Monteverdi
NAME: Monteverdi, Claudio.
ACHIEVEMENTS: Excelled as a composer in nearly every musical genre of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, including madrigals, operas, and sacred music.
NICKNAME/ALIAS: None.
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: 15th May 1567, in Cremona, Italy.
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: 29th November 1643, in Venice, Italy. Aged 76.
DISCIPLINE: Music
FIELD: Composer
LANGUAGE: Italian.
PARENTS: Father, Baldassare Monteverdi, mother, Maddalena Zignani.
SIBLINGS: 1 brother, Giulio Cesare, 1 sister, Maria, 2 half-brothers, 1 half sister.
SPOUSE: Claudia Cattaneo.
CHILDREN: 2 sons, Francesco Baldassare and Massimiliano Giacomo, 1 daughter, Leonora Camilla.
EDUCATION: Student of composer Marc'Antonio Ingegneri.
MAJOR WORKS: Orfeo and L'incoronazione di Poppea (operas); books of madrigals.
LIFE AND TIMES: Claudio Monteverdi was born in Cremona, Italy, the oldest son of an apothecary. He showed signs of musical talent at an early age, publishing his first collection of compositions by the time he was fifteen. He most likely took private music lessons from Marc'Antonio Ingegneri, maestro di capella at the cathedral in Cremona; Monteverdi later called himself Ingegneri's "disciple." His first work, when he was 24, was for <worked for> Vincenzo I Gonzaga*, Duke of Mantua.
He was surrounded by outstanding musicians and artists such as <knew> Rubens*. In 1598 Monteverdi's madrigals were performed as part of the entertainment for Margherita of Austria, new bride of Philip III of Spain, who was visiting her cousin Vincenzo at his court.
The performance inspired an attack by conservative music theorist Giovanni Maria Artusi who dismissed Monteverdi's dissonant, expressive style by contrasting it unfavorably with the smooth modal counterpoint of early composers such as <compared unfavorably with> Palestrina*. This controversy did not damage Monteverdi's career—if anything, it gave him the attention and notoriety he craved.
His personal life also took a positive turn in this time; in 1599 he married Claudia Cattaneo, the daughter of one of his fellow court musicians.
Monteverdi was most likely a part of Duke Vincenzo's musical retinue when he traveled to Florence for the wedding of Maria de' Medici and Henri IV in 1600. In Florence he would have seen a performance of Jacopo Peri's music-drama Euridice, which inspired his own later operas, as well as the elaborate stage direction and costumes of the Florentine court designer <saw work of> Buontalenti*.
In 1601, Monteverdi was appointed musical director for the Gonzaga court and celebrated his promotion with a fourth and fifth book of madrigals, published in 1603 and 1605. In 1607 he wrote what is arguably the first "real" opera, Orfeo (Orpheus), commissioned by Prince Francesco Gonzaga for a performance at Carnival. It is the earliest opera to remain in the repertoire to this day, and it helped Monteverdi to become increasingly famous throughout Europe.
Monteverdi returned to Cremona in 1607 when his wife fell ill. He continued to compose music and send it to Duke Vincenzo while he was away from court. When Claudia died on September 10,1607—a tragic blow that left Monteverdi the sole guardian of three small children—he did not want to return to Mantua at all. Duke Vincenzo insisted, sending a formal summons for Monteverdi to come and compose a new opera for Prince Francesco's wedding, only a few weeks after Claudia's death. Monteverdi reluctantly agreed, and the result was the opera Arianna.
At its first performance on May 28, 1608, Arianna was a smashing success; the aria "Arianna's lament" brought the audience to tears. Exhausted and close to a nervous collapse, Monteverdi returned to Cremona. The duke responded by increasing his salary and granting him a pension, effectively pulling him back into court service. Monteverdi agreed, but he was discontented at court. When Duke Vincenzo died in 1612, Monteverdi was abruptly dismissed. He returned to Cremona destitute, with little hope of claiming the pension promised by Vincenzo.
Fortunately, he auditioned for and won the post of musical director at Venice's San Marco cathedral in August 1613. At San Marco, Monteverdi reorganized the capella musica, expanded its music library, and recruited new musicians in addition to composing and performing music. He was well-respected and handsomely paid, and even allowed to delegate some of his responsibilities to assistants so that he could take advantage of the freelance work. The Gonzagas made several attempts to convince him to return to Mantua, but to no avail.
He spent a relatively quiet middle age in Venice, editing music, composing, and welcoming foreign musicians to the city. In 1630, Mantua was sacked by Imperial troops who brought the plague with them. A Mantuan delegation came to Venice for help, unknowingly infecting both cities. Almost 50,000 people had died by the fall of 1631. In the wake of this horror, Monteverdi wrote a Mass to celebrate the new church Santa Maria della Salute, built to honor the cessation of the plague. He also took holy orders in 1631 and entered the priesthood in 1632.
In 1633 he began work on his long-promised treatise on modern music, after some prompting by the theorist Giovanni Battista Doni. He also composed works for Venice's new "public" opera, established in 1637. Monteverdi's contributions were remarkable by any standard: he revived Arianna in 1639 and produced several new operas, including his masterpiece, L'incoronazione di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppea) in 1642-43. Monteverdi died on November 29, 1643, after a nine-day illness.
ASSESSMENT: One of the pioneers of changing musical styles in the seventeenth century. His most ground-breaking and enduring achievement was the effective portrayal of emotions in music, in both his operas and madrigals.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: His music was revived in the twentieth century by <music revived by> Boulanger*
ONELINER: Claudio Monteverdi, one of the greatest of all composers
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Arnold, Denis, Monteverdi, Oxford University Press, London, 2000.
Carter, Tim and Geoffrey Chew, 'Monteverdi [Monteverde], Claudio (Giovanni [Zuan]
Antonio,' grovemusic.com, ed. L. Macy (2001), http://www.grovemusic.com
(Accessed 21 March 2002).
Palisca, Claude V., Baroque Music, 3rd ed.. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 1991.
Redlich, Hans Ferdinand, Claudio Monteverdi: Life and Works, translated by Kathleen
Dale, Oxford University Press, London, 1952.