"Monteverdi?" you might ask. "I thought Bach and Handel were the most important Baroque composers." Yes, Bach and Handel are extremely important, but their music, and music written by other very important composers in the early eighteenth century-including Vivaldi, Pachelbel, Telemann and Domenico Scarlatti, to name a few-do not present the whole story of Baroque style. Far from it. Many music scholars consider the Baroque era to have begun in 1580, more than 100 years before Bach and Handel were born, and the music of this time is essential in defining the Baroque as a style era in music. Monody: creating the texture of Baroque music
The Renaissance idea of many voices singing the same text at different times, however lovely-sounding, ran counter to the ultimate goal of clear expression. The members of the Florentine Camerata, a group of Italian intellectuals at the end of the sixteenth century, felt that listeners would be unable to distinguish the words themselves, let alone be moved by a true perception of the emotional content of a given text. Therefore, they began to think in terms that reversed the prevailing hierarchy of music and text, and to think of the words as the most important part of a vocal work, with the music there simply to support them.
This radical departure from the Renaissance concept of the way text should be set to music resulted in a completely different musical texture from the polyphony common during the Renaissance. Although there were precedents in accompanied song, nothing that had existed previously was quite the same as the genre of monody that resulted from the activities of several members of the Florentine Camerata, including Giulio Caccini and Jacopo Peri.
Monody was simply a vocal melody (only one, not a web of different lines) accompanied by an instrument that would play chords underneath. This supporting part was the continuo, played by any instrument capable of playing chords, such as a keyboard or a lute. Sometimes a viol doubled the bass line.
But the accompaniment wasn't the only new feature of monody. The melody itself was designed to suit the natural declamation of the text, enhancing natural speech rhythms and accentuation, taking its cue from an orator's delivery rather than from the measured patterns and repetitions of melodic phrases one normally associates with song.
Although the idea of a single voice singing with a chordal accompaniment may not sound particularly new today, it was a truly revolutionary concept at the time, serving as a catalyst for some of the most important developments in Baroque music. It was such a significant development that its appearance in Florence in the late sixteenth century is commonly considered the beginning of the Baroque period.
The creation of opera
The far-reaching consequences of this new musical texture included the creation of opera. One voice clearly and movingly singing text with an accompaniment that did not obscure its sound or meaning suddenly made the creation of an entire drama set to music a real possibility. Although intermedii (a genre in which a spoken play was interspersed with songs and dance numbers) existed previously, the first true opera directly resulted from the musical innovations of the Florentine Camerata.
This first opera was Jacopo Peri's Euridice (1600), with a text by Ottavio
Rinuccini. Opera appealed mainly to connoisseurs at first, but when Claudio Monteverdi created his own dramma in musica in Mantua, in 1607, with a text by Alessandro Striggio, he used the new monody in combination with songlike movements, dances and instrumental interludes. Monteverdi's Orfeo, although not quite the same, is near enough to remind us of the genre of opera we know and love today. Its engaging mixture of types of music and concern with dramatic development did much to set the tone for many works that followed. This type of court dramma in musica, or serenata, or balletto, became the norm in the first quarter of the seventeenth century, when elaborate musical productions were usually associated with important court events. Monteverdi composed several such "operas," but unfortunately their music has been lost.
Other composers were active at this time, however, so we do have some additional examples. Francesca Caccini, daughter of Giulio Caccini, composed her most famous work as a commission from the Archduchess Maria Maddalena of Austria (one of the regents for Ferdinando II), for the visit in 1625 of Crown Prince Ladislao Sigismondo of Poland, who was betrothed to the Archduchess's daughter. Caccini's "La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina" (The Liberation of Ruggiero from Alcina's Island) was a magnificent showpiece that ended with a ballet on horseback in which members of the court took part.
Caccini's balletto, like many others of the time, used monody to convey most of the action of the drama, with more songlike numbers for choruses of nymphs and shepherds. In fact, monody eventually evolved into what we know today as recitative, and the distinction between sung and spoken moments in an opera became increasingly defined as the Baroque era wore on. Monteverdi's later operas, composed only about 30 years after Orfeo, show considerable development of song forms.
Varietas as an aesthetic principle
Perhaps even more than the creation of opera, the new musical texture introduced through monody ushered in an aesthetic that valued contrast and juxtaposition over seamless uniformity. One of the easiest ways to hear this different aesthetic goal is to compare Giovanni Gabrieli's early Baroque "In ecclesiis" with a random sample from the great Renaissance composer Palestrina. Gabrieli falls quite early in our period; he was one of Monteverdi's predecessors at the San Marco basilica in Venice and is known for his revolutionary use of the unique architecture of the basilica in massive works, with choruses and contrasting instrumental ensembles placed in balconies around the nave. The result was a sort of early Baroque surround sound, similar to a four-channel sound system.
Although Palestrina's music is certainly not monochromatic, compared with Gabrieli's music its changes sound gradual and subtle. Gabrieli juxtaposes short sections that contrast vividly in terms of their performing forces (solo voice vs. double chorus; instrumental interlude vs. vocal monody) and style (free declamation vs. rhythmically regular, songlike moments).
To summarize, Renaissance music was all about continuity, restraint and subtlety; Baroque music sought to evoke strong emotional responses in listeners and to surprise and pique their interest. This principle was called varietas, and it remained one of the central features of Baroque music throughout the seventeenth century.
Yet the textures and styles of Renaissance music did not disappear altogether but existed side by side with newer ones. In particular, sacred music was slow to adopt the new style, especially since the newer style generally necessitated the use of instruments other than the organ. The post-Tridentine Church (that is, the Catholic Church after the reformist Council of Trent) was wary of anything that smacked of secular pleasures and regularly tried to impose restrictions on the type of music that could be performed in church. Even Monteverdi, who spent a large part of his life as maestro di cappella (chapel master) of San Marco in Venice, composed in a much more conservative style for the church.
In fact, these two different musical styles existed well into the seventeenth century and were dubbed prima pratica and secunda pratica. Didactic treatises maintained the suitability of the former for sacred music and the latter for secular music, almost throughout the Baroque era.
Early Baroque music outside of Italy
Although the Baroque era in music essentially began in Italy, it did not remain restricted to that geographical location for long. The beginning of the seventeenth century was a time when it was relatively easy and safe to travel through Europe. Therefore musicians and composers frequently traveled to other places, were exposed to new styles and became conversant in their contemporaries' musical development.
For example, one of the most important early Baroque composers in Germany, Heinrich Schütz, journeyed to Venice in around 1610 to study with Giovanni Gabrieli. When he returned to the court of Dresden, where he was employed as Kapellmeister (chapel master), he created music that incorporated the polychoral style he had learned from Gabrieli, and introduced a whole generation of German musicians and composers to this new music.
But the privations of the Thirty Years' War made it difficult to maintain lavish musical establishments in many German courts, and Schütz took another leave of absence from his post in 1628 so that he could return to Venice and study with Monteverdi. It was from Monteverdi that he learned the continuo style, bringing secunda pratica techniques back with him. This example is merely one part of the rich musical and cultural history of the early seventeenth century. While Italy is the node from which the style developments radiated outward, by a few decades into the century other European centers were developing their own variations and adaptations of the early Baroque style.
In particular, France and England both have fascinating musical histories during this period, although both countries were affected by the ravages of war--the Thirty Years' War, and the Civil War in England--so that matters other than the arts claimed the attention and resources of the rulers. Jean-Baptiste de Lully in France and Henry Purcell in England are but two of the important figures to emerge from the seventeenth century. In one way or another, however, both countries were deeply influenced by the innovations and developments of the Italian Baroque composers.
So I return to my first point: What is it that Monteverdi actually did to usher in the Baroque era in music? He did not invent anything himself, but he has the distinction of being a musical genius of equal standing with Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven and others. His extant stage works, Orfeo, L'Incoronazione di Poppea and Il ritorno d'Ulisse, are monuments of the early Baroque style, which is very different from the late Baroque of Handel and Bach. But perhaps most of all, the study of the evolution of early Baroque style allows us to glimpse the close integration of social, literary, political and aesthetic movements with the arts. I invite you to undertake your own exploration--by listening, first of all, and by reading further.
