Written by Natalia Di Bartolo —
The design:
Academic, musician, writer, patron of the arts, politics, the military, Giovanni Maria Bardi di Vernio showdown was a representative of great interest of late Renaissance Italian culture, creating and animating the so-called “Camerata Fiorentina” (o, dal suo cognome, “de’ Bardi”), a circle of artists and intellectuals who made Academy in his palace, to discuss major issues related to classical art.
Between 1576 and 1592, poets, musicians, writers and men of culture typically forming part of that upper room, thoroughly and with forethought, discussing a range of topics, from science to poetry, to music. In particular, in the context of the erudite discussions of musical art and its relationship with the word ", Giovanni de ' Bardi and his Comrade were of great interest and came to very innovative conclusions.
In the present case, to examine with the Bards the relationship between the sound, the word and the stage space, then befitted in many it was time for a change: the only Polyphony was not enough anymore; It took new ideas, a new life, to renew the style and content of the music and also public disease caught such art and increase the interest.
By Convention, the Polyphonic works, which were then nearly all the musical productions, were “encoded”; performed many voices, were laid out in such a way that the singing voices overlapped and are they supported in chiaroscuro and modulations, to form “chords” perfetti, in evoluzioni virtuosistiche di rara difficoltà e ricercatezza compositiva e, di conseguenza, esecutiva. In altre parole, il coro diventava come uno strumento musicale, da cui il direttore, con i dovuti sistemi, traeva il risultato d’insieme, che l’autore aveva scritto proprio per dargli questa possibilità ed a questo scopo. Non a caso, in alcune Corali Polifoniche, il direttore, ancora oggi, dispone i soprani alla sua destra e le altre voci a seguire (ovviamente in più file, se numerosi): proprio perché egli, in maniera figurata, “sounds”like on a keyboard, the “instrument choir”. This, of course, did not favor (nor ever will) the reading comprehension, because musical phrases met and overlapped, specially written, as before mentioned, to make such an outcome. The words of the text, then, was absolutely dependent upon the harmonious finale.
This was, then, plausible in the masses of ' 300 or motets, but after the great evolution which was followed in such compositions in ' 400 and with demonstrated ability by the composers of the ' 500, authors of madrigals for five and six voices, and even multiple choirs, polyphony was no longer able to satiate the hunger of art music that nagged the culture of the period. Don't make it, though, as some have opined, only a problem of “understanding of the words” from the audience: it would seem an understatement. You should, however, read in the discussions of the Camerata Fiorentina over the pursuit of taste for the word (which you'd want included, leading to equal, within the musical phrase), for stage action and for “vision” pleasant and engaging; things that a choral singing, albeit refined, could not offer: it, in its essence (that is excluding pompous fabricated scenes and choreography by willowy, well dressed extras to leave enjoy glorious eye Viewer), offered nothing more than a pure “pleasure” harmonic and melodic.
In the upper room, he sought to devise a new musical genre, which ovviasse to the "inconvenience" of singing "collective". They saw the solution, obviously, in the introduction to the song single: sing a text at once by a single person could promote the idea to stage something different and, therefore, meant no longer predominantly to the Church or to the great parties, but especially to Renaissance theater, artistic environment until then the preserve of prose.
What sort of theatrical diction, therefore, seek to guide this new experiment? In academia, was obviously at noble resources of Greek tragedy, that Humanism had found new life and new scholars and enthusiasts and who was even then of the highest consideration. The Greek Monody, then, was considered as an example of “pure music”because not only belonging to classicism, but clear example of melodic and rhythmic "spoken" metric, which forced to modulate the sounds and to shift the accents familiar words depending on the meter used. They began to study it with the intention of creating something highly innovative.
But the solution, that would lead to a "modern" concrete results, it was not easy, nor on hand, even though it theorized a “set to music” the text recited by the plaintiff. But how? And what text? An entire tragedy translated into music could be long-winded and abstruse. Already the idea of seeing and listening to the actor who sang instead of acting was somewhat disconcerting. It began, then, to study music theory.
The Greek tragedy, lest we forget, also included the music, which, unfortunately, very little is left; the choir does not read, but she sang. Studying nearly only theoretically these mysterious mechanisms, suspended between the prose and music, was not a trivial matter. They objected that the etymology of the word “Polyphony” to translate the word in “Many sounds” (poliùs-fonòs = many sounds and/or voices). Even the new genre that you sought, then, would have been part of polyphony? Did you intend to give birth, instead, something distinctly different, musical expression and theatrical, yet at the same time, did not have a name. Realize, then, that “recitar cantando” of which Baldassare Castiglione, already in 1528, he wrote: “(…purple for the singing to acting seems grateful); which much of pull-out parts and effect adds to the words (…)”.
The realization:
The first experiments of “musical theatre” (let's call him originally as well), produced intermediates in “The Pilgrim” of Bargagli, in 1589. But, in order to achieve fully the aim prefissosi, it was necessary to make a whole opera representable in song and it was agreed that the ancient texts ill-suited to complication and length, as well as difficulties of application of the music to the text, the new needs that were not to be bored, but attract the Viewer. Thus was born the figure of “Librettist”the writer who translated and summarized in verses the ancient texts into a new “booklet” from the text rendered musicabile. Such, often thankless and little regarded, task had great evolution and, especially in the 800, became a real “craft”.
The first “booklet” It was written by Jacopo Corsi and Ottavio Rinuccini and entitled “Dafne”. Music by Jacopo Peri, was staged in 1598. But still lacked the "quid" that would make a separate original and the new genre, which was being tried and tested on an audience of course accustomed to very different representations. It was Claudio Monteverdi, who had devoted himself to the drama even in madrigals, to approach first to result much sought after, with the "Orfeo”in 1607.
The music was shaped by the author needed dramatic. The song changed during the story, becoming, at times, into Recitative and then take on the character of "air”with the intermezzo of innovative duets, changing the meter of the verses from binary to ternary and vice versa, changing and evolving continually to follow the story. How to call the new genre just born? You chose the most appropriate term: "Melodrama”. “Mèlos”in ancient Greek, it means “Music”. The etymology of the other half of the word is clear. There was no need to translate it “tragedy”but, rather, just “drama”Domenico “dràgma” that, in ancient Greek, it means “theatrical performance” generally, without distinction between tragedy and comedy.
The fact that in the early Melodramas he chose mythological themes is indicative of the creation of a “genus” However courtly, directed to an educated audience, Tacitus, artful reference to what mattered the distinction between “Tragodìa” and “Comodìa”, which operated in the Greek Theatre.
And the choir disappeared? Not at all. Indeed, it became “character”, always combined in itself, but an integral part of the development of the plot. As well as in the classical Greek Theater the choir was important because, usually, expressed the lamentation, the joy, the sorrow, the people's solidarity with the protagonists of “drama”But even the voice of the playwright (a kind of “collective consciousness”or rather, an entity that was often “the moral” scenic narration); Similarly it was still in the melodrama. It amalgamated with the action, unlike what was happening in the static polyphony, and sang in a less tangled and overlapping, even so she could understand what you said.
In the chorus of Opera played on a number of factors, which in a choir, even exalted, could not exist. The Chorister anonymous polyphony was to mix your voice with that of other singers and create one harmonious with them. Similarly, in the melodrama the voice of single pitch pipe, still anonymous, it amalgamated with that of others, but following the melodic lines and harmonics that often ranged in unison, to leave “talk”, singing, more clearly the “Chorus Character”.
Was born, therefore a "music genre" new and complete in all its parts: there was a time when the theatrical drama was placed; There were characters (solo singers), there was the chorus, the orchestra, the sets, the costumes. There was, however (at least as “canonized figure”), the conductor. Strange, but true. Since the birth of Melodrama until the beginning of the 800 (Bellini including, for example), the figure of the “conductor” not existed, for as we know it today, with a teacher standing at a podium with wand in hand. In the orchestra pit, correct name of so-called “dell ’ pit orchestra”, the musicians played itself and the author of the music, especially at "prime" representations, sat at the harpsichord and from there he feeled the moods of the audience, received applause and calls to the proscenium or sorbiva whistles and edged with criticism and cackling in case of “fiasco” (not uncommon situation, at the time). The first conductors went up regularly on the podium to direct the Opera only towards the second half of the 800.
The new musical genre would evolve over time, modified, enhanced, enriched, until you come to us. By the gods and Greek heroes, first protagonists, to the heroic troubadours, leaders and principles of romanticism, the commoners of verismo, the modern characters of works contemporary to us, melodrama was populated by “characters” and “textures” varied and colorful, often tearful, tragic, heroic or moralistic or fairy or “Buffe”in a kaleidoscope which makes it even more fascinating and rich musical history and the wealth of art available to us. It was just the music to "tow" texts in the path of evolution of Opera, acting as the protagonist; but the texts they acted with considerable influence, as a base and as a glue. And to think that all this comes mainly from Florence, from a circle of brilliant "thinkers", lovers of "word", to which one can only be, reverently, eternally grateful.
Natalia Dantas