monteverdi i || possente spirto: on taming the power of music

Possente spirto: On Taming the Power of MusicAuthor(s): Tim CarterSource: Early Music, Vol. 21, No. 4, Monteverdi I (Nov., 1993), pp. 517-520+522-523Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3128363 .

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Tim Carter

Possente spirto: on taming the power of music

1 Roelandt Savery (?1576-1639), Orpheus (1628) (London, National Gallery)

Monteverdi's great invocation to Charon and the powers of Hades in Act 3 of Orfeo (1607) has rung through the ages. Although he was not the first to pit himself against the challenge of representing Orphic song on the stage- Jacopo Peri had tried in his Euridice of 16oo (and for that matter, Angelo Poliziano in his Orfeo of over a century before)-he was the first to do so with such daring. 'Pos- sente spirto e formidabil nume' certainly has its roots in earlier entertainment traditions, not least Peri's echo- song for another great musician of classical myth, Arion ('Dunque fra torbid'onde', in the fifth of the 1589 Flor- entine intermedi).' But Monteverdi's notation of the elaborate vocal embellishments (he provides a simpler version, too, but surely it was not meant to be sung) and of the equally virtuoso instrumental interjections and

ritornellos provides one of the most compelling visual and aural representations of the new-found power of music.

'Possente spirto' seems to have made an effect. For the second intermedio of Battista Guarini's Idropica staged in Mantua in June 16o8 for the wedding of Prince Francesco Gonzaga (the patron of Orfeo) and Mar-

gherita of Savoy, Giovan Giacomo Gastoldi provided a

piece in which 'Glaucus ... sang in this manner, making his voice resound so that various instruments were heard in due order one after the other repeating his closing phrases as an instrumental echo from various parts [of the stage]'." Monteverdi himself evoked the

magical world of'Possente spirto' in the large Magnificat of the 1610o 'Vespers': the free exchange between 'secular'

EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1993 517



and 'sacred' repertories in this period merits continued discussion. And in a well known letter to Alessandro Striggio of 9 December 1616 the composer paired his 'giusta preghiera' for Orpheus with his no less renowned (and still more widely imitated) 'giusto lamento' for Ariadne (in the opera of 1608) as paragons of his ideal music for the theatre.3

But by the mid-16ios the musical world was fast changing. In vocal chamber music, the solo madrigal was declining alongside its polyphonic counterpart as monodists sought more structured musical styles to reclaim the ground for music as music rather than as some spurious form of speech. In keeping with contemporary trends in poetry, the seemingly 'lighter' styles of the canzonetta and aria were more amenable to contemporary tastes. Scholars have tended to be dismissive of early strophic arias, especially the triple-time dance songs that make up a large part of the repertory. But in his pioneering collection of solo songs, Le nuove musiche (1602), Giulio Caccini was anxious to give some status to what he called the 'canzonetta "a uso di aria per poter usare in conserto di piti strumenti di corde'4--his word- ing merits careful consideration. Monteverdi, too, attempted to dignify his own collection of, as it were, 'canzonettas in air style that can be used in concert with several stringed instruments', the Scherzi musicali of 1607, not least by invoking the mystifying term 'canto alla francese', which, his brother said, had been newly introduced by him to Italy.'

Monteverdi well knew that aria styles articulated the relationship between the triumvirate of oratione, har- monia and rhythm that together made up melodia (the art of composition) in ways very different from the for- mula proclaimed as the credo of the seconda prattica in his polemic with the Bolognese theorist, Giovanni Maria Artusi, at the turn of the century (the oration as mistress, not servant, of the harmony).6 In a letter to Alessandro Striggio of 21 November 1615, Monteverdi discusses the recent commission arrived from Mantua for a ballo in music. Given the lack of precise instructions, the composer had written a ballo with six mutanze (Tirsi e Clori, later published in the seventh book of madrigals of 1619). But

if His Most Serene Highness should want either a change of air in this [ballo], or additions to the enclosed [movements] of a slow and grave nature, or fuller and without fugues (His Most Serene Highness taking no notice of the present words which can easily be changed, though at least these words help by the nature of their metre and by imitating the melody [canto]), or if he should want everything altered I beg you to act on my

behalf so that His Most Serene Highness might re-word the commission.. .7 The notion that the present words 'can easily be changed'-although their metre is appropriate and they imitate the melody-is striking in the context of Monte- verdi's earlier protestations over the seconda prattica. The relative unimportance of the individual words of the canzonetta and the dominance of metre and stereo- typed subjects perhaps inspired a new relationship between poetry and music-a more compatible and less competitive relationship of profound significance for future developments. The issues go beyond simple matters of genre (although they are undoubtedly Mon- teverdi's chief concern in this letter) to raise profound questions concerning the status of musical expression as the Baroque period came into its own.

If Monteverdi eventually changed (or at least devel- oped) his notion of the seconda prattica, it may or may not be necessary to invoke some new term to account for the aria-influenced styles of the 162os and 3os: some have variously coined the term 'terza prattica'-whether fel- icitously or not is open to debate.8 But whatever the case, clearly it is encumbent upon us to explore the impli- cations of these styles as vehicles for a new conception of representing the emotions through music (which is perhaps how one can broadly interpret the term stile rappresentativo in all its resonances for the early Baroque period). The issues are particularly clear in those solo songs that seek to merge madrigal/recitative and aria styles in various ways. One such example, Sigismondo d'India's 'Torna il sereno Zefiro' published in his Le musiche ... libro quinto (Venice, 1623) has already been discussed in the literature,9 and other examples can easily be found. One, however, is particularly useful for my present argument.

In 1633 the obscure Italian composer Giovanni Bat- tista Piazza published a curious setting of a corrupt version of Ottavio Rinuccini's canzonetta 'Non havea Febo ancora' (ex. 1) in his Libro secondo: Canzonette a voce sola (Venice: Bartholomeo Magni). Rinuccini's poem is a strophic canzonetta with ten stanzas: settings as a simple duple-time aria had been published by Antonio Brunelli (for solo voice) in 1614 and Johann Hieronymus Kaps- berger (for two voices) in 1619.10 Piazza, however, sets only the first strophe, altering the text accordingly. (In ex. I the Italian has been tacitly modernized.) The setting is in three sections. The scene is set in the style of a duple-time aria: 'Phoebus [= the sun] had not yet / brought light to the world, / when from her lodging / a young girl appeared.' There follows a brief passage in

518 EARLY MUSIC NOVEMBER 1993



Ex.1 Giovanni Battista Piazza, 'Non havea Febo ancora' (Libro secondo: Canzonette a voce sola, 1633)

If I I"p e " Non ha-yvea Fe-bo an - co - ra Re - ca - to al mon - doil di, Che del suo al - ber - go I -

4

- , adI I ,/ k I iJ- - ....,

fo - ra U-na dong-gel - lau - sci, u - na dong-gel - la, u - na dong-gel - la u sci. Di - cea,

I-- .

I id- , I ,,

I

8

.• , k I ,I I F

do-len-tee me - sta: 'Mi - se - ra, che fa - rb, Tan - to duol__ non sof - fri - r6,

16

non sof - fri - r6, <non sof - fri - rb,> tan - to duol non sof fri - r.'

,,. r l~~~ I

o J I J

- .. !!

.

'recitative': 'She said, grieving and sad-'. This leads to a concluding section in triple time: "'Wretched one, what shall I do? / I will not suffer such grief."' These last two lines correspond to (but are not the same as) the refrain in Rinuccini's original poem. The overall result is quite similar to (if much less effective than) d'India's 'Torna il sereno Zefiro'.

As with d'India's song, the use of a triple-time aria style at the end is somewhat problematic: the words are such that some kind of emotional recitative might plau- sibly be expected, at least according to the conventional canons of the 'new music'. Either the use of aria here is intended as somehow motivated by a lightweight view of the text (Rinuccini's poem is, of course, a canzonetta), or we have to come to terms with the notion that 'aria' has somehow taken over the expressive function of 'recitative' to mark an emotional climax, perhaps even of its having gained a new structural and affective eloquence in the context of an emerging Baroque (rather than dying Renaissance) aesthetic."

Monteverdi's own response to changing tastes and styles needs further exploration: his seventh book of madrigals of 1619 (published with the significant title,

'Concerto') merits closer study than it has hitherto received in the literature (where comment has often been limited to the volume's role in Monteverdi's new formulation of the duet). As for 'Non havea Febo ancora', however, the composer produced a much more resonant-and more influential-setting of Rinuccini's complete poem in his eighth book of madrigals, the Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi of 1638. Here the first two stanzas setting the scene are set as a trio for three shepherds, who remain 'on stage' (after all, the piece is said to be rappresentativo) to comment on the nymph's lament and to offer a peroration. The nymph's poignant lament (sung not 'al tempo della mano' as the opening, but 'al tempo dell'affetto'; not to the beat but to the time of the emotions) is in a rhapsodic triple time over a ground bass formed of a descending tetrachord, for the moment less an 'emblem of lament' (although that was to be one of its later significances) than one of what so often causes lament, love (ex.2)." Monteverdi uses the style to affirm his absolute control over the expression of the verse. He also thereby emphasizes the new power of aria as the chief force for representing powerful emotions in music.

Assuming that the Lamento della ninfa is in some way




Ex.2 Monteverdi, Lamento della ninfa (1638)

Nymph

A- mor, A- 3 Shepherds

di - ce - a,

5

mor, A - mor, A-mor, do -ve, do - v' la fe

il ciel Mi - ran - do il pie fer - mb,

Ex.3 Monteverdi, 'Sfogava con le stelle' (1603) 'O,

Canto"

auintt

x I1

E dicea fis - so in lo - ro: '0,

Alto ( d 1

E dicea fis so in lo ro: 'O,_... IO,

Tenore

E dicea fis - so in lo - ro: '0,

o60im - ma - gi - ni bel - le,

S rII I

o im - ma - gi-ni bel - le,

o im - ma - gi - ni bel - le,

o, o im - ma - gi-ni bel - le,




a serious piece (the possibility of reading it in other ways must be left for another occasion), clearly it is very different from what has been claimed the archetype of the early Baroque 'serious' lament, the Lamento d'Arianna.'3 Perhaps that is because we are now in the world of the pastoral, and not of the tragedy (again, questions of genre merit further exploration). But one also wonders whether the manifest power of aria is a product of new approaches to aria texts by contemporary poets. Rinuc- cini's 'Non havea Febo ancora', ostensibly a fairly straightforward canzonetta, is one of several examples of a more expressive-some might say dramatic- approach to such strophic poetry.'4 Indeed, the poet dis- plays more than an inch of Freudian slip in an earlier version of his last stanza of the poem, which in Monte- verdi's setting begins 'Si tra sdegnosi pianti / Spargea le voci al ciel' ('Thus amid scornful tears / she let forth her words to the sky'). The reading in one of the Rinuccini manuscripts (Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, Fondo Palatino 250, f.147v) has 'Si tra sdegnosi pianti / sfogava il suo dolor' ('Thus amid scornful tears / she poured forth her grief'),'5 and it seems that the echo of Rinuccini's own madrigal 'Sfogava con le stelle' was so obvious as to demand excision.

But just as Rinuccini assimilates his canzonetta to the serious madrigal, so does Monteverdi, whose well known setting of 'Sfogava con le stelle' appeared in his fourth book of madrigals of 1603. Here, the opening description-telling how a man 'sick with love poured forth his grief to the stars'-is set for the five voices in a recitational falsobordone style, breaking out into rich imitative polyphony at the speaker's exclamation 'O immagini belle / dell'idol mio ch'adoro' ('O beautiful images / of my idol whom I adore') (ex.3). So, too, in Monteverdi's 'Non havea Febo ancora' an opening nar- ration for the three shepherds breaks out into triple- time aria for the nymph's invocation to 'Amor'. The expressive effect seems much the same, for all the differences in style and medium (and perhaps still more, gen- der).'6 There are some merits in the notion that Monteverdi attributes to the triple-time aria affective and structural attributes formerly allocated to imitative counterpoint in the transformation of the seconda prattica ideals that accompanied his relentless search for 'the natural path to imitation', a path that took him away from the pseudo-natural speech of the Lamento d'Arianna to a much more profound sense of how emotions could and should be 'naturally' imitated in and through the raw power of the voice.

By the 1630s Monteverdi's notion of how best to

invoke a 'powerful spirit' through music had changed remarkably. But as many have noted, his acutely musical perception of his texts-for all the differences in style between his early and late works-remained constant, informed by an extraordinary understanding of emotional arousal through music. Whether we view Monte- verdi as the last great composer of the Renaissance or the first great composer of the Baroque (or both), we must bow to his unique ability to move us even today. That is what is surely best celebrated on this the 350th anniver- sary of his death.

Tim Carter is Reader in Music at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London. He has published widely on music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods and is currently preparing a book on solo song in Italy, 1580-1630.

'Musique des intermades de 'La pellegrina': les fetes de Florence, 1589, ed. D. P. Walker (Paris, 1963, R/1986), pp.98-10o6.

'From Federico Follino's Compendio delle sontuosefestefatte l'anno MDCVIII nella citta di Mantova, per le reali nozze del serenissimo prencipe d. Francesco Gonzaga con la serenissima infante Margherita di Savoia (Mantua, 1608), in A. Solerti, Gli albori del melodramma (Milan, 1904-5; R/Hildesheim, 1969), iii, p.219.

3The letters of Claudio Monteverdi, trans. D. Stevens (London, 1980), pp.115-18, discussing plans to set to music Scipione Agnelli's Le nozze di Tetide: 'Arianna led me to a just lament, and Orfeo to a righteous prayer, but this fable leads me I don't know to what end.'

4The description comes from the preface to Caccini's Le nuove musiche (Florence: I Marescotti, 1601 [=1602]), f.Br.

5For the Scherzi musicali and the 'canto alla francese', see most recently M. Ossi, 'Claudio Monteverdi's ordine novo, bello etgustevole: the canzonetta as dramatic module and formal archetype', Journal of the American Musicological Society, xlv (1992), pp.261-304.

'For the Artusi-Monteverdi controversy, see C. V. Palisca, 'The Artusi-Monteverdi controversy', The new Monteverdi companion, ed. D. Arnold and N. Fortune (London, 1985), pp.127-58; and T. Carter, 'Artusi, Monteverdi, and the poetics of modern music', Musical humanism and its legacy: essays in honor of Claude V. Palisca, ed. N. K. Baker and B. R. Hanning (Stuyvesant, NY, 1992), pp.171-94.

7My translation differs slightly from the one in The letters of Claudio Monteverdi, trans. Stevens, pp.107-8.

8The notion of a 'terza prattica' has been alive in the world of Mon- teverdi scholarship for a few years now: Ellen Rosand reminds me that Gary Tomlinson deserves the credit. I explored a few of the issues in my Music in late Renaissance and early Baroque Italy (London, 1992), pp.250-53: some seem to like the idea (e.g. Michael Talbot in his review of my book in Early music, xx (1993), pp.111-12), but Jeffrey Kurtzman has voiced reasonable objections (Music and letters, lxiii (1992), PP-438-40).

9In N. Fortune, 'Italian secular monody from 16oo-1635: an intro- ductory survey' Musical quarterly, xxxix (1953), PP.171-95.

'oFor the Brunelli, see P. Aldrich, The rhythm of seventeenth-century Italian monody (New York, 1966), p.166; for the Kapsberger, see J. Whenham, Duet and dialogue in the age ofMonteverdi (Ann Arbor, MI, 1982), ii, pp.332-3. There is another (anonymous) solo-voice setting in manuscript in Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Banco Rari 236 (olim Magliabechiano XIX.114). To the best of my knowledge, the Piazza setting has not hitherto appeared in print, but note the dis-




cussion in Ossi, 'Claudio Monteverdi's ordine novo, bello et gustevole' pp.291-301.

"I shall explore this issue further, with specific reference to the duet 'O sia tranquillo il mare, o pien d'orgoglio' in Monteverdi's Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi (1638), in my contribution to 'Recitar cantando': essays on seventeenth-century Italian opera and song, ed. I. Fenlon and T. Carter (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

"Compare E. Rosand, 'The descending tetrachord: an emblem of lament' Musical quarterly, Iv (1979), PP.346-59. For another use of the descending tetrachord ground bass, see the first section of 'Altri canti d'Amor, tenero arciero' at the beginning of the Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi (1638): its significance ('love' rather than 'lament'?) merits closer examination. On the triple-time aria as the 'language of love', see my "'In Love's harmonious consort"? Penelope and the interpretation of II ritorno d'Ulisse in patria' Cambridge opera journal, v (1993), pp.1-16.

3See the discussion in G. Tomlinson, 'Madrigal, monody, and Mon- teverdi's "via naturale alla immitatione"' Journal of the American Musicological Society, xxxiv (1981), pp.60-1o8.

'4Gabriello Chiabrera's dialogue II Geri of 1624-5 offers some useful suggestions: see most recently R. R. Holzer, "'Sono d'altro garbo . .. le canzonette che si cantano oggi": Pietro della Valle on music and mod- ernity in the seventeenth century' Studi musicali, xxi (1992),

pp.253-3o6. 5'The reading is also found in the settings by Brunelli and Kaps-

berger, see Ossi, 'Claudio Monteverdi's ordine novo, bello et gustevole' p.292.

'6It will be clear that I disagree somewhat with Gary Tomlinson's reading of'Sfogava con le stelle' and the Lamento della ninfa as two settings contrasted by different notions of resemblance and represen- tation (in his Music in Renaissance magic: toward a historiography of others (Chicago, 1993), pp.229-46), although, as I shall discuss else- where, the ideas of Michel Foucault adopted by Tomlinson do indeed have considerable potential for our understanding of this period.

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monteverdi i || possente spirto: on taming the power of music

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