Claudio Monteverdi (Music)

Journal ed. 2018. Published: 2019.

Abstract:
The construction of character on the early operatic stage by means of musical gestures is an arresting achievement of Italian master Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), 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.

В статье освещается история первого концертного исполнения в России оперы Монтеверди «Орфей», состоявшегося 5 декабря 1928 года в Ленинградской филармонии.

The story of the first Russian concert performance of the opera Orfeo by Monteverdi, on 5 December 1928 at the Leningrad Philharmonic, is based on some archival documents (in particular, the correspondence of Boris Assafiev and Gian Francesco Malipiero), biographies of the performers and reviews in the Leningrad
press.

Like many kinds of popular entertainment, the opera of seventeenth-century Venice relied heavily on formulae. From the lamenting queen to the comic servant, creators had numerous stock characters and plot elements to draw upon, recombine, and vary almost endlessly. However, the genre’s daring treatment of sexuality often overshadows a significant stock character-trait: sworn chastity, the rejection not only of one specific courtship, but of sexual (and usually romantic) intimacy in general.

Characters that assert such convictions (particularly women, and most such assertors are female in these operas) stand firmly apart from societal norms. Yet, far from embodying a monolithic stereotype, these characters offer a wide range of perspectives on desire, charting diverse courses through their respective music-dramas as they attempt to reconcile their vow with the pressures of a world (and sometimes a person) that seeks to invalidate them.

This paper surveys some of the character-type’s most prominent incarnations, many of whom separate sex not only from romance but also from sensuous pleasure (partnered and otherwise), validating non-standard relationships in a manner strikingly evocative of twenty-first century asexual discourse. It examines both the origins and outcomes of such convictions, from necessity to fear to genuine disinterest, and from empoweringly happy to disturbingly ‘corrective’ and cautionary endings. And it interrogates the numerous ways in which the characters themselves portray their convictions, from the identity crisis faced by Diana upon realizing that she has fallen in love, to Penelope’s carefully cultivated (yet not necessarily dissembled) image as a perpetually mourning widow.

The blind street singer Paolo Britti  (fl. 1619-ca. 1660), who performed in the piazze and calle of Venice during the third and fourth decades of the seventeenth century, composed poems of popular nature which were published for the most part in Venice and Treviso. Printed to be sold at the time of their performance, some two hundred of these ephemeral  works have survived up to today. In over forty cases (this number does not not include reprints) Britti indicates on the title page the ‘arias’ to which the poems should be sung. In some cases they are airs of a popular nature: some with titles in dialect - and some others of obviously popular derivation, such as the aria di Codognella, which can be identified with the Aria di Codognella published in Francesco Corbetta’s De gli scherzi armonici trovati, e facilitati in alcune curiosissime suonate sopra la chitarra spagnuola, published in Bologna in 1639.  But others, unexpectedy, derive from works which we can identify as being by such composers as Tarquinio Merula, Francesco Cavalli, Claudio Monteverdi and Carlo Milanuzzi, That is to say, they derive from monodies and operatic arias by these composers, which is most unusual for the performance of popular poetry sung by a blind musician in the piazze of Venice A setting of the aria dimandata Quando volsi l’altra sera can be found in Tarquinio Merula’s Curtio precipitato et altri capricii, published in Venice in 1638. Moreover, Britti cites two arias from Francesco Cavalli’s opera Gli amori di Dafne e Apollo which was produced in Venice in 1640: Gradita povertà, from Act One, scene one, and Ben da dovero stolti, from Act One, scene seven. Both can be found in a manuscript collection of arias today held by the Biblioteca Comunale of Jesi, together with another aria cited by Britti, Supplice penitente.  But the best known of Britti’s aria dimandate is certainly Monteverdi’s Eri già tutta mia, from his Scherzi musicali (1632), cited by Britti in a Bellissima canzoneta of 1633. Carlo Milanuzzi’s Sesto libro delle ariose vaghezze ... opera decimaquinta (1628) contains two works which can be identified as arie dimandate: Vedilo là, and Che mi val che tu mi ami. Moreover, its very last work is an instrumental Veneziana sopra l’aria di Catte: Catte is one of Britti’s personages in his ‘serial’ works which revisit characters in a number of poems.  Britti’s publications open our eyes to a world of Venetian street music which we could not have imagined without his extraordinary testimony.
The article concludes with an index of arie dimandate cited by Paolo Britti.

The construction of character on the early operatic stage by means of musical gestures is an indisputable achievement of Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643). Such an accomplishment was the result of a continuing development of musical ideas over many decades that encompassed additional modes of inquiry from philosophy to rhetoric. The merging of these fields is evidenced in the Preface to Book VIII, in which Monteverdi laid out a concatenation of threefold divisions: three genera--concitato, temperato, and molle--in association with a high, medium, and low voice and with three emotions / virtues: anger, temperance, and humility / supplication. A detailed inquiry into the Preface terminology reveals its roots in a series of theoretical, rhetorical, and philosophical sources. An indepth musical analysis of Monteverdi’s Venetian operas Ulisse and Poppea and their main roles--Penelope and Ulisse in the former, and Nerone, Poppea, Seneca, and the betrayed spouses in the latter--demonstrates that the application of the three genera went beyond Book VIII. The primary emphasis of this research is devoted to how Monteverdi extended this system, along with all his musico-rhetorical devices, to the construction of character and depiction of emotion in his operas. Such an analysis illustrates the development of the composer’s musical aesthetic and his search for verisimilitude conveyed in his human operatic characters, a quest that he pursued for many years.

A comienzos del s. XVII, el creciente interés por comunicar emociones a través de la música contribuyó al abandono de la polifonía y al surgimiento de la monodía acompañada. En las obras vocales, este nuevo estilo de composición fortaleció la relación entre música y texto, volviéndolos sumamente interdependientes. A menudo, esta relación es tan estrecha que su estudio contribuye a una mejor comprensión de la intencionalidad expresiva y a la elaboración de una iterpretación declamatoria (especialmente, de las primeras monodías). Sin embargo, la aplicación de estos conocimientos al estudio de la música vocal suele circunscribirse a contextos reducidos de enseñanza y práctica musicales (clases, ensayos, talleres, etc.), lo que dificulta su divulgación. Con el objeto de contribuir al estudio de la música antigua, presentamos un estudio de la relación entre música y texto en la obra Quel sguardo sdegnosetto de Claudio Monteverdi y su síntesis para una propuesta de interpretación declamatoria. Además, brindamos materiales que ‒esperamos‒ puedan asistir en el proceso de aprendizaje: análisis poético del texto, traducción al español, transcripción fonémica, requisitos para su correcta dicción y edición crítica.

Frescobaldi’s Preface to his 1615 collection of 'Toccate & Partite' is often cited in discussions of rhythm and tempo in early 17th-century music. Since Frescobaldi compares his style to concerted vocal/instrumental music, his Rules are relevant to ensemble situations well beyond solo keyboard-playing. Nevertheless, we should be cautious: precisely where and when can we apply the Frescobaldi Rules? Just how do they work in practice? These article offers a brief survey of the context in which Frescobaldi wrote, with an English translation and commentrary on the 1615 Rules and other Prefaces.

No Combatimento di Tancredi et Clorinda – drama musical composto por Cláudio Monteverdi sobre o trecho da Jerusalém Libertada de Torquato Tasso – se materializam os resultados das importantes pesquisas formais empreendidas por ambos, respectivamente nos campos da música e da poesia, e alicerçadas na releitura da Poética de Aristóteles. À luz dos textos teóricos dos dois autores tentamos mostrar a maneira pela qual se encarnam, nesta obra plena de implicações estéticas e históricas, as etapas de um processo de mutação que conduz de uma concepção poética tardo-renascentista à consolidação de uma estética barroca.

Dans le "Combatimento di Tancredi et Clorinda" – drame en musique composé par Claudio Monteverdi sur un extrait de la Jérusalem Délivrée du Tasse – se matérialisent les résultats des recherches formelles entreprises par ces deux auteurs, dans les domaines respectivement musical et poétique, fondées sur la lecture de la Poétique d’Aristote. Nous essayons de montrer ici, à la lumière de leurs écris théoriques, la manière selon laquelle s’incarnent, dans cet oeuvre chargée d’enjeux esthétiques et historiques, les étapes d’un processus de mutation qui conduit d’une conception renaissante de la poétique à la consolidation d’une esthétique baroque.

This book introduces a new perspective on Claudio Monteverdi's Orfeo (1607), a work widely regarded as the 'first great opera', by exploring the influence of the Mantuan Accademia deglia Invaghiti, the group which hosted the opera’s performance, and to which the libretto author, Alessandro Striggio the Younger, belonged. Arguing that the Invaghiti played a key role in shaping the development of Orfeo, the author explores the philosophical underpinnings of the Invaghiti and Italian academies of the era. Drawing on new primary sources, he shows how the Invaghiti’s ideas about literature, dramaturgy, music, gender, and aesthetics were engaged and contested in the creation and staging of Orfeo. Relevant to researchers of music history, performance, and Renaissance and Baroque Italy, this study sheds new light on Monteverdi’s opera as an intellectual and philosophical work.

Facsimile and Critical Edition by Luigi Collarile.
ISBN 978-88-271-3055-1

L’analisi di un’edizione musicale conservata oggi in un unico esemplare senza data e luogo di edizione, ha permesso di identificare una raccolta prodotta dall’editore veneziano Alessandro Vincenti. Tra il 1650 e il 1651, egli diede alle stampe due importanti raccolte postume di Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643). Ad esse va ora aggiunta una terza edizione. Essa contiene quattro mottetti mariani, tre dei quali ancora completamente sconosciuti.

Il presente volume contiene un’introduzione storica, un’edizione critica dei mottetti e il facsimile della stampa musicale originale.

Reviews:
- Il Giornale della musica n. 291 (avril 2012), p. 32 (Fiorella Sassanelli)
- Early Music 41 (2013), p. 161-163 (Noel O’Regan)

Presentation of three newly discovered motets by Claudio Monteverdi.

See:
Claudio Monteverdi : Salve Regine del Sig. Claudio Monteverde, ed. by Luigi Collarile. Bologna: Arnaldo Forni Editore, 2011

https://www.academia.edu/21454025/Claudio_Monteverdi_Salve_Regine_del_Sig._Claudio_Monteverde._Bologna_Arnaldo_Forni_Editore_2011_with_three_newly_discovered_motets_

Der Beitrag diskutiert zunächst den problematischen Begriff der "musikalischen Figur" unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Diminutionspraxis um 1600 anhand von Beispielen von Claudio Monteverdi. An Beispielen von Giacomo Carissimi wird die im Lauf des 17. Jahrhunderts zunehmende Bedeutung klar definierter Satzmodelle dargestellt, die  - in Kombination mit bestimmten ornamentalen Figuren - zu Meta-Figuren werden können. Abschließend wird der Schlusschor aus Carissimis Oratorium Jephte in Hinblick auf Satzmodelle und modale Disposition untersucht. Es wird deutlich, dass der Affektausdruck, für den das Stück berühmt war und ist, in kompositionstechnischer Hinsicht nicht durch Regelverstoß, sondern durch gezielte formale Disposition klar umrissener Satzmodelle bewerkstelligt wird.

This book introduces a new perspective on Claudio Monteverdi's Orfeo (1607), a work widely regarded as the 'first great opera', by exploring the influence of the Mantuan Accademia deglia Invaghiti, the group which hosted the opera’s performance, and to which the libretto author, Alessandro Striggio the Younger, belonged. Arguing that the Invaghiti played a key role in shaping the development of Orfeo, the author explores the philosophical underpinnings of the Invaghiti and Italian academies of the era. Drawing on new primary sources, he shows how the Invaghiti’s ideas about literature, dramaturgy, music, gender, and aesthetics were engaged and contested in the creation and staging of Orfeo. Relevant to researchers of music history, performance, and Renaissance and Baroque Italy, this study sheds new light on Monteverdi’s opera as an intellectual and philosophical work.

The Greek myth of Endymion, a shepherd who fell in love with the moon, is attested as early as 200BCE. The moon’s goddess reciprocated, but as writers began to shift the role of lunar deity to Diana, the story became confusing. How could this goddess, famed for chastity, form half of an iconic couple?

In La Calisto, a 1651 operatic adaptation of the myth, Endimione and Diana resolve that confusion with a simple realisation: that bodily pleasure, even when partnered, need not necessarily be sexual. Released from a traditional status as precursors to copulation, the acts of kissing, and to a lesser extent of caressing and embracing, acquire new weight for the couple, as mutually pleasurable experiences, and as means to explore new forms of identity-expression. Simply put, ‘foreplay’ becomes an end (the end) in itself. Through their romantic, sensual, but sexless relationship, Diana and Endimione reconcile apparently binary opposites into complementary facets of a coherent identity: the celibate lovers.

This paper argues that the relationship thus queers normative concepts of intimacy and celibacy, and that the opera’s creators drew on well-known tropes of their genre to convey this unconventional nature. The paper examines the complex interactions of gender, status, and agency in the opera, attempting to explain why Diana, the story’s only fully divine celibate, is also the only one to reconcile celibacy with partnered pleasure. Finally, it posits La Calisto as a moment in the spotlight for one of Venetian opera’s least-discussed stock characters: the sworn virgin.

The Greek myth of Endymion, a shepherd who fell in love with the moon, is attested as early as 200BCE. The moon’s goddess reciprocated, but as writers began to shift the role of lunar deity to Diana, the story grew confusing. How could this goddess, famed for chastity, form half of an iconic couple?

In La Calisto, a 1651 operatic adaptation of the myth, the couple resolve that confusion by agreeing to a romantic, sensual, but sexless relationship. The acts of kissing, and to a lesser extent of caressing and embracing, acquire new weight for them as mutually pleasurable experiences once released from their traditional status as precursors to copulation. More simply, ‘foreplay’ becomes an end (the end) in itself.

This paper suggests that Diana and Endymione thus queer normative concepts of intimacy, and that La Calisto drew on well-known Venetian opera tropes to represent their unconventionality.

This study is concerned with what is to be gained by performers and scholars if the dramatic charge of Lamento d’Arianna by O. Rinuccini and C. Monteverdi was re-created with historically informed rhetorical gesture – an element of the representative theatrical style practised at the time of the lament’s premiere. The research contributes in a unique way to historically informed performance practice as well as to the literature on Lamento d’Arianna using multiple methods of performative research informed by historical source materials and work with musicians who specialize in baroque music, an expert in rhetorical gesture and the author as production dramaturg. Video footage, images, excerpts from the final score with gesture notation and this article offer an insight into the aesthetic and practice of early recitative artistry through reflexive writing that places the performance within relevant musicological discourses and scrutinizes auditory and visual elements of delivery.

This dissertation offers a reading of Alessandro Striggio and Claudio Monteverdi's Orfeo as a reflection of the Accademia degli Invaghiti's humanist philosophy, focusing on the topics of oratory and symmetry. Additionally, this study offers new insight on the Invaghiti's views regarding music's power and its function in theatrical representation that helps to reconcile apparent disparities between the view of this work as a "hymn" to music's greatness and the failures of the musical protagonist. For example, on the subject of oratory--which served as one of the group's primary areas of study--I demonstrate how Orpheus's failure to persuade Charon through his aria-oration, "Possente spirto", results not only from his exhibitionism and affectation, but as suggested in academy member Stefano Guazzo's writings, his substitution of clever sophistries and musical brilliance for morally sound arguments and modest displays of ability. On the topic of symmetry--which was commonly associated with beauty during the period--I demonstrate how this formal design was used to project the "beauty" of moral uprightness, reflective the academy's Neoplatonic motto, "Nothing is more beautiful than virtue" (e.g., the symmetries of the first act representing Eurydice's "morally upright" decision to relent from her disdain for Orpheus's love, a "female vice" addressed by several of the academy members). I also consider the subject of gendering in relation to both of these topics, asserting that the marginalization of female characters not only "silences" them, but also creates an Aristotelian structure found in academy member Ercole Udine's narrative, La Psiche, that draws focus to the protagonist's inherently gendered character flaws (in this case, "male" flaws such as pride and fits of romantic despair). I expect this research to contribute to discussions on the impact of humanism on the development of early opera, giving much-needed attention to the views and practices of the group that sponsored Orfeo's creation.

The story of Orpheus, a myth of music, love, and loss, continues to resonate today. While numerous musical interpretations of Orpheus’s life have enriched this story, none have done so with such longstanding implications for the history of opera as that of Claudio Monteverdi. In the final act of Orfeo, in the title character’s lament “Questiicampi di Tracia,” Monteverdi employs a deceptively simple echo motif positioned at a narrative crossroads. As we probe beneath its surface, we uncover a world of interpretive implications for this seminal operatic denouement. The echo resonates with the tragic conclusion of the myth in the source texts of Virgil and Ovid, raising critical questions of contemporary audience reception and interpretive meaning. The echo motif in Orfeo is a crucial element in the dramatic impact of the conclusion of the opera, employing opera magic on a very human scale to foreshadow the fate of this demigod of music. This paper explores the literary, cultural and philosophical context of the echo motif in Monteverdi’s Orfeo, examining its position within the nascent medium of opera and emergent perceptions of the “self” in narrative drama (see particularly Calcagno, 2012). The echo of this scene is no facile musical device: in the hands of Monteverdi it is imbued with an autonomy, with selfhood, and taunts Orpheus. I offer a new perspective on this scene in relation to the myth of Narcissus, whose self-destructive yearning for his reflection resonates with the corruptive aural resonance of the echo motif. As such, the echo functions both as trickster spirit and foreshadowing device. By placing in dialogue critical commentaries on this scene by Chafe (1992), Tomlinson (1999), Abbate (2001), and Chua (2005), this paper posits a new interpretive orientation for Monteverdi’s echo motif as it pertains to Orpheus’s divine and divided self.