Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
Madrigals Book II
Monteverdi’s Second Book of Madrigals was published by
Angelo Gardano in Venice in 1590 when the composer was just 22 years old and
still acknowledging himself to be a disciple of his former teacher Marc’Antonio
Ingegneri. Appearing barely three years after his first work devoted to the
highest form of Renaissance linguistic and musical experimentation, this new
book was dedicated to Giacomo Ricardi, an influential figure in Milanese life.
We know that Monteverdi’s talents as a violist had been recognised in Milan,
but not whether he chose his dedicatee because he was still seeking a position
there or because he was grateful for a recommendation already made to the court
of the Gonzaga family — he was engaged by Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga as a viol or
violin-player there around that time (1589/90). It seems likely that Monteverdi
had tried on more than one occasion to gain an introduction to this prestigious
court: by setting in his Second Book a significant number of poems by Torquato
Tasso, a favourite of both the Estensi family of Ferrara and the Gonzagas of
Mantua, he may well have been aligning himself with the court which most
appreciated and encouraged the development of the madrigal as the symbol of
synthesis between the arts and the fruit of contemporary aristocratic culture.
In these new works he moves almost completely away from the
repetitive structure typical of the First Book (Naxos 8.555307), and towards
the “form without a form” which is shaped around the lyric that inspires and
sustains it. The poetry and images chosen here emphasize the two favourite
themes of court culture: love and nature. While the composer and contemporary
musical culture had already covered the first of these in some detail, that of
nature, in its various guises — vivid, gentle, unbridled and passionate —
offered Monteverdi ample opportunity for the word-painting and pictorialism
which characterize this book. Protagonists’ sentiments can be perceived in the
enraptured contemplation of the sights and sounds of nature, whether they are
mirrored in or contrasted with the serenity offered by this spectacle.
One example of this is the two-part madrigal Non si
levav’ancor 1 and 2, undoubtedly one of the most famous and frequently studied
pieces not only of this book but of the entire madrigal repertoire. Initially
the music is subdued [1], describing a still sleeping nature. Images relating
to the imminent daybreak — the moment just before dawn, the birds still in
their nests and the glow of Venus’ light (non si levav[a] … né spiegavan … ma
fiammeggiava) — conceal the protagonists on whom we gradually zoom in: two
lovers who must part after a joyful night together. Their many different
impulses then appear: kisses, tears and sighs. In the second part 2 these
feelings are increasingly transformed into dreadful suffering as nature
awakens, setting the seal on their separation. The music follows the turn of
events with a series of examples of word-painting: the due vaghi amanti become
two solo voices, Venus’ fiammeggiare fleet and sparkling writing followed by a
sweet love theme, the birds’ flight a whirl of notes, the felice notte a
dance-like theme, the sospiri an interrupted sequence, the pianti and suffering
of the partita (which for the lovers is almost synonymous with death) harsh and
dissonant harmonies and melodic leaps whose boldness is still striking today.
Most striking of all here are the silences, translated into musical pauses that
from here on Monteverdi elevates into moments of maximum expressivity.
Brilliant too is the presence of the opening theme whose notes arch gently
upwards to mirror the sunrise, recurring at the end of the first section of the
piece and again in the second, when the much anticipated and feared appearance
of the sun condemns the lovers to the pain of separation.
Nature, with its movements, sounds and colours, is again the
protagonist (here without human counterparts) in Ecco mormorar l’onde #, a
masterpiece of great freshness in which somnolent nature wakes at dawn, with a
shiver of life starting from the darker voices in the lower tessitura and
gradually unfolding towards the higher voices. These then imitate the sound of
birdsong and, from the initial darkness, announce fanfare-like the triumphant entry
of the sun to illuminate the sea and the mountains, and breathe gentle gusts of
wind over them (as suggested by flurries of notes that chase each other through
the different voices). Rarely do we find such accurate, sophisticated and
effective skill at evoking visual drama elsewhere in the madrigal repertoire.
Two other madrigals form with Ecco mormorar a delightful
triptych set to Tasso poems published between 1586 and 1587: Dolcemente dormiva
$ e Mentr’io mirava fiso @. These three pieces are quite deliberately placed at
the heart of the book and begin with a kind of recitative, a repeated note for
solo voice, then taken up by three voices, leading to a wonderful fusion of
counterpoint and harmony, varied tonal combinations and a knowing musical inspiration
which perfectly interprets and accentuates the playful and often mischievous
text. In Dolcemente dormiva the reflective held notes and the rapid melodies
which signal the stormy arrival of the little cupids emphasise a lover’s
contrasting feelings of desire and timidity towards his beloved. A beautiful
central episode, surely something more than simple word-painting, provides a
musical description of the way he gradually and fearfully lowers his lips to
hers: the slowly descending melody is in complete contrast to the ascending
scale which follows, representing the sensation of paradise offered by the
sensual meeting of their lips.
There are many other amorous, even erotic, scenes in this
book, from Quell’ombr’esser vorrei 0 to Intorno a due vermiglie 6, and Non son
in queste rive 7 to Tutte le bocche belle 8. Their conspicuous presence makes
it seem all the more likely that Monteverdi was seeking patronage from the
Gonzaga family, who had after all built the Palazzo del Te with its many
frescoes on the theme of love. Still in this amorous, ironic field, we find
Mentr’io mirava fiso @, a masterpiece of counterpoint, a rapid whirl of
superimposed and contrasting texts and melodies, perfectly depicting the
confusion and bewilderment caused by Love. All that remains to the man struck
by Cupid’s arrows (in this case by “two lovely little sprites”) is to yield and
abandon himself to desperate cries for help which in the second part of the
madrigal materialise into highly effective slow-moving superimposed melodies,
with dissonant vertical harmonies (in contrast with the horizontal nature of
the first part). The same process is seen in Non m’è grave’l morire (, most
impressive for its gradually developed and beautiful harmonies on the words
lagrimar per pietà, after a horizontal first section (beginning in recitativo
style on a single note) and a reflective second section in which clusters of
voices move vertically with the same rhythm and words.
S’andasse Amor a caccia ! is a charming fresco which
transports us into the description of a hunting party, with all the calls and
other sounds of this typical Renaissance court event. The final piece in this
book is Cantai un tempo ¡, an “archaic” madrigal in terms both of its
compositional process and the choice of poet (the classical scholar Pietro
Bembo, 1470–1547, a representative of an older era). This is an entire piece
dedicated to word-painting, whose “archaistic motet-like style with luxuriant
melismas and an uninterrupted flow of the five voices, somewhat in the style of
the Rore of 1542 or of Willaert’s Musica Nova” (Einstein, The Italian Madrigal,
1949) demonstrates the way in which Monteverdi understood and was leaving
behind the past to build something absolutely new in this second book. Its
position is totally intentional: this final reminder of a bygone age, now
vanished for ever, gives even greater emphasis to the absolute innovation of
the compositional techniques used in the rest of the book and from this moment
onwards by Monteverdi, whose experiments would lead music into a new, modern
era.
Performance and interpretation decisions
Unfortunately the first edition of the Second Book survives
only in an incomplete version which we have only been able to complete by
referring to the two later editions of 1607 and 1621. For typographical reasons
four of the central madrigals appeared in a different order in the first
edition, and to be faithful to the author’s initial intentions we have decided
to restore the original order (as seen in modern times only in the 1979
Fondazione C. Monteverdi, Cremona edition).
To be consistent with the interpretation decisions discussed
in the previous album, we have chosen to continue working with a basso seguente
accompaniment, mean-tone temperament and male voices, from countertenors in the
highest cantus line down to tenors, baritone and bass, thereby achieving a
fascinating mix of timbres, never heard in Monteverdi’s madrigals. We know that
women used to sing secular (not sacred) music at Italian courts, but in our
opinion this may well have been the exception rather than the rule; we wanted,
with philological accuracy, to offer an interesting alternative to previous
recordings. As a tribute to Monteverdi’s recognised talents as a violist, we
have included the instrument in our ensemble: recent research by James Bates
(Italian Viola da Gamba, Solignac-Torino, 2002) confirms the composer’s command
and constant use of the instrument.
Compared to the First Book, the Second offers fewer
performance choices as regards cadences and musica ficta (the sharpening or
flattening of notes to avoid certain awkward intervals), on account of the
greater clarity of writing, but does provide even greater problems as regards
vocal expression. Making the most of textual study and our natural
“all-Italian” sensibilities, we have tried to implement the rules of
performance advanced by Nicola Vicentino in 1555: “the words must be sung as
intended by the composer, and the voice must express the sentiments expressed
by the words, whether joyful or melancholy, gentle or cruel, and the accents
must be placed so as to respect the pronunciation of the words and the rhythm
of the notes […] One must proceed in a certain manner which cannot be expressed
in writing, for example singing softly or loudly, quickly or slowly, and
adapting the speed to indicate the passions expressed by the words and the
harmony”.
Marco Longhini
English version: Susannah Howe
