As Vesta was from Latmos hill descending, she spied a maiden Queen the same ascending, Attended on by all the shepherds' swain, to whom Diana's darlings came running down amain, First two by two, then three by three together, Leaving their goddess all alone hasted thither; And mingling with the shepherds of her train, with mirthful tunes her presence entertain. Then sang the shepherds and nymphs of Diana, Long live fair Oriana!
Come Sirrah, Jack Ho (1608)
Since Robin Hood (1608)
Thomas Weelkes (baptized October 25, 1576 – buried December 1, 1623) was an English composer and organist. He became organist of Winchester College in 1598, moving to
Chichester Cathedral. His works are chiefly vocal, and include madrigals, anthems and services.
Thomas Weelkes was baptized in the little village church of Elsted in Sussex on 25 October 1576. It has been suggested that his father was John Weeke, rector of Elsted. In 1597 his first volume of madrigals was published, the preface noting that he was a very young man when they were written; this helps to fix the date of his birth to somewhere in the middle of the 1570s. Early in his life he was in service at the house of the courtier Edward Darcye. At the end of 1598, at the probable age of 22, Weelkes was appointed organist at Winchester College, where he remained for two or three years, receiving the salary of 13s 4d per quarter. His remuneration included board and lodging.
During his Winchester period, Weelkes composed a further two volumes of madrigals (1598, 1600). He obtained his B. Mus. Degree from New College, Oxford in 1602, and moved to Chichester to take up the position of organist and informator choristarum (instructor of the choristers) at the Cathedral at some time between October 1601 and October 1602. He was also given a lay clerkship at the Cathedral, being paid £15 2s 4d annually alongside his board, lodging and other amenities. The following year he married Elizabeth Sandham, from a wealthy local family. They had three children and it was rumoured that Elizabeth was already pregnant at the time of the marriage.
Weelkes's fourth and final volume of madrigals, published in 1608, carries a title page where he refers to himself as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal; however, records at the Chapel Royal itself do not mention him, so at most he could only have been a Gentleman Extraordinary -- one of those who were asked to stand in until a permanent replacement was found.
Weelkes was later to find himself in trouble with the Chichester Cathedral authorities for his heavy drinking and immoderate behaviour. In 1609 he was charged with unauthorised absence, but no mention of drunken behaviour is made until 1613, and J Shepherd, a Weelkes scholar, has suggested caution in assuming that his decline began before this date. In 1616 he was reported to the Bishop for being "noted and famed for a comon drunckard (sic) and notorious swearer & blasphemer." The Dean and Chapter dismissed him for being drunk at the organ and using bad language during divine service. He was however reinstated and remained in the post until his death, although his behaviour did not improve; in 1619 Weelkes was again reported to the Bishop:
Dyvers tymes & very often come so disguised eyther from the Taverne or Ale house into the quire as is muche to be lamented, for in these humoures he will bothe curse & sweare most dreadfully, & so profane the service of God … and though he hath bene often tymes admonished … to refrayne theis humors and reforme hym selfe, yett he daylye continuse the same, & is rather worse than better therein.
In 1622 Elizabeth Weelkes died. Thomas Weelkes was, by this time, reinstated at Chichester Cathedral, but appeared to be spending a great deal of time in London. He died in London in 1623, in the house of a friend, and was buried on 1 December, 1623 at St Bride's Fleet Street. Weelkes' will, made the day before he died at the house of his friend Henry Drinkwater of St Bride's parish, left his estate to be shared between his three children, with a large 50s legacy left to Drinkwater for his meat, drink and lodging.
In Chichester Cathedral there is a memorial stone with the following inscription:
REMEMBER IN THE LORD THOMAS WEELKES THE GREAT ELIZABETHAN COMPOSER, ORGANIST OF WINCHESTER COLLEGE 1598 AND OF THIS CATHEDRAL CHURCH FROM 1602 UNTIL HIS DEATH He died on 30 November 1623 And was buried at St. Bride's Church. Fleet Street. London
Thomas Weelkes is best known for his vocal music, especially his madrigals and church music. Weelkes wrote more Anglican services than any other major composer of the time, mostly for evensong. Many of his anthems are verse anthems, which would have suited the small forces he was writing for at Chichester Cathedral.
Weelkes was friends with the madrigalist Thomas Morley who died in 1602, when Weelkes was in his mid-twenties. (Weelkes commemorated his death in a madrigal-form anthem titled A Remembrance of my Friend Thomas Morley, also known as Death hath Deprived Me.) His own madrigals are very chromatic and use varied organic counterpoint and unconventional rhythm in their construction.
Only a small amount of instrumental music was written by Weelkes, and it is not much performed. His consort music is all sombre in tone, contrasting with the often gleeful madrigals.
Okuni (Izumo no Okuni) (b. c. 1572) was the main founder of Kabuki theater (1603). She was believed to be a miko at the Grand Shrine of Izumo who began a new style of dance in the dry riverbeds of Kyoto.
Miko ( "Shrine Maiden") is a Japanese term that anciently meant "female shaman, shamaness; medium; prophet" who conveyed divine oracles, and currently means "shrine maiden; virgin consecrated to a deity" who serves at Shinto shrines.
Kabuki is a form of traditional Japanese theatre. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.
Female performers played both men and women in comic playlets about ordinary life. The style was instantly popular; Okuni was even asked to perform before the Imperial Court. In the wake of such success, rival troupes quickly formed, and kabuki was born as ensemble dance and drama was performed by women -- a form very different from its modern incarnation. Much of its appeal in this era was due to the ribald, suggestive performances put on by many troupes; this appeal was further augmented by the fact that the performers were often also available for prostitution.
For this reason, kabuki was known as "singing and dancing prostitute" during the Edo Period.
In kabuki's nascent period, women were the only performers in the plays. Soon women began attracting the wrong types of audiences and gaining too much attention from men. This type of attention raised some eyebrows and officials felt as if women were degrading the art of kabuki. In 1629, women were banned from appearing in kabuki performances.
Since kabuki was already so popular, young male actors, known as wakashu (or sometimes oyama), took over after women were banned from performing. These young men could take the role of women due to their less masculine appearance and higher pitched voices in comparison to adult men. Along with the change in the performers' gender came a change in the emphasis of the performance: increased stress was placed on drama rather than dance. Their performances were equally ribald, however, and they too were available for prostitution. Audiences frequently became rowdy, and brawls occasionally broke out, sometimes over the favors of a particularly handsome young actor, leading the shogunate to ban young male actors in 1652.
Kabuki Music - Kineya Rokusaburo - Kanjincho (1840)
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[Tokugawa Ieyasu (January 31, 1543 – June 1, 1616), the founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate]
The Edo period (Edo-jidai?), also referred to as the Tokugawa period ( Tokugawa-jidai), is a division of Japanese history running from 1603 to 1868. The period marks the governance of the Edo or Tokugawa shogunate, which was officially established in 1603 by the first Edo shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. The period ended with the Meiji Restoration, the restoration of imperial rule by the 15th and last shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu. The Edo period is also known as the beginning of the early modern period of Japan.
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Koto Solo
[Contemporary Koto solo]
The koto is a traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument derived from Chinese zither (Ch'in, Guzheng). The koto is the national instrument of Japan.
The instruments are about 180 centimetres (71 in) long and have 13 strings that are strung over 13 movable bridges along the length of the instrument. Players can adjust the string pitches by moving these bridges before playing, and use three finger picks (on thumb, forefinger, and middle finger) to pluck the strings.
The character for koto is also read as sō in certain contexts. Though often called by a number of other names, these terms almost always refer to similar, but different instruments, such as the Chinese guzheng or guqin (called kin in Japanese).
The koto was introduced to Japan in the 7th to 8th century from China, and largely derived from the Chinese Guzheng. It was initially played only in the royal court, but this situation changed in the 17th century -- primarily because of the influence of Yatsuhashi Kengyo (1614-1684). Though the koto, like many Japanese instruments derived from Chinese ones, has likely not changed much over the centuries, the guzheng has, and thus it is no longer valid to call them the same instrument. The koto used in gagaku is called gakuso.
Yatsuhashi Kengyo was a blind shamisen player who learned koto from an "official" court player named Hosui, in defiance of the rules which then stated that koto could not be taught to blind people (or women, incidentally). Possibly because of his personal experience with these restrictions, Yatsuhashi spent the rest of his life making the koto more accessible.
He invented a new "tranquil tuning" (hira joushi) to play the common people's songs more naturally. He composed (or is credited with composing) pieces that are still irreplaceable staples of the koto repertoire today, including Rokudan and Midare. (These compositions were partly responsible for the koto becoming respected as a solo instrument in its own right.) Perhaps most importantly, his example led other non-elite, including women, to learn the koto too.
Hira-Joshi and Kuma-Joshi Scales
Cherry Blossom Song
Sakura Sakura also known as Sakura is a traditional Japanese folk song depicting spring, the season of cherry blossom. It was first composed during the Edo period for children learning to play the koto. Originally, the lyrics Blooming Cherry Blossoms were attached to the melody.
The song has been popular since the Meiji period, and the lyrics in their present form were attached then. It is often sung in international settings as a song representative of Japan.
sakura sakura no-yama mo sato mo mi-watasu kagiri kasumi ka kumo ka asahi ni niou sakura sakura hana-zakari sakura sakura yayoi no sora wa mi-watasu kagiri kasumi ka kumo ka nioi zo izuru iza ya iza ya mi ni yukan
Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms, On Meadow-hills and dale, As far as you can see. Is it a mist, or clouds? Fragrant in the morning sun. Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms, Flowers in full bloom. Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms, Across the Spring sky, As far as you can see. Is it a mist, or clouds? Fragrant in the air. Come now, come, Let’s look, at last!
***
Trio Music (Shakuhachi, Koto, Shamisen)
[Quartet Music...]
By the Edo period three instruments had emerged from various directions to become popular among common people. The koto, a 13-string zither, the shamisen, a 3-string banjo-like instrument, and the shakuhachi, a bamboo flute, eventually became a regular trio in ensemble music. This combination is called Sankyoku, or "three instrument ensemble."
The shamisen or samisen (literally "three taste strings"), also called sangen (literally "three strings") is a three-stringed musical instrument played with a plectrum called a bachi. The pronunciation in Japanese is usually "shamisen" (in western Japan, and often in Edo-period sources "samisen") but sometimes "jamisen" when used as a suffix (e.g. Tsugaru-jamisen).
The shamisen is similar in length to a guitar, but its neck is much slimmer and without frets. Its drum-like rounded rectangular body, known as the dō, is covered front and back with skin in the manner of a banjo, and amplifies the sound of the strings. The skin is usually from a dog or cat, but in the past a special type of paper was used and recently various types of plastics are being tried. On the skin of some of the best shamisen, the position of the cat's nipples can still be seen.
The three strings are traditionally made of silk, or, more recently, nylon. The lowest passes over a small hump at the "nut" end so that it buzzes, creating a characteristic sound known as sawari (somewhat reminiscent of the "buzzing" of a sitar, which is called jawari). The upper part of the dō is almost always protected by a cover known as a dō kake, and players often wear a little band of cloth on their left hand to facilitate sliding up and down the neck. This band is known as a yubikake. There may also be a cover on the head of the instrument, known as a tenjin.
In most genres the shamisen is played with a large weighted plectrum called a bachi, which was traditionally made with ivory or tortoise shell but which now is usually wooden, and which is in the shape likened to a ginkgo leaf. The sound of a shamisen is similar in some respects to that of the American banjo, in that the drum-like skin-covered body, known as a dō, amplifies the sound of the strings. As in the clawhammer style of American banjo playing, the bachi is often used to strike both string and skin, creating a highly percussive sound.
The shamisen derives from the sanshin, a close ancestor from the southernmost Japanese prefecture of Okinawa in the 1500's and one of the primary instruments used in that area), which in turn evolved from the Chinese sanxian, itself deriving ultimately from Central Asian instruments.
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The shakuhachi is a Japanese end-blown flute which is held vertically like a recorder. Its name means "1.8 foot", its size. It is traditionally made of bamboo, but versions now exist in wood and plastic. It was used by the monks of the Fuke sect of Zen Buddhism in the practice of suizen (blowing meditation).
A recorder player blows into a duct, a narrow wind-way over a block called a "fipple", and thus has limited pitch control. The shakuhachi player blows as one would blow across the top of an empty bottle (though the shakuhachi has a sharp edge to blow against) and has substantial pitch control. The five finger holes are tuned to a pentatonic scale with no half-tones, but the player can bend each pitch as much as a whole tone or more, using techniques called meri and kari, in which the blowing angle is adjusted to bend the pitch downward and upward, respectively. Pitches may also be lowered by shading or partially covering finger holes. Since most pitches can be achieved via several different fingering or blowing techniques on the shakuhachi, the timbre of each possibility is taken into account when composing or playing. The shakuhachi has a range of two full octaves (the lower is called otsu, the upper, kan) and a partial third octave (dai-kan). The different octaves are produced using subtle variations of breath and embouchure.
A 1.8 shakuhachi produces D4 (D above Middle C, 293.66Hz) as its fundamental -- the lowest note it produces with all five finger holes covered, and a normal blowing angle. In contrast, a 2.4 shakuhachi has a fundamental of A3 (A below Middle C, 220Hz). As the length increases, the spacing of the finger holes also increases, stretching both fingers and technique. Longer flutes often have offset finger holes, and very long flutes are almost always custom made to suit individual players. Some honkyoku, in particular those of the Nezasaha (Kimpu-ryu) school are intended to be played on these longer flutes.
Much of the shakuhachi's subtlety (and player's skill) lies in its rich tone colouring, and the ability for its variation. Different fingerings, embouchures and amounts of meri can produce notes of the same pitch, but with subtle or dramatic differences in the tone colouring. The honkyoku pieces rely heavily on this aspect of the instrument to enhance their subtlety and depth.
Shakuhachi are usually made from the root end of a bamboo culm and are extremely versatile instruments. Holes can be covered partially (1/3 covered, 1/2, 2/3, etc.) and pitch varied subtly or substantially by changing the blowing angle. Professional players can produce virtually any pitch they wish from the instrument, and play a wide repertoire of original Zen music, ensemble music with koto, biwa and shamisen, folk music, jazz, and other modern pieces.
Due to the skill required, the time involved, and the range of quality in materials to craft bamboo shakuhachi, one can expect to pay from USD 300 to USD 5,000 for a new or used flute. Because each piece of bamboo is unique, shakuhachi cannot be mass-produced, and craftsmen must spend much time finding the correct bore shape for each individual flute to result in correct pitch over all notes. Specimens of extremely high quality, with valuable inlays, or of historical significance can fetch USD 10,000 or more. Plastic or PVC shakuhachi have some advantages over their traditional bamboo counterparts: they are light weight, extremely durable, nearly impervious to heat and cold, and typically cost less than USD 100. Shakuhachi made of wood are also available, typically costing less than bamboo but more than synthetic materials. Nearly all players, however, prefer bamboo, citing tonal qualities, aesthetics, and tradition.
The bamboo flute first came to Japan from China. The shakuhachi proper, however, is quite distinct from its Chinese and Korean ancestors, the result of centuries of isolated evolution in Japan.
During the medieval period, shakuhachi were most notable for their role in the Fuke sect of Zen Buddhist monks, known as komusō ("priests of nothingness," or "emptiness monks"), who used the shakuhachi as a spiritual tool. Their songs (called "honkyoku") were paced according to the players' breathing and were considered meditation (suizen) as much as music.
Travel around Japan was restricted by the shogunate at this time, but the Fuke sect managed to wrangle an exemption from the Shogun, since their spiritual practice required them to move from place to place playing the shakuhachi and begging for alms (one famous song reflects this mendicant tradition, "Hi fu mi, hachi gaeshi", "One two three, pass the alms bowl"). They persuaded the Shogun to give them "exclusive rights" to play the instrument. In return, some were required to spy for the shogunate, and the Shogun sent several of his own spies out in the guise of Fuke monks as well. This was made easier by the wicker baskets that the Fuke wore over their heads, a symbol of their detachment from the world.
In response to these developments, several particularly difficult honkyoku pieces, e.g., Shika no tone, became well-known as "tests": if you could play them, you were a real Fuke. If you couldn't, you were probably a spy and might very well be killed if you were in unfriendly territory.
With the Meiji Restoration, beginning in 1868, the shogunate was abolished and so was the Fuke sect, in order to help identify and eliminate the shogun's holdouts. The very playing of the shakuhachi was officially forbidden for a few years. Non-Fuke folk traditions did not suffer greatly from this, since the tunes could be played just as easily on another pentatonic instrument. However, the honkyoku repertoire was known exclusively to the Fuke sect and transmitted by repetition and practice, and much of it was lost, along with many important documents.
When the Meiji government did permit the playing of shakuhachi again, it was only as an accompanying instrument to the koto, shamisen, etc. It was not until later that honkyoku were allowed to be played publicly again as solo pieces.
Shakuhachi has traditionally been played almost exclusively by men in Japan, although this situation is rapidly changing. Many teachers of traditional shakuhachi music indicate that a majority of their students are women.
[8575 Weelkes / 8572 Okuni Kabuki Edo / 8581 Praetorius]
Terpsichore: Three Branles Doubles (1612) (Rauschpfife)
Michael Praetorius (probably February 15, 1571 – February 15, 1621) was a German composer, organist, and writer about music. He was one of the most versatile composers of his age, being particularly significant in the development of musical forms based on Protestant hymns.
He was born Michael Schultze, the youngest son of a Lutheran pastor, in Creuzburg, Germany.
After attending school in Torgau and Zerbst, he studied divinity at the University of Frankfurt (Oder). He served as organist at the Marienkirche in Frankfurt before working at the court in Wolfenbüttel as organist and (from 1604) as Kapellmeister. From 1613 to 1616 he worked at the Saxon court at Dresden, where he was exposed to the latest Italian music, including the polychoral works of the Venetian School. His subsequent development of the form of the chorale concerto, particularly the polychoral variety, resulted directly from his familiarity with the music of such Venetians as Giovanni Gabrieli. Michael Praetorius is entombed in a vault beneath the organ of St. Mary's Church in Wolfenbüttel, Germany.
His family name in German appears in various forms including Schultze, Schulte, Schultheiss, Schulz and Schulteis. Praetorius is the Latinized form of same.
Praetorius was a tremendously prolific composer, his works showing the influence of contemporaries Samuel Scheidt and Heinrich Schütz as well as the Italians. His works include the nine volume Musae sioniae (1605-10), a collection of over a thousand chorale and song arrangements; many other works for the Lutheran church; and Terpsichore (1612), a compendium of over 300 instrumental dances, which is both his most widely-known work, as well as his sole surviving secular work. His three volume treatise Syntagma musicum (1614-20) is a detailed text on contemporary musical practices and musical instruments, and is an important document in musicology, organology and the field of authentic performance.
William Kemp (also spelled Kempe) (c. 1570 - d.1603?) was an English actor, composer, and dancer best known for being one of the original actors in William Shakespeare's plays. Specializing in comic roles, he was considered during the period as the successor to the great Queen's Men clown Richard Tarlton.
Anonymous English (b. c. 1570) - Kemp's Gig (c. 1600)
Kemp enters the historical record as a member of the Earl of Leicester's company, for he is known to have performed at Leicester's house in May 1585; the Earl made a special payment of ten shillings for this performance. Kempe continued in that service after Leicester left for the Low Countries to command English forces in the Eighty Years' War. Philip Sidney, Leicester's brother, sent letters home by way of a man he called "Will, my Lord of Lester's jesting player"; it is now accepted that this Will is Will Kempe. In a letter to Francis Walsingham, Sidney complained that Kempe had delivered these letters to Lady Leicester rather than Sidney's wife.
After a brief return to England, Kempe accompanied two other future Lord Chamberlain's Men, George Bryan and Thomas Pope, to Elsinore, Denmark, where he entertained Frederick II. He appears not to have remained long in Elsinore, but his whereabouts in the later 1580's are not known.
That his fame was growing during this period is indicated by Thomas Nashe's An Almond for a Parrot (1590), which Nashe dedicates to Kempe, calling him "vicegerent general to the ghost of Dick Tarlton." The title-page of the quarto of A Knack to Know a Knave advertises Kempe's "merriments"; because title-pages were a means to draw attention to a book, the mention of Kempe suggests that he had become an attraction in his own right. Critics have generally viewed the scene in which Kempe performs as rather flat (Collier, 97); it is assumed that the scene provided a framework within which Kempe could improvise. Entries in the Stationers' Register indicate that three jigs perhaps written by Kempe were published between 1591 and 1595; two of these have survived.
By 1592, and perhaps earlier, Kempe was one of Lord Strange's Men; he is listed in the Privy Council authorization for that troupe to play seven miles out of London. In 1594, upon the dissolution of Strange's Men, Kempe, along with Richard Burbage and William Shakespeare, joined the Lord Chamberlain's Men. He remained with the company until near the end of the century, when a still-unclear sequence of events removed him from the company. Early in 1599, the Burbages included him as a sharer in the plans to construct the Globe Theatre. At some point during the year, he resumed his solo career.
In February and March of 1600, Kempe undertook what he would later call his "Nine Days Wonder," in which he morris danced from London to Norwich (a distance of over a hundred miles) in a journey which took him nine days spread over several weeks, often amid cheering crowds. Later that year he published a description of the event in order to prove to doubters that it was true. (The year he gives was 1599 Old Style, which has caused some later confusion.
That Kempe's jig took place in 1600 (New Style) is established by a record of the payment of his prize money by the Norwich City Corporation.)
Kempe's activities after this famous stunt are as obscure as his origins. On evidence from The Travels of the Three English Brothers, Kemp is assumed to have made another European tour, perhaps reaching Italy; by 1601, he was borrowing money from Philip Henslowe and had joined Worcester's Men. The last undoubted mention of him occurs in Henslowe's diary in late 1602.
Parish records record the death of "Kempe, a man" in St. Savior, Southwark, late in 1603; while this is not clearly the comedian, the record fits his departure from the documentary record.
In his time, Kempe was as famous for his jigs as for his acting in regular drama. The jig, a kind of rustic cousin to commedia dell'arte featured as many as five performers in a partially-improvised song-and-dance routine. Jigs had plots, often bawdy, but the emphasis was on dancing and physical comedy. Two of Kempe's jigs survive in English, and two more in German. Examples of the jigs may be seen in the manuscript collection of John Dowland (now in the Cambridge University library). A famous 17th Century jig called Kempe's Jig was named after Will Kempe and was published in the first book of John Playford's The English Dancing Master of 1651.
As an actor, Kempe is certainly associated with two roles: Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing and Peter in Romeo and Juliet. (In the quarto text of the latter, and in both quarto and First Folio text of the former, he is identified in speech prefixes and stage directions.) From these hints, a list of Kempe's parts has been deduced which, if conjectural, is not improbable: Costard in Love's Labours Lost, Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Lancelot Gobbo in The Merchant of Venice, and Cob in Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour. Falstaff is a more ambiguous case. Though Falstaff presents some features of an Elizabethan dramatic clown, his character is higher in class and more complex than the other roles with which Kempe is associated.
[Michelangelo Caravaggio (1571-1610) - Allegory of Music (1595)]
John Farmer (1570-1601) - Fair Phyllis
John Farmer (c. 1570 – c. 1601) was an English composer, mainly of madrigals. He is probably one of the less well-known composers of the English Madrigal School. He was under the patronage of Earl of Oxford and he dedicated his collection of canons and his late madrigal volume to his patron. In 1595, Farmer was appointed Organist and Master of Children at Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin and also organist of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin at the same time. In 1599, he moved to London and published his only collection of four-part madrigals. One of these was "Fair Phyllis". His work Diver and sundry Waies of Two Parts in One displayed his mastery of two-part canon and cantus firmus.
Farmer uses clever word painting in his works. For example, in Fair Phyllis, the opening line, "Fair Phyllis I saw sitting all alone," is set for a single soprano. Then, to show the flock beside her, three other voices join in.
He was born around 1570 but his exact date of birth is not known. Flood's article conjectures a date around 1564 to 1565 based on matriculation records. He dedicated two of his works to Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, whose patronage he enjoyed. He died in 1601. His work Fair nymphs I heard one telling confirmed his position as one of England’s best renaissance composers. Giles Farnaby dedicated a pavan to him, included in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book as Farmer's Paven (no. CCLXXXVII).
Revolutionary composer, gambist, and singer Claudio [Giovanni Antonio] Monteverdi (May 15, 1567 [baptism], Cremona, Italy - November 29,1643) marks the transition from Renaissance to Baroque music, and during his long life he produced works on the cusp.
He studied with Marc'Antonio Ingegneri, the singing master of Cremona cathedral, producing his first music for publication -- motets and sacred madrigals -- in 1582 and 1583, and his opening gambit of the secular variety of the latter in 1587, shortly thereafter looking for work outside his native city.
In 1590, Monteverdi began working at the court of Vincenzo I of Gonzaga in Mantua as a vocalist and viol player, and in this period (1597) comes the earliest known image of the composer, at about age 30, where, by 1602 he had become the court conductor.
He worked primarily on madrigals until age 40, composing nine books.
The Quinto Libro (Fifth Book) (1605) was at the heart of the controversy with Giovanni Artusi, who attacked the "crudities" and "license" of such works as, appropriately, Cruda Amarilli.
Monteverdi's reply in his above book proposed the division of musical practice into two streams:
Prima Pratica -- the polyphonic late Renaissance style of flowing strict counterpoint, prepared dissonance, and equality of voices -- and
Seconda Pratica -- the freer counterpoint of an increased hierarchy of voices, emphasizing soprano and bass, moving towards monody, with the introduction of continuo and functional harmony.
Monody -- with its emphasis on recitatives and melodies, featuring intelligible text and placid accompanying music -- set the stage for Monteverdi to participate, albeit belatedly, in the birth of opera with the premiere of L'Orfeo (1607) in his adopted home, the work serving as part of the ducal carnival celebrations
as can be clearly imagined in the opening Toccata, no matter what performance.
David Munrow (1975)
John Elliot Gardiner (1987)
Philip Pickett (1992)
Jordi Savall (2008)
The opera, on the same subject as both Peri and Caccini's Eurydices, has expressivity, power, and specific orchestration (perhaps the first, or at least one of the first to survive), as an early example of Baroque (from an Italian term for a distorted pearl -- barocco!) opera.
The Prologue: "Dal mio permesso" from the narrator shows the latter style, with nascent use of ritornello forms,
By contrast, the choruses such as Act I: Balletto: "Lasciate i monti" (Chorus Nymphs Shepherds), reflect earlier practices.
[The chorus begins at c. 3:15 -- with questionable changes of tempo]
The dramatic thrust of the work is well encapsulaed by the Act II - Recitatives: "Ahi, caso acerbo (Messenger, Shepherds, Orpheus) and "Tu se' morta" (Orpheus), with its opening underlying harmony of G: i V ii VI i bVII realized from figured bass in free meter, and an initial melodic line of Me Ti (diminished 4th!) Do Do (N.B. The sheet music below is a transcription, and does not reflect Monteverdi's metrics, which actually begin with a double-long whole note).
After an initial G Dorian, the recitative slips into D Dorian at the key change. Note the wonderful use of chromatics, the parallel chromatic minor third slide of melodic G# - G against bass B - Bb, and the minor dominant - minor tonic cadence at the conclusion.
All this is is nicely contrasted with the ensuing choral "Ahi, caso acertbo" (Nymphs and Shepherds).
The work was printed two years later, and, the following year, the Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610 (The Vespers of the Blessed Virgin) proved to be on a vast scale of 25 sections. While there have been questions re its composer's performance intentions, there is little doubt of the composition's overall integrity and unity.
The Vespers begin in Introductio: Domine ad adiuvandum me festina / Deus in adiutorium as an imaginative self-borrowing of the opening Orfeo Toccata, now harmonized by the chorus as a D Major chant against all the contrapuntal punting of same, contrasted with instrumental "renaissancey" ritournelli.
After the alternations of Psalm texts with motets, the XI. Sonata Sopra Sancta Maria is a wild slice-and-dice of chant, against perky instrumental lines of cornetts et al.
And following a lengthy series of selections, the late-arriving XIII. Magnificat still packs a magnificent emotional wallop.
Monteverdi became conductor at Venice's San Marco in 1613, and finished there his sixth, seventh and eighth books of madrigals.
It was during these years that his most renowned student, Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672), made his second trip to Venice (1628), and took the new baroque style back with him to Germany. Monteverdi was ordained a Catholic priest four years later, in 1632.
His Ottavo Libro (1638), the composer's largest book of madrigals as a compendium of works over 33 years, includes the Madrigali dei guerrieri ed amorosi, a perfection of madrigal form, and the dramatic scene composed years earlier as Tancredi e Clorinda (1624), where orchestra and voices form separate entities.
Much of this harkens back to the Gabrielis enthusiasms for spatial music the Venice of the late renaissance. Tancredi also features the first-time use of tremolo and pizzicato.
During the last years of his life, Monteverdi was often ill, though this is less obvious in upper, rather than lower portrait, both dating from 1640,
when soon thereafter he completed two late operatic masterpieces:
Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria (The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland, 1641), and the L'Incoronazione di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppea, 1642). The latter, based on the life of Nero, contains tragic, romantic, as well as comic scenes (a first?). Poppea requires a smaller orchestra, and has a less prominent role for the choir. Both works were written for the first opera houses supported by ticket sales.
In total Monteverdi composed at least 18 operas, but, aside from the above three, only the "Lamento" from his second opera l'Arianna survives.
And, of course, he didn't either, dying in his second adopted home, Venice, and buried in the church of the Frari.
A ninth book of madrigals, published posthumously in 1651, contains lighter pieces such as canzonettas, and is again a prescis of older works representing prima and seconda praticca.
We bid adieu with a posthumous portrait medallion, etched by Barberis.
Scales in E; C Minor, A Major
Related Reading:
Pierro Weiss and Richard Taruskin Music in the Western World: A History in Documents L'Orfeo: Prologue (Alessandro Striggio) (1607) (Pages 177-178) Scherzi Musicali: Declaration (1607) (Pages 172-173) Two Letters to Alessandro Striggio (1616, 1620) (Pages 180-184) Madrigali Guerrieri e Amarosi: Preface (1638) (Pages 173-174)
***
[Farinelli (1705-1762)]
Castrati had parts in the earliest operas: in the first performance of Monteverdi's Orfeo (1607) they played subsidiary roles, including that of Euridice. By 1680, however, they had supplanted "normal" male voices in lead roles, and retained their hegemony as primo uomo for about a hundred years; an opera not featuring at least one renowned castrato in a lead part would be doomed to fail. Because of the popularity of Italian opera throughout 18th-century Europe (except France), singers such as Ferri, Farinelli, Senesino and Pacchierotti became the first operatic superstars, earning enormous fees and hysterical public adulation. The strictly hierarchical organisation of opera seria favoured their high voices as symbols of heroic virtue, though they were frequently mocked for their strange appearance and bad acting.
The strongest objection against castrati in Europe of the last few centuries was based on the means by which the preparation of future singers frequently led to their premature deaths. To prevent the child from experiencing the intense pain of castration, many were inadvertently administered lethal doses of opium or something similar.
The music historian Charles Burney was sent fruitlessly in search of places where the operation was carried out: "I enquired throughout Italy at what place boys were chiefly qualified for singing by castration, but could get no certain intelligence. I was told at Milan that it was at Venice; at Venice that it was at Bologna; but at Bologna the fact was denied, and I was referred to Florence; from Florence to Rome, and from Rome I was sent to Naples... it is said that there are shops in Naples with this inscription: 'QUI SI CASTRANO RAGAZZI' ("Here boys are castrated"); but I was utterly unable to see or hear of any such shops during my residence in that city."
The training of the boys was rigorous. The regime of one singing school in Rome (c. 1700) consisted of one hour of singing difficult and awkward pieces, one hour practising trills, one hour practising ornamented passaggi, one hour of singing exercises in their teacher's presence and in front of a mirror so as to avoid unnecessary movement of the body or facial grimaces, and one hour of literary study; all this, moreover, before lunch. After, half-an-hour would be devoted to musical theory, another to writing counterpoint, an hour copying down the same from dictation, and another hour of literary study. During the remainder of the day, the young castrati had to find time to practice their harpsichord playing, and to compose vocal music, either sacred or secular depending on their inclination.
This demanding schedule meant that, if sufficiently talented, they were able to make a debut in their mid-teens with a perfect technique and a voice of a flexibility and power no woman or ordinary male singer could match.
In the 1720's and 1730's, at the height of the craze for these artificially-preserved voices, it has been estimated that upwards of 4000 boys were castrated annually in the service of art.
Many came from poor homes, and were more or less sold by their parents to the church or to a singing-master, in the hope that their child might be successful and lift them from their lowly status in society (this was the case with Senesino). There are, though, records of some young boys asking to be operated on to preserve their voices (e.g. Caffarelli, who was from a wealthy family: his grandmother gave him the income from two vineyards to pay for his studies).
Caffarelli was also typical of many castrati in being famous for tantrums on and off-stage, and for amorous adventures with noble ladies. Some, as described by Casanova, preferred gentlemen (noble or otherwise).
Modern endocrinology would suggest that the castrati's much-vaunted sexual prowess was more the stuff of legend than reality. Not all castrated boys had successful careers on the operatic stage; the better "also-rans" sang in cathedral or church choirs, while some, trained as they were in acting, may have turned to the theatre, or perhaps even prostitution.
***
Adriano Banchieri (September 3, 1568, Bologna - 1634, Bologna) was an Italian composer, music theorist, organist and poet of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He founded the Accademia dei Floridi in Bologna.
In 1587, he became a monk of the Benedictine order, taking his vows in 1590, and changing his name to Adriano (from Tommaso). One of his teachers at the monastery was Gioseffo Guami, who had a strong influence on his style.
Like Orazio Vecchi he was interested in converting the madrigal to dramatic purposes.
Specifically, he was one of the developers of a form called "madrigal comedy" -- unstaged but dramatic collections of madrigals which, when sung consecutively, told a story.
He wrote five such between 1598 and 1628 with "plot and character development," from La pazzia senile to La saviezza giovenile.
Additionally, he was an important composer of canzonettas, a lighter and hugely popular alternative to the madrigal in the late 16th Century. Banchieri disapproved of the monodists with all their revolutionary harmonic tendencies, about which he expressed himself vigorously in his Moderna Practica Musicale (1613), while systematizing the legitimate use of the monodic art of figured bass.
In several editions beginning in 1605 (reprinted at least six times before 1638), Banchieri published a series of organ works entitled l'Organo suonarino.
His last publication was the Trattenimenti da villa (1630).
Further Reading: Piero Weiss and Richard Taruskin Music in the Western World: A History in Documents Adriano Banchieri Conclusio nel suono del l'organo (Page 179)
Carlo Gesualdo (Gesualdo da Venosa, c. March 8, 1566, Venosa - c. September 8, 1613),
Prince of Venosa
[in the Vulture area of
Basilicata] and
Count of Conza
[in the adjacent Campania], was part of an aristocratic family which acquired the principality of Venosa in 1560, the year which has been alternately cited as that of the composer's birth.
His rather righteous family included uncle Carlo Borromeo (later sainted -- what a contrast!), and mother Girolama, niece of Pope Pius IV and writer of a letter, recently discovered, that implies the above birth year.
Gesualdo had a musical relationship with Pomponio Nenna, and a single-minded devotion to music from an early age, as performer on lute, guitar, and harpsichord.
The composer married his first cousin, Donna Maria d'Avalos, the daughter of the Marquis of Pescara, in 1586. Two years later she began to have a love affair with Fabrizio Carafa, the Duke of Andria, keeping it secret from her somewhat clueless husband for almost almost another two years, even though the relationship was known elsewhere.
On October 16, 1590, at the Palazzo San Severo in Naples, when Gesualdo had allegedly gone away on a hunting trip, the two lovers took insufficient precaution (Gesualdo had arranged with his servants to have the locks of his palace copied in wood so that he could gain entrance if locked), and he returned to the palace, caught them in flagrante delicto and brutally murdered them both in their bed; afterwards he left their mutilated bodies in front of the palace for all to see. Being a nobleman he was immune to prosecution, but not to revenge, so he fled to his castle at Gesualdo where he would be safe from any of the relatives of either his wife or her lover.
Details on the murders are extant, from the depositions of magistrate's witnesses which have survived in full. While Gesualdo apparently had help from his servants in the actual double slaying, he himself stabbed Maria multiple times, shouting in the act Monty Pythonestically "she's not dead yet!" The Duke of Andria was found with numerous deep sword wounds, shot through the head, dressed in Maria's night dress, with his own unbloodied clothing piled up by the bedside.
The murders were widely publicized, including in verse by Tasso and a flock of salacious, sensationalist Neapolitan poets. The police report rom the scene makes for shocking reading even after more than 400 years.
According to some contemporary sources, Gesualdo also murdered his infant second son by Maria. After looking into his eyes and doubting his paternity, he "swung the infant around in his cradle until the breath left his body." Another source indicates that he additionally murdered his revenge-seeking father-in-law. Gesualdo had employed a company of men-at-arms to ward off such an event.
In 1594, Gesualdo went to Ferrara, a hub of artistic activity and home to progressive madrigalist Luzzasco Luzzaschi and the Estes. There the manic-depressive, music-obsessed murderer married Leonora d'Este (niece of Duke Alfonso II), and enjoyed an atmosphere of avant-garde creative activity, surrounded by some of the finest musicians in Italy.
In a letter of June 25, 1594 Gesualdo wrote that he was writing music for three women in the concerto delle donne, and some manuscript work probably from this period implies that he was already experimenting with the new monadic trend of the day as well as his own crazy brand of chromaticism.
He published his first books of five-voice madrigals, initially close in style to that of his contemporaries, from 1594-1596, in Ferrara.
Book I (Madrigali libro primo), five voices, Ferrara, 1594
Book II (Madrigili libro secondo), five voices, Ferrara, 1594
Book III (Madrigali libro terzo), five voices, Ferrara, 1595
Book IV (Madrigali libro quarto), five voices, Ferrara, 1596
After resettling with his wife to his castle at Gesualdo in 1597, he attempted to set up a similar situation to that which existed in Ferrara, with a group of resident, virtuoso musicians who would sing his own music. But, while his estate became a center of music-making, it was for Gesualdo alone, and with his considerable financial resources, he was able to hire singers and instrumentalists for his own pleasure. But he was a solitary man by nature and his estate never became a cultural center the way the Este estate at Ferrara did.
From around 1599 until his death, he hardly ever left his castle.
Surprise, surprise -- his new wife accused him of abuse, and the Este family tried to get her a divorce. She spent more and more time away from Gesualdo's isolated estate, and he wrote many angry letters to Modena where she often went to stay with her brother. At least she apparently stayed alive. As Cecil Gray notes , "She seems to have been a very virtuous lady ... for there is no record of his having killed her."
In 1600, his son by his second marriage died, and after this Gesualdo had a large painting commissioned for the local church of the Capuchins, which shows the composer, his uncle Carlo, wife Leonora, and dead son underneath a group of angelic figures.
Most of music, including his often wildly chromatic and difficult madrigals, were published in 1603 and 1611, falling into three categories: sacred vocal music, secular vocal music, and instrumental music.
Book V (Madrigali libro quinto), five voices, Gesualdo, 1611
Book VI (Madrigali libro sesto), five voices, Gesualdo, 1611
One of the most obvious characteristics of his music is the extravagant text setting of words representing extremes of emotion: "agony," "death," "ecstacy," "love," "pain," and so on, occur frequently in his madrigal texts, most of which he probably wrote. While common among late 1500's and early 1600's madrigalists, word-painting reached an extreme with Gesualdo.
Experiments with harmonic progression, cross-relation and violent rhythmic contrast increase in these later books, containing the most famous and extreme examples, such as Moro, lasso, al mio duolo and Beltà, poi che t'assenti both of which are in Book VI. There is evidence that Gesualdo had these works in score form, in order to better display his contrapuntal inventions to other musicians, and also that Gesualdo intended his works to be sung by equal voices, as opposed to the concerted madrigal style popular in the period, which involved doubling and replacing voices with instruments.
Characteristic of the composer's style is a sectional format in which relatively slow-tempo passages of wild, occasionally-shocking chromaticism alternate with quick-tempo diatonic passages. The text is closely wedded to the music, with individual words being given maximum attention. Some of the chromatic passages are twelve note within a single phrase, although scattered throughout different voices. Gesualdo was particularly fond of chromatic third relations, for instance juxtaposing the chords of A major and F major, or even C-sharp major and A minor, as he does at the beginning of Moro lasso al mio duolo.
C# Am/C B . . . E Am
III i6 II . . . V i
Moro, lasso, al mio duolo, E chi può dar mi vita, Ahi, che m'ancide e non vuol darmi aita! O dolorosa sorte, Chi dar vita mi può, Ahi, mi dà morte!
I die, alas, in my suffering, And she who could give me life, Alas, kills me and will not help me. O sorrowful fate, She who could give me life, Alas, gives me death.
His most famous sacred composition is the set of Tenebrae Responsoria (Tenebrae Responsories, using texts from the Passion, specificaly those relating to Maundy Thursday, the evening of the Last Supper and Trial), also published in 1611, which are stylistically madrigali spirituali — madrigals on sacred texts. As in the later books of madrigals, he uses particularly sharp dissonance and shocking chromatic juxtapositions, especially in the parts highlighting text passages having to do with Christ's suffering, or the guilt of St. Peter in having betrayed Jesus.
Late in life Gesualdo also suffered, but from depression -- not surprisingly evidently over the guilt of the multiple murders. A certain Campanella, writing in Lyon in 1635, avered that Gesualdo had himself beaten daily by his servants, and he kept a special assistant to beat him "at stool." Toward the end he engaged in a relentless, fruitless, correspondence with to obtain relics -- skeletal remains,of his now late sainted uncle Carlo, with which he hoped to obtain healing for mental disorder, and possibly absolution for his crimes.
His late setting of Psalm 51, Miserere, is distinguished by its insistent and imploring musical repetitions, alternating lines of monophonic chant with pungently chromatic polyphony in a low vocal tessitura.
Gesualdo died in isolation, at his castle Gesualdo in Avellino, three weeks after the death of his son Emanuele, his first son by his marriage to Maria. One 20th-century biographer has suggested that, in a what-goes-around-comes-around spririt, he may have been murdered by his second wife.
He was buried in the chapel of Saint Ignatius, in the church of the Gesù Nuovo, in Naples. Even in death he was not ultimately "at rest: for, the sepulchre was destroyed in the earthquake of 1688 (more punishment?), and, when the church was rebuilt, the tomb was covered over, now under the pavement of the church. Gesualdo's burial plaque, however, remains visible.
Gesualdo had little influence at the time, although a few composers such as Sigismondo d'India and Antonio Cifra wrote a handful of works in imitation of his madrigalian style; it was only in the 20th century that he was rediscovered.
The life of Gesualdo provided inspiration for numerous works of fiction and music drama, including a novel by Anatole France, a short story by Julio Cortazar, and an opera by Franz Hummel.
Igor Stravinsky arranged Gesualdo's madrigal Beltà, poi che t'assenti as part of his Monumentum pro Gesualdo (1960), Alfred Schnittke wrote an opera in 1995 based on his life, and Salvatore Sciarrino has arranged several madrigals for an instrumental ensemble.
In 1997, the Australian composer Brett Dean paid homage to Gesualdo in Carlo -- an intense and affecting work for string orchestra, tape and sampler.
While other composers at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th Centuries wrote experimental music, Gesualdo's creation was unique and isolated, without heirs or followers, a fascinating temporary dead-end in musical history, and an analogue to his personal isolation as an heirless prince, ruined by guilt.
Mark Alburger (b. 1957, Upper Darby, PA) is an award-winning, eclectic ASCAP composer of postminimal, postpopular, and postcomedic sensibilities. He is Music Director of San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra and San Francisco Cabaret Opera, Editor-Publisher of 21st-Century Music and New Music, and Professor Emeritus in Music Theory and Literature at Diablo Valley College. His principal teachers were Gerald Levinson, Joan Panetti, and James Freeman at Swarthmore College (B.A.); Jules Langert at Dominican University (M.A.); Christopher Yavelow at Claremont University (Ph.D.); and Terry Riley. Dr. Alburger has composed 406 major works over the past 48 years, including chamber music, concertos, oratorios, operas, song cycles, and symphonies. His complete catalogue is being issued on discs from New Music. Alburger's multiple blogs include: markalburger.blogspot.com,
markalburger2022.blogspot.com,
markalburgerworks.blogspot.com, markalburgerevents.blogspot.com, markalburgermusichistory.blogspot.
com, 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com
[C Chromatic Scale]
As Vesta Was Descending (1601) 
