Claudio Monteverdi, Second Practice and Baroque Music

Iván Salazar González

Introduction

The first part of this essay describes the theoretical discussion in which the term Seconda

Prattica appeared, including musical examples of Cruda Amarilli, a madrigal by Claudio

Monteverdi which was –among others– matter of controversy. The blurred range and

limited definition of the term will be discussed too.

The second part places Opera as the most important input of Monteverdi‘s music to

Baroque. By comparing his first and last Operas (L’Orfeo, 1607, and L’Incoronazzione di

Poppea, 1642, respectively), transformations and contributions of early Baroque‘s music

will be depicted.

Monteverdi’s context

Born in Cremona in 1567, Claudio Monteverdi had a long musical life, settled first in

Mantua as a Court composer (1590-1612), and later in Venice working in San Marcos

Church (1613-1643), where he died at the age of 73. Italy, seat of all these cities, was the

epicenter of European economy both industrially and commercially1.

Early musician –probably singing and playing viola da braccio-, Monteverdi‘s counterpoint

studies with Marc‘Antonio Ingegneri developed his compositional skills. His three big

genres of composition were: Madrigals (nine books with multiple reprints along his life),

1
Richard Taruskin, "Chapter 1 Opera from Monteverdi to Monteverdi," in Music in the Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Centuries, Oxford University Press. Retrieved 5 Jun. 2018.
Opera (three of them remain complete, the rest is totally or partially lost) and Sacred

Music.2

Monteverdi and the idea of seconda pratica. Influence in Baroque Period.

The appearance of Seconda Pratica as a controversy is dramatic itself. During the early

seventeenth century in Italy, a disruptive way of conceiving music was manifested in some

of Monteverdi‘s madrigals, in which he allowed himself occasional ruptures of the

established rules of counterpoint regarding the use of dissonance and the change of modes3.

These deviations were intimately related to text and, moreover, to drama4. Monteverdi, a

talented and well prepared musician, composer -by 1600- of three books of madrigals, may

have done that led by his dramatic background and experience.

In his treatise Artusi about the Imperfections of Modern Music (1600), the well-known

Bolognese critic Giovanni Maria Artusi included specific passages of Monteverdi‘s

madrigals as examples of unnecessary and awful licenses of modern composers 5. Image 1

shows the first bars of Cruda Amarilli, much criticized by Artusi, in which dissonance is

used against convention in both measures 2 and 13:

2
Tim Carter and Geoffrey Chew, "Monteverdi [Monteverde], Claudio," Grove Music Online. 28 Jun. 2018: 2.
3
Paolo Fabbri, Monteverdi, Translated by Tim Carter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, 34-52.
4
Gary Tomlinson, ―Monteverdi and the End of Renaissance,‖ Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990,
257-258.
5
Paolo Fabbri, Monteverdi, 34-52.
 Image 1. Cruda Amarilli, by C. Monteverdi. Bars 1 to 14.

According to rules, an acceptable way of managing dissonance demands a passing-note in

the bass line, between G and E (mm.1-2). In mm. 13, a consonant note before the

dissonances of the soprano line (A and F#) would be required.

Despite the critic did not mentioned the composer by name, Monteverdi included a brief

letter in his Fifth Book of Madrigals (1605) in which he states that he does not write
―haphazardly‖, that there is another way to consider consonances and dissonances,

―different from the established‖ one, and offers to publish a wider response named Second

Practice or On the perfection of Modern Music, which never came to light.6

Monteverdi‘s brother, Giulio Cesare, includes a ‗declaration‘ in the publication of

Claudio‘s Musical Scherzi (1607), in which he adds that in Seconda Pratica ‘the

declamation of the text is the mistress of the music and not its servant‘ (che l’oratione sia

padrona dell’armonia e non serva). This differentiation, as Leopold states, ―sounded

revolutionary but […] had long been realized in practice‖.7

Seconda Pratica has been used as a category similar to ―expression of affections‖. Claude

Palisca, for instance, points out expression of affections as the main characteristic of

Baroque; he mentions Adrian Willaert‘s Musica Nova (compiled 1540, published 1559), as

the first of various works that manifested this new style, different from Renaissance. He

includes Cipriano de Rore and Nicola Vicentino as ―fountainheads of the new idiom‖, and

Monteverdi as who named the new style: seconda pratica. 8

Geoffrey Chew, on the other hand, warns that, despite a good portion of 20th-Century

literature refers to prima practica as ―the stricter style of Palestrina and his Roman

contemporaries‖, and seconda practica as ―the freer, more rhetorically expressive

concertato style of the north Italian composers‖, this differentiation ―should be used with

6
Denis Arnold, Monteverdi, London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1975: 14.
7
Silke Leopold, Monteverdi: Music in Transition, New York: Clarendon Press, 1991: 49.
8
Carter and Chew, "Monteverdi [Monteverde], Claudio," 2018: 7.
caution: the powerful narrative unity (or duality) it confers on Monteverdi‘s development as

a composer is largely fictitious‖.9

Considering that the term ―l‘oratione‖ (in Giulio Cesare Monteverdi‘s mentioned phrase)

may be translated as ―the words‖ but also as verbal delivery, Tim Carter discusses ―whether

the seconda pratica is best served by adherence to the letter of a poem or rather by an

effective musical exploration of its spirit‖, and states that even when ―the distinction

between a prima and a seconda pratica […] offered the composer the convenient claim that

he was in effect playing the game according to other rules, it did not necessarily form the

basis of a consistent aesthetic position‖.10

In fact, there is not specific information about Second Practice. According to Ossi, ―its

nature remains a matter of speculation. None of the texts specifies clearly to what sorts of

textual cues the composer should react, or how broad a range of expressive liberties is

acceptable; none of the texts distinguishes between the expressive aims of the madrigalisms

common throughout the repertory of at least the previous two decades and those of the new

style. […] In the end, it is difficult to define the boundaries of the seconda prattica as a

critical term‖.11

Leopold Silke amplifies the discussion from ―the treatment of dissonances and changing of

the mode‖ to a bigger dispute: ―how far vocal music was allowed to lay claim to a special

status in regard to the rules of counterpoint‖. Monteverdi, he says ―does not respond to

Artusi‘s arguments. It is not a defence of his style […] but an exposition of the principles of

9
Ibid, 11-12.
10
Tim Carter, ―Two Monteverdi Problems, and Why They Matter,‖ The Journal of Musicology 19, no. 3
(Summer 2002): 419-420.
11
Massimo Ossi, Divining the Oracle: Monteverdi's Seconda Prattica, Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2003: 6-7.
his own musical perception. […] Monteverdi‘s style of composition shook the foundations

of all traditional musical values. […] Up until then, scholars were in agreement that the

intellect (intelleto) and not the feelings (senso) were the last resort when judging a work of

art. Monteverdi, however, perceived the goal of music as being an appeal to the emotions of

the audience, not to their understanding. In order to attain this goal, music was justified in

using any means, even that of infringing on the rules. […] rational criteria such as ‗right‘ or

‗wrong‘ lost ground in relation to emotional ones such as ‗moving‘ or ‗stirring‘‖. 12

The idea of Second Practice existed to justify the deviation from the established rules of

counterpoint, but a systematization of that idea cannot be found, that is, it has not become

theory; and it makes sense, since the chosen name is "practice". Monteverdi was a practical

musician, who adapted and changed according to the needs that life and music would pose

him. ―For Monteverdi, the true art (verità dell‘arte) lay in practice and not in theory‖13.

Later, during the twentieth century, the construction and reconstruction elaborated by

scholars came, most of them guided by an ideal of unity and coherence -typical of

modernity- which not necessarily reflects the society in transition from noble feudalism to

bourgeois capitalism.

Part of this reconstruction, full of subjectivity, took the blurred distinction between first and

second practice with the firmness of a before and after, as a contraposition of categories

that synthesizes the differentiation of an old-conservative style from the new-revolutionary.

Once again, the story is told with the passion of drama, which accentuates the contrasts.

12
Silke Leopold, Monteverdi: Music in Transition, 46-49.
13
Ibid.
We must recognize that, despite not having been theorized -that is, established in its details

and taken to its limits- the idea of second practice enabled a skillful move of a composer

and a generation: they jumped the obstacle that musical establishment put to a practice. The

Monteverdi brothers certainly did not give an extensive response; they conveniently evaded

much of the public controversy and let time do its job instead. The course of events would

decide, not matter too much in which direction, but they would continue with their job in

the best way possible, making use of the necessary resources to stay valid –or standing at

least– in a difficult and changing world.

They were not modern, they did not need to justify themselves or show coherence, at best

they used rhetoric to draw support and they continued with their long and fruitful musical

practice that today we surely appreciate much more than a theoretical treatise on the Second

Practice.

Opera: A Dramatic Influence of Monteverdi’s Music in Baroque Period.

Plenty of scholars give Monteverdi the category of ―father‖ of opera; despite other

composers invented it. As Marianne Mcdonald asserts, he ―perfected the form for his

period —and showed a way beyond— realizing with consistency the concord of words with

music as well as expressing the human range of feeling and mood‖.14

Comparing his first and last operas –L’Orfeo, 1607, and L’Incoronazzione di Poppea,

1642,– composed each with 35 years in between and for dissimilar contexts, will show key

contrasts that illustrate different levels of transformations of music content during Baroque:

story, audience and musical resources.

14
Marianne Mcdonald, ―Mythical Musical Drama in Monteverdi,‖ Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the
Classics 23, no. 2 (Fall 2015): 149-182.
Court operas were prepared as unique and unrepeatable: L’Orfeo, for instance, was

presented for an audience of special guests of approximately two hundred people. Even

when it was not the first favola in musica, it was a perfected version15. On the other hand,

Poppea was one of the emergent commercial spectacles: paid by the audience, easy to

travel and to mount in other cities. Additionally, it was the first work called opera reggia

(staged work) which has prevailed as the name of the genre until today.16

Presumably considering the occasion and expected audience –instructed and selected

members of the Accademia degli Invaghiti during carnival festivities– the story of Orpheus

suffered an essential change when composed as a music tale in Mantua: the originally tragic

finale was replaced by redemption; this is, after Orpheus failed in his attempt to bring his

beloved wife back to earth from the underworld, in the new ending Apollo, god of sun and

music, raises him to the heavens.17 L’Incoronazzione di Poppea (1642), without the same

considerations of delicacy, became the first opera without happy ending or even a moral

lesson: the story of Emperor Nero dismissing his legitimate wife, murdering his friend, and

crowning his mistress as Empress. This indulgent treatment of moral was possible since the

work was performed as a public event, paid by audience, in the relatively relaxed context of

Venice.18

These elements lead to see that the content, from attempting to ingratiate the nobility on

festive or commemorative occasions in feudal and aristocratic Mantua, begins to appeal the

emotion of a wider public, not only noble and aristocratic but also bourgeois, in commercial

15
Lorenzo Bianconi, ―Opera,‖ in Music in the Seventeenth Century, translated by David Bryant, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987: 163.
16
Richard Taruskin, "Chapter 1 Opera from Monteverdi to Monteverdi," retrieved 5 Jun. 2018.
17
Leopold, Monteverdi, 94.
18
Wendy Heller, ―Poppea's Legacy: The Julio-Claudians on the Venetian Stage,‖ The Journal of
Interdisciplinary History 36, no. 3, Opera and Society: Part I (Winter, 2006): 379-399.
and culturally-mingled Venice. Monteverdi dropped the obligation of flatter and celebrate

through moralizing or elitist dilemmas, and addressed more pathetic and mundane problems

heading to excite and captivate. Jane Glover describes it as ―drawing away from the classic,

the formal, even the tragic, towards the more popular, earthy, even comic aspects of

humanity‖.19

The difference in musical resources between the works "affected" the character of the

music: in the case of L’Orfeo, noble sumptuous expense allowed a generous deployment in

instrumentation, dance and other components of the show. Tim Carter20 interprets that

―differentiated instrumentation [is] used in the traditional fashion to symbolize the various

spheres in which the drama is played out (recorders for the pastoral scenes, trombones for

the underworld, etc.).‖

On the other hand, a limited budget as Poppea‘s brings with it a reduction in the number of

musicians and the variety of instrumental timbres, fewer actors on stage and no chorus.

John Whenham explains that ―the orchestras of the late operas, consisting mainly of strings

and continuo instruments, reflect economic considerations in the Venetian public theatres.

Their function was mainly to provide ritornellos and sinfonias punctuating the action of the

opera: for the most part the voices are accompanied only by continuo instruments in the

manner of a sung play.‖21 The change in instrumentation gives the work a different

character, less grandiloquent, but not less expressive, though. It is remarkable that the choir,

which usually represented the voice of people and moral, is conveniently excluded in this

work, avoiding moral judgment on stage.

19
Glover, ―The Venetian Operas‖: 303.
20
Carter and Chew, "Monteverdi [Monteverde], Claudio," 2018: 30.
21
John Whenham, "Monteverdi [Monteverde], Claudio (opera)," Grove Music Online, Retrieved 28 Jun.
2018.
How influential was Monteverdi‘s music to Baroque surpasses the length of this essay, but

it is possible to state that social, economic and cultural changes of early Baroque are

condensed in his operas. This genre, perfected and named by him, does not only synthesize

the great differences between Renaissance and Baroque but also depicts the enormous

foundations laid down during Baroque for the music of the following 400 years in Europe

and its area of cultural influence.

These contributions involve form, texture, instrumentation, the consolidation of tonal

thought, but most important, the character of music as appealing to affections.

Monteverdi‘s dramaturgical considerations about music –as well as the context he worked

into– were the engine for the gradual and continuous change in his music praxis and style

along his life.