Shannon Canavin & Eunsun
Song, soprano
Thea Lobo & Martin Near, alto
Eric Rice, tenor
Seth Katz, bass
Saturday, November 8, 2003 at 8 PM
The
First Lutheran Church of Boston
Sunday, November 9, 2003 at 3 PM
Cochran
Chapel at Phillips Academy Andover
Program Notes
The term maniera, literally style, was first
used in the 15 th century to describe “good manners.” However,
by the mid-16 th century, the term had developed a
meaning closer to “artificial” or “mannered.” Giovanni
Paolo Lomazzo put forth the first mature statement
of mannerism in his Trattato dell’arte della
pittura, scultura et architettura of 1584. Lomazzo
emphasized the importance of the idea (concetto)
producing the internal design (disegno interno),
resulting in a hidden formal intricacy in the artistic
object itself as well as in the mind of the artist.
In art, this concept is exemplified in the work of
Michelangelo’s figura serpentinata,
whose aim was to produce shocking pictorial or sculptural
effects through exaggerated turning and twisting of
the body. A similar goal was being sought in music,
most intently by several composers active in Italy,
who were able to convey both the straightforward meaning
of the text through simple word-painting as well as
the emotional extremes of the poetry through new heights
of dissonance and chromaticism. These composers flourished
during a period of experimentation, unrest, and disintegration
between two periods of relative stability – the
Renaissance and the Baroque – and created music
that was in turn disproportionate, discontinuous, surprising,
and novel. Despite their common approaches and goals,
however, their compositional voices were as different
as their careers.
Giaches de Wert emigrated to Italy from Flanders as
a boy singer in the household of Maria di Cardona,
Marchesa of Padulla. In about 1550, he may have moved
to Novellara under the governance of the Gonzaga family.
According to surviving records, Wert visited Mantua
and Ferrara, where he met Cipriano de Rore, the legendary
mentor of Monteverdi, among others. Next he moved to
Milan, where he was employed as the governor’s maestro
di cappella and in 1565 assumed the same position
at the ducal chapel of Santa Barbara in Mantua. In
1570, Wert learned of his wife’s infidelity;
she was forced to return to Novellara and later sent
to prison after her plot to overthrow the Gonzaga was
uncovered. While details of Wert’s activities
during the 1570s are sketchy, it is clear that his
ties to the Este court in Ferrara became increasingly
strengthened, especially following a marriage that
united the Mantuan and Ferrarese courts. He became
involved with Tarquinia Molza, an accomplished musician
and member of the second Concerto delle donne,
but the relationship was ended because it was considered
inappropriate for a lady-in-waiting to associate with
a court musician, who held the same social rank as
a servant. Wert continued to work at the Este court
into his final years until he Gastoldi succeeded him
as maestro di cappella in 1592. Wert died
in 1595 in Mantua.
Despite a substantial corpus of sacred music in manuscripts
from the basilica of Santa Barbara, Wert is known primarily
as a composer of madrigals and occasional pieces. His
early madrigals show a strong indebtedness to Rore
in their use of chromaticism, representational melodic
figures, and dark coloring. After his third book of
madrigals, Wert’s style is more refined, including
increasingly more textural contrast and declamatory
style, as in Ahi, lass’ognor, where
the contrapuntal opening gives way to a more homophonic
texture towards the middle of the piece. His seventh
book, however, revealed the beginning of his most radical
change, reflected in the music’s epic style and
theatrical gestures often associated with later composers
such as Monteverdi, who spent the early part of his
career in Mantua during Wert’s last years there.
While little evidence exists regarding his earliest
years, Luca Marenzio was reported by his father to
be in 36 th year in 1588, when he was in the service
of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. His family resided in
Brescia, where Marenzio probably received instruction
in music from a local priest. He may later have studied
with Giovanni Contino at Brescia Cathedral; he entered
the service of Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo after Contino’s
death. He remained in that post until the cardinal’s
death in 1578, when he transferred to Rome as Cardinal
Luigi d’Este’s maestro di cappella (which,
while perhaps not a full-blown musical establishment,
employed several singers and instrumentalists). The
cardinal’s strong ties to France led him in 1583
to offer Marenzio to the King of France as a gift,
but this plan apparently failed, much to the composer’s
relief. Following the death of Luigi d’Este,
Marenzio likely worked for Cardinal Ferdinando de Medici
in Rome and then spent some time without a patron and
employed as a musician at the papal court and elsewhere.
In 1595, the pope ordered Marenzio to take over as maestro
di cappella at the court of King Sigismund III
of Poland, but the composer had returned to Italy by
1598. Nothing certain is known of his biography between
this time and his death; it is possible that he traveled
to Milan with Cardinal Cinzio Aldobrandini or that
he returned to the service of the Medici, and that
at their estate he died in the care of his brother.
Marenzio was in high demand as a singer and lutenist
throughout his career, but it was not until his service
with d’Este, during which time he produced many
volumes of madrigals, that his fame as a composer spread
and he became known throughout Europe as the madrigalist.
He is most notable for his detailed word painting,
which later gave way to an advanced harmonic expressiveness.
Each poetic phrase is treated with a different and
variable musical idea, often translating verbal imagery
into musical symbolism, as seen in the opening phrases
of Coppia di donne, in which the two soprano
voices beginning the piece represent the “couple
of ladies” described in the text. Marenzio also
favored sophisticated and expressive word painting,
highlighting words with chromatic alterations, as in Voi
bramate, where the word “uccidermi” (“kill
me”) is treated with a flat in the tenor. Though
this alteration, resulting in a sweet-sounding major
chord, may seem contradictory on its face, this sweet
effect is in fact well placed when one considers the
dual meaning of the idea of “death” in
the 16 th century.
Carlo Gesualdo has been called “the greatest
master of the chromatic idiom,” but he is probably
most notorious among today’s audience for murdering
his adulterous wife, an event that spurred his fame
in his own day. The scandal was chronicled in several
poems and novels by such illustrious writers as Tasso
and Brantôme, which helped cultivate a wide interest
in Gesualdo’s eccentric lifestyle and passionate
dedication to his music. The composer’s influence
has been felt even into the 20 th century; Stravinsky
orchestrated several of Gesualdo’s madrigals — including Beltà,
poi che t’assenti, heard on tonight’s
program — in his 1960 Monumentum pro Gesualdo,
though it has been argued that Stravinsky misunderstood
the chromatic element of the earlier composer’s
music.
Gesualdo came from a noble family in the Italian principality
of Venosa. In 1594, he traveled to Ferrara following
his second marriage to Leonara d’Este, the niece
of Duke Alfonso II. Gesualdo made it known publicly
that he preferred the music of the Ferrarese over that
of the Venetians and while in Ferrara, he took full
advantage of the rich opportunities available to him,
such as composing for the Concerto di donne,
meeting his idol, Luzzascho Luzzaschi, and enjoying
the prestige of membership in aristocratic avant-garde
musical circles. As time passed, Gesualdo’s renowned
melancholy grew deeper as he delighted in nothing but
his music. Despite his ample wealth, he denied himself
the enjoyment of his position and his deterioration
continued until he ultimately died having failed in
his goal of continuing his lineage.
Gesualdo published nine books of madrigals for five
and six voices, one volume of madrigali spirituosi,
and a number of sacred works. While his first two books
of madrigals were more representative of the prima
prattica (the “first practice,” exemplified
by earlier madrigalists), he discarded this style in
his next two volumes. These later publications established
Gesualdo’s reputation as an accomplished composer;
until that time he, had been considered merely a competent
amateur. As Gesualdo’s style progressed, his
music became more chromatic and exceedingly daring.
It is known that Gesualdo had access to Vicentino’s
chromatic arcicembalo, which was kept at the
Ferrarese court, and he was undoubtedly influenced
by the theory behind the instrument. It is clear that
Gesualdo attempted to fashion a specific public image
through his published music (his first two “lighter” books
were penned under an assumed name). Alessandro Guarini
compared Gesualdo to Dante in that he did not avoid
harshness or dissonance in his imitation of the text.
Gesualdo’s madrigals are characterized by distinct
musical phrases for each textual image and distinguished
by extreme chromaticism, often resulting in disparate
musical sections. Although Gesualdo’s use of
chromaticism can usually be understood linearly within
the rules of 16 th-century counterpoint, the consecutive
and simultaneous accumulation of dissonances, while
each individually correct, causes the effect of blurring
the intervallic relationships that justify them, as
seen in the opening line of Moro, lasso. Gesualdo
also employs pedal points at cadences, emphatic pauses,
and chromatic alteration of harmonic intervals.
Claudio Monteverdi began his career in Cremona, where
he studied music and composition with Marc Antonio
Ingegneri, the maestro di cappella of the
Cremona Cathedral. His first compositions were some
minor sacred pieces and his first book of secular madrigals
was published in 1587. He traveled to Milan in 1589,
where he likely performed for the Gonzaga family at
Mantua, and by 1592 he was employed as a violinist
by Duke Vincenzo I. His third book of madrigals, published
in 1592, shows a strong influence of the then maestro
di cappella, Giaches de Wert. In 1607, Monteverdi
was elected to the Accademia degli animosi in
Cremona, where his first opera L’Orfeo may
have first been performed, and later reluctantly returned
to Mantua following his wife’s death in 1607.
While in Mantua, he supervised the production of his
second opera L’Arianna, as well as two
other staged works, celebrating the homecoming and
wedding festivities of Francesco Gonzaga. He returned
to Cremona following this exhausting period, where
he spent a year in a severe depression. His father
requested that Monteverdi be released from the service
of the Gonzaga family, but his request was denied,
leading Monteverdi to write to the court complaining
of his many grievances. In 1610 he traveled to Rome
and Venice, probably in search of a new position. Upon
the death of Duke Vincenzo in 1612, Monteverdi was
dismissed from his post and the next year appointed
the maestro di cappella at St. Mark’s
Cathedral in Venice. He received several commissions
from Duke Ferdinando who had succeeded his brother
Francesco in Mantua, but did not take up an offer to
return to the court’s service in 1620. He continued
to publish books of madrigals and other large-scale
works, but with the opening of public opera houses
in Venice in 1637, Monteverdi found a new avenue for
his staged works and composed four new operas (Il
ritorno d’Ulisse in patria, Le nozze d’Enea
con Lavini, L’incoronazione di Poppea, and La
vittoria d’Amore). He took a final trip
to his hometown of Cremona before his death in Venice
in 1643.
While Monteverdi is known for his contributions to
the development of the seconda prattica (it
was he, in fact, who coined the term in response to
attacks by the theorist Artusi), he was very indebted
to the prima prattica style of Palestrina,
as can be heard in the choral movements of his 1610 Vespro
della Beata Virgine. His books of madrigals show
a definite development, progressively including more
dissonance, chromaticism, declamation, and use of instruments.
He was ultimately most concerned with the faithful
representation of the words in music and he assisted
in the development of this ideal in instrumental music
through his specification of instruments (a new practice
at that time) and representation of emotion, which
he explained in the preface to his eighth book of madrigals.
His madrigal output represents both the old style,
using points of imitation and clever contrapuntal techniques,
and the new emotional intensity of the mannerist poetry.
Both of these can be seen in the brilliant set Ch’io
t’ami, with contrapuntal entrances occurring
in the first movement at “se tu nol sai” and
in the third movement at “che si rigida Ninfa,” while
his masterful use of declamation at the opening of
the second movement “Deh! bella e cara” strikes
just the right chord to convey the emotions of the
speaker.
Nicola Vicentino provides today’s performer
with a perfect summary of the spirit of the mannerist
movement in his L’Antica musica ridotta alla
moderna prattica (1555) when he urges singers
to “sing the words in accordance with the composer’s
intention, and express with the voice intonations accompanied
by the words with their affects: now cheerful and now
sad, now sweet and now cruel…in this manner
he moves the listeners more; this mode of changing…stirs
the soul.”
© 2003 Shannon Canavin and Eric Rice |
