The First Modern Composer: Claudio Monteverdi

The Ducal Palace at Mantua, where L'Orfeo was premiered in 1607. BMK/CC BY-SA 2.0 de

“Among the blessings that come by chance upon mankind, the birth of an artistic genius may well be the greatest.” So begins Leo Schrade’s influential 1950 biography of the Baroque composer Claudio Monteverdi. Its title, “Monteverdi: Creator of Modern Music,” says it all. In flowery language, Schrade made an eloquent argument for the Italian as “the first and greatest among musicians” for not only his revolutionary technical innovations, but the way he blended art with human drama.

Music historians love nothing more than to argue, and more recent biographers have taken issue with Schrade’s sweeping claim, highlighting some of Monteverdi’s more traditional musical elements by placing his work within the context of its time. Nevertheless, Schrade’s basic argument is not that far-fetched. Only a handful of composers can match Monteverdi in importance.

Monteverdi, circa 1630, by Bernardo Strozzi. Public Domain

So why isn’t he more well-known? Well, his chief failing was that he lived before the 18th century, when the classical canon as we know it today began to form. Because the pieces in the performance repertoire are mostly symphonies, concertos, and string quartets, none of which yet existed in Monteverdi’s time, he was overshadowed by those who came after him.

From Renaissance to Baroque

The greatest Italian composer in the generation before Monteverdi was Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. Although their lives overlapped, their musical styles could not have been more different.

Late Renaissance music was written to be performed in the church. Palestrina’s complex polyphony—choir music featuring multiple interweaving voices—developed counterpoint to a degree that represented a logical endpoint for that form. It was the culmination of a tradition that had begun four hundred years earlier in the compositions of Léonin and Pérotin at Notre Dame Cathedral.

Portrait of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, 16th century. Public Domain

While Monteverdi would become the foremost opponent of the high Renaissance style, he began his career by working within it. Born in Cremona in 1567, he published a collection of sacred music when he was only 15. In his later teens he began churning out collections of secular songs that, while typical for the period, demonstrated an early mastery that he was destined to move beyond.

Then in 1590, age 22, Monteverdi released his second book of madrigals. In these songs for five voices, he made a crucial contribution to modern harmony by establishing the bass voice as a separate line to provide a foundation for the other singers, rather than just imitating the higher voices’ musical phrases. Every modern rock band is indebted to Monteverdi for this establishment of the bass line, even if the madrigal form itself has since fallen out of fashion.

The Birth of Opera

It was in 1607 that Monteverdi achieved immortal fame with his opera, “L’Orfeo,” a retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus’s doomed journey to the underworld to retrieve his beloved Eurydice. Monteverdi was not the first person to write an opera (that honor belongs to Jacopo Peri), but he did produce the first masterpiece in this new genre.

Listening to “L’Orfeo,” one would never imagine it was written only a few years after Palestrina’s final masses were published. Compared to a work like the “Pope Marcellus Mass,” “L’Orfeo” seems separated by centuries. Melodically simpler, it blended singing voices with an instrumental ensemble (a precursor to the modern orchestra).

A page from the 1609 score of "L'Orfeo," by Claudio Monteverdi. Public Domain

By setting his production in the theater rather than the church, Monteverdi helped give rise to secular music performances. Plays with music were common before this, but there was no necessary connection between the alternating words and tunes. Monteverdi wove the two seamlessly together to create a continuous “dramma per musica,” as he called it—a drama set to music.

Not an Opera?

Monteverdi himself never referred to “L’Orfeo” as an opera. This is because these early innovators did not intend to invent a new genre, but revive an ancient one. They based their principles on what they believed were those of Greek tragedy. In terms of their subject matter and dramatic components, “L’Orfeo” is comparable to a play by Sophocles or Euripides. Italians in the early 17th century, however, had no idea what Ancient Greek music actually sounded like. Monteverdi was doing something entirely new.

He composed many other operas after “L’Orfeo.” But this is where we get to another reason why Monteverdi is not performed as often as Mozart or Beethoven—there is not much to perform! Only two of Monteverdi’s other operas survive. It is one of the tragedies of music history that we do not have more examples of his output in this genre.

A Final Masterpiece

Never let it be said that the old have nothing to contribute. Monteverdi wrote his last, great opera, “The Coronation of Poppea,” in his late 70s. A few years before, he had moved to Venice to contribute to the opera industry springing up there.

Operas were big business, the most lavish form of entertainment in existence prior to films (and more fun, since they were bustling live spectacles). The typical stage gimmicks in use for the pastoral plays that inspired “L’Orfeo” nearly 40 years before had been impressive: machines in the form of clouds that, moving high above the audience, opened to reveal gods and goddesses inside; a painted backdrop featuring animals being hunted; allegorical figures carried on floats; smoke and fire effects for scenes of hell.

But Venice put these earlier stages to shame. It built the first opera houses, becoming the 17th-century equivalent of Hollywood. The new Theatre of Sts. John and Paul (Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo), where Monteverdi’s work was to be performed, was the grandest in the city. The stage was bigger, costumes more ornate, scene changes more frequent. A huge flying machine hung over vast canvasses showing the heavens and earth.

Title page of the 1656 libretto of "L'incoronazione di Poppea" by Claudio Monteverdi and Giovanni Francesco Busenello. Public Domain

Where “L’Orfeo” had been a relatively humble production by comparison, “Poppea” was to be larger than life. Monteverdi chose his subject from history rather than myth—the story of how the Roman Emperor Nero made his favorite mistress the new empress. The way that Monteverdi developed love duets throughout the plot, drawing on his earlier madrigal style, shows his extraordinary skill in expressing the main characters’ sensuous emotions. In the opening duet, Nero and Poppea show their longing for one another through harmonic dissonances that never resolve, interrupting each other’s arias with frequent recitatives. The music perfectly mirrors their inability to be together. When Poppea is crowned in the final scene, their closing aria is smooth and unceasingly melodic as they sing in unison for the first time.

Monteverdi completed “The Coronation of Poppea” in 1643, just before his own death. After its production, the musical score was lost (along with all his others other than “L’Orfeo”). After being rediscovered in the 19th century, “Poppea” has been performed frequently in the 20th. It has helped recement Monteverdi’s status as a supreme master of the genre he pioneered.

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