Emilio de' Cavalieri
(c. 1550-1602)
La Rappresentatione dl
Anima e di Corpo
The jubilee year 1600, to the general satisfaction of music historians
dealing with the usual thorny problems of periodisation, saw the sudden
ripening of the first fruits of a kind of spectacle of which the first
experiments had taken place during the last decade of the preceding century. In
the course of a few months, between October 1600 and February 1601 three scores
were published of drammi posti in masica per recitar cantanda, the Rappresentatione
di Anima e di Carpo of Emilio de' Cavalieri, Giulio Caccini's Euridice and
Jacopo Peri's setting of the same libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini. This sudden
accumulation of performances and published scores, with long and detailed
explanatory introductions, by three musicians associated with the Medici court
in Florence, is evidence of the intense rivalry between these eminent figures
and their claims to have originated the "marvellous invention" of
dramas in music and of the recitative style. Peri, for example, though claiming
for himself the introduction of a new way of singing (maniera di canto) never
heard until then, had to admit that 'Signor Emilio de' Cavalieri, before
every other that I know, with marvellous invention had introduced this new
method of stage music' (musica sulle scene). Cavalieri, a Roman nobleman
with notable musical competence, in 1588 had been appointed by Ferdinando I de'
Medici as superintendent of art, costumes, celebrations, theatres and of the
whole musical establishment, both of voices and of other sorts of instruments
at the court in Florence. In this position, together with Giovanni de' Bardi
and the architect Buontalenti, he had collaborated in the musical element of
the celebrations, the Intermedi della Pellegrina, given in Florence in
1589 for the marriage of the Grand Duke and Christine of Lorraine. The marked
differences and rivalry with the better musicians in Florence led to
Cavalieri's gradual disassociation from the Medici court, culminating in the ending
of every artistic connection there at the end of 1600, when Caccini was
preferred to the Roman musician in the provision of music for the wedding of
Maria de' Medici and Henri IV.
In this climate of intense rivalry among the Medici musicians was probably
born the idea of staging the Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo in
Rome in February 1600. This took place in the Oratory of St Philip Neri of S.
Maria in Vallicella, the so-called New Church, the residence of the
congregation of the Oratory. Cavalieri, like other members of his family, had
for some time maintained personal connections with the Oratorian fathers and
even with Philip Neri himself, the founder of the congregation, to which he had
introduced in 1585 the singer Vittoria Archilei. In all probability the staging
of the Rappresentatione was intended as a kind of challenge by the Roman
composer to the circle in Florence, that seemed now to prefer Peri and, above
all, Caccini. It was no accident that there were present at the performances of
the Rappresentatione several music-loving cardinals, such as Montalto
and Del Monte, and 'other prelates of those that came to Florence', as
Cavalieri himself underlines in a letter to the secretary of the Grand Duke,
Marcello Accolti, who 'took special pleasure in the work, since the music moved
them to sadness and to laughter and gave them great pleasure and this music in
Florence (that is, the music of Peri and Caccini) moved them to nothing but
boredom and distaste'.
The Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo, unlike the first music
dramas, for the most part on mythological subjects and staged at court on the
occasion of celebrations of exceptional importance, has been seen in music
history as an atypical and exceptional case, either through the place where it
was staged or through its subject. In fact the libretto, attributed to the
Oratorian Father Agostino Manni and drawn from the text of a laude dialogue
between Soul and Body over twenty years old, belongs to the genre of allegory,
with moralistic and didactic implications, and recalls in certain respects a
type of spiritual performance belonging to the Italian Renaissance tradition,
with so many luoghi deputati, such as Heaven and Hell, where the souls
of the blessed and the souls of the damned respectively sing. By the side of
eponymous characters, in the Rappresentatione there are positive
personifications, such as Intellect and Counsel, or negative, such as Pleasure
and Worldly Life; their entries, in recitative style, often alternate with
entries of the chorus.
Nevertheless, if today it is now established that the Rappresentatione
di Anima e di Corpo offers no connection with the future musical oratorio,
a closer examination of the documentary sources shows too that this was not an
altogether exceptional event in the activities of the Oratory of Vallicella;
the Rappresentatione, actually, was set in the tradition of theatrical
performances that boys were accustomed to give in the Oratory during carnival,
usually in prose with some musical additions; there is also no lack of evidence
in the seventeenth century for dramas entirely in music. In the biography of
the author of the libretto, Father Agostino Manni, written towards the middle
of the century by his fellow-Oratorian Paolo Aringhi, we read, in fact, that he
also (Manni) 'introduced sometimes performances in the Oratory by boys of acts
of devotion providing particular comfort and enjoyment to those who heard them;
and because music has the power to excite souls to devotion, he endeavoured to
make some spiritual dialogue for the boy musicians in recitative style, himself
composing for this purpose the words, which were moving, accompanied by the
sweetness of song, in such away that those who heard felt contrition that moved
them to tears… Among the other works that he wrote and that were afterwards
staged in public was the one called the Dialogue of Soul and Body, which,
in the jubilee year of 1600, was staged in music in the little oratory'. An
extraordinary testimony from a scholar present at the first performance of the Rappresentatione
reports, among other things, that the part of the Soul was acted divinely
by a small boy, confirming the participation of young musicians in these
carnival spectacles. This makes clearer the meaning of a letter that Cavalieri
wrote to the Grand Duke's secretary, when he spoke of the praise received by
the priests of Vallicella for 'a little thing put on at this carnival time, a
musical performance in their oratory, that cost six scudi at the most'. In
confirmation, as it were, of this, forty years later the Roman noblemen, the
musician Pietro Della Valle, records that when he was quite young he had been
present at this little performance in the Oratory of the New Church, the first
example of recitative style brought from Florence by Emilio de' Cavalieri.
Finally it should be noticed that the Oratorian Fathers did not simply
hand over the Vallicella oratory out of pure politeness to Cavalieri, but
certainly played an active part in the promotion of the spectacle. Apart from
the fact that the author of the libretto was a religious of their congregation,
a close examination of the musical repertory of the oratory shows that the
Congregation was capable of choosing among the current musical trends of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries those that would best suit their desire for
simplicity and immediacy, and with the capacity to transmit the meaning of the
musical texts, without through this debasing the level of compositions
performed especially at the evening meetings on festival days. As Animuccia,
the first composer of the Oratorian circle, already noticed, the aim was to
'see that the words aided by the music, should be able to penetrate more
sweetly the heart of the listener, and, as the Oratorian Father Tarugi wrote,
to the one that lends an attentive ear there enters wonderfully the holy word
of God with harmony and the sweetness of music'.
This inclination towards simplicity, not to be understood as affected
naïveté, but rather as sobriety, naturalness, the opposite of the artificial
and intellectual typical of the Jesuits, finds confirmation also in the
Oratorian artistic commitment that prefers the 'naturalistic' trends,
exemplified above all by Caravaggio, and in preaching in which the Oratorians
deliberately avoided every rhetorical excess (sermons are recommended to be
half an hour, without any ornamentation of words). The Vallicella fathers,
therefore, looked to an art capable of speaking more emotively than
intellectually, more to the senses than to reason; so for this reason they
opened their doors to the new recitative style, quickly realising its potential
in communicating and moving an audience. Not by chance, as evidence of the
cathartic efficacy of recitar cantando the Oratorians kept in their
library a reminiscence concerning the scholar Giulio Cesare Bittifango of the
positive effects of music that moves the feelings aroused in him by Cavalieri's
Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo:
I, Giovan Vittorio Rossi, finding myself one day in the house of Signor
Cavaliere Giulio Cesare Bottifango, a gentleman, of exceedingly rare qualities,
an excellent secretary, poet and most intelligent musician, and having entered
into argument about music that moves the feelings, he told me definitely that
he had not felt anything more moving than the representation of the Soul set to
music that he well remembered by Signor Emilio de' Cavalieri and performed in
the holy year 1600 in the Oratory of the Assumption, in the house of the very
reverend Fathers of the Oratory in the New Church, and that he found himself
present there on that day when they performed the work three times without ever
having enough, and he told me in particular that hearing the part of Time he
felt come upon him great fear and terror, and at the part of Body, performed by
the same one that played Time, when he was somewhat in doubt what he ought to
do, whether to follow God or the World, he resolved to follow God, that tears
fell from his eyes in very great abundance and he felt rise in his heart great
penitence and sorrow for his sins, nor was this only then, but always
thereafter what they sang, every time that he wanted to take Communion, to
arouse devotion in himself, he sang that part and broke out in a flood of
tears. He praised again finally the part of Soul, that was divinely performed
by a small boy, and said that in the music there was inestimable skill that
expressed the feelings of sorrow and sweetness with certain false sixths that
moved to the seventh and caught the soul; in sum, he concluded in that form it
was not possible to make anything finer or more perfect, and he went un, so
that you may see yourself that what I say is true, and led me to the
harpsichord and sang some pieces from that work, and in particular that part
with the Body that so moved him, and it seemed good to me to ask him to make me
a part, which he very courteously did, and copied it for me with his own hand,
and I learned it by heart, and I often went to his house to hear him sing it.
In fact Alessandro Guidotti, in the dedication of the published score to
Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, seems fully to adhere to this Oratorian ideology,
bearing witness how the Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo, performed
'last February in Rome, in the oratory of Vallicella, with so great a gathering
and such applause could clearly show how much this style is fitting to move to
devotion'. The words come to mind of the Florentine scholar Giovan Battista
Strozzi the younger, a guest at Vallicella in 1590, who cleverly summarised the
aim of the Oratorian fathers as moving [souls] and not offering things to
marvel at (è il muovere e non il far maravigliare).
Arnaldo Morelli
English version by Keith Anderson
...novamente posta in Musica... per recitar Cantando
(...newly put into Music... to recite Singing)
In his Preface to the Readers, placed at the beginning of Euridice,
composed for the marriage of Henri IV and Maria de'Medici and performed on
6th October 1600, Jacopo Peri, while not denying his claim that at the end of
1594 he had set to music Rinuccini's Dafne, nevertheless does not
hesitate to acknowledge that Cavalieri, 'first of every other I know', invented
stage music. Such primacy is also attributed by Doni, a most punctilious
authority, to Cavalieri, who, among other things, first introduced on the
frontispiece of his Rappresentatione the expression recitar cantando (to
recite singing), that became the symbol of the origins of Melodramma, claims to
priority in the invention of which gave rise to such jealousy. Caccini was never
willing to acknowledge the claims of others and about Cavalieri there formed a
circle to oppose the ambitions of Giulio Romano. The struggle for primacy
developed over the succession of dates and if Cavalieri staged his opera in
February 1600, the dedication of Euridice, performed, as has been said,
on 6th October 1600, is nevertheless dated by Peri to 6th February of the same
year.
The Notice to the Readers of the Rappresentatione makes
reference, wrongly indicating the year 1588, to the Comedia grande at
the Medici wedding that had marked the highest point of Cavalieri's career as
the then superintendent of festivities. Reading between the lines, it can be
seen that there is the delusion that the proper merits of the organizer of
festivities was not recognised by Ferdinando I dei Medici, whose title of
nobility was linked for ever, indissolubly, with the famous Ballo composed
for the festivities of 1589, recognised by contemporary musicians as the Ballo
del Granduca, source of a number of varied works. The Rappresentatione, notwithstanding
the negative criticisms of Doni and of others in modern times, is a unique
event in the history of music. It took place in the Jubilee Year, on the border
between, on the one hand, medieval mystery plays and, on the other, the Oratory
and Baroque melodrama. In particular the scenes in Hell are borrowed from
medieval scenes of devilry and at the same time are a prelude to the similar
scenes of the Underworld of the Baroque, starting, above all, with the Orfeo
of Monteverdi. What makes the work absolutely unique is the inspiration
that stems from the contact Cavalieri must have had with St Philip Neri, who
died in 1595. Only this transcendent motivation could explain the perfect
success of a work based on completely devotional characters and succeeds in
touching strings of the intensest emotion, transposing profane musical
characters into an ambience of edification and thus, in spite of difficulty,
available for general appreciation.
The two leading 'lovers' are Corpo (Body) and Anima (Soul)
for whom Cavalieri supplies arioso recitatives, ornamented arias and
even a duet. If the performers were adolescents, nevertheless there is
reference in the Preface to the famous Vittoria Archilei, who must have been a
remarkable singer, in view of the frequency with which her name appears in the
prefaces of the period, including Peri's, as the supreme interpreter of the Disperatione
di Fileno (The Despair of Philenus) by the same composer, with a text
written by the gentlewoman from Lucca, Laura Guidiccioni, who must have been
closely associated with Cavalicri. For the rest, we know that in the Intermedi
of 1589, supervised, as has been said above, by Cavalieri, who played the
most important part of director and composer, famous singers took part. In this
respect it is not without importance to remember what Viadana said of boys'
voices, a view that Cavalieri, who in the Oratory made use, for preference, of
professional singers, certainly shared: 'for the most part the boys sing
carelessly and with little grace'. It is useful to remember that, contrary to
the wide practice of singers of renaissance and baroque music today, the
so-called vibrato was so typical in singing that at that time the vox humana
stop was added to the organ, also called Fiffaro or German flute or
transverse flute, with its oscillating sound. The mechanism of the tremblant
fort, noted by Mersenne and which brings a considerable degree of
oscillation, is always absolutely alien to our present taste.
If, as appears probable, there were agreements and anti-Caccini meetings
in order to coordinate common stylistic standards between Cavalieri, Luzzaschi,
Merulo and Verovio, the fact that the Rappresentatione was printed in
movable type, extremely accurate in the alignment of the parts, seems
anomalous. In fact the principal editor of the music of the Oratory of St
Philip, with the Lodi della Musica and Il Diletto Musicale, was
the Flemish Verovio, inventor of engraving on copper plates, while Luzzaschi
and Merulo relied on the copperplate printing method for the printing of their
own works. The Rappresentatione is closely tied to the musical
production in Rome that St Philip Neri had succeeded in bringing about with his
Counter-Reformation innovations: it is enough to examine the Lodi della
Musica or Il Diletto Musicale to realise that Cavalieri was the last
of the prestigious acquisitions that the good 'Pippo', St Philip's nickname,
had enlisted in his cause, a supreme example of the ignorance of the existing
church establishment, totally indifferent if not hostile to culture in general
and to music in particular. It should be noted that the year 2000 would seem
the ideal opportunity for a revival of this opera.
The text by Padre Manni follows, as recommended in the preface, and
harshly criticized by Doni, versification based on short verses that make use
of rhymes using a stress on the antepenultimate syllable, a form of which
Giovanelli was a champion (cf. the chorus O quanti errori e tenebre) and,
in the spirit of the meetings of St Philip that according to accounts of the
time brought together singing and spiritual converse, the Rappresentatione is
preceded by a moral dialogue in which two young men compete in fervent scorn
for earthly things.
The Preface reports in the third person (according to the Spanish-style
custom of not associating noblemen with a trade, as detailed in the Cortegiano
of Castiglione and followed, among others, by Kapsberger) through the
printer the performance directions of Cavalieri that have been carefully
followed in the present recording. Such directions, however (arias rhythmically
varied and provided with echoes, Moresca dances and 'changing instruments to
suit the feeling of the text') are followed in many of the works of the early
Baroque, among them Orfeo. The continuo of Cavalieri is suited to the
structure of the Roman ostinato, as in many basso continuo parts
of the period. This is measured to underline a simple form of melody not
structured in the verbal pattern of Caccini that appears, at least in theory,
extremely grudging towards the Canzonetta, a form considered vulgar, and
is directed rather towards 'a certain noble contempt for song (another
conclusion coined by Caccini from Castiglione) passing through some
dissonances, but keeping the bass chord firm'. Actually Cavalieri's melody
avoids the tedium of recitative as clearly criticized by Mazzocchi and reflects
his preference for the genre of the Intermedio, richly articulated in
dance rhythms. Doni too criticizes Cavalieri's remarks on versification that in
his opinion with the use of short verses would turn dramatic music into barzellette
e villanelle (vulgar comedy).
Turning to the work itself, which, in order to keep as much as possible
the expressive effect has been recorded with instruments and voices in
mean-tone tuning, according to the directions in the Preface 'in the
beginning before the curtain opens, it would be good to perform music with
doubled voices and a quantity of instruments: best for this purpose could be
the madrigal No. 86, O Signor santo e vero: which is for six voices'.
This 'madrigal' in the present recording comes before the Proem of Avveduto (Awareness)
and Prudenzio (Prudence), young men who in their names reveal the
programmatic intentions and anticipate the moral characters of the work, listed
in the last speech of Avveduto. The entrance of Tempo (Time)
takes the place of the descent from the clouds of the god in Baroque opera. The
rhythmic scansion used in the present version attempts to underline the running
on of time. The presence of the chorus, a moralising element, is clearly
inspired by Greek models, in line with the revival of the idea of musical affetto
in circles in Florence in which Cavalieri had participated: the aria 'sung
and played in the ancient way' printed at the end of the Rappresentatione, with
accompaniment of sordellini to imitate the double-reed instrument or aulos,
is final testimony to this. In line too with how Monteverdi writes in Orfeo
(which indicates as chorus also the parts obviously written for two solo
shepherds), the voices of the chorus, according to Cavalieri, ought to be
single ones, also in consideration of the embellishments that are indicated
that could prove difficult to perform with a number of voices at the same time:
at the most 'it would be possible, if wanted, to double them, singing now four,
and at times together, since the stage holds eight'. This last specification
suits performance in a setting not much bigger than 'should hold at the most a
thousand people to sit comfortably, for their greater silence and
satisfaction', according to Cavalieri, criticized here too by Doni, and fits
the narrow stage on which Monteverdi records that Orfeo was performed. On the
other hand Marco da Gagliano declares in the preface to his Dafne that
'the chorus should not be less than sixteen or eighteen persons'. The
instrumental ritornelli are for dances and are therefore repeated. Intelletto
(Intellect) appears on stage with an aria that, in its fulness, goes
against the rule of the Preface, according to which 'the narrative of a
solo should be as short as possible': on the contrary all the characters have
an extended aria (that for convenience we shall call 'solo') quite varied in affetti
(Cavalieri suggests that 'the passing from one affect to another opposite
one, as from sad to cheerful, from fierce to gentle, and the like, are
extremely moving'). The affetto is varied by Intelletto either
rhythmically in e riso insiem e lutto (laughter and grief together), or
through the use of a pause, quindi mille sospiri (then a thousand
sighs), or in the lowering of the melodic line, as at dal cor profondo (from
the depth of the heart), or by daring melodic leaps, as in sempre felice (always
happy). Through all the first part he will be silent to return in competition
with Consiglio (Counsel) in exalting Heaven and calling on the Blessed
Souls, ending with an exhortation to the festa per tutto, the banquet
for everyone, rich in rhythmic and vocal effects.
As has already been said, the two leading characters, Anima and Corpo
correspond to the two lovers of contemporary theatre, elaborating their arioso
recitatives which in contrasting affetti and in echoes and duets
anticipate the romantic element of Baroque opera. Corpo closes the
opening scene with a solo richly furnished with expressive contrasts that pass
from moral despair to faith. This very fine passage was certainly dear to
Cavalieri, who in his Preface advises on the stage that 'Corpo when
he says the words Sì che hormai Alma mia (‘From now on, my Soul’) and
what follows, could take off some vain ornament, such as a gold necklace, hat
feather or other things'. Anima ends her appearance in the work with a
very rich varied solo in which Cavalieri will certainly have been inspired by
contemporary virtuoso arias for female singers. The two Sinfonie are
based on ascending and descending scales, as at the height of the sixteenth
century, on which the instruments elaborate a series of variations. They are
constructed on repeated melodic-rhythmic elements that lend themselves to
concerted performance. It may be noted that the Sinfonie are indicated
as the end of acts, while they open to full effect the following act, as in
Monteverdi's Orfeo. Consiglio (Counsel) is in importance parallel to Intelletto
(Intellect) and with him represent the deuteragonists of the work. The solo
with which he appears is also irregular in its diversity of pace and greatly
contrasted affetti, among them a battle analogous to that included in a
recitative of Venus in Monteverdi's Ballo delle Ingrate, Invan gentil
guerriero (In vain gentle warrior). Piacere (Pleasure) with his two
companions, like Mondo (World) and Vita Mondana (Earthly Life)
make an important entrance to capture the attention of the public. Real
carnival figures, as at the time of Lorenzo Il Magnifico, they represent the
temptations to which the leading characters are subjected. The entrance of Piacere
is preceded and interrupted by a noisy ritornello for a group of pifferi,
an ensemble for dances in which one or two sackbuts come together with two
bombards, while the song is made by two parts in sesquialtera proportion,
with rhythmic acceleration to considerable effect. Such variations as the
alternation of solo and chorus exemplify much of what Cavalieri had written in
his introduction: 'when a little has been sung solo, it is good to have the
chorus sing, and to vary often the sounds; and that now the soprano sings, now
the bass, now the contralto, now the tenor; and that arias and the music not be
the same, but varied with many rhythmic and echoing inventions as much as
possible'. It is in this way that the aria Vò dimandarne al Cielo is
here introduced. The second part of the opera is entrusted to the heavenly,
earthly and infernal choruses. Intelletto and Consiglio call on
the blessed souls and the damned respectively (and here too Cavalieri
anticipates the scenes of magic in Baroque opera). The quartet of the
protagonists and deuteragonists comment on these, while everything leads to the
great chorus O signor santo e vero that Cavalieri calls a madrigal and
which is the musical centre of the entire opera. The courtly origins of the
work are realised in the Festa da ballo that ends the Rappresentatione.
It is important to remember that throughout the Baroque period dance was
current in the Jesuit colleges. Certainly the Rappresentatione of
Cavalieri is a glorification of the work of St Philip Neri, showing great
modernity and tolerance in the use of secular forms, not treating them with
bigotry but moulding them in a true spectacle in the manner of the medieval
mysteries rather than creating an artificial morality in the style of the
sacred oratorio of the Baroque period.
Sergio Vartolo
English version by Keith Anderson
Emilio de' Cavalieri and the Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo
Emilio de' Cavalieri was born about the year 1550 in Rome into a noble
family of marked cultural interests and achievements. He was involved for a
number of years, from 1578, with the organization of Lenten music at the Oratorio
del Crocifisso, in which his elder brother had long been concerned in the same
capacity, and was associated in Rome with Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici,
superintending, after the Cardinal's accession as Grand Duke of Tuscany, the
lavish wedding celebrations of Ferdinando with Christine of Lorraine and
continuing to serve the Grand Duke in a further series of pastorals and in
diplomatic intrigues over the papal succession. The festivities for the wedding
of Henri IV of France and Maria de' Medici in October 1600, which he largely
superintended, included music by Cavalieri and his production of Peri's Euridice,
but the principal entertainment, Il rapimento di Cefalo (‘The
Abduction of Cephalus’) by Caccini, was produced by that composer and Giovanni
de' Medici, to the annoyance of Cavalieri, who regarded what seems to have been
a particularly lavish and, from the written accounts left, successful
performance as disastrous. He left Florence, where he was replaced by Caccini,
and returned to Rome, where he had continued his connection with the Oratorio
del Crocifisso. It was there that in 1600 he produced two performances of his Rappresentatione
di Anima e di Corpo. The work has considerable historical significance as
the first staged work set to music from beginning to end Cavalieri died in Rome
in 1602.
The period in which the Rappresentatione was written was one of
much musical and acoustical experiment, not least in the divisions of the
octave, so that Cavalieri could have a special organ made that allowed for
enharmonic differences, the difference, that is, between, say, B flat and A
sharp, notes which are identical on the modern keyboard. Gesualdo was among
those composers writing for keyboard instruments of a similar kind. The Rappresentatione
offers the first example of a score published with a figured bass, a bass
line with numbers and other symbols to indicate the chord to be used by the
addition of notes above. The influence of Platonic and Aristotelian theories of
music had considerable importance in the development of the new music,
exemplified by Cavalieri's work. From this arose the so-called doctrine of the affetti
(affections), by which composers, like orators, were to induce a certain
state of mind (or certain feelings) in their hearers. The theories being
developed derived in part from Plato's Republic, with its discussion of
the effects of music un character, and in part on the teachings of rhetoric,
which remained an important element in education, and hence in both music and
drama.
Keith Anderson
