Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

. I
SONG 557
{Escl. con misura pi'ii larga^)
risE
^E^AJ^^S.
lo - TO,
(TrUlo.)
au - re ch'io me-ne mo
gE^dEtt^^E^ii
2nd. (igsci. T-tti/.) KTHZto iwto m^zsa Z)af£uto.)
Ex, 3.
Larmnto.
UONTEVESOE.
ieg^-^Efe^^^77f3|^EigEg;
la - Bcia te - mi mo ri - re I La - scia - temḟ^r
B
"n-ff-
P S^3 3^^^^^
. mi mo - ri - re I E clie to • le - te vol
Jaoopo Peri succeeded Caccini with a work
entitled Le ' varie musiche del Sig. J. Peri a
una, due, tre voci per cantare nel Clavicembalo
o Chitarrone' (Florence, 1609). They are
simpler than those by Caccini, and less declamatory.
^ Caccini had numerous followers
in the path he had opened, and thus the
' expressive Monodia,' i.e. the attempt to render
certain thoughts and feelings in music, and to
adapt music to the meaning of the words, was
virtually established. But these early pioneers
of solo-song were amateurs, and it remained for
trained musicians to carry on their work
systematically. With Monteverde (1562-1654)
a turning-point in music was reached. To him
we owe that revolution in harmony which
showed the use of discords as an effective means
of representing the element of expression ; and
the development of the recitative which led to
the beginning of the Opera—the most important
moment in the whole history of music. We
also owe to him a debt in the history of Song
for having established the so-called ternary
form which was soon to become stereotyped
for the aria and song. This consisted of an
air in three parts ; the last part being a mere
repetition of the first, while the middle part
contained a passage of contrast. This form
was already familiar in the folk-songs of the
Middle Ages, but its first appearance in artmusic
would seem to be in Monteverde's
'Lamento' from 'Ariadne' (1610) ^ (Ex. 3).
Although in this article the aria proper should
be excluded, having already been treated (see
Aria), it is necessary to allude to it here, as
the secular monodic song henceforth chiefly
showed itself in the aria-fonu and became, in
short, identicalwith it. Monteverde's successors,
Cesti and Cavalli, both showed aptitude for
pleasant melodious solo -music of this form,
although Cavalli sometimes wrote arias with
only two contrasting portions.
1 See 'Bellisalma Regina' In Farisotti's 'Piccolo album.'
^ This vas afterwards arranged as a madrigal in five parts. See
Pany, Mtuic of the Beaenteenth Century (Ojiford History of Mtuio),
p. 47. Parry further clearly shows how this simple form later
dominated one branch of music completely, and indeed 'became the
bane of one period of Italian art.'
gran mar - - ti-rel La • scia - te - mi mo-ri -re
other composers of the transition period which
witnessed the growth of the opera and cantata
were Radesca da Foggia, who published five
books of Monodie ' in 1616 ' ; A. Brunelli, who
published in the same year and in 1618 two
books of ' Scherzi, Arie, Canzonette, and Madrigali
3 ' ; G. F. Capello, whose most remarkable
work was a set of Madrigali a voce ' sola '
;
G. Fornacoi, celebrated for his Amorosi ' Respiri
Musicali,' which appeared in 1617 ; Sigismondo
d' India, Pietro della Valle, Luigi Rossi,'' and
finally Salvator Rosa.^ A great quantity of
these vocal compositions are treated in the
strophic form, and the words of all are lovepoems
of a stilted, artificial character."
If Corteccia's madrigal be compared with
the following example from Capello, it will be
seen how gi-eat an advance had been' made in
solo-singing in less than a century. And a
striking resemblance may be observed between
Capello and his successor Stradella.
3 Brunelll's collection included seveial pieces by other composers
of the Florentine group.
* For the numeroua existing collections of Rossi's *aionodie see
'
RoBsr.
6 Salvator Koaa certainly was Cariaahni's contemporary, but the
example Burney gives shows that he wrote much like the aforementioned
compoaera a Jmbros, iv, 330.