Tag Archives: Claudio Monteverdi

Monteverdi and classic philosophy

Claudio Monteverdi’s seconda pratica was a return to basic verbal expression (listening, recognition, and revelation from emotional vocal accentuation).

Monteverdi’s art agrees with poetic expression as defined in Plato’s three forms expounded in the third book of Republic and Aristotle’s Poetics. For Monteverdi, musical language is music and the synthesis of text, harmony, and rhythm; the phonetic exposition of continuous thought becomes poetry.

This according to Preparazione alla interpretazione della poiesis Monteverdiana by Nella Anfuso and Annibale Gianuario (Firenze: Centro Studi e Rinascimento Musicale, 1971).

Today is the 450th anniversary of Monteverdi’s baptism! Above, a portrait from ca. 1630 by Bernardo Strozzi; below, the madrigal Cruda Amarilli, an especially clear example of Monteverdi’s seconda pratica.

Comments Off on Monteverdi and classic philosophy

Filed under Renaissance

Vespro della Beata Vergine

Vespro della Beata Vergine Bärenreiter

In 2013 Bärenreiter issued a new Urtext edition of Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine, one of the most beloved sacred works of the 17th century.

The volume originated in a graduate seminar at the University of North Texas under the direction of the Monteverdi specialist Hendrik Schulze, who served as the book’s editor.

The edition combines the latest in musicological research specifically with the needs of the performer in mind, making a modern interpretation of this 400-year-old work possible. This new research has led, for instance, to a divergent evaluation of the Lauda Jerusalem oriented towards performance practice, with numerous additional accidentals and a new interpretation of the melodic variants from the different part books.

Below, John Eliot Gardiner leads a full performance of the work. Go ahead, you deserve it.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Comments Off on Vespro della Beata Vergine

Filed under Baroque era, New editions, Performance practice