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_ Jacopo Peri, Preface to The Music for Euridice (1601) SRMH, ,____-, 659-662 .. .._. -. -

Jacopo Peri

,.

I.

A singer, organist, and published composer by age 22, Jacopo Peri (1561-1633) played a central role in the formation of Baroque opera. As a singer-composer, he often wrote his own solos for collaborative theatrical projects and at times accompanied himself on the chitarrone. For example, he provided%usic for sections of the 1589 intermedi that were performed in Fjorence with the play La pellegrina and composed his own recitatives for the role of Clori in Marco da Gagliano opera La Flora, staged in Florence in 1628. The most complete s surviving theatrical score by Peri, his setting of Ottavio Rinuccini libretto, Euris dice, was written for performance in Florence in 1600 and published4within four months, along with a rival setting by Ciulio Caccini. In the preface to his score, Peri explains how he had arrived at a new style of solo theatrical singing in 1597-98 for a staging of the Greek fable of Daphne and Apollo. Although as members of the Florentine Camerata he and Caccini had the same general aim of expressing poetic texts clearly and emotionally, Peri cites his models of verse recitation and describes more precisely how music becomes the elocution of the text. The musical representation of the sound of speech would continue to be a critical issue in vocal music throughout the Baroque era, for example, in the differences over operatic music between Jean Laurent Le Cerf de la Wville and Francois Raguenet at the beginning of the next century.

Preface to The Music fir Euridice

(1601)
Before I offer you (kind readers) this my music, I have judged it appropriate to make known to you what induced me to discover this new manner of song, since reason should be the beginning and fount of all human operations, and he who cannot offer reasons easily gives one to believe that he has acted by chance. Although Signor Emilio Cavaliere, before any other, so far as I know, enabled us with marvelous invention to hear our music on the stage, nonetheless it pleased the Signori Jacopo Corsi and Ott&o Rinuccini (as early as 1594) that I, employing it in another guise, should set to music the tale of Daphne, written by Signor Ottavio, to make a simple trial of what the song of our age could do. Whence, seeing that it was a question of dramatic poetry and that, therefore, one should imitate in song a person speaking (and without a doubt, no one ever spoke singing), I judged that the ancient Greeks and
TEXT:IA musichesopra L Eurfdice (Florence, 1600 [i.e., 16011;fats. New York: Broude Brothers, 1973 and Bologna: Forni Editore, 1973), pp. iii-iv; translation by Tim Cnrter. The Italian test of this and the front matter to other opera scores,translated into English, also appearsin T, Carter and 2. Szweykowski,ComposingOpera: From Dafne to Ulisse Errante (Cracow: Musica Iagellonica, 1994). 659

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JACOPO

PER1

Preface to The Music for E&dice

661

Romans (who, according to the opinion of many, sang their tragedies throughout on the stage) used a harmony which, going beyond that of ordinary speech, fell so short of the melody of song that it assumed an intermediate form. And this is the reason why we see in their poetry that the iamb had a place which is not elevated like the hexameter,l but yet is said to proceed beyond the confines of everyday speech. And therefore, rejecting every other type of song heard up to now, I set myself to discovering the imitation that is due to these poems. And I considered that that type of voice assigned to singing by the ancients which they called diastematic (as it were, sustained and suspended) could at times speed up and take an intermediate path between the suspended and slow movements of song and the fluent, rapid ones of speech, and thus suit my intention (just as they, too, accommodated it in reading their poetry and heroic verse,) approaching the other [species] of speech, which they called continuous,and which our modems (although perhaps for another end) have also done in their music. I realized, similarly, that in our speech some words are intoned in such a manner that harmony can be founded upon them, and that while speaking one passes through many other [words] which are not intoned, until one returns to another that can move to a new consonance. And taking note of these manners and those accents that serve us in grief, joy, and in similar states, I made the bass move in time to these, now faster, now slower, according to the emotions; and I held it firm through the dissonances and consonances until the voice of the speaker, passing though various notes, arrived at that which, being intoned in ordinary speech, opens the way to a new harmony. And [I did] this not only so that the flow of the speech would not offend the ear (as if stumbling in encountering the repeated notes of the more frequent consonances), or so that it might not seem in a way to dance to the movement of the bass-particularly in sad or serious subjects, since happier subjects require by their nature more frequent movements-but also because the use of dissonances would either diminish or mask the advantage thereby gained because of the necessity of intoning every note,3 which the ancient musics had perhaps less need of doing. And so (even though I would not be so bold as to claim that this was the type of song used in Greek and Roman plays) I have thus believed it to be the only type that our music can
1. Dactylic hexameterswere the poetic meter of ancient epic poetry; iambs were common in ancient drama, especiallyin dialogue. 2. Renaissance musical theorists inherited from Greek and Latin writers the distinction between the continuous speciesof voice-the speaking or reading voice-alid the diastematicor intervallic one, which was suitablefor musicalmelody,A&tides Quintilianus furthermore recognized an intermediate species-that of poetic recitation, to which Peri intermediate manner is analos gous. See Claude V. Pal&a, Humanism in RendssanceThought (New Haven: Yale University Press,1985), pp. 408-33, esp. pp. 428-30 (see alsop. 49 above). 3. Peri is here describingthe irregularity of his harmonic rhythm, compared to the regular coo& nation of chord change and meter in the systematiccontrapuntal style. When many vocal tones, which had to be sung, were treated in the new style as passing consonances dissonances, and harmonic change servedinstead to emphasizethe irregular stressesof @ian verse. The problem of harmonization did not apply to Greek and Roman music.

give us to suit our speech. Whence, having had my opinion heard by these gentlemen, I demonstrated to them this new manner of singing, and it gave the greatest pleasure, not only to Signor Jacopo: who had already composed some most beautiful airs for this tale, but also to Signor Piero Strozzi, to Signor Francesco Cini, and to other most learned gentlemen (for music flourishes today among the nobility) and also to that celebrated lady whom one may call the Euterpe of our age, Signora Vettoria Archilei,5 who has always made my music worthy of her song, adorning it not only with those gmppP and with those long roulades both simple and double which, by the liveliness of her wit, are encountered at every moment-more to obey the practice of ol;r times than because she judges that in them consist the beauty and force of our singing-but also those sorts of delights and graces which cannot be written, and if written cannot be learned from the notation. Messer Giovan Battista Jacomelli heard and commended it, who, most excellent in all the parts of music, has as it were changed his surname to Violino, on which [instument] he is marvelous. And for three successive years, when it was performed in Carnival, it was heard with greatest delight and received with universal applause by whomever found himself there. But the present E&dice had better fortune, not because those lords and other worthy men that I have mentioned heard it, and also Signor Count Alfonso Fontanella and Signor Orazio Vecchi, most noble witnessesto my thought, but because it was performed before so great a queen9 and so many famous princes of Italy and France, and was sung by most excellent musicians of our time. Among whom, Signor Francesco Rasi, a nobleman from Arezzo, played Aminta; Signor Antonio Brandi, Arcetro; and Signor Melchior Palantrotti, Pluto. And from behind the stage performed gentlemen distinguished for the nobility of their blood and for the excellence of their music: Signor Jacopo Corsi, whom I have mentioned so often, played the harpsichord, and Signor Don Grazia Montalvo a chitarrone, Messer Giovanbattista dal Violine a large b-u, and Messer Giovanni Lapi a large lute. And although until then I had done it in the precise way in which it now appears, nonetheless Giulio Caccini (called Romano), whose great merit is known to the world, wrote the arias of Euridice and some of those for the shepherd and nymph of the chorus, and the choruses Al canto, al ballo, Sospirate, and Poi the gli etemi imperi; and this [was done] because they were to be sung by persons dependent upon him, the which arias can be seen in his [score], which was
4. JacopoCorsi (1561-1602), Florentine patron of music from the 1580s. He composed some preliminaw music for the opera Dafne, which was performed in 1598 with music by Peri. 5. SeeNo. 4 ibove, p. 41, note 18, ani No. 19, page 98, note 6. 6. Trills; see Caccini, No. 20 above. 7. Active in Rome from 1574 to 1583 and a musician of Ferdinand0 I deMedici, Jacomellisang tenor in the Sistine Chapel choir (before being expelled in 1585), and played violin, viola, keyboard,and harp. He went to Florence in 1587, where he died in 1608. 8. The opera Dajw. 9. Maria deMedici, Queen of France and Navarre. 10.That is, Giacomelli,mentioned above.

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CLAUDIO

MONTEVERDI

Letter to Alessandro Striggio

663

composed and printed, however, after mine was performed before Her Most Christian Majesty.r So receive it kindly, courteous Readers, and although I may not have arrived by this means where it seemed I could reach (since concern about novelty has acted as a brake on my course), welcome it nevertheless, and perhaps it will happen that on another occasion I may show you something more perfect than this. Meanwhile, it will seem to me that I have done enough, having opened * up the path to the skills of others to progress in my footsteps to glory, where it was not given me to be able to arrive. And I hope that the use of the dissonances, played and sung without fear, with discretion, and accurately (having pleased so many and such worthy men) will not cause you annoyance, especially in the more sad and serious airs of Orfeo, Arcetro, and Dafne, who was played with much grace by Jacopo Giusti, a little boy from Lucca. And live happily. Above the bass part, the sharp next to a 6 indicates a major sixth, and the minor [sixth] is without the sharp, which when it is alone is a sign of the major third or tenth, and the flat the minor third or tenth. And do not ever use it except for that note alone where it is indicated, even though there may be several [notes] on one and the same pitch.
11. Maria deMedici.

Letter to Alessandro Striggio

(1616)
My Most Illustrious Lord and most esteemed patron, I was very happy to receive from Signor Carlo de Ton-i the letter from Your Most Illustrious Lordship and the librettino containing the favola murittimu of the Marriage of Tethys.l Your Most Illustrious Lordship writes that you send it to me so that I should look at it carefully and later tell you what I think of it, since it is to be set to music for the forthcoming wedding of His MO&Serene Highness.2 I, my Most Illustrious Lord, who desire nothing other than to be worthy to serve His Most Serene Highness in something, will say nothing at first other than that I offer myself readily to all that which His Most Serene Highness shall ever deign to command me, and without objection, will always honor and revere all that His Most Serene Highness should command. Thus, if His Most Serene Highness has approved this [story], this would be, then, both very fine and much to my taste. But since you add that I should speak, I am ready to obey Your Most Illustrious Lordship orders with all respect and s promptness, understanding that what I say is trivial, coming from a person who is worth little in toto and a person who always honors every virtuoso, in particular the present gentleman poet, whose name I do not know, and so much more so since this profession of poetry is not mine. I shall speak, therefore, with all respect, in obedience to you, since you so command. I shall speak and say first that, in general, music wants to be mistress of the air and not only of the water: I mean, in my language, that the ensembles3 described in this story are all low and near the earth-a very great defect in making beautiful harmonies, since the harmonies will be given to the largest wind instruments in the stage area, [making the harmonies] difficult to be heard by everyone and coordinated [with the instruments] offstage (and I leave this matter to the judgment of your most refined and intelligent taste), so that with this defect, instead of one chitarrone you will want three of them, in place of one harp three will be needed, and so on; and instead of a delicate singer s voice you will want a forced one. Besides this, the correct imitation of speech would need, in my judgment, to be dependent on wind instruments rather than on delicate strings, since the harmonies of the tritons and other marine gods, I would think, should be with trombones and cornetti and not with cetras or harpsichords and harps, because, since this production is to be on water, it has to be outside the city4 Plato teaches that you should have kitharas in the town
TEXT:Claudia Monteverdi, Lettere, ed. &a Lax (Florence, 1994), pp. 4851; translationby Margaret Murata. 1. In Greek mythology,Tethys is a Titanness,daughter of Uranus and Gaia and wife of Oceanus; thus the tale is maritime. 2. Ferdinand0 Gonzaga,Duke of Mantoa. 3. Concerti.

Notice

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Claudio Monteverdi

Although he had become maestro di cappella at St. Mark in Venice in 1613, s Claudio Monteverdi did not dissolve his ties with his former ducal patrons, the Gonzagas of Mantua, especially since they offered him continued opportunities to compose theatrical music. In late 1616 plans were begun for a maritime spectacle with music to celebrate the wedding of Ferdinand0 Gonzaga, the new duke, and Caterina de Medici, sister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Monteverdi received the proposal from Alessandro Striggio (who had written the libretto for Monteverdi 1607 opera Orfeo) with due obsequiousness, but he protested its s lack of opportunities to express strong human feelings. The proposed Marriage of Tethys, to a libretto by Scipione Agnelli, appears to have been like a set of oldfashioned intermedio tableaux, and it was eventually abandoned even though Monteverdi had nearly completed the score.