Biography of Claudio Monteverdi. Treasures of early music

Claudio Monteverdi(Monteverdi) (baptized May 15, 1567, Cremona - November 29, 1643, Venice) was an Italian composer. From childhood he served as a chorister in the Cremona Cathedral; here he studied with the organist M. A. Ingenieri, from whom he adopted the technique of polyphonic writing (primarily in the genre of spiritual madrigals). In 1590 he moved to Mantua and for 12 years served there as a singer and violist, later as an assistant to the bandmaster. In 1599 he made a trip to Flanders, where he had the opportunity to get acquainted with Flemish and French music.

Initially, Monteverdi gained fame as the author of canzonets and especially madrigals - secular and spiritual. The first three collections of youthful madrigals by Monteverdi were published in 1582-1584. Already in these early works of Monteverdi, a high polyphonic technique is visible. During Monteverdi's lifetime, about 10 collections of 4- and 5-voice madrigals were published; the most significant of them are 5-voice madrigals published in 7 collections in 1587-1619. A separate collection was devoted to "Love and warlike" madrigals (1638). In madrigals, Monteverdi introduces many innovations in the field of harmony and polyphony: jumps to seventh and non, seventh chords, chromatisms, parallel fifths. Along with polyphony, features of a chord-harmonic warehouse appear in Monteverdi's madrigals. Monteverdi often added instrumental accompaniment to the vocal parts (harpsichord, lute).

The composition of madrigals and canzonettes was an important stage in Monteverdi's preparation for operatic work. A significant role was also played by Monteverdi's acquaintance with the work of Florentine composers, authors of the first operas - Peri, Caccini and others. In 1607, Monteverdi received an order to write music for a theatrical performance in the Duchy of Mantua. This was Monteverdi's first opera "Orpheus", which struck the audience with an unusual tragic interpretation of the mythological plot. Following "Orpheus" appeared a number of other operas by Monteverdi, which strengthened his fame as an opera composer (posted in Venice): "Ariadne" (1608), from which the only famous aria "Lament of Ariadne", "Proserpina" (1630), "Return Ulysses" (1641), "The Coronation of Poppea" (1642). The most innovative work of Monteverdi is "The Coronation of Poppea", for the first time in the history of the opera written on a true historical plot (events of times Nero).

Starting in 1613 and until the end of his life, Monteverdi served as director of the Chapel of St. Mark in Venice. For 30 years he wrote a lot of church music; Monteverdi's innovation extended to this area of ​​creativity.

In 1637 in Venice, with the direct participation of Monteverdi, the first opera house was opened, in which his operas were also staged (in particular, Ariadne - 1639).

Monteverdi entered the history of music as one of the great opera composers of his time, the largest representative of the late Renaissance in Italy. An important merit of Monteverdi is the introduction of ariose numbers and dramatic choirs into the opera, along with the recitatives that characterize the operatic style of his predecessors. Monteverdi sought to subordinate the music to the content of the text, to create individual musical characteristics of the characters. A large role in this was played by harmonic and orchestral means. Monteverdi was the first to introduce the overture into the opera, as well as new techniques in the orchestra - tremolo and pizzicato of stringed instruments. The orchestra in Monteverdi's operas reaches a considerable size ("Orpheus" - about 40 instruments). Along with string and wind instruments, which later became part of the classical orchestra, Monteverdi used viola, lute, harpsichord and organ.

MONTEVERDI Claudio (baptized May 15, 1567, Cremona - November 29, 1643, Venice), Italian composer. He studied with M. A. Ingenieri, the bandmaster of the Cathedral of Cremona, learned the traditions of choral polyphony (J. P. da Palestrina, O. Lasso, etc.). In 1582 he published a collection of 3-voice motets "Small spiritual songs" ("Sacrae cantiunculae"), in 1587 - the 1st collection of madrigals (5-voice). From 1590 (or 1591) chorister and violist (performer on viole da gamba), from 1602 Kapellmeister at the court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga in Mantua. In 1607, his first opera, Orpheus, was also staged there (libretto by A. Strigio, based on the plot of an ancient Greek myth, set forth mainly according to Ovid and Virgil). After the death of the Duke of Monteverdi, he moved to Venice, in 1613 he took the post of bandmaster St. Mark's Cathedral, created 6 operas for the Venetian opera houses. Author of 8 collections (“books”) of madrigals; late madrigals, especially from the 7th (1619) and 8th (1638) books, which already belong to the aesthetics of the Baroque, can only be called madrigals conditionally - these are large-scale theatrical vocal and instrumental compositions “The Battle of Tancred and Clorinda” (text from "Jerusalem Liberated" by T. Tasso), balli (madrigals with dances) "Ball of ungrateful women" and "Tyrsis and Chlorus", duets, tertsets and solo arias with basso continuo (for example, "Complaint of a Nymph" for soprano and male tercet, close opera stage). In 1651, under the title Madrigals and Canzonettes, Book 9, a collection of Monteverdi's secular music of various years was published (including 11 previously unpublished pieces); the most valuable is the trio "Come dolce oggi l'auretta" ("How gentle the breeze is now") - the only surviving number from his opera "Stolen Proserpina". Of the sacred music of the composer, the most famous is "Vespers of the Blessed Virgin" (" Vespro della Beata Vergine " , 1610; its climax is the Magnificat); Moreover, Monteverdi wrote 3 masses (including "In illo tempore") and motets - on the texts of the famous psalms "Dixit Dominus", "Laudate Dominum omnes gentes", "Beatus vir qui timet Dominum", etc., as well as on the text antiphon "Salve regina" (3 different motets). 37 spiritual compositions were included in the large-scale collection Selva morale e spirituale, first published in Venice in 1640.

One of the first and greatest opera composers in the history of music. Of the significant number of Monteverdi's works in this genre (c. 15), three have been completely preserved: Orpheus, Ulysses' Return to his Homeland (libretto by G. Badoaro based on Homer's Odyssey, Venice, Carnival 1639–40) and The Coronation of Poppea "(libretto by G. F. Busenello based on the Annals of Tacitus and other ancient sources, Venice, carnival 1642-43); from the opera "Ariadne" (Ducal Palace in Mantua, 1608) only the famous Lamento of Ariadne (or Ariadne's Lament) has been preserved.

The main feature of Monteverdi's musical language is the combination (often in one work) of imitation polyphony, characteristic of the Late Renaissance, and homophony as an achievement of the new Baroque era. Monteverdi considered himself the creator of a special emotional style: he found examples of “soft” and “moderate” styles in the works of his predecessors and “never found examples of an excited style” (stile concitato). Monteverdi believed that music should be able to convey human feelings and passions (anger, prayer, fear, etc.), including in conflict opposition; this manifested itself in the musical characteristics of his opera characters, for which he found individual intonations. Along with recitatives and ariose constructions, developed solo and ensemble forms were introduced into the vocal parts of his operas (Orpheus' scene at the gates of hell, Ariadne's Lament, the virtuoso Duet of Nero and Lucan from the Coronation of Poppea), choral scenes (Seneca's Scene with students from the Coronation Poppei"), in "Orpheus" the overture (the original name of "toccata") first appeared. Harmony M. combines the principles of modality and tonality, including in chromatized form. In the score of Orpheus, published in 1609, for the first time in history, the composition of an opera orchestra is recorded; it combines instruments of the basso continuo group and a large number of monophonic instruments (violins, zinc, trumpets), which participated in the performance of the orchestral sections. Monteverdi was one of the first to convey various theatrical effects with the help of instrumentation: for example, in the pastoral scenes of the opera Orpheus he used strings, flutes, lutes, in the scenes of the underworld - zinc, trombones, regal.

Monteverdi's innovation was misunderstood by some of his contemporaries. The influential music theorist J. Artusi in his treatise On the Imperfection of Modern Music (parts 1–2, 1600–03) brought down criticism on the composer (in particular, for his daring use of unprepared dissonances and chromaticism). In a brief preface to the 5th book of madrigals (1605), Monteverdi replied that he “has higher considerations regarding consonances and dissonances than those contained in school rules.” After 2 years, brother Monteverdi, composer and organist Giulio Cesare Monteverdi (1573 - c. 1630), in the expanded "Explanation to the letter printed in the 5th book" clarified the brother's musical and aesthetic position, while he used the concepts of "first practice" (prima pratica) and "second practice" (seconda pratica). According to him, for the "first practice" (its representatives are named the great polyphonists of the past Josquin Deprez, J. Okegem etc.), the mastery of the technique of composition was important as such, and the presentation of the text was not so essential, while the "second practice" (innovators-madrigalists starting with C. de Rore and the creators of theatrical music) requires that music reign supreme the text to which melody, harmony and rhythm obey. Monteverdi also outlined his compositional ideas in the preface to the 8th book of madrigals (1638).

Interest in Monteverdi revived in the 20th century; his works were edited by V. d'Andy, E. Krenek, J.F. Malipiero and others. Historical records of "Orpheus" were made by P. Hindemith (1954), A. Wenzinger (1955), "Coronations of Poppea" - G. von Karajan (1963). “Vespers of the Blessed Virgin” (with the participation of valve wind instruments and “sensitive” operatic vocals) was recorded in 1966 in his own edition by R. Kraft. Since the late 1960s Monteverdi's music is actively performed by representatives authentic performance. Representative selections of Monteverdi's madrigals have been included in their live albums by ensembles

(baptized 15.V.1567, Cremona - 29.XI.1643, Venice)

Italian composer, author of madrigals, operas, church works, one of the key figures of the era, when the musical style of the Renaissance was replaced by a new baroque style. Born in the family of the famous doctor Baldassare Monteverdi. The exact date of birth has not been established, but it is documented that Claudio Giovanni Antonio was baptized on May 15, 1567 in Cremona.

Claudio, apparently, studied for some time with M. A. Ingenieri, regent of the Cremona Cathedral. The first five collections of works published by the young composer (Spiritual tunes, Cantiunculae Sacrae, 1582; ​​Spiritual madrigals, Madrigali Spirituali, 1583; three-part canzonettes, 1584; five-part madrigals in two volumes: the First collection, 1587 and the Second collection, 1590) , clearly testify to the training he received. The period of apprenticeship ended around 1590: then Monteverdi applied for a place as a violinist in the court orchestra of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga in Mantua and was accepted into the service.

Mantua period. The service in Mantua brought the musician many disappointments. Only in 1594 did Monteverdi become a cantor, and only on May 6, 1601, after the departure of B. Pallavicino, did he receive the post of maestro della musica (master of music) of the Duke of Mantua. During this period (in 1595) he married the singer Claudia Cattaneo, who bore him two sons, Francesco and Massimiliano; Claudia died early (1607), and Monteverdi remained a widower until the end of his days. In the first decade at the Mantua court, Monteverdi accompanied the patron on his travels to Hungary (1595) and Flanders (1599). These years brought a rich harvest of five-part madrigals (Third collection, 1592; Fourth collection, 1603; Fifth collection, 1605). Many of the madrigals gained fame long before they were printed. At the same time, these compositions provoked a fit of anger in G. M. Artusi, a canon from Bologna, who criticized Monteverdi's composing techniques in a whole stream of poisonous articles and books (1602-1612). The composer responded to the attacks in the preface to the Fifth collection of madrigals and more extensively through the mouth of his brother Giulio Cesare in Dichiarazione (Explanation), this work was published as an appendix to Monteverdi's collection of compositions Musical Jokes (Scherzi musicali, 1607). In the course of the composer's polemics with critics, the concepts of "first practice" and "second practice" were introduced, denoting the old polyphonic style and the new monodic style.

The creative evolution of Monteverdi in the genre of opera began later, in February 1607, when the Tale of Orpheus (La Favola d "Orfeo) was completed to the text of A. Striggio the Younger. In this work, the composer remains faithful to the past and anticipates the future: Orpheus is a half-Renaissance interlude, half - monodic opera, monodic style by that time had already been developed in the Florentine Camerata (a group of musicians under the direction of G. Bardi and G. Corsi, who worked together in Florence in 1600). The score of Orpheus was published twice (1609 and 1615). Monteverdi's works in this genre were Ariadne (L "Arianna, 1608) and the opera-ballet Ballet of the Ungrateful (Il Ballo dell" ingrate, 1608) - both works on texts by O. Rinuccini. In the same period, Monteverdi first appeared in the field of church music and published an old-style Mass In illo tempore (based on a motet by Gombert) and added the Psalms of Vespers to it in 1610. Duke Vincenzo died in 1612, and his successor he dismissed Monteverdi and Giulio Cesare (July 31, 1612). For a while, the composer and his sons returned to Cremona, and exactly one year later (August 19, 1613) he received the position of head of the chapel (maestro di cappella) in the Venetian Cathedral of St. Mark.

Venetian period. This position (the most brilliant among those available at that time in Northern Italy) immediately saved Monteverdi from the injustices experienced by him at the time of maturity. He served in the honorary and well-paid post of cathedral conductor for three decades, during which time, quite naturally, he switched to ecclesiastical genres. However, he did not leave his opera projects either: for example, for Mantua in 1627, the realistic comic opera La finta pazza Licori was created. This work has not survived, like most of Monteverdi's musical and dramatic works, relating to the last thirty years of his life. But a wonderful work has come down to us, which is a cross between an opera and an oratorio: The duel of Tancred and Clorinda (Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorindo), written in 1624 in Venice (published in the Eighth Collection of Madrigals, 1638), based on a scene from the poem T .Tasso Jerusalem Liberated, one of the composer's favorite poetic sources. In this work, for the first time, a new dramatic style (genere concitato) appears with the expressive use of tremolo and pizzicato techniques.

The fall of Mantua in 1630 caused the loss of many autographs of Monteverdi's works. The political upheaval caused by the struggle for the duchy after the death of the last of the Gonzaga dynasty (Vincenzo II died childless) also left traces in the life of the composer (in particular, his son Massimiliano was arrested by the Inquisition for reading unauthorized books). The end of the plague in Venice was celebrated in the Cathedral of St. Mark November 28, 1631 with a solemn mass with music by Monteverdi (lost). Shortly thereafter, Monteverdi apparently became a priest, as evidenced by the title page of the edition of his Musical Jokes (Scherzi musicali cio Arie e Madrigali in stile recitativo, 1632). A book devoted to the problems of musical theory (melody) was written in the early 1630s, but little has survived from it, as well as from operas of this period.

In 1637, the first public opera house opened in Venice under the direction of Monteverdi's friends and students B. Ferrari and F. Manelli. This event marked the beginning of the flowering of the Venetian opera of the 17th century. For the first four Venetian opera houses, Monteverdi, who was then already in his eighties, wrote four operas (1639–1642), of which two have survived: The Return of Ulysses to the Fatherland (Il ritorno d "Ulisse in patria, 1640, to the libretto by G. Badoaro) and The Coronation of Poppea (L "Incoronazione di Poppea, 1642, to a libretto by G. Busenello). Shortly before this, the composer managed to print his madrigals, chamber duets and cantatas, as well as the best of his creations in church genres in two huge collections - Madrigals about war and about love (Madrigali guerrieri ed amorosi, Eighth collection of madrigals, 1638) and Selva morale e spirituale (Spiritual and Moral Wanderings, 1640). Shortly after the publication of these collections, on November 29, 1643, the composer died in Venice, having still managed to make his last trip to the places where his youth passed, i.e. to Cremona and Mantua. His funeral took place solemnly in both the main temples of Venice - St. Mark and Santa Maria dei Frari. The remains of the composer were buried in the second of these churches (in the aisle of St. Ambrose). For roughly a decade, Monteverdi's music continued to excite his contemporaries and remained relevant. In 1651, a posthumous edition of his madrigals and canzonettes (Ninth Collection) and a significant collection of church music called the Four-Part Mass and Psalms (Messa a quattro e salmi) appeared, they were published under his editorship by Monteverdi's publisher A. Vincenti. In the same year, a new production of the Coronation of Poppea was shown in Naples, which differed significantly from the production of 1642. After 1651, the great Cremonese and his music were forgotten. The appearance of Monteverdi is captured in two beautiful portraits: the first was reproduced in the official obituary in the book Poetic Flowers (Fiori poetici, 1644) - the face of an old man, with an expression of sadness and disappointment; another portrait was found in the Tyrolean Museum "Ferdinandeum" in Innsbruck, it depicts Monteverdi in his mature years, when Orpheus and Ariadne were created.

Critical Assessment. The significance of Monteverdi's work is determined by three factors: he is the last madrigalist composer of the Renaissance; he is the first author of performed operas of the kind of genre that was characteristic of the early baroque; finally, he is one of the most important authors of church music, since in his work Palestrina's stile antico (old style) is combined with Gabrieli's stile nuovo (new style), i.e. style is no longer polyphonic, but monodic, in need of the support of the orchestra.

Madrigalist. Palestrina began writing madrigals in the 1580s, during the heyday of this genre, and completed work on the madrigal the Sixth Collection (1614), containing five-part madrigals with the obligatory basso continuo, i.e. quality that defines the new concept of madrigal style. Many texts in Monteverdi's madrigals are taken from pastoral comedies like Amint Tasso or Guarini's Good Shepherd, and are scenes of idyllic love or bucolic passion, anticipating operatic scenes in the earliest examples of this new genre: the experiments of Peri and Caccini appeared in Florence c. 1600.

Opera composer. The beginning of Monteverdi's operatic work is, as it were, hidden in the shadow of Florentine experiences, his early operas continue the tradition of the Renaissance interlude with its large orchestra and choirs in the style of a madrigal or with a polyphonically lively movement of voices. However, already in the Ballet of the Ingrate, the predominance of solo monody and ballet numbers in the sense of the French ballet de cour (court ballet of the 17th century) is palpable. In the dramatic scene of the Tasso duel, the accompanying orchestra is reduced to a string quintet, here the picturesque techniques of tremolo and pizzicato are used to convey the ringing of weapons in the hands of the fighting Tancred and Clorinda. The composer's latest operas reduce orchestral accompaniment to a minimum and focus on the expressiveness of virtuoso singing. The vocal coloratura and the aria da capo are about to appear, and the psalmodic recitative of the Florentine Camerata is changing and enriching dramatically, anticipating the achievements in this field of Gluck and Wagner.

Church music. Monteverdi's church music has always been characterized by duality: polyphonic pasticcios coexist here with theatrically colorful interpretations of the psalms; one feels that many pages were written by the hand of an opera composer.

Claudio Monteverdi is an Italian Renaissance composer and a man who made a significant contribution to the development of such a genre as opera. Working according to the tradition of the early Renaissance and at the same time applying the “basso continuo” characteristic of the Baroque period, he can be said to have built a bridge between two different eras in the history of music. Born in the mid-sixteenth century in the Lombardy region of Italy, he studied music with Marco Antonio Ingenieri at the local cathedral. The composer began writing religious and secular music early in his life, publishing his first work at the age of 15. Around the age of 22, Claudio began his career as a musician at the court in the city of Mantua. Later he moved to Venice. Staying there until his death, Monteverdi wrote a lot of religious as well as secular music. La favola d'Orfeo, one of his first operas, is still performed regularly.

Claudio Monteverdi was born in 1567 (May 9) in Cremona, Lombardy, Italy. The exact date of his birth is not known, but church records state that the man was baptized on May 15, 1567. Officially, he was born a Spanish citizen, but he always considered himself Italian. His father, Balthazar Monteverdi, was a surgeon and apothecary, and his mother was the daughter of a goldsmith. Claudio was the eldest of six children in the family, had three brothers and two sisters. Giulio Cesare, the composer's brother, also became a famous musician. Claudio lost his mother when he was eight years old. By that time, Balthazar Monteverdi had moved up the social ladder. In 1576 he married again. Claudio was emotionally close to his father, which would influence many of his compositions in the future. My father was also musical. At least he appreciated the musical talent of his two sons, both of whom began to study music in the choir at the local cathedral. Claudio began to study with Marco Antonio Ingenieri. His teacher was an internationally renowned composer and master of vocal style. Under his tutelage, Claudio not only learned to sing, but also developed the skill of playing the violin and other instruments.

Monteverdi began his career as a musician at the age of 15. He continued to write music when he was 20 years old, he had a variety of works, both religious and secular. In 1589, Claudio left Cremona to become a musician at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga. The duke tried to create a center for music by appointing famous people from all over Europe as his court musicians. It was an ideal place for learning, and the young Monteverdi got the opportunity to participate in the theatrical activities at court. In 1599 Claudio became acquainted with the French school of modern music. In 1603 and 1605 he published two more of the nine madrigals, which presented real masterpieces. The musician used an intense and prolonged dissonance, which drew criticism from more conservative musicians, mainly Giovanni Maria Artusi. Very soon he focused on creating a practical philosophy of music, which found expression in his 1624 dramatic cantata and 1627 comic opera. Today Claudio Monteverdi is known as an important developer of operatic music. "La favola d" Orfeo "is probably his most popular work in this genre.

In 1599 Claudia Cattaneo, a singer at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga of Mantua, became Monteverdi's wife. The couple had three children: two sons named Francesco and Massimiliano and a daughter, Leonora, who died in infancy. Claudia also died in September 1607. Monteverdi himself died on November 29, 1643, at the age of 76, in Venice. He was buried in the Cathedral of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. His unpublished works were published after his death, in 1650. The following year, such works as canzonettes were released, which the musician wrote throughout his life.

Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Monteverdi was born in Cremona. Only the date of his baptism is precisely known - May 15, 1567. Cremona - a northern Italian city, has long been famous as a university and music center with an excellent church chapel and an extremely high instrumental culture. In the 16th-17th centuries, entire families of famous Cremonese craftsmen - Amati, Guarneri, Stradivari - made bowed instruments, which had no equal in the beauty of sound anywhere.

The composer's father was a physician, he himself probably received a university education, and in his youth he developed not only as a musician skilled in singing, playing the viol, organ and composing spiritual songs, madrigals and canzonettes, but also as an artist of a very broad outlook and humanistic views. He was taught to compose by the then famous composer Marc Antonio Ingenjern, who served as bandmaster of the Cremona Cathedral.

In the 1580s, Monteverdi lived in Milan, from where, at the invitation of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga, at the age of twenty-three he went to the court of Mantua as a singer and virtuoso on the viol. Subsequently (since 1601) he became the court Kapellmeister at Gonzaga. Documentary materials, and, above all, the correspondence of the composer himself, indicate that his life there was by no means sweet, he suffered from the despotism and greed of his patrons, who imperiously and petty took care of his work and doomed him to a forced, miserable existence. “I would rather beg than be subjected to such humiliation again,” he later wrote. Nevertheless, it was in these difficult conditions that Monteverdi finally formed as a mature and, moreover, an outstanding master - the creator of works that immortalized his name. The improvement of his art was facilitated by daily work with the excellent ensembles of the court chapel and the church of St. Barbara, wandering around Europe in the suite of Gonzaga in Hungary, Flanders, communication with outstanding contemporaries, among whom were such brilliant artists as, for example, Rubens. But a particularly important factor in progress for Monteverdi was his inherent modesty, tireless work and exceptionally strict exactingness to his own compositions. In the 1580-1600s, the first five books of beautiful madrigals of a five-voice warehouse were written in Cremona, Milan and Mantua.

The significance of this genre in the formation of the creative method and the entire artistic personality of the master was enormous. The point is not only that in Monteverdi's heritage the madrigal quantitatively dominates over others (only about two hundred works based on texts by Tasso, Marina, Guarini, Striggio and other poets). It was this genre sphere that became a creative laboratory for Monteverdi, where he undertook the most daring innovative undertakings even in his youth. In the chromatization of mode, he was significantly ahead of the madrigalists of the 16th century, without falling, however, into subjectivist sophistication and arbitrariness. Monteverdi’s huge progressive acquisition was the brilliantly accomplished fusion of Renaissance polyphony and a new homophonic warehouse - a dramatically individualized melody of various types with instrumental accompaniment. This, according to the composer himself, “second practice”, which found full and vivid expression in the fifth book of five-part madrigals, became the path to achieving the highest aesthetic goal of the artist, to the search and embodiment of truth and humanity. Therefore, unlike, say, Palestrina, with its religious and aesthetic ideals, Monteverdi, although he began his journey with cult polyphony, eventually established himself in purely secular genres.

Nothing attracted him as much as the exposure of the inner, spiritual world of a person in its dramatic collisions and conflicts with the outside world. Monteverdi is the true founder of the conflict dramaturgy of the tragic plan. He is a true singer of human souls. He persistently strove for the natural expressiveness of music. "Human speech is the mistress of harmony, and not its servant." Monteverdi is a resolute opponent of idyllic art, which does not go beyond the sound painting of "cupids, marshmallows and sirens." And since his hero is a tragic hero, his “melopoetic figures” are distinguished by an acutely tense, often dissonant intonation system. It is natural that this powerful dramatic beginning, the further, the more closely it became within the boundaries of the chamber genre.

Gradually, Monteverdi came to distinguish between the “madrigal of gestures” and the “madrigal of non-gestural”. But even earlier, his dramatic searches led him to the path of the opera house, where he immediately appeared fully armed with a “second practice” with the first Mantua operas Orpheus (1607) and Ariadne (1608), which brought him great fame.

With his "Orpheus" the history of genuine opera begins. Intended for a typical court festivity, "Orpheus" is written on a libretto, clearly associated with fabulous pastoral and luxurious decorative interludes - these typical attributes of court aesthetics. But Monteverdi's music turns the hedonistic fairy-tale pastoral into a deep psychological drama. The apparent pastoral is characterized by such expressive, individually unique music, fanned by the poetic atmosphere of a mournful madrigal, that it still influences us to this day.

“Ariadne touched because she was a woman, Orpheus - because he was a simple man Ariadne aroused true suffering in me, together with Orpheus I prayed for pity.” This statement of Monteverdi contains both the essence of his own creativity and the main essence of the revolution he made in art. The idea of ​​the ability of music to embody the "wealth of the inner world of man" during the life of Monteverdi was not only not a hackneyed truth, but was perceived as something unheard of new, revolutionary. For the first time in a millennium era, earthly human experiences found themselves at the center of composer creativity on a truly classical level.

The music of the opera is focused on revealing the inner world of the tragic hero. His part is extraordinarily multifaceted; various emotional and expressive currents and genre lines merge in it. He enthusiastically calls out to his native forests and coasts or mourns the loss of his Eurydice in artless folk songs.

In recitative dialogues, Orpheus's passionate remarks are written in that excited, in Monteverdi's later expression, "confused" style, which he deliberately contrasted with the monotonous recitative of the Florentine opera. The image of the hero, his inspired art, happy love and grievous loss, his sacrificial feat and achievement of the goal, the tragic denouement and the final Olympic triumph of the singer - all this is poetically embodied against the background of contrasting musical stage scenes.

Throughout the opera, melodious melodies are scattered with a generous hand, always in tune with the appearance of the characters and stage situations. The composer by no means neglects polyphony and from time to time weaves his melodies into an elegant contrapuntal fabric. Nevertheless, the homophonic warehouse dominates in Orpheus, the score of which literally sparkles with bold and precious finds of chromatic harmonies, colorful and at the same time deeply justified by the figurative and psychological content of this or that episode of the drama.

The orchestra of "Orpheus" was at that time huge and even excessively diverse in composition, it reflected that transitional period, when they still played a lot on old instruments inherited from the Renaissance and even from the Middle Ages, but when new instruments were already appearing that corresponded to the new emotional system , warehouse, musical themes and expressive possibilities.

The instrumentation of "Orpheus" is always aesthetically consonant with the melody, harmonic color, stage situation. The instruments that accompany the singer's monologue in the underworld are reminiscent of his skillful playing the lyre. In the pastoral scenes, the flute intertwines the artless melodies of the shepherd's melodies. The roar of the trombones thickens the atmosphere of fear that envelops the bleak and formidable Hades. Monteverdi is the true father of instrumentation, and in this sense Orpheus is a fundamental opera.

As for the second operatic work written by Monteverdi in Mantua, Ariadne (libretto by O. Rinuccini, recitatives by J. Peri), it has not survived. An exception is the world-famous aria of the heroine, which the composer left in two versions: for solo singing with accompaniment, and later - in the form of a five-voice madrigal. This aria is of rare beauty and is rightfully considered the masterpiece of early Italian opera.

In 1608, Monteverdi, who had long been burdened by his position at the ducal court, left Mantua. He did not bow before his power-hungry patrons and remained a proud, independent folk artist, holding high the banner of human art. After a short stay in his homeland in Cremona, in Rome, Florence, Milan, Monteverdi in 1613 accepted an invitation to Venice, where the procurators of San Marco chose him as the conductor of this cathedral.

In Venice, Monteverdi was to perform at the head of a new opera school. She differed in many ways from her predecessors and far ahead of them. This was due to different local conditions, a different historical balance of social forces and ideological currents. Venice of that era is a city with a republican system, a deposed aristocracy, with a rich, politically strong, cultured bourgeoisie and a daring opposition to the papacy. The Venetians in the Renaissance created their art, more secular, more cheerful, more realistic than anywhere else on Italian soil. Here, in music from the end of the 16th century, the first features and forerunners of the Baroque sprouted especially widely and brightly. The first opera house of San Cassiano was opened in Venice in 1637.

It was not an "academy" for a narrow circle of enlightened aristocratic humanists, as in Florence. Here the pope and his court had no power over art. It was replaced by the power of money. The Venetian bourgeoisie built a theater in its own image and likeness: it became a commercial enterprise. Cash became the source of income. Following San Cassiano, other theaters grew up in Venice, more than ten in all. There was also inevitable competition between them, the struggle for the public, artists, income. All this commercial and entrepreneurial side left its mark on opera and theatrical art. At the same time, for the first time, it became dependent on the tastes of the general public. This was reflected in his scope, repertoire, staging, and finally, in the style of opera music itself.

Creativity Monteverdi was the culminating moment and a powerful factor in the progress of Italian operatic art. True, Venice did not bring him complete liberation from addiction. He arrived there as a regent, who led the vocal and instrumental chapel of San Marco. He wrote cult music - masses, vespers, spiritual concerts, motets, and the church, religion inevitably influenced him. It has already been said above that, being by nature a secular artist, he accepted death in the clergy.

In the course of a number of years preceding the heyday of the Venetian opera house, Monteverdi was forced to serve patrons here too, though not as powerful and omnipotent as in Milan or Mantua. The palaces of Mocenigo and Grimani, Vendramini and Foscari were luxuriously decorated not only with paintings, statues, tapestries, but also with music. The Chapel of San Marco often performed here at balls and receptions during the time free from church services. Along with Plato's dialogues, Petrarch's canzones, Marina's sonnets, art lovers were fond of Monteverdi's madrigals. He did not leave this genre he loved in the Venetian period and it was then that he reached the highest perfection in it.

In Venice, the sixth, seventh, eighth books of madrigals were written, which continued to play the role of a genre in which Monteverdi experimented before his last operas were created. But the Venetian madrigals also had great independent significance. In 1838, an interesting collection of martial and loving madrigals appeared. It showed the deep psychological observation of the artist; the musical and poetic dramatization of the madrigal was brought there to the last possible limit at that time. This collection includes some of the earlier works. "Ungrateful Women" - an interlude of the Mantua period and the famous "Single combat of Tancred and Clorinda" - a magnificent dramatic scene, written in 1624 on a plot from Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered", intended to be performed with theatrical costumes and props.

During the thirty years he lived in Venice, Monteverdi created most of his musical and dramatic works for theatrical or chamber stage performance.

As for the operas themselves, Monteverdi has eight of them: Orpheus, Ariadne, Andromeda (for Mantua), The Seemingly Mad Licori - one of the first comic operas in Italy, The Abduction of Proserpina, Aeneas' Wedding and Lavinia", "Return of Ulysses to his homeland" and "Coronation of Poppea". Of the Venetian operas, only the last two have survived.

Monteverdi's most significant work of the Venetian period was the opera The Coronation of Poppea (1642), completed shortly before he died at the zenith of his fame as the oracle of music, on November 29, 1643. This opera, created by the composer when he was seventy-five years old, not only crowns his own creative path, but immeasurably rises above everything that was created in the operatic genre before Gluck. The thoughts that gave rise to her courage and inspiration are unexpected at such an advanced age.

The gap between The Coronation of Poppea and all Monteverdi's previous work is striking and inexplicable. This applies to the music itself to a lesser extent: the origins of the musical language of "Poppea" can be traced in the search for the entire previous, more than half a century period. But the general artistic appearance of the opera, unusual both for the work of Monteverdi himself and for the musical theater of the 17th century in general, is decisively predetermined by the originality of the plot and dramatic design. In terms of the completeness of the embodiment of the truth of life, the breadth and versatility of the display of complex human relationships, the authenticity of psychological conflicts, the acuteness of the formulation of moral problems, none of the other works of the composer that have come down to us can be compared with The Coronation of Poppea.

The composer and his talented librettist Francesco Busenello turned to a plot from ancient Roman history, using the chronicles of the ancient writer Tacitus: the emperor Nero, in love with the courtesan Poppaea Sabina, enthrones her to the throne, expelling the former empress Octavia and putting to death the opponent of this undertaking, his mentor philosopher Seneca.

This picture is written broadly, many-sidedly, dynamically. On the stage - the imperial court, his nobles, the wise adviser, pages, courtesans, servants, praetorians. The musical characteristics of the characters, opposed to each other, are psychologically accurate and accurate. In fast and many-sided action, in colorful and unexpected combinations, various plans and poles of life are embodied, tragic monologues - and almost banal scenes from nature; rampant passions - and philosophical contemplation; aristocratic sophistication - and artlessness of folk life and customs.

Monteverdi was never at the center of fashion, never enjoyed the same wide popularity as that which fell to the lot of some more "moderate" madrigal writers, and later composers of "light" canzonets and arias. He was so independent of the views and tastes of his contemporaries, so much wider than them in his artistic psychology, that he equally accepted both ancient, polyphonic and new, monodic writing.

Today it is indisputable that Monteverdi is the "founder of modern music." It was in the work of Monteverdi that the system of artistic thinking was formed, which is characteristic of our era.