THE MUSIC SALON: classical music, popular culture, philosophy and anything else that catches my fancy...
Sunday, March 19, 2017
Monteverdi and Tradition
In my last post on Monteverdi I focused on the contrasts he developed in his style and compared that to the smooth consistency of the ars perfecta style. But as the great historiographer R. G. Collingwood pointed out, you can view history from either the point of view of change or from the point of view of continuity. In other words, there are always new things happening and there are always other things remaining the same. This is as true of Monteverdi as anyone. Alongside the extreme harmonic juxtapositions and expressive dissonances we have the use of some age-old harmonic and melodic structures such as the Romanesca:
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The pattern is C major, G major, A minor, E major, repeated with a tiny rhythmic flourish. Wikipedia says that this was a formula popular from the mid-16th century, but it was printed in vihuela books from the first half of the century. Luys de Narváez' book from 1538 contains both the Romanesca pattern and the Passamezzo antico one. And if they were printed in 1538 you can bet your paycheck that they were in use for decades before. As Tomlinson notes, these patterns "were associated by 1550 not only with the dance but also with oral traditions of semi-improvised poetic recitation. [Tomlinson, Monteverdi, p. 60] In using these formulas, Monteverdi was following the example of Giaches de Wert, his most important influence around the time of the Third Book of Madrigals of 1592. You can find clips of Wert on YouTube. This is "Giunto alla tromba":
And here is the score of the beginning:
As you can seem exactly the same chords are used, just in a different order. Instead of C G Am E, Wert opens with Am E (Am) C G. We don't have to look very far to find a similar harmonic pattern in Monteverdi. Here is the opening of "Sovra tenere herbette" from Book 3:
Click to enlarge
The harmonies at the beginning are E major, A minor, G major, C major. Both Wert and Monteverdi made good use of this limited set of triads. As Tomlinson says, "A restricted harmonic vocabulary is not necessarily an ineffective one."
Let's finish up by listening to the whole piece, "Sovra tenere herbette" from Madrigali, Book 3:
UPDATED to correct a typo regarding the Romanesca example, and thanks to a commentator.
So THAT's what "Romanesca" means! I'd never bothered to look it up but one of my very most favorite CDs in my collection of 5 or 6 thousand is the Biber violin sonatas played by Andrew Manze as part of Romanesca. Regarding the harmonic progression itself, I as a very amateur self-teaching future violinist don't much think in chords, but I'll find a way to return to the Romanesca and explore it some more, as the 17th century has become the center of my musical interests lately.
C, G, Am, E is what I wrote. So what is incorrect? I am not certain, have to check, but the flat seventh as part of a dominant would be sometime in the 17th century I would think. Corelli?
What is seldom remarked upon for music in the late 16th C is the gradual replacement of the preferred Medieval modes of Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian and Mixolydian by the formerly disfavored Aeolian and Ionian modes. These latter modes then became our Minor and Major Scales respectively. Of course your 4 chords are part of the A minor scale with the G fluctuating between natural and sharp just as it does in modern Minor.
Monody is a rather curious example of a general technical term restricted to just one historical instance i.e. the Italian solo songs around 1600. Obviously there are examples of monody throughout history and it was probably first notated in the troubadour and later Medieval secular song collections. I suppose the unique element was the use of chromatic notes for expressive purposes in the solo voice as opposed to in the madrigal choirs of late 16th C composers.
This is just me but I find most Monteverdi singing to be too dramatic. I find it hard to believe that singers in 1600 or even 1625 sang like Handel's opera stars of 1725. Maybe by 1650 it was more noticeably "operatic" but singers would be unfamiliar with any of the intervening history our ears can't escape. The shape of his vocal melodies is more relaxed than succeeding generations of Baroque vocal music. So my preferences for Monteverdi recordings are more idiosyncratic than most listeners.
Oh yes, the term monody in musicology is used to refer to the solo vocal works around 1600 by Caccini, Monteverdi and others. But it means "solo vocal works" from that era "with chordal accompaniments." You could call early Bob Dylan "monody" as well, I suppose, except for being in the wrong era.
8 comments:
So THAT's what "Romanesca" means! I'd never bothered to look it up but one of my very most favorite CDs in my collection of 5 or 6 thousand is the Biber violin sonatas played by Andrew Manze as part of Romanesca. Regarding the harmonic progression itself, I as a very amateur self-teaching future violinist don't much think in chords, but I'll find a way to return to the Romanesca and explore it some more, as the 17th century has become the center of my musical interests lately.
I had a nice little audio clip of the chord progression, but I couldn't figure out how to embed it.
Your first progression seems incorrect: it's C, G, Am, E.
Do you know when the cadence with the flat seventh began to appear?
C, G, Am, E is what I wrote. So what is incorrect? I am not certain, have to check, but the flat seventh as part of a dominant would be sometime in the 17th century I would think. Corelli?
You wrote: "The pattern is C major, G major, E major, A minor, repeated with a tiny rhythmic flourish."
That's a typo.
Oh, right!! Amazing how you can look at something and not see it!! Thanks.
What is seldom remarked upon for music in the late 16th C is the gradual replacement of the preferred Medieval modes of Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian and Mixolydian by the formerly disfavored Aeolian and Ionian modes. These latter modes then became our Minor and Major Scales respectively. Of course your 4 chords are part of the A minor scale with the G fluctuating between natural and sharp just as it does in modern Minor.
Monody is a rather curious example of a general technical term restricted to just one historical instance i.e. the Italian solo songs around 1600. Obviously there are examples of monody throughout history and it was probably first notated in the troubadour and later Medieval secular song collections. I suppose the unique element was the use of chromatic notes for expressive purposes in the solo voice as opposed to in the madrigal choirs of late 16th C composers.
This is just me but I find most Monteverdi singing to be too dramatic. I find it hard to believe that singers in 1600 or even 1625 sang like Handel's opera stars of 1725. Maybe by 1650 it was more noticeably "operatic" but singers would be unfamiliar with any of the intervening history our ears can't escape. The shape of his vocal melodies is more relaxed than succeeding generations of Baroque vocal music. So my preferences for Monteverdi recordings are more idiosyncratic than most listeners.
Oh yes, the term monody in musicology is used to refer to the solo vocal works around 1600 by Caccini, Monteverdi and others. But it means "solo vocal works" from that era "with chordal accompaniments." You could call early Bob Dylan "monody" as well, I suppose, except for being in the wrong era.
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