Kordes MH2 Exam 1 Notes and Terms

Claudia Monteverdi (1567-1643)

• Wrote in both traditional Renaissance genres + new ones: opera, solo song.

• 1590: in service of the Gonzaga (Dukes of Mantua), rose to be chapel director

• 1614-43: choirmaster at St. Mark’s, Venice

• Initially most famous (of infamous?) for his 9 books of madrigals

Monteverdi, “Cruda Amarilla” 

NAWM 71, p.467

• Published in the 5th book of Madrigals (1605) but composed in the late 1590s

• Text: from Il pastor fido [“The Faithful Shepherd”], poem by Giovanni Battista Guarini

  • Speaker: Mirtillo [a shepherd]

  • Poetic play on Amaryllis’ name [“amaro” in Italian translates to both “bitter’ AND “amare” meaning to love]

The Monteverdi- Artusi Controversy

Giovanni Maria Artusi, The Imperfections of Modern Music (1600)

• Criticizes Monteverdi’s unpublished madrigals because they violated the rules of counterpoint, which were made by the church and were considered sacred rules, especially in Italy at the time.

• Building off of Palestrina’s rules of controlling dissonance

Monteverdi's Ren-Baroque Distinction

1st practice (prima prattica):

• Renaissance style sacred polyphony (modeled Palestrina)

• Ideas centered around Order, proportion (harmonia)

2nd practice (seconda prattica):

• Rules of counterpoint broken for expressive purposes

• Ideas centered around “Baroque” dramatic expression (but really goes back at least to madrigalist in the 1550s)

Style of Division in the Baroque Period

Two distinct  styles coexist:

Prima prattica (1st practice): music governed by rules of Renaissance counterpoint

• Text secondary to musical laws

• Also called stile antico (“old style”)

Seconda prattica (2nd practice): contrapuntal licenses express the text

• Also called stile moderno (“modern style”) + continuo

Expression

Affections = particular emotional states: rage, wonder, sadness, exultation, etc.

17th C Theory:

• Music “moves” or “expresses” the affections

• Moving the listener is now the primary aim of musicians

The Concertato Medium

• From “Concertare” Italian “to put together”) meaning pieces with parts specifically composed for voices and instruments

• Few Renaissance pieces had obbligato (Italian “required”) instruments

  • Instruments usually added to double or replace voices in practice

• Early 17th C: “Concerto” meaning pieces for voice and instruments (not just an instrumental piece for a soloist and orchestra)

The Centrality of Performance in the Baroque

• Scores assume many unnoted performance practices

  • Instrumentation flexible, based on context

  • Few dynamic indications

  • Few tempo indications

  • Few indications of articulation

  • Flexible rhythmic practices

  • Considerable use of ornamentation and improvisation

  • Pitch and tuning systems not standardized

• Singers and performers more like actors who needed to interpret the score

• Style of the music guides the interpretation to project affect

How do we know what Baroque musicians did, if it wasn’t written in the music?

Find Evidence via historical research:

• Treatise written on performance from the period

• Study and play old instruments (the study of organology)

• Documents and descriptions of performances

• Visual Representation (the study of iconography)

Musicians experiment with ideas and techniques derived from research and using their own creativity.

Controversies Concerned “Authenticity”

• 1970s: “musicians attempt to recreate performances as they were in the past

  • “Authenticity” becomes a buzzword

  • Musicians turned to instruments of the period to learn about their effect on performance

• Late 80s: critiques of “authenticity” as an absolute

  • All performances involved some degree of creative interpretation

• Today performance on old instruments considered parts of "Historically-Infromed Performance” (HIP)

• Also referred to as “Early Music”

  • Generally refers to repertoire before 1800

  • But 19th C repertoire is also sometimes performed using instruments and performance practices of the period

Basso Continuo

• Italian for “continuous bass”

• Improvised accompaniment

• Found in (virtually) all baroque music

• Figures with signs and numbers indicate the intervals above the bass

  • BC also called “Figured bass”

  • Players improvise a realization of the figures

• Instruments playing continuo typically combine two functions: Harmonic support and Ornamental figuration

Typical Renaissance Texture:

• Multi-part counterpoint (the norm)

• All voices have equal melodic function

• Genre was Polyphonic Madrigal

Typical Baroque Texture:

• Treble instruments or voices with continuo

• Dichotomy of function

  • Soprano part (melodic)

  • Basso (supportive)

• Genre: Solo (or continuo) Madrigal (also called monodies)

Giulio Caccini (1551-1618)

• Famous singer, luteist, and composer

• Published monodies in Le Nuove Musiche [“The New Music”] (1601) with instructions on how to sing

Ornamentation in the Early 17th C

In Le Nuove Musiche, Caccini describes various ornaments:

• Trillo: repercussion of the voice on one note

• Gruppo: trill figure with turn

• Passaggi: first melodic passages (division: subdivided the beat into many small notes and connecting two pitches)

Trillo (definition)

repercussion of the voice on one note

Gruppo (definition)

trill figure with turn

Passaggi (definition)

first melodic passages (division: subdivided the beat into many small notes and connecting two pitches)

Caccini also describes expression ornamentation:

• Esclamazione [“exclamation”]: cresc./decr. (< >) on a long note

• Sprezzatura [“negligence”]: subtle rhythmic irregularities, rubato

Caccino, “Vedro’l mio sol” 

NAWM 72, p. 474

Genre = Solo Madrigal or Monody

New “Baroque” texture: solo singer with continuo

• Ornamented solo part (passagi)

• Slow-moving bass line, largely accompanimental

Some ornamentation written out as an example of how to improvise “tastefully

Caccini stated, “don’t put ornaments everywhere, only on strong syllables” (SYLLable, not syllables) because it distorts the text.

Two new Baroque genres

• Monody: Early 17th C Solo song accompanied by continuo (Greek word mono “one”)

• Opera: Drama that is sung throughout

Monody (definition)

Early 17th C Solo song accompanied by continuo (Greek word mono “one”)

Opera (definition)

Drama that is sung throughout

Important Precursors of Opera (late 16th century)

• Madrigal Cycles: a series of madrigals assembled to form a story (text painting)

• Pastoral Plays: Settings of Pastoral poetry (both solo and polyphonic) (Ex. Monteverdi’s “Cruda Amaryllis”)

• Intermedi: musical interlude performed between the acts of a play

Opera and Monody: The Stimulus

Late 16th C: attempts to restage Greek tragedy

• The controversy was whether or not the Greek tragedy was fully sung or not.

  • Choruses and main characters who “spoke” in some sort of half singing-spoken tones

  • No music known

• Sophocles’ OEdipus Rex staged with newly composed polyphonic choruses (1585)

Girolamo Mei (1519-94)

• Florentine scholar, edited Greek tragedies

• Ideas:

  • Greek tragedy entirely sung

  • Greek principles could be applied to modern music to move the affections

Intellectual Development of Opera: The (Florentine) Camerata

• An Academy was a meeting of thinkers and patrons of learning

  • Here, it was the very powerful Medici family

• Met in the 1570s - Onward

• Principal recipients of Mei’s ideas

• Important Members:

  • Vincenzo Galilei (Father of Galileo Galilei)

  • Giulio Caccini (Inventor of Monody and continuo)

• Experiments with solo song to revive Greek musical effects

• Ideals in lyric poetry

• Attempt to recreate Greek tragic declamation: musically heightened speech with simple accompaniment

Vincenzo Galilei, Dialogue of Ancient and Modern Music (1581)

• Critique of “Modern” music:

  • Polyphonic causes confusion (solo singing better)

  • Madrigalism was childish and didn't move the listener

• Ideal was a single expressive voice, like and actor or orator

Ex. Ancient greek depictions showed performers accompanying themselves, such as with a lyre

New Aspects of Monody

Recreated Greek tragic expression

• Single melody could affect listener’s feelings through natural rise and fall of vocal pitch, changes in tempo

• Singer can use facial expressions, gestures, etc. to imitate the emotions of the person being represented

The First Operas

• First attempts at fully sung musical dramas staged in Florence

• Earliest known operas which were collaborations between poet Ottavio Rinuccini and Jacopo Pero

  • 1598: La Dafne (didn’t survive but is known of)

  • 1600: Euridice (some music by Caccini)

    • Plot: Myth of Orpheus

Jacopo Peri, I’Euridice

NAWM 73 (p.480)

Genre: Opera

• First opera where music is still preserved

• Performed in Florence, 1600 for dynastic wedding of Maria de Medici to the King of France

  • Court celebration setting typical for early operas

• Plot based on the Myth of Orpheus and Euridice

• Demonstrated basic distinction between recitative and aria

  • Aria: lyrical songs sung mostly by Shepherds

  • Recit: speech-like declamation, for most of the dialogue

Aria (definition)

lyrical songs sung mostly by Shepherds

Recit (definition)

speech-like declamation, for most of the dialogue

Peri’s Recitative

NAWM 73b (pg. 482)

Genre: Recit

• Aimed to imitate the tones and rhythm of speech

  • Most of the opera’s dialogue is set in recitative, and includes dramatic moments too

• Bass typically has sustained notes with continuo chords

• Vocal part more declamatory than lyrical (not very melodic), meant to imitate speech

  • Almost entirely syllabic

  • Limited range, lots of repeated pitches

• Declamation gets faster when more excited

• Uses chromaticism and dissonance to express distress

Ritornello (definition)

instrumental ONLY refrains

What opera was written in 1607?

Monteverdi’s Orfeo

The Setting of Orfeo

• Performed in a court context

• Courts were the main sites of artistic experimentation, 16th and 17th C

• Performance space was a large room in the Gonzaga palace

• Ca. 200 listeners, members of the Accademia degli Invaghiti [“Academy of the Charmed”]

Orfeo: Libretto (plot)

• Plot drawn from Greek/Roman mythology

• Story of Orpheus in the Underworld

  • Everyone in attendance knew this story

• Librettist was Alessandro Striggio

• Modeled on Peri’d Euridice

2 primary social levels: gods and mortals

Orfeo is a demigod musician (song of Apollo and a mortal woman) and is sung by a tenor

Plot involved minor characters and chorus based on the setting:

• Act I: pastoral setting: shepherds, nymphs

• Act II: Hades: charonte “ancient-demon” (boatman), Pluto, Proserpina

• Act III: The heavens: Apollo (Orfeo’s father)

Libretto (definition)

(Italian for “little book”): the text of the opera that spectators read during the performance

Orfeo: Genres of Music

• Instrumental music

• Solo songs (recit, aria, canzonetti)

• Choral music (more than 1 singer/part)

• Ensembles (sung by multiple soloists)

Orfeo: Instrumental Music

• Brass: Natural Trumpets, Sackbuts, Cornetti

• Strings: (later: the body of the orchestra)

• Woodwinds: Recorders

• Many different types of continuo instruments:

  • Theorbo

  • Organ

  • Harpsichord: keyboard that plucks strings

  • Harp

Orfeo: Function of the instrumental music

• Sets the mood

• Introduce new scenes/sections of the opera

• Accompanies dancing

• Ritornellos (instrumental refrains)

Instruments specified in the score (very unusual)

E.g. 1: reed organ for scenes in Hades

E.g. 2: Orfeo tries to convince charonte to let him cross the river Styx in his boat (with elaborate scoring and passaggi)

Claudio Monteverdi, L’Orfeo: excerpt from Act II, Vi ricardi o boschi ombrasi (aria/canzonetti)

NAWM 74a pg. 490

• Dance aria

• Sung by Orfeo in celebration (typical dramatic function)

• Typical aria style for the early 17th C:

  • Strophic form with ritornello

  • Dance triple time with hemiola

  • Lyrical, catchy tune

  • Active bassline

Claudio Monteverdi, L’Orfeo: excerpt from Act II, song

NAWM 74b

Genre: song

• brief tuneful song sung by a shepherd

• ironically interrupted by the messenger

Claudio Monteverdi, L’Orfeo: excerpt from Act II, dialogue in recitative

NAWM 74c and d

• Genre: recit

• Most of the dialogue and dramatic scenes sung in recitative

• Songs (more melodic, less declamatory) reserved for celebration

• Uses different continuo instruments (colors) for different characters

• Imitates affections of characters’ speech

  • Pitch follows range of expression

  • Rhythm: Speed of declamation

• Music provides cues to characters’ affections

  • Key associations, chromaticism

  • Dissonance (seconda prattica)

Expressive Qualities of Early 17th C Recitative:

• Follow expressive pitch of the voice, rhythm of declamation

• Generally consonant on main beats, with intervening melodic dissonances

• BUT becomes dissonant and chromatic when characters are upset

Orfeo: Choral Music

NAWM 74e

Has the same functions as in Greek tragedy

• Reacts to events

• Comments or reflects upon the actions