Personal Data
Dates: 1567-1643
Born: Cremona
Residences: Mantua, Venice
Claudio Monteverdi
The compositions of Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), more than any music, signals the beginning of the Baroque era. Why? Because he established his career as a master of Renaissance vocal style and was highly successful. Then, as the new century dawned, he became fascinated with a radically new style of writing vocal music (second practice, or seconda prattica). He labeled his first extensive stage drama Orfeo (1607) a “fable with music,” but historians consider it the first opera. Thereafter, he composed four more of these innovative new sung dramas (operas) and ended his fruitful life as an acknowledged master of the Early Baroque style. Few composers in history can be viewed as leading figures in two eras! Thus, Monteverdi has been appraised rightfully as one of the most powerful figures in Western music history.
Wouldn’t Claudio Monteverdi be astonished to learn that his 1607 experimental opera Orfeo is still performed today? And not only is it staged, but some of the most famous and innovative directors produce it eagerly, intrigued by an abundance of creative material to challenge their ideas. Called a favola in musica (fable in music) by the composer, the work is based on a fine literary script (libretto) by a much admired poet of his day, Alessandro Striggio (1573-1630). Together, Striggio and Monteverdi created a work that foreshadowed ideas relevant to opera for the next 300 years!
When Monteverdi first turned to writing a new kind of sung drama, he already was an experienced composer of theatrical productions in Renaissance style, particularly the popular intermedii that featured “pastoral” or idealized country scenes. Monteverdi was no newcomer to writing for the voice either: he was a mature composer and regarded as a top master of vocal works, especially the madrigal.
Madrigals were popular, complex pieces for singers, generally sung a cappella, or without instrumental accompaniment. They were constructed using a set of cleverly intertwined vocal lines in a style we call “polyphony” (literally, many sounds or many voices). Not surprisingly, several sections in Orfeo are set in this madrigal style, which would have pleased and reassured his audiences.
Yet Monteverdi was fascinated by a new style of composing. He became interested in the possibilities of a single-line of vocal melody with simple accompaniment—what is called monody. To us, this might seem ho-hum, but at the time, it was a radical departure from complex polyphonic styles. And if you think of it, changing from a complex texture of cleverly interwoven vocal lines proclaiming a text to a single voice singing texts with only a sparse accompaniment below the melody line really is radical.
So, it is not surprising that a scandal arose about Monteverdi choosing to write music in this new style. His own brother had to defend him in a letter that was published. Still, Monteverdi stuck with the innovations.
Timeline
Biography
Claudio Monteverdi and his younger brother Giulio Cesare received early training privately with Marc’Antonio Ingegneri (c. 1535-1592), maestro di cappella of the Cremona Cathedral. In 1582, at the age of 15, he published his first set of motets with a prominent publisher. His first book of madrigals followed the next year. And one year later (at age 17) another leading Venetian publisher released a volume of his canzonettas.
Monteverdi moved to Mantua and entered the service of the Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga around 1591, working as second in command under the maestro di capella Giaches de Wert. He married one of the court singers in 1599 and had three children, two sons as well as a daughter who died in infancy.
Monteverdi continued to compose madrigals, producing a second book in 1590 and a third in 1592. A fourth and fifth book appeared in 1603 and 1605 respectively. The actual dates of individual madrigals are hard to date, however, since they were created and collected over some period of time before a volume was published. His professional reputation, though, was firmly established by1600, as evidenced by the Artusi controversy discussed below. In 1601, Duke Vincenzo named him to be the full head of his musical establishment, or maestro di cappella.
In the same year that Orfeo had its premiere (1607), the composer’s wife died. Exhausted, Monteverdi returned to Cremona for a year of convalescence. He began to look elsewhere for a position but was not released by the Duke (a reminder that musicians and artists in those day were rarely in a position freely to negotiate their own career paths). After the Duke died in 1612, Monteverdi was finally discharged. He then applied to St. Mark’s in Venice and was hired for the prestigious position as maestro di cappella in 1613.
Monteverdi then published a sixth book of madrigals in 1615. With Book Seven, appearing in 1619, the marked change of style his music had undergone is evident; the madrigals in this collection all reflect the new secondo prattica, or post-1600 principles. His final set of madrigals, Book Eight (1638) contained a large collection of madrigals composed over a long period of 30 years and was divided into two parts: Madrigals of Love and Madrigals of War.
Mantua was besieged by the Hapsburgs in 1630. The Plague broke out the same time in Mantua and also in Venice. Among its victims would be Alessandro Striggio, the librettist of Orfeo and Monteverdi’s confidant, and probably Monteverdi’s brother Giulio Cesare. Venice alone would see 45,000 deaths from this Plague. In the wake of these events, Monteverdi took holy orders and was ordained a priest in 1632.
A few years before Monteverdi’s death. Venice’s first opera house, the Teatro di San Cassiano, opened in 1637. Monteverdi was in demand for new productions. His opera L’Ariana, originally composed in 1608, was revived in 1649. He then would go on to produce three new works: Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, Le nozze d’Enea con Lavinia, and L’incoronazione di Poppea. After his death, his student Franceso Cavalli (1602-1676) would become the most popular composer of Venetian opera.
Today Monteverdi remains a revered composer, particularly for his demonstrated ability to work with all of the latest musical styles and to absorb new ideas and use them to create music in new styles.
Friday Performance Picks: Works by Monteverdi
No. 176: Moresca from Orfeo
No 308: Confitebor tibi Domine
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