An Outline of The History of Western Music Grout ... - The Reel Score

i) he wanted to find a kind of speech-song that was halfway between them -
similar to the style scholars thought ancient Greeks used for reciting epic
poems
a- Peri recalled the distinction made in ancient Greek theory between the
'continuous' change in pitch in speech and the intervallic or 'diastematic'
motion in song
b- a combination of speechlike freedom and sustained harmonized
accented syllables realized Peri's idea of a medium halfway between
speech & song
c- Euridice - the Prologue
i- Peri devised an idiom that met the demands of dramatic poetry
a: each line of verse is sung to a melodic scheme that consists of a
repeated pitch and a cadential pattern ending in tow sustained
notes
b: the chords specified by the basso continuo and its figures have no
rhythmic profile or formal plan and are there only to support the
voice's recitation - which is free to imitate the inflections & rhythms
of speech
ii- this was the new recitative
ii) realized his idea of a medium halfway between speech & song
iii) NB: Euridice was produced twice - one by Peri & one by Caccini
(2) Monody made musical theater possible because it could convey in music
both dialogue and narrative clearly, quickly, and with the flexiblity needed for
truly dramatic expression
(3) Claudio Monteverdi
i) L'Orfeo (1607) was patterned both in subject matter and mix of styles on
Euridice productions - its proprotions are much expanded compared to
Euridice
ii) employed a large and varied orchestra - with 26 brief orchestal numbers -
Peri's used few instruments having been performed in an apartment of the
Pitti Palace
3. Rome
a) Opera did not take root in Rome until the 1620's
(1) when Maffeo Barberini was elected Pope Urban VII (1623) his nephews were
put into advantageous postitions
(2) the nephews became ardent sponsors of opera
b) The most prolific librettist of sacred, serious, and comic operas was Giulio
Rospigliosi - elected pope Clement IX in 1667
c) it was in Rome that comic opera began its independent career
d) music of Roman operas - the solo singing fell more and more into two clearly
defined types
(1) recitative - more speech like than Peri's or Monteverdi's
(2) aria - melodious and mainly strophic
e) L. Rossi (1567-1653)
(1) last Roman opera composer of the early Baroque
(2) in his Orfeo of 1647 the antique simplicity of the myth is almost buried under a
mass of incidents and characters, spectacular scenic effects, and comic
episodes