MONTEVERDE, CLAUDIO (1567-1643)

This article appears in Volume V18, Page 778 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MOL-MOS

MONTEVERDE, CLAUDIO (1567-1643) , Italian priest and musician, was born at Cremona in May 1567; he was engaged at an early age as violist to the duke of Mantua, and studied composition under Ingcgneri, the duke's maestro di

capella

CAPELLA, MARTIANUS MINNEUS FELIX

. His bold experiments, while bringing upon him the attacks of Artusi and

Banchieri

BANCHIERI, ADRIANO (c. 1557—1634)

(q.v.), led to discoveries which exercised a lasting

influence

INFLUENCE (Late Lat. influentia, from influere, to flow in)

upon the progress of musical art. He was the first to make deliberate use of unprepared dissonances, or what are now known as fundamental discords. These discords constituted a revolution against the

laws

LAWS

of 16th

century

CENTURY (from Lat. centuria, a division of a hundred men)

music. He employed them first in his madrigals, where they are a sign of decadence, but afterwards introduced them into music of another kind with such excellent effect that theirvalue was universally recognized. Before 1595

Monteverde

MONTEVERDE, CLAUDIO (1567-1643)

was married to the

singer

SINGER, SIMEON (1846-1906)

Claudia Cattaneo, who died in 1607. In 1602 he succeeded Ingegneri as maestro di

capella

CAPELLA, MARTIANUS MINNEUS FELIX

; and in 1607 he produced, for the

marriage

MARRIAGE

of Francesco Gonzaga, his first opera, Ariana, in which he employed the newly-discovered discords with irresistible effect. Though he did not invent the lyric dramaPeri's Euridice having been produced at Florence in 1600he raised it to a level which distanced all contemporary competition. His second opera, Orfeo, composed in 16o8, was even more successful than Ariana. In 1613

Monteverde

MONTEVERDE, CLAUDIO (1567-1643)

was invited to Venice, as maestro di capella at St Mark's, with a stipend of 300 ducats, which in 1616 was raised to 400. Here he composed much sacred music, the greater

part

PART

of which is lost. In 1630 he wrote another grand opera, Proserpina rapita. He did not become a priest until 1632. In 1639 he produced L'Adone, and in 1641 Le Nozze di Enea and Il Ritorno d'Ulisse. He died in Venice on the 29th of November 1643. Monteverde's harmonic innovations and power of musical

rhetoric

RHETORIC (Gr. psroperctj TEXvq, the art of the orator)

seemed to put an end to the school of Palestrina, and led the way to modern music. (See MUSIC.)

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