Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi (baptized 15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, choirmaster and string player. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered a crucial transitional figure between the Renaissance and Baroque periods of music history.
Born in Cremona, where he undertook his first musical studies and compositions, Monteverdi developed his career first at the court of Mantua () and then until his death in the Republic of Venice where he was maestro di cappella at the basilica of San Marco. His surviving letters give insight into the life of a professional musician in Italy of the period, including problems of income, patronage and politics.
Much of Monteverdi's output, including many stage works, has been lost. His surviving music includes nine books of madrigals, large-scale religious works, such as his Vespro della Beata Vergine (Vespers for the Blessed Virgin) of 1610, and three complete operas. His opera L'Orfeo (1607) is the earliest of the genre still widely performed; towards the end of his life he wrote works for Venice, including Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and L'incoronazione di Poppea.
While he worked extensively in the tradition of earlier Renaissance polyphony, as evidenced in his madrigals, he undertook great developments in form and melody, and began to employ the basso continuo technique, distinctive of the Baroque. No stranger to controversy, he defended his sometimes novel techniques as elements of a seconda pratica, contrasting with the more orthodox earlier style which he termed the prima pratica. Largely forgotten during the eighteenth and much of the nineteenth centuries, his works enjoyed a rediscovery around the beginning of the twentieth century. He is now established both as a significant influence in European musical history and as a composer whose works are regularly performed and recorded.
Life Cremona: 1567–1591 Monteverdi was baptised in the church of SS Nazaro e Celso, Cremona, on 15 May 1567. The register records his name as "Claudio Zuan Antonio" the son of "Messer Baldasar Mondeverdo".Fabbri (2007), p. 6 He was the first child of the apothecary Baldassare Monteverdi and his first wife Maddalena (née Zignani); they had married early the previous year. Claudio's brother Giulio Cesare Monteverdi was also to become a musician; there were two other brothers and two sisters from Baldassare's marriage to Maddalena and his subsequent marriage in 1576 or 1577.Carter and Chew (n.d.), §1 "Cremona" Cremona was close to the border of the Republic of Venice, and not far from the lands controlled by the Duchy of Mantua, in both of which states Monteverdi was later to establish his career.
There is no clear record of Monteverdi's early musical training, or evidence that (as is sometimes claimed) he was a member of the Cathedral choir or studied at Cremona University. Monteverdi's first published work, a set of motets, (Sacred Little Songs) for three voices, was issued in Venice in 1582, when he was only fifteen years old. In this, and his other initial publications, he describes himself as the pupil of Marc'Antonio Ingegneri, who was from 1581 (and possibly from 1576) to 1592 the maestro di cappella at Cremona Cathedral. The musicologist Tim Carter deduces that Ingegneri "gave him a solid grounding in counterpoint and composition", and that Monteverdi would also have studied playing instruments of the viol family and singing.Carter (2002), p. 1Whenham (2007) "Chronology", p. xv.Arnold (1980a), p. 515
Monteverdi's first publications also give evidence of his connections beyond Cremona, even in his early years. His second published work, Madrigali spirituali (Spiritual Madrigals, 1583), was printed at Brescia. His next works (his first published secular compositions) were sets of five-part madrigals, according to his biographer Paolo Fabbri: "the inevitable proving ground for any composer of the second half of the sixteenth century ... the secular genre par excellence". The first book of madrigals (1587) was dedicated to Count Marco Verità of Verona; the second book of madrigals (1590) was dedicated to the President of the Senate of Milan, Giacomo Ricardi, for whom he had played the viola da braccio in 1587.Fabbri (2007), p. 15
Mantua: 1591–1613 Court musician
In the dedication of his second book of madrigals, Monteverdi had described himself as a player of the vivuola (which could mean either viola da gamba or viola da braccio).Bates (2002), p. 53 In 1590 or 1591 he entered the service of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga of Mantua; he recalled in his dedication to the Duke of his third book of madrigals (Venice, 1592) that "the most noble exercise of the vivuola opened to me the fortunate way into your service."Holman (1993), p. 577 In the same dedication he compares his instrumental playing to "flowers" and his compositions as "fruit" which as it matures "can more worthily and more perfectly serve you", indicating his intentions to establish himself as a composer.Fabbri (1994), pp. 27–28
Duke Vincenzo was keen to establish his court as a musical centre, and sought to recruit leading musicians. When Monteverdi arrived in Mantua, the maestro di capella at the court was the Flemish musician Giaches de Wert. Other notable musicians at the court during this period included the composer and violinist Salomone Rossi, Rossi's sister, the singer Madama Europa, and Francesco Rasi.Stevens (1995), p. 20 Monteverdi married the court singer Claudia de Cattaneis in 1599; they were to have three children, two sons (Francesco, b. 1601 and Massimiliano, b. 1604), and a daughter who died soon after birth in 1603. Monteverdi's brother Giulio Cesare joined the court musicians in 1602.Arnold (1980b), pp. 534–535
When Wert died in 1596, his post was given to Benedetto Pallavicino, but Monteverdi was clearly highly regarded by Vincenzo and accompanied him on his military campaigns in Hungary (1595) and also on a visit to Flanders in 1599. Here at the town of Spa he is reported by his brother Giulio Cesare as encountering, and bringing back to Italy, the canto alla francese. (The meaning of this, literally "song in the French style", is debatable, but may refer to the French-influenced poetry of Gabriello Chiabrera, some of which was set by Monteverdi in his Scherzi musicali, and which departs from the traditional Italian style of lines of 9 or 11 syllables).Vartolo, Sergio (n.d.), "About this recording" , liner notes, Monteverdi: Scherzi Musicali a Tre Voci, Naxos Records, Catalogue number 8.553317 Monteverdi may possibly have been a member of Vincenzo's entourage at Florence in 1600 for the marriage of Maria de' Medici and Henry IV of France, at which celebrations Jacopo Peri's opera Euridice (the earliest surviving opera) was premiered. On the death of Pallavicino in 1601, Monteverdi was confirmed as the new maestro di capella.Carter and Chew (n.d.), §2 "Mantua"
Artusi controversy and seconda pratica
At the turn of the 17th century, Monteverdi found himself the target of musical controversy. The influential Bolognese theorist Giovanni Maria Artusi attacked Monteverdi's music (without naming the composer) in his work L'Artusi, overo Delle imperfettioni della moderna musica (Artusi, or On the imperfections of modern music) of 1600, followed by a sequel in 1603. Artusi cited extracts from Monteverdi's works not yet published (they later formed parts of his fourth and fifth books of madrigals of 1603 and 1605), condemning their use of harmony and their innovations in use of musical modes, compared to orthodox polyphonic practice of the sixteenth century. Artusi attempted to correspond with Monteverdi on these issues; the composer refused to respond, but found a champion in a pseudonymous supporter, "L'Ottuso Academico" ("The Obtuse Academic").Bowers (2007), p. 59 Eventually Monteverdi replied in the preface to the fifth book of madrigals that his duties at court prevented him from a detailed reply; but in a note to "the studious reader", he claimed that he would shortly publish a response, Seconda Pratica, overo Perfettione della Moderna Musica (The Second Style, or Perfection of Modern Music).Bowers (2007), p. 63 This work never appeared, but a later publication by Claudio's brother Giulio Cesare made it clear that the seconda pratica which Monteverdi defended was not seen by him as a radical change or his own invention, but was an evolution from previous styles (prima pratica) which was complementary to them.Bowers (2007), p. 66
This debate seems in any case to have raised the composer's profile, leading to reprints of his earlier books of madrigals. Some of his madrigals were published in Copenhagen in 1605 and 1606, and the poet Tommaso Stigliani (1573–1651) published a eulogy of him in his 1605 poem "O sirene de' fiumi". The composer of madrigal comedies and theorist Adriano Banchieri wrote in 1609: "I must not neglect to mention the most noble of composers, Monteverdi ... his expressive qualities are truly deserving of the highest commendation, and we find in them countless examples of matchless declamation ... enhanced by comparable harmonies."Stevens (1995), p. 214 The modern music historian Massimo Ossi has placed the Artusi issue in the context of Monteverdi's artistic development: "If the controversy seems to define Monteverdi's historical position, it also seems to have been about stylistic developments that by 1600 Monteverdi had already outgrown".Ossi (2007), p. 100
The non-appearance of Monteverdi's promised explanatory treatise may have been a deliberate ploy, since by 1608, by Monteverdi's reckoning, Artusi had become fully reconciled to modern trends in music, and the seconda pratica was by then well established; Monteverdi had no need to revisit the issue. On the other hand, letters to Giovanni Battista Doni of 1632 show that Monteverdi was still preparing a defence of the seconda pratica, in a treatise entitled Melodia; he may still have been working on this at the time of his death ten years later.Stevens (1995), pp. 420–422
Opera, conflict and departure
In 1606 Vincenzo's heir Francesco commissioned from Monteverdi the opera L'Orfeo, to a libretto by Alessandro Striggio, for the Carnival season of 1607. It was given two performances in February and March 1607; the singers included, in the title role, Rasi, who had sung in the first performance of Euridice witnessed by Vincenzo in 1600. This was followed in 1608 by the opera L'Arianna (libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini), intended for the celebration of the marriage of Francesco to Margherita of Savoy. All the music for this opera is lost apart from Ariadne's Lament, which became extremely popular. To this period also belongs the ballet entertainment Il ballo delle ingrate.Whenham (2007) "Chronology", p. xviiPryer (2007), p. 12
The strain of the hard work Monteverdi had been putting into these and other compositions was exacerbated by personal tragedies. His wife died in September 1607 and the young singer Caterina Martinelli, intended for the title role of Arianna, died of smallpox in March 1608. Monteverdi also resented his increasingly poor financial treatment by the Gonzagas. He retired to Cremona in 1608 to convalesce, and wrote a bitter letter to Vincenzo's minister Annibale Chieppio in November of that year seeking (unsuccessfully) "an honourable dismissal".Stevens (1995), pp. 46–54 Although the Duke increased Monteverdi's salary and pension, and Monteverdi returned to continue his work at the court, he began to seek patronage elsewhere. After publishing his Vespers in 1610, which were dedicated to Pope Paul V, he visited Rome, ostensibly hoping to place his son Francesco at a seminary, but apparently also seeking alternative employment. In the same year he may also have visited Venice, where a large collection of his church music was being printed, with a similar intention.Arnold (1980a), p. 516