Divining the Oracle: Monteverdi's Seconda

Prattica
By Massimo Michele Ossi

University of Chicago Press

Copyright © 2003 Massimo Michele Ossi

All right reserved.
ISBN: 0226638839

ONE - The Public Debate, I: Prima and Seconda Prattica

​È del poeta il fin la meraviglia​

The year 1633 does not readily come to mind as an important date in the debate over the prima and
seconda prattica. By then the principal texts around which the controversy had developed were over a
quarter-century old, and much of the contested ground had long been settled, in practice if not in theory.
And yet 1633 does mark a kind of milestone, albeit not a public one: it was only during 1633​34 that
Monteverdi, revisiting the polemic in an exchange of letters with the theorist Giovanni Battista Doni,
clarified aspects of the debate that had been left unsettled in his earlier writings and traced their continued
significance over the ensuing twenty years.

Doni approached the composer in the early 1630s, having heard through the Paduan Bishop Marc​Antonio
Cornaro that Monteverdi was working on a book about music theory. The exchange seems to consist of
only five letters: three from Doni, the first conveyed to Monteverdi by the bishop sometime in October
1633, the others sent directly to the composer in December 1633 and January 1634 from Rome, where
Doni was secretary to the College of Cardinals; and two from Monteverdi, the first in October 1633, the
second in February 1634. Apparently in response to the theorist​s inquiries, the composer recounted the
thirty-year-old dispute with Giovanni Maria Artusi and reported that he was still planning a treatise on the
seconda prattica; this was the same work that, forced by the heat of controversy, he had promised in the
preface to the fifth book of madrigals of 1605. The project was never completed, and the preface, together
with Giulio Cesare Monteverdi​s ​Dichiaratione​ that was appended in 1607 to the first volume of Scherzi
musicali, remained the composer​s only public reply to the criticisms leveled against his works.

On the face of it, the correspondence with Doni seems to suggest only that Monteverdi had a long
memory for grudges, and that after nearly thirty years he was still embarrassed by not having lived up to
his public promise; but in fact it is vital to understanding the development of Monteverdi​s thinking about
the theoretical foundations of the seconda prattica. The letters show that it was only after the controversy
with Artusi that the composer defined many of the problems central to the new aesthetic, and that at the
time of Artusi​s first attacks, and even as late as the writing of the ​Dichiaratione​ around 1606, he was not
yet fully aware of the theoretical implications of his ideas. Monteverdi continued to explore new
compositional techniques in the years following the dispute with Artusi, and this exploration was coupled
with a continued investigation of fundamental theoretical principles. As a result, the book he was
considering in the 1630s was far more ambitious than the one he had proposed in 1605.

Perhaps most importantly, the letters of 1633​34 provide both a backward link to the writings of the turn of
the century and a forward one to Monteverdi​s final theoretical statement, published in 1638 as the preface
to the Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi. In writing to Doni, Monteverdi connects his continued struggle
with the problems of the seconda prattica to his study of the principles governing immitatione. A proper
understanding of immitatione, indeed, was both the reason for his delay in publishing the treatise and the
principal contribution he felt able to make with it. In establishing a connection between the development
of the expressive resources needed for the ​Lamento d​Arianna​ and those needed for the Combattimento di
Tancredi et Clorinda, the Doni correspondence allows us to see the continuity and growth of Monteverdi​s
theoretical ideas, which viewed through the more relaxed lens of private correspondence emerge as
remarkably coherent, unified by consistent interests and method.

Monteverdi​s first letter to Doni begins with a brief summary of the events that led up to the preface of
1605. He then details a plan for the book in progress:

You should know therefore, that I am indeed at work​but under compulsion, however,
inasmuch as the event which years ago spurred me to begin was of such a kind that it caused
me unawares to promise the world something that (once I had become aware of it) my feeble
forces could not manage. .. . The title of the book will be as follows: Melody, or the Second
Musical Practice. I mean the second as regards numerical order, in modern style; first in
order, in the old style. I am dividing the book into three parts corresponding to the three
aspects of Melody. In the first I discuss word setting, in the second, harmony, and in the third,
the rhythmic part. I keep telling myself that it will not be unacceptable to the world, for I
found out in practice that when I was about to compose the ​Lamento d​Arianna​​finding no
book that could show me the natural way of imitation, not even one that would explain what
an imitator ought to be (other than Plato, in one of his shafts of wisdom, but so hidden that I
could hardly discern from afar with my feeble sight what little he showed me)​I found out . . .
what hard work I had to do in order to achieve the little I did do in the way of imitation.

Four principal issues arise from this excerpt. First, Monteverdi acknowledges that he had indeed been
forced by the events of 1600​5 to promise something he could not deliver. In the 1605 preface he had
clearly exaggerated in suggesting that the treatise was only in need of rewriting before it could be
published. Second, between 1605 and 1633 he gave the book a new title, Melodia overo seconda pratica
musicale. Third, the contents of the book were expanded significantly; and, finally, Monteverdi connects
the development of the seconda prattica with the solution of new compositional problems raised by his
pursuit of the ​via naturale all​immitatione,​ of which the locus classicus was the ​Lamento d​Arianna.​ Each
of these points sheds light on the evolution of Monteverdi​s aesthetics after 1600.

The new title and organization of the treatise are especially telling. According to the preface to the fifth
book of madrigals, Monteverdi​s original title had been ​Seconda pratica overo Perfettione della moderna
musica.​ This not only betrayed the reactive nature of Monteverdi​s statement​it was a paraphrase of Artusi​s
L​Artusi, overo Delle imperfettioni della moderna musica​but it also announced a modest theoretical
agenda. As Giulio Cesare explained in the ​Dichiaratione,​

he [Claudio] has called it ​prattica​ and not ​Teorica​ because he intends to focus on the ways of
using consonances and dissonances in actual composition [nell​atto prattico], and he has not
called it Institutioni melodiche, broader implication of ​mode​ as encompassing both ​scale​ and
​affect​ as determined by tessitura and pitch frequency in direct relation to the text being used.
See the translation by Tom Griffith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), as well
as that by G. M. A. Grube, revised by C. D. C. Reeve, reprinted in Plato, Complete Works,
ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997).

Giulio Cesare explicitly intended to distance his brother​s proposed book from the kind of musica Teorica
with which Zarlino​s Istitutioni harmoniche was largely concerned, presenting Claudio​s treatise instead as
a new, second, musica practica that would replace that of Zarlino​s third book​which represented, as
Claudio put it, ​the first [practice] in order, in the old style.​ The new treatise would be concerned only with
the use of consonances and dissonances​with what Zarlino had termed ​armonia.​ In establishing the
boundaries of Claudio​s planned treatise, Giulio Cesare even parodied Zarlino​s title, insisting that
Monteverdi had no intention of writing anything that might aspire to the title of Istitutioni melodiche.

The title Monteverdi announced to Doni in 1633, however, transcends the boundaries Giulio Cesare had
set in 1607. ​Melodia overo seconda pratica musicale​ no longer equates the seconda prattica with a new
​armonia​ but expands its purview to encompass all aspects of composition. By the 1630s, Monteverdi
envisioned a treatise that dealt in separate sections with text, harmony, and rhythm. This new Istitutioni
melodiche was an enterprise that need no longer be left to theorists such as Bottrigari and Zarlino, as his
brother had prudently done in the ​Dichiaratione.​

Monteverdi​s account makes it clear that, at the time of the preface to the fifth book, his conception of the
seconda prattica had been limited. He had simply sought to justify his new treatment of consonances and
dissonances and had not yet begun to concern himself with the more profound problem of ​immitatione.​ In
the ​Lettera​ of 1605 he made no references to classical philosophers, no mention of any hierarchy
involving text, rhythm, and harmony, and offered only a veiled promise of a defense on grounds that
would appeal to ​reason and the senses.​

Furthermore, although in the preface Monteverdi takes credit for coining the term seconda prattica, the
essay betrays his still limited awareness of its theoretical implications, allowing vaguely that, once the
seconda prattica was made public, ​men of intellect might . . . consider other second thoughts concerning
harmony.​ It was perhaps in response to Claudio​s own uncertainty that in the ​Dichiaratione​ Giulio Cesare
had insisted on the limited scope of his brother​s ambitions as a theorist.

The Artusi Texts

The exchange between Giovanni Maria Artusi and Monteverdi took place over a period of about ten
years, beginning with L​Artusi, overo Delle imperfettioni della moderna musica, which Artusi had
promised Cardinal Pompeo Arrigoni during the visit of Clement VIII to Ferrara in November 1598 (the
main events of the ​Ragionamento primo​ take place on 16 November 1598). The treatise must have been
drafted early enough in 1599 to be circulated in manuscript before its publication at the end of 1600.
Already in 1599 Artusi had received the first of two letters written by an anonymous academician,
​L​Accademico Ottuso,​ in response to the Imperfettioni. Artusi followed his first treatise with the Seconda
parte dell​Artusi, overo Delle imperfettioni della moderna musica, finished in 1602 (during ​the most
regrettable part of the summer​ [i tempi più dell​estate rincrescevoli], according to the dedication) and
published in March of 1603. The Seconda parte, prompted in part by the exchange with L​Ottuso, contains
a brief excerpt from the academician​s first letter, as well as the second letter in its entirety and Artusi​s
replies to both. The tone of the second book is considerably more acerbic than that of the first, suggesting
that perhaps between 1600 and 1602 Artusi had come under fire from others besides Ottuso in what must
have been a lively debate.

Monteverdi did not reply until after Artusi​s second book, and then he did so only sketchily, in the preface
to the fifth book of madrigals (1605). In dedicating the fifth book of madrigals to the Duke of Mantua,
Vincenzo Gonzaga, Monteverdi pointedly placed the volume under the ​protection of such a great Prince​
[protettione di così gran Prencipe], in which ​vivranno eterna vita ad onta di quelle lingue, che cercano dar
morte all​opere altrui​ [they will live forever in spite of those tongues that seek to bring death to the works
of others].

That he was slow to defend himself is surprising, given how seriously both he and his brother, once they
had made a public stand, took every offense they perceived in Artusi​s various criticisms. An explanation
may rest in part with the tone of Artusi​s original ​Ragionamenti​ in the first book, neither of which is
particularly injurious to the composer, and with the subsequent escalation of the scholar​s rhetoric in the
Seconda parte. Monteverdi could have taken the opportunity to respond to the criticisms issued in Artusi​s
first book in the preface to his fourth book, which contains madrigals closely associated with Ferrara, at
least some dating from before the 1598 performance at Antonio Goretti​s house, and which is dedicated to
the Ferrarese Accademia degli Intrepidi; but he did not do so. It is possible that, at that point, he had not
yet felt the sting of Artusi​s vitriol and that he did not know what else the theorist had in store; either
Artusi had not circulated the Seconda parte in manuscript (perhaps mindful of the prepublication
reception accorded to his first volume), or Monteverdi had already committed the fourth book to press by
the summer of 1602 and was not yet ready to issue a reply. In the event, the two publications are almost
exactly contemporary, being dated within a few days of each other in March 1603.

Most surprising, perhaps, Monteverdi did not immediately publish all the works under discussion in the
first L​Artusi: ​Anima mia perdona​ is included in the fourth book, but ​Cruda Amarilli​ and ​O Mirtillo​ had to
wait until 1605 to be published. As we shall see in chapter 2, he had sound musical reasons for holding
them in reserve and may well have been planning the fifth book at the same time that the fourth was in
preparation. ​Cruda Amarilli​ and ​O Mirtillo​ open the fifth book, in what appears to be a defiant aesthetic
gesture, and they are also integral to the overall structure of the volume, which, I shall argue, follows a
boldly innovative narrative plan.

Continues...

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