid singing as practiced in Ferrara.
FENLON, Music
· 314 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO, FAVOLA IN MUSICA
. Emerging Vocal Aesthetics in the Late s/Early s
Such a preference towards virtuosity in vocal performance with the Concerto
delle Donne leads to the second analyzed point of influence on Monteverdi’s
stylistic approach to Orfeo: the aesthetics of the late s/early s, a period
characterized by a taste for ornament and extravagance in all the arts. In the
words of scholar Anthony Newcomb, the Concerto delle Donne fed the «interest
in ornamented singing and … [promoted] the increasing number of virtuoso
singers employed there in the numerous princely households».17 The high voices
of this ensemble reflected the desired technique and artistic preference towards
florid repertoire, which was undoubtedly a trademark of the Concerto delle
Donne.
This elaborate singing style can be seen in the following example, a madrigal
by Luzzasco Luzzaschi (-) for solo soprano O Primavera ()18 from
the collection 12 madrigali per sonare e cantare composed for the Ferrara
ensemble. Its ornamented, melismatic setting, in particular in measures -
and – on the word «amori» [love], can be seen in the following example
(with full text and translation below):19
17
18
19
NEWCOMB, The Madrigal at Ferrara, p. . From the same author, see also his Ph.D.
dissertation: NEWCOMB, The Musica Secreta of Ferrara. Other authors have also contributed
significantly to the study of the Concerto delle Donne, namely: EINSTEIN, Anfänge des
Vokalkonzerts and The Italian Madrigal; FRANKLIN, Musical Activity in Ferrara; LO GIUDICE,
Carlo Gesualdo e il Concerto delle Dame; KLOZ, Wie klang der Früling um 1600? and the
publications and editions of DURANTE – MARTELLOTTI, Madrigali segreti per le dame di Ferrara
and Cronistoria del concerto delle dame
This piece was published in but it was likely written around s or even before. Such a
gap between composition and publication is mostly due to the nature of the Musica secreta at
the court. See NEWCOMB, The Madrigal at Ferrara, chapter Musical Practice within the Musica
secreta, pp. -, DURANTE – MARTELLOTTI, Madrigali segreti per le dame di Ferrara and
Cronistoria del concerto delle dame, and FRANKLIN, Musical Activity in Ferrara, who wrote
substantial contributions regarding the musical context, biographical information, and
aesthetic remarks of the Musica secreta of the Ladies of Ferrara. The authors of all three sources
explore, more or less in detail, the character of secrecy in this repertoire, while also explaining
the active role of the publisher Simone Verovio (-) in the printing process in Rome of
Luzzaschi’s 12 Madrigali collection.
Verovio published music sporadically from through , and was the first to print music
from copper engravings instead of moveable type, as extensively done in Venice. The technique
using engraved copper plates was particularly suitable to the clusters of many short notes
occurring in highly ornamented music, as in Luzzaschi’s edition. The publisher was involved
between - in the publication of several anthologies of canzonette, toccate, and
madrigali that had intabulations for lute and/or harpsichord and were written by Giovanni
Francesco Anerio, G. Peetrino, Claudio Merulo, Ottavio Durante, and L. Luzzaschi. See, for
example, the collection edited by him Diletto spirituale. Canzonette a tre et a quattro voci
(Verovio, Roma ), containing works by Boccapaduli, Anerio, Giovanelli, Palestrina, Mel,
Nanino, Soriano and Marenzio. For further details, see CAMPAGNE, Simone Verovio: Intaglio
Techniques, pp. - and Simone Verovio: Music Printing, and BARGIERI, Music Printers
and Booksellers in Rome, pp. -.
With the exception of numbers and , all musical examples presented in this article are
transcribed without the continuo part, and the measure numbers refer only to the excerpt
included in these pages and not to the example’s position in the complete score. Luzzaschi’s
· 315 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
J. COELHO
Example . Luzzaschi, O primavera (12 madrigali, mm. -)
O Primavera, gioventù dell’anno,
Bella madre de’ fiori,
D’erbe novelle e di novelli amori!
Tu torni ben, ma teco
Non tornano i sereni
e fortunati dì delle mie gioie.
Tu torni ben, tu torni,
Ma teco altro non torna,
Che del perduto mio caro tesoro
La rimembranza misera e dolente.
Tu quella sei, pur quella
Ch'eri pur dianzi sì vezzosa e bella,
Ma non son io quel, che già un tempo fui,
Sì caro agli occhi altrui.
Oh Springtime, youth of the year,
beautiful mother of flowers,
of new plants and of new loves,
you return indeed, but with you
are not returning the bright
and lucky days of my joys.
You return indeed, you return,
but with you, otherwise, is returning
only my dear lost treasure's
memory, sad and sorrowful.
You are that one, indeed that one
that you were not long ago, so lovely and beautiful,
but I am not that one that once I was,
so valued in the eyes of others.
In the renowned Discorso sopra la musica, the Roman patrician Vincenzo
Giustiniani (-) wrote enthusiastic words about this new style that he
had experienced both in Ferrara and in Mantua with the Concerto delle Donne:
The Ladies of Mantua and Ferrara were highly competent and vied with each
other not only in regard to the timbre and disposition of their voices but also in
the ornamentation of exquisite passaggi delivered at opportune moments, but
not in excess. … Furthermore, they moderated or increased their voices, loud or
soft, heavy or light, according to the demands of the piece; now dragging, now
breaking off with a gentle, interrupted sigh, now singing long passaggi legato or
detached, now gruppi, now leaps, now with long trilli, now with short, and again
with sweet passaggi sung softly, to which sometimes one heard an echo answer
unexpectedly. They accompanied the music and the sentiment with appropriate
facial expressions, glances, and gestures, with no awkward movements of the
example is taken from the score of LUZZASCHI, Madrigali per cantare et sonare, p. . The text
is by Giovanni Battista Guarini and the translation is by John Glenn Paton ().
· 316 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO, FAVOLA IN MUSICA
mouth or hands or body which might not express the feeling of the song. They
made the words clear in such a way that one could hear even the last syllable of
every word, which was never interrupted or suppressed by passages and other
embellishments.20
Such an ensemble, dear to Vincenzo Gonzaga’s aesthetic tastes, was of
considerable importance, consequently, to Monteverdi’s musical language: the
composer paid diligent attention to creating elaborate ornamentation that did
not detract from the clarity of the text, a practice exemplified in Orfeo’s aria
Possente spirto.
Much of the ornamentation vocabulary of the mid- to late- sixteenth century
was, however, an intensification of Renaissance embellishments – in particular,
diminutions/divisions – that were already a traditional part of the singer’s
grammar, as seen in vocal treatises or in vocal compositions of Giovanni Camillo
Maffei (c.-/), Ludovico Zacconi (-), Giovanni Luca
Conforto (-), and Giovanni Battista Bovicelli (-). The
Ferrarese influence was not the only factor in determining Monteverdi’s
flourished style: the virtuosic singing voice echoed the contemporary trend.
Ornamentation was a relevant part of singing with grace and of delivering the text
in a noble, refined manner, an aesthetic announced and explored in several music
treatises before publication of Le nuove musiche by Giulio Caccini (-)
in .21 Vincenzo Giustiniani in his Discorso observed that a different style of
singing started to emerge around :
In the Holy Year of , or shortly thereafter, a style of singing appeared which
was very different from that preceding. It continued for some years, chiefly in
the manner of one voice singing with accompaniment, and was exemplified by
20
21
GIUSTINIANI – BOTTRIGARI, Il Desiderio or Concerning the Playing, ed. MacClintock, pp. -.
For the original text, see GIUSTINIANI, Discorso sopra la musica de’ suoi tempi, ed. Solerti, pp.
-, reproduced below:
«Era gran competenza fra quelle dame di Mantova et di Ferrara, che facevano a gara non solo
al metallo et alla disposizione delle voci, ma nell’ornamento di esquisiti passaggi tirati in
opportuna congiuntura e non soverchi … e di più col moderare e crescere la voce forte o piano,
assottigliandola o ingrossandola, che secondo che veniva a’ tagli, ora con strascinarla, ora
smezzarla, con l’accompagnamento d’un soave interrotto sospiro, ora tirando passaggi lunghi,
seguiti bene, spiccati, ora gruppi, ora salti, ora con trilli lunghi, ora con brevi, et or con passaggi
soave e cantanti piano, dalli quali talvolta all’improvviso si sentiva echi e rispondere, e
principalmente con azione del viso e dei sguardi e de’ gesti che accompagnavano
appropriatamente la musica e li concetti, e sopratutto senza moto della persona e della bocca e
delle mani sconcioso, che non fusse indirizzato al fine per il quale si cantava e con far spiccare
bene le parole in guisa tale che si sentisse anche l’ultima sillaba di ciascuna parola, la quale dalli
passaggi et altri ornamenti non fusse interrotta o soppressa».
Scholar Adriano Cavicchi indicates that the first account on the Ladies of Ferrara was before
: it was written by Bernardo Canigiani in August , although no reference is made to
the specific virtuosic aspect that was characteristic of this ensemble. Canigiano described
Luzzaschi as playing for the ladies: «E dietro un gravincembalo tòcco dal Luzzasco, cantarono
la Signoria Lucrezia e la Signora Isabella Bendidio a solo a solo, che io non credo si possi sentir
meglio» (LUZZASCHI, Madrigali per cantare, ed. Cavicchi, p. ).
CACCINI, Le nuove musiche.
· 317 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
J. COELHO
Giovanni Andrea Napoletano, Signor Giulio Cesare Brancaccio, and Alessandro
Merlo Romano [all of whom] sang … with a range of notes.22
Highly-ornamented solo singing in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries became progressively more intense. Vocal treatises of the time, namely
those of Maffei, Zacconi, Conforto, and Bovicelli, indicate that the skill of the
singer, evident in the selection and execution of ornamentation, should reflect a
fine sense of balance and style. 23 As embellishments, diminutions became
tiresome when excessive: if the music was expected to move the affections as
nothing else could, ornamentation and improvisation acted as valuable tools with
which the affections could be moved more intensely.24
The above-mentioned concerns are present in the ornamentation of Bovicelli
for the soprano part of the madrigal of Palestrina (-) Io son ferito,
published in the former’s book Regole, passagi di musica (). In this example,
it is noteworthy to see the diminutions, ascending/descending notes, as well as
the dotted notes in the lower staff against the original, unembellished setting on
the top (example ).25
The diminutions appear more sparsely in this excerpt in comparison with the
previous one. They are used, however, in accordance with what became the
general tendency during this time, with a variety of equally-spaced and dotted
notes: for Caccini, dotted eighth- and sixteenth-note figures had more grace than
four equally-spaced eighths.26
When compared with the written-out embellished line of Orfeo’s aria
Possente spirto, Bovicelli’s selection seems rather simple while showing,
nevertheless, some complexity in its technical aspect. The more intricate use of
ornamentation, already seen in Luzzaschi’s example, is present in the following
22
23
24
25
26
GIUSTINIANI – BOTTRIGARI, Il Desiderio or Concerning the Playing, ed. MacClintock, p. . For
the original text, reproduced here below, GIUSTINIANI, Discorso sopra la musica de’ suoi tempi,
ed. Solerti, -. The singers cited here are Giovanni Andrea Napoletano (unknown dates),
Signor Giulio Cesare Brancaccio (–), and Alessandro Merlo Romano (-):
«L’anno santo del o poco dopo si cominciò un modo di cantare molto diverso da quello
di prima, e così per alcuni anni seguenti, massime nel modo di cantare con una voce sola sopra
un istrumento, con l’esempio d’un Gio. Andrea napoletano, e del sig. Giulio Cesare Brancacci
e d’Alessandro Merlo romano che cantavano ... nella larghezza dello spazio di voci [i.e.,
note]».
See MAFFEI, Delle lettere del Signor Gio. Camillo Maffei; ZACCONI, Prattica di musica;
CONFORTO, Breve et facile manier d’essercitarsi; and BOVICELLI, Regole, passaggi di musica.
See BROWN, Embellishing Sixteenth-Century Music, for examples of embellishments applied
in Sixteenth-century music. For later embellishments, see DICKEY, Ornamentation in Early
Seventeenth-Century Music, pp. -.
BOVICELLI, Regole, passaggi di musica, p. . Original text and translation (unknown poet and
translator) read as follows: «Io son ferito, ahi lasso, / e chi mi diede accusar pur vorrei, ma non
ho prova» [I am wounded, alas, / and I desire to accuse her who gave it to me, but I have no
proof].
CACCINI, Le nuove musiche, preface.
· 318 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO, FAVOLA IN MUSICA
excerpt of Monteverdi’s aria, where four of the five terza rima stanzas are set to a
highly virtuosic vocal line over a repeating bass (example ).27
Example . Bovicelli / Palestrina, Io son ferito (mm. -)
Example . Monteverdi, Orfeo: Possente spirto (Act III, Third Stanza, mm. -)
Scholar Tim Carter indicates that this strophic-variation aria – as well as the one
in the Prologue of Orfeo – draws upon «standard improvisation formulas such as
the arie da cantar terza rime, using stock melodic-harmonic progressions … as
a basis for declamatory and/or embellished singing».28 In addition to this,
27
28
MONTEVERDI, L’Orfeo, p. . For a modern edition, see MONTEVERDI, L’Orfeo, ed. Malipiero.
Original text, by Alessandro Striggio, and translation read as follows: «A lei volt’ ho il cammin
[per l’aer cieco]» (For her I have made my way [through the blind air]). Translation by Gilbert
Blin in MONTEVERDI – STRIGGIO, Monteverdi’s ‘Orfeo’, ed. Blin. All translations of Orfeo will be
taken from this source. On the aria da cantar terza rima specifically, see PALISCA, Aria Types
in the Earliest Operas.
CARTER, Some Notes on the First Edition of Monteverdi, p. . See also CARTER, ‘Possente
Spirto’: On Taming the Power of Music.
· 319 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
J. COELHO
Monteverdi included both the plain and the embellished melodic line (similarly
to Bovicelli’s procedure in Example ).29
As demonstrated by the three musical excerpts above, the level of difficulty
increases from Bovicelli’s ornamentation, to Luzzaschi’s (published)
works for the Ladies of Ferrara, and finally to Monteverdi’s aria Possente
spirto, with its written-out ornamentation. It is noticeable that in the latter
example Monteverdi adopted a manner of elaboration that exceeds the simple
use of diminutions. He blended them with more complex embellishments,
sometimes fully flourished until the last note, while others are left deliberately
empty. He also utilized several ornaments defined by Caccini in his Preface to Le
nuove musiche, often personalizing them, with the extensive use of trillo.30
For Maffei, «the diminutions [and embellishments in general] become
tiresome when the ear is saturated with them», and for Zacconi «that singer will
always be praised who, with a few ornaments, makes them at the right moment».31
Conforto, instead, focused mainly on acquiring agility and skill in improvising.
In fact, Giustiniani complained that Conforto himself sang «too many notes.»32
The question posed here, then, is: when does a lot become too much? Based on
these accounts only, it is difficult to assess when and where there is an excess of
notes/embellishments. For instance, when observing the difference between the
highly ornamented Possente spirto and Orfeo’s Act I aria Rosa del Ciel, the latter
setting is rather limited regarding written-out ornamentations. When analyzing
the music and the text of both examples, it becomes clear that the two depict
significantly different intentions/emotions and are directed to different onstage
listeners: in both pieces, such musical choices were beyond a mere preference
towards vocal prowess. As scholar Silke Leopold determined,33
the precisely notated embellishments of ‘Possente spirto’ indicate that the
coloratura was no longer seen only as a decorative accessory added by the singer,
but rather as a constituent element of the composition.
29
30
31
32
33
According to Carter, «it is not clear whether the embellished version of ‘Possente spirto’ reflects
Monteverdi’s attempt to notate [Francesco] Rasi’s performance, his memory of that
performance, or indeed what he wished Rasi had performed. There is no doubt, however, that
Rasi was well equipped to handle such virtuosic writing» (CARTER, Some Notes on the First
Edition of Monteverdi, p. ).
See CACCINI, Le nuove musiche, preface. Trillo here is in the sense of a re-striking of each note
with the throat, or what we would today refer to as ‘repeated notes,’ or note ribattute.
MAFFEI, Delle lettere del Signor Gio. Camillo Maffei, p. , and ZACCONI, Prattica di musica,
translated in ELLIOT, Singing in style, p. . The original texts read as follows: «I passaggi di
piacevoli, diventarebbono noiosi, quando l'orecchia appieno satia ne divenisse [sic]» and
«Sempre serà più lodato quel cantore che con poca gorgia a tempo fatta, poco si lontana, che
chi lontanadosi molto tardi, o per tempo arriva».
Giustiniani quoted in MAFFEI et al., Late Renaissance Singing, ed. Foreman, p. .
LEOPOLD, Monteverdi: Music in Transition, p. .
· 320 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO, FAVOLA IN MUSICA
Therefore, the ornamentation was to be performed as written by the composer,
with nothing for the sake of aesthetic preference alone.34
. L’Accademia degli Invaghiti: Musical and Philosophical
Implications
Aesthetic preference is one of the reasons why Monteverdi chose to set the more
elaborate pieces of Orfeo the way he did – such as Orfeo’s Possente spirto and the
final duet between he and his father Apollo. Particularly when comparing these
two examples, several factors indicate that virtuosity in itself was not all that the
Cremonese composer was aiming for. The third (and last) analyzed point of
influence on Monteverdi’s approach to Orfeo – the impact of the Accademia
degli Invaghiti – can help explain Monteverdi’s early operatic style in light of the
philosophical and aesthetic ideals and preferences of the members of this
academy. The cultural/artistic input of the Invaghiti, acting both as a patron and
as a crucial component of the intellectual milieu, was strengthened by the fact that
both Francesco Gonzaga and the librettist for the opera Orfeo, Alessandro
Striggio (-), were members of the Accademia degli Invaghiti.
The importance that the Invaghiti placed on oratory, poetry, and music,
following Neoplatonic, Aristotelian, and Ciceronian principles, resonates in the
writings and surviving works of the members of this academy, including Orfeo.35
Such principles expressed the humanist view that, as with oratory, performance
[whether is musical or textual] should serve «the secondary goals of ‘moving’ and
‘delighting’ the listener, while the primary value is to be found through the moral
instruction offered in the meaning of the words themselves,» as scholar Joel
Schwindt indicates.36 Besides the moral instruction, Aristotle defended that the
purpose of music was similar to that of oratory: to move the affections by
34
35
36
For more information on ornamentation and performance practice during Monteverdi’s time,
see DICKEY, Ornamentation in Early Seventeenth-Century Music, pp. -, and BAIRD, The
Bel Canto Singing Style and pp. -.
As indicated by Schwindt, of the many letters on the Accademia degli Invaghiti several are
available in the Raccolta di cinquantaquattro lettere d’Accademici Invaghiti di Mantova dal
1563 al 1599, at the Biblioteca Comunale Teresiana di Mantova, Ms. , and in the Archivio
di Stato di Mantova (I-MAa) and in the Archivio di Stato di Parma. The sack of Mantua in
and a fire in the Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria di Torino in the early twentieth century
contributed to a considerable loss of many of the works produced by the members of the
Accademia degli Invaghiti. See SCHWINDT, ‘All that Glisters’, p. . For the writings on their
activities that are based on research of surviving documents, see, for example, MAYLENDER,
Storia delle accademie d’Italia, pp. -; CAPPELLINI, Storia e indirizzi dell’Accademia
Virgilinana, pp. -, and CARNEVALI, Cenni storici sull’Accademia Virgiliana, pp. -.
SCHWINDT, ‘All that Glisters’, p. . See CICERO, De oratore ad Quintum fratrem, ed. Robia –
Giunta, II, , for the primacy of instruction over the moving of the mind and the delight of the
ears.
· 321 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
J. COELHO
«anticipating and imitating the effects on the listener’s parti interne of the
emotion one wished to evoke,» in the words of Hanning.37
The members of the academy adopted such viewpoints, in direct opposition
to the ideas that had been espoused by Monteverdi’s antagonist Giovanni Artusi
(-), to whom instead the musician’s purpose was «giovare e dilettare»,
not «movere», and «not to act upon, nor to cause effects or move the souls of
others to different passions».38 For the Invaghiti, however, that was exactly what
music was for. To this end, beauty and musical interest could be achieved through
opposites, from tension and resolution, sadness and lieto fine, evil and good with
a final moral message: in Orfeo, the «mutazioni affettive/d’affetti» (from
unhappiness to happiness and vice-versa) are a crucial aspect of this opera,39
already foreseen in the Prologue sung by the character La Musica, Hor mentre i
canti alterno hor lieti, hor mesti [While I vary my songs, now happy, now sad],40
and seen in great intensity in Act II in the announcement of the messenger Silvia
of the sudden death of Euridice.41
In deference to the past, the Invaghiti adopted the maxim that art should
«docere, movere, delectare», i.e.: instruction, followed by the movement of the
mind and the delight of the senses, following the three goals of the orator
according to Cicero.42 This three-part axiom echoed the Aristotelian three modes
of persuasion: ethos, appeal to ethics/character; logos, appeal to logic/reason; and
37
38
39
40
41
42
HANNING, Of
Poetry and Music’s Power, p. .
parte dell’Artusi, p. .
The expression «mutationi d’affetti» referred to Monteverdi’s music appears in BADOARO,
Argomento et scenario Delle Nozze d’Enea in Lavinia, and is further discussed in LA VIA,
Allegrezza e perturbazione, pp. -. The question of opposites applied to Monteverdi’s Orfeo
– namely of passions – is discussed by several scholars, namely LA VIA, Allegrezza e
perturbazione, pp. -, and KURTZMAN, Intimations of Chaos, pp. -.
Striggio presented from the beginning in the Prologue an Apollonian music, one that can move
the human passions (second strophe: «Io la Musica son, ch’a i dolci accenti, / Sò far tranquillo
ogni turbato core, / Ed hor di nobil ira, & hor d’amore / Posso infiammar le più gelate menti»
[I am Music, who in sweet accents, / Can make peaceful every troubled heart, / And so with
noble anger, and so with love, / Can I inflame the coldest minds.]), but also of purifying the soul
from those same passions (third strophe: «Io sù Cetera d’or cantando soglio / Mortal orecchio
lusingar talhora, / E in questa guisa a l’armonia Sonora / De la lira del Ciel più l’alme invoglio»
[Singing with my golden Lyre, I like / To charm, now and then, mortal ears, / And in such a
fashion that I make their souls aspire more / For the resounding harmony of the lyre of
Heaven’]), connecting such catharsis of passions with the celestial harmony, hence grating
eternal salvation to the soul. See LA VIA, Allegrezza e perturbazione, p. . See also CALCAGNO,
From Madrigal to Opera, pp. -.
This scene has been analyzed by several scholars: see for example the analysis of LA VIA,
Allegrezza e perturbazione, pp. -; CHAFE, Monteverdi’s Tonal Language, pp. -;
KURTZMAN, Intimations of Chaos, pp. -; CARTER, Some Notes on the First Edition of
Monteverdi, pp. -.
CICERO, De oratore ad Quintum fratrem, ed. Robia – Giunta; see translation CICERO, On the
Ideal Orator. According to Lauro Martines, «the humanists believed that nothing moved the
passions more effectively than the power of the language» (MARTINES, Power and imagination,
p. ).
ARTUSI, Seconda
· 322 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO, FAVOLA IN MUSICA
pathos, appeal to emotion,43 and it was in line with the Ciceronian idea embraced
by the Invaghiti that «nothing is more attractive, more beautiful than virtue»,44 a
message that is reinforced in the duet between Orfeo and his father in Act V
(«…Dove ha virtù verace / Degno premio di sè, diletto e pace» [Where true virtue
/ Has the due reward of delight and peace]) and other references to Apollo
throughout the opera, through the allusive quality of Striggio’s text.
The idea of virtue in connection to Apollo appears in less ambiguous terms in
the aforementioned duet if compared to Orfeo’s first musical intervention, “Rosa
del Ciel:” according to Paolo Fabbri, the meaning of the declaration to the Sun in
Orfeo’s Act I aria is clear in the first verses (seen below) «only with the reference
to the device of the Accademia degli Invaghiti: an eagle with its eyes fixed in the
sun, accompanied by the motto ‘Nihil pulcherius’ [‘Nothing more beautiful’]»:45
ORFEO
ORFEO
Rosa del Ciel, vita del mondo, e degna
Prole di lui che l’Universo affrena.
Sol che’l tutto circondi e’l tutto miri,
Dagli stellanti giri,
Dimmi, vedesti mai
Di me più lieto e fortunato amante?
Rose of heaven, life of the world, and worthy
Heir of him who holds the Universe in sway:
O Sun, who encircles all and sees all
From your starry orbits,
Tell me, have you ever seen
A happier and more fortunate lover than I?46
Rosa del Ciel is framed with subtle textual references to the Sun, starting by the
incipit, and has a focus on celebratory singing. Indeed, as Fabbri indicates, Orfeo
is invited by a Shepherd to sing ‘Some happy song inspired by Love’ [‘qualche
lieta canzone che detti Amore’], to which Orfeo responds by singing this aria. 47
As Solomon points out, Ficino referred to the Sun as the «physical, cosmic symbol
of the purest Platonic knowledge.»48 Sun as the light of the universe is an idea that
43
ARISTOTLE,
Rhetoric, trans. Rhys Roberts, pp. -, a. See SCHWINDT, ‘All that Glisters’,
pp. -.
44
The letter in which the Invaghiti’s motto is based is both reproduced in the original and
translated to Italian in CICERO, Le lettere familiari latine IX, p. .
45
FABBRI, Monteverdi, p. . John Whenham provides an alternative reading of this aria: «While
this [piece] is clearly a reference to Apollo, son of Jupiter, Striggio carefully couches it in terms
which could also be interpreted as referring to the sun as the creation of a Christian God, a
cultural ambiguity which is exploited throughout the opera until the final () chorus, which
is explicitly Christian in tone (perhaps a further indication that the new ending was written by
someone other than Striggio)» (WHENHAM, Claudio Monteverdi: Orfeo, p. ).
46
Translation by Gilbert Blin in MONTEVERDI, Orfeo, ed. Blin. All translations of the libretto
of Orfeo will be taken from this source.
47
The invitation to sing in Monteverdi’s opera and the concept of mimesis is explored in further
detail by FABBRI, Tasso, Guarini e il ‘divino Claudio’, pp. -. Adhering to such invitations
(to realistically sing on stage) are, in Fabbri’s words, «passi assolutamente mimetici», p. .
On this topic, see also PIRROTTA, Li due Orfei. In this regard, in a letter of Monteverdi to
librettist Striggio in December , , the composer paraphrased the description of the
Camerata Fiorentina regarding the concept of recitar cantando as «to speak while singing, and
not … [to] sing while speaking» [«al parlar cantando e non … al cantar parlando»] in
MONTEVERDI, The Letters, ed. Stevens, p. ; see original in MONTEVERDI, Lettere, ed. Lax, p. .
48
FICINO, Epistolae 6, fol. , quoted in SOLOMON, The Neoplatonic Apotheosis, p. .
· 323 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
J. COELHO
dates (at least) since Plato, and its recurrent reference in Orfeo is seen throughout
the opera.49 In Rosa del Ciel the reference to Apollo – god of the sun as well as of
music and of reason – lasts only for a few verses, as seen by the text above, through
the words «Sol(e)» and «(Rosa del) Ciel».50
In the brief textual reference to the Sun/Apollo, Rosa del Ciel is set
harmonically in g with a minor third above the bass, until it changes to a different
one (f) in the verse «Di me più lieto e fortunato amante» [A happier and more
fortunate lover than I?] when no longer referring to the ‘Sun.’51 The same
harmony can be observed in other pieces that refer to Apollo, directly or
indirectly, through Orfeo or Apollo himself, such as Ecco pur in Act II sung by
Orfeo – a dance-rhythm in ternary form that, again, refers to the Sun (from which
it can be inferred that it refers to Apollo), also in a simple, syllabic setting as with
Rosa del Ciel:
ORFEO
ORFEO
Ecco pur ch’à voi ritorno,
Care selve e piagge amate,
Da quel Sol fatte beate
Per cui sol mie notti han giorno.
Here I return to you,
Dear forests and beloved meadows,
Blessed by that very Sun
Through whom alone my nights are day.
Besides sharing the same mode, both arias follow a similar syllabic setting in
words that refer to ‘Sun’ in their first occurrence, as seen in the following two
musical examples: on Act I aria, the words «Rosa del Ciel» are set D-B --A-B -, a
short motive that is similar to the words on the first «Sol» in «Ecco pur» in the
verse «Sol (fatte beate)» [(Blessed by that very) Sun], D-B --C-B -:
49
50
51
PLATO, De Re Publica, (as translated to Italian by Ficino) and Plato’s Republic for Readers,
trans. Blair, a-c.
«Ciel» [Heaven] is a word repeated throughout the opera in several instances, such as in the
Prologue, in Act I the chorus’ Lasciate i monti, in Act II right after Orfeo’s Ecco pur, in Act IV
right before Orfeo’s strophic aria Qual honor di te fia degno, the chorus in Act V, among other
examples.
Eric Chafe discusses in depth the use of «tonal system/language/tonality» first in a broader
spectrum and then applied to Monteverdi in the first three chapters of his Monteverdi’s Tonal
Language, pp. -, and specifically to Orfeo, pp. -. Such a reading raises issues of «tonal
and modal thinking» during the late s/early s in today’s scholarship and is not met
without criticism. Scholars Daniele Sabaino and Marco Mangani refer to and expand Chafe’s
tonal readings applied to Orfeo in SABAINO – MANGANI, L’organizzazione dello spazio sonoro
nell’Orfeo, pp. -.
Due to the intricacies of discussing the use of modes, modal mixture, and tonality in
Monteverdi’s music, for harmonic analysis the term ‘mode’ will be utilized instead of ‘key,’ and
the use of a lower case letter in a certain mode – ‘g’, for instance – will refer to having a minor
third above the bass (in the case of g mode, B -), while the use of upper case will refer to having
a major third instead (in the case of G mode, B =).
· 324 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO, FAVOLA IN MUSICA
Example . C. Monteverdi, Orfeo: Rosa del Ciel (Act I: mm. -)
Example . C. Monteverdi, Orfeo: Ecco pur ch’a voi ritorno (Act II: mm. -)
Both Rosa del Ciel and Ecco pur convey the serene joy of Orfeo before the
peripeteia takes place with the tragic death of his beloved one, unlike other
movements that, although not conveying anymore a peaceful environment due
to Euridice’s passing, share the same mode (g) with the two pieces just discussed
above. Among these excerpts post-peripeteia are the Sinfonia that precedes and
follows the aria Possente spirto (Orfeo); the same Sinfonia repeated in Act V
when Apollo descends from a cloud; Possente spirto; Apollo’s longest lines in Act
V; and the final duet with his son.
As Chafe indicates in his monograph on tonal analysis applied to
Monteverdi’s music, G, g, a, and d modes appear often throughout Orfeo, with g
related usually (but not always) to a «serious, hopeful mode, while G … is
associated with his overconfidence and failure to realize the harsh realities of
existence».52 These features and their contrast are particularly striking when, after
singing the strophic variations of Possente spirto, Orfeo directs his speech to
Caronte:
ORFEO
ORFEO
Sol tu, nobile Dio, puoi darmi aita,
Nè temer dei, che sopra una aurea Cetra
Sol di corde soavi armo le dita
Contra cui rigid’ alma in van s’impetra.
You alone, noble God, can help me,
Nor should you fear, since on a golden Lyre
My fingers are only armed with sweet strings,
Against which the merciless soul tries in vain
to resist.
52
CHAFE, Monteverdi’s
Tonal Language, p. .
· 325 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
J. COELHO
With a distinct setting from the previous stanzas, the first two lines of this
example are set in g mode, when Orfeo’s lines are set to convey a serious and
humble manner, asking the ferryman for help as his only hope («Sol tu … puoi
darmi aita» [you alone … can help me]). The second half of this stanza suffers a
subtle change, turning to G mode, when Orfeo returns to talk about himself and
his playing in the words «Corde soave … armo le dita» [My fingers … sweet
strings], confident in his powers to which no ‘merciless soul’ [rigid’alma] can
resist, abandoning the simple syllabic setting to a melismatic, ornamented words
«in van» [in vain] at the end of his speech. To these words, Caronte simply and
coldly responds:
CARONTE
CARONTE
Ben mi lusinga alquanto
Dilettandomi il core,
Sconsolato Cantore,
Il tuo piantí e ’l tuo canto.
Ma lunge, ah lunge sia da questo petto
Pietà, di mio valor non degno effetto.
Indeed you charm me,
Appeasing my heart,
Disconsolate Singer,
With your plaints and your song.
But far, ah, far from this breast
Lies pity, an effect unworthy of my valour
Orfeo’s overconfidence expressed in this passage in G did not yield him the
passage to Hades, nor did his joyful and equally self-assured moment in Act IV
on his way to rescue Euridice while already in the Underworld, «Qual honor di te
fia degno»:
SPIRITO
SPIRIT
Ecco il gentil cantore
Che sua sposa conduce al Ciel superno.
Here is the gentle singer,
Who leads his bride to the Heaven above.
ORFEO
ORFEO
Qual honor di te fia degno,
Mia cetra onnipotente,
S’hai nel Tartareo Regno
Piegar potuto ogni indurata mente?
Luogo havrai tra le più belle
Immagini celesti,
Ond’al tuo suon le stelle
Danzeranno co’ giri hor tardi hor presti.
Io per te felice à pieno
Vedrò l’amato volto,
E nel candido seno
De la mia Donna oggi sarò raccolto.
What honour is worthy of you,
My all-powerful lyre,
For you have, in the Kingdom of Tartarus,
Been able to make yield every hardened heart?
A place shall you have among the fairest
Images of heaven,
Where at your sound the stars
Shall dance and twirl, now slowly, now quickly.
I, through you, happy at last,
Shall see the beloved face,
And in the white bosom
Of my Lady today I will rest.
Ma mentre io canto (ohimè) chi m’assicura
Ch’ella mi segua? Ohimè, chi mi nasconde
De l’amate pupille il dolce lume?
But while I sing, alas, who can assure me
That she follows me? Alas, who hides from me
The sweet light of her beloved eyes?
· 326 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO, FAVOLA IN MUSICA
Punctuated with short ritornelli by violins and with some virtuosic (short)
passages, Qual honor di te fia degno can, at first, resemble a musical miniature of
Possente spirto until the verse «E nel candido seno / De la mia Donna oggi sarò
raccolto» [But while I sing, alas, who can assure me / That she follows me?].
Unlike in the latter aria in g, however, Orfeo is not trying here to convince or
show anything to anyone but himself, having substantially less ornamentation in
his melodic line: the excess of confidence at the beginning of Qual honor… by
singing victory just before losing Euridice for the second time is quickly shaken
by his inner doubts, expressed by the tritone on the word «Ohimè [Alas] – Ma
mentre io canto (ohimé) chi m’assicura» [But while I sing, alas, who can assure
me] – in the sentence that immediately followed his (wrongly) victorious singing,
forecasting Orfeo’s second loss and, again, followed by his deep expression of
grief.
Aligning both with the moral tone and with the poetic/dramatic concerns in
several of the works written by the Invaghiti members, Orfeo’s «second loss» of
Euridice represents the Aristotelian «tragedy of character» and its hamartia of
the main character in Monteverdi’s opera, i.e., the heroic protagonist who
endures a tragic end due to his own failures and who «does not change into
misfortune through bad character and vice, but on account of some missing the
mark [hamartia], if he is among those who are in great repute and good fortune»
in the words of Aristotle.53 In the version of Orfeo, although the protagonist
is not destroyed by the Bacchantes as according to Poliziano, he still loses
Euridice twice, the second one irreversibly.54 This time, such tragic event is
attributed to Orfeo’s inability to control his emotions and to follow the
instructions of the ‘test of virtue’ on his ‘youthful desire’ [giovenil desio] that
Plutone imposed upon Orfeo in Act IV: to not look back when rescuing Euridice
from the Underworld, with the price of losing her forever. Orfeo’s failure can be
analyzed not only when he does gaze at her in Hades, but also when he does not
succeed to convince Caronte with his virtuosic aria Possente spirto:
ORFEO
ORFEO
Possente Spirto, e formidabil Nume,
Senza cui far passaggio a l’altra riva
Alma da corpo sciolta in van presume;
Powerful Spirit and fear-inspiring God,
Without whom to make passage to the other bank
A soul, freed from the body, presumes in vain:
53
54
The «tragedy of character» is one of the four species of tragedy discussed by ARISTOTLE, Aristotle
Poetics, trans. Sachs, XVIII, pp. - (the «complex tragedy», the «tragedy of suffering», the
«tragedy of character», and the «spectacular tragedy» or «simple tragedy»). Aristotle explored
the concept of hamartia also in his Poetics, XIII, pp. -.
See POLIZIANO, La rappresentatione della favola d’Orfeo, as well as PIRROTTA, Li due Orfei and
Music and theatre from Poliziano to Monteverdi. Besides the Neoplatonic and Aristotelian
models, as La Via and Fabbri indicate, Striggio referred to Aminta of Torquato Tasso () and Il Pastor fido of Giovanni Battista Guarini (-) in terms of poetic/dramatic
models in the writing of the libretto for Orfeo. See GUARINI, Il Pastor Fido, and TASSO, Aminta.
See also LA VIA, Allegrezza e perturbazione, pp. -, and FABBRI, Tasso, Guarini e il ‘divino
Claudio’, pp. -.
· 327 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
J. COELHO
Non viv’ io, nò, che poi di vita è priva
Mia cara sposa, il cor non è più meco
E senza cor com’ esser può ch’io viva?
I do not live, no; since my dear bride
Was deprived of life, my heart is no longer with me,
And without a heart how can it be that I live?
A lei volt’ ho il cammin per l’aer cieco,
A l’Inferno non già, ch’ovunque stassi
Tanta bellezza, il Paradiso ha seco.
For her I have made my way through the blind air,
Not yet to Hades, for wherever there is
Such beauty there is Paradise in her company.
Orfeo son io, che d’Euridice i passi
Seguo per queste tenebrose arene,
Ove giammai per huom mortal non vassi.
O delle luci mie luci serene,
S’un vostro sguardo può tornarmi in vita,
Ahi, chi niega il conforto à le mie pene?
Orfeo am I, who follows Euridice’s steps
On these dark sands,
Where never mortal man has gone.
O serene light of my eyes,
If one look of yours can return me to life,
Ah, who denies comfort to my afflictions?
Sol tuo, nobile Dio, puoi darmi aita,
Nè temer dei, che sopra una aurea Cetra
Sol di corde soavi armo le dita
Contra cui rigid’ alma in van s’impetra.
You alone, noble God, can help me,
Nor should you fear, since on a golden Lyre
My fingers are only armed with sweet strings,
Against which the merciless soul tries in vain to
resist.
Despite being written as an impressive display of vocal prowess during four of the
five stanzas (lasting until when Orfeo discloses his identity, «Orfeo son io» [I am
Orfeo] and abandons the strophic variation form), Possente spirto is also an
example of when oratory becomes ineffectual, for nothing can move Caronte and
make him allow Orfeo to enter Hades.55 Although this aria charms and delights
the heart of the ferryman – himself stating that «ben mi lusinga alquanto /
dilettandomi il core / sconsolato cantore» [Indeed you charm me, / appeasing my
heart, / disconsolate singer], in response to the music of Orfeo – Caronte does not
pity the protagonist, denying him access to the Underworld.
Instead of discreetly displaying talent with morally sound/reasonable
arguments (logos, one of the Aristotelian modes of persuasion in his Rhetoric
referred to above), Orfeo embodies musical brilliance for most of his aria, which
is the main cause of his failure.56 In the words of Schwindt,
the humanist philosophy of the Invaghiti would seem directly to challenge the
view of the work as a ‘hymn’ to music’s greatness. As an oration that fails as a
result of the speaker’s attempt to substitute stylistic brilliance for argumentative
substance, the musical exhibition of Monteverdi’s setting [of “Possente spirto”]
becomes an illustration by excellence of the protagonist’s attempt to sway his
55
56
Such a reading has been supported by scholars such as STEINHEUER, Orfeo, pp. - and
SCHWINDT, ‘All that Glisters’, pp. -. Tim Carter defends that the failure of this aria is
«not due a lack of rhetorical: nothing could move Caronte, and pity is more a female virtue. …
Falling asleep – that is, being enchanted into another world – is an entirely positive response to
(Orphic) music». Also, the attempt to evoke pity in Caronte at the beginning of the fifth stanza
led Orfeo to fail in his purposes. As Carter reminds, pity is «more a female virtue» CARTER, Some
Notes on the First Edition of Monteverdi, p. .
Ibid.
· 328 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO, FAVOLA IN MUSICA
judge with a barrage of ‘musical delights,’ rather than a triumphant display of
music’s expressive power.57
The misuse and misjudgment of the rhetorical style leads Orfeo to fail in his task
to convince the river Styx ferryman: Joachim Steinheuer analyzes the use of high,
middle, and low rhetorical styles when referring to the case of Orfeo, and matches
each style with the situation and listener in both Striggio’s libretto and the
composer’s music:58 Orfeo’s failure in the first four stanzas of Possente spirto lies
first in the use of a middle expressive style, displaying his singing abilities, instead
of engaging a high style more suitable for a persuasive speech to Caronte.
Furthermore, the aria lacks the moral instruction and logical arguments
necessary to convince him. Orfeo attempts instead to evoke musical delight and
pathos, rather to focus on logos or ethos, leading to his unsuccessful attempt to
cross the Styx river. The elaborate and excessive embellishments in Possente
spirto further demonstrate Orfeo’s erratic behavior, with his eagerness and
urgent need to persuade Caronte to deliver him to his beloved, yet failing to
achieve his goal. The complex ornamentation, intended to persuade but going
against the idea of the recitar cantando due to its emphasis on the (mimetic
aspect of) singing rather than convincing with words/arguments,59 is a product
not of reason [logos] nor moral/character [ethos], but of passion [pathos].60
Florentine patron Giovanni de Bardi (-) affirmed, «as Aristotle said
elsewhere, he cannot be called a good musician who does not have the power to
draw someone to some moral ethos».61 The legendary demigod Orfeo, however,
cannot be considered a poor musician despite his temporary lapse into human
vulnerability and misuse of rhetorical style and purpose, for he will have the
opportunity to redeem himself for his excessive display of vocal prowess and of
emotion. After an immoderate lament at his final loss and an equally immoderate
renunciation of all love for any woman at the beginning of Act V, he will be
restored to celestial divinity by Apollo. Orfeo’s redemption comes indeed at the
conclusion of the version. As La Via indicated, this celestial ascension of
Orfeo enabled by his father Apollo, occurring in Act V before the final chorus,
represents his distancing from the human passions finally while achieving
harmony through the ‘true virtue’ [virtù verace] of eternal life.62 This Neoplatonic
57
SCHWINDT, ‘All that Glisters’, p. .
58
STEINHEUER, Orfeo, pp. -.
59
MONTEVERDI, The Letters, ed. Stevens, p. ; see original in MONTEVERDI, Lettere, ed. Lax, p. :
«Al parlar cantando e non … al cantar parlando,» paraphrasing the expression «recitar
cantando» of the Camerata Fioretina referring to the new monodic style.
The depiction of emotion has been discussed in depth by Jeffrey Kurtzman, most notably in his
discussion of the expression of grief through the use of the tritone (signifying his «psychological
disintegration») when Orfeo learns of the death of Euridice and then experiences her loss a
second time. See KURTZMAN, Intimations of Chaos, pp. -.
BARDI, Discorso da me mandato a Giulio Caccini detto Romano, ed. Palisca, p. .
LA VIA, Allegrezza e perturbazione, p. . As Solomon put it, «the concept of ascending to
heaven as a reward for virtue and to avoid the vagaries of human emotions is germane to neither
musical theater nor Renaissance Catholic eschatology. It belongs to Renaissance Neoplatonism,
as promulgated by Marsilio Ficino and Matteo Palmieri» (SOLOMON, The Neoplatonic
60
61
62
· 329 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
J. COELHO
message is compatible with the Aristotelian catharsis of mortal affects, both
echoed in the words of the chorus before the scene in Act IV with Orfeo and
Apollo:
CORO DI SPIRITI (Act IV)
È la virtute un raggio
Di celeste bellezza,
Pregio de l’alma ond’ella sol s’apprezza:
Questa di Tempo oltraggio
Non teme, anzi maggiore
Ne l’uom rendono gli anni il suo splendore.
Orfeo vinse l’Inferno, e vinto poi
Fù da gli affetti suoi.
Degno d’eterna gloria
Fia sol colui ch’avrà di sè vittoria.
CHORUS OF SPIRITS (Act IV)
Virtue is a ray
Of celestial beauty,
Prize of the soul, where alone it is valued:
The ravages of Time
It does not fear, rather
In man do the years restore its greater splendour.
Orfeo conquered Hades and then was conquered
By his emotions.
Worthy of eternal glory
Is the one who will have victory over himself.
and later at the end of Act V, reinforcing the ideas of virtue and celestial beauty
(for, following the Ciceronian’s thoughts discussed above, «nothing is more
beautiful than virtue»),63 eternal life/glory, and, finally, Orfeo’s purification of
human passions:64
CORO (Act V)
Vanne, Orfeo, felice apieno
A goder celeste honore
L’ave ben non mai vien meno.
L’ave mai non fu dolore,
Mentr’altari, incensi e voti
Noi t’offriam lieti e devoti.
Così va chi non s’arretra
Al chiamar di lume eterno,
Così grazia in ciel impetra
Ahi qua giù provò l’inferno
E chi semina fra doglie
D’ogni grazia il frutto coglie.
CHORUS (Act V)
Go, Orfeo happy at last,
To enjoy celestial honour
Where good never lessens,
Where there was never grief,
While altars, incenses and prayers
We offer to you, happy and devoted.
So goes one who does not retreat
At the call of the eternal light,
So he obtains grace in heaven
Who down here has braved Hell
And he who sows in sorrow
Reaps the fruit of all grace.
According to Platonic philosophy, the higher one ascends, the greater Virtue,
Goodness, and the (idea of) Beauty are – as referred to in the last chorus, «celeste
bellezza» [celestial beauty].65 Apollo references these thoughts when inviting
63
64
65
Apotheosis, p. ). Both Solomon and Hanning share the beliefs that the happy ending belongs
to Ottavio Rinuccini in the libretto for Euridice, written nine years before the Orfeo
version. See HANNING, The Ending of L’Orfeo.
See footnote .
SOLOMON, The Neoplatonic Apotheosis, pp. -. Also, see LA VIA, Allegrezza e perturbazione,
pp. - and -.
Beauty’s distinctive pedagogical effects show why Plato talks about its goodness and good
consequences, sometimes even its identity with «the good». See PLATO, The Laws, c; PLATO,
Philebus, a-b; PLATO, Plato’s Republic for Readers, trans. Blair, c; PLATO, The Symposium,
trans Bisshe Shelley, c, e.
· 330 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO, FAVOLA IN MUSICA
Orfeo for his apotheosis, where he will be able to see the ideal representation of
Euridice’s physical beauty through heavenly beauty.66 As Sternfeld states,
«Orfeo’s happiness at being able to view Eurydice’s lovely ‘semblance’ in the stars,
instead of beholding her personally, is a faithful reflection of Neoplatonism
views».67
The appearance of Apollo in Act I and then at the end of the opera in the
version with his demigod son, during the apotheosis, gives a sense of a complete
narrative: the relationship between Orfeo and he is portrayed as more closely
related, unlike in the original ending.68 The duet brings together several of the
aspects seen so far in the Opera, such as the Neoplatonic ascension to heaven –
where Orfeo can contemplate the ideal form of Euridice’s Beauty – the
Aristotelian catharsis, the power of music, and the achievement of Virtue as an
ultimate (moral and ethical) goal:
APOLLO E ORFEO
APOLLO AND ORFEO
Saliam cantando al Cielo,
Dove ha virtù verace
Degno premio di sè, diletto e pace.
Let us rise, singing, to Heaven,
Where true virtue
Has the due reward of delight and peace.
This duet takes place after Apollo descends from heaven in a cloud, at the sound
of the same g-mode Sinfonia that appeared two acts prior, before and after
Possente spirto, indicating the relationship between this aria and the final duet.
Borrowing Nino Pirrota’s phrase, the use of the Sinfonia of Possente spirto for the
scene between Apollo and Orfeo represents «un altro simbolo orfico».69 In the
duet, also in g mode just as in Orfeo’s main aria, both characters are assigned
florid and vocally demanding passages, after Apollo arrives on stage as a deus ex
machina. Some portions of the duet are equally difficult in florid style and vocal
range for both characters, resembling the difficulty level and even some
fragments appearing in the first four stanzas of the aria Possente spirto, as can be
observed in the following example, particularly with Apollo’s measures - and
:70
66
67
68
69
70
PLATO, De
Re Publica, and Plato’s Republic for Readers, trans. Blair, e-a. See Solomon’s
discussion of ‘celeste bellezza’ in SOLOMON, The Neoplatonic Apotheosis, pp. -.
Sternfeld in WHENHAM, Claudio Monteverdi: Orfeo, p. .
As D. Freeman states, «Apollo appears in the first act during Rosa del Ciel, so that this
intervention in the final act could have something of the effect of a successful da capo –
inevitable and surprising at the same time. Not an artificial ending, but a coming full circle»
Freeman in WHENHAM, Claudio Monteverdi: Orfeo, p. .
PIRROTTA, Teatro, scene e musica nelle opere di Monteverdi, p. .
MONTEVERDI, L’Orfeo, pp. -.
· 331 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
J. COELHO
Example . Monteverdi, Orfeo: Saliam, cantando (Duet Apollo and Orfeo, Act V: mm.
-)
When comparing Apollo’s measures - with the four measures in the first
stanza of Possente spirto on the words «alma da corpo sciolta in van presume» [a
soul, freed from the body, presumes in vain], the musical similarities are
notorious with their dotted ascending notes, identical mode, repeated fast notes
(trillo), descending scalar notes, as well as the same cadence and mid-vocal range.
· 332 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO, FAVOLA IN MUSICA
Considering the different situations in the opera, such likeness requires some
clarification.71
Example . Monteverdi, Orfeo: Possente spirto (Act. III, First Stanza, mm. -)
Despite the similar setting, unlike Possente spirto the duet between Apollo and
Orfeo is not about pathos. Instead, it portrays the moral and rational aspects –
ethos and logos – that are announced in Apollo’s arioso to his son before the
aforementioned duet:
APOLLO
APOLLO
Troppo, troppo gioisti
Di tua lieta ventura;
Hor troppo piagni
Tua sorte acerba e dura.
Ancor non sai
Come nulla qua giù diletta e dura?
Dunque se goder brami immortal vita,
Vientene meco al Ciel, ch’a se t’invita.
Too much, too much did you rejoice
In your happy fate,
Now too much do you weep
At your bitter, hard fortune.
Do you still not know
How nothing that delights down here will last?
Therefore, if you want to enjoy immortal life,
Come with me to Heaven, which invites you.
In the passage reproduced above, Apollo returns to g mode (after Orfeo’s speech
in a mode) «chiding Orpheus for his excess in lamenting his hard lot» («hor
troppo piagni…» [now too much do you weep], in the words of Chafe.72
Orfeo rejoiced too much when he first won Euridice, as seen before, and given
a chance to reunite with her lost her forever because he lacked sufficient
emotional control. In the meantime, he failed to persuade Caronte with his
overconfidence in his musical abilities. Through similar passagework – with the
four measures mentioned above, same Sinfonia, same mode, and identical
virtuosic singing – Monteverdi indicated that the aria Possente spirto and the
duet Saliam, cantando are to be recognized as related. Yet how is it possible to
reconcile using similar settings for different intentions: one the result of emotion,
the other a moral commentary?
71
MONTEVERDI, L’Orfeo, pp. -.
72
CHAFE, Monteverdi’s
Tonal Language, p. .
· 333 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
J. COELHO
Considering the parental relationship between the main character and Apollo
and the imitation of musical motives and devices between their lines, Petrarca’s
discussion of imitation in a letter to Boccaccio can be relevant to understanding
Monteverdi’s motivation in this particular musical setting, first sung in a more
elaborate manner by Orfeo, and later by his father:
a proper imitator should take care that what he writes resembles the original
without reproducing it. The resemblance should not be that of a portrait to the
sitter … but it should be the resemblance of a son to his father.73
In the duet, Monteverdi calls for the son to echo the father. In taking the lead,
Apollo’s line is both animated and moderate, displaying the balance (in music
and in words) that Orfeo had been lacking. In the aria Possente spirto almost all
words are embellished in order to display the great virtuosic skill of the demigod
to the Styx ferryman; in the duet, instead, the embellishments are few and refer to
a precise, more contained meaning. In Orfeo’s aria, the demonstration of vocal
abilities leads to, at least on the surface, the ornamentation of both important and
less relevant words, if compared to other words within the same verses. Examples
of this are the words «in van» [in vain] in the first stanza in the verse «Alma da
corpo sciolta in van presume» [A soul, freed from the body, presumes in vain]
(see example ), the longest melisma of all in that verse and a word that is also
embellished at the end of the fifth stanza of Possente spirto; and the article in the
third stanza «il» [the] in the verse «A lei volt’ ho il cammin per l’aer cieco» [for
her I have made my way through the blind air]. As Mauro Calcagno has
demonstrated, however – and as it is expected – such apparent lack of meaning
in some embellished words in Possente spirto have a certain meaning and
purpose:
The first two strophes of the text, accordingly, are dominated first by the address
to Charon’s “spirto,” then, from strophe on, by a persistent emphasis on firstperson singular pronouns and possessive determiners (‘non vivo io … mia cara
sposa …il cor non è più meco … ch’ io viva … Orfeo son io’). This is interrupted
in strophe by a reference to the ‘she’ (‘lei’) of Eurydice, a shift that, however,
does not change the musical style of the piece. Orpheus, caught in his glorious
embellishments, could very well continue to speak about himself, Eurydice being
merely his alter ego.74
Orfeo’s insistence on talking about himself, all the while trying to convince
Caronte and displaying his virtuosic capabilities, reveals a display of vanity that
justifies the significant amount of ornamentation in several of his words. One of
these instances is observed in the lengthy and highly embellished passage on the
words «in van» [in vain] using several sixteenth and thirty-second notes, first
dotted in ascending motion, then with repeated notes (trillo), finishing in a
stepwise descending motion down to the notes F #-G that leads to the g cadence.
Such procedures anticipate Apollo’s less complex, yet similar, line in singing the
73
PETRARCA, Epistolae familiares, ., pp. -.
74
CALCAGNO, From Madrigal to Opera, p. .
· 334 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO, FAVOLA IN MUSICA
word «diletto» [delight] in the final duet: it follows the same devices and melodic
direction that is represented in Example , except using only eighth and sixteenth
notes in measures - in Example .
In Saliam, cantando (Example ), ornamented words are carefully chosen to
achieve different results from the ones Orfeo tried in Act III: to show-off, to
convince, and to self-praise. «Saliamo», [let us rise], in measures -, is set in
ascending patterns and dotted notes, representing the movement ‘to ascend;’
«cantando» [singing],75 in measures -, is set with sequential gruppetti and trilli,
evoking singing gestures; and «diletto» [delight], in measures - and -,
appears in marked dotted rhythms and trillo, similar to Orfeo’s passage on the
word «van» [in vain] in his aria (see Example , mm. -). Unlike in Possente
spirto, no articles or prepositions are musically embellished in the Apollo-Orfeo
duet, and the contrast that follows with a simple homophonic setting is rather
striking on the key-sentence: «…Dove ha virtù verace / Degno premio di sè,
diletto e pace» [Where true virtue / Has the due reward of delight and peace].
Each ornamented word and contrast in text setting contributes to the greater
purpose, which is to construct the aspect Orfeo lacked previously within a
Neoplatonic frame of moderation and virtue and an Aristotelian purification of
passions, instead of being overwhelmed with emotion and, sometimes, selfpraise.
As Solomon indicates, Orfeo is not distinguishable because of his musical and
poetic abilities, but because he endured twice both the ultimate joy and grief of
mortal life. It is in this sense that Apollo is not seen as merely the god of music
who comes and rescues a demigod musician, but the (divine) father who rescues
his son of his human pain, giving him a divine alternative to an earthly end
(bacchantes) while providing the moral and rational guidance of which Orfeo
was in need.76
. Conclusion
The reasons behind the decisions Monteverdi made in writing Orfeo are
numerous and no single isolated influence fully explains them. Instead, the
Cremonese composer was responding to several interconnected factors
simultaneously: satisfying a royal patron and his musical preferences, as well as
the aesthetic tendencies and philosophical concerns of the time. The result was
an opera in which the composer developed a musical language that conveys both
emotion and its opposite (moderation/reason) according to the text he was to set,
75
76
One of the purposes of music, including for Plato, was to elevate the soul: see PLATO, De Re
Publica, and Plato’s Republic for Readers, trans. Blair, a–e. According to La Via,
certainly music is what brings eternal happiness and salvation, ascending and singing while
going towards Heaven (‘Saliam cantando al Ciel’), where virtue is. See LA VIA, Allegrezza e
perturbazione, p. .
SOLOMON, The Neoplatonic Apotheosis, p. .
· 335 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
J. COELHO
whether by using written-out ornamentation or omitting it, selecting the vocal
type (here the middle voice), as well as similar musical material.
In trying to persuade with pathos as in Orfeo’s aria or in exhibiting
moderation as in the duet with Apollo, Monteverdi’s search for the verisimilitude
of human emotions is paired with the artificiality of the supernatural, machinelike technique of a semi-divine being. That Monteverdi reduced ornamentation
in the duet scene while retaining passages from the aria can be viewed as
indicative of emotional restraint. As demonstrated above, such segments strongly
suggest that Monteverdi’s depiction of passion and reason were thoughtfully
considered when setting the relationship between Orfeo and Apollo.
By taking over Orfeo’s musical lines in Possente spirto and reworking them in
the duet in a more moderate – yet still virtuosic – setting, instead of embellishing
words such as ‘the’ and ‘in vain,’ Monteverdi carefully chose words that would
reflect the teachings of a father to his son: the ornamented settings of «salaiam»
[let us arise], «cantando» [singing’], and «diletto» [delight] contrast with the
homophonic, syllabic, and simple style that musically depicts the moral goal
«dove ha virtù verace…» [where true virtue …], to be sung together with Orfeo.
In a such a way, Monteverdi set his music so that Apollo was in control during
this duet and could bring back his son Orfeo to a world of moderation and
celestial contemplation, ideal for a philosophical frame that aligned with the
intellectual thinking of the Accademia degli Invaghiti.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ARISTOTLE,
Aristotle Poetics, trans. Joe Sachs, Focus Publishing, Newburyport
.
ARISTOTLE,
Rhetoric, trans. W. Rhys Roberts, The Modern Library, New York
.
ARISTOTLE,
Physica: Les Auctoritates Aristotelis, ed. J. Hamesse, Publications
Universitaires, Louvain-Paris .
ARTUSI, G.M., Seconda parte dell'Artusi ovvero delle imperfettioni della moderna
musica, Nella quale si tratta de' molti abusi introdotti da i moderni scrittori,
& Compositori, Venezia .
BADOARO, G.,
Argomento et scenario Delle Nozze d’Enea in Lavinia, n.p.,
Venezia .
BAIRD, J., The
Bel Canto Singing Style, in A Performer’s Guide to SeventeenthCentury Music, ed. S. Carter, rev. J. Kite-Powell, Indiana University Press,
Bloomington , pp. -.
· 336 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO, FAVOLA IN MUSICA
BARDI, G.,
Discorso mandato da me a Giulio Caccini detto Romano, sopra la
musica anticha, e cantar bene, in The Florentine Camerata, ed. and trans.
Claude V. Palisca, Yale University Press, New Haven , pp. -.
BARBIERI, P.,
Music Printers and Booksellers in Rome (1583-1600), with New
Documents on Coattino, Dani, Donageli, Tornieri, and Franzini,
«Recercare», (), pp. -.
BONOMO, G.,
Melodia, ovvero seconda pratica musicale: Monteverdi e la
prospettiva di una nuova Instituzione, in Musicam in subtilitate scrutando:
Contributi alla storia della teoria musicale, ed. D. Sabaino, M.T. Rosa
Barezzani, and R. Tibaldi, LIM, Lucca , pp. -.
BOVICELLI, G.B.,
Regole, passaggi di musica, madrigali e motetti passeggiati,
Vincenti, Venezia .
BROWN, H.M., Embellishing Sixteenth-Century Music, Oxford University Press,.
London .
CACCINI, G., Le nuove musiche, Marescotti, Firenze .
CALCAGNO, M.,
From Madrigal to Opera: Monteverdi’s Staging of the Self,
University of California Press, Berkeley .
CAMPAGNE, A.,
Simone Verovio: Intaglio Techniques Reveal DifferentMakers
and Audiences, in Sources of Identity: Makers, Owners, and Users of Music
Sources Before 1600, ed. L. Colton and T. Shephard, Brepols, Turnhout ,
pp. -.
CAMPAGNE, A.,
Simone Verovio: Music Printing, Intabulations and Basso
Continuo in Rome Around 1600, Bohlau Verlag, Vienna .
CAPPELLINI, C.,
Storia e indirizzi dell’Accademia Virgiliana, «Atti e memorie
dell’Accademia Virgiliana di Mantova», VI (-), pp. -.
CARNEVALI, L.,
Cenni storici sull’Accademia Virgiliana, «Atti e memorie
dell’Accademia Virgiliana di Mantova», XII (-), pp. –;
CARTER, T., ‘Possente spirto:’ On Taming the Power of Music, «Early Music» /
(), pp. -.
CARTER, T.,
Monteverdi’s Musical Theatre, Yale University Press, New Haven
and London .
CARTER, T.
Some Notes on the First Edition Of Monteverdi’s ‘Orfeo’ (1609),
«Music & Letters» / (), pp. -.
CARTER, T.,
Monteverdi and Some Problems of Biography, «Journal of
Seventeenth-Century Music», / (), <https://sscm-jscm.org/jscmissues/volume--no-/monteverdi-and-some-problems-of-biography/>.
CICERO, M. T.,
De oratore ad Quintum fratrem libri tres, ed. Lucas Robia and
Filippo Giunta I, reprinted, Ex Officina Philippi, Giuntae, Firenze .
· 337 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
J. COELHO
CICERO, M. T., On the Ideal Orator, trans. J. May and J. Wisse, Oxford University
Press, Oxford .
CICERO, M. T., Le lettere familiari latine IX, , n.p., Venezia .
COLE, A., Italian
Renaissance Courts Art, Pleasure and Power, Laurence King
Publishing, London .
CONFORTO, G.L.,
Breve et facile maniera d’essercitarsi ad ogni scolaro non
solamente a far passaggi sopra tutte le note che si desidera per cantare, et far
la disposizione leggiadra, et in diversi modi nel loro valore con le cadenza,
ma ancora per potere da se senza maestro scrivere ogni opera, et aria
passeggiata che vorrano, et come si notano: et questo ancore serve per que
che sonano di viola, o d’altri instrumenti da fiato per scigliere la mano et la
lingus et per diventar possessere delli soggetti et far altre inventione de se
fatte, Roma .
DANNREUTHER, E., Musical Ornamentation, Part I, Novello, Ewer, London .
DICKEY, B. (), Ornamentation in Early Seventeenth-Century Italian Music,
in A Performer’s Guide to Seventeenth-Century Music, nd edn., ed. S. Carter,
rev. J. Kite-Powell, Indiana University Press, Bloomington , pp. -.
DURANTE, E.
– MARTELLOTTI, A., Madrigali segreti per le dame di Ferrara: Il
Manoscritto Musicale F. 1358 Della Biblioteca Estense Di Modena, SPES,
Firenze .
DURANTE, E.
– MARTELLOTTI, A., Cronistoria del concerto delle dame
principalissime di Margherita Gonzaga d'Este, Archivum musicum, Collana
di studi, SPES, Firenze .
ELLIOT, M.,
Singing in style a guide to vocal performance practices, Urbana
University of Illinois Press, Urbana .
EHRMANN, S.,
Claudio Monteverdi: Die Grundbegrife seines musiktheoretischen Denkens, Centaurus-Verlagsgesellschaft, Pfaffenweiler .
EINSTEIN, A., Anfänge des Vokalkonzerts, «Acta Musicologica», /(), pp. -
.
EINSTEIN, A., The Italian Madrigal, ed. and trans. A. Haggerty Krappe, Princeton
University Press, Princeton .
FABBRI, P. Tasso,
Guarini e il ‘divino Claudio’: Componenti manieristiche nella
poetica di Monteverdi, «Studi musicali», (), pp. -.
FABBRI, P., Monteverdi, trans. T. Carter, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
.
FENLON, I.,
Music and Spectacle at the Gonzaga Court, c. 1580-1600,
«Proceeding of the Royal Music Association», (), pp. -.
· 338 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO, FAVOLA IN MUSICA
FENLON, I.,
Music and Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Mantua, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, .
FICINO, M.
(), Espitolae 6, in Opera Omnia , ed. P.O. Kristeller, Bottega
d'Erasmo, Torino .
FRANKLIN, H.A.,
Musical Activity in Ferrara, 1598 to 1618, Ph.D. diss., Brown
University .
GIUSTINIANI, V.
– BOTTRIGARI, E., Il Desiderio or Concerning the Playing of
Various Musical Instruments. Discorso sopra la musica, in Readings in the
History of Music in Performance, ed. and trans. C. MacClintock, Indiana
University Press, Bloomington .
GIUSTINIANI, V.
– BOTTRIGARI, E., Il desiderio overo, De’ concerti di varij
strumenti musicali, Ricciardo Amadino, Venezia .
GIUSTINIANI, V. – BOTTRIGARI, E., Discorso sopra la musica de’ suoi tempi (1628),
in Le origini del melodramma, ed. A. Solerti, Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim
.
GUARINI, G.B.,
– BONFADINO, G.B., Il Pastor Fido Tragicomedia Pastorale Di
Battista Guarini, Dedicata Al Ser[enissi]mo D. Carlo Emanuele Dvca Di
Savoia. &c. Nelle Reali Nozze di S.A. con la Ser[enissi]ma Infante D.
Caterina D’Austria, Bonfadino, Venezia .
HANNING, B.R., Of
Poetry and Music’s Power: Humanism and the Creation of
Opera, UMI Research Press, Ann Arbor .
HANNING, B.R.,
(), The Ending of L’Orfeo: Father, Son, and Rinuccini,
«Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music», / (), <https://sscmjscm.org/v/ no/hanning.htmln>.
HERRICK, M., Comic Theory in the Sixteenth Century, University of Illinois Press,
Urbana ,
KLOZ, S.,
Wie klang der Frühling um 1600?: Madrigale von Monteverdi,
Luzzaschi und Sigismondo d'India im mentalitätsgeschichtlichen Vergleich,
in Vanitatis fuga, aeternitatis amor’: Wolfgang Witzenmann zum
65.
Geburtstag, ed. S. Ehrmann-Herfort, M. Engelhardt and W. Witzenmann,
Laaber-Verlag, Laaber .
KURTZMAN, J.,
Intimations of Chaos, in Approaches to Monteverdi: Aesthetic,
Psychological, Analytical, and Historical Studies, Ashgate, Burlington VT
, pp. -.
LA VIA, S., Allegrezza e perturbazione, peripezia e danza nell' «Orfeo» di Striggio
e Monteverdi, in Pensieri per un maestro. Studi in onore di Pierluigi
Petrobelli, ed. S. La Via and R. Parker, EDT, Torino , pp. -.
LO GIUDICE, L.,
Carlo Gesualdo e il Concerto delle Dame, La Stamperia del
Principe, Gesualdo .
· 339 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
J. COELHO
LUZZASCHI, L.,
Madrigali per cantare et sonare a uno e doi e tre soprani, fatti
per la musica, Roma Simone Verovio, Roma .
LUZZASCHI, L., Madrigali
per cantare et sonare a uno e doi e tre soprani, ed. A.
Cavicchi, L’Organo, Brescia .
LEOPOLD, S., Monteverdi: Music in Transition, Clarendon Press, Oxford .
MACK, P.,
A History of Renaissance Rhetoric 1380-1620, Oxford University
Press, Oxford .
MAFFEI, G.C., Delle
lettere del Signor Gio. Camillo Maffei da Solofra, Libri due.
Dove tra gli altri bellissimi pensieri di Filosofia, e di Medicina, v’è un
Discorso della Voce e del Modo d’apparare di cantare di Garganta, senza
maestro, non più veduto, nè stampato, Raimondo Amato, Napoli .
MAFFEI, G.C., – ZACCONI, L. – BOVICELLI, G.B. – CONFORTI, G.L., Late Renaissance
Singing: Giovanni Camillo Maffei, Discourse on the Voice and the Method
of Learning to Sing Ornamentation, without a Teacher (1562); Lodovico
Zacconi, the Practice of Music, Book One, Chapters LVIII-LXXX (1592);
Giovanni Battista Bovicelli, Rules, Passages of Music (1594); Giovanni Luca
Conforto, Brief and Easy Method ... (1603?), ed. and trans. E. Foreman, Pro
Musica Press, Minneapolis Minn .
MARTINES, L. Power
and imagination: city-states in Renaissance, Alfred Knopf
New York .
MAYLENDER, M. (), Storia
delle accademie d'Italia, Licinio Capelli, Bologna
.
MONTEVERDI, C., The
Letters of Claudio Monteverdi, trans. and ed. D. Stevens,
Faber and Faber, London .
MONTEVERDI, C., Lettere, ed. É. Lax, Olschki, Firenze .
MONTEVERDI, C., L’Orfeo: Favola in musica, , Ricciardo Amadino, Venezia .
MONTEVERDI, C.,
Orfeo, favola in musica, in Tutte le opere di Claudio
Monteverdi, ed. G.F. Malipiero, vol. , Universal-Ed, Vienna .
MONTEVERDI, C., – STRIGGIO, A., Monteverdi’s
‘Orfeo’, Early Music Vancouver
(EMV) Masterworks Series 2017/18, trans. G. Blin (), EMV. .
MONTEVERDI, G.C.,
Dichiarazione della lettera stampata nel Quinto libri de’
suoi madregali, in Claudio Monteverdi: lettere, dediche e prefazioni, ed. D.
De’ Paoli, Edizioni De Santis, Roma , pp. -.
NEWCOMB, A., The
Madrigal at Ferrara 1579-1597, Princeton University Press,
Princeton .
NEWCOMB, A., The Musica Secreta of Ferrara in the 1580’s, Ph.D. diss., Princeton
University .
· 340 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO, FAVOLA IN MUSICA
OSSI, M., Divining
the Oracle: Monteverdi’s Seconda Prattica, The University of
Chicago Press, Chicago .
PALISCA, C.,
Marco Scacchi’s Defense of Modern Music (1649), in Words and
Music: The Scholar’s View, ed. L. Berman, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge MA, , pp. -.
PALISCA, C.,
The Artusi-Monteverdi Controversy, in The New Monteverdi
Companion, ed. D. Arnold and N. Fortune, Faber and Faber, London ,
pp. -.
PALISCA, C., Aria Types in the Earliest Operas, «Journal of Seventeenth-Century
Music», / (), <https://sscm-jscm.org/v/no/palisca. htmlch>.
PIRROTTA, N.,
Teatro, scene e musica nelle opere di Monteverdi, in Claudio
Monteverdi e il suo tempo, ed. R. Monterosso, Stamperia Valdonega, Verona
, pp. -.
PIRROTTA, N., Music and Culture in Italy: From the Middle Ages to the Baroque,
Harvard University Press, Cambridge .
PIRROTTA, N., Scelte
poetiche di musicisti: teatro, poesia e musica da Willaert a
Malipiero, Marsilio, Venezia .
PIRROTTA, N. – POVOLEDO, E., Li due Orfei: da Poliziano a Monteverdi, Einaudi,
Torino .
PIRROTTA, N.,
Music and theatre from Poliziano to Monteverdi, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge .
PETRARCA, F.,
Epistolae familiares, trans. in T.M. GREEN, Petrarch and the
Humanist Hermeneutic, in Italian Literature: Roots and Branches; Essays in
Honor of Thomas Goddard Bergin, ed. G. Rimanelli and K. J. Atchity, Yale
University Press, New Haven .
PLATO, The Symposium, trans. P.B. Shelley, nd edn., Pagan Press, Provincetown
.
PLATO,
De Re Publica, in Platonis Opera omnia latina, trans. M. Ficino,
Laurentium de Alopa Venetum, Firenze .
PLATO, Plato’s Republic for Readers: A Constitution, trans. G.A. Blair, University
Press of America, Lanham .
PLATO, Philebus, trans. D. Frede, Hackett Pub. Co., Indianapolis .
PLATO, The Laws, ed. and trans. A.E. Taylor, Dent, London .
POLIZIANO, A.,
La rappresentatione della favola d’Orfeo, n.p., Firenze,
/.
POTTER, J., Vocal
Authority: Singing Style and Ideology, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge .
· 341 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
J. COELHO
ROCHE, J.,
Monteverdi and La Prima Prattica, in The New Monteverdi
Companion, ed. D. Arnold and N. Fortune, Faber and Faber, London,
pp. -.
ROSEEN, G., Monteverdi, Marino and the Aesthetic of Meraviglia, «Early Music»,
/(), pp. -.
SABAINO, D. – MANGANI, M., L’organizzazione
dello spazio sonoro nell’Orfeo di
Claudio Monteverdi: modelli e strutture, «Philomusica on-line», / (),
pp. -, <http://riviste.paviauniversitypress.it/index.php/phi/ article/view/-SG/pdf_>.
SANTOS, L.R.,
Linguagem, retórica e filosofia no renascimento, Colibri, Lisbon
.
SCHWINDT, J.,
‘All that Glisters’: Orpheus’s Failure as an Orator and the
Academic Philosophy of the Accademia degli Invaghiti, «Cambridge Opera
Journal», /(), pp. -.
SISINNI, F., Le accademie nel Seicento, in Il Seicento nell’arte e nella cultura – con
riferimenti a Mantova, Silvana editoriale, Accademia nazionale Virgiliana,
Mantova , pp. -.
SOLOMON, J.,
The Neoplatonic Apotheosis in Monteverdi's ‘Orfeo’, «Studi
Musicali», (), pp. -.
STEINHEUER, J.,
Orfeo, in The Cambridge Companion to Monteverdi, ed. J.
Whenham and R. Wistreich, Cambridge, University Press, Cambridge ,
pp. -.
STRUNK, O.,
Source Readings in Music History: From Classical Antiquity
through the Romantic Era, W.W. Norton, New York .
TASSO, T., Aminta:
Favola Boscareccia Del S. Torquato Tasso, Aldo Manuzio il
Giovane, Venezia .
TOMLINSON, G.,
Madrigal, Monody, and Monteverdi's ‘Via Naturale Alla
Immitatione’, «Journal of the American Musicological Society», / (),
pp. -.
VIRGIL, P.,
Eclogues; Georgics; Aeneid I-VI, ed. G.P. Goold, trans. H. Rushton
Fairclough, Harvard University Press, Cambridge M.A., .
WHENHAM, J.,
Claudio Monteverdi: Orfeo, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge .
ZACCONI, L.,
Prattica di musica utile et necessaria si al compositore per
comporre i canti suoi regolatamente, si anco al cantore per assicurarsi in
tutte le cose cantabili: divisa in quattro libri. Ne i quali si tratta delle
cantilene ordinarie, de tempi de prolationi, de proportioni, de tuoni, et della
convenienza de tutti gli istrumenti musicali. S’insegna a cantar tutte le
composizioni antiche, si dichiara tutta la Messa del Palestina titolo Lomè
· 342 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI AND L’ORFEO, FAVOLA IN MUSICA
Armè, con altre cose d’importanza & dilettevole. Ultimamente s’insegna il
modo di fiorir una parte con vaghi & moderni accenti, Bartolomeo
Carampello, Venezia .
'
Júlia Coelho ha pubblicato studi nell’ambito della filosofia e della
musicologia; in particolare la traduzione di Cerone e Schonsleder nel volume Musical
Interpretation of Text in Vocal Polyphony (). Ha partecipato a convegni nazionali e
internazionali su Monteverdi, Mozart e Campion. Attualmente sta conseguendo il
dottorato in musicologia (indirizzo, musica antica) alla University of North Texas.
NOTA BIOGRAFICA
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Júlia Coelho has published in philosophy and in musicology, most
recently with her translation of Cerone and Schonsleder’s Musical Interpretation of Text
in Vocal Polyphony (). She has delivered papers at regional, national, and
international conferences on Monteverdi, Mozart, and Campion. She is currently
pursuing a Ph.D. in Musicology (related field – Early Music) at the University of North
Texas.
· 343 ·
Philomusica on-line 17 (2018)
ISSN 1826-9001