The Florentine Camerata and Their Influence on the Beginnings of Opera :Ds
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Music HISTORY Wilde dropping the charges levied against the .ad labored to present - Artist, Enlightened Other, The Florentine Camerata and their Influence on the Beginnings of Opera :ds. At his own insistence, he was a creature Amanda Fawcett-Lothson crees. Thus by extension, he had no need of its Abstract ensberry's agents was presented to the Crown, Today, "there is still much room for debate over the extent to which the Florentine Camerata and ecency with numerous young men. The first other such groups believed they were reviving ancient Greek drama."1 What we can say with more , in which Wilde was ultimately found guilty. certainty is that their discussions revolved mainly around Greek traditions and how they could be sentence, Wilde would die penniless several years implemented into the music of the day. The Florentine Camerata's principal concern was to made all the more dramatic because his piteous reform the ornamental excesses and bring about a more beautiful and expressive style of singing, but in so doing, they laid foundations for later operatic composers such as Monteverdi who would make significant contributions to the emerging operatic genre. The Florentine Camerata was a loosely structured body of intellectuals residing in Florence in the latter part of the sixteenth and early part of the seventeenth centuries. The Camerata was neither formally documented nor organized and therefore, "no specific date can be assigned to its origin. mosexuality, and the Fall of Oscar Wilde." Already in the 1560s, Count Giovanni Bardi was sponsoring the individual studies of Vincenzo July 2005): 213-48. Galilei,"2 and Bardi "stimulated many noblemen to the study of music;" [by) inviting them to meet at his home to discuss the principals of music and current styles and techniques. 3 ty in Britain, 1861-1913. Hampshire: Palgrave Bardi came of an old Guelph family of bankers and businessmen to which Simone de' Bardi, husband of Dante's Beatrice, viance, Morality and Late-Victorian Society. New had also belonged. He was an erudite philologist and mathematician ... steeped in Platonic philosophy and affected by the linguistic purity associated with enthusiastic love for Dante. 4 'scar Wilde. New York: Unversity Books, 1956 Giovanni Bardi's son, "Pietro de' Bardi, named only two musician's as frequenting his father's •ve and Scandal in Wilde Times. Ithaca: Cornell circle: Vincenzo Galilei and Giulio Caccini, although he also named Jacopo Peri, Ottavio Rinuccini, and Jacopo Corsi elsewhere in connection with later developments in Florentine music."5 "The first to refer to the group as 'the Camerata' was Giulio Caccini."6 The Camerata was Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1997. comprised of ty: Normal and Abnormal Sexuality in the amateur musicians, artists, astrologers, philosophers, and scientists, nporary History 17:2 (Apr 1982): 35-49. who met informally under the aegis of Bardi and Jacopo Corsi. Their principal aim was to reform the polyphonic music of the day and they believed that the best way to do so was to renovate the ancient Greek 1 Collective Problem Solving, 371. 2 Palisca, Claude V. The Florentine Camerata: Documentary Studies and Translations. Yale :e this paper for Dr. Zwicker's T390 University Press, 1989, 5. Hereafter referred to as The Florentine Camerata. ;rets class. 3 The Florentine Camerata, 3. 4 Pirrotta, Nino, and Nigel Fortune. "Temperaments and Tendencies in The Florentine Camerata" The Musical Quarterly, XIJ2, 1954, 169-189. Hereafter referred to as Temperaments and Tendencies. 5 The Florentine Camerata, 7. 6 The Florentine Camerata, 3. 29 Music H1sTORY practice of setting words to music with 'the power to move the passion[ s] Count Ugolino and the Lamentations of Jeremiah' of the mind. ' 7 therefore, that Galilei's interest in vocal monody I part-song compositions for solo voice and lute. 16 Therefore, the Camerata's attempts to infuse polyphonic compositions with ancient Greek dramatic elements were never intended to establish a new genre of music: opera; rather to make better Another contributor to the body of ideas formulat1 polyphonic music of the day. The Camerata thought of themselves not as innovators but as without a knowledge of Greek, Galilei turned to C revivers of an earlier and better tradition, 8 and it was not solely the Camerata' s work that brought learning both in the Greek language and in ancien about the creation of early opera. By analogy "the Camerata, and other informal groups of many years; and they exchanged ideas about the i: intellectuals at the time, were like midwives to a sixteenth-century full of the peculiar conjunction tunings of instruments and the meanings of ancie1 of social, ideological, cultural ideas and practices from which opera emerged."9 The Camerata's Camerata meetings, he was "a serious scholar of< 18 discussions of societal issues, philosophy and the arts led them to contemplate their origins in influenced Gali lei 's theories,." ancient Greek society and culture. Mei aimed from the start to convince hi "In the Poetics, Aristotle discussed [tragedy] as divisible into six parts:" 10 plot, character, diction, of two things: that the music of the Gre1 thought, spectacle, and song. Aristotle's model was adapted by Giovanni de Bardi and further monodic and that only by virtue of this 19 developed in a treatise called "A Discourse on How Tragedy Should be Performed," and a clear of so many marvelous effects. indication that the Camerata based their theories of performance on Ancient Greek philosophies. In his Discourse, Bardi also discusses staging and how performers should be presented to an audience, Part of Mei's reasoning that "all music was mono including the proper number of performers required and how they were to enter and exit. melody could have aroused the affections in the n that called forth particular cognitive qualities and Ancient Greek performance practices were not the only topics discussed by the Camerata. Their could be evoked based upon the vocal tessitura, I< discussions also revolved around "three basic musical concerns: the solo singer, the search for or were accompanied by another, the effect woul< 'natural declamation,' and the use of melody to interpret feeling rather than depicting it with graphic detail. " 11 In a letter written to Galilei dated May 8, 1572, :rv accomplish music's true purpose, which was not The Camerata believed that the music employed in ancient Greek theater was purely monophonic affections. This letter initiated a correspondence in nature. In Vincenzo Galilei's Dialogo delta musica antica e delta moderna (A Dialogue on discussions. 22 Mei's theories of the affections ev1 Ancient and Modem Music) he discusses "a return to the simplicity of ancient monody." 12 Galilei, only express one particular affection at a time an< and by extension, the Camerata, believed that such simplicity would lead the way to a rediscovery overlapped in any way; each should be complete! and rebirth of ancient Greek dramatic elements. In fact, "the existence of monody as a style of be recognized. performance preceded Galilei's theoretical speculations." 13 As seen in his Dialogo, Gali lei "referred to Latin translations of Plutarch, Ptolemy, Aristoxenus, and others,'' 14 and after learning In the forward to Le Nuove Musiche of 1602 Giul much about possible Ancient Greek performance practices, experimented with practical elements and this new style of composition. Caccini's stat such as "settings for a solo tenor accompanied by a consort of viols, [using] Dante's Lament of part, an effort to stop performers from adding exc practice of the era. The surviving manuscript SOL 7 Katz, Ruth. "Collective 'problem solving' in the History of Music: The Case of The Camerata" Bibliotheque du Conservatoire Royal de Musiqrn 23 Journal of the History ofldeas, XLV/3, 1984, 361-377. Hereafter referred to as Centrale, Magi. XIX 66 "appear to confirm Caci Collective Problem Solving. 8 Collective Problem Solving, 362. 9 Collective Problem Solving, 363. 15 Temperaments and Tendencies, 173. 10 The Florentine Camerata, 141 . (from Discourse on how Tragedy should be Performed by 16 Collective Problem Solving, 371. Giovanni Bardi). 17 Mentor, 3. 11 Collective Problem Solving, 367. 18 Collective Problem Solving, 370. 12 Temperaments and Tendencies, 172. 19 Mentor, 4. 20 13 Palisca, Claude V. "Galilei and Links Between 'Pseudo-Monody' and Monody," The Musical Mentor, 10. Quarterly, XL VI/3, 1960, 344-360. Hereafter referred to as Links. 21 Collective Problem Solving, 371. 14 Palisca, Claude V. "Girolamo Mei: Mentor to the Florentine Camerata," The Musical Quarterly. 22 The Florentine Camerata, 45. XL/I, 1954, 1-20. Hereafter referred to as Mentor. 23 Le Nuove Musiche, 209. 30 Music HISTORY 15 1 'the power to move the passion[s] Count Ugolino and the Lamentations of Jeremiah" as inspiration for his text. It is apparent, therefore, that Gali lei's interest in vocal monody predates his arrangements of madrigals and other part-song compositions for solo voice and lute.16 yphonic compositions with ancient Greek dramatic genre of music: opera; rather to make better Another contributor to the body of icleas formulated by the Camerata was Girolamo Mei. "Helpless ught of themselves not as innovators but as without a knowledge of Greek, Gali lei turned to Girolamo Mei , who had a reputation for great 17 twas not solely the Camerata's work that brought learning both in the Greek language and in ancient music." Mei corresponded with Galilei for he Camerata, and other informal groups