Music

Claudio Monteverdi

1567–1643 · Italian

Late Renaissance / early Baroque

Monteverdi was the Cremona-born composer who bridged the Renaissance and the Baroque, serving the Gonzaga court at Mantua and then St Mark's Basilica in Venice. His L'Orfeo (1607) is the earliest opera still regularly performed, and his books of madrigals trace the move from polyphony to expressive, text-driven "seconda pratica".

How to spot them

▸Early-Baroque sound: cornetts, sackbuts, theorbo and harpsichord continuo, with florid solo singing over simple bass lines
▸A brassy, repeated fanfare over a drone is almost certainly the Toccata that opens L'Orfeo
▸Quiz clues: 'first great opera', Mantua, St Mark's Venice, madrigals, 'seconda pratica', or the Artusi controversy

Key works — listen

L'Orfeo, SV 318 (1607)

Favola in musica on the Orpheus myth, libretto by Alessandro Striggio; premiered at Mantua; opens with a fanfare Toccata

Recording: Trisdee na Patalung · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Vespro della Beata Vergine (Vespers of 1610), SV 206 (1610)

Vast setting of the Marian Vespers; its opening response 'Deus in adiutorium' reworks the Orfeo Toccata

Recording: Guido Magnano · CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

Lamento d'Arianna (1608)

'Lasciatemi morire' – the only surviving music from the lost opera L'Arianna

Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624)

Dramatic scene from Tasso, published in the Eighth Book of Madrigals (1638); showcases the agitated 'stile concitato' with string tremolo

Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, SV 325 (1640)

Venetian opera on Ulysses' homecoming to Penelope

L'incoronazione di Poppea, SV 308 (1643)

Late Venetian opera about Nero and Poppea, libretto by Busenello; ends with the love duet 'Pur ti miro'

Quick-fire facts

•L'Orfeo was first performed in Mantua in February 1607 for the court of the Gonzaga family.
•He became maestro di cappella at St Mark's Basilica, Venice, in 1613 and held the post until his death in 1643.
•The theorist Giovanni Maria Artusi attacked his madrigals' dissonances; Monteverdi replied by defending a 'seconda pratica' in which the words rule the music.
•The Eighth Book of Madrigals (1638) is titled Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi ('Madrigals of war and love').
•L'Orfeo's librettist was Alessandro Striggio; L'incoronazione di Poppea's was Giovanni Francesco Busenello.
•His works are catalogued with SV (Stattkus-Verzeichnis) numbers.
•He took holy orders in 1632, after the plague that devastated Venice in 1630–31.

Drill it — 9 cards

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Sources

Encyclopaedia Britannica — Claudio Monteverdi
Richard Taruskin — The Oxford History of Western Music