The Opera | Page 6

'Euridice' contains an
interesting preface, in which the composer sets forth the theory upon
which he worked, and the aims which he had in view. It is too long to
be reprinted here, but should be read by all interested in the early
history of opera.
With the production of 'Euridice' the history of opera may be said to
begin; but if the new art-form had depended only upon the efforts of
Peri and his friends, it must soon have languished and died. With all
their enthusiasm, the little band of Florentines had too slight an
acquaintance with the science of music to give proper effect to the
ideas which they originated. Peri built the ship, but it was reserved for
the genius of Claudio Monteverde to launch it upon a wider ocean than
his predecessor could have dreamed of. Monteverde had been trained in
the polyphonic school of Palestrina, but his genius had never
acquiesced in the rules and restrictions in which the older masters
delighted. He was a poor contrapuntist, and his madrigals are chiefly
interesting as a proof of how ill the novel harmonies of which he was
the discoverer accorded with the severe purity of the older school But
in the new art he found the field his genius required. What had been
weakness and license in the madrigal became strength and beauty in the
opera. The new wine was put into new bottles, and both were preserved.
Monteverde produced his 'Arianna' in 1607, and his 'Orfeo' in 1608,
and with these two works started opera upon the path of development
which was to culminate in the works of Wagner. 'Arianna,' which,
according to Marco da Gagliano, himself a rival composer of high
ability, 'visibly moved all the theatre to tears,' is lost to us save for a

few quotations; but 'Orfeo' is in existence, and has recently been
reprinted in Germany. A glance at the score shows what a gulf
separates this work from Peri's treatment of the same story. Monteverde,
with his orchestra of thirty-nine instruments--brass, wood, and strings
complete--his rich and brilliant harmonies, sounding so strangely
beautiful to ears accustomed only to the severity of the polyphonic
school, and his delicious and affecting melodies, sometimes rising
almost to the dignity of an aria, must have seemed something more
than human to the eager Venetians as they listened for the first time to
music as rich in colour as the gleaming marbles of the Cà d'Oro or the
radiant canvases of Titian and Giorgione.
The success of Monteverde had its natural result. He soon had pupils
and imitators by the score. The Venetians speedily discovered that they
had an inherent taste for opera, and the musicians of the day delighted
to cater for it. Monteverde's most famous pupil was Cavalli, to whom
may with some certainty be attributed an innovation which was
destined to affect the future of opera very deeply. In his time, to quote
Mr. Latham's 'Renaissance of Music,' 'the musica parlante of the
earliest days of opera was broken up into recitative, which was less
eloquent, and aria, which was more ornamental. The first appearance of
this change is to be found in Cavalli's operas, in which certain
rhythmical movements called "arias" which are quite distinct from the
musica parlante, make their appearance. The music assigned by
Monteverde to Orpheus when he is leading Eurydice back from the
Shades is undoubtedly an air, but the situation is one to which an air is
appropriate, and musica parlante would be inappropriate. If the drama
had been a play to be spoken and not sung, there would not have been
any incongruity in allotting a song to Orpheus, to enable Eurydice to
trace him through the dark abodes of Hades. But the arias of Cavalli are
not confined to such special situations, and recur frequently,' Cavalli
had the true Venetian love of colour. In his hands the orchestra began
to assume a new importance. His attempts to give musical expression to
the sights and sounds of nature--the murmur of the sea, the rippling of
the brook and the tempestuous fury of the winds--mark an interesting
step in the history of orchestral development. With Marcantonio Cesti
appears another innovation of scarcely less importance to the history of

opera than the invention of the aria itself--the da capo or the repetition
of the first part of the aria in its entirety after the conclusion of the
second part. However much the da capo may have contributed to the
settlement of form in composition, it must be admitted that it struck at
the root of all real dramatic effect, and in process of time degraded
opera to the level of a concert. Cesti was a pupil of Carissimi, who is
famous chiefly for his sacred works, and from