662 108 CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI composed and printed, however, after mine was performed before Her Most Christian Majesty.!! So receive it kindly, courteous Readers, and although I may not have arrived by this means where it seemed I could reach (since concern about novelty has acted as a brake on my course), welcome it nevertheless, and perhaps it will happen that on another occasion I may show you something more perfect than this. Meanwhile, it will seem to me that I have done enough, having opened up the path to the skills of others to progress in my footsteps to glory, where it was not given me to be able to arrive. And I hope that the use of the disso- nances, played and sung without fear, with discretion, and accurately (having pleased so many and such worthy men) will not cause you annoyance, espe- cially in the more sad and serious airs of Orfeo, Arcetro, and Dafne, who was played with much grace by Jacopo Giusti, a little boy from Lucca. And live happily. Notice Above the bass part, the sharp next to a 6 indicates a major sixth, and the minor [sixth] is without the sharp, which when it is alone is a sign of the major third or tenth, and the flat the minor third or tenth. And do not ever use it except for that note alone where it is indicated, even though there may be several [notes] on one and the same pitch. 11. Maria de’ Medici. 108 Gtancio Monteverci Although he had become maestro di cappella at St. Mark's in Venice in 1613, Claudio Monteverdi did not dissolve his ties with his former ducal patrons, the Gonzagas of Mantua, especially since they offered him continued opportunities to compose theatrical music. In late 1616 plans were begun for a maritime spectacle with music to celebrate the wedding of Ferdinando Gonzaga, the new duke, and Caterina de’ Medici, sister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Monteverdi received the proposal from Alessandro Striggio (who had written the libretto for Monteverdi's 1607 opera Orfeo) with due obsequiousness, but he protested its lack of opportunities to express strong human feelings. The proposed Marriage of Tethys, to a libretto by Scipione Agnelli, appears to have been like a set of old- fashioned intermedio tableaux, and it was eventually abandoned even though Monteverdi had nearly completed the score.Letter to Alessandro Striggio 663 Letter to Alessandro Striggio (1616) My Most Illustrious Lord and most esteemed patron, I was very happy to receive from Signor Carlo de’ Torri the letter from Your Most Illustrious Lordship and the librettino containing the favola marittima of the Marriage of Tethys.’ Your Most Illustrious Lordship writes that you send it to me so that I should look at it carefully and later tell you what I think of it, since it is to be set to music for the forthcoming wedding of His Most Serene Highness.” I, my Most Ilustrious Lord, who desire nothing other than to be worthy to serve His Most Serene Highness in something, will say nothing at first other than that I offer myself readily to all that which His Most Serene Highness shall ever deign to command me, and without objection, will always honor and revere all that His Most Serene Highness should command. Thus, if His Most Serene Highness has approved this [story], this would be, then, both very fine and much to my taste. But since you add that I should speak, I am ready to obey Your Most Illustrious Lordship’s orders with all respect and promptness, understanding that what I say is trivial, coming from a person who is worth little in toto and a person who always honors every virtuoso, in particu- lar the present gentleman poet, whose name I do not know, and so much more so since this profession of poetry is not mine. I shall speak, therefore, with all respect, in obedience to you, since you so command. I shall speak and say first that, in general, music wants to be mistress of the air and not only of the water: I mean, in my language, that the ensem- bles? described in this story are all low and near the earth—a very great defect in making beautiful harmonies, since the harmonies will be given to the largest wind instruments in the stage area, [making the harmonies] difficult to be heard by everyone and coordinated [with the instruments] offstage (and I leave this matter to the judgment of your most refined and intelligent taste), so that with this defect, instead of one chitarrone you will want three of them, in place of one harp three will be needed, and so on; and instead of a delicate singer's voice you will want a forced one. Besides this, the correct imitation of speech would need, in my judgment, to be dependent on wind instruments rather than on delicate strings, since the harmonies of the tritons and other marine gods, I would think, should be with trombones and cornetti and not with cetras or harpsichords and harps, because, since this production is to be on water, it has to be outside the city* Plato teaches that “you should have kitharas in the town Text: Claudio Monteverdi, Lettere, ed. Eva Lax (Florence, 1994), pp. 48-51; translation by Mar- garet Murata. 1. In Greek mythology, Tethys is a Titanness, daughter of Uranus and Gaia and wife of Oceanus; thus the tale is “maritime.” 2. Ferdinando Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. 3. “Concerti.” Sr -664 108 CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI and tibias in the fields;”® so either the delicate instruments are inappropriate or the appropriate ones are not delicate. Besides this, I noticed that the interlocutors are winds, cupids, zephyrs, and sirens, and so there will be need of many sopranos; and on top of this, the winds are supposed to sing, that is, the west and the north winds! And how, dear Sir, will I be able to imitate the speech of the winds, if winds don’t speak?! How will I be able to move the affections with them? Arianna® moved us because she was a woman, and likewise Orfeo moved us because he was a man and not a wind. Harmonies can imitate themselves—and without words;” the noise of the winds, the bleating of sheep, the neighing of horses and so forth, but they do not imitate the speech of winds that does not exist! Next, the dances in the course of this story are few, and they don’t have the feet of dances.* Next, the whole story, at least to my not inconsiderable ignorance, does not move me at all, and what is more, it is with difficulty that I understand it; nor do I feel that I am led in a natural progression to a conclusion that moves me: [the story of] Arianna leads me to a proper lament and Orfeo to a perfect prayer; but this story—I don’t know to what end. Given this, what does Your Most Illustrious Lordship want the music to do here? Nonetheless, I will always accept everything with all respect and honor, whenever His Most Serene Highness should so command and please, since he is my patron without any question. And whenever His Most Serene Highness should order that this be set to music, seeing that in it more deities than others speak, whom I like to hear singing in a refined style I would say that the sirens could be sung by the three sisters, that is Andriana [sic] and the others,!° who could also write their own parts (likewise Signor Rasi his part, also Signor Don Francesco" and so forth for the other men) and here [we would] be copying Signor Cardinal Montalto who presented a comedy"? in which each person who sang in it wrote his or her own part. For, if it were the case that this story progressed to a single conclusion, like Arianna and Orfeo, then you would also want a single hand, 4. The city of Mantua is bordered on the north by three lakes. 5. Republic 399d (SR 1). 6. The abandonment of Ariadne by Theseus was the subject of Monteverdi opera Arianna, written for Mantua in 1608, His 1607 opera about Orpheus and Eurydice was also commis- sioned for Mantua. 7. Sounds can imitate other nonverbal sounds. 8. The poetic meters of dance songs. 9. “Di garbo.” 10, Adriana, Margherita, and Vittoria Basile; see No. 4 above, p. 42, note 21. LL. Francesco Rasi (1574-1621), a tenor, had sung in Peri’s Euridice and in Caccini’s Rapimento di Cefalo, most likely the title role in the 1607 Orfeo and probably the part of Theseus in the 1608 Arianna, among other productions. He completed an opera Cibele e Ati (not performed), for the same Gonzaga wedding for which Teti was planned. Francesco Dognazzi, also a tenor, ‘was awarded an annual pension by the Gonzaga in 1616. 12. Amor pudico (Rome, 1614).Preface to Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi 665 that is, one that was inclined to speak while singing and not, as in this case, sing while speaking,’® Also in this regard, I consider the speeches in each part too long from the sirens on, and in certain other short exchanges. Excuse me, dear Sir, if I have said too much, [it was] not to belittle any thing, but in my desire to obey your orders, so that if I should be so ordered to have to set it in music, Your Most Illustrious Lordship may take my thoughts into consideration. Regard me, I beg you with all affection, a most devoted and most humble servant of His Most Serene Highness, to whom I bow most hum- bly; and I kiss the hands of Your Most Illustrious Lordship with every affection and pray that God grant you every happiness. From Venice, December 9, 1616 13.“Al parlar cantando e non ... al cantar parlando.” Monteverdi paraphrases the Florentines’ expression for the new monodic style, recitar cantando, 1 OY Claudio Monteverdi Monteverdi's search for expressive means in music was tantalizingly articulated in 1638, when he published his first serious collection in several years: the Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi (Madrigals Warlike and Amorous). The volume, his eighth book of madrigals, also included some small theatrical works; one, the famed Combat of Tancred and Clorinda, dated back to 1624. In his preface to the reader, Monteverdi explains how he had discovered new musical styles by searching for similitudine del affetto, that is, the “resemblance of emotion.” Preface to Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi (1638) I have reflected that the principal passions or affections of our mind are three, namely, anger, moderation, and humility or supplication; so the best philosophers declare, and the very nature of our voice indicates this in having high, low, and middle registers. The art of music also points clearly to these Text: Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi ... Libro ottavo (Venice, 1638); facs. and an Eng. trans. of preface (New York: Dover, 1991), p. av. This translation by Oliver Strunk, revised by Margaret Murata.666 109 CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI three in its terms “agitated,” “soft,” and “moderate.”! In all the works of former composers I have indeed found examples of the “soft” and the “moderate,” but never of the “agitated,” a genus nevertheless described by Plato in the third book of his Rhetoric in these words: “Take that harmony that would fittingly imitate the utterances and the accents of a brave man who is engaged in war- fare.”? And since I was aware that it is contraries which greatly move our mind, and that this is the purpose which all good music should have—as Boethius asserts, saying, “Music is related to us, and either ennobles or corrupts the character”’—for this reason I have applied myself with no small diligence and toil to rediscover this genus. After reflecting that in the pyrrhic measure the tempo is fast and, according to all the best philosophers, used warlike, agitated leaps, and in the spondaic, the tempo slow and the opposite,’ I began, therefore, to consider the semi- breve [, which, sounded once, I proposed should correspond to one stroke of a spondaic measure; when this was divided into sixteen semicrome [dS] and restruck one after the other and combined with words expressing anger and disdain, I recognized in this brief sample a resemblance to the affect I sought, although the words did not follow in their meter the rapidity of the instrument. To obtain a better proof, I took the divine Tasso, as a poet who expresses with the greatest propriety and naturalness the qualities which he wishes to describe, and selected his description of the combat of Tancred and Clorinda® which gave me two contrary passions to set in song, war—that is, supplication, and death. In the year 1624 it was heard by the best citizens of the noble city of Venice in a noble room of my own patron and special protector Signor Giro- lamo Mocenigo, a prominent cavalier and among the first commanders of the Most Serene Republic; it was received with much applause and praise. After the apparent success of my first attempt to depict anger, I proceeded with greater zeal to make a fuller investigation, and composed other works in that kind, both ecclesiastical® and for chamber performance. Further, this genus found such favor with the composers of music that they not only praised it by word of mouth, but, to my great pleasure and honor, they showed this by written work in imitation of mine. For this reason I have thought it best to make known that the investigation and the first essay in this genus, so necessary to the art of music, came from me. It may be said with reason that until the present, music has been imperfect, having had only the two genera—“soft” and “moderate.” It seemed at first to the musicians, especially to those who were called on to 1. “Concitato, molle” and “temprato.” 2. Republic 399a (SR 1). 3. De institutione musica, I, i. 4. Plato, Laws 816c. 5. La Gerusalemme liberata, 12, lines 52-68 by Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), Italian epic poet. 6. An example is Monteverdi's motet “Laudate Dominum in sanctis ejus,” published in his Selva morale et spirituale (Venice, 1640).Preface to Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi 667 play the basso continuo, more ridiculous than praiseworthy to drum on a single string sixteen times in one tactus, and so they reduced this multiplicity to one stroke per tactus, sounding the spondaic instead of the pyrrhic foot and destroying the resemblance to agitated speech. Take notice, therefore, that the basso continuo must be played, along with its accompanying parts, in the form and manner of its genus as written. Similarly, you will find all the other direc- tions necessary for performance of the other compositions in the other genus. For the manners of performance must take account of three things: text, har- mony, and rhythm.” My discovery of this warlike genus has given me occasion to write certain madrigals which I have called guerrieri. And since the music played before great princes at their courts to please their delicate taste is of three kinds, according to the method of performance—theater music, chamber music, and dance music—I have indicated these in my present work with the titles guer- riera, amorosa, and rappresentativa.® I know that this work will be imperfect, for I have but little skill, particularly in the genus guerriero, because it is new and omne principium est debile.® 1 therefore pray the benevolent reader to accept my good will, which will await from his learned pen a greater perfection in the said genus, because inventis PB 8 P & facile est addere.!° Farewell. 7. Plato, Republic 398d (p. 10). 8. This seems to say, but cannot mean, that there is a correspondence between Monteverdi's three methods of performance and his three varieties of madrigal. Among the Madrigali guer- rieri, for example, some are teatrali, some da camera, some da ballo. To put it differently, guerriero and amoroso corresponds to kinds of music—concitato and molle—while rappresen- tativo corresponds to teatrale, a method of performance. [Tr.] 9. “Every beginning is feeble.” 10. “It is easy to add to inventions.” 1 1 QO Michel de Pure The Abbé Michel de Pure (1620-1680) is best known for a work of fiction, La Prétieuse, or Mystery Down the Lane (published in four parts, 1656-58). It is, however, neither a novel nor a mystery but an extended dialogue on love, litera- ture, and beauty modeled on the conversations of the consciously cultured salons of Paris, which de Pure knew firsthand. The manners, language, and preoccupations of this intellectual world of women and worldly men gave us the word “preciosity,” which suggests their excessive refinement. The death of prime minister Cardinal Jules Mazarin in 1661 reduced de Pure’s political stand- ing at court, so he returned to scholarship. Between 1663 and 1666 he pub-Ch SOURCE wwoncem, SiC HISTORY OLIVER STRUNK EDITOR “TREITLER cenerat eoiron W-W-NORTON & COMPANY York - London nia