SOME FORERUNNERS 
 OF ITALIAN OPERA 
 
 BY W. J. HENDERSON 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 THE ORCHESTRA AND ORCHESTRAL MUSIC,' 
 
 " WHAT IS GOOD MUSIC," ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 
 
 191 1
 
 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
 
 H58& 
 
 TO HER 
 
 'In a land of sand and ruin and gold 
 There shone one woman , and none but she." 
 
 Swinburne 
 
 351488
 
 PREFACE 
 
 '"T^HE purpose of this volume is to offer to 
 the English reader a short study of the 
 lyric drama in Italy prior to the birth of 
 opera, and to note in its history the growth 
 of the artistic elements and influences which 
 finally led the Florentine reformers to resort 
 to the ancient drama in their search for a 
 simplified medium of expression. The author 
 has not deemed it essential to his aims that 
 he should recount the history of all European 
 essays in the field of lyric drama, but only 
 that of those which directly affected the 
 Italians and were hence the most important. 
 For this reason, while some attention is given 
 in the beginning to the French and German 
 liturgical plays, the story soon confines itself 
 to Italy.
 
 VI 
 
 Preface 
 
 The study of the character and performance 
 of the first Italian secular drama, the " Orfeo " 
 of Poliziano, unquestionably a lyric work, is 
 the result of some years of labor. The author 
 believes that what he has to offer on this 
 topic will be found to possess historical value. 
 The subsequent development of the lyric 
 drama under the combined influences of 
 polyphonic secular composition and the 
 growing Italian taste for luxurious spectacle 
 has been narrated at some length, because 
 the author believes that the reformatory 
 movement of the Florentines was the out- 
 come of dissatisfaction with musical condi- 
 tions brought about as much by indulgence 
 of the appetite for the purely sensuous 
 elements in music as by blind adherence to 
 the restrictive laws of ecclesiastic counter- 
 point. 
 
 With the advent of dramatic recitative 
 the work ends. The history of seventeenth-
 
 Preface vii 
 
 century opera, interesting as it is, does not 
 belong to the subject especially treated in 
 this volume. The authorities consulted will 
 be named from time to time in the pages 
 of the book.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 I. The Early Liturgical Drama ... i 
 
 II. The Sacre Rappresentazioni ... 21 
 
 III. Birthplace of the Secular Drama . 35 
 
 IV. The Artistic Impulse 53 
 
 V. Poliziano's " Favola di Orfeo " . . 68 
 
 VI. The Performance of " Orfeo " . . 85 
 
 VII. Character of the Music 98 
 
 VIII. The Solos of the "Orfeo" . . . 117 
 
 IX. The Orchestra of the "Orfeo" . . 136 
 
 X. From Frottola Drama to Madrigal 147 
 
 XL The Predominance of the Spectacular i 60 
 
 XII. Influence of the Taste for Comedy 179 
 
 XIII. Vecchi and the Matured Madrigal 
 
 Drama 190 
 
 XIV. The Spectacular Element in Music . 207 
 XV. The Medium for Individual Utterance 220 
 
 Index 237
 
 SOME FORERUNNERS OF 
 ITALIAN OPERA 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE EARLY LITURGICAL DRAMA 
 
 f I ^HE modern entertainment called opera 
 * is a child of the Roman Catholic 
 Church. What might be described as oper- 
 atic tendencies in the music of worship date- 
 further back than the foundation of Chris- 
 tianity. The Egyptians were accustomed to 
 sing " jubilations " to their gods, and these 
 consisted of florid cadences on prolonged vowel 
 sounds. The Greeks caroled on vowels in 
 honor of their deities. From these practices 
 descended into the musical part of the earliest 
 Christian worship a certain rhapsodic and ex- 
 alted style of delivery, which is believed to 
 have been St. Paul's " gift of tongues."
 
 2 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 That this element should have disappeared 
 for a considerable time from the church music 
 is not at all remarkable, for in the first steps 
 toward regulating the liturgy simplification 
 was a prime requisite. Thus in the centuries 
 before Gregory the plain chant gained com- 
 plete ascendancy in the church and under him 
 it acquired a systematization which had in it 
 the elements of permanency. 
 
 Yet it was through the adaptation of this 
 very chant to the delineation of episodes in 
 religious history that the path to the opera 
 was opened. The church slowly built up a 
 ritual which offered no small amount of 
 graphic interest for the eyes of the congrega- 
 tion. As ceremonials became more and more' 
 elaborate, they approached more and more 
 closely the ground on which the ancient dra- 
 matic dance rested, and it was not long before 
 they themselves acquired a distinctly dramatic 
 character. It is at this point that the liturgical
 
 The Early Liturgical Drama 3 
 
 ancestry of the opera becomes quite manifest. 
 The dance itself, at first an attempt to delin- 
 eate dramatically by means of measured move- 
 ment, and thus the origin of the art of dra- 
 matic action, was not without its place in the 
 early church. The ancient pagan festivals 
 made use of the dance, and the early Christians 
 borrowed it from them. At one time Chris- 
 tian priests executed solemn dances before their 
 altars just as their Greek predecessors had 
 done. But in the course of time the dance 
 became generally practised by the congrega- 
 tion and this gave rise to abuses. The author- 
 ities of the church abandoned it. But the 
 feeling for it lingered, and in after years 
 issued in the employment of the procession. 
 When the procession left the sanctuary and 
 displayed itself in the open air, something of 
 the nature of the dance returned to it and its 
 development into a dramatic spectacle was not 
 difficult.
 
 4 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 According to Magnin 1 the lyric drama of 
 the Middle Ages had three sources, the aris- 
 tocracy, religion and the people. Cousse- 
 maker finds that this lyric drama had in its 
 inception two chief varieties, namely, the sec- 
 ular drama, and the religious or liturgical 
 drama. " Each of these dramas," he says, 
 " had its own particular subject matter, char- 
 acter, charms and style. The music, which 
 formed an integral part of it, was equally dif- 
 ferent in the one from the other." 2 
 
 The liturgical drama, which was chrono- 
 logically the first of the two forms, originated, 
 as we have noted, in the ceremonies of the 
 Christian church, in the strong dramatic ele- 
 ment which inheres in the mass, the Christ- 
 mas fetes, and those of the Epiphany, the 
 Palms and the Passion. These are all scenes 
 
 1 " Les Origines du Theatre Moderne ou Histoire du 
 Genie Dramatique depuis le Premier Siecle jusqu'au 
 XVR " Paris, 1838. 
 
 * " Histoire de l'Harmonie au Moyen Age." Paris, 
 1852.
 
 The Early Liturgical Drama 5 
 
 in the drama of the sacrifice of the Redeemer, 
 and it required but small progress to develop 
 them into real dramatic performances, designed 
 for the instruction of a people which as yet 
 had no literature. 
 
 The wearing of appropriate costumes by- 
 priest, deacon, sub-deacon and boys of the 
 choir is in certain ceremonies associated with 
 the use of melody and accent equally suited to 
 the several roles. Each festival is an anniver- 
 sary, and in the early church was celebrated 
 with rites, chants and ornaments correspond- 
 ing to its origin. The Noel, for example, was 
 supposed to be the song which the angels sang 
 at the nativity, and for the sake of realistic 
 effect some of the Latin churches used the 
 Greek words which they thought approached 
 most closely to the original text. The Passion 
 was the subject of a series of little dramas 
 enacted as ceremonials of holy week in all the 
 .Catholic churches.
 
 6 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 Out of these ceremonies, then, grew the 
 liturgical drama. The most ancient specimens 
 of it which have come down to us are those 
 collected under the title " Vierges sages et 
 /Vierges folles," preserved in MS. 1139 of the 
 / national library at Paris. The manuscript 
 contains two of these dramas and a fragment 
 of a third. The first is the " Three Maries." 
 This is an office of the sepulcher, and has five 
 personages: an angel, the guardian of the 
 tomb and the three Maries. 
 
 The drama of the wise and foolish virgins, 
 which was thoroughly examined by M. Magnin 
 and by Coussemaker after him, is simple in 
 construction. It begins with a chorus in Latin, 
 the theme of which is indicated by the first 
 words : 
 
 " Adest sponsus qui est Christus : vigilate, virgines." 
 
 This chorus is set to a melody grave and 
 plaintive. Then the archangel Gabriel, using
 
 The Early Liturgical Drama 7 
 
 the Provengal tongue, announces the coming 
 of Christ and tells what the Savior has suf- 
 fered on earth for the sins of man. Each 
 strophe is terminated by a refrain, of which 
 the conclusion has the same melody as the 
 first stanza of each of the strophes. The 
 foolish virgins confess their sins and beg their 
 sisters for help. They sing in Latin, and their 
 three strophes have a melody different from 
 that of the preceding strophes. They termi- 
 nate, like the others, with a sad and plaintive 
 refrain, of which the words are Provencal: 
 
 " Dolentas ! Chaitivas ! trop i avem dormit." 
 
 In modern French this line reads, " Malheu- 
 reuses ! Chetives ! Nous avons trop dormi ! " 
 The wise virgins refuse the oil and bid their 
 foolish sisters to go and buy it. All the 
 strophes change the melody at each change of 
 personages. The little drama comes to its end 
 with the intervention of Christ, who condemns
 
 8 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 the foolish virgins. The words of the Savior 
 have no music. Coussemaker wonders whether 
 the musician was unable to find a melody 
 worthy to be sung by the Savior or intention- 
 ally made Him speak instead of chant. The 
 same author, in his " Histoire de l'Harmonie 
 au Moyen Age," gives facsimiles of all the 
 pages of the original manuscript of this play. 
 The notation, that of the eleventh century, is 
 beautifully clear, and its deciphering is made 
 easier by the presence of a line ruled across 
 the page to indicate the relative positions of 
 the notes. The music of these dramas is what 
 we should naturally expect it to be, if we take 
 into account the character of the text. The 
 subjects of the dramas were always incidents 
 from the Bible and the plays were represented 
 in churches by priests or those close to them. 
 
 It is certain that the educational drama of 
 the church continued in the state of its infancy 
 for several centuries. Even after the birth of
 
 The Early Liturgical Drama 9 
 
 the " Sacra Rappresentazione " in the four- 
 teenth century the old-fashioned liturgical 
 drama survived in Italy and was preserved in 
 activity in other parts of Europe. Several 
 interesting manuscripts in great libraries at- 
 test' the consideration accorded to it at a 
 period much later than that of which we have 
 been speaking. Nevertheless the era of the 
 origin of the plays as a rule will be found 
 to antedate that of the manuscripts. For ex- 
 ample, in the royal library of Berlin there is 
 a fifteenth century manuscript of a liturgical 
 drama entitled, "Die Marienklage." Dr. 
 Frommann, of Nuremberg, after careful study, 
 has decided that the play was of middle Ger- 
 man (perhaps Thuringian) origin in the four- 
 teenth century. This play is in part sung and 
 in part spoken. 1 It begins with this bit of 
 Latin chant by Mary: 
 
 1 See Robert Eitner's introduction to the First Part of 
 " Die Oper von ihren ersten Anfangen bis zur Mitte des 
 18. Jahrhunderts." Leipsic, 1881.
 
 i o Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 ^ g j G> "? & gj &"& - 
 
 -B-& 
 
 Anx - i - a - tus est in me spi - - ri - tus 
 
 me - us in me tur - ba - turn est cor me - urn 
 
 The rest of the text is in old German. 
 Here is a specimen of the recitative or chant 
 with the German text: 
 
 -& & o zs-v-a-f? & zr 
 
 Gross - er cla - ge ist mir not ou - we, leg ich 
 
 jtfl J 1 
 
 Wl <& g g> y d 
 
 g> ei .&- 
 
 <&&- 
 
 -&&- 
 
 vor yn . . . . tod! Vat - er, schop - fer, 
 
 -]S- & & & & J 
 
 -e* & e* 
 
 m 
 
 Vat - er, schop - fer . . . bist . . du . . . myn. 
 
 These recitatives are in a style exactly like 
 that of the early French church plays. 
 
 As Coussemaker notes, one does not find in 
 these plays the passions, the intrigues nor the 
 scenic movement found in the secular drama. 
 What we do find is calm simplicity of state-
 
 The Early Liturgical Drama 1 1 
 
 ment, elevation and nobility of thought, purity 
 of moral principles. The music designed to 
 present these ideas in a high light necessarily 
 has an appropriate character. We do not find 
 here music of strongly marked rhythm and 
 clearly defined measure, suitable to the utter- 
 ance of worldly emotions, but a melody re- 
 sembling the chant, written in the tonalities 
 used in the church, but containing a certain 
 kind of prose rhythm and accentuation, such 
 as exists in the Gregorian music. 
 
 This was the inevitable march of develop- 
 ment. The liturgical drama originated, as has 
 been shown, in the celebration of certain offices 
 and fetes, for which the music assumed a style 
 of delivery clothed in unwonted pomp. Char- 
 acters and costumes and specially composed 
 music soon found their way into these cere- 
 monies. The new music followed the old 
 lines and preserved the character of the litur- 
 gical chant. Gradually these accessories rose to
 
 1 2 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 the importance of separate incidents and finally 
 to that of dramas. But they did not lose their 
 original literary and musical character. 
 
 In studying the development of a secular 
 lyric drama, it is essential that we keep in 
 mind the nature of the music employed in the 
 dramatic ceremonials, and later in the frankly 
 theatrical representations of the church. The 
 opera is a child of Italy and its direct ances- 
 tors must be sought there. The first secular 
 musical plays of France far antedated the birth 
 of the primitive lyric drama of Italy, and it re- 
 quires something more than scientific devotion 
 to establish a close connection between the two. 
 But the early French ecclesiastical play is di- 
 rectly related to that of Italy. Both were 
 products of the Catholic Church. Both em- 
 ployed the same texts and the same kind of 
 music. They were developed by similar con- 
 ditions; they were performed in similar cir- 
 cumstances and under the same rules.
 
 The Early Liturgical Drama 13 
 
 For these reasons it is proper to discuss the 
 early French religious drama and that of Italy * 
 as practically one and the same thing, and to 
 pass without discrimination from the first per- 
 formances of such plays outside the church 
 to the establishment of that well-defined variety 
 known in Italy as the " Sacre Rappresenta- 
 zioni." This form, as we shall see, was the 
 immediate outgrowth of the " laud," but one 
 of its ancestors was the open-air performances. 
 The emergence of the churchly play into the 
 open was effected through the agency of ec- 
 clesiastic ceremonial. Pagan traditions and 
 festivities died a hard death in the early years 
 of Christianity, and some of them, instead of 
 passing entirely out of the world of worship, 
 maintained their existence in a transformed 
 shape. Funerals, as Chouquet 1 pointedly 
 notes, " provided the occasion for scenic per- 
 
 1 " Histoire de la Musique Dramatique en France," 
 par Gustave Chouquet. Paris, 1873.
 
 14 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 formances and certain religious fetes the pre- 
 text for profane ceremonies." 
 
 The fete of the ass, celebrated on January 14 
 every year at Beauvais, was an excellent ex- 
 ample of this sort of ceremony. This was a 
 representation of the flight into Egypt. A 
 beautiful young woman, carrying in her arms 
 an infant gorgeously dressed, was mounted 
 on an ass. Then she moved with a proces- 
 sion from the cathedral to the church of St. 
 Etienne. The procession marched into the 
 choir, while the girl, still riding the ass, took 
 a position in front of the altar. Then the 
 mass was celebrated, and at the end of each 
 part the words " Hin han " were chanted in 
 imitation of the braying of the beast. The 
 officiating priest, instead of chanting the " Ite 
 missa est," invited the congregation to join in 
 imitating the bray. 
 
 This simple procession in time developed 
 into a much more pretentious liturgical drama
 
 The Early Liturgical Drama 1 5 
 
 called "The Prophets of Christ." But this 
 appearance in the open streets was doubtless 
 the beginning of the custom of enacting sacred 
 plays in the public squares of cities and small 
 towns. The fete of the ass dates from the 
 eleventh century, and we shall see that open- 
 air performances of religious dramas took 
 place in the twelfth, if no sooner. 
 
 Other significant elements of the fete of 
 the ass and similar ceremonials were the sing- 
 ing of choruses by the populace and dancing. 
 In the Beauvais " Flight into Egypt " at one 
 point the choir sang an old song, half Latin 
 and half French, before the ass, clothed in a 
 
 cope. 
 
 " Hez, sire Asnes, car chantez ! 
 Belle bouche rechignez ; 
 Vous aurez du foin assez 
 Et de l'avoine a plantez." 
 
 This refrain was changed after each stanza of 
 the Latin. The people of Limoges, in their 
 yearly festival, sang:
 
 1 6 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 " San Marceau, pregas per nous, 
 E nous epingarem per vous." 
 
 In the seventeenth century these good people 
 of Limoges were still holding a festival in 
 honor of the patron saint of their parish, and 
 singing: 
 
 " Saint Martial, priez pour nous, 
 Et nous, nous danserons pour vous ! " 
 
 This choral dance formed in the church, and 
 continued to the middle of the nave, and 
 thence to the square before the edifice, or even 
 into the cemetery. At a period later than that 
 first mentioned these dances had instrumental 
 accompaniment and became animated even to 
 the verge of hysteria. Thus unwittingly the 
 people of the medieval church were gathering 
 into a loose, but by no means unformed, 
 union the same materials as the ancients used 
 in the creation of their drama. 
 
 The earnest Lewis Riccoboni * holds that the 
 1 "An Historical and Critical Account of the
 
 The Early Liturgical Drama 17 
 
 Fraternity of the Gonf alone, founded in 1264, 
 was accustomed to enact the Passion in the 
 Coliseum, and that these performances lasted 
 till Paul III abolished them in 1549. Ricco- 
 boni argues that not the performance was in- 
 terdicted, but the use of the Coliseum. This 
 matters not greatly, since it is perfectly certain 
 that out-door performances of the Passion 
 took place long before 1549. Those which 
 were given in France were extremely inter- 
 esting and in regard to them we have impor- 
 tant records. It is established beyond doubt 
 that near the end of the fourteenth century 
 a company of players called the Fraternity 
 of the Passion assisted at the festivities atten- 
 dant upon the marriage of Charles VI and 
 Isabella of Bavaria. Thereafter they gave 
 public performances of their version of the 
 Passion. 
 
 Theaters in Europe," by Lewis Riccoboni, translated 
 from the Italian. London, 1741.
 
 1 8 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 It was too long to be performed without 
 rest, and it was therefore divided into several 
 days' work. It employed eighty-seven person- 
 ages and made use of elaborate machinery. 
 There seems to be little doubt that some of 
 the scenes were sung, and there is no question 
 that there were choruses. The stage directions 
 are not the least remarkable part of this play. 
 The baptism is set forth in this wise : " Here 
 Jesus enters the waters of Jordan, all naked, 
 and Saint John takes some of the water in his 
 hand and throws it on the head of Jesus." 
 Saint John says: 
 
 " Sir, you now baptized are, 
 As it suits my simple skill, 
 Not the lofty rank you fill ; 
 Unmeet for such great service I; 
 Yet my God, so debonair, 
 All that 's wanting will supply." 
 
 " Here Jesus comes out of the river Jordan 
 and throws himself upon his knees, all naked, 
 before Paradise. Then God, the Father, speaks,
 
 The Early Liturgical Drama 19 
 
 and the Holy Ghost descends, in the form of 
 a white dove, upon the head of Jesus, and 
 then returns into Paradise: and note that the 
 words of God the Father be very audibly 
 pronounced and well sounded in three voices, 
 that is to say, a treble, a counter-treble and a 
 counter-bass, all in tune ; and in this way must 
 the following lines be repeated: 
 
 ' Hie est filius meus dilectus, 
 In quo mihi bene complacui. 
 C'estui-ci est mon fils ame Jesus, 
 Que bien me plaist, ma plaisance est en lui.' " 
 
 Students are offered another choice of dates 
 for the beginning of the performance of sacred 
 plays in the open air in Italy, to wit, 1304. 
 Vasari says that in this year a play was en- 
 acted on the Arno, that a " machine represent- 
 ing hell was fixed upon the boats, and that 
 the subject of the drama was the perennially 
 popular tale of " Dives and Lazarus." But 
 Vasari was not born till 15 12, and he neg-
 
 20 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 lected to state where he got his information. 
 The latter years of the fourteenth century, at 
 any rate, saw the open-air sacred drama in full 
 action, and that suffices for our purpose.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE SACRE RAPPRESENTAZIONI 
 
 T EAVING D'Ancona, Vasari and the 
 -*- - ' others in their confusion of dates, we find 
 ourselves provided with a satisfactory point of 
 departure and with some facts well defined. 
 The drift of Provengal ideas over the borders 
 into Lombardy may or may not have given 
 some impetus to the growth of certain forms 
 in Tuscany and Umbria, but at any rate it is 
 clear that the Italian form of " Sacre Rappre- 
 sentazioni " grew chiefly out of the poetic 
 form called " Laud." 
 
 This itself was one of the products of a re- 
 ligious emotion. To observe it in its cradle 
 we must go back to the beginnings of Italian 
 literature. The seemingly endless battle be- 
 tween Emperor and Pope, which scarred the
 
 22 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 soul of Italy through so many years, was at 
 that time raging between Frederick II and 
 Innocent III and Gregory IX. The land 
 reeked with carnage, rapine, murder, fire and 
 famine. So great was the force of all this 
 that the people fell into a state of religious 
 terror. They believed that the vengeance of 
 a wrathful God must immediately descend 
 upon the country, and as a penance the prac- 
 tice of flagellation was introduced. 
 
 Against this horrible atonement came a vio- 
 lent reaction, and out of the reaction attempts 
 to continue in a soberer and more rational 
 form the propitiatory ideas of the flagellants. 
 The chief furtherers of these reforms were 
 lay fraternities, calling themselves Discipli- 
 nati di Gesu Cristo. From the very outset 
 these fraternities practised the singing of 
 hymns in Italian, instead of Latin, the church 
 language. These hymns dealt chiefly with the 
 Passion. They were called " Lauds " and
 
 The Sacre Rappresentazioni 23 
 
 they had a rude directness and unlettered 
 force which the Latin hymns never possessed. 
 Presently the disciplinati became known as 
 Laudesi. The master maker of " Lauds " was 
 Jacopone da Todi and his most significant 
 production took the form of a dialogue be- 
 tween Mary and the Savior on the cross, fol- 
 lowed by the lamentation of the mother over 
 her Son. Mary at one point appeals to Pi- 
 late, but is interrupted by the chorus of 
 Jews, crying " Crucify him ! " Many other 
 "Lauds," however, were rather more in the 
 manner of short songs than in that of the sub- 
 sequently developed cantata. The music em- 
 ployed was without doubt that of the popu- 
 lar songs of the time. It appears to have made 
 no difference to the Italians what kind of tune 
 they employed. They " sang the same stram- 
 botti to the Virgin and the lady of their love, 
 to the rose of Jericho and the red rose of the 
 balcony."
 
 24 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 Here, then, we find a significant difference 
 between the liturgical drama and the sacred 
 representations. The chant, which was the 
 musical garb of the former appears to have 
 had no position in the latter. We shall per- 
 ceive later that this difference marked a point 
 of departure from which the entire lyric 
 drama of the fourteenth, fifteenth and six- 
 teenth centuries, prior to the invention of dra- 
 matic recitative by the Florentines, proceeded 
 to move in a musical world of its own. 
 
 The sacred representations built up a 
 method complex and pregnant without chan- 
 cing upon the defining element of opera. And 
 this result was reached chiefly, if not solely, 
 because the ecclesiastic chant was not em- 
 ployed. In its stead the musical forms prac- 
 tised by composers of secular music and 
 adopted by musicians of such small education 
 as hardly to be worthy of the title of com- 
 posers, makers of carnival songs and frottole,
 
 The Sacre Rappresentazioni 25 
 
 predominated and determined the musical char- 
 acter not only of the Sacre Rappresentazioni, 
 but also of the secular lyric plays which suc- 
 ceeded them and which continued to exist in 
 Italy even after the " stile rappresentativo " 
 had been introduced in the primitive dramma 
 per musica of Caccini and Peri. 
 
 A closer examination of the songs of this 
 period and of the manner in which they af- 
 fected the lyric character of the sacred plays 
 and the succeeding secular dramas may be 
 postponed until we have permitted ourselves 
 a glance at the character of the sacred plays 
 as literary products and have taken into ac- 
 count the manner of their performance. 
 
 The Disciplinati di Gesu began by intoning 
 their lauds before a crucifix or the shrine of 
 some saint. Presently they introduced antiph- 
 onal singing and in the end dialogue and action. 
 By the middle of the fourteenth century 
 the laud came to be called " Divozione."
 
 26 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 After being written in a number of meters it 
 finally adhered to the ottava rima, the stanza 
 generally used in the popular poetry of the 
 fifteenth century. It was the custom to sing 
 these dramatic lauds or " Divozioni " in the 
 oratories. Every fraternity had a collection of 
 such lauds and that they were performed with 
 much detail is easily ascertained. 
 
 Records of the Perugian Confraternity of 
 San Domenico for 1339 show that wings and 
 crowns for angels, a crimson robe for Christ, 
 black veils for the Maries, a coat of mail for 
 Longinus, a dove to symbolize the Holy 
 Ghost and other properties had been used. By 
 1375 the " Divozioni " were acted in church on 
 a specially constructed stage, built against the 
 screen separating the choir from the nave. 
 The audience sat in the nave, and a preacher 
 from time to time made explanations and com- 
 ments. The stage had two stories, the upper 
 of which was reserved for celestial beings.
 
 The Sacre Rappresentazioni 27 
 
 The " Divozione " appears to be, as Symonds 
 declares it to be, the Italian variety of litur- 
 gical drama. The Sacra Rappresentazione, 
 which was developed from it, was a very dif- 
 ferent affair. Just when these representations 
 took definite individual form is not known, 
 but the period of their high development was 
 from 1470 to 1520. It was precisely at this 
 time that their entire apparatus was adapted 
 to the dramatization of secular stories and the 
 secular lyric drama came into existence. 
 
 This whole subject has been exhaustively 
 treated by John Addington Symonds in the 
 fourth volume in his great work " The Re- 
 naissance in Italy." He examines briefly, but 
 suggestively, D'Ancona's theory, that the 
 " Sacre Rappresentazioni " resulted from a 
 blending of the Umbrian divozioni with the 
 civic pageants of St. John's Day in Florence. 
 Civic pageants were common and in them 
 sacred and profane elements were curiously
 
 28 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 mingled. For example, " Perugia gratified 
 Eugenius IV in 1444 with the story of the 
 Minotaur, the tragedy of Iphigenia, the Nativ- 
 ity and the Ascension." 
 
 In the great midsummer pageant of St. 
 John's Day there were twenty-two floats with 
 scenery and actors to represent such events 
 as the Delivery of the Law to Moses, the Crea- 
 tion, the Temptation, etc. The machinery of 
 those shows was so elaborate that the cathe- 
 dral plaza was covered with a blue awning to 
 represent the heavens, while wooden frames, 
 covered with wool and lighted up, represented 
 clouds amid which various saints appeared. 
 Iron supports bore up children dressed as an- 
 gels and the whole was made to " move slowly 
 on the backs of bearers concealed beneath the 
 frame." 
 
 We are justified in inferring that ability to 
 supply an elaborate scenic investiture for the 
 sacred drama was not wanting. When the
 
 The Sacre Rappresentazioni 29 
 
 sacred plays began to be written, their au- 
 thors were for the most part persons of no dis- 
 tinction, but Lorenzo de Medici wrote one and 
 Pulci also contributed to this form of art. The 
 best writers, according to Symonds, were Feo 
 Belcari and Castellano Castellani. 
 
 The sacred plays were not divided into acts, 
 but the stage directions make it plain that 
 scenes were changed. The dramas were not 
 very artistic in structure. The story was set 
 forth baldly and simply, and the language be- 
 came stereotyped. The " success of the play," 
 says Symonds, " depended on the movement of 
 the story, and the attractions of the scenery, 
 costumes and music." 
 
 Symonds describes at some length " Saint 
 Uliva " and the interludes of Cecchi's " Esal- 
 tazione della Croce." The latter belongs to 
 1589, but it is almost certain that the manner 
 of presentation was traditional. That similar 
 splendors might have been exhibited in the
 
 30 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 fifteenth century we shall see later. Symonds 
 thus describes the introduction to the " Esal- 
 tazione." A skilful architect turned the field 
 of San Giovanni into a theater, covered with 
 a red tent. The rising of the curtain showed 
 Jacob asleep with his head resting on rocks, 
 while he wore a shirt of fine linen and cloth 
 of silver stockings and had costly furs thrown 
 over him. As he slept the heavens opened 
 and seven angels appeared sitting on clouds 
 and making " a most pleasant noise with 
 horns, greater and less viols, lutes and organ. 
 . . . The music of this and all the other in- 
 terludes was the composition of Luca Bati, a 
 man of this art most excellent." After this 
 celestial music another part of the heavens 
 opened and disclosed God the Father. A lad- 
 der was let down, and God leaning upon it 
 " sang majestically to the sound of many in- 
 struments in a sonorous bass voice." 
 
 The other interludes were also filled with
 
 The Sacre Rappresentazioni 31 
 
 scenic and musical effects. For instance one 
 showed the ecstasy of David, dancing before 
 the ark " to the sound of a large lute, a violin, 
 a trombone, but more especially to his own 
 harp." These references to the employment 
 of many instruments in accompanying the 
 voice or the dance make us wonder whether 
 our historical stories of the birth and develop- 
 ment of the orchestra are well grounded. But 
 we shall have occasion to consider this matter 
 more fully when we approach the study of the 
 musical apparatus of the first lyric dramas. 
 It may be noted, however, in passing that the 
 Italian word " violino " was used as late as 
 1597 to designate the tenor viol. This instance 
 of uncertainty in terminology warns us to be 
 careful in accepting all things literally. 
 
 Perhaps what is of greater significance is 
 the fact that there seems to have been more 
 uniformity of effort and style in the first secu- 
 lar drama, doubtless owing to its great supe-
 
 32 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 riority as a piece of literary art. That sacred 
 plays were seldom written by men of literary 
 rank and ability we have already noted. That 
 they were long drawn out, cumbersome, dis- 
 jointed and quite without dramatic design has 
 also been indicated. Their real significance 
 as forerunners of opera lies in their insistent 
 employment of certain materials, such as verse, 
 music and spectacular action, which after- 
 wards became essential parts of the machin- 
 ery of the lyric drama. 
 
 Indeed in the profusion of spectacular in- 
 terludes one finds much that resembles not 
 only opera, but also the English masque and 
 sometimes even the French pastoral. Yet close 
 examination will convince any student of op- 
 eratic history that almost every form of theat- 
 rical performance, from the choral dance to 
 the most elaborate festival show, exerted a cer- 
 tain amount of influence on the hybrid product 
 called opera. For example, between the acts
 
 The Sacre Rappresentazioni 33 
 
 of " Saint Uliva," which required two days 
 for its presentation, the " Masque of Hope " 
 was given. The stage directions say : " You 
 will cause three women, well beseen, to is- 
 sue, one of them attired in white, one in red, 
 the other in green, with golden balls in their 
 hands, and with them a young man robed in 
 white; and let him, after looking many times 
 first on one and then on another of these 
 damsels, at last stay still and say the follow- 
 ing verses, gazing at her who is clad in green." 
 The story of Echo and Narcissus was also 
 enacted and the choir of nymphs which car- 
 ried off the dead youth had a song beginning 
 thus: 
 
 " Fly forth in bliss to heaven, 
 Thou happy soul and fair." 
 
 On the other hand some few sacred plays 
 showed skill in the treatment of character. 
 The " Mary Magdalen " is one of these. The 
 Magdalen is portrayed with power and even
 
 34 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 passion. But the general purpose of the sa- 
 cred play, which was to instruct the populace 
 in the stories of Bible history, precluded the 
 exercise of high literary imagination. Fancy 
 and the taste of the time seem to have gov- 
 erned the fashioning of these plays. Their 
 historic importance thus becomes much larger 
 than their artistic value. Their close ap- 
 proach to the character of early opera is be- 
 yond question.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 BIRTHPLACE OF THE SECULAR DRAMA 
 
 T N the midst of more imposing chron- 
 -*- icles bearing upon the growth of Italy the 
 student of her history is likely to lose sight 
 of the little Marquisate of Mantua. Yet its 
 story is profoundly interesting and in its re- 
 lations to the development of the lyric drama 
 filled with significance. That it should have 
 come to occupy such a high position among 
 the cultivated centers of the Renaissance seems 
 singularly appropriate since Virgil, the Ital- 
 ian literary deity of the period, was born at 
 Pietole, now a suburb of Mantua. 
 
 The marquisate owed its elevation to the 
 character of the great lords of the house of 
 Gonzaga, who ruled it from 1328 to 1708. In
 
 36 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 the former year the head of the house ousted 
 from the government the Buonacolsis, who 
 had been masters since 1247. In 1432 the 
 Gonzagas were invested with the hereditary 
 title of Marquis and in 1530 Charles V raised 
 the head of the house to the rank of Duke. 
 When the last duke died without issue in 1708 
 Austria gained possession of the little realm. 
 Entangled in the ceaseless turmoil of wars 
 between Milan and the forces allied against 
 her, Mantua under the rule of the Gonzagas 
 maintained her intellectual energy and played 
 bravely her part in the revival of classic learn- 
 ing. Her court became a center of scholarship 
 from which radiated a beneficent influence 
 through much of northern Italy. The lords 
 of Gonzaga fought and plotted, ate and drank, 
 and plunged into the riotous dissipation and 
 free play of passions which characterized the 
 Renaissance period, but like other distin- 
 guished Italians they steeped themselves in
 
 Birthplace of the Secular Drama 37 
 
 learning and were the proud patrons of ar- 
 tists, authors, teachers, composers. 
 
 The eminence of the house in scholarship 
 doubtless dated from the reign of the Mar- 
 chese Gian Francesco Gonzaga. This noble- 
 man cherished a genuine love for ancient his- 
 tory and was not without an appreciation of 
 Roman verse. Believing, as he did in com- 
 mon with most Italians, that the republican 
 thought of Rome was the foundation of all 
 exalted living, he realized that his children 
 ought to be committed to the care of a mas- 
 ter thoroughly schooled in ancient lore. He 
 therefore invited to his court, in 1425, the dis- 
 tinguished scholar Vittorino da Feltre and 
 gave the children entirely into his hands. A 
 separate villa was allotted to the master and 
 his pupils. This house had been a pleasure 
 resort where the young Gonzagas and their 
 friends had idled and feasted. Under Vitto- 
 rino it was gradually transformed into a great 
 
 a .- r^o
 
 38 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 school, for the Marquis was liberal enough to 
 open its doors to students from various parts 
 of Italy. The influence of the institution be- 
 came far reaching and vital. The children of 
 the Marquis, surrounded by earnest minds, by 
 students often so poor that they had to be 
 provided by their patron, with clothes and 
 food, but none the less respected in that little 
 community of the intellect for their sincerity 
 and their industry, could not fail to imbibe a 
 deep reverence for learning and a keen and 
 discriminating taste in art. 
 
 It is, then, in the natural order of things 
 that Ludovico Gonzaga, one of the sons of 
 Francesco and pupils of Vittorino, should have 
 been proud to receive at his court the syco- 
 phantic and avaricious poet Filelfo, and to 
 suffer under his systematic begging. He dis- 
 charged his debt to the world of art with 
 greater insight when in 1456 he invited to his 
 court the great painter Mantegna. He of-
 
 Birthplace of the Secular Drama 39 
 
 fered the artist a substantial salary and in 
 1460 the master went to reside at Mantua. He 
 remained there under three successive mar- 
 quises till his death in 1506. He enriched the 
 little capital with splendid creations of his art, 
 now unfortunately mostly destroyed. Man- 
 tegna's " Madonna della Vittoria," in the 
 Louvre, was painted to celebrate the deeds of 
 Francesco Gonzaga in the battle of Fornovo. 
 When he was ejected from Rome for mak- 
 ing obscene pictures, Giulio Romano went to 
 live at Mantua, and the city still bears the 
 traces of his residence as well as of Man- 
 tegna's. The ducal palace, begun in 1302, 
 contains five hundred rooms in many of which 
 are paintings by Romano. The Palazzo Te is 
 regarded by most authorities as Giulio's noblest 
 monument, displaying, as it does, his skill as 
 an architect, painter and sculptor. The Cathe- 
 dral of San Pietro was restored from his de- 
 signs and in the Church of San Andrea, in a
 
 40 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 tomb adorned by his pupils, sleeps the great 
 Mantegna. 
 
 The history of music at the court of Mantua 
 begins at least as early as the fourteenth cen- 
 tury. Vander Straeten ! found some record 
 of a musician of the Gallo-Belgic school 
 called Jean le Chartreux, or by the Italians 
 Giovanni di Namur. He was the author of 
 a " Libellus Musicus," preserved in the British 
 Museum. He was born at Namur, learned 
 singing, and according to Vander Straeten, 
 studied the works of Boethius under Vitto- 
 rino da Feltre in Italy. He cites Marchetto of 
 Padua as the first to write in the chromatic 
 manner since Boethius. Bertolotti in his 
 searching examination 2 of the records of 
 Mantua found numerous names of musicians 
 employed at the court or permitted to exercise 
 
 1 " La Musique aux Pays-Bas avant le XIX Siecle," 
 Edmond Vander Straeten. Brussels, 1867-1888. 
 
 2 " Musici alia Corte dei Gonzaga in Mantova dal Se- 
 colo XV al XVIII," per A. Bertolotti. Milan.
 
 Birthplace of the Secular Drama 41 
 
 their calling within the boundaries of the mar- 
 quisate. He notes the predominance of Flem- 
 ish masters and the supremacy of their ideas 
 in the music of Italy. He attributes to Vit- 
 torino da Feltre the introduction of the syste- 
 matic study of music and credits him with 
 publicly teaching the art and inspiring in some 
 measure the treatise of Jean le Chartreux. 
 From Bertolotti we learn that Maestro Rodolf o 
 de Alemannia, an organist, and German, liv- 
 ing in Mantua, obtained in 1435 certain privi- 
 leges in the construction of organs for six 
 years. 
 
 From this time forward we find music and 
 musicians in high favor at the court of Man- 
 tua. Neither Vander Straeten nor Bertolotti 
 succeeded in obtaining from the archives of 
 the city more than fragmentary mention of 
 musicians of whom we would gladly know 
 more. Nevertheless there* is sufficient to 
 demonstrate the interest of the marquises in
 
 42 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 the art and the frequency with which musical 
 entertainment was provided. 
 
 Toward the end of 1458 Germans became 
 more numerous among the musicians at Man- 
 tua, though they do not appear at any time 
 to have held a commanding position. This is 
 quite natural since at that period German 
 musicians had no school of their own, but 
 with the rest of the world were followers of 
 the Flemings. In 1458 Barbara of Branden- 
 burg, Marchioness of Mantua, took from Fer- 
 rara Marco and Giovanni Peccenini, who 
 were of German birth. Two years later the 
 Marquis, wishing to engage a master of sing- 
 ing for his son, sent to one Nicolo, the German, 
 at Ferrara, and this musician recommended 
 Giovanni Brith as highly qualified to sing in 
 the latest fashion the best songs of the Vene- 
 tian style. 
 
 Ludovico, who has already been mentioned 
 and who was the marquis from 1444 to 1478,
 
 Birthplace of the Secular Drama 43 
 
 had for two years at his court the celebrated 
 Franchino Gaffori. This master, born near 
 Lodi in 1451, was the son of one Betino, a 
 soldier. The boy went into the church in 
 childhood and studied ecclesiastical music un- 
 der a Carmelite monk named Johannis Goden- 
 dach. Later, he went to Mantua, where his 
 father was in the service of the Marquis. 
 " Here for two years he closely applied him- 
 self day and night to study, during which 
 time he composed many tracts on the theory 
 and practice of music." * The period of Gaf- 
 fori's greatest achievements in theoretical 
 work, especially his noted " Practica Musicae," 
 from which Hawkins quotes copiously, was 
 later than his residence at Mantua, but his 
 studies at that court at least betoken the ex- 
 istence of a congenial atmosphere, and we 
 may be assured that such an enlightened ama- 
 
 1 " A General History of the Science and Practice of 
 Music," by Sir John Hawkins. London, 1776.
 
 44 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 teur as Ludovico did not neglect opportunities 
 to acquaint himself with the workings of this 
 studious mind. 
 
 Bertolotti reproduces sundry interesting 
 letters which passed between the courts of Fer- 
 rara and Mantua and dealt with musical mat- 
 ters. Perhaps an epistle from the Duke of 
 Milan in January, 1473, might cause a pass- 
 ing smile of amusement, for in it the Duke con- 
 fides to the Mantuan Marquis a project for the 
 revival of music in Italy. It seems that he 
 was weary of the long reign of the Flem- 
 ings, and was sending to Rome for the best 
 musicians with the purpose of founding an 
 orchestra so that composers and singers would 
 be attracted to his court. But as this fine 
 project had no direct bearing on the history 
 of the lyric drama we may permit it to pass 
 without further examination. 
 
 However far we may follow the extracts 
 from the archives of Mantua in the fifteenth
 
 Birthplace of the Secular Drama 45 
 
 century, we get nothing definite in regard to 
 the production of the first Italian secular and 
 lyric drama at that court. We are driven into 
 the hazardous realm of conjecture as to the 
 relations between its production and the promi- 
 nent musicians who formed part of the suite 
 of the Marquis. This indeed is but natural, 
 since it could not be expected of the Marquis 
 and his associates that they should know they 
 were making history. 
 
 We learn that in 1481 Gian Pietro della 
 Viola, a Florentine by birth, accompanied 
 Clara Gonzaga when she became the Duchess 
 of Montpensier and that he returned to Man- 
 tua in 1484 the year after " Orfeo " was 
 probably produced. We learn that he com- 
 posed the music for the ballerino, Lorenzo 
 Lavagnolo, who returned to Mantua in 1485 
 after having been since 1479 in the service of 
 the Duchess Bona of Savoy. We are at least 
 free to conjecture that before 1479 Lavagnolo
 
 46 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 trained the chorus of Mantua in dancing so 
 that he may have contributed something to the 
 ballata which we shall at the proper place see 
 as a number in Poliziano's " Orfeo." 
 
 Travel between the courts of Mantua and 
 Ferrara was not unfamiliar to musicians, and 
 there is reason to believe that those of the 
 former court often sought instruction from 
 those of the latter. For example, it is on 
 record that Gian Andrea di Alessandro, who 
 became organist to the Marquis of Mantua in 
 1485, was sent in 1490 to Ferrara that he 
 might " learn better song and playing the or- 
 gan from Girolamo del Bruno." In 1492 he 
 was sufficiently instructed to be sent by the 
 Marquis to San Benedetto to play for the am- 
 bassador from Venice to Milan. 
 
 The celebrated composer of frottole, Bar- 
 tolomeo Tromboncino, was for some time in 
 the service of the Mantuan court. It was 
 formerly believed that he went to Mantua in
 
 Birthplace of the Secular Drama 47 
 
 1494, but Signor Bertolotti unearthed a docu- 
 ment which showed that his father was en- 
 gaged there in 1487. From which the learned 
 Italian investigator reached the conclusion 
 that the young Tromboncino was with his 
 parent. It seems to be pretty well established 
 that the two went together to Venice in 
 
 1495- 
 But he returned to Mantua and for many 
 
 years passed some of his time at that court 
 and some at Ferrara. For example, we learn 
 that in 1497 the Cardinal d'Este promised 
 the Marchioness of Mantua that she should 
 have some new compositions by Trombon- 
 cino. Yet in 1499 he was sent with other mu- 
 sicians of the suite of the Gonzagas to Vin- 
 cenza to sing a vesper service in some church. 
 It appears that Tromboncino was not only a 
 composer, but an instrumental musician and 
 a singer. 
 
 These fragmentary references to the activ-
 
 48 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 ities of Tromboncino at the court of Mantua 
 are indeed unsatisfactory, but they are about 
 all that are within our reach. That he was 
 born at Verona and that he was one of the 
 most popular composers of the latter end of the 
 fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century and that his special field of art 
 was the frottola are almost the sum total 
 of the story of his career. We know that 
 he wrote two sacred songs in the frottola 
 style, nine " Lamentations " and one " Bene- 
 dictus " for three voices. Petrucci's nine 
 books of frottole (Venice, 1509) contain all 
 of Tromboncino's. 
 
 Carlo Delaunasy, a singer in the service of 
 Isabella, Marchioness of Mantua in 1499, and 
 Marco Carra, director of music to the Mar- 
 quis in 1503, 1 5 14 and 1525, are among the 
 names unearthed from the archives of Man- 
 tua by their keeper at the request of Mr. Van- 
 der Straeten. These papers contained the
 
 Birthplace of the Secular Drama 49 
 
 names of a few other singers, players and 
 directors, but their inadequacy was demon- 
 strated by the fact that they contained no men- 
 tion of Jacques de Wert, a composer of great 
 activity and talent, to whom Vander Straeten 
 devotes some fifteen pages of his exhaustive 
 work. 
 
 De Wert was born in Flanders near the end 
 of the first half of the sixteenth century. While 
 yet a child he was a choir boy in the service 
 of Maria de Cardona, Marchesa della Pa- 
 dulla. Subsequently he entered the service 
 of Count Alfonso of Novellara and in 1558 
 he published a book of madrigals which at- 
 tracted widespread attention. Ten years later 
 we find him at the court of Mantua, where his 
 happiness was destroyed by the conduct of his 
 wife. He appealed for aid to the Duke of 
 Ferrara and the result appears to have been 
 a dual service, for while he remained at Man- 
 tua he wrote much for the other court. His
 
 50 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 distinguished " Concerto Maggiore " for fifty- 
 seven singers was written for some state fes- 
 tival. 
 
 His service at Ferrara, whither he often 
 went, enticed him into a relationship with Tar- 
 quinia Molza, a poet and court lady, which 
 caused her to go into retirement. De Wert 
 continued to live in Mantua and his last book 
 of madrigals was published in Venice, Sep- 
 tember 10, 1 591. He must have died soon 
 afterward. Between 1558 and 1591 he put 
 forth ten books of madrigals, generally for 
 five voices, though toward the end he some- 
 times composed for six or seven. He was 
 the author also of some motets, and Luca 
 Marenzio, who brought the madrigal style 
 to its most beautiful development and whose 
 influence molded the methods of the English 
 glee and madrigal writers, is believed to have 
 been his pupil for a short time. Marenzio un- 
 questionably lived for some months in Mantua,
 
 Birthplace of the Secular Drama 51 
 
 where according to Calvi * he completed his 
 studies under the guidance of the Duke. 
 
 Of Alessandro Striggio and his art work at 
 the court of Mantua and elsewhere special 
 mention will be made in another part of this 
 work. Moreover it is not necessary that any- 
 thing should be said here of the epoch-making 
 creations of Claudio Monteverde, who was 
 long in the Gonzaga service and who produced 
 his "Orfeo " at Mantua. Sufficient has been 
 set forth in this chapter to give some esti- 
 mate of the importance and activity of Man- 
 tua as a literary and musical center. The 
 culture of the age was confined almost ex- 
 clusively to churchmen, professors, literary 
 laborers and the nobility. The long line of 
 musical and dramatic development followed at 
 Mantua had no relation to the general art 
 life of the Italian people. But its importance 
 
 1 " Scena Letteraria degli Scrittori Bergamaschi," per 
 Donato Calvi. Bergamo, 1664.
 
 52 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 in its preparation for the birth of the art 
 form finally known as opera is not easily over- 
 estimated, especially when we remember that 
 this form did not become a public entertain- 
 ment till 1637. It was at Mantua that Angelo 
 Poliziano's " Orfeo," the first lyric drama 
 with a secular subject, was produced, and it 
 must be our next business to examine this 
 work and set forth the conditions under 
 which it was made known.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE ARTISTIC IMPULSE 
 
 f I ^HE non-existence of the drama in the 
 -- Middle Ages is one of the strikingly sig- 
 nificant deficiencies of the period. The illiter- 
 ate condition of the people, and even of the 
 nobility, the fragmentary state of govern- 
 ments, the centralizing of small and depend- 
 ent communities around the feet of petty ty- 
 rants, the frequency of wars large and small, 
 and the devotion of men to skill in the use of 
 arms, made it impossible that attention should 
 be bestowed upon so polite and sedentary a 
 form of amusement as the drama. 
 
 It is generally held that the church made 
 the first movement toward the abolition of the 
 drama by placing its ban on the plays handed
 
 54 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 down from the Greeks and the Romans, partly 
 because of their inculcation of reverence for 
 heathen deities and partly because of the 
 shameless indecencies which had invaded 
 them. But this could have been only one of 
 many causes which operated in keeping the 
 play out of Europe for so many centuries. 
 When it was revived, as we have seen, in the 
 form of the liturgical drama and afterward of 
 the sacred representation, it bore little or no 
 resemblance to the splendid art product be- 
 queathed to the world by the Greeks. 
 
 The sudden and glorious return of the 
 dramatic subjects of the Greeks to the stage of 
 medieval Europe marks the beginning of the 
 modern era. When the Italians turned to the 
 stories of ancient fable for material for their 
 secular drama they were without doubt quite 
 unconscious of the importance of the step they 
 were taking. It is only the reflective eye of 
 retrospective study that can discern all the
 
 The Artistic Impulse $ 
 
 significant elements happily combined in this 
 event by the overmastering laws of human 
 progress. 
 
 To enter into a detailed examination 
 of the matter would demand of us a review 
 of the whole movement known as the Renais- 
 sance. This, however, is not essential to an 
 appreciation of the precise nature of the step 
 from the sacred representation to the lyric 
 drama and its importance in laying the foun- 
 dations of opera. This momentous step was 
 taken late in the fifteenth century with the 
 performance of Angelo Poliziano's " Favola 
 di Orfeo" at the Court of Mantua to cele- 
 brate the return of the Cardinal Gonzaga. 
 The Italian authorities are by no means 
 agreed as to the importance of this produc- 
 tion. Rossi says : * 
 
 " The circle of plot in the religious drama, 
 at first restricted to the life of Christ, had been 
 1 " Storia della Letteratura Italiana." Milan, 1905.
 
 56 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 gradually broadened. Some writers, wishing 
 to adapt attractive themes to the aristocratic 
 gatherings of the princely courts, availed 
 themselves of the very form of the sacred 
 drama of the people in the treatment of sub- 
 jects entirely profane. Thus did Poliziano, 
 whose ' Orfeo,' as the evident reproduction of 
 that form in a mythological subject is an iso- 
 lated type in the history of the Italian drama." 
 
 Alessandro D'A'ncona * in his monumental 
 work on the sources of the Italian play says: 
 
 " The ' Favola di Orfeo,' although it drew 
 its argument from mythology, was hardly dis- 
 similar in its intrinsic character from the sa- 
 cred plays, and was moreover far from that 
 second form of tragedy which was later given 
 to it, not by the author himself, but probably 
 by Tebaldeo, to serve the dramatic tastes of 
 Ferrara. So then the ' Fable of Orpheus ' is 
 a prelude, a passage, an attempt at the trans- 
 formation of the dramatic spectacle so dear to 
 the people, and while it detaches itself in sub- 
 ject from the religious tradition, it is not yet 
 1 " Origini del Teatro in Italia." Fircnze, 1877.
 
 The Artistic Impulse 57 
 
 involved in the meshes of classic imitation. If, 
 indeed, from the stage setting and from the 
 music introduced into it, it is already an artis- 
 tic spectacle, it cannot be called an example 
 of ancient art restored. It was a theatrical 
 ornament to a prince's festival." 
 
 Perhaps both of these admirable Italian au- 
 thors had their eyes too closely fixed on the 
 spoken drama to perceive the immense signi- 
 ficance of Poliziano's " Orfeo " in the field of 
 opera. If they had paused for a moment to 
 consider that Peri and Caccini chose the same 
 story for the book of their operas, in which 
 the musical departure was even more signifi- 
 cant than the dramatic innovation of Polizi- 
 ano had been, that Monteverde utilized the 
 same theme in his epoch-making " Orfeo," 
 and that for nearly two centuries the poetic 
 and musical suggestiveness of the Orpheus 
 legend made it hold its grip on the affections 
 of composers, they might have realized bet-
 
 58 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 ter the relative value of the achievement of 
 Poliziano. 
 
 Let us then briefly review the influences 
 which led to the selection of the subject and 
 the character of its literary investiture by the 
 Italian poet. The nature of the music and 
 the manner of performance will have to be ex- 
 amined separately. The transformation which 
 came upon Italian life and thought under the 
 influence of the revival of the study of an- 
 cient literature and philosophy has been ex- 
 tensively examined in numerous works. But 
 at this point we must recall at least the par- 
 ticular effect which it had on Italian poetry. 
 The creations of Dante might seem to us tre- 
 mendous enough in themselves to have origi- 
 nated an era, but as a matter of fact they 
 marked the conclusion of one. They were 
 the full and final fruition of medieval thought, 
 and after them Italian literature entered upon 
 a new movement.
 
 \ 
 
 The Artistic Impulse 59 
 
 Petrarch was the father of the revival of 
 ancient literature. Not only was he himself 
 a profound student of it, but he suggested to 
 Boccaccio that line of study which governed 
 the entire intellectual life of the author of 
 the " Decameron." With the application of 
 Boccaccio to the translation of Homer into 
 Latin we perceive a singular illustration of the 
 trend of the classic devotion of the time. De- 
 spite the fact that the " Divina Commedia " 
 had magnificently demonstrated the beauty of 
 Italian as a literary medium, fourteenth cen- 
 tury scholars regarded the language with con- 
 tempt. Pride in their connection with his- 
 toric Rome, as well as the environment of 
 places associated with his personality, made 
 Virgil their literary deity. The ancient lan- 
 guage of the eternal city and of the " JEntid " 
 was for them the only suitable literary instru- 
 ment. That they played upon it as amateurs 
 seems never to have occurred to them. The
 
 60 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 study of Greek which followed the activities 
 of Petrarch was at first confined to a narrow 
 circle and it never spread far beyond the limits 
 of university walls. But the study of Greek 
 thought and ideals, as obtained from the an- 
 cient works, speedily found its way through 
 the entire society of cultivated Italians. The 
 people had their own poets and their own 
 songs, but the aristocracy, which was highly 
 cultivated, plunged into the contemplation of 
 Grecian art. The influence of all this on 
 Italian literature was deep and significant. 
 
 But there were other significant facts in 
 the history of this era. Italy was not yet a 
 nation. She had no central point of fixture 
 and no system of radiation. She was divided 
 into a group of small centers, each with its 
 own dominating forces. Naples was unlike 
 Rome; Florence was unlike Venice; Milan 
 was different from all. Each had its char- 
 acteristics, yet all had points of similarity.
 
 The Artistic Impulse 61 
 
 All were steeped in the immorality of the age, 
 and all embarked with equal enthusiasm in the 
 pursuit of classic learning. The strange com- 
 bination of physical vice with intellectual 
 appetite produced throughout Italy what Sy- 
 monds has happily called an " esthetic sensu- 
 ality.'' The Italian's intellectual pursuits sat- 
 isfied a craving quite sensuous in its nature. 
 
 It is not at all astonishing that in these 
 conditions we find no national epic and no 
 national drama, but a gradual growth of a 
 poetry saturated with physical realism and 
 the final appearance of a dramatic form 
 equipped with the most potent charms of sen- 
 suous art. It was in such a period that a 
 special kind of public was developed. The 
 " Cortegiano " of Castiglione, Bembo's " Aso- 
 lani," the " Camaldolese Discourses " of 
 Landino could have been addressed only to 
 social oligarchies standing on a basis of polite 
 culture.
 
 62 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 In such conditions the stern ideals of early 
 Christianity were thrust into obscurity and 
 the sensuous charms of a hybrid paganism, a 
 bastard child of ancient Greece and medi- 
 eval Italy herself, excited the desires of 
 scholars and dilletanti from the lagoons of 
 Venice to the Bay of Naples. In the midst of 
 this era it is not remarkable that we hear the 
 pipe of Pan, slightly out of tune and some- 
 what clogged by artifice, as it was later in the 
 day of Rousseau, but none the less playing the 
 ancient hymns to Nature and the open air 
 life. 
 
 Jacopo Sannazzaro (1458-1530) embodied 
 the ideals of the time in his " Arcadia," in 
 which Symonds finds the literary counterparts 
 of the frescoes of Gozzo and Lippo Lippi. At 
 any rate the poem contains the whole apparatus 
 of nymphs and satyrs transplanted to Italian 
 landscape and living a life of commingled 
 Hellenism and Italianism. The eloquence of
 
 The Artistic Impulse 63 
 
 Sannazzaro is that of the Arcadian the world 
 over. He sighs and weeps and calls upon 
 dryads, hamadryads and oreads to pity his 
 consuming passion. When he sees his mis- 
 tress she is walking in the midst of pastoral 
 scenes where satyrs lurk behind every bush and 
 the song of the shepherd is heard in the land. 
 Sannazzaro's " Arcadia " was the inspiration 
 of Sir Philip Sidney's. It was a natural out- 
 burst of the time and it conveys perfectly the 
 spirit of Italian imaginative thought in a pe- 
 riod almost baffling in the complexity of its 
 character. 
 
 It was not strange that in such a time 
 Italian poets should have discerned in Orpheus 
 the embodiment of their own ideals. There is 
 no evidence that the Italians of the fifteenth 
 century knew (or at any rate considered) the 
 true meaning of the Orpheus myth. Of its 
 relation to the Sun myth and of Euridice as 
 the dawn they give no hint. To them Or-
 
 64 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 pheus was the embodiment of the Arcadian 
 idea. He was the singer of the hymns that 
 woke all nature to life. For him the satyr 
 capered and the coy nymph came bridling from 
 her retreat, the woods became choral and the 
 streams danced in the sunlight to the magic 
 of his pipe. This was the poetic phase of the 
 general trend of human thought at the time. 
 The philosophers began by questioning the au- 
 thority of dogma. Next they turned for in- 
 struction to the ancients, and finally they 
 interrogated nature. In the course of their 
 development they revolted against the deaden- 
 ing rule of the church and claimed for the 
 human mind the right to reason independently. 
 The scientific investigation of natural phe- 
 nomena followed almost inevitably and the 
 demonstrations of Giordano Bruno and Gali- 
 leo shook the foundations of the church. 
 
 In the field of polite literature men turned 
 to nature for their laws of daily life and be-
 
 The Artistic Impulse 65 
 
 lived that in the pastoral kingdom of The- 
 ocritus they had found the promised land. 
 Inevitably it followed that the figure of Or- 
 pheus, singing through the earth, and bring- 
 ing under his dominion the beast and the 
 bird, the very trees and stones, should be- 
 come the picture of their fondest dreams. He 
 was the hero of Arcady " where all the leaves 
 are merry." In his presence the dust of dry 
 theology and the cruel ban of the church 
 against the indulgence of human desires were 
 impossible. From solemn ecclesiastic prose 
 the world was turned to happy pagan song. 
 The very music of the church went out into 
 the world and became earthly in the madri- 
 gals of love. The miter and the stole gave 
 way to the buskin and the pack ; and the whole 
 dreamland of Italy peopled itself with wander- 
 ing singers wooing nymphs or shepherdesses 
 in landscapes that would have fired the imagi- 
 nation of a Turner.
 
 66 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 And withal the dramatic embodiment of 
 this conception was prepared as a court spec- 
 tacle for the enjoyment of fashionable so- 
 ciety. Thus we find ourselves in the presence 
 of conditions not unlike those which produced 
 the tomfooleries of the court of Louis XVI 
 and the musettes, bergerettes and aubades of 
 French song. 
 
 The production of Poliziano's " Orfeo " 
 may not have seemed to its contempo- 
 raries to possess an importance larger than 
 that which Rossi and D'Ancona attribute to 
 it; but its proper position in musical history 
 is at the foundation of the modern opera. 
 Poetically it was the superior of any lyric 
 work, except perhaps those of Metastasio. 
 Musically it was radically different in char- 
 acter from the opera, as it was from the 
 liturgical drama. But none the less it 
 contained some of the germs of the modern 
 opera. It had its solo, its chorus and its
 
 The Artistic Impulse 67 
 
 ballet. 1 But while the characters of these were 
 almost as clearly defined as they are in Gluck's 
 " Orfeo," their musical basis, as we shall see, 
 was altogether different. Nevertheless it was 
 distinctly lyric and secular and was therefore 
 as near the spirit of the popular music of the 
 time as any new attempt could well approach. 
 It had, too, in embryonic form all that appara- 
 tus for the enchantment of the sense and the 
 beguilement of the intellect which in the fol- 
 lowing century was the chief attraction of a 
 lyric drama, partly opera, partly spectacle and 
 partly ballet. 
 
 1 George Hogarth, in his " Memoirs of the Musical 
 Drama," London, 1838, declares that this " Orfeo " was 
 sung throughout, but he offers no ground for his asser- 
 tion, which must be taken as a mere conjecture based on 
 the character of the text. Dr. Burney, in his " General 
 History of Music," makes a similar assertion, but does 
 not support it.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 POLIZIANO'S "FAVOLA DI ORFEO" 
 
 IN the year 1472 the Cardinal Francesco 
 * Gonzaga, who had stayed long in Bologna, 
 returned to Mantua. He was received with 
 jubilant celebrations. There were banquets, 
 processions and public rejoicings. It would 
 have been quite unusual if there had been no 
 festival play of some kind. It is uncertain 
 whether Poliziano's " Orfeo " was written for 
 this occasion, but there seems to be a fair 
 amount of reason for believing that it was. 
 At any rate it could not have been produced 
 later than 1483, for we know it was made in 
 honor of this Cardinal and that he died in 
 that year. 
 
 If the " Orfeo " was played in 1472 it must 
 have been written when its author was no
 
 Poliziano's " Favola di Orfeo " 69 
 
 more than eighteen years of age. But even 
 at that age he was already famous. He was 
 born in Montepulciano on July 14, 1454. The 
 family name was Ambrogini, but from the 
 Latinized name of his native town turned into 
 Italian he constructed the title of Poliziano, 
 by which he was afterward known. At the 
 age of ten he was sent to Florence, then gov- 
 erned by Lorenzo de Medici. He studied un- 
 der the famous Greeks Argyropoulos and Kal- 
 listos and the equally famous Italians, 
 Landino and Ficino. 1 Gifted with precocious 
 
 1 John Argyropoulos, who was born at Constantinople 
 in 1416, was one of the first teachers of Greek in Italy, 
 where he was long a guest of Palla degli Strozzi at 
 Padua. In 1456 he went to Florence, where Cosimo de 
 Medici's son and grandson were among his pupils. He 
 spent fifteen years in Florence and thence went to Rome. 
 To this master, George Gemistos and George Trapezun- 
 tios, the acquisition of Greek knowledge at Florence in 
 the fifteenth century was chiefly due. It should be 
 particularly noted that all of them went to Italy before 
 the fall of the Greek empire in 1453. Andronicus Kallis- 
 tos was one of the popular lecturers of the time and one 
 of the first Greeks to visit France. Cristoforo Landino, 
 one of the famous coterie of intellectual men associated 
 with Lorenzo de Medici, took the chair of rhetoric and
 
 *]o Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 talent, he wrote at the age of sixteen, aston- 
 ishing epigrams in Latin and Greek. At sev- 
 enteen he began to translate the " Iliad " into 
 Latin hexameters, and his success with the 
 second book attracted the attention of Lo- 
 renzo himself. Poliziano was now known as 
 the " Homeric youth." It was not long be- 
 fore he was hailed the king of Italian schol- 
 ars and the literary genius of his time. When 
 he was but thirty he became professor of Greek 
 and Latin in the University of Florence, and 
 drew to his feet students from all parts of 
 Europe. John Reuchlin hastened from Ger- 
 many, William Grocyn from the shades of Ox- 
 ford, and from the same seat of learning the 
 mighty Thomas Linacre, later to found the 
 
 poetry at Florence in 1454. He paid especial attention in 
 his lectures to the Italian poets, and in 1481 published an 
 edition of Dante. His famous " Camaldolese Discus- 
 sions," modeled in part on Cicero's " Tusculan Disputa- 
 tions," is well known to students of Italian literature. 
 Marsilio Ficino was a philosopher, and his chief aim was 
 a reconciliation of ancient philosophy with Christianity.
 
 Poliziano's " Favola di Orfeo " 71 
 
 Royal College of Physicians. Lorenzo's sons, 
 Piero and Giovanni, were for a time his pu- 
 pils, but their mother took them away. Poli- 
 ziano was as vicious as the typical men of his 
 time and the prudent Clarice knew it. 
 
 Dwelling in a villa at Fiesole, provided for 
 him by Lorenzo, Poliziano occupied his life 
 with teaching and writing, occasionally paying 
 visits to other cities. In 1492 Lorenzo passed 
 away and Poliliziano wrote an elegy which is 
 to this day regarded as unique in modern 
 Latin verse. In 1494 the famous scholar fol- 
 lowed his patron, even while Savonarola was 
 setting Italy in a ferment of passionate relig- 
 ious reaction against the poetic and sensuous 
 paganism infused into the thought of their 
 time by Poliziano and Lorenzo. The scholar 
 was laid in San Marco and they set upon his 
 tomb this epitaph : " Here lies the angel who 
 had one head, and what is new, three 
 tongues."
 
 3 
 
 72 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 This is not the place for a discussion of 
 Poliziano's importance in literature, but it is 
 essential that we should understand the signi- 
 ficance of his achievement in the "Orfeo." 
 The philosophic and poetic spirit of the period 
 and of this poem has already been discussed. 
 But we may not dismiss the subject without 
 noting that Poliziano powerfully forwarded 
 the impulse toward the employment of Italian 
 as a literary vehicle. Too many of the Ital- 
 ian humanists had preferred Latin, and had 
 looked down upon the native language as un- 
 couth and fit only for the masses. But when 
 the authority of Poliziano was thrown upon 
 the side of Italian and when he made such a 
 triumphant demonstration of its beauties in 
 his " Stanze " and his " Orfeo," he carried 
 conviction to all the writers of his country. 
 
 According to Poliziano's own statement he 
 wrote the " Orfeo " at the request of the Car- 
 dinal of Mantua in the space of two days,
 
 Poliziano's " Favola di Orfeo " 73 
 
 " among continual disturbances, and in the 
 vulgar tongue, that it might be the better com- 
 prehended by the spectators." It was his opin- 
 ion that this creation would bring him more 
 shame than honor. There are only 434 lines 
 in the " Orfeo " and therefore the feat of 
 writing it in two days was no great one for a 
 man of Poliziano's ability. 
 
 Sismondi 1 regards this work as an eclogue 
 rather than a drama. He says : " The univer- 
 sal homage paid to Virgil had a decided influ- 
 ence on the rising drama. The scholars were 
 persuaded that this cherished poet combined 
 in himself all the different kinds of excel- 
 lence; and as they created a drama before 
 they possessed a theater, they imagined that 
 dialogue rather than action, was the essence 
 of the dramatic art. The Buccolics appeared 
 to them a species of comedies or tragedies, 
 
 1 " Historical View of the Literature of the South 
 of Europe," by J. C. L. Simonde de Sismondi, trans- 
 lated by Thomas Roscoe. London, 1895.
 
 74 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 less animated it is true, but more poetical 
 than the dramas of Terence and of Seneca, 
 or perhaps of the Greeks. They attempted in- 
 deed to unite these two kinds, to give interest 
 by action to the tranquil reveries of the shep- 
 herds, and to preserve a pastoral charm in the 
 more violent expression of passion. The Or- 
 pheus, though divided into five acts, though 
 mingled with chorus, and terminating with a 
 tragic incident, is still an eclogue rather than 
 a drama." 
 
 Sismondi's perception of the survival of the 
 pastoral character in this new form of enter- 
 tainment is something we can appreciate, for 
 this character has survived all the experiments 
 made on the " Orfeo " legend and it dominates 
 even the epoch-making work of Gluck. 
 
 Symonds, who had a broader view of art 
 than Sismondi, had no difficulty in perceiv- 
 ing that the true genius of this new drama 
 was lyric. He says : " To do the ' Orfeo ' jus-
 
 Poliziano's "Favola di Orfeo" j$ 
 
 tice we ought to have heard it with its own 
 accompaniment of music." He enlarges upon 
 the failure of the author to seize the opportu- 
 nity to make much of the really tragic mo- 
 ment in the play, namely that expressing the 
 frenzied grief of Orfeo over the loss of Eu- 
 ridice. Yet, he notes, " when we return from 
 these criticisms to the real merit of the piece, 
 we find in it a charm of musical language, a 
 subtlety of musical movement, which are ir- 
 resistibly fascinating. Thought and feeling 
 seem alike refined to a limpidity that suits 
 the flow of melody in song. The very words 
 evaporate and lose themselves in floods of 
 sound." Surely, here is the description of 
 an ideal opera book. 
 
 Two editions of the play are known and 
 both are published in a volume edited by Car- 
 ducci. 1 The first version is that originally 
 
 1 " Le Stanze, l'Orf eo e le Rime di Messer Angelo 
 Abrogini Poliziano," per Giosue Carducci. Firenze, 1863.
 
 y6 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 printed in 1494 and reprinted frequently up to 
 1776. In the latter year the second version 
 was brought out by Padre Ireneo Affo at 
 Venice. This was in all probability a revision 
 of the poem by Poliziano. In this version 
 the division into five acts is noted and there 
 are additional poetic passages of great beauty. 
 It may be worth a note in passing that in 1558 
 a version of the " Orfeo " in octave stanzas 
 was published for the use of the common peo- 
 ple and that as late as i860 it continued to be 
 printed from time to time for the use of the 
 Tuscan contadini. 
 
 The main movement of Poliziano's poem is 
 intrusted to the traditional octave stanza, but 
 we find passages of terza rima. There are also 
 choral passages which suggest the existence 
 of the frottola, the carnival song and the bal- 
 lata. The play is introduced by Mercury act- 
 ing as prologue. This was in accordance with 
 time honored custom which called for an " an-
 
 Poliziano's " Favola di Orfeo " 77 
 
 nouncer of the festival." The first scene is 
 between Mopsus, an old shepherd, and Aris- 
 tseus, a young one. Aristseus, after the man- 
 ner of shepherds, has seen a nymr/h, and has 
 become desperately enamored. Mopsus shakes 
 his head and bids the young man beware. 
 Aristseus says that his nymph lo;es melody. 
 He urges Mopsus: 
 
 " Forth from thy wallet take thy pipe and vve 
 Will sing awhile beneath the leafy trees ; 
 For well my nymph is pleased with melody." 
 
 Now follows a number which the author calls 
 a " canzona " song. The first stanza of the 
 Italian text will serve to show the form. 
 
 " Udite, selve, mie dolce parole, 
 
 Poi che la ninfa mia udir non vole. ' 
 
 La bella ninfa e sorda al mio lamento /t 
 
 E'l suon di nostra fistula non cura : c 
 
 Di cio si lagna il mio cornuto armento, 'J 
 
 Ne vuol bagnare il grifo in acqua pura c 
 
 Ne vuol toccar la tenera verdura ; C 
 
 Tanto del suo pastor gl'incresce e dole." ^ 
 
 The two introductory lines preface each 
 stanza. This first one is thus translated by
 
 7% Some Foreruuners of Italian Opera 
 
 Symonds, 1 whose English version is here 
 used throughout. 
 
 " Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay ; 
 Since th= fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. 
 
 The lovely 1 ymph is deaf to my lament, 
 Nor heeds the music of this rustic reed; 
 Wherefore my flocks and herds are ill content, 
 
 Nor b?,.he the hoof where grows the water weed, 
 Nor .ouch the tender herbage on the mead; 
 So sad because their shepherd grieves are they." 
 
 TJiere are four stanzas. The nymph who 
 hrs bewitched Aristseus is Euridice and the 
 second scene shows us the shepherd pursuing 
 her. It appears that in trying to escape from 
 the shepherd she was bitten by a deadly 
 snake, for in the third scene a dryad tells the 
 story of the tragedy to her sisters. In the 
 first edition, " dei codici chigiano e Riccar- 
 diano," the next scene introduces Orpheus, 
 who sings a song with Latin text beginning 
 thus : 
 
 1 In " Sketches and Studies in Italy," pp. 217-224.
 
 Poliziano's " Favola di Orfeo " 79 
 
 " O meos longum modulata lusus 
 
 Quos amor primam docuit juventam, 
 Flecte nunc mecum numeros novumque 
 Die, lyra, carmen." 
 
 The most significant matter connected with 
 this scene in the early version of the poem is 
 the stage direction, which reads thus : " Orfeo 
 cantando sopra il monte in su la lira e se- 
 guente versi latini fu interotto da un pastore 
 nunciatore della morte di Euridice." The 
 name of the actor of Orfeo is mentioned as 
 Baccio Ugolino. This stage " business " in 
 English reads : " Orpheus singing on the hill 
 to his lyre the following Latin verses is inter- 
 rupted by a shepherd announcing the death of 
 Euridice." Thirteen verses of the song are 
 given before the entrance of the shepherd, and 
 immediately after the announcement Orpheus 
 descends into Hades. In the Padre Affo's 
 later version of the work this song of Orpheus 
 does not appear, but a dryad announces to her 
 sisters the death of Euridice and then follows 
 a chorus :
 
 80 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 " L'Aria di pianti s'oda risuonare, 
 Che d' ogni luce e priva : 
 E al nostro lagrimare 
 Crescano i fiumi al colmo della riva " 
 
 The refrain, " l'aria di pianti " is repeated at 
 the end of each stanza. At the conclusion of 
 this chorus the dryads leave the stage. Or- 
 pheus enters singing a Latin stanza of four 
 lines beginning: 
 
 " Musa, triumphales titulos et gesta canamus 
 Herculis." 
 
 In Padre Afro's edition it is at this point 
 
 that a dryad tells Orpheus of Euridice's 
 
 death. Mnesillus, a satyr, mocks him. The 
 hero now sings in the vernacular: 
 
 " Ora piangiamo, O sconsolata lyra," etc. 
 " Let us lament, O lyre disconsolate : 
 Our wonted music is in tune no more." 
 
 The story now moves similarly in both edi- 
 tions. Orpheus determines to descend to 
 Hades to try to move the infernal powers 
 " with tearful songs and words of honey'd
 
 Poliziano's " Favola di Orfeo " 8 1 
 
 woe." He remembers that he has moved 
 
 stones and turned the flowing streams. He 
 
 proceeds at once to the iron gates and raises 
 
 his song. Pluto demands to know 
 
 " What man is he who with his golden lyre 
 Hath moved the gates that never move, 
 While the dead folk repeat his dirge of love." 
 
 These words leave no doubt that Orpheus 
 sang. Even Proserpine, the spouse of Pluto, 
 confesses to her lord that she feels the new 
 stirrings of sympathy. She desires to hear 
 more of this wondrous song. Now Orpheus 
 sings in octave stanzas. The last stanza of 
 his song is thus translated by Symonds: 
 
 " I pray not to you by the waves forlorn 
 Of marshy Styx or dismal Acheron, 
 By Chaos, where the mighty world was born, 
 Or by the sounding flames of Phlegethon ; 
 But by the fruit that charmed thee on that morn 
 When thou didst leave our world for this dread throne ! 
 
 queen, if thou reject this pleading breath, 
 
 1 will no more return, but ask for death." 
 
 Pluto yields up Euridice according to the well- 
 known condition that Orpheus keep silence
 
 82 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 and look not back till out of Hades. The 
 poet again sings four Latin lines and with 
 his bride starts for the upper world. The cat- 
 astrophe is treated in much the same man- 
 ner as it has been in subsequent versions of 
 the story. Euridice disappears. Orpheus 
 is about to turn back, but he is stopped by 
 Tisiphone. He then breaks into virulent rail- 
 lery, swears he '11 never love woman more and 
 advises all husbands to seek divoree. All this 
 is in resounding octave rime. Then a 
 Maenad calls upon her sisters to defend their 
 sex. They drive Orpheus off the stage and 
 slay him. Returning they sing a chorus, 
 which is the finale of the opera. 
 
 " Ciascun segua, O Bacco, te ; 
 Bacco, Bacco, oe, oe ! 
 Di corimbi e di verd'edere 
 
 Cinto il capo abbiam cosi 
 
 Per servirti a tuo richiedere 
 
 Festiggiando notte e di. 
 
 Ognun breva : Bacco e qui : 
 
 E lasciate bere a me. 
 Ciascun segua, O Bacco, te."
 
 Poliziano's " Favola di Orfeo " 83 
 
 This chorus is translated by Symonds. The 
 first stanza, above given in the original Ital- 
 ian, is translated thus: 
 
 " Bacchus ! we must all follow thee ! 
 Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohe! Ohe! 
 
 With ivy coronals, bunch and berry, 
 
 Crown we our heads to worship thee ! 
 Thou hast bidden us to make merry 
 
 Day and night with jollity ! 
 Drink then ! Bacchus is here ! Drink free, 
 And hand ye the drinking cup to me ! 
 
 Bacchus ! Bacchus ! we must all follow thee ! 
 Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohe! Ohe!" 
 
 This is a sketch of the poem of Poliziano, on 
 a story which became the subject of many 
 operas, down to the time of Gluck. This is 
 the story set by Monteverde in his famous 
 work, which has recently been revived in Italy 
 with success. This story was utilized by Peri 
 and Caccini in their " Euridice," which is ac- 
 cepted as the first opera written in the new 
 representative style of the sixteenth century 
 to receive a public performance.
 
 84 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 But, as we have already noted, in this 
 " Orfeo," performed at the Mantuan court, 
 there was so much of the material of a genuine 
 lyric drama that it now becomes our business 
 to examine more closely the character of the 
 musical features and the manner of the per- 
 formance. The points at which music must 
 have been heard are clearly indicated by the 
 text. Before proceeding to a consideration of 
 this music, let us picture to ourselves how the 
 work was performed.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PERFORMANCE OF "ORFEO" 
 
 F I ^HE " Orfeo " was performed in a hall 
 -* of the castle. The lyric dramas of the 
 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were all pre- 
 sented in private. There were no opera 
 houses, and the theater, though revived in 
 Italy in the fifteenth century, had no perma- 
 nency till Alfonso I, Duke of Ferrara, at the 
 suggestion of Ariosto built in his capital a real 
 play house. There is nevertheless no reason 
 to think that the performance of Poliziano's 
 " Orfeo " lacked admirable scenic and histri- 
 onic features. We have already seen how skil- 
 ful the Italian managers and mechanicians of 
 spectacular sacred plays were in preparing bril- 
 liant scenic effects for their productions.
 
 86 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 Since the form and general apparatus of the 
 sacred play were seized by Poliziano for the 
 fashioning of his " Orfeo," it is altogether 
 probable that he accepted from the earlier 
 creation pregnant suggestions as to the man- 
 ner of presentation. 
 
 However, as the " Orfeo " was to be given 
 indoors the manner of exhibiting it had to 
 differ somewhat from that of the open air 
 spectacle. The scale of the picture had to be 
 reduced and the use of large movement relin- 
 quished. A temporary stage was erected in 
 the great hall of the Palazzo Gonzaga. A 
 single setting sufficed for the pictorial investi- 
 ture of the action. The stage was divided into 
 two parts. One side represented the Thracian 
 country, with its streams and mountains and 
 its browsing flocks. The other represented 
 the inferno with Pluto, Proserpine, and the 
 other personages made familiar by classic 
 literature. Between the two was a partition
 
 The Performance of " Orfeo " 87 
 
 and at the rear of the inferno were the iron 
 gates. 1 
 
 One easily realizes the vivid potency of the 
 picture when Baccio Ugolino, as Orpheus, 
 clad in a flowing robe of white, with a fillet 
 around his head, a " golden " lyre in one hand 
 and the " plectrum " in the other, appeared at 
 the iron gates, and, striking the strings of the 
 sweet sounding instrument, assailed the stony 
 hearts of the infernals with song as chaste 
 and yet as persuasive as that of Gluck himself. 
 It is no difficult task to conjure up the scene, 
 to see the gorgeously clad courtiers and ladies 
 bending forward in their seats and hanging 
 upon the accents of this gifted and accom- 
 plished performer of their day. 
 
 Of the history of Baccio Ugolino little, if 
 anything, is known. There was a Ugolino of 
 Orvieto, who flourished about the beginning 
 
 1 "Florentia: Uomini e cose del Quattrocento," by 
 Isidoro del Lungo.
 
 88 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 of the fifteenth century. He was archpriest 
 of Ferrara, and appears to have written a 
 theoretical work on music in which he set 
 forth a great deal of the fundamental matter 
 afterward utilized in the writings of Tincto- 
 ris. But whether this learned man was a 
 member of the same family as Baccio Ugolino 
 is not known. The fact that he was lo- 
 cated at Ferrara makes it seem likely that 
 he was related to Poliziano's interpreter, 
 who might thus have belonged to a musical 
 family. 
 
 At any rate Baccio Ugolino possessed some 
 skill in improvisation, and was also accom- 
 plished in the art of singing and accompany- 
 ing himself upon the lute or viol. We shall 
 in another place in this work examine the 
 methods of the lutenists and singers of the 
 fifteenth century in adapting polyphonic com- 
 positions to delivery by a single voice with 
 accompaniment of an instrument. It was in
 
 The Performance of " Orfeo " 89 
 
 this manner of singing that Baccio Ugolino 
 was an expert. Symonds goes so far in one 
 passage as to hint that Ugolino composed the 
 music for Poliziano's " Orfeo," but there 
 seems to be no ground whatever for such a 
 conclusion. 
 
 Baccio Ugolino was without doubt one of 
 those performers who appeared in the dra- 
 matic scenes and processional representations 
 of the outdoor spectacles already reviewed. 
 His pleasing voice, his picturesque appearance, 
 grace of bearing and elegance of gesture, 
 together with his ability to play his own ac- 
 companiments, marked him as the ideal im- 
 personator of the Greek poet, and accordingly 
 Poliziano secured his services for this im- 
 portant part. 
 
 For the other roles and for the chorus the 
 numerous singers of the court were sufficient. 
 That there was an organized orchestra must 
 be doubted, yet there may have been in-
 
 90 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 strumental accompaniments in certain pas- 
 sages. This also is a matter into which we 
 shall further inquire when we take up a de- 
 tailed examination of the musical means at 
 the command of Poliziano and his musical 
 associates. The study of this entire matter 
 calls for care and judgment, for it is involved 
 in a mass of misinformation, lack of any in- 
 formation and ill grounded conclusions. For 
 example, we read in a foot-note of Rolland's 
 excellent work 1 that in March, 1518, the 
 " Suppositi " of Ariosto was performed at the 
 Vatican before Pope Leo with musical inter- 
 mezzi. The author quotes from a letter of 
 Pauluzo, envoy of the Duke of Ferrara, 
 written on March 8. He wrote : " The 
 comedy was recited and well acted, and at 
 the end of each act there was an intermezzo 
 with fifes, bag-pipes, two cornets, some viols, 
 
 1 " Histoire de l'Opera en Europe avant Lully et 
 Scarlatti," par Romain Rolland. Paris, 1895.
 
 The Performance of " Orfeo " 9 1 
 
 some lutes and a small organ with a variety 
 of tone. There was at the same time a flute 
 and a voice which pleased much. There was 
 also a concert of voices which did not come 
 off quite so well, in my opinion, as other parts 
 of the music." 
 
 Upon this passage Rolland makes the fol- 
 lowing comment : " This is the type of piece 
 performed in Italy up to Vecchi, as the ' Or- 
 feo ' of Poliziano (1475), The Conversion of 
 Saint Paul (Rome, 1484-92, music by Beve- 
 rini), Cephale et Aurore (music by Nicolo de 
 Coreggio) 1487, Ferrara, etc." 
 
 This confusion of Poliziano's " Orfeo " 
 with spoken drama interspersed with inter- 
 mezzi is unfortunate. There were no inter- 
 mezzi at the representation of this lyric drama. 
 It was in itself an entire novelty and nothing 
 was done to distract the attention of the au- 
 dience from its poetic and musical beauties. 
 We can hardly believe that there was any
 
 92 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 close consideration of the fact that the work 
 was an adaptation of the apparatus of the 
 sacra rappresentazione to the secular play. 
 The audience was without doubt absorbed in 
 the immediate interest of the entertainment 
 and was not engaged in critical analysis or 
 esthetic speculations. 
 
 The costuming of the drama presented no 
 difficulties. The skill already shown in the 
 preparation of the sacred representations and 
 the festal processions could here be utilized 
 with excellent results. From 1470 to 1520, 
 as we have already seen, was the period of 
 the high development of the sacred play. Only 
 a few years earlier the civic procession, or 
 pageant, had shown in brilliant tableaux vi- 
 vants the stories of the Minotaur and Iphi- 
 genie. The study of classic art and literature 
 had blossomed in the very streets of Italy in a 
 new avatar of the dramatic dance. From 
 every account we glean testimony that the
 
 The Performance of " Orfeo " 93 
 
 costuming of these spectacles was admirable. 
 It must follow that so simple a task as the 
 dressing of the characters in Poliziano's 
 " Orfeo " was easily accomplished at that 
 time when the Arcadian spirit of the story- 
 was precious to every cultured mind. 
 
 There were no mechanical problems of 
 stage craft to be solved. The men who de- 
 signed the cloud effects and the carriages for 
 the floating angels in the open air spectacles 
 might have disposed of them with ready in- 
 vention, had they existed, but the theater of 
 action, with its two pictures standing side by 
 side, was simplicity itself. But let us not fall 
 into the error of supposing that the scenery 
 was crude or ill painted. The painter of the 
 scenery of the production of Ariosto's " Sup- 
 positi," described by Pauluzo, was no less a 
 personage than the mighty Raphael. The ac- 
 counts of the writers of the latter part of the 
 fifteenth and all of the sixteenth centuries
 
 94 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 are prolific in testimony as to the splendor of 
 the pictorial elements in the festal entertain- 
 ments of courts and pontiffs. 1 
 
 Celler, 2 in speaking of the theater of the 
 period of Louis XIV, says : " The simplicity 
 of our fathers is somewhat doubtful; if they 
 did not have as regards the theater ideas 
 exactly like ours, the luxury which they 
 displayed was most remarkable, and the ana- 
 chronisms in local color were not so extraor- 
 dinary as we have often been told." The au- 
 thor a little further on calls attention to the 
 fact that the mise en scene of the old mystery 
 plays had combined splendor with naive pov- 
 erty. But he is careful to note that the lat- 
 ter condition accompanied the representations 
 
 1 " At the end of the fifteenth century, about 1480, are 
 cited as famous scene painters Balthasar Reuzzi at Vol- 
 terra, Parigi at Florence, Bibiena at Rome." " Les 
 Origines de 1' Opera et le Ballet de la Reine," par Ludo- 
 vic Celler. Paris, 1868. 
 
 3 " Les Decors, les Costumes et la Mise en Scene au 
 XVIIe Siecle," par Ludovic Celler. Paris, 1869.
 
 The Performance of " Orfeo " 95 
 
 given by strolling troupes in small villages or 
 towns, while the former state was found where 
 well paid and highly trained actors gave per- 
 formances in rich municipalities. In the vil- 
 lages rude stage and scenery sufficed; in the 
 cities all the resources of theatric art were em- 
 ployed. 
 
 Without doubt one of the most serious of 
 all problems was that of lighting. One can- 
 not believe that at so early a date as that of 
 this first secular drama of Italy, the system 
 of lighting the stage was such as to give sat- 
 isfactory results. Yet it is probable that arti- 
 ficial lighting was provided, because it would 
 have been extremely difficult to admit day- 
 light in such a way as to illumine the stage 
 without destroying much of the desirable illu- 
 sion. Celler, in the first of his two volumes 
 already quoted, tells how the " Ballet de la 
 Reine " (1581) was lighted by torches and 
 " lamps in the shape of little boats " so that
 
 96 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 the illumination, according to a contempo- 
 rary record, was such as to shame the finest 
 of days. But hyperbole was common then, 
 and from Celler's second book we learn that 
 even in the extravagant times of Louis XIV 
 the lighting problem was an obstacle. It 
 caused theatrical enterprises to keep chiefly to 
 pieces which could be performed in the open 
 air or at any rate by daylight. " The oldest 
 representation," he says, " given in a closed 
 hall, with artificial light and with scenery, ap- 
 pears to have been that of the ' Calandra,' a 
 comedy which Balthazzar Peruzzi caused to 
 be performed before Leo X in 15 16 at the 
 Chateau of St. Ange." Duruy de Noirville 1 
 says that Peruzzi revived the " ancient deco- 
 rations " of the theater in this " Calandra " 
 which " was one of the first Italian plays in 
 
 1 " Histoire du Theatre de l'Opera en France depuis 
 l'Etablissement de l'Academie Royale de Musique 
 jusqu'a present." (Published anonymously.) Paris, 
 J 753-
 
 The Performance of " Orfeo " 97 
 
 music prepared for the theater. Italy never 
 saw scenery more magnificent than that of 
 Peruzzi." This is a matter in which Noir- 
 ville cannot be called authoritative, but it is 
 certain that the fame of the production of 
 " Calandra " was well established. Noir- 
 ville's authority for his statements was Bul- 
 lart's " Academie des Sciences et d'Arts," 
 Brussels, 1682. Whether the comedy had 
 music or not we cannot now determine, and 
 it is a matter of no grave importance. The 
 interesting point is that the fame of the scenic 
 attire of " Calandra " seems to have been well 
 established among the early writers on the 
 theater and that they also regarded as signifi- 
 cant its indoor performance. The perform- 
 ance of Poliziano's " Orfeo," however, took 
 place some forty years earlier than that of 
 " Calandra," and it was without doubt in a 
 closed hall and therefore most probably with 
 artificial light of flambeaux and lamps.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 CHARACTER OF THE MUSIC 
 
 f T becomes now the duty of the author to 
 
 -"- make some examination of the music of 
 this first lyric drama. But here we unfortu- 
 nately find ourselves adrift upon a windless 
 ocean. We are driven to the necessity of 
 deducing our information from the results of 
 analogical reconstruction. Nothing indeed 
 can be more fascinating than the attempt to 
 arrive at a comprehension of the music of Po- 
 liziano's " Orfeo." All record of it appears 
 to be lost and the Italian savants who have 
 given us illuminating studies of the literary 
 structure of the work, of its environment 
 and its performance, have hazarded scarcely
 
 Character of the Music 99 
 
 a remote conjecture as to the style of its 
 music. 
 
 But we are not without a considerable 
 amount of knowledge of the kinds of music 
 in use at the time when this work was pro- 
 duced and we can therefore arrive at some 
 idea of the nature of the lyric elements of the 
 " Orfeo." First of all we may fairly con- 
 clude that some portions of the text were 
 spoken. It seems, for instance, improbable 
 that the prologue delivered by Mercury could 
 have been set to music. If all other consider- 
 ations are set aside there still remains the im- 
 portant fact that the hero of the play is a 
 musical personage. He is to move the powers 
 of hell by his impassioned song. It would, 
 therefore, be artistically foolish to begin this 
 new species of work with a piece of vocal solo 
 which might rob the invocation of Orpheus 
 of its desired effect. It is altogether probable 
 that the prologue was spoken, and that the
 
 i oo Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 opening dialogue in the scene between the 
 two shepherds was also spoken. After the 
 lines 
 
 " Forth from thy wallet take thy pipe and we 
 Will sing awhile beneath the leafy trees ; 
 For well my nymph is pleased with melody." 
 
 there follows a number which the author 
 plainly indicates as lyric, for he calls it a can- 
 zona. Beginning with this it seems to me that 
 we may content ourselves with inquiring into 
 the musical character of those parts which 
 were without doubt lyrically treated in the 
 performance. In the early version of the 
 poem we have a stage direction which shows 
 that the Latin text beginning " O meos 
 longum modulata " was sung by Orpheus. 
 Again it is made plain by the text, as well as 
 by the details of the ancient legend itself, that 
 the hero sang to the accompaniment of his 
 lyre when he was arousing the sympathies of 
 the infernal powers. It is not certain that song
 
 Character of the Music i o i 
 
 was employed in the scene between him and 
 Tisiphone. All the choruses, however, were 
 unquestionably sung. 
 
 The propositions which must now be laid 
 down are these: First, the choral parts of the 
 work were in the form of the Italian frottola, 
 and the final one may have approached more 
 closely to the particular style of the canto car- 
 nascialesco (carnival song) and was certainly 
 a ballata, or dance song. Second, the solo 
 parts were constructed according to the 
 method developed by the lutenists, who de- 
 vised a manner of singing one part of a 
 polyphonic composition and utilizing the other 
 parts as the instrumental support. Third, 
 there were two obligato instruments, the pipe 
 used in the duet of the two shepherds, and 
 the " lira " played by Orpheus. Fourth, there 
 was probably an instrumental accompaniment, 
 at least to the choral parts. 
 
 In regard to the choruses, then, we must
 
 1 02 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 bear in mind the well established characteris- 
 tics of the madrigal dramas of the sixteenth 
 century. In these works the choruses were 
 set to music in the madrigal style and they 
 were frequently of great beauty. But the 
 Italian madrigal had not been well developed at 
 the time of the production of Poliziano's " Or- 
 feo," while the frottola was the most popu- 
 lar song of the people. 
 
 The frottola was a secular song, written in 
 polyphonic style. The polyphony was simple 
 and the aim of the composition was popu- 
 larity. It is essential for us to bear in mind 
 the fact that in the fifteenth century the 
 cultivation of part singing was ardent and 
 widespread. The ability to sing music 
 written in harmonized form was not con- 
 fined to the educated classes. It extended 
 through all walks of life, and while the most 
 elaborate compositions of the famous mas- 
 ters were beyond the powers of the people,
 
 Character of the Music 103 
 
 the lighter and more facile pieces were readily- 
 sung. 1 
 
 The teachings and practice of the Nether- 
 erlands masters spread through Europe 
 rapidly, and some of the masters themselves 
 went into Italy, where they became the apos- 
 tles of a new artistic religion. The Nether- 
 lands musicians began early to write secular 
 songs in a style which eventually developed 
 into the madrigal. Frequently they took folk 
 tunes and treated them polyphonically. Some- 
 times they used themes of their own inven- 
 tion. In time musicians of small skill, under- 
 taking to imitate these earliest secular songs, 
 
 1 " During the fifteenth century the love of part-sing- 
 ing seems to have taken hold of all phases of society in 
 the Netherlands; princes and people, corporate bodies, 
 both lay and clerical, vying with each other in the forma- 
 tion of choral societies." Naumann, " History of Music," 
 Vol. I, p. 318. 
 
 " The practice of concerted singing was not confined 
 to the social circles of the dilettanti, but was also very 
 popular in the army; and we have before alluded to the 
 fact that Antoine Busnois and numerous others followed 
 Charles the Bold into the field." Ibid., p. 320.
 
 1 04 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 developed the popular form called frottola. 
 Later we find some of the famous masters 
 cultivating this music of the people. Adrian 
 Willaert, who settled in Venice in 1516, wrote 
 frottole and gondola songs in frottola form. 
 It was from such works that he advanced to 
 the composition of the madrigal of which he 
 was so famous a composer and which he 
 raised to the dignity of an art work. 
 
 The residence of Josquin des Pres in Italy- 
 doubtless had an immense influence on the 
 development of the Italian madrigal, but at a 
 period later than that of Poliziano's " Orfeo " 
 and of the best of the frottole. Josquin was 
 a singer in the Sistine Chapel in 1484 and his 
 first successes as a composer were obtained in 
 Rome. Later he went to Ferrara where he 
 wrote for the Duke Ercole d'Este his famous 
 mass, " Hercules Dux Ferrariae." But these 
 activities of Josquin had little relation to the 
 frottola.
 
 Character of the Music 1 05 
 
 The point to be made here is that, at the 
 time when Poliziano's " Orfeo " was produced 
 at Mantua, the Italian madrigal was in its 
 infancy, while its plebian parent, the frottole 
 was in the lusty vigor of its maturity. At the 
 same time the popularity of part song was 
 established in Italy and music of this type was 
 employed even for the most convivial occa- 
 sions. This is proved by the position which 
 the variety of frottola, called " carnival song," 
 occupied in the joyous festivities of the Ital- 
 ians. Note the narrative (not wholly inex- 
 act) of Burney: 
 
 " Historians relate that Lorenzo il Magni- 
 fico in carnival time used to go out in the 
 evening, followed by a numerous company of 
 persons on horseback, masked and richly 
 dressed, amounting sometimes to upwards of 
 three hundred, and the same number on foot 
 with wax tapers burning in their hands. In 
 this manner they marched through the city 
 till three or four o'clock in the morning, sing-
 
 1 06 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 ing songs, ballads, madrigals, catches or songs 
 of humor upon subjects then in vogue, with 
 musical harmony, in four, eight, twelve, and 
 even fifteen parts, accompanied with various 
 instruments; and these, from being performed 
 in carnival time, were called Canti Carnas- 
 cialesci." x 
 
 Burney errs in supposing that these songs 
 were written in so many parts. Three and 
 four parts were the rule; five parts were ex- 
 tremely rare. The actual words of II Lasca, 
 who wrote the introduction to the collection 
 of Triumphs and Carnival Songs published 
 in Florence, 1559, are: "Thus they traversed 
 the city, singing to the accompaniment of 
 music arranged for four, eight, twelve or even 
 fifteen voices, supported by various instru- 
 ments." This would not necessarily mean 
 what musicians call " fifteen real parts." The 
 subject has been exhaustively and learnedly 
 
 1 " The Present State of Music in France and Italy," 
 by Charles Burney. London, 1773.
 
 Character of the Music 1 07 
 
 studied by Ambros, 1 who has examined the 
 frottola in all its varieties. He has given 
 several examples and among them he calls 
 attention to a particularly beautiful number 
 (without text) for five voices. This, he is 
 certain, is one of the carnival songs which 
 Heinrich Isaak was wont to write at the pleas- 
 ure of Lorenzo. 
 
 The source of our knowledge of the frot- 
 tola music is nine volumes of these songs, 
 averaging sixty-four to the volume, published 
 by Petrucci at Venice between 1504 and 1509, 
 and a book of twenty-two published at Rome 
 by Junta in 1526. Ambros's study of these 
 works convinced him that the composers 
 " while not having actually sat in the school of 
 the Netherlanders, had occasionally listened at 
 the door." The composers of the frottole 
 showed sound knowledge of the ancient rules 
 
 1 " Geschichte der Musik " von August Wilhelm Am- 
 bros. Leipsic, 1880.
 
 1 08 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 of ligature and the correct use of accidentals; 
 on the other hand it is always held by the 
 writers of the early periods that an elaborately 
 made frottola is no longer a frottola, but a 
 madrigal. Thus Cerone 1 in the twelfth book 
 of his " Melopeo " gives an account of the 
 manner of composing frottole. He demands 
 for this species of song a simple and easily 
 comprehended harmony, such as appears only 
 in common melodies. So we see that a frot- 
 tola is practically a folk song artistically 
 treated. 
 
 " He who puts into a frottola fugues, imi- 
 tations, etc., is like one who sets a worthless 
 stone in gold. A frottola thus ennobled would 
 become a madrigal, while a madrigal, all too 
 scantily treated, would sink to a frottola." A 
 typical frottola by Scotus shows observance 
 of Cerone's requirements. 
 
 1 " El Melopeo y Maestro," by Dominic Pierre Cerone. 
 Naples, 1613. (Quoted here from Ambros.)
 
 Character of the Music 109 
 
 Discant 
 
 u 
 
 Fal - la . 
 
 Altus 
 
 spe - ran 
 
 r^ 
 
 z? z? 
 
 la ce spe - ran - za 
 CD 0) 
 
 Fal 
 
 Tenor 
 
 -T7~~m~ 
 
 1 -j r 
 
 Fal 
 
 Bass 
 
 la ce 
 
 spe - ran - za 
 
 m 
 
 O fal - la ce spe - ran - za 
 
 # 0- 
 
 che sai dol 
 
 - ce ogni sten 
 
 to 
 
 
 
 
 che sai 
 
 dol 
 
 ogni sten 
 
 to 
 
 tJ 
 
 =t 
 
 * 
 
 che sai dol 
 
 
 
 ogni sten - to 
 
 :t 
 
 2>- 
 
 che sai dol 
 
 ogni sten - to
 
 1 1 o Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 f 
 
 
 /t ^ 
 
 
 
 /2> 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 i 
 
 fits 
 
 
 *? . 
 
 i i * 
 
 
 
 "W 
 
 
 1 
 
 | 1 
 
 
 t 
 
 e a - mo 
 
 A 
 
 - ro 
 
 
 so tor - men - to 
 
 V ..* 
 
 '1 
 
 
 ! 1 
 
 1 
 
 l(\\ \ 1 ^ii J 
 
 & 
 
 
 
 | 
 
 V- * I \ \ J 
 
 
 
 e a - mo 
 
 - ro - - 
 
 sc 
 
 tor - men - to 
 
 V i 
 
 
 /T - 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ifh i /d 1 
 
 
 1 ' ' 
 
 VMJ 7 <> 1 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 e a - mo 
 
 - ro 
 
 "25 
 SC 
 
 tor - men - to 
 
 /my 
 
 V 
 
 
 S3 
 
 . *r> 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 ... j_ 
 
 
 K^S m r? 
 
 | 
 
 i 
 
 'y 
 
 & 
 
 
 
 e a - mo - ro 
 
 tor - men - to 
 
 I 
 
 75*" 
 
 9 
 
 -g>- 
 
 mo speo - so in - gan - na 
 
 II: 
 
 -2 
 
 ^ 
 
 co - mo speo-so 
 
 ingan 
 
 S 
 
 co 
 
 z2 
 
 = 
 
 mo speo 
 
 in - gan 
 
 ^ 
 
 "25*- 
 
 -z*- 
 
 
 
 co - mo speo - so in - gan
 
 m 
 
 Character of the Music 
 
 CD 
 
 in 
 
 I 
 
 S 
 
 chia 
 
 te 
 
 de. 
 
 "75- 
 
 te 
 
 ~a 
 ere 
 
 n 
 
 de. 
 
 chia 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 - de. 
 
 ^ ^ -t&- 
 na chia - te 
 
 ere 
 
 \ 
 
 =5= 
 
 na chia - te ere - - -de. 
 
 These compositions are what we would call 
 part songs and they are usually constructed 
 in simple four-part harmony, without fugato 
 passages or imitations. When imitations do 
 appear, they are secondary and do not deal 
 with the fundamental melodic ideas of the 
 song. Nothing corresponding to subject and 
 answer is found in these works. If we turn 
 from a frottola to a motet by the same com- 
 poser, we meet at once the device of canonic 
 imitation and with it a clearly different artis-
 
 U2 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 tic purpose. These composers evidently did 
 not expect the people to be such accomplished 
 musicians as the singers of the trained 
 choirs. 
 
 " Indeed, the f rottola descended by an 
 extremely easy transition to the villanelle, a 
 still more popular form of composition and 
 one marked by even less relationship to the 
 counterpoint of the low countries. At the 
 time of the full development of the madrigal 
 the serious and humorous elements which 
 dwelt together in the frottola separated com- 
 pletely. The purely sentimental and idealistic 
 frottola became the madrigal ; the clearly hu- 
 morous frottola became the villanelle. When 
 these two clearly differentiated species were 
 firmly established, the frottola disappeared. 
 
 " The madrigal existed as early as the four- 
 teenth century, but its general spread dates 
 from the time of Adrian Willaert (1480- 
 1562). The madrigal was originally a pas- 
 toral song, but the form came to be utilized 
 for the expression of varied sentiments and 
 it was treated with a musicianship which ad-
 
 Character of the Music 1 1 3 
 
 vanced it toward the more stately condition 
 of the ' durchcomponirt ' motet. In the vil- 
 lanelle the influence of the strophic folk song 
 is clearly perceptible. The frottola to a cer- 
 tain extent stood in the middle. It is . sung 
 verse by verse, but its musical scheme is almost 
 always conceived in a much broader spirit 
 than that of the villanelle and gives to it al- 
 most the appearance of a durchcomponirt 
 work. But the systematic repetition of cer- 
 tain couplets in the manner of a refrain oc- 
 casions the recurrence of whole musical pe- 
 riods. Thus does the frottola acquire from 
 its text that architectural shape which places 
 it in marked contrast to the swift-paced and 
 fluid contrapuntal chanson of the Nether- 
 landers. Its rhythm and accents are arranged 
 not by the needs of contrapuntal develop- 
 ment, but by the meter of the line and the 
 accent of the Italian tongue. This appears 
 most prominently in the upper voice part, 
 where often the controlling melody seems 
 ready to break quite through in pure song 
 style, but only partly succeeds. In the tex- 
 ture of the voices all kinds of imitations ap-
 
 U4 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 pear, but only subordinated and in very 
 modest setting. 
 
 " All this was a part of the steady progress 
 toward monody, the final goal of Italian mu- 
 sical art, where, in extreme contrast to the 
 Netherlandish subordination to school, the 
 emergence and domination of individuality, 
 the special and significant distinction of the 
 Renaissance, were taking shape. Hence Cas- 
 tiglione in his ' Cortegiano ' gives preference 
 to the one- voiced song ('recitar alia lira') 
 and it was quite natural that we find in the 
 Petrucci collection frottole originally com- 
 posed for four voices now appearing as so- 
 prano solos w r ith lute accompaniment, the lat- 
 ter being arranged from the other three 
 voices." * 
 
 Castiglione (1478-1529) wrote somewhat 
 
 later than the period of Poliziano. The 
 
 " Cortegiano " dates from 1514, though it was 
 
 not published till a few years later, and the 
 
 frottola was at the zenith of its excellence in 
 
 1 This passage is not a literal quotation, but partly a 
 paraphrase and partly a condensation of the text of 
 Ambros.
 
 Character of the Music 115 
 
 the time of Bernado Tromboncino, who be- 
 longs to the latter half of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury. But the frottola was well established 
 before the date of Poliziano's " Orfeo," for 
 minor Italian composers had poured forth a 
 mass of small lyrics for which they found 
 their models in the polyphonic secular songs 
 of Antoine de Busnois (1440-1482) and 
 others of the Netherlands school, especially 
 such writers as Loyset Compere, of St. Quen- 
 tin, who died in 15 18. Two of his frottole 
 appear in the Petrucci collection, showing that 
 he was acquainted with this Italian form, and 
 that his productions in it were known and 
 admired in Italy. His frottole are distin- 
 guished by uncommon grace and gaiety, for 
 the frottola was generally rather passionate 
 and melancholy, and full of what Castiglione 
 called " flebile dolcezza." 
 
 In view, then, of the state of part song 
 composition in Italy at the time when Poll-
 
 1 1 6 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 ziano's " Orfeo " was written we are safe in 
 assuming that its two choral numbers were 
 set to music of the frottola type. The use of 
 the refrains, " l'aria di pianti " in the first, and 
 " Ciascun segua, O Bacco, te," in the second, 
 is an additional influence in moving us toward 
 this conclusion because we know that it was 
 the employment of the refrain which helped 
 to lead the frottola toward the strophic form 
 of the song. We are, moreover, justified in 
 concluding from the character of the final 
 chorus that it was a ballata or dance song 
 and hence a frottola of the carnival song vari- 
 ety. No student of classic literature will need 
 any demonstration of the probability that the 
 Maenads in their Bacchic invocation danced; 
 and here we have in all likelihood the origin 
 of that fashion of concluding operas with a 
 chorus and a dance which survived as late 
 as Mozart's " Die Zauberflote."
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 THE SOLOS OF THE "ORFEO" 
 
 F I^HE failure of the vocal solo in the field 
 -*- of artistic music of Europe might be 
 traced to the establishment of the unisonal 
 chant in the service of the Roman Catholic 
 Church. Yet in defining such ground we 
 should easily be led to exaggerate the impor- 
 tance of the solo. In the infancy of modern 
 music the solo existed only in the folk song, 
 in the rhapsodies of religious ecstatics and in 
 the uncertain lyrics of the minnesingers and 
 troubadours. Of these the folk song, and the 
 troubadour lyrics had some musical figure, 
 out of which a clear form might have been 
 developed. But, as all students of musical 
 history know, the study of the art originated 
 among the fathers of the church and in their
 
 1 1 8 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 pursuit of principles of structure they chose 
 a path which led them directly away from the 
 rhythmic and strophic basis of the song and 
 into the realm of polyphonic imitation. The 
 vocal solo had no place in their system and 
 hence it never appears in the art music of 
 their time. 
 
 Consequently the advent of the dramatic 
 recitative introduced by Peri, Caccini and 
 Cavaliere appears to be a striking phenome- 
 non in the growth of music, and we are easily 
 induced to believe that this new species burst 
 upon the artistic firmament like a meteor. The 
 truth is, however, that the vague desire for 
 solo expression had made itself felt in music 
 for centuries before the Florentine movement. 
 The real significance of the Florentine inven- 
 tion was its destruction of the musical shackles 
 which had so long hampered the advance to- 
 ward truthful utterance. 
 
 We read frequently that the first instance
 
 The Solos of the " Orfeo " 119 
 
 of solo singing was the delivery of a madrigal 
 of Corteccia in a play of 1539. The character 
 Sileno sang the upper part and accompanied 
 himself on the violone, while the lower parts 
 were given to other instruments. But this was 
 nothing new. This kind of solo was consider- 
 ably older than Sileno and the performance of 
 Baccio Ugolino in Poliziano's "Orfeo" was un- 
 questionably of the same type. And this man- 
 ner of delivering a solo, which Castiglione called 
 " recitar alia lira," was a descendant of the 
 art of singing with lute accompaniment which 
 was well known in the fourteenth century. 
 
 Doubtless Casella, who was born in 1300 
 and set to music Dante's sonnet " Amor che 
 nella mente," was one of the cantori a liuto. 
 Minuccio d'Arezzo, mentioned by Boccaccio, 
 was another. Here again we must recur to 
 the observations of Burney and the examina- 
 tions of Ambros. The former records that 
 in the Vatican there is a poem by Lemmo of
 
 120 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 Pistoja, with the note " Casella diede il suono." 
 It is likely that this musician was well known 
 in Italy and that he would not have had to 
 rely for his immortality upon the passing 
 mention of a poet if the art of notation had 
 been more advanced in his day. 
 
 The story of Minuccio, as told by Boccaccio, 
 is this. A young maiden of Palermo, seized 
 with violent love for the King, begged Minuc- 
 cio to help her. Not being a verse-maker 
 himself, he hastened to the poet Mico of 
 Siena, who wrote a poem setting forth the 
 maiden's woes. This Minuccio set at once to 
 exquisite and heart-moving music and sang it 
 for the King to the accompaniment of his own 
 viol. The poem is in the main strophic and 
 the melody is of similar nature. Whether 
 Boccaccio or Mico wrote the poem matters not 
 in the historical sense. The important facts 
 are that such a poem exists and that a hint 
 as to its music has come down to us.
 
 The Solos of the " Orfeo " 121 
 
 In the " Decameron " we are told often how 
 some one or other of the personages sings 
 to the company. Sometimes it is a dance 
 song, as for example the " Io son si vaga della 
 mia bellezza." To this all the others spon- 
 taneously dance while singing the refrain in 
 chorus. Another time the queen of the day, 
 Emilia, invites Dioneo to sing a canzona. 
 There is much pretty banter, while Dineo 
 teases the women by making false starts at 
 several then familiar songs. In another place 
 Dioneo with lute and Fiametta with viol play 
 a dance. Again one sings while Dioneo ac- 
 companies her on the lute. 
 
 Thus Boccaccio in his marvelous portrai- 
 ture of the social life of his time has casually 
 handed down to us invaluable facts about 
 vocal and instrumental music. There is no 
 question that Ambros is fully justified in his 
 conclusion that the cantori a liuto were a well- 
 marked class of musicians. They were vocal
 
 122 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 soloists and often improvisatori, clearly dif- 
 ferentiated from the cantori a libro, who were 
 " singers by book and note " and who sang 
 the polyphonic art music of the time. 
 
 It is pretty well established that the songs 
 of Dante were everywhere known and sung. 
 We have reason to believe that many of those 
 of Boccaccio were also familiar to the people. 
 We may also feel confident that when most of 
 the Italian lute singers of the time had acquired 
 sufficient skill to make their own poems as 
 well as their own melodies, they followed the 
 models provided in the verses of the great 
 masters. What is still more important for us 
 to note is that these lyrics were strophical and 
 that they were no further removed from the 
 folk song of the era than the frottola was. 
 Indeed they bore a closer resemblance to the 
 frottola. They differed in that they were 
 solos with instrumental accompaniment in- 
 stead of being part songs unaccompanied.
 
 The Solos of the " Orfeo " 123 
 
 But this difference is not so important as 
 it appears. The part song method was at 
 the basis of all these old lute songs. This is 
 well proved by the fact that before the end 
 of the century the device of turning part songs 
 into solo pieces with lute accompaniment had 
 become quite familiar. It was so common 
 that we are driven to something more sub- 
 stantial than a mere suspicion that .Casella 
 and Minuccio employed a similar method and 
 that the domination of polyphonic thought in 
 music had spread from the regions occupied 
 by the church compositions of Dufay and his 
 contemporaries downward into the secular 
 fancies of people whose daily thought was 
 influenced by the authority of the church. 
 
 Furthermore this method of turning part 
 songs into solos survived until the era of the 
 full fledged madrigal dramas of Vecchi in the 
 latter part of the sixteenth century, and at 
 what may be called the golden era of the frot-
 
 1 24 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 tola was generally and successfully applied to 
 that species of composition. Whatever the 
 troubadours and minnesingers may have done 
 toward establishing a metrical melodic form of 
 monophonic character was soon obliterated by 
 the swift popularity of part singing and the 
 immense vogue of the secular songs of the 
 polyphonic composers. When the desire for 
 the vocal solo made itself felt in the exquis- 
 itely sensuous life of medieval Italy, it found 
 its only gratification in the easy art of adap- 
 tation. In such scenes as those described by 
 Boccaccio and much later by Castiglione there 
 was no incentive to artistic reform, no im- 
 pulse to creative activity. 
 
 We find ourselves, then, equipped with these 
 significant facts: first, that the composition of 
 secular music in polyphonic forms was at 
 least as old as the thirteenth century; that 
 part singing was practised in Italy as far 
 back as the fourteenth century; that songs for
 
 The Solos of the " Orfeo " 1 25 
 
 one voice were made with Italian texts at 
 least as early as the time of Dante and Boc- 
 caccio; that the art of arranging polyphonic 
 compositions as vocal solos by giving the sec- 
 ondary parts to the accompanying instrument 
 was known in the time of Minuccio and Ca- 
 sella; that at the time of Poliziano's " Orfeo " 
 the frottola was the reigning form of part 
 song, and that then and for years afterward 
 it was customary to arrange frottole as solos 
 by giving the polyphony to the lute or other 
 accompanying instrument. 
 
 It seems, then, that we shall not be far 
 astray if we conclude that the solo parts of 
 Poliziano's lyric drama consisted of music of 
 the better frottola type and that the moving 
 appeals of his hero were accompanied on a 
 " lyre " of the period in precisely the same 
 manner as frottole transformed into vocal 
 solos were accompanied on the lute. For 
 these reasons an example of the method of ar-
 
 126 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 ranging a frottola for voice and lute will give 
 us some idea of the character of the music 
 sung by Baccio Ugolino in the " Orfeo." The 
 examples here offered are those given in the 
 great history of Ambros. The first is a frag- 
 ment of a frottola (composed by Trombon- 
 cino) in its original shape. The second 
 shows the same music as arranged for solo 
 voice and lute by Franciscus Bossinensis as 
 found in a collection published by Petrucci in 
 1509. 
 
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 The Solos of the " Orfeo " 1 27 
 
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 128 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 How far removed this species of lyric solo 
 was from the dramatic recitative of Peri and 
 Caccini is apparent at a single glance. But 
 on the other hand it is impossible to be blind 
 to its relationship to the more metrical arioso 
 of Monteverde's earlier work or perhaps to 
 the canzone of Caccini's " Nuove Musiche." 
 The line of development or progress is dis- 
 tinctly traceable. At this point it is not essen- 
 tial that we should satisfy ourselves that the 
 solo songs of Caccini were descendants of the 
 lyrics of the cantori a Unto, for when the two 
 species are placed in juxtaposition the lineage 
 is almost unmistakable. What we do need to 
 remember here is that the method of the 
 lute singers entered fully into the construc- 
 tion of the score if it may be so called 
 of Poliziano's " Orfeo " and passed from 
 that to the madrigal drama and was there 
 brought under the reformatory experiments 
 of Galilei and his contemporaries. This sub-
 
 The Solos of the " Orfeo " 1 29 
 
 ject must be discussed more fully in a later 
 chapter. 
 
 The first lyric number of the " Orfeo," 
 that sung by Aristseus, is plainly labeled 
 " canzona," and was, therefore, without doubt 
 a song made after the manner of the lutenists. 
 The words "forth from thy wallet take thy 
 pipe " indicate that a wind instrument fig- 
 ured in this number. What sort of instru- 
 ment we shall inquire in the next chapter. At 
 present we may content ourselves with as- 
 suming that no highly developed solo part was 
 assigned to it. The existence of such a part 
 would imply the co-existence of considerable 
 musicianship on the part of the pipe player 
 and of an advanced technic in the composition 
 of instrumental obbligati. It might also pre- 
 suppose the existence of a system of notation 
 much better than that of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury. But this is a point about which we can- 
 not be too sure.
 
 1 30 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 The decision must be sought in the general 
 state of music at the time. The learned mas- 
 ters cultivated only a capella choral music, and 
 the unlearned imitated them. There was no 
 systematic study of instrumental composi- 
 tion. Even the organ had as yet acquired no 
 independent office, but simply supported 
 voices by doubling their notes. It seems un- 
 likely, then, that the pipe in " Orfeo " could 
 have had a real part. What it probably did 
 was to repeat as a sort of ritornello the clearly 
 marked refrain of the song. This would have 
 been thoroughly in keeping with the growing 
 tendency of the frottola to use refrains and 
 advance toward strophical form. 
 
 The lyre, with which Baccio Ugolino as 
 Orfeo accompanied himself, may have been 
 a cithara, but the probabilities are that it was 
 not. As late as the time of Praetorius's great 
 work (Syntagma Musicum) the word " lyra " 
 was used to designate certain instruments of
 
 The Solos of the " Orfeo " 131 
 
 close relationship to the viol family. Praeto- 
 rius tells us that there were two kinds of 
 Italian lyres. The large lyre, called lironi per- 
 fetto, or arce violyra, was in structure like 
 the bass of the viola da gamba, but that the 
 body and the neck on account of the numerous 
 strings were somewhat wider. Some had 
 twelve, some fourteen and some even sixteen 
 strings, so that madrigals and compositions 
 both chromatic and diatonic could be per- 
 formed and a fine harmony produced. The 
 small lyre was like the tenor viola di braccio 
 and was called the lyra di braccio. It had 
 seven strings, two of them outside the finger 
 board and the other five over it. Upon this 
 instrument also certain harmonized composi- 
 tions could be played. The pictures of these 
 two lyres show that they looked much like 
 viols and were played with bows. 1 An eighth 
 
 1 Michael Praetorius, " Syntagma Musicum," vol. ii, 
 Organographia. Wolfenbuttel, 1619-20.
 
 132 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 century manuscript shows an instrument with 
 a body like a mandolin, a neck without frets 
 and a small bow. This instrument is entitled 
 " lyra " in the manuscript. If now we come 
 down to the period when the modern opera 
 was taking form we learn that Galilei sang 
 his own " Ugolino " monody and accompanied 
 himself on the viola. Various pictures show 
 us that small instruments of the bowed vari- 
 ties were used by the minnesingers, and again 
 by jongleurs in the fifteenth century. Early 
 Italian painters put such instruments into the 
 hands of angels and carvers left them for us 
 to see, as in the cathedral of Amiens. In 
 fact there is every reason to believe that the 
 wandering poets and minstrels of the Middle 
 Ages used the small vielle, rebek or lyre for 
 their accompaniments much oftener than the 
 harp, which was more cumbersome and a 
 greater impediment in traveling. 
 
 The instruments used to support song, that
 
 The Solos of the " Orfeo " 133 
 
 of the troubadour or that of a Casella, or later 
 still that of a Galilei, being of the same lin- 
 eage, the only novelty was the adaptation to 
 them of the lutenist's method of arranging 
 polyphonic music for one voice with accom- 
 paniment. That this offered no large diffi- 
 culties is proved by the account of Prsetorius. 
 If at the close of the sixteenth century chro- 
 matic compositions, which were then making 
 much progress, could be performed on a 
 bowed lyre, there is no reason to think that 
 in Poliziano's time there would have been 
 much labor in aranging frottola melodies for 
 voice and lyra di braccio. It is safe to as- 
 sume that the instrument to which Baccio 
 Ugolino was wont to improvise and which 
 was therefore utilized in " Orfeo " was the 
 lyra di braccio and that del Lungo's imagi- 
 native picture must be corrected by the substi- 
 tution of the bow for the plectrum. We have 
 not even recourse to the supposition that
 
 1 34 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 Ugolino may have employed the pizzicato since 
 that was not invented till after his day by 
 Monteverde. 
 
 We are, however, compelled to conclude 
 that Baccio Ugolino preceded Corteccia in this 
 manner of solo, afterwards called " recitar 
 alia lira." We may now reconstruct for our- 
 selves the classic scene with Orpheus "singing 
 on the hill to his lyre " the verses " O meos 
 longum modulata lusus." The music was the 
 half melancholy, half passionate melody of 
 some wandering Italian frottola which readily 
 fitted itself to the sonorous Sapphics. The ac- 
 companiment on the mellow lyra di braccio, one 
 of the tender sisters of the viola, was a simpli- 
 fied version of the subordinate voice parts of 
 the frottola. And perchance there were even 
 other instruments, an embryonic orchestra. 
 Here, indeed, we must pause lest reconstruc- 
 tive ardor carry us too far. We must content 
 ourselves with the conclusion that the vocal
 
 The Solos of the " Orfeo " 135 
 
 music of the entire drama was simple in me- 
 lodic structure, for such was the character of 
 the part music out of which it was made. It 
 was certainly well fitted to be one of the 
 parents of the recitative of Peri and Caccini 
 with the church chant as the other.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 THE ORCHESTRA OF THE "ORFEO" 
 
 HAT there was some sort of an orches- 
 
 T 
 
 tra in the " Orfeo " is probable, though 
 it is not wholly certain. The letter of the 
 Envoy Pauluzo on the performance of Ari- 
 osto's " Suppositi " at the Vatican in March, 
 1 518, has already been quoted. From this we 
 learn that there was an orchestra containing 
 fifes, bag-pipes, two cornets, some viols and 
 lutes and a small organ. It is a pity that Pau- 
 luzzo did not record the number of stringed 
 instruments in order that we might have some 
 idea of the balance of this orchestra. On the 
 other hand, as there was no system of orches- 
 tration at that time, we might not learn much 
 from the enumeration. Rolland, in comment-
 
 The Orchestra of the " Orfeo " 1 37 
 
 ing on this letter, says, as we have already- 
 noted, that this was the type of musical plays 
 performed in Italy at least as far back as the 
 time of Poliziano. There is no imperative 
 demand that Rolland's statement on this 
 point should be accepted as authoritative, for 
 his admirable book is without evidence that 
 the author gave this matter any special atten- 
 tion. On the other hand it is almost certain 
 that his assertion contains the truth. All the 
 instruments mentioned by him were in use 
 long before the date of the " Orfeo." Fur- 
 thermore assemblies of instruments played to- 
 gether, as we well know. But we are without 
 data as to what they played, and are driven 
 to the conclusion that since there was no sep- 
 arate composition for instruments till near 
 the close of the sixteenth century, the per- 
 formance of the early assemblies of instru- 
 ments must have been devoted to popular 
 songs or dances of the time. A little exami-
 
 138 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 nation into the character of these early " or- 
 chestras " may serve to throw light on the 
 nature of the instrumental accompaniments in 
 Poliziano's " Orfeo." 
 
 Symonds's description of the performance of 
 Cecchi's " Esaltazione della Croce," already 
 quoted in Chapter III, shows us that in 1589 
 a sacred representation had an orchestra of 
 viols, lutes, horns and organ, that it played an 
 interlude with special music composed by 
 Luca Bati, and that it also accompanied a solo 
 allotted to the Deity. Another interlude 
 showed David dancing to lute, viol, trombone 
 and harp. It is evident, therefore, that at 
 a period a century after that of the " Or- 
 feo " there was a certain sort of orchestra. 
 But this period was somewhat later than that 
 of Striggio, who had already employed or- 
 chestras of considerable variety. In his " La 
 Cofanaria " (1566) he used two gravicem- 
 bali, four viols, two trombones, two straight
 
 The Orchestra of the " Orfeo " 1 39 
 
 flutes, one cornet, one traverso and two lutes, 
 and in a motet composed in 1569 he had eight 
 viols, eight trombones, eight flutes, an instru- 
 ment of the spinet family and a large lute, to- 
 gether with voices. To delve backward from 
 this point is not so easy as it looks, yet how- 
 ever far back we may choose to go we cannot 
 fail to find evidences that assemblies of instru- 
 ments were employed, sometimes to accom- 
 pany voices and again to play independently. 
 The antiquity of music at banquets, for ex- 
 ample, is attested by sayings as old as Solo- 
 mon, by bitter comments of Plato, by the ac- 
 count of Xenophon and by passages in the 
 comedies of Aristophanes. The instrumental 
 music at banquets in Plato's time was that of 
 Greek girl flute players and harpers. Early in 
 the Middle Ages the banquet music consisted 
 of any collection of instruments that chanced 
 to be at hand. In an ancient manuscript in 
 the National Library of Paris there is a pic-
 
 140 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 ture of Heinrich of Meissen, the minne- 
 singer (born 1260), conducting a choir of 
 singers and instrumental performers. The 
 instruments are viols and wooden wind instru- 
 ments of the schalmei family. A bas relief 
 in the church of St. Gregory at Boscherville 
 in Normandy shows an orchestra of several 
 players. This relief is of the twelfth cen- 
 tury. It presents first on the left a king who 
 plays a three-stringed gamba, which he holds 
 between his knees, like a violoncello. A 
 woman performer handles an organistrum, a 
 sort of large hurdy-gurdy, sometimes (as ap- 
 parently in this case) requiring two players, 
 one for the crank and another for the stops. 
 Then comes a man with a pandean pipe, next 
 another with a semicircular harp and then one 
 with a portable organ. Next comes a per- 
 former on a round-bodied fiddle (the usual 
 form of the instrument at that time). Next to 
 him is a harper, using a plectrum, and at the
 
 The Orchestra of the " Orfeo " 141 
 
 right end of the group is a pair of players, 
 man and woman, performing on a glocken- 
 spiel. This orchestra was probably playing 
 for dancing, as no singers are in sight. 
 
 In a fifteenth century breviary reposing 
 in the library of Brussels there is a represen- 
 tation of a similar orchestra, and this brings 
 us nearer to the era of Poliziano's " Orfeo." 
 The instruments are harp, lute, dulcimer, 
 hurdy-gurdy, double flute, pommer (an an- 
 cient oboe form), bag-pipe, trombone, port- 
 able organ, triangle and a straight flute with 
 its accompanying little tambour. One of the 
 musicians did not play, but beat time as a di- 
 rector. It is interesting to make a brief com- 
 parison between the two representations, for 
 this shows the novelties which entered be- 
 tween the twelfth and the fifteenth cen- 
 turies. The lute, the trombone, the pommer 
 and the triangle were new acquisitions. If 
 now we refer again to the orchestra of 15 18
 
 1 42 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 mentioned by Pauluzo we shall seem to have 
 gone backward. But the truth must be clear 
 to all students that these orchestras were not 
 brought together with any definite musical 
 design. They consisted of the players who 
 chanced to be at hand. Even the letter of the 
 Duke of Milan in 1473 (see Chapter III), 
 in which he announces his intention of enga- 
 ging a good orchestra from Rome, can hardly 
 mean anything more than a purpose to get as 
 many good instrumentalists as he could. 1 
 
 1 " Although the existence of ' Orfeo' as an opera ap- 
 pears to me to be problematical, there would be nothing 
 impossible about the construction of a tragedy accom- 
 panied by music, because instruments were cultivated in 
 Italy more than in France. Before that epoch the 
 Medici had given concerts at Florence. Giovanni de 
 Medici died in 1429, and Cosimo, who succeeded him 
 and reigned till 1464, gave at the Pitti Palace concerts 
 where there were as many as four hundred musicians. 
 Under his successors and before the death of Alexander 
 de' Medici in 1537, the violinists Pietro Caldara and An- 
 tonio Mazzini were often the objects of veritable ova- 
 tions, and about the same time, 1536, at Venice, was 
 played a piece called 'II Sacrificio,' in which violins sus- 
 tained the principal parts." "Les Origines de l'Opera 
 et le Ballet de la Reine," par Ludovic Celler. Paris, 
 1868.
 
 The Orchestra of the " Orfeo " 143 
 
 While, then, it must be confessed that no 
 conclusive evidence can be produced that an 
 orchestra was employed in the " Orfeo," the 
 indications are strong that there was one. We 
 may assume without much fear of error that 
 it was used only to accompany the choral 
 numbers and the dance and that in fulfilling 
 the last mentioned function it was heard to 
 the best advantage. Years after the period of 
 the " Orfeo " of Poliziano, independent instru- 
 mental forms had not yet been developed. 
 Fully a century later compositions " da cantare 
 e sonare " betray to us the fact that bodies of 
 instruments performing without voices merely 
 played the madrigals which at other times were 
 sung. Such compositions were not conceived 
 in the instrumental idiom and must have floated 
 in an exceedingly thin atmosphere when sep- 
 arated from text and the expressive nu- 
 ances of the human tone. But the music of 
 the dance was centuries old and it had in all
 
 1 44 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 eras been sung by instruments, as well as by 
 voices. The invasion of the realm of popular 
 melody by crude imitations of the polyphonic 
 devices of the Netherlanders could not have 
 crushed out the melodic and rhythmic basis of 
 dance music and this had fitted itself to the 
 utterance of instruments. We are therefore 
 justified in believing that if the accompani- 
 ment of the first chorus in the " Orfeo " was 
 superfluous and vague that of the final ballata 
 must have been clearer in character and better 
 suited to the nature of the scene. The dance 
 following the ballata must have been effective. 
 The instruments were most probably lutes, 
 viols, flute, oboe, and possibly bag-pipe, hurdy- 
 gurdy and little organ. 
 
 We have already inquired into the nature of 
 the instrument which Baccio Ugolino carried 
 on the stage and with which after the manner 
 of the minstrels of his time he accompanied 
 himself. It remains now only to ask what
 
 The Orchestra of the " Orfeo " 145 
 
 was the pipe which the shepherd Aristseus 
 mentions in the first scene. It was probably 
 not a flageolet, though that instrument sug- 
 gests itself as particularly appropriate to the 
 episode. But the good Dr. Burney says that 
 the flageolet was invented by the Sieur 
 Juvigny, who played it in the " Ballet Comique 
 de la Royne," the first French pastoral opera, 
 in 1 58 1. It could have been a recorder, the 
 ancestor of the flageolet, which was probably 
 in use in the fourteenth and surely in the fif- 
 teenth century. But more probably it was one 
 of the older reed instruments of the oboe fam- 
 ily, the pommer or possibly a schalmei. The 
 schalmei is mentioned as far back as Sebastian 
 Virdung's " Musica getuscht und ausgezo- 
 gen " (151 1 ). Its ancestor was probably the 
 zamr-el-kebyr, an Oriental reed instrument. 
 The schalmei was developed into a whole fam- 
 ily, enumerated by Prsetorius in the work al- 
 ready mentioned. The highest of these, the
 
 1 46 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 little schalmei, was seldom used, but the " so- 
 prano schalmei is the primitive type of the 
 modern oboe." * 
 
 It is thus tolerably certain that the instru- 
 mental tone used to voice the pastoral char- 
 acter of the scene was the same as that which 
 Beethoven used in his " Pastoral " symphony, 
 as Berlioz used in his " Fantastic," as Gounod 
 used in his " Faust," and that thus at least 
 one element of the instrumental embodiment 
 of Poliziano's story has come down to us. 
 
 1 See "A Note on Oboes," by Philip Hale. Pro- 
 gramme Books of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, sea- 
 son of 1905-06, p. 644.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 FROM FROTTOLA DRAMA TO MADRIGAL 
 
 WITH such a simple and dignified be- 
 ginning as that of the " Orfeo " how 
 came the lyric drama of the next century to 
 wander into such sensuous luxuriance, such 
 spectacular extravagance of both action and 
 music? In the drama of Poliziano the means 
 employed, as well as the ends sought, were ar- 
 tistic and full of suggestions as to possible 
 methods of development. But whereas the 
 opera in the seventeenth century suffered 
 from contact with the public, the lyric drama 
 of the sixteenth was led into paths of dalli- 
 ance by the dominant taste of splendor-loving 
 courts. The character of this taste encour- 
 aged the development of the musical appara-
 
 1 48 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 tus of the lyric drama toward opulent com- 
 plexity, and the medium for this was found 
 in the rapidly growing madrigal, which soon 
 ruled the realm of secular music. In it the 
 frottola, raised to an art form and equipped 
 with the wealth of contrapuntal device, passed 
 almost insensibly into a new life. Berlioz 
 says that it takes a long time to discover mu- 
 sical Mediterraneans and still longer to learn 
 to navigate them. The madrigal was a mu- 
 sical Mediterranean. It was the song of the 
 people touched by the culture of the church. 
 It was the priestly art of cathedral music 
 transferred to the service of human emotion. 
 
 The Italian madrigal had a specifically Ital- 
 ian character. It followed the path of sensuous 
 dalliance trod by the people of Boccaccio's 
 tales. It differentiated itself from the secular 
 song of the northern musicians as clearly as the 
 architecture of Venice distinguished itself 
 from all other Gothic art. Even in that era
 
 Frottola Drama to Madrigal 149 
 
 those characteristics which subsequently de- 
 fined the racial and temperamental differences 
 betwen the musical art of northern Europe 
 and that of Italy were fully perceptible. The 
 north moved steadily toward instrumental 
 polyphony, Italy toward the individual utter- 
 ance of the solo voice. That her first experi- 
 ments were made in the popular madrigal 
 form was to be expected. The " Orfeo " of 
 Poliziano and his unknown musical associates 
 set the model for a century. In the course of 
 that century the irresistible drift of Italian 
 art feeling, retarded as it was by the supreme 
 vogue of musicians trained in the northern 
 schools, moved steadily toward its destina- 
 tion, the solo melody, yet the end was not 
 reached till the madrigal had worked itself to 
 its logical conclusion, to wit, a demonstration 
 of its own inherent weakness. We must 
 not be blind to the fact that while the Neth- 
 erland art at first powerfully affected that of
 
 1 50 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 Italy, the latter in the end reacted on the 
 former, and these two influences crossed and 
 recrossed in ways that demand the closest scru- 
 tiny of the analytical historian. But at this 
 particular period that which immediately con- 
 cerns us is the manner in which Italian musi- 
 cal art defined itself. The secret of the dif- 
 ferentiation already mentioned must be 
 sought in the powerful feeling of Gothic art 
 for organization. Gothic architecture is 
 above all things organic and Teutonic mu- 
 sic has the same character. Its most Gothic 
 form, the North German fugue, which is the 
 instrumental descendant of the Netherlands 
 church music, is the most closely organized of 
 musical types. The Italian architecture, on the 
 other hand, displayed an aversion for the in- 
 finite detail of Gothic methods and found its 
 individual expression in the grand and patent 
 relations of noble mass effects. This same 
 feeling speedily found its way into Italian
 
 Frottola Drama to Madrigal 151 
 
 music, even that composed by the Netherland 
 masters who had settled in Italy. 
 
 Adrian Willaert, who is often called the 
 father of the madrigal (despite the fact that 
 madrigals were written before he was born), 
 became chapel master of St. Mark's, Venice, 
 in 1527. He seized with avidity the sugges- 
 tion offered by the existence of two organs in 
 the cathedral and wrote great works " for 
 two choruses of four voices each, so that the 
 choruses could answer each other across the 
 church. He paid much less attention to rigid 
 canonic style than his predecessors had done 
 because it was not suited to the kind of mu- 
 sic which he felt was fitting for his church. 
 He sought for grand, broad mass effects, 
 which he learned could be obtained only by 
 the employment of frequent passages in 
 chords. So he began trying to write his 
 counterpoint in such a way that the voice 
 parts should often come together in succes-
 
 152 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 sions of chords. In order to do this he was 
 compelled to adopt the kind of formations 
 still in use and the fundamental chord rela- 
 tions of modern music the tonic, dominant 
 and subdominant." 1 
 
 In music of this kind there was no longer 
 a field for the intricate working of canonically 
 constructed voice parts. It must seek its chief 
 results in the opposition of one choir against 
 the other, not in multiplicity of voice parts, 
 but in imposing contrasts as of " deep an- 
 swering unto deep." The development of 
 fundamental chord harmonies was inevitable 
 and from them in the fullness of time was 
 bound to spring the pure harmonic style. 
 Chord successions without any melodic union 
 cannot be long sustained, and the Italians, 
 with the tentative achievements of the frotto- 
 lists before them, were not long blind to this 
 
 1 From the present author's " How Music Developed." 
 New York, 1898.
 
 Frottola Drama to Madrigal 153 
 
 fact. Leone Battista Alberti, father of Re- 
 naissance architecture, in writing of his 
 church of St. Francis at Rimini uses the ex- 
 pression " tutta questa musica." One under- 
 stands him to mean the harmonious disposi- 
 tion of the parts of his design so that all 
 " sound " together, as it were, for the artistic 
 perception. 
 
 It was feeling of this same kind that led 
 the apostles of the Netherlands school and their 
 Italian pupils to follow the physical trend of 
 all Italian art rather than struggle to impose 
 upon it the shackles of an uncongenial intel- 
 lectuality forged in the canonic shops of 
 Ockeghem and his disciples. The seed of 
 beauty had been sown by the mighty Josquin 
 des Pres what time he was a Roman singer 
 and a Mantuan composer. The fruit blos- 
 somed in the Renaissance music of Willaert, 
 Cyprian de Rore and others and came to its 
 perfection in the later works of Palestrina
 
 1 54 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 and Lasso. The resistless operation of the 
 tendencies of the school was such that at the 
 close of the sixteenth century we are suddenly 
 confronted with the knowledge that all the de- 
 tails of polyphony so studiously cultivated by 
 the northern schools have in Italy suddenly 
 been packed away in a thorough bass support- 
 ing one voice which is permitted to proclaim 
 itself in a proud individuality. 
 
 Yet if we permit ourselves to believe that 
 the lyric solo made but a single spasmodic ap- 
 pearance in the " Orfeo " and had to be born 
 again in the artistic conversion brought about 
 by the labors of Galilei and Caccini, we shall 
 be deceived. The fashion set by Poliziano's 
 production was not wholly abandoned and 
 throughout the remainder of the fifteenth and 
 the whole of the sixteenth centuries there were 
 productions closely related to it in style and 
 construction. Not only is the slow assimila- 
 tion of the mass of heterogeneous elements
 
 Frottola Drama to Madrigal 155 
 
 thrown together in these dramas not aston- 
 ishing, but to the thoughtful student it must 
 appear to be inevitable. On the one hand was 
 the insatiable desire for voluptuous spectacle, for 
 the lascivious pseudo-classicism of the pictorial 
 dance, for the bewildering richness of move- 
 ment which had originated in the earlier tri- 
 umphal processions, and for the stupendous 
 scenic apparatus made possible in the open 
 air sacred plays. On the other was the wide- 
 spread taste for part singing and the con- 
 stantly growing skill of composers in adapt- 
 ing to secular ideas the polyphonic science 
 of the church. Added to these elements was 
 the imperative need of some method of 
 imparting individuality of utterance to the 
 principal characters in a play while at the same 
 time strengthening their charm by the use of 
 song. 
 
 For nearly a century, then, we find the lyric 
 drama continuing to utilize the materials of
 
 156 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 the sacra rappresentazione as adapted to secu- 
 lar purposes by Poliziano, but with the natu- 
 ral results of the improvement in artistic de- 
 vice in music. It is not necessary here to enter 
 into a detailed account of the growth of mu- 
 sical expression. Every student of the his- 
 tory of the art knows that many centuries 
 were required to build up a technical praxis 
 sufficient to enable composers to shape com- 
 positions in such a large form as the Roman 
 Catholic mass. When the basic laws of con- 
 trapuntal technic had been codified, Josquin des 
 Pres led the way to the production of music 
 possessing a beauty purely musical. Then 
 followed the next logical step, namely, the at- 
 tempt to imitate externals. Such pieces as 
 Jannequin's " Chant des Oiseaux " and Gom- 
 bert's " Chasse du Lievre " are examples of 
 what was achieved in this direction. Finally, 
 Palestrina demonstrated the scope of poly- 
 phonic music in the expression of religious
 
 Frottola Drama to Madrigal 157 
 
 emotions at times bordering upon the dramatic 
 in their poignancy. 
 
 We cannot well doubt that the Italians of 
 the late sixteenth century felt the failure of 
 their secular music to meet the demands of 
 secular poetry as religious music was meet- 
 ing those of the canticles of the church. The 
 festal entertainments which had graced the 
 marriages of princes had most of the machin- 
 ery of opera, but they lacked the vital prin- 
 ciple. They failed to become living art enti- 
 ties solely because they wanted the medium 
 for the adequate publication of individuality. 
 They made their march of a century on the 
 very verge of the promised land, but they had 
 to lose themselves in the bewitching wilder- 
 ness of the madrigal drama before they found 
 their Moses. It was the gradual growth of 
 skill in musical expression that brought the 
 way into sight, and that growth had to be 
 effected by natural and logical processes, not
 
 158 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 by the discovery or by the world-moving 
 genius of any one composer. 
 
 The Doric architecture of the frottola had 
 to be developed into the Italian Renaissance 
 style of the madrigal by the ripening of the 
 craft of composers in adapting the music of 
 ecclesiastical polyphony to the communica- 
 tion of worldly thought. Then the Renais- 
 sance style had to lose itself in the baroque 
 struggles of the final period of the madrigal 
 drama struggles of artistic impulse against 
 an impossible style of structure and the unculti- 
 vated taste of the auditors. Then and then 
 only was the time for revolt and the revolt 
 came. 
 
 In the meanwhile we may remark that the 
 intense theatricalism of opera ought never to 
 be a source of astonishment to any one who 
 has studied the history of its origins.^- The 
 supreme trait of the lyric drama of the fif- 
 teenth and sixteenth century was its spec-
 
 Frottola Drama to Madrigal 159 
 
 tacular quality. The reforms of Galilei and 
 Caccini were, as we shall see, aimed at this 
 condition. Their endeavors to escape the con- 
 trapuntal music of the madrigal drama were 
 the labors of men consciously confronting 
 conditions which had been surely, if not 
 boldly, moving toward their own rectification. 
 The madrigal opera was intrinsically operatic, 
 but it was not yet freed from the restrictions 
 of impersonality from which its parent, the 
 polyphony of the church, could not logically 
 rid itself even with the aid of a Palestrina's 
 genius. We must then follow this line of 
 later development.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE PREDOMINANCE OF THE 
 SPECTACULAR 
 
 rr^HROUGHOUT the fifteenth century 
 -* the lyric drama of Italy continued to 
 be a denizen of courts and to be saturated with 
 what has been called the " passionate sensu- 
 alism " of the Italian genius. The rivalry of 
 lords, spiritual and temporal, of popes, of 
 dukes and princes, in the luxury of their 
 fetes was a salient phenomenon of the time. 
 The lyric drama became a field for gorgeous 
 display and its pomp and circumstance in- 
 cluded not only elegant song, but considerable 
 assemblies of instruments, dazzling ballets, pan- 
 tomimic exhibitions, elaborate stage machin- 
 ery, imported singers and instrumentalists.
 
 Predominance of the Spectacular 1 6 1 
 
 As the painters had represented popes and po- 
 tentates mingling with the holy family at the 
 sacred manger, so the lyric dramatists assem- 
 bled the gods and heroes of classic fable to do 
 honor to Lorenzo and others of that glitter- 
 ing era. 
 
 In 1488 Bergonzo Botta, of Tortoni, pre- 
 pared a festal play for the marriage of Gal- 
 eazzo Sforza and Isabella of Arragon. 
 Arteaga * quotes from Tristan Chalco, a Mil- 
 anese historiographer, an account of this pro- 
 duction. The entertainment took place in a 
 great hall, which had a gallery holding many 
 instrumental players. In the center of the 
 hall was a bare table. As soon as the prince 
 and princess had entered the spectacle began 
 with the return of Jason and his companions 
 who deposited the golden fleece on the table 
 
 1 " Le Rivoluzioni del Teatro Musicale Italiano della 
 sua Origine fino al Presente," by Stefano Arteaga. Ven- 
 ice, 1785.
 
 1 62 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 as a present. Mercury then appeared and re- 
 lated some of his adventures in Thessaly with 
 Apollo. Next came Diana with her nymphs 
 dragging a handsome stag. She gave the 
 stag to the bridal pair and told a pretty story 
 about his being the one into which she had 
 changed the incautious Acteon. After Diana 
 had retired the orchestra became silent and 
 the tones of a lyre were heard. Then entered 
 Orpheus who began his tale with the words, 
 " I bewailed on the spires of the Apennines 
 the unitmely death of my Euridice." But, as 
 he explained, his song had changed as his 
 heart had changed, and since Euridice was no 
 more, he wished now to lay his homage at 
 the feet of the most amiable Princess in the 
 world. Orpheus was interrupted by the en- 
 trance of Atalanta and Theseus and a party of 
 hunters, who brought the first part to an end 
 in an animated dance. 
 
 The second part introduced Iris, Hebe,
 
 Predominance of the Spectacular 163 
 
 Pomona, Vertumnus, and choruses of Arca- 
 dians and others. This part concluded with a 
 dance by gods of the sea and the Lombardian 
 rivers. The third part began with the ap- 
 pearance of Orpheus leading Hymen, to whom 
 he sang praises, accompanying himself on the 
 lyre. Behind him were the Graces, in the 
 midst of whom came " Marital Fidelity " and 
 presented herself to the princess. After some 
 other minor incidents of the same kind the 
 spectacle came to an end with a ballet in which 
 Bacchus, Silenus, Pan and a chorus of satyrs 
 were principal figures. This lively and comic 
 dance, says Chalco, " brought to an end the 
 most splendid and astonishing spectacle that 
 Italy had witnessed." 
 
 In 1487 Nicolo de Corregio Visconti pro- 
 duced at Ferrara his fable " Cephale et l'Au- 
 rore." In this there were choruses of nymphs, 
 vows to Diana, dialogues between Corydon 
 and Thyrsis and other pastoral dainties. At
 
 1 64 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 the carnival of 1506 at Urbino, Castiglione 
 and his friend Cesare Gonzaga, of the great 
 Mantuan family, recited the former's " Tirsi," 
 dialogues in verse. The two interpreters 
 wore pastoral costumes. The dialogue was 
 couched in the customary pastoral phrase, but 
 it was made plain that fulsome flattery of liv- 
 ing personages was intended. 1 The musical 
 numbers of which we can be certain were one 
 solo, sung by Iola, a chorus of shepherds and 
 a morris dance. 
 
 The impulse which brought the " Orfeo " 
 into being had not yet exhausted itself and the 
 Italians continued to feast their souls on a 
 visionary Arcadia with which they vainly 
 strove to mingle their own present. But love 
 of luxurious display slowly transformed their 
 pastorals into glittering spectacles. As for 
 the music, we may be certain that in the 
 
 1 " Poesie Volgari e Latine del Conte B. Castiglione." 
 Rome, 1760.
 
 Predominance of the Spectacular 165 
 
 beginning it followed the lines laid down in 
 the " Orfeo." It rested first on the basis of 
 the frottola, but when the elegant and gra- 
 cious madrigal provided an art form better 
 suited to the opulence of the decorative 
 features of the embryonic lyric drama, the 
 madrigal became the dominating element in 
 the music. Together with it we find in time 
 the dance slowly assuming that shape which 
 eventually became the foundation of the 
 suite. 
 
 Adrian Willaert became chapel master of St. 
 Mark's in 1527 and his influence in spreading 
 the madrigal through Italy was so great that 
 he has been called, as we have already noted, 
 the father of that form of composition. Cer- 
 tain it is that, despite the earlier publications 
 of Petrucci, the madrigal became dominant in 
 Italy after the advent of Willaert. But we 
 must not lose sight of the influence of Con- 
 stanzo Festa, the earliest great Italian writer
 
 1 66 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 of madrigals, whose first book of these com- 
 positions (for three voices) was published in 
 1537. We are therefore to understand that 
 in the plays about to be mentioned the madri- 
 gal style prevailed in the music. 
 
 In 1539 at the marriage of Cosimo I and 
 Eleanora of Toledo there were two spectacu- 
 lar performances. In the first Apollo appeared 
 in company with the muses. He sang stanzas 
 glorifying the bride and her husband, and the 
 muses responded with a canzona in nine parts. 
 Now the cities of Tuscany entered, each ac- 
 companied by a symbolical procession, and 
 sang their praises to the bride. The second 
 entertainment was a prose comedy of Landi, 
 preceded by a prologue and provided with five 
 intermezzi. In the first intermezzo Aurora, 
 in a blazing chariot, awakened all nature by 
 her song. Then the Sun rose and by his po- 
 sition in the sky informed the audience what 
 was the hour of each succeeding episode. In
 
 Predominance of the Spectacular 167 
 
 the final intermezzo Night brought back Sleep, 
 who had banished Aurora, and the spectacle 
 concluded with a dance of bacchantes and 
 satyrs to instrumental music. The accounts 
 which have come down to us note that the 
 song of Aurora was accompanied by a gravi- 
 cembalo, an organ, a flute, a harp and a large 
 viol. For the song of Night four trombones 
 were used to produce a grave and melancholy 
 support. The music for this entertainment 
 was composed by Francesco Corteccia, Con- 
 stanzo Festa, Mattio Rampollini, Petrus Mas- 
 aconus and Baccio Moschini. All these musi- 
 cians were composers of madrigals, and Cor- 
 teccia was at the time Cosimo's chapel master. 
 In this spectacle was heard the solo madrigal 
 for Sileno already mentioned. Here is the 
 opening of this piece ; the upper voice was sung 
 and the other voice parts were played as an 
 accompaniment.
 
 1 68 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
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 Predominance of the Spectacular 169 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 1 70 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
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 In 1554 Beccari of Ferrara (1510-1590) 
 produced his " II Sagrifizio," a genuine pas- 
 toral drama, in which the actors were Arca- 
 dian shepherds with Roman manners. The 
 dialogues were connected by a series of dra- 
 matic actions, and the music was composed by- 
 Alfonso della Viola, a pupil of Willaert. 
 Among the personages was a high priest who 
 sang, like Poliziano's Orpheus, to the accom- 
 paniment of his own lyre. The same composer
 
 Predominance of the Spectacular 171 
 
 wrote choruses for Alberto Lollio's pastoral, 
 "Aretusa" (1563) and several musical num- 
 bers for " Lo Sfortunato " by Agostino 
 Argenti, of Ferrara (1571). 
 
 In 1574 on the occasion of the visit of 
 Henri III to Venice, the doge ordered a per- 
 formance of a piece called simply " Tragedia," 
 which had choruses and some other music by 
 the great Claudio Merulo, composer of the 
 first definitely designed instrumental works. 
 For the wedding festivities attendant upon 
 the marriage of Francesco de Medicis and 
 Bianca Capella in 1579 Gualterotti arranged 
 a grand tournee in the interior court of the 
 Pitti Palace at Florence. This entertainment 
 was of a nature similar to that of 1539 above 
 described. It was composed of mythologic 
 episodes spectacularly treated. The verse was 
 by Giovanni Rucellai, the distinguished au- 
 thor of " Rosamunda " and the " Api," and 
 the music by Pietro Strozzi. One of the
 
 172 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 singers was a certain young Giulio Caccini, 
 who lived to be famous. 
 
 Torquato Tasso's pastoral play " Aminta " 
 (1573) had choruses though we cannot say 
 who composed the music. It is known that 
 Luzzasco Luzzaschi, pupil of Cyprian di Rore, 
 master of Frescobaldi, and composer of mad- 
 rigals and organ toccatas, wrote the chorals 
 in madrigal style for Guarini's famous " Pas- 
 tor Fido." There were choruses to separate 
 the acts and two introduced in the action. 
 These two, which had a kind of refrain, were 
 the chorus of hunters in Act IV, scene sixth, 
 and the chorus of priests and shepherds in 
 Act V, scene third. There was also an epi- 
 sode in which a dance was executed to the 
 music of a chorus sung behind the scenes. 
 
 In 1589, on the occasion of the marriage in 
 Florence of the Grand Duke Ferdinand with 
 Princess Christine of Loraine, there was a 
 festal entertainment under the general di-
 
 Predominance of the Spectacular 173 
 
 rection of Giovanni Bardi, Count of Vernio, 
 at whose palace afterward met the founders 
 of modern opera. Indeed, the members of the 
 young Florentine coterie were generally con- 
 cerned in this fete and doubtless found much 
 to move them toward their new conception. 
 The Count of Vernio's comedy " Amico 
 Fido " was played and was accompanied by 
 six spectacular intermezzi with music. The 
 first of these was by Ottavio Rinuccini, au- 
 thor of "Dafne " and " Euridice," usually 
 called the first operas. It was named the 
 " Harmony of the Spheres," and its music 
 was composed by Emilio del Cavaliere (origi- 
 nator of the modern oratorio) and the chapel 
 master Cristoforo Malvezzi. The second in- 
 termezzo dealt with a contest in song between 
 the daughters of Pierus and the muses. The 
 judges were hamadryads and the defeated 
 mortals were punished for their presumption. 
 The text was by Rinuccini and the music by
 
 174 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 Luca Marenzio, the famous madrigalist. The 
 contesting singers were accompanied by lutes 
 and viols, while their judges had the support 
 of harps, lyres, viols and other instruments of 
 the same family. 
 
 Bardi himself devised the third intermezzo, 
 Rinuccini wrote the verse and Bardi and Ma- 
 renzio the music. It had some of the essen- 
 tial features of both ballet and opera and rep- 
 resented the victory of Apollo over the python. 
 The god descended from the skies to the music 
 of viols, flutes and trombones. Later when 
 he celebrated his victory and the acclaiming 
 Greeks surrounded him, lutes, trombones, 
 harps, viols and a horn united with the 
 voices. Strozzi wrote the fourth intermezzo 
 with music by Caccini. This carried the audi- 
 ence into both supernal and infernal regions 
 and its music, somber and imposing, called 
 for an orchestra of viols, lutes, lyres of all 
 forms, double harps, trombones and organ.
 
 Predominance of the Spectacular 175 
 
 The fifth intermezzo must have rivaled the 
 glories of the ancient sacred plays in the pub- 
 lic squares. Rinuccini arranged it from the 
 story of Arion. The theater, so we are told, 
 represented a sea dotted with rocks and from 
 many of these spouted springs of living 
 water. At the foot of the mountains in the 
 background floated little ships. Amphitrite 
 entered in a car drawn by two dolphins and 
 accompanied by fourteen tritons and fourteen 
 naiads. Arion arrived in a ship with a crew 
 of forty. When he had precipitated himself 
 into the sea he sang a solo accompanied by a 
 harp, not by a lyre as in the ancient fable. 
 When the avaricious sailors thought him en- 
 gulfed forever, they sang a chorus of rejoic- 
 ing, accompanied by oboes, bassoons, cornets 
 and trombones. The music of this inter- 
 mezzo was by Malvezzi, who was a distin- 
 guished madrigalist. The last intermezzo 
 was also arranged by Rinuccini and its music
 
 1 76 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 was by Cavaliere. In this the poet divided 
 the muses into three groups, in order to give 
 antiphonal effect to their songs. He combined 
 the episodes so as to furnish the musician 
 with the motives for a dance and in a man- 
 ner permit of the use of numerous and varied 
 instruments, from the organ to the Spanish 
 guitar. Probably this ballet morceau was one 
 of the first of many medleys of national char- 
 acter dances so familiar now to the operatic 
 stage. 1 
 
 The published text of these creations shows 
 
 1 This account is taken from Bastiano de' Rossi's 
 " Descrizione dell' apparato e degli intcrmedi fatti per 
 la commedia rappresentata in Firenze nello nozze del 
 serenissimo D. Ferdinando Medici," etc. Firenze, 1589. 
 This work is not in any of the great libraries and is 
 here quoted from the previously mentioned history of 
 M. Chouquet, who had access to it in the private library 
 of an Italian scholar. The voice and instrumental part- 
 books were edited by Malvezzi, and published at Venice 
 in 1591 under the title " Intermedii e concerti, fatti per 
 la commedia rappresentata in Firenze nelle nozze del 
 Ferdinando Medici e Madama Cristiana di Lorena." 
 Malvezzi's edition contains valuable notes and an in- 
 structive preface.
 
 Predominance of the Spectacular 177 
 
 that they contain much that rests on the 
 traditions of the lyric drama as it had been 
 known in Italy for a century, while there is 
 also a little that approaches the new style then 
 in process of development. This is not 
 strange, indeed, since several of the men most 
 deeply interested in the search after the an- 
 cient Greek declamation were active in the 
 preparation of this entertainment. Neverthe- 
 less we learn from Malvezzi's publication that 
 the pieces were all written in the madrigal 
 style, frequently in numerous voice parts. The 
 entire orchestra was employed in company 
 w r ith the voices only in the heavier numbers. 
 
 It is plain that in these musical plays there 
 was no attempt at complete setting of the text. 
 There was no union of the lyrics by any sort 
 of recitative. The first Italian to write any- 
 thing of this kind in a play seems to have 
 been Cavaliere, but unfortunately his " II 
 Satiro " (1590) and "La Disperazione di Si-
 
 1 78 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 leno " (1595) are known to us only through 
 a comment of Doni, who censures them for 
 pedantic affectations and artificialities of style, 
 inimical to the truth of dramatic music. The 
 dates of the production of these works show 
 us that they were not as old as the movement 
 toward real monodic song, and it is certain that 
 in France, at any rate, the Italian Balthaza- 
 rini had already brought out in 1581 a ballet- 
 opera, " Le Ballet Comique de la Reine," 
 which contained real vocal solos. At the same 
 time the evidence is conclusive that the madri- 
 gal was acquiring general popularity as a form 
 of dramatic music, and the madrigal drama 
 reached the zenith of its glory at the very mo- 
 ment when its fate was preparing in the ex- 
 periments of Galilei and others in the new 
 monodic style destined to become the basis of 
 modern Italian opera.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE TASTE FOR COMEDY 
 
 \ N illuminative fact in the history of the 
 ** ** madrigal drama is the growth of the 
 comic element. Poliziano's dream of Arcadia 
 was perhaps neither deep nor passionate, but 
 it was at any rate serious and for some time 
 after its production the lyric drama aspired to 
 the utterance of high sentiments. But the in- 
 congruous mingling of Arcadian shepherds and 
 shepherdesses with the gods and heroes of the 
 classic literature in a series of musical ac- 
 tions, conceived with the desire to gratify that 
 passionate sensuality which governed Italian 
 thought, was sure in time to lead the typical 
 insincerity and satiric view-point of the Ital- 
 ian mind to the delights of physical realism,
 
 1 80 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 and the free publication of mocking comment. 
 Photographic musical imitations of the noises 
 of battles, the songs of birds and the cries of 
 a great city were certain to be succeeded by 
 the adaptation to the uses of dramatic action 
 of the musical means developed in these and 
 this adaptation led the way directly into the 
 realm of the comic lyric drama. 
 
 The pomp and circumstance of the gor- 
 geous spectacles which we examined in the 
 preceding chapter were cherished by the tra- 
 ditions of the Italian court stage and were not 
 obliterated even in the new species of lyric 
 comedy. But there was far less to dazzle the 
 eye in the comic performances, and even in 
 this they offered a certain novelty to the con- 
 sideration of Italian audiences. The court 
 spectacles, to be sure, did not go out of exis- 
 tence. We meet them in all their brilliancy 
 in the early years of the seventeenth century, 
 and at the same time we find them copied in
 
 Influence of Taste for Comedy 1 8 1 
 
 a somewhat modified form in the spectacular 
 productions of the young Italian opera 
 house'. On the other hand, when the Flor- 
 entine coterie created dramatic recitative, it 
 was to use it in a drama wholly serious and 
 poetic in purpose. It was not till some years 
 later that recitative acquired sufficient flexibil- 
 ity to it itself into the plan of the rapidly 
 growing opera buffa. Yet even in this lyric 
 species w^ discern something of the large in- 
 fluence oi the humorous madrigal play, for 
 in time the comic opera and the ballet specta- 
 cle both found homes after public opera 
 houses had been thrown open to an eager 
 public. Physical realism, the humors of the 
 streets and satiric assaults upon the life of 
 the courts made excellent materials for the 
 entertainment of the Italian mind, especially 
 at such a time as the close of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, when the country had reached the com- 
 pletion of that state described by Symonds:
 
 1 82 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 " The intellectual and social life of the Ital- 
 ians, though much reduced in vigor, was 
 therefore still, as formerly, concentrated in 
 cities marked by distinct local qualities and 
 boastful of their ancient glories. The courts 
 of Ferrara and Urbino continued to form 
 centers for literary and artistic coteries. 
 Venice remained the stronghold of mental un- 
 restraint and moral license, where thinkers 
 uttered their thoughts with tolerable freedom 
 and libertines indulged their tastes unhindered. 
 Rome early assumed novel airs of piety, and 
 external conformity to austere patterns be- 
 came the fashion here. Yet the Papal capi- 
 tal did not wholly cease to be the resort of 
 students and artists. The universities main- 
 tained themselves in a respectable position 
 far different, indeed, from that which they 
 had held in the last century, yet not ignoble. 
 Much was being learned on many lines of 
 study divergent from those prescribed by ear- 
 lier humanists. Padua, in particular, distin- 
 guished -itself for medical researches. This 
 was the flourishing time, moreover, of Acad- 
 emies in which, notwithstanding nonsense
 
 Influence of Taste for Comedy 183 
 
 talked and foolish tastes indulged, some solid 
 work was done for literature and science. The 
 names of the Cimento, Delia Crusca and Pa- 
 lazzo Vernio at Florence remind us of not un- 
 important labors in physics, in the analysis of 
 language, and in the formation of a new dra- 
 matic style of music. At the same time the 
 resurgence of popular literature and the crea- 
 tion of popular theatrical types deserved to be 
 particularly noticed. It is as though the Ital- 
 ian nation at this epoch, suffocated by Span- 
 ish etiquette and poisoned by Jesuitical hypoc- 
 risy, sought to expand healthy lungs in free 
 spaces of open air, indulging in dialectical 
 niceties and immortalizing street jokes by the 
 genius of masked comedy." 
 
 We shall perceive, then, in the productions 
 of some representative masters of the madri- 
 gal drama in the latter half of the sixteenth 
 century, an expression of this Italian eager- 
 ness to abandon even the external attitude of 
 serious contemplation, which the spectacular 
 delights of the intermezzi and the serious lyric
 
 1 84 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 drama had made at least tolerable, and to turn 
 to the uses of pure amusement the materials 
 of a clearly defined form of art. We shall 
 find the dramatization of the chatter of the 
 street and the apparition of types familiar to 
 the farcical comedies and operas bouffes of 
 later days. In the washerwomen of Striggio 
 we are not far from Madame Angot, and some 
 of the personages whom Vecchi humorously 
 treated in his " Amfiparnaso " are treading the 
 stage of to-day. In these madrigal dramas, as 
 we shall see, the attempts to overcome the mu- 
 sical unsuitability of polyphonic music to the 
 purposes of dramatic dialogue led composers 
 further and further from the truth which had 
 stood at the elbows of Poliziano's contempo- 
 raries and immediate successors. Musicians 
 went forward with the madrigal till they found 
 themselves in Vecchi's day confronted with a 
 genuine reductio ad absurdiun. It was only at 
 this time that the experiments of the Floren-
 
 Influence of Taste for Comedy 1 8 5 
 
 tines uncovered the profound musical law that 
 the true dramatic dialogue is to be carried on 
 by single-voiced melodies resting on a basis of 
 chord harmony. 
 
 In the meantime, we must delay our ap- 
 proach to the golden era of the madrigal 
 drama (when indeed it faced that reductio) 
 to look for a moment at the representative 
 work of a Mantuan master of the lyric 
 comedy. Alessandro Striggio, born in Man- 
 tua, about 1535, died in the same city in 
 1587, was for a time in the service of Cosimo, 
 but jfor at least fifteen years of his life was 
 known simply as a " gentleman of Mantua." 
 Striggio was one of the most active and tal- 
 ented of the composers of his time, and his 
 creations are found in both religious and secu- 
 lar fields. He utilized instruments freely in con- 
 nection w T ith voices and his works give an 
 excellent insight into the general condition of 
 vocal composition in Italy in his day. He be-
 
 1 86 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 came prominent as one of the early composers 
 of intermezzi and he was employed also to 
 write church music for wedding festivals. 
 One of his motets calls for an orchestra of 
 eight trombones, eight violas, eight large 
 flutes, a spinet and a large lute. Without 
 doubt his most significant work in the do- 
 main of the lyric drama was " II Calamento 
 delle Donne al Bucato," published at Flor- 
 ence in 1584. 
 
 This is a series of rustic scenes, of which 
 the first begins with an introductory recita- 
 tion by the poet, set for four voices : " In 
 the gentle month of May I found myself by 
 chance near a clear stream where some troops 
 of women in various poses washed their 
 white linen, and when they had spread it to 
 the sun on the grass, they chattered thus in 
 lively repartee, laughing." Then begin the 
 action and the dialogue. The scenario may 
 be set forth in this wise: boisterous saluta-
 
 Influence of Taste for Comedy 187 
 
 tions, hilarious talk and accounts of flirta- 
 tions; tittle tattle about neighbors and lively 
 scandals; exchange of commiserations on the 
 insupportable humor of masters and the fa- 
 tigue of service; cessation of laughing, kiss- 
 ing and shouting, the day being ended; quick 
 change of scene to a levee of washing mal- 
 lets; one of the women steals a trinket from 
 another, and a general riot ensues, after which 
 there is a reconciliation as the sun goes down 
 and the women disperse with embraces, ten- 
 der words and cries of adieu. 1 
 
 1 Something suggestive of a similar train of musical 
 thought is found in some reflections of George Moore 
 on Zola : " I had read the ' Assomoir,' and had been 
 much impressed by its pyramid size, strength, height 
 and decorative grandeur, and also by the immense har- 
 monic development of the idea; and the fugal treat- 
 ment of the different scenes had seemed to me aston- 
 ishingly new the washhouse, for example : the fight 
 motive is indicated, then follows the development of 
 side issues, then comes the fight motive explained; it 
 is broken off short, it flutters through a web of pro- 
 gressive detail, the fight motive is again taken up, and 
 now it is worked out in all its fulness ; it is worked up 
 to crescendo, another side issue is introduced, and again 
 the theme is given forth." (" Confessions of a Young 
 Man.")
 
 1 88 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 One can have no difficulty in imagining 
 how this story, furnished as it must have been, 
 with some very free action, was set to music 
 in the madrigal style. The contrast of moods 
 provides an excellent background for variety 
 of musical movement and for a generous ex- 
 ercise of the expressional skill which the com- 
 posers of that period had acquired. Lovers 
 of the ballet of action will perceive that the 
 scenario of Striggio's musical comedy could 
 also serve perfectly for that of a suite of pan- 
 tomimic dances. 
 
 Nor can the reader fail to discern in this 
 story some of the germs of the opera buffa. 
 What is lacking here, to wit, the advancing of 
 some individual characters from the choral 
 mass to the center of the stage, was better 
 accomplished in the earlier or more serious 
 works. The Orpheus of Poliziano was doubt- 
 less a striking figure in the minds of the Man- 
 tuan audience of 1484. While perhaps there
 
 Influence of Taste for Comedy 189 
 
 was a distinct decline in directness of expres- 
 sion in the attempts of later lyric dramatists, 
 the departure was possibly not as large in the 
 case of the serious writers as in that of the 
 humorists. We shall in all likelihood better 
 understand this after a survey of the labors 
 of the dominant figure of the artistic period 
 of the humorous madrigal drama.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 VECCHI AND THE MATURED MADRIGAL 
 DRAMA 
 
 f | ^HE fully developed madrigal drama of 
 ** the latter years of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury was an art form entirely dissimilar to 
 anything known to the modern stage, and, as 
 we shall presently see, it was in itself a frank 
 confession of utter confusion in the search 
 for a musical means of individual expres- 
 sion. If no other evidence were at hand, the 
 works of Vecchi would be sufficient to prove 
 that the logical progress of the medieval lyric 
 drama in one direction had led it into the very 
 mazes of the polyphonic wilderness. This 
 new form lacked the spectacular glories of the 
 really operatic shows described in Chapter XI
 
 Vecchi and the Madrigal Drama 191 
 
 and it abandoned even their ways of voic- 
 ing the utterances of individual characters. 
 Much misinformation concerning this madri- 
 gal drama has been disseminated by the 
 comfortable process of repeating without 
 scrutiny errors early fastened upon histories 
 of music. 
 
 The master spirit of the madrigal drama 
 was Orazio Vecchi, born about 1551 at Mo- 
 dena. He became a priest and was canon of 
 Corregio in 1586 and in 1591 deacon. He 
 became chapel master at the cathedral of Mo- 
 dena in 1596 and after numerous vicissitudes 
 died in 1605. His most important work was 
 " L'Amfiparnaso, commedia harmonica," per- 
 formed at Modena ip 1594. This has been 
 preserved in its entirety, together with the 
 author's preface, from which valuable infor- 
 mation may be gathered. The work is an at- 
 tempt to turn into a lyric form the " Com- 
 media dell' Arte," enacted in early times at
 
 192 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 village fairs in northern Italy. The charac- 
 ters are Arlecchino, Pantalone, Doctor Gra- 
 ziano, Brighella, Isabella, Lelio and others. 
 The story of the play, however, does not con- 
 cern us so much as the author's artistic pur- 
 poses and the methods by which he sought to 
 achieve them. In the addresses to the reader 
 prefixed to his scores Vecchi states some of his 
 artistic beliefs. He says: 
 
 " The gross jests, which are found in the 
 comedies of our time, and which are their 
 meat rather than the spice, are the reasons 
 why he who says ' Comedy ' seems to speak 
 of a buffoon's pastime. They wrong them- 
 selves who give to such gracious poesy a sense 
 so unworthy. True comedy, properly re- 
 garded, has for its object the representation 
 in divers personages of almost all the ac- 
 tions of familiar life. To hold the mirror up 
 to human life it bestows attention no less 
 upon the useful than upon the pleasing, and 
 it does not suffice it to raise a laugh." 
 (" Amfiparnaso.")
 
 Vecchi and the Madrigal Drama 193 
 
 " It will be said that it is contrary to con- 
 vention to mingle serious music with that 
 which is merely pleasing and that one thus 
 brings discredit on the profession. But the 
 pleasing and the serious according to report 
 have been mingled from father to son. Aris- 
 totle says so; Homer and Virgil give exam- 
 ples." ("Veglie di Siena," 1604.) 
 
 " I know full well that at first view some 
 will be able to judge my artistic caprices low 
 and flimsy, but they ought to know that it re- 
 quires as much grace, art and nature to draw 
 well a role of comedy as to represent a wise 
 old grumbler. " (" Selva di Varia Ricrea- 
 tione," 1590.) 
 
 " Everything has a precise meaning, and the 
 actor should try to find it; and, that done, to 
 express it well and intelligently in such a way 
 as to give life to the work." ("Amfipar- 
 naso.") 
 
 " The moral intention of it will be less than 
 that of the simple comedy, for music applies 
 itself to the passion rather than to the reason, 
 and hence I have been compelled to use re- 
 flective elements with moderation. Moreover,
 
 1 94 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 the action has less scope 'for development, 
 spoken words being more rapid than song; 
 so it is expedient to condense, to restrict, to 
 suppress details, and to take only the capital 
 situations. The imagination ought to supply 
 the rest." (" Amfiparnaso.") 
 
 When we turn to the drama itself to ascer- 
 tain how the composer embodied his artistic 
 ideas, we find that the score shows a series of 
 scenes containing speeches for single person- 
 ages and dialogues for two or more. All of 
 these are set to madrigal music in five parts. 
 This music exhibits much variety of style and 
 expressive power. The composer was un- 
 doubtedly a master of his material. How in- 
 tricate and yet pictorial his style can become 
 may be seen in these four measures from Act 
 I, scene second, which contain words uttered 
 by Lelio.
 
 Vecchi and the Madrigal Drama 195 
 
 =fei^ 
 
 .0 
 
 
 4 
 
 m 
 
 # 
 
 -I 
 
 rj 
 
 JT m /> ! 
 
 ftth? 
 
 r 
 
 
 
 
 L/ 
 
 O 
 
 
 vqr ^ 
 
 Che 
 
 
 vo - 
 
 le 
 
 - te voi 
 
 dir 
 
 
 iiji / l ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ui t / 
 
 Fn 
 
 IPil 
 
 
 
 IS 
 
 7T 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 K 
 
 I > 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 JMLJ/a 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 \j r 
 
 Br, lb 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ilJ 
 
 
 
 
 Che 
 
 
 vo - 
 
 le - 
 
 te voi 
 
 r 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 iT /' 
 
 in. i , 
 
 
 n 
 
 -0- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 v 
 
 
 
 r 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 /.. >* 
 
 
 
 / 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 a* 
 
 tfn * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 r~ 
 
 "T 
 
 VM.J 
 
 d 
 
 an 
 
 - 
 
 i - 
 
 ma 
 
 mi 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 (2 
 
 fl 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 | " 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 r 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Che 
 
 iK 
 
 
 
 
 J a 
 
 
 
 
 f? 
 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 if 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1/ 
 
 \ 
 
 
 in 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 1 
 
 dir 
 
 
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 a 
 
 1 
 
 ni - rru 
 
 1 mi 
 
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 iWi ~i 
 
 
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 I 
 
 
 
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 IRt J 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 r 0- 
 
 \- 
 
 & 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Che vo - le 
 
 te voi dir
 
 1 96 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 * 
 
 Col don di quel . 
 
 n 
 
 m 
 
 vo - le 
 
 te voi dir 
 
 
 %&=&-- 
 
 Hfc 
 
 
 
 *t=*= 
 
 E^ 
 
 V 
 
 Col don di quel Nar- 
 
 *=^ 
 
 a - ni - ma mi 
 
 g 
 
 . Nar - d 
 
 * 
 
 iftr 
 
 ^5- 
 
 t 
 
 ni-ma mi 
 
 _ 
 
 Col 
 
 Che 
 
 vo - le 
 
 te voi dir 
 
 ^ 
 
 I 
 
 iflt 
 
 --*-- 
 
 Mil CI 
 
 SE 
 
 *=^ 
 
 f=t=^ 
 
 Col 
 
 Col don di quel 
 
 Nar-
 
 Vecchi and the Madrigal Drama 197 
 
 That the composer sometimes employed skil- 
 fully the contrast of pure chord sequence is 
 seen in his setting of the " tag " of the play 
 spoken by Lelio and beginning thus: 
 
 3: 
 
 
 
 
 
 H+-4- 
 
 m 
 
 E 
 
 3= 
 
 voi cor 
 
 te 
 
 jBL 
 
 qfe 
 
 voi cor 
 
 voi cor 
 
 te 
 
 te 
 
 voi cor - te 
 
 etc. 
 
 etc. 
 
 etc. 
 
 etc. 
 
 Interesting as this music is in itself, the 
 temptation to enter upon a prolonged exam- 
 ination of the score must be resisted for the 
 good reason that a more important matter 
 demands our attention. It has often been
 
 198 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 stated that in the madrigal drama, when the 
 musician wished a single personage to speak, 
 that character sang his part in the madrigal 
 while alone on the stage and the other parts 
 were sung behind the scenes. This error has 
 persistently clung to musical history, despite 
 the fact that it was long ago exposed by Euro- 
 pean authors who ought to have commanded 
 more consideration. The present writer is in- 
 debted to Romain Rolland for guidance in his 
 examination into this matter. 
 
 Vecchi had an enthusiastic disciple in Adri- 
 ano Banchieri, born at Bologna in 1567 and 
 died in the same city in 1634. Although he 
 was a pupil of Giuseppe Guami, organist of 
 
 4 
 
 St. Mark's, himself an organist of St. Michele 
 in Bologna, and a serious theoretician, he was 
 none the less the author of several comedies 
 and satires, which he wrote under the pseu- 
 donym of Camillo Scaligeri della Fratta. He 
 states in the title page that his comedy, " II
 
 Vecchi and the Madrigal Drama 199 
 
 Studio Dilettevole " (for three voices) pro- 
 duced in 1603, is after the manner of Vecchi's 
 " Amfiparnaso." His " Saggezia Giovenile," 
 produced somewhat later, is equipped with a 
 preface containing full directions as the 
 method of performing a madrigal drama. 
 He says: 
 
 " Before the music begins one of the singers 
 will read in a loud voice the title of the scene, 
 the names of the personages and the argu- 
 ment." 
 
 " The place of the scene is a chamber of 
 moderate size, as well closed as possible (for 
 the quality of the sound). In an angle of the 
 room are placed two pieces of carpet on the 
 floor and a pleasing scene. Two chairs are 
 placed, one at the right, the other at the left. 
 Behind the scene are benches for the singers, 
 which are turned toward the public and sep- 
 arated from one another by the breadth of a 
 palm. Behind these is an orchestra of lutes, 
 clavicembali, and other instruments, in tune 
 with the voices. From above the scene falls
 
 200 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 a large curtain which shuts off the singers and 
 instrumentalists; the rule of procedure will be 
 according to the following order : 
 
 " The invisible singers read the music from 
 their parts. They will be three at a time, or 
 better, six, two sopranos, two tenors, one alto 
 and one bass, singing or remaining silent ac- 
 cording to the occasion, giving with spirit 
 the lively words and with feeling the senti- 
 mental ones and pronouncing all with loud and 
 intelligible voices according to the judgment of 
 prudent singers." 
 
 " The actors alone on the scene, and re- 
 citing, should prepare their parts so as to know 
 them by heart and in every detail of place and 
 time follow the music with all care as to time. 
 It will not be a bad idea to have a prompter to 
 aid the singers, instrumentalists and reciters." 
 
 The words, carefully chosen by the writer, 
 prove conclusively that the actors did not sing ; 
 they spoke. The only music was that which 
 came from behind the curtain at the rear. 
 
 Further directions for the performance of 
 a madrigal drama by Vecchi tell us that when
 
 Vecchi and the Madrigal Drama 201 
 
 a single person speaks on the stage, all the 
 musical parts join in representing him. In 
 the case of a dialogue between two actors the 
 voices are to be divided into two groups situ- 
 ated so that the musical sounds shall seem to 
 proceed from the actors. For example, when 
 Lucio and Isabella converse, men's voices rep- 
 resent the former and women's voices the 
 latter. The subjoined passage of ^dialogue 
 between Frulla and Isabella, Act II, scene fifth, 
 will show how two voices were represented: 
 
 B 
 
 ^E 
 
 m 
 
 -j_ 
 
 -z* 
 
 Ah 
 
 s-a - bel - la ctie fa 
 
 i? 
 
 Is-a-bel-la 
 
 la che 
 
 
 Ah 
 
 --- 
 
 che fa 
 
 Ah 
 
 Is-a-bel 
 
 fa 
 
 i?
 
 202 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 i 
 
 <j 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 m 
 
 tfi- 
 
 *= 
 
 Ah no per-che Ah no Ah no perche tuc- 
 
 I 
 
 -X- II f 
 
 3 
 
 rat 
 
 _SL 
 
 -# s>- 
 
 "* g/- 
 
 i ? Ah no 
 
 =t 
 
 per-che 
 
 Ah no 
 
 per-che tuc- 
 
 'r z ~- 
 
 
 
 --#-g- 
 
 -3-p-TsJ- 
 
 Ah no 
 
 per-che 
 
 Ah no 
 
 perche tuo 
 
 -& 
 
 m 
 
 Deh 
 
 la 
 
 scia - mi 
 
 ci 
 ci 
 
 di 
 
 di 
 
 di 
 
 Deh la - scia - mi 
 
 -&- 
 
 Deh la 
 
 
 
 scia - mi
 
 Vecchi and the Madrigal Drama 203 
 
 -&- 
 
 W 
 
 -9 s? 
 
 ^ 
 
 : g=H 
 
 -& G>- 
 
 mo - n 
 
 
 
 s 
 
 $ 
 
 In the " Fidi Amanti " of Torelli there is 
 a scene for two men, a satyr and a shepherd, 
 and one woman, a nymph. In this the two 
 men are represented always by the tenor and 
 the bass, the latter having the chief burden of 
 the delineation of the satyr. The soprano and 
 alto voices are reserved for the nymph. Yet 
 in this scene whenever the emotion becomes in- 
 tense, whether sad or joyous, the four voices 
 unit in singing the principal phrase.
 
 204 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 Rolland, with his customary acumen, notes 
 that in Vecchi's five part, madrigals for the 
 stage the employment of the odd voice is 
 plainly governed by musical needs. It has to 
 be common to both personages in a scene for 
 two and hence it is always the least charac- 
 teristic voice. Its chief business is to fill in 
 the harmony. 
 
 It is not essential to the purpose of this work 
 that the story of " L'Amfiparnaso " or any of 
 the other important madrigal dramas should 
 be told. The significant points are the disap- 
 pearance of the more gorgeous elements of 
 spectacle found in the older court shows, the 
 rise to prominence of the comic element, and 
 above all the entire obliteration of the tenta- 
 tive methods of solo song found in the earlier 
 lyric drama. The old-fashioned cantori a liuti 
 sank into obscurity as the madrigal grew in 
 general favor in Italy, and in the latter years 
 of the sixteenth century their art seems to have
 
 Vecchi and the Madrigal Drama 205 
 
 undergone alterations quite in keeping with 
 the growing complexity of madrigal forms. 
 The madrigal was now the solo form with an 
 instrumental accompaniment made from the 
 under voices, and this solo form was not used 
 in the madrigal drama. Its musicians had laid 
 aside the " recitar alia lira," so much praised 
 by Castiglione in 1514, and were seeking for 
 some new way of setting solo utterance to 
 music. The method chosen by Vecchi must 
 appear to us to be removed from possibilities 
 of artistic success still further than the solo 
 adaptations of frottole, yet the historical fact 
 is that his " Amfiparnaso " had an extraordi- 
 nary popularity and set a fashion. 
 
 Some of Vecchi's works were produced and 
 met with favor even after the pseudo-Hellenic 
 invention of the Bardi fraternity had burst 
 upon Italy. Indeed the madrigal drama died 
 hard and its final burial was not accomplished 
 till the opera had begun to take shape more
 
 206 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 definite than that found in the experimental 
 productions of its founders. With the de- 
 clining years of this curious form we need not 
 concern ourselves. We may now turn to a 
 consideration of the experiments which led to 
 the creation of dramatic recitative, the miss- 
 ing link in the primeval world of the lyric 
 drama.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE SPECTACULAR ELEMENT IN MUSIC 
 
 TT7HILE the madrigal drama was in the 
 * * ripeness of its glory the young Flor- 
 entine coterie which brought the opera to 
 birth was engaged in its experiments with 
 monody. The history of its labors has been 
 told in many books and need not be repeated 
 here. But connected with it are certain impor- 
 tant facts which are too often overlooked or 
 at best denied their correct position in the 
 story. 
 
 In the first place, then, let us remind our- 
 selves that while the madrigal drama was uti- 
 lizing in a novel manner the musical form 
 from which it took its name, the method of 
 adapting the madrigal to solo purposes had
 
 208 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 never been abandoned. The singular path of 
 development followed by the musical drama 
 had been leading away from its true goal, that 
 of solo utterance, but the Italian salon still 
 heard the charms of the madrigal arranged 
 as a lyric for single voice. 
 
 The first secular drama, the " Orfeo " of 
 Poliziano, was equipped with the elements 
 from which might have been evolved quickly 
 all the materials of the first experimental 
 operas; but the rapid spread of the polyphonic 
 music through Italy and the sudden and over- 
 whelming popularity of part singing soon, as 
 we have seen, relegated the first suggestions 
 of a manner of setting vocal solos for the 
 stage into a position of comparative obscurity 
 and in the end this possibility was conquered 
 by the cumbrous method of Vecchi. Per- 
 haps the unsuitability of polyphonic com- 
 position might have made itself clear earlier 
 than it did, had not the general state of Italian
 
 Spectacular Element in Music 209 
 
 thought and taste moved in a direction making 
 this impossible. The noble classic figure of 
 Orpheus, with his flowing white robe, his 
 simple fillet on his brow, and his lyre in his 
 arm, standing before the iron gates and mov- 
 ing by his song the powers of hell, soon gave 
 way to the gorgeous exhibitions in which the 
 splendors of Night and Dawn were made the 
 subjects of a series of glittering scenes en- 
 veloping a plan much like that of some modern 
 ballet spectacle. 
 
 Throughout the sixteenth century, as we 
 have seen, these court representations grew in 
 complexity of pictorial detail, while the impor- 
 tance of the development of a medium for in- 
 dividual expression sank further and further 
 out of notice. One reads of occasional uses 
 of the old method of solo recitation to the 
 lyre, but never as a controlling motive in the 
 dramatic construction. It appears only as an 
 incident in the general medley of sensuous al-
 
 2 1 o Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 lurements. So, too, the convocation of masses 
 of singers, dancers and instrumentalists seems 
 to have been nothing more than a natural 
 demonstration of that growing appetite for 
 luxury which characterized the approach of the 
 feeble intellectual era of the Seicentisti, that 
 era in which " ecclesiastical intolerance had 
 rendered Italy nearly destitute of great men." 
 These quoted words are Symonds's ; let him 
 speak still further : " Bruno burned, Vanini 
 burned, Carnescchi burned, Paleario burned, 
 Bonfadio burned; Campanella banished after 
 a quarter of a century's imprisonment with 
 torture; the leaders of free religious thought 
 in exile, scattered over northern Europe. 
 Tasso, worn out with misery and madness, 
 rested at length in his tomb on the Janiculan; 
 Scarpi survived the stylus of the Roman curia 
 with calm inscrutability at St. Fosca; Galileo 
 meditated with closed lips in nis watch tower 
 behind Bello Squardo. With Michael Angelo
 
 Spectacular Element in Music 211 
 
 in 1564, Palladio in 1580, Tintoretto in 1594, 
 the godlike lineage of the Renaissance artists 
 ended; and what children of the sixteenth 
 century still survived to sustain the nation's 
 prestige, to carry on its glorious traditions? 
 The list is but a poor one. Marino, Tassoni, 
 the younger Buonarotti, Boccalini and Chia- 
 brera in literature. The Bolognese academy in 
 painting. After these men expand arid wilder- 
 nesses of the Sei Cento barocco architec- 
 ture, false taste, frivolity, grimace, affectation 
 Jesuitry translated into false culture." 
 
 Symonds is here speaking of the dawn of 
 the seventeenth century, but the movement 
 toward these conditions is quite clearly 
 marked in the later years of the preceding 
 cycle. Its influence on the lyric drama is 
 manifest in the multiplication of luxurious 
 accessories and superficial splendors, designed 
 to appeal to the taste of nobles plunged in 
 sensuous extravagances and easily mistaking
 
 2 1 2 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 delight in them for a lofty appreciation of the 
 drama and art. The reform of the Florentine 
 coterie conquered Italy for less than fifty 
 years. The return to showy productions, to 
 the congregation of purely theatric effects, 
 scenic as well as musical, was swift, and the 
 student of operatic art can to-day discern with 
 facility that the invention of the Florentines 
 was soon reduced to the state of a thread to 
 bind together episodes of pictorial and vocal 
 display. But in the beginning it was unques- 
 tionably the outcome of a hostility to these 
 very things, or at any rate to their merely 
 spectacular employment. 
 
 Peri, Caccini, Bardi and others of the' 
 Florentine " camerata " were engaged as com- 
 posers, stage managers, actors and singers in 
 many of the elaborate court spectacles, inter- 
 mezzi and madrigal dramas produced toward 
 the end of the sixteenth century. Peri and 
 Caccini were professional singers, and their
 
 Spectacular Element in Music 213 
 
 experiences were not only those of students, 
 but also those of practitioners. Their revolt 
 against the contrapuntal lyric drama was 
 largely, though not wholly, based on deep- 
 seated objection to the unintelligibility of the 
 text. It does not require profound considera- 
 tion to bring us to the opinion that the method 
 of Vecchi was in part an attempt to overcome 
 the innate defect of the polyphonic style in 
 this matter of intelligibility. The resort to 
 the spoken text on the stage while the music 
 was sung behind the scenes appears on the 
 face of it to have been compelled by a wish 
 for some method of conveying the meaning of 
 the poet to the audience. 
 
 Why, then, did not these young reformers 
 find at hand in the madrigal arranged for solo 
 voice the suggestion for their line of lyric re- 
 construction ? Partly by reason of the confu- 
 sion caused by obedience to old polyphonic 
 customs in making the accompaniments, and
 
 214 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 partly because the madrigal had become a field 
 for the display of vocal agility. Already the 
 development of colorature singing had reached 
 a high degree of perfection. Already the 
 singer sought to astonish the hearer by cover- 
 ing an air with a bewildering variety of orna- 
 ments. The time was not far off when the 
 opera prima donna was to become the incar- 
 nation of the artistic sensuousness which had 
 beguiled Italy with a dream of Grecian resur- 
 rection. The way had been well built, for the 
 attention of the fathers of the Roman church 
 had been turned early to the necessity of sys- 
 tem in the delivery of the liturgical chants. 
 The study of a style had developed a technic 
 and to the achievement of vocal feats this 
 technic had been incited by the rapid rise of the 
 act of descant. 
 
 Hand in hand the technic and the art of 
 descant had come down the years. The sharp 
 distinction early made between " contrapunc-
 
 Spectacular Element in Music 215 
 
 tus a penna " and " contrapunctus a mente " 
 showed that composers and singers to a cer- 
 tain degree actually stood in rivalry in their 
 production of passage work for voices. The 
 rapid expansion of the florid element in the 
 polyphonic music of the composers indicates 
 to us that the improvised descant of the singer 
 had a sensible influence. We need not be as- 
 tonished, then, to learn that long before the 
 end of the sixteenth century a very consider- 
 able knowledge of what was later systematized 
 as the so-called " Italian method " had been 
 acquired. The registers of head and chest 
 were understood, breathing was studied, the 
 hygiene of the voice was not a stranger, and 
 vocalizes on all the vowels and for all the 
 voices had been written. Numerous singers 
 had risen to note, and the records show that 
 their distinction rested not only on the beauty 
 of their voices and the elegance of their singing, 
 but also on their ability to perform those in-
 
 2 1 6 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 strumental feats which have from that time to 
 this been dear to the colorature singer and to 
 the operatic public. 
 
 In the closing years of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury we find that the famous singers were 
 heard not oftener in public entertainments 
 than in private assemblies. Occasionally a 
 madrigal arranged as a solo figured in a lyric 
 play, but the singing of madrigals for one 
 voice was a popular field for the exhibition of 
 the powers of celebrated prima donnas such 
 as Vittoria Archilei and eminent tenors like 
 Jacopo Peri. Kiesewetter 1 gives a madrigal 
 sung as a solo by Archilei. The supporting 
 parts of the composition were transferred 
 from voices to instruments apparently with 
 little trouble. Mme. Archilei herself played 
 the lute and her husband, Antonio Archilei, 
 
 and Antonio Nalda played two chitarroni. The 
 music of the madrigal was composed by 
 
 1 " Schicksale und Beschaffenheit des Weltlichen Ge- 
 sangcs," by R. G. Kiesewetter. Leipsic, 1841.
 
 Spectacular Element in Music 217 
 
 Signor Archilei. Here are the opening meas- 
 ures of this lyric: 
 
 S 
 
 -<r?- 
 
 *E 
 
 I 
 
 Dal - le ce - le 
 
 sti 
 
 sfe 
 
 12: 
 
 f 2 - <5> & - 
 
 
 
 Dal 
 
 le ce - le 
 
 sti sfe 
 
 Dal 
 
 le ce - le 
 
 :a =$ 
 
 sti 
 
 sfe 
 
 *f= <9- 
 
 f: 
 
 Dal - le ce - le 
 
 sti sfe 
 
 -<? 
 
 ^ 
 
 ffff 
 
 i 
 
 di 
 
 ce - le - ste Si - re 
 
 3 
 
 <g j s< si & 
 
 di ce - le - ste Si 
 
 W- 
 
 ~* it 
 
 di 
 
 ce - le - ste 
 
 =fe 
 
 di 
 
 ce - le - ste 
 
 Si 
 
 ESfe 
 
 Si - re
 
 2 1 8 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 f 
 
 ^ 
 
 af| <2- 
 
 ; 
 
 =t 
 
 &-% eJ g - 
 
 * 
 
 li 
 
 etc. 
 
 etc. 
 
 etc. 
 
 etc. 
 
 Here is the beginning of the composition as 
 Mme. Archilei decorated it with her extraor- 
 dinary skill in the vocal ornamenation of the 
 period : 
 
 * 
 
 3* *-,-r- *-* 
 
 t= 
 
 :5a: 
 
 Dal 
 
 le piii 
 
 al 
 
 te 
 
 -* p- 
 
 <? F 
 
 t=U^ ^^ 
 
 sfe 
 
 re . . . dal-le piil al
 
 Spectacular Element in Music 219 
 
 p # - 
 
 P 
 
 ^^'J ^t n jjrw r rrrr 
 
 ne etc. 
 
 We are told that despite the fine profes- 
 sions of the Florentines, Mme. Archilei was 
 permitted to embroider Peri's Euridice in 
 something like this fashion. But we must 
 admit that even in those days a prima donna 
 had power, and that something had to be con- 
 ceded to popular taste. Furthermore, we shall 
 see that the Florentines did not purpose to 
 abolish floridity entirely.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE MEDIUM FOR INDIVIDUAL 
 UTTERANCE 
 
 \ CLOSER examination of the musical 
 -* -* reforms instituted by the camerata 
 which met at the Vernio and Corsi palaces will 
 convince us that they were directed toward 
 two objects; first, the restoration of the Greek 
 method of delivering the declamation of a 
 drama, and second, the reduction of purely 
 lyric forms to a rational musical basis on 
 which could be built intelligible settings of 
 texts. The revolt was not only against poly- 
 phonic music in which text was treated without 
 regard for its communicative purpose, but also 
 against the decorative manner of solo sing- 
 ing, which made words only backgrounds for
 
 Medium for Individual Utterance 221 
 
 arabesques of sound. On this point we have 
 the conclusive evidence of Caccini's own words 
 as found in the preface to his " Nuove 
 Musiche." * He begins by giving the reasons 
 why he had not earlier published his lyrics in 
 the new style, though they had long been 
 sung. He continues: 
 
 " But when I now see many of these pieces 
 torn apart and altered in form, when I see 
 to what evil uses the long runs are put, to 
 wit, those consisting of single and double 
 notes (repeated ones), as if both kinds were 
 combined, and which were invented by me in 
 order to do away with the former old fashion 
 of introduced passages, which were for wind 
 or stringed instruments rather than the human 
 voice; when further I see how dynamic grada- 
 tions of tone are used without discrimination, 
 what enunciation now is, and how trills, grup- 
 petti and other ornaments are introduced, I 
 consider it necessary and in this I am up- 
 
 1 " Nuove Musiche di Giulio Caccini detto Romano." 
 Florence, 1601.
 
 222 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 held by my friends to have my music 
 printed." 
 
 Furthermore he will explain in this preface 
 the principles which led him to write in this 
 manner for the solo voice. He says that for 
 a long time he has been a member of the 
 Florentine circle of cultivated men and that 
 he has learned from them more than he ac- 
 quired in thirty years in the schools of coun- 
 terpoint. 
 
 " For these wise and noble personages have 
 constantly strengthened me and with most lu- 
 cid reasons determined me to place no value 
 upon that music which makes it impossible to 
 understand the words and thus to destroy the 
 unity and meter, sometimes lengthening the 
 syllables, sometimes shortening them in order 
 to suit the counterpoint a real mangling of 
 the poetry but to hold fast to that principle 
 so greatly extolled by Plato and other philoso- 
 phers : ' Let music be first of all language and 
 rhythm and secondly tone,' but not vice versa,
 
 Medium for Individual Utterance 223 
 
 and moreover to strive to force music into the 
 consciousness of the hearer and create there 
 those impressions so admirable and so much 
 praised by the ancients, and to produce which 
 modern music through its counterpoint is im- 
 potent. Especially true is this of solo singing 
 with the accompaniment of a stringed instru- 
 ment when the words are not understood be- 
 cause of the immoderate introduction of pas- 
 sages." 
 
 This, he declares, can only extort applause 
 of the " crowd " and such music can only re- 
 sult in mere tickling of the ear, because when 
 the text is not intelligible there can be no ap- 
 peal to the understanding. 
 
 " The idea came to me to introduce a style 
 of music which makes it possible in a certain 
 manner to speak musically by employing, as 
 already said, a certain noble subordination of 
 the song, with now and then some disson- 
 ances, while however holding the chord by 
 means of the sustained bass, except when I 
 follow the already common custom of assign-
 
 224 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 ing the middle voices to the accompanying in- 
 strument for the purpose of increasing the 
 effect, for which purpose alone they are, in my 
 opinion, appropriate." 
 
 He now tells us that, after he found that 
 his principle stood the tests of practice and he 
 was satisfied that in the new style lay a power 
 to touch hearts far beyond that possessed by 
 polyphony, he wrote certain madrigals for the 
 solo voice in the manner described, which man- 
 ner " I hereafter used for the representations 
 in Florence." Then he went to Rome where 
 the dilettanti, particularly Lione Strozzi, 
 gathered at the house of Nero Neri, expressed 
 themselves enthusiastically about the new rev- 
 elation of the power of solo song to move the 
 heart. These amateurs became convinced that 
 there was no longer any satisfaction to be 
 drawn from the old way of singing the soprano 
 part of madrigals and turning the other parts 
 into an instrumental accompaniment.
 
 Medium of Individual Utterance 225 
 
 Caccini went back to Florence and continued 
 to set canzonettas. He says that in these com- 
 positions he tried continually to give the mean- 
 ing of the words and so to touch responsive 
 chords of feeling. He endeavored to com- 
 pose in a pleasing style by hiding all contra- 
 puntal effects as much as possible. He set 
 long syllables to consonances and let pass- 
 ing notes go with short syllables. He applied 
 similar considerations to the introduction of 
 passages " although sometimes as a certain or- 
 namentation I have used a few broken notes 
 to the value of a quarter, or at most a half 
 note, on a short syllable, something one can 
 endure, because they quickly slip by and are 
 not really passages, but only add to the pleas- 
 ant effect." 
 
 Caccini continues his preface with reiter- 
 ated objections to vocal passages used merely 
 for display, and says that he has striven to 
 show how they can be turned to artistic uses.
 
 226 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 He deprecates the employment of contrapun- 
 tal device for its own sake, and says that he 
 employs it only infrequently and to fill out 
 middle voices. He forcefully condemns all 
 haphazard use of vocal resources and says 
 that the singer should labor to penetrate the 
 meaning and passion of that which he sings 
 and to convey it to the hearer. This he as- 
 serts can never be accomplished by the delivery 
 of passages. 
 
 Here, then, we have a clear statement of the 
 artistic ideals cherished by Caccini, and these, 
 we may take it, were shared by the other 
 members of the camerata who were engaged 
 in the pursuit of a method of direct, eloquent, 
 dramatic solo expression. The opening meas- 
 ures of one of the numbers in the " Nuove 
 Musiche " will serve to show in what manner 
 Caccini developed his theories in practice and 
 equally what close relation this style had to 
 that of the new dramatic recitative.
 
 Medium for Individual Utterance 227 
 
 P=pc 
 
 -- 
 
 R 
 
 ^=v=t 
 
 dove son fug-gi 
 
 Deh! 
 
 deh 
 
 Hi 
 
 i 
 
 --#- 
 
 =^t=t=t 
 
 ! V V - 
 deh dove son span - ti gl'oc - chi de quali er. 
 
 t t 
 
 m 
 
 3?=^ 
 
 -&- 
 
 -0 * &- 
 
 1 
 
 -$ & & v 
 
 &T 
 
 * 
 
 H&L 
 
 son ce - nere o-ma 
 
 etc. 
 
 s: 
 
 =* 
 
 In the preface to his score of " Euridice " 
 Peri has set forth his ideas about recitative. 
 He has told us how he tried to base its move- 
 ment upon that of ordinary speech, using few 
 tones and calm movements for quiet conver- 
 sation and more extended intervals and ani- 
 mated movement for the delineation of emo- 
 tion. This was founded upon the same basis
 
 228 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 as the theory of Caccini, which condemned 
 emphatically the indiscriminate employment of 
 swelled tones, exclamatory emphases and 
 other vocal devices. Caccini desired that the 
 employment of all these factors in song should 
 be regulated by the significance of the text. 
 In other words these reformers were fighting 
 a fight not unlike that of Wagner. They de- 
 plored the making of vocal ornaments and the 
 display of ingenuity in the interweaving of 
 parts for their own sakes, just as Wagner de- 
 cried the writing of tune for tune's sake, and 
 on one of the same grounds, namely, that 
 nothing could result but a tickling of the ear. 
 Yet these young reformers had no intention 
 of throwing overboard all the charms of flor- 
 idity in song. Here are two examples of their 
 treatment of passionate utterance in recitative. 
 The first is by Peri and the second by Caccini. 
 Both are settings of the same text in the " Eu- 
 ridice"
 
 Medium for Individual Utterance 229 
 
 Orfeo. 
 
 tat 
 
 
 1 a ' 
 
 a a -i 
 
 iS 
 
 
 
 ,-, i-D > f f r 
 
 Xa 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 II 11/ 
 
 1 / V 1 
 
 Non pian - go e non so - spi - ro mia ca - 
 
 (m\' 
 
 
 
 {"J- * 
 
 
 
 V^ <* 
 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 -M 
 
 ^ _ 
 
 L 
 
 
 
 vm * r5 
 
 
 *1 " m m 1* f 
 
 r 
 
 
 r P p? 
 
 
 
 
 1 !, 1 1 
 
 ']/ ]/ Is 1 
 
 - ra 
 
 Eu - ri - di 
 
 ce 
 
 Che so - spi - rar 
 
 (m\ m 
 
 
 (J. ^ 
 
 
 
 
 ^^ i 
 
 
 
 
 1 1 
 
 1 |___i 
 
 
 
 
 
 i 1 1 ; I 
 
 i* i i r i * i* 
 
 u,\ etc. 
 
 
 
 %c> 
 
 f> 
 
 
 
 Ij 1/ V v \ \i 
 
 
 . . . che la - gri - mar non 
 
 pos 
 
 SO 
 
 
 /v ' *" 
 
 
 \S^' r* P m 
 
 *? It . 
 
 ^-^ r r 
 
 ft' 5 ' 
 
 I | 1 r i 
 
 
 E^S 
 
 X i -&-. 
 
 '-*&&- 
 
 Non pian - go 
 
 e non so - spi 
 
 & 
 
 S 
 
 3g= 
 
 m 
 
 =!: 
 
 fer:
 
 230 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 '$?.. 
 
 -** s \ h 
 
 mia caxa - ^Eu - ri - di - ce che so - spi - 
 
 r 
 
 v 
 
 m^ 
 
 =^= 
 
 -A fV- 
 
 che Ia-gri-mar non pos - so etc. 
 
 =t 
 
 1 
 
 -&- 
 
 M 
 
 m 
 
 Caccini was somewhat more liberal than Peri 
 in the use of floridity and always showed taste 
 and judgement therein. Here is a sample of 
 his style taken from a solo by one of the 
 nymphs in " Euridice " :
 
 Medium for Individual Utterance 231 
 
 ^S: 
 
 g^^g 
 
 ] 
 
 ti'I 
 
 so - le 
 
 Caccini also showed that he was not averse to 
 the lascivious allurements of two female voices 
 moving in elementary harmonies. Here is a 
 passage from a scene between two nymphs 
 upon which rest many hundreds of pages in 
 later Italian operas. 
 
 -. # d *- 
 
 val mor - tal in - ge 
 
 gno 
 
 gia non val mor - tal in - ge 
 
 gno
 
 232 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 This was the immediate predecessor of the 
 well-known " Saliam cantando " in Monte- 
 verde's " Orfeo." 
 
 The innovations of the Florentine reformers 
 included also the invention of thorough bass, 
 or the basso continuo, as the Italians call it. 
 Ludovico Grossi, called Viadana from the 
 place of his birth, seems to have been the first 
 to use the term basso continuo and on the au- 
 thority of Prsetorius and other writers was 
 long credited with the invention of the thing 
 itself. But it was in 1602 that he published his 
 " Cento concerti ecclesiastici a i, a 2, a 3, e a 4 
 voci, con il basso continuo per sonar nell' or- 
 gano." The basso continuo had been in use for 
 some time before this. It appears in the score 
 of Peri's Euridice as well as in the " Nuove 
 Musiche " of Caccini. It was employed in 
 Cavaliere's " Anima e Corpo " and was doubt- 
 less utilized in some of the camerata's earlier 
 attempts which have not come down to us.
 
 Medium for Individual Utterance 233 
 
 Just which one of the Florentines devised 
 this method of noting the chords arranged for 
 the support of the voice in the new style mat- 
 ters little. The fact remains that the funda- 
 mental principle of related chord harmonies, 
 as distinguished from incidental accords aris- 
 ing in the interweavings of voice parts melodic 
 in themselves, had been recognized and the 
 basis of modern melodic composition estab- 
 lished. This, indeed, was not the achievement 
 of the young innovators, but the result of a 
 slow and steady development in the art of com- 
 position. The introduction of thorough bass 
 shows us that the reformers had found it es- 
 sential to the success of their experiments 
 that, in their effort to pack away in solid 
 chords the tangle of parts which had so of- 
 fended them in the old counterpoint, they 
 should codify to some extent the relations 
 of fundamental chords and contrive a simple 
 method of indicating their sequence in the
 
 234 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 new and elementary kind of accompani- 
 ments. They at any rate perceived that the 
 vital fact concerning the new monophonic 
 style was that the melody alone demanded 
 individual independence, while the other parts 
 could not, as in polyphony, ask for equal suf- 
 frage, but must sink themselves in the solid 
 and concrete structure of the supporting 
 chord. Thorough bass was in later periods 
 utilized in such music as Bach's and Handel's, 
 but its original nature always stood forth most 
 clearly when it was employed in the support of 
 vocal music approaching the recitative type. 
 
 Here, then, we may permit the entire mat- 
 ter to rest. It ought now to be manifest that 
 in their experiments at the resuscitation of the 
 Greek manner of declamation the ardent young 
 Florentines were impelled first of all by the 
 feeling that the obliteration of the text by 
 musical device was a crying evil and that by it 
 dramatic expression was rendered impossible.
 
 Medium for Individual Utterance 235 
 
 Doubtless they felt that their art lacked a 
 medium for the publication of the individual, 
 but it is by no means likely that they realized 
 the full significance of this deficiency or of 
 their own efforts to supply it. Nevertheless, 
 what they did under the incentive of a genuine 
 artistic impulse was in direct line with the 
 whole intellectual progress of the Renaissance. 
 The thing that was patent to them was the 
 importance of studying the models of antiq- 
 uity to find out how dramatic delineation was 
 to be accomplished; but in doing so they dis- 
 covered the one element which had been want- 
 ing in the Italian lyric drama since its birth 
 in the Mantuan court, namely, the way to set 
 speeches for one actor to music having com- 
 municative potency and capable of preserving 
 the intelligibility of the text. 
 
 So they completed a cycle of the art of dra- 
 matic music, and, having found the link that 
 was missing in the musical chain of Polizi-
 
 236 Some Forerunners of Italian Opera 
 
 ano's " Orfeo," reincarnated Italy's Arcadian 
 prophet, and built the gates through which 
 Monteverde ushered lyric composition to the 
 broad highway of modern opera.
 
 INDEX
 
 INDEX 
 
 Agility, vocal, 214 
 
 Alemannia, Rudolf o de, 41 
 
 Alessandro, Gian Andrea 
 di, 46 
 
 Ambros, August Wilhelm, 
 107 
 
 " Amfiparnaso," 191 et seq. 
 
 " Apollo and the Python," 
 spectacular intermezzo, 1 74 
 
 Arcadia, the Italian, 62 et 
 seq. 
 
 Archilei, Vittoria, 216, 218 
 
 Argyropoulos, John, 69 
 
 " Arion," spectacular inter- 
 mezzo, 175 
 
 Ariosto, performance of his 
 " Suppositi," 90, 136 
 
 Ballata, 76, 116, 144 
 
 " Ballet Comique de la 
 
 Reine," 178 
 Banchieri, Adriano, 198 
 Banquets, music at, 139 
 Basso continuo, 232 
 Bati, Luca, 30 
 Beccari, 170 
 Bembo, Pietro, 61 
 Boccaccio, 59 
 Botta, Bergonzo, festal play 
 
 by, 161 
 Busnois, Antoine, 115 
 
 Caccini, Giulio, 172; "Nuove 
 Musiche," its aim, 221 et 
 seq. 
 
 "Calandra," performance of, 
 
 96 
 Cantori a liuto, 119, 121 et 
 
 seq. 
 Carnival Song (canto car- 
 
 nascialesco), 76, 105, 116 
 Casella, 119 
 
 Castiglione, 61, 114; per- 
 formance of his " Tirsi," 
 
 164 
 Cavaliere, Emilio del, first 
 
 recitatives written by, 177 
 Chant, music of liturgical 
 
 drama, 11; disappearance 
 
 from " Sacre Rappresen- 
 
 tazioni," 24 
 Chartreux, Jean le, 40 
 Chorus, in first secular 
 
 drama, 89, 116 
 Comedy, influence on lyric 
 
 drama, 179 et seq. ; Vec- 
 
 chi's theories, 192 
 Compere, Loyset, 115 
 Concerts, early, 142 
 Corteccia, 119 
 Costumes in early lyric 
 
 plays, 92 
 
 Dance, dramatic, in church 
 ritual, 2, 3 ; in open-air 
 plays, 16 ; orchestral music 
 for, 144; executed to con- 
 cealed chorus, 172; char- 
 acteristic national, 176
 
 240 
 
 Index 
 
 Dante, 58 
 
 Delia Viola, Alfonso, 170 
 Delia Viola, Gian Pietro, 45 
 Des Pres, Josquin, 104 
 Disciplinati di Gesu Cristo, 
 
 22 
 " Divozione," 25 et seq. 
 Drama, lyric, sources, 4; 
 open-air religious, 13; at 
 Florence, 19; revival in 
 Europe, 54; causes of 
 disappearance, 53 
 Dramatic dialogue, in mad- 
 rigal drama, 184 
 Dramatic element, in early 
 church music, 2; in cere- 
 monials, 4, 5 
 
 " Esaltazione della Croce," 
 sacred play, 29 ; orchestra 
 in, 138 
 
 " Euridice," Peri's, 219 
 
 Feltre, Vittorino da, 37, 41 
 
 Ferrara, musical relations 
 with Mantua, 46 
 
 Festa, Constanzo, 165 
 
 Fete of the Ass, 14 
 
 Ficino, Marsilio, 70 
 
 Florence, reform of dra- 
 matic music, 220, 234 
 
 Florid element, in early 
 church music, I ; its dis- 
 appearance, 2; in madri- 
 gal, 214; in early operas, 
 231 
 
 Frottola, 76, 101, 102, 104 et 
 seq., 122; distinguished 
 from madrigal, 108, 112; 
 arranged for solo voice, 
 124 et seq. 
 
 Gaffori, Franchino, 43 
 
 Gonzaga, house of, 35 et 
 seq. ; Gian Francesco, 37 ; 
 Ludovico, 38 
 
 Grecian ideals in Italian lit- 
 erature, 54, 58 et seq., 62 
 et seq. 
 
 Gualterotti, spectacular fes- 
 tal play, 171 
 
 " Harmony of the Spheres," 
 intermezzo by Cavaliere, 
 
 173 
 Harmony, modern begun, 
 
 233 
 
 Individuality, medium of 
 expression sought, 155, 
 157; found, 220 et seq. 
 
 Intermezzi, spectacular in 
 
 1589, 173 
 Intermezzo, 91 
 Isaak, Heinrich, 107 
 Italian, Latin preferred to, 
 
 59; Poliziano's use of, 
 
 7 2 
 Italian music, defining its 
 
 character, 149 
 Italian thought, state of in 
 
 sixteenth century, 181,209, 
 
 210, 211 
 Italy, lack of national unity, 
 
 60 
 
 Kallistos, Andronicus, 69 
 
 Landino, 61, 69 
 
 Lauds, 21 et seq. ; music of, 
 
 23 ; development of, 25 
 Lavagnolo, Lorenzo, teacher 
 
 of dance at Mantua, 45 
 Lighting in early plays, 95
 
 Index 
 
 241 
 
 Liturgical drama, 1 et seq. ; 
 
 early examples, 6 et seq. ; 
 
 its longevity, 9 ; character 
 
 of music, 5, 6, lo; French 
 
 as related to opera, 12; 
 
 costumes, etc., 26; stage 
 
 used, 26 
 Luzzaschi, music to " Pastor 
 
 Fido," 172 
 Lyra di braccio, 134 
 Lyre, 130 
 
 Madrigal, 102, 104, 105, 112; 
 Italian, 148; solo, 168, 216, 
 217, 218, 219, 223 ; florid 
 element in, 214; orna- 
 mented by singer, 217, 218 
 
 Madrigal drama, transition 
 to from frottola, 147 et 
 seq. ; in maturity, 191 et 
 seq. 
 
 Madrigal dramas, 166; com- 
 edy in, 179 et seq. ; dia- 
 logue in, 181, 198 et seq., 
 201, 203 ; instruments in, 
 185, 199; manner of per- 
 formance, 198 et seq. ; 
 voices in, 200; solo in, 
 201 ; unintelligibility of 
 text, 213 
 
 Mantegna, 38, 39, 40 
 
 Mantua, birthplace of secu- 
 lar drama, 35 ; sketch of 
 the marquisate, 35 et seq. ; 
 literary and artistic im- 
 portance, 36; music at, 
 40 et seq. ; musical rela- 
 tions with Ferrara, 46 
 
 Marenzio, Luca, 50 
 
 " Marienklage, die," liturgi- 
 cal drama, 9 
 
 " Mary Magdalen," sacred 
 play, 33 
 
 Masques, 32, 33 
 
 Medici, Lorenzo de, writer 
 
 of sacred plays, 29 
 Merulo, Claudio, his " Tra- 
 
 gedia," 171 
 Minuccio, 119, 120 
 Monody, movement toward, 
 
 149; Caccini's, 222, 225 
 Music, in sixteenth century 
 
 lyric dramas, 164 
 
 Oboe, 145 
 
 Opera buffa, germs of, 188 
 
 Orchestra, in " Sacre Rap- 
 presentazioni," 30, 31 ; at 
 Mantua, 44; in first secu- 
 lar drama, 89; 136 et seq. ; 
 Striggio's, 138, 185, 186; 
 in other early lyric plays, 
 161, 162, 174, 175, 177, 
 199 
 
 "Orfeo," performed at Man- 
 tua, 52, 55, 68 ; Italian es- 
 timates of, 55, 56; impor- 
 tance of its production, 57, 
 66 ; its lyric character, 66, 
 77> 79', description of 
 poem, 76 et seq. ; how writ- 
 ten, 72; Sismondi's com- 
 ments on, 73 ; Symonds 
 on, 74; editions com- 
 pared, 75, 79,80; how per- 
 formed, 85 et seq. ; exam- 
 ination of its music, 98 
 et seq. ; choruses, 101, 116 ; 
 solo parts, 101, 117 et seq. ; 
 solo parts, frottola as ba- 
 sis of, 124; instrumental 
 parts, 101, 129, 136 et seq., 
 
 144. 
 Orpheus, embodiment of 
 Arcadian ideal, 63, 65
 
 242 
 
 Index 
 
 Paganism, Italian medieval, 
 
 62 
 Pageant of St. John's Day, 
 
 Florence, 28 
 Pageants, relation to " Sacre 
 
 Rappresentazioni," 27 
 Part singing, its popularity 
 
 in fifteenth century, 103 
 Passion, early performances 
 
 of, 17; French fourteenth 
 
 century version, 17 
 Pastoral drama, 170 
 Peri, Jacopo, 216, 219 
 Petrarch, 59 
 Philosophy, its effect on 
 
 medieval literature, 64 
 Poliziano, Angelo, 52, 55 ; 
 
 sketch of career, 68 et seq. 
 Procession, succeeds dance, 3 
 Prompter, 200 
 
 Realism, Italian, 61 
 
 " Recitar alia lira," 114, 170 
 
 Recitative, in liturgical 
 drama, 10; in first secu- 
 lar plays, 1 14 ; Florentine, 
 118, 212, 224; beginnings, 
 177; in comic opera, 181 ; 
 impulses leading to mod- 
 ern, 207 et seq. ; Caccini's, 
 224, 225, 229; Peri's, 227, 
 229 
 
 Romano, Giulio, 39 
 
 " Sacre Rappresentazioni," 
 13, 21 et seq. ; music of, 
 24 ; time of origin, 27 ; 
 sources of, 27 ; their 
 construction and per- 
 formance, 29; scenic ef- 
 fects, 30; as forerunners 
 of opera, 32 
 
 " Saint Uliva," sacred play, 
 29 
 
 Sannazzaro, Jacopo, his 
 
 "Arcadia," 62 
 Scene painting, in early 
 
 plays, 93 
 Scenic effects, in " Sacre 
 
 Rappresentazioni," 30; in 
 
 Poliziano's " Orfeo," 86, 
 
 93 
 
 Schalmei, 145 
 
 Sensualism, esthetic in Italy, 
 61 
 
 Singing, development of 
 technic, 214, 215 
 
 Solo, superseded by part 
 song, 117; in madrigal 
 drama, 198, 205; vocal, 
 114, 119, 222 et seq., 227; 
 adapted from part songs, 
 119 et seq.; florid ele- 
 ment abused, 222 
 
 Songs, arranged for lute 
 accompaniment, 121 
 
 Spectacular, element in early 
 plays, 93, 155, 166; in 
 early dramatic music, 158 ; 
 predominance of the, 160 
 et seq. ; in music of six- 
 teenth century, 207 et 
 seq. ; in music of six- 
 teenth century, revolt 
 against, 212 
 
 Striggio, Alessandro, 51, 
 185; his art work, 185 
 
 Table music, 139 
 
 Tasso, "Aminto," music of, 
 
 172 
 Technic, vocal, 214 
 Thoroughbass, 154, 232 
 Todi, Jacopone da, 23 
 Tromboncino, Bartolomeo, 
 
 46. 115
 
 Index 
 
 243 
 
 Ugolino, Baccio, original 
 Orfeo, 79, 87 
 
 Vecchi, Orazio, 190 et seq. ; 
 
 artistic theories, 192 
 Viadana, Ludovico, 232 
 " Vierges sages et Vierges 
 
 folles," 6 et seq. 
 Villanelle, 112 
 Violinists, early, 142 
 Virgil, Italian worship of, 
 
 59 
 
 Visconti, Nicolo de Cor- 
 regio, his " Cephale et 
 Aurore," 163 
 
 Voices, in madrigal plays, 
 200, 203 
 
 Voice, technic in early mu- 
 sic, 215 
 
 Wert, Jacques de, 49 
 Willaert, Adrian, 104, 112, 
 151, 165
 
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