Monteverdi had a somewhat disrupted childhood. The son of a
chemist who actually practised medicine (at that time an illegal
act usually undertaken surreptitiously from small shops or
stalls), he was born in Cremona, Italy, and had a brother and
sister. Their mother, Maddalena, died when he was nine; their
father's second wife when he was 16. The following year their
father married a third time and finally became recognized by the
Milanese authorities for his medical work. Despite these
disruptions, Monteverdi received a good musical education under
the cathedral's Maestro di Cappella. By the age of 15 he had
already published a three-part motet, at 16 the first of his eight
books of madrigals appeared, and the next year a book of his
canzonettas.
At the age of 17 Monteverdi entered the service of the powerful
Gonzaga family in Mantua as a string player. This rich and ornate
court was then under the musical guidance of Flemish composer
Giaches de Wert. Gradually Monteverdi grew in status, and
eventually became part of the Duke of Mantua's travelling court on his military expeditions
in Europe, particularly to Danube in 1595 and Flanders in 1599. De
Wert died in 1596 and Monteverdi entertained hopes of taking his
place as Maestro di Cappella, but this did not happen until 1601.
Around this time, he married a court singer named Claudia, who
bore him three children, two of whom survived.
In 1607 Monteverdi's opera La favola d'Orfeo (The Legend
of Orpheus) was premiered at Mantua. Although Jacopo Peri had
composed the first ever opera some years before, Monteverdi's was
the first to use an array of instruments and to employ music as an integral
feature or the work, rather than mere decoration. Unlike previous
settings of the Orpheus legend, including one by Peri that
Monteverdi would have studied, Monteverdi's work retained the
original tragic ending — Orpheus losing Euridice when he looked
behind him upon leaving the underworld. Also novel was
Monteverdi's use of stringed instruments to represent the
character of Orpheus, who is traditionally associated with the
lyre.
Also in 1607 Monteverdi's wife died, a blow compounded by
poverty, overwork, and illness. With an eye on a lucrative church
appointment in Rome or Venice, Monteverdi attempted his first
foray into sacred music with the famous Vespro della Beata Vergine,
or Vespers, of 1610, a
collection of movements notable for combining polyphonic vocal
writing typical of the late Renaissance with newer Baroque
techniques. These emphasized one melodic line combined with a
well-defined bass, and increased the use of instruments.
Monteverdi's long-cherished ambition to leave the service of
the Duke of Mantua was finally realized in 1612 when the Duke
died. The following year Monteverdi was appointed Maestro di
Cappella of St Mark's in Venice. There he gradually built up the
standards of the choir, commissioned some important new-repertoire
from leading composers, and himself composed a stream of sacred
works for which he became renowned throughout Europe.
As Monteverdi grew older, his pace of work
slowed, although he wrote the music for a Mass of Thanksgiving in
1631, celebrating the end of the plague that had ravaged Venice
the previous year. In 1632 he was admitted to holy orders, and
would probably have drifted from public attention had it not been
for the opening in Venice of the first public opera house in 1637.
This renewed his interest in opera, and towards the end of his
life he composed Il
ritomo d'Ulisse (The Return of Ulysses) and
L'iucoroiia~ioiie di Poppea (The Coronation of Poppea). These
operas further developed the techniques used in La favola
d'Orfeo, and featured characters that were recognizably human,
rather than symbolic.
Monteverdi made one final visit to Cremona in 1643, and died in
November of the same year, having just returned to Venice. He was
buried in Venice in the vast Gothic basilica, the Frari, in a tomb
at the very centre of the church, near that of the great Venetian
artist Titian, whose masterpiece, the Assumption, towers
above the high altar.
Monteverdi lived and worked in a period of change, as the late
Renaissance was giving way to the Baroque. Although he eschewed
revolutionary means, he encouraged this transition, and used his
genius to develop and transform every aspect of music he came into
contact with. The eight books of madrigals published in his
lifetime, in which he introduced instrumental accompaniments and
exploited to the full the dramatic possibilities of the medium,
taken together with the I 'espers and his ground-breaking
operas, confirm Monteverdi's crucial position in the history of
music.
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