Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
Madrigals Book III
Monteverdi’s Third Book of Madrigals was published in Venice
in 1592 by Ricciardo Amadino and sold extremely well, with five reprints before
1611. Two further editions published in 1615 and 1621 included a basso continuo
line “for harpsichord, chittarone or other similar instrument” to aid the
instrumentalists who would otherwise have had to work out their part from the
vocal parts and transcribe it by hand. These madrigals were clearly in the
performance repertoire therefore for a good thirty years (quite remarkable
given the rapidly changing tastes at the turn of the sixteenth century as
monody and opera developed) and were the composer’s first major success. Having
been engaged two years earlier by the Gonzaga family at the court of Mantua as
a humble singer of madrigals and viol-player, by 1592 Monteverdi was also
working as a composer alongside Giaches de Wert, maestro di cappella at the
ducal chapel of Santa Barbara (where all the major sacred ceremonies of the
court took place). By that time Wert was suffering from various illnesses,
including smallpox and malaria, and Monteverdi, keen to make his name and
hoping to succeed Wert, dedicated his Third Book to Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga,
partly out of respect, but also well aware that he was offering “mature and
tasty fruit” that would be of great interest in the cultural atmosphere of the
time. There is no mention here, as there was in the First and Second Books
(Naxos 8.555307 and 8.555308), of either his origins or his teachers: as a
court musician he had both assimilated and become part of the sophisticated
culture that had always fascinated him. The Third Book is clearly influenced by
the musical, literary, architectural and other artistic splendours of the Mantuan
court. It is an innovative, at times revolutionary work, full of bold
expressive features, which draws once again on the poems of Torquato Tasso and
Giovanni Battista Guarini (the author of one of the most famous Renaissance
texts, Il pastor fido (1589), who was visiting Mantua at the time).
The first madrigal, La giovinetta pianta, sets an anonymous
text and is well constructed but not overly interesting musically even though
it was usual practice for the first (and last) pieces of such a work to be
remarkable in some way or another (a practice Monteverdi had followed in the
Second Book and would do again in the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth, Naxos 8.555310,
8.555311 and 8.555312). As with the First Book, however, what matters most here
is not musical innovation but the tribute to the dedicatee: Vincenzo Gonzaga,
hedonist, spendthrift and libertine (not unlike Verdi’s Duke of Mantua in
Rigoletto...) would no doubt have been pleased by the explicitly mischievous
and sensual references in a text encouraging young girls to take enjoyment in
love.
Love is once again the principal theme of these songs,
whether in subtle portrayals of sensuality, as in Sovra tenere erbette 3, or as
the source of pain when a lover’s feelings are unrequited or he is betrayed 4 and
12. Betrayal is also the theme of the very beautiful Ch’io non t’ami 13 with
its tormented finale on the words “come poss’io lasciarti e non morire”, and of
Occhi un tempo mia vita 14, with its wealth of contrasting attitudes depicted
by the masterly use of horizontal counterpoint (for expressions of love) and
vertical harmony (for moments of reluctance and inner pain).
Several of the madrigals in this book (for example the
seventh and twelfth) are characterized by a long opening passage written for a
single voice (a sign of the trend by then to separate out the voices and
personalise them by providing solo introductions), or for the trio of the top
three voices. Many academics believe that this points to a connection with the
Concerto delle Dame di Ferrara, one of the few all-female groups in Renaissance
Italy (made up of noblewomen and singers visiting the Ferrarese court). Their
flawless taste, technique and virtuosity were renowned throughout Europe; while
the usual cappella was made up of a small number of male singers and
instrumentalists, we know from contemporary reports such as that by the
Florentine ambassador in 1571, that at least until 1598 (the year in which the
last heir of Alfonso II d’Este died and the Ferrara dukedom passed into the
hands of the Roman Church), larger-scale concerts of around sixty singers and
instrumentalists were staged. These were undoubtedly exceptional events, proof
both of the esteem in which the art form was held and of the great wealth of
Ferrara. Given the regular cultural contests and exchanges between the latter
and Mantua, it is certainly plausible that Monteverdi might have written pieces
expressly dedicated to the Ladies of Ferrara. Three such pieces appear here: O
come è gran martire 2 a superb depiction of that cultured world and of the way
in which such feelings would have to be experienced intimately and without
outward show at court; Lumi, miei cari lumi 18; and O rossignuol 6. The latter
two songs make frequent and effective use of madrigalismi, or word-painting (to
be found on the words “veloce” and “tardo” in Lumi, miei for example; while in
O rossignuol, a swiftly undulating theme on “rio” comes to a standstill on the
words “fermarti suoli”, the nightingale’s song takes flight in a volley of
notes, and the words of suffering, tears and pain, always present in such
texts, are treated with dissonant harmonies).
The text of one of the Third Book’s most famous pieces, O
primavera, gioventù dell’anno 11 is taken from Mirtillo’s monologue at the
beginning of Act Three of Il pastor fido. This pastoral drama was a favourite
of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga, as proved by reports of a sumptuous staging in 1598
(after a failed attempt in 1591). We do not know for sure, but it seems likely
that this madrigal was included in that performance. The text is polarised
between ever-renewing nature with her promise of the joy of new life and an
unhappy lover nostalgically recalling a love now lost for ever; the contrast
between these sentiments is made even stronger by the music — fast-moving,
playful episodes are set in opposition to slow, painful dissonance.
The innovative nature of this book is visible above all in
the “cycles” of madrigals: much has been written about Monteverdi’s use of
declamation in Vattene pur crudel 8 and the charm of the musical transposition
of the two cycles taken from Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (also the source of
his later work, Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda). Nino Pirrotta writes
in Scelte poetiche di musicisti (1987) that these works contain “singing rather
than recitative, because the implicit form of performance can avoid the
practical demands of realistic speech to which performance is too often
subjected ... Song, representation in song, is the declared artistic aim”. The
sequence of three madrigals 15-17 that begins with the desperate words “Vivrò
fra i miei tormenti” sets to music the moment at the end of the combat between
Tancredi and Clorinda, when the Christian warrior removes his helmet only to
realise that he has unwittingly killed his beloved. A dreamlike atmosphere is
created; the voices seem to fight one another, angry impulses alternating with
long moments of reflection. Blinded by anger and the violent contest, Tancredi
is now condemned to wander for eternity in remorse and self-hatred: the music
perfectly portrays his confused and bewildered state of mind (beginning of 16
and 17). The melodies wander harmonically, sustained only by syllabic
repetition intoned on a single note, an obsessive, recitative-like repetition.
Yet every time the force builds up it reverberates, leading into a new episode
in which other voices overlap, interrupted by the desperate cries of “ahi
sfortunato” 16. The outcome of so much sorrow can only be death, the “tomba
felice”, a phrase that expresses the Baroque concept of contradiction.
Both the First and Second Books contain extremely expressive
settings of Tasso, but the Third Book settings have a new drama and intensity
(as does the only Tasso piece in the Fourth Book, Naxos 8.555310). After an
absence in the Fifth and Sixth Books, his work reappears with full dramatic
force in Combattimento, Monteverdi himself writing in the foreword to the
Eighth Book in 1638, “I entrusted myself to the divine Tasso, whose words so
clearly and naturally express the passions he wishes to describe, and I
rediscovered his description of the combat between Tancredi and Clorinda,
giving me the two opposite passions to set to music, war, in other words
prayer, and death”.
Expressing these “passions” presents challenges in terms of
both composition and performance: the opening of Vattene pur crudel 8 has to
portray the powerful invective of the sorceress Armida as in her pain and
distraction she rails agains Rinaldo who has decided to leave her and her
enchanted castle to return to the battlefield. Betrayed and about to collapse
in grief, she invokes terrible curses (whose power is only matched by that of
her love for him) so that in his final moments he will think only of her, with
a last, desperate cry of love. Monteverdi’s setting is brilliant and harrowing;
the notes drip with passionate and contrasting sentiments — love and hate break
against each other as waves break against rocks. Then Armida slowly faints away
9 in a descending, sinuous, chromatic sequence of notes, at the end of which
she falls senseless to the ground. As she comes round 0, she realises that she
is now completely alone: with the same technique of syllabic repetition and
uttering one final cry of despair, she collapses and weeps. As Claudio Gallico
notes in Monteverdi (1979), these pieces from the major poem of the late
Renaissance are semi-operatic and of genuinely theatrical nature.
The inherent passion and intensity of these two cycles
recall the Lamento d’Arianna in the Sixth Book (Naxos 8.555312); similarly the
last madrigal in the Third Book is reminiscent of the final intense triptych of
the First Book, where lyrics by different poets (Guarini and Tasso again) are
placed together because of their similarity of content. Monteverdi abides by
usual practice and puts a masterpiece of innovation in this final position —
Rimanti in pace (, which evokes again Gerusalemme liberata and the story of
Rinaldo and Armida (these being Rinaldo’s words to the enchantress just before
he leaves her). Yet while here too a pair of lovers must endure separation,
there is nothing epic about the atmosphere created by Liviano Celiano. Thyrsis
and Phyllida are two humble shepherds who, without averting their gaze from one
another, part in great sorrow, with words of love, tears and sighs. Following
the text, the music proceeds haltingly, creating contrasts, led only by the
feelings of the two lovers who seem almost to speak with one voice. The skilful
and expressive use of word-painting, the masterly and inventive descending chromatic
scale (like that used in 9) on the words “or qui mancò lo spirto” and for the
slowly falling tears of “stilland’amaro umore”, the harmonic instability of “di
martir in martir, di doglie in doglie”, the use of syllabic repetition together
with distant chords in “gli trafisse il cor” all combine to make this one of
the greatest works of the age.
In support of what I have already written in the notes to
accompany Books One and Two about our decision to record these works using male
voices only, I should like to add here that Gustave Reese in Music in the
Renaissance (ch.8, note 162) notes that a re-examination of the Mantua archives
leads to the conclusion, despite some historians’ opinion to the contrary, that
the cappella served both Santa Barbara (the only ducal church in Wert’s time)
and the court. Given that women were not permitted to sing in church, we have
deduced that it was common (and popular) practice for madrigals to be performed
by men only at the Mantuan court — and throughout Italy — at the time: such
sonorities (while very appealing) may seem strange to modern listeners used to
years of performance by female voices. Recording these works in accordance with
the earlier practice has been both an obligation and an pleasure for us, and we
hope that just as the use of “authentic instruments” has now found favour in
Baroque instrumental performance, so this practice will in future be fully
recognised by critics, academics and all those who love true Music.
Marco Longhini
English translation: Susannah Howe