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Home , Intermedio, Jacopo Peri

Chapter 7 The New Practice

Sunday, October 21, 12 Searching for the secrets of Ancient Greek Music • difficult to recover music of classical antiquity • ancient Greek musical notation was poorly understood • debate on ancient Greek scales, instruments, manner of singing and manner of combining poetry and music in drama

Sunday, October 21, 12 A view of the musical cosmos, 1650. The work is an allegorical representation of the way music manifests itself throughout the cosmos - from the heavens on high to the earth below. The allegory draws on symbols from Christianity and classical antiquity. (see Bonds p. 197)

Sunday, October 21, 12 Searching for the secrets of Ancient Greek Music

• Composers increasingly embraced these ideas: - music should be driven by the word - the affect of a text - its predominant emotion - should be heightened by expressive musical devices

Sunday, October 21, 12 Searching for the secrets of Ancient Greek Music

• composers and theorists preferred a transparent polyphonic style clearly projecting the text

Sunday, October 21, 12 The Florentine Camerata

• ca. 1573 - 1587 • group of poets, musicians and noblemen • camerata means “club” or “society” • debated ways to recreate the style of singing used by ancient Greeks in their drama • Greek Chorus - http://youtu.be/r0nRJC4rPEg

Sunday, October 21, 12 The Florentine Camerata

• Dunque fra torbide onde - “Thus over troubled waters” - the 5th of Il Canto d’Arione (The Song of Arion) - these intermedi were musical pieces performed between the acts of a play (comedy La Pellegrina) written for the wedding of Ferdinando de’ Medici and Christine de Lorraine - shows the new style being developed by the Florentine Camerata - moving toward a homophonic texture (principal melody line with subordinate accompaniment)

Sunday, October 21, 12 The Seconda Prattica

• rhythms of music should be modeled on the rhythms of speech: - at times flowing - at times halting - with points of punctuation - with cadences of varying strength

Sunday, October 21, 12 The Seconda Prattica

• works placed a solo vocal line above an instrumental line • supporting instrumental line was known as the (continuous bass) • basso continuo provided harmonic framework for the solo voice above it • the term “figured bass” comes from the appearance of basso continuo music (see Bonds p. 205 on how to read fig. bass) • the net result is a musical texture with two primary lines (soprano and bass)

Sunday, October 21, 12 The Seconda Prattica

• basso continuo could be performed by any chordal instrument such as , organ, • bass line was often reinforced with low- range instrument such as bass or

Sunday, October 21, 12 The Seconda Prattica

• basso continuo ensemble: - instrumentation was flexible and rarely specified - ideally, would combine a sustaining bass instrument with one or more chordal instruments to support the solo voice

Sunday, October 21, 12 The Seconda Prattica

• basso continuo allowed for projections of sung text through a single voice • solo singing resulted in the new genre of - sung drama - in which individual singers assume role of individual characters

Sunday, October 21, 12 The Seconda Prattica • monody emerged by • combination of solo voice and basso continuo • singers declaim text in style that is measured and free, lyrical yet rhythmically fluid • lies between song and speech

Sunday, October 21, 12 The Seconda Prattica Monody • Sfogava conle stelle - “He vented to the stars” - example of monody - homophonic texture - figured bass (it is “realized” in our score) - from Caccini’s Le nuove musiche (1602) - monody allows for great flexibility in tempo and expression of the emotion in the text - See Bonds p. 205 for score as published in 1602

Sunday, October 21, 12 Music in the Era: A Stylistic Overview

• greater rhythmic freedom • greater allowance of virtuosity • differentiation between vocal and instrumental styles • See Bonds p. 207 for summary of stylistic changes from to Baroque style

Sunday, October 21, 12