Today we finish the final chapter of the Renaissance period and take the first steps into Baroque. Also featured is the first mature development in opera of which the innovator Monteverdi was a maestro. Monteverdi is the only composer featured this week, for the first time since this series began, allowing more detail about him and the music to be explored.

The Man

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) was born in Italy as the son of a doctor. Rather than following in his father’s footsteps he began a career in music with early tutoring at the Cathedral of Cremona and he published his first music at age 15. His early foray into music was focused on motets and madrigals, which is secular poetic vocal polyphony music.

His first employment was for Duke Vincenzo I of Gonzaga at court in Mantua as a vocalist and viol player, he worked his way up to master of music. The Duke was an interesting character, he was quite unaware of monetary value and prone to extravagance. He sent an expedition to the new world to search for a legendary aphrodisiac and he founded his own holy military order, The Order of the Redemptor.

However when the Duke died he was succeeded by his son, Francesco, who was now in massive debt due to his father’s spendthrift ways. Monteverdi was subsequently sacked to cut costs, despite him dedicating his first opera L’Orfeo to Francesco before his ascension. This turn of events eventuated positively for Monteverdi because he was offered one of the most prestigious positions in Italy, conductor at St Mark’s Basilica in Venezia (featured picture) in 1613. Here he reformed the musical standards which had fallen into disarray due to his predecessor Giulio Martinengo.

He worked for many years before becoming a priest, though he continued composing and completed some of his greatest operas during this time including L’incoronazione di Poppea, Monteverdi died at age 76 in Venice after enjoying a fairly significant amount of fame during his life.

The Music

Monteverdi wrote a large amount throughout his life. He wrote 9 books of madrigals, with the first 5 being Renaissance influenced and the remaining 4 more Baroque oriented. The 8th book was the last published when Monteverdi was alive and was the biggest. In this book he was able to develop a fast style of music to display anger, frustration or agitation, which was a big step in moving music to more emotive areas.

His largest area of innovation was in opera however. With L’Orfeo being classified as the first mature opera. He was able to assign specific instruments to different parts similar to motifs. Monteverdi published something like 18 operas, though only 3 in full survive.

Monteverdi popularised the “basso continuo”, a way of writing music that keeps different instruments in time with each other (as far as I understand), this was the method of writing throughout the Baroque period.

Monteverdi was the brilliant yet strange step between styles, did he finish Renaissance music or start Baroque?

Madrigals

Book 2 (1590) – Il secondo libro de madrigali a cinque voci: So this is the first madrigal piece featured this post (chronologically) and it doesn’t sound very Renaissance-esque to me. Considering the first 5 books are supposedly Renaissance inspired, however I have never listened to a madrigal from before this period. I suppose I can see some similarity to previous music with the vocals each building upon each other like steps similar to earlier styles of music.

Book 4 (1603) – Il quarto libro de madrigali a cinque voci: So this is the last of Monteverdi’s Renaissance madrigals. I really enjoyed the excerpts of this that I listened to, the harpsichord is a great instrument and I find it adds a lot to the composition. It’s just really nice music honestly.

Book 5 (1605) – Il quinto libro de madrigali a cinque voci: There was less instruments in this piece though it was still quite good. The voices were harmonious and it had a great range.

Book 8 (1638) – Dolcissimo uscignolo: By this time Monteverdi was deep into Baroque experimentation. I love how varied the piece is, sometimes it was quick, loud and complicated yet sometimes it was quieter and simpler. I hadn’t experienced music composed like this previously and I could hear the innovation.

Opera

Lamento d’Arianna: This is the first opera featured this series! This is the only remaining part of Monteverdi’s second opera “L’Arianna”. The story is set in Greece, based around the story of Ariadne (a princess involved in the Minotaur mythology) and her betrothal to Bacchus (Dionysus, the god of grape harvest, wine and fertility). Generally Opera isn’t my favourite style of music however I found this one to be quite good. I attribute this to it being more steeped in subtle Renaissance style rather than later more extravagant styles of opera. To say that musically it would be something along the lines of “there is more chorus and less reliance on individual pieces”. Overall I really enjoyed it!

Vespers of 1610

Vespro della Beata Vergine: Duo seraphim a 3: This amazed me. I thoroughly enjoyed it, despite my usual distaste of sacred music. I deem this to be because of the instruments, though the vocals are still the main focus of the music. The instruments just chime in every now and then and add extra flair to certain points of the vocals. The tenor was absolutely amazing, with the other part mostly echoing though intertwining at points (probably the end of the line).

Magnificat: Most of my praises from before apply here, though to a more extreme extent. This didn’t even sound like sacred music to me, there was such a sense of drama here, unsurprising I guess from an Opera writer, this drama was caused by the excellent strings. I’m amazed that this was allowed at the time considering it even feels wrong to me, I guess I’ve been listening to too much Gregorian Chant.

Thank you for reading, I really enjoyed this week’s diversity and innovation. I can understand why Monteverdi was so influential on future music. I hope you enjoyed it even half as much as I did, thank you.