Monteverdi– The Man behind the Music (Part-III)
The Venetian Years
The first post in this series tracked Claudio Monteverdi’s unpleasant time at the Mantuan court, showing his resilience, pragmatism, and ability to channel immense personal loss in his music. Next, we examined the circumstances behind his move to Venice, seeing the composer’s ability to adapt to stressful situations, kowtow to patrons, and indignation in disgrace. Today, we cover the last three decades of his life, spent in Venice as the maestro di cappella (Director of Music) of St Mark’s Basilica. These were years of relative calm; Monteverdi now had a stable income, which he could also supplement with private commissions. These Venetian years led to great musical innovation, yielding output which was very different from Monteverdi’s Mantuan compositions.
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Monteverdi’s job at St Mark’s was one with great prestige and great responsibility. In the century before him, renowned composers like Adrian Willaert, Cipriano de Rore, and Gioseffo Zarlino (whom you may remember from my entry on counterpoint) had occupied this seat. However, the last few maestri had overseen a decline at St Mark’s due to ill health and poor discipline. On taking up his position in 1613, Monteverdi faced a dilapidated group and had to restore it to its days of glory. He was more than up to the task and commanded respect in his new position. The handsome (and unlike in Mantua, regularly paid) salary, apartments, and ability to freelance elsewhere alongside the main job also helped produce a flurry of diverse works and forge connections. In 1620, Duke Ferdinando Gonzaga (formerly Cardinal, whom Monteverdi had worked with in the past, and who had now succeeded his brother Francesco, who had died soon after dismissing Monteverdi, as duke of Mantua) offered Monteverdi his old position back. The shrewd composer replied to his old friend and colleague the nobleman Alessandro Striggio, the medium of Duke Ferdinando’s offer:
“…this Most Serene Republic, which has never given a salary of more than 200 ducats to any of my predecessors– whether Adrian, Cipriano, Zarlino, or any others– gives me 400, a favor that I must not lightly set aside, […] Nor, having done this, have they ever had second thoughts: indeed they have honored me further, in that they will accept no singer into the cappella without first hearing the opinion of the maestro di cappella [i.e., Monteverdi], […] There is no gentleman who does not esteem and honor me, and when I go and perform, whether church music or chamber music, I swear to Your Excellency that the whole city runs to listen.”
He continues about the nature of the maestro di cappella role at St Mark’s:
“His position is assured until he dies and is not affected by the death of the procurators or of the prince, provided he gives loyal and devoted service and not the opposite. If he does not go and collect his salary at the right time it is brought to his house. […] I have been begged again and again by the wardens of the schools and earn 200 ducats a year, for anyone who wants the maestro di cappella to make music for them will pay 30, even 40 or as many as 50 ducats for two vespers and a mass and afterwards will also thank him very warmly.”
Towards the end:
“My conclusion, excellent Sir, is this. Taking everything into consideration, Claudio, who has already in the past completely submitted himself to His Highness's wishes and commands, cannot honorably move unless for the better and thus feel entirely justified in leaving the service of these excellent gentlemen; for he has been so honored and favored by them as no longer to be laughed at by those of little merit who have earned much nor blamed by the world and by his sons.”
After decades of bowing and scraping to patrons who did not treat him nearly as well as his talents merited, Monteverdi finally had the upper hand, and he played that hand well. He was careful not to come off as too high-headed, though; the previous year, he had dedicated his Seventh Book of Madrigals to the duchess of Mantua, and throughout his time in Venice, took up many private commissions from the Gonzaga– although making sure he prioritized his Venetian duties. Above all, the very frank 1620 letter shows that Monteverdi relished the stability, respect, and job and income security at the Republic of Venice, something sorely lacked in Mantua, where he was at the whims and fancies of capricious, miserly noblemen.
Monteverdi’s musical output from these Venetian years is varied in genre and style. As maestro di cappella, he wrote numerous sacred works, often in the “first practice” of Renaissance polyphony. Much of these are lost to us. He also wrote in the “second practice”, the phrase he had coined decades ago to describe innovations– his own and those of others– in the use of dissonance and expression in music.
In the secular realm, his music was even more avant-garde and culminated in three magnificent operas in his final years. His Seventh Book of Madrigals (pub. 1619) was markedly different from the first six, going beyond his embrace of dissonance to produce music in the new “concerted” style– instead of the usual four- or five-voiced madrigals, this book contains pieces ranging from one to four voices, with fairly prominent instrumental accompaniment. “Concerto”, as the book was titled, did not yet mean a piece for a prominent solo instrument accompanied by orchestra; in Monteverdi’s time, it referred to interaction between voices and instruments, and among different harmonies and contrasting parts. Venice gave him the flexibility and time to go down this route.
The Eighth Book of Madrigals (pub. 1638) was even more revolutionary. I plan to write at length about this treasury, this proud statement issued towards the end of his life. For now, I will state that this collection, the works of which were written throughout Monteverdi’s time in Venice, and even contains a piece first performed in Mantua, is a field trip through the complete spectrum of human emotion. In the preface, Monteverdi writes of bringing to musical life an “agitated” genus; he had heard composers write in the “moderate” and “soft” moods but not yet bring about wrath and intemperance. He does so spectacularly in many of the pieces here, grouped into “Madrigals of War” and “Madrigals of Love” with some “staged madrigals” too, with rapid repetitions of the same note through multiple words of text and extended trills and ornaments to highlight rage. The style remained popular after his death and spread through Europe. While the Eighth Book was not reprinted, it is in many ways the most concise and yet expansive summary of Monteverdi’s musical legacy, rivalling his operas as a swansong.
Monteverdi’s last few years were not devoid of drama. In 1637, a singer at St Mark’s, Domenico Aldegati, went on a public tirade against the maestro, calling him a “thieving, cheating he-goat”. The enraged Monteverdi, who had some time ago entered the priesthood, wrote to the procurators about how Aldegati had insulted him, “having respect neither for the office that I hold from the Most Serene Republic nor for my age and my priesthood, nor for the honor of my family and of my virtue, but spurred on by a wild fury and with a loud raucous voice…” Monteverdi added how he forgave the singer personally, but could not let his office be insulted without consequences, and even asked for an honorable discharge and permission to leave for his ancestral holdings. After proceedings, Aldegati was given a severe reprimand. The maestro di cappella, despite some eccentricities, was too precious and therefore given much freer rein than had been afforded to his predecessors.
Claudio Monteverdi died after a few days of illness on November 29, 1643. Earlier in the year, he had gone on a tour of Lombardy, even stopping by Mantua to seek the yet unpaid pension his old employers had granted him. A contemporary account wrote,
“The news of so great a loss disturbed and turned all the city to sadness and mourning, and it was accompanied by the choir of singers not with song but with tears and weeping, these singers being more than usually devoted to his name and obedient to his instructions. But considering that changed from an earthly to a heavenly swan he must be happily forming among the cherubim harmonious and divine melodies, having laid aside all sadness, they unanimously decided to honor him with one of the most solemn funerals that our homeland has seen and heard…”
The beloved maestro di cappella had achieved pan-Italian celebrity status. While his music would be lost and not revisited until more than two centuries later, his immediate legacy was profound, with students such as Francesco Cavalli and Barbara Strozzi picking up on his innovations and representing them in their own work, and the German Heinrich Schütz, who studied with him briefly in 1629, achieving those same goals for music in his homeland.
Next time, I will focus entirely on Monteverdi’s Venetian operas, the centerpieces of my own research on his music, and evince what they tell us about him as a person.
Music Referenced here:
References
Arnold, Denis and Nigel Fortune. “The Monteverdi Companion.” London: Faber, 1968.
Fabbri, Paolo. “Monteverdi.” Translated by Tim Carter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511627279.
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