1640s Goodbye Monteverdi

Monteverdi comes to the end of his career and his life on a musical high with one of his most popular tunes – Pur Ti Miro Pur Ti Stringo from his opera  L’Incoronazione di Poppea composed in 1642, the year before his death.  You don’t really have to like opera to like this. 

A highly influential and well travelled German composer who comes in during this decade is Johan Jakob Froberger (1616-1667). A student of Frescobaldi, he is largely known for his keyboard works. Most of this type of solo keyboard music is not particularly appealing to me but there are just a few from his earliest surviving published work, the libro secondo from 1649, that are worth a listen. These are Partita VI G-dur FbWV 606 Prima Partita and Seconda Partita and Courant Sopra Mayrin Double on an album called Froberger: Meditation – Works for Harpsichord.

Now, from the books I have looked at the music from the first half of this century is dominated by opera composers like Monteverdi and Schutz. The three keyboard composers Sweelinck, Frescobaldi and Froberger get a bit of coverage too but as I am not so keen on most of their music or opera I have had to look a bit further for music from this period that I like.

Well I have found a little more from the early composers of violin music, which was being made in Italy. The violin more than any other instrument mimics the voice. Composers recognised this at an early stage and wrote music which would give the violin a good melody above the other instruments, just as the opera composers wrote their melodies for the human voice. 

We have already heard Marini who is probably the most important of these but he barely gets a mention in the books. By 1640s there are several Italian composers of violin music of even lesser fame and a significant contemporary of Marini was Marco Ucellini (c.1610-1680) who extended the range of the violin by being the first to use the third position. That just means he moved his hand further up the neck of the instrument to get to the higher notes. I can recommend Aria Quinta Sopra La Bergomasta by him which I think is from 1642. Other good early violin pieces are Ciaconna by Tarquinio Merula c.1595-1665 (has a good guitar riff all the way through (on this recording anyway)- most of his work was published from 1615-1639 so this piece may well be pre-1640s) and La Bergamasca from Gasparo Zanetti (1645 I think) – very similar but simpler than and not as good as the Ucellini piece. I might have missed these because Marini is the only one who gets a passing mention in Taruskin’s Oxford History of Western Music and in Griffiths’ Concise History of Western music. Evidently these early composers of violin music are not considered as important as the opera composers and perhaps that is because the opera music from this time has proved to be more enduring and the good violin pieces are few and far between.

So my selections for this decade are:

Monteverdi - Pur Ti Miro Pur Ti Stringo from his opera  L’Incoronazione di Poppea (realised by Raymond Leppard; abridged version)

Ucellini - Aria Quinta Sopra La Bergomasta – Ucellini: La Bergomasta

Merula – Ciaconna The Collected Recordings of Il Giardino Armonico

Zanetti - La Bergomasta – Gasparo Zanetti - 17^th century Italian Dances

http://open.spotify.com/user/historyomtssg/playlist/4ScOA61pnLIMRvfoNfrInh 

General events

At last in 1648 the Thirty Years War came to an end with Germany left in a bloodbath, Spain greatly weakened and France greatly strengthened. In England it’s the civil war (1642-1651) ending up with King Charles I getting executed in 1649 and Oliver Cromwell abolishing the monarchy and taking over.

Art

 

Rembrandt van Rijn 1606-69, the most successful painter in Amsterdam and one of the greatest painters of all time was reaching the height of his powers. May be his most famous painting is The Night Watch from 1642 (above). He had been commissioned to paint a formal portrait but he made it into an action scene.

In France the classical trend in literature can also be seen in art of Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665). A good example of this is ‘The Ashes of Phocion Collected by His Widow’ from 1648 (left).  Poussin and another Frenchmen, Claude Lorraine (1600-1682) sought to portray classical antiquity with a sense of nostalgia. Claude is best known though for being the first to make landscape painting a respected genre with paintings like  ‘Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca’ also from 1648 (below left).

The greatest sculptor of the day was Bernini (the same Bernini as the architect who came to prominence in the 1630s). He is seen as a successor to Michelangelo and one of his best works said to be a masterpiece of high baroque is his ‘Ecstasy of St Theresa’ from 1647.

 

Philosophy

Descartes continued to develop his ideas publishing ‘meditations’ in 1643. This elaborates more on the ‘I think therefore I am’ idea and justifies the existence of God. Another thing to mention about Descartes is that he was a brilliant mathematician and did lots to develop algebra and graphs. The certainty that you have in Maths was what Descartes applied to his philosophy.

Literature

No real major works of literature in this decade except that in 1640 the Bay Psalm Book was the first book to be printed in North America. Corneille wrote another three plays- all classical tragedies.

Architecture

In India they were building the Taj Mahal but other than that nothing specifically spectacular here. 

1630s Chant goes private, opera goes public

Monteverdi’s music continued to develop and improve as the composer remained the numero uno in Europe passed his seventieth birthday. Opera flourished in Italy and the first pubic opera house opened in Venice in 1637, so now it was not just the very wealthy who were watching. 

Also important at this time was Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643) who influenced keyboard music for the next 100 years, up to and including Johan Sebastian Bach. His most important work, Fiori Musicali, was published in 1635. He was the first to vary tempo in keyboard music and the first to compose different variations on a single theme as Bach would later do and for innovations like this he is often referred to as a genius. Unfortunately this is all church organ music without a clear melody and I cannot find anything by him I can really enjoy. The best thing I could find was a piece called Canzon Detta ‘A Tromboncina’ but to me it’s not particularly exciting.

My favourite music from this decade is a bit ‘retro’ for the time. It is the Misere by Gregorio Allegri (1582-1652) composed in 1635 but which is a throw back to the renaissance music of Palestrina. This is regarded as one of the finest pieces of renaissance polyphony, although it was composed during the baroque period. It was forbidden for it to be transcribed or performed at any time or place other than Wednesday or Friday during Holy Week in the Sistine Chapel. As a result the Misere was shrouded in mystery and would remain unpublished for 135 years. That would change after 1770 when a 14 year old Mozart, during holy week, attended the Wednesday service while on a trip to Rome. The young genius memorised the piece and wrote it all down. He returned to hear it again on the Friday morning to check he had it right and only needed to make some minor corrections to his manuscript. He later gave the transcription to a British Historian, Dr Charles Burney, who had it published in London in 1771. After that, with the music now out it was pointless continuing the copying ban which was then lifted.

So my top recommendation for this decade is:-


Allegri - Misere

http://open.spotify.com/user/historyomtssg/playlist/4ScOA61pnLIMRvfoNfrInh

General events

The Thirty years war continued. It was the world’s first modern war. It had all started in 1618 when a few protestant nobles threw some of the catholic Hapsburg emperor’s men out of a castle window in Prague following a row. Amidst all this, a new rational way of looking at the world had been taking shape thanks to people like Galileo, Bacon and Rene Descartes.

Science and philosophy

                                                     

Galileo published his Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems in 1634. In 1616 the Inquisition had brought a specific injunction on Galileo ‘not to hold, teach, or defend Copernicanism’ (That's the earth going round the sun rather than the other way round). A little later Galileo managed to get a certificate confirming that he merely could not ‘hold or defend’ Copernicanism. In his 1634 publication Galileo presented the argument for Copernicanism and the argument against, writing it in the third person. The trouble was the character supporting Copernicanism in the book had much the more persuasive argument for the reader and the church believed they had been tricked into allowing him to publish it.

Galileo was brought before the Inquisition. At first he tried to get out of it by sending a doctor’s note saying he was too frail to travel (he was 68) to Rome but he was in big trouble and that did not wash. The Inquisition thought the trial would go very well and they would easily convict him.  He was at risk of facing torture or possibly execution. They confronted him with the injunction. In his defence Galileo produced the certificate he had obtained and said his book merely taught the theory, it did not hold or defend it. An expert witness supported the Inquisition allegation that he was defending Copernicanism but the certificate Galileo had was a problem and a compromise was reached. The compromise was that Galileo would be let off lightly and kept under house arrest for the rest of his life, provided that he admitted the Copernican view of the universe was wrong. In order to save his skin Galileo admitted to the Inquisition that the earth did not move and was the centre of the universe, but the myth goes that he then touched the ground and whispered ‘and yet it does move’.  

During this decade leading scientific and philosophical thought moves from Galileo in Italy to France, Holland and England. Galileo they say was the father of modern science. In France Rene Descartes (1596-1650) had been a soldier in the 30 years war in 1620s, though had not seen much action. In this decade he was to become the father of modern philosophy and he probably takes over from Galileo from this point as cleverest person on the planet.

Descartes published his Discourse on Method in 1637. Here he set out a new method of scientific and philosophical thinking. He compared knowledge to buildings saying that the best buildings were the ones started and finished by one architect. He said he was not going to build on any of the foundations of past knowledge but he would start again from the beginning. This idea was the foundation for modern philosophy. So the first thing to do was to doubt everything. Having begun with a clean slate, clearing away the ideas of Greek philosophers and everything since, he then considered whether there was anything of which he could be certain. He would begin with the most basic thing first, and then build knowledge as far as he could up from there. The only thing he could be certain of, was that he was thinking and if he was thinking, then he must be something that exists. His life might be a dream or it might not but he could be certain of one thing – that he was some sort of existing being. He said ‘I think therefore I am’ and you can say this is about as solid a basis as you can get from which all human thought can start. This idea was to influence 20^th century films like the Matrix and Twelve Monkeys.

Art

Rubens continued to be a renowned artist. The greatest pupil of Rubens was Sir Anthony Van Dyk who moved to London and was court painter to Charles I. He painted the Equestrian portrait of Charles I (1637-8) and other similar portraits of the king to promote an authoritative, elegant and dignified image of the king.

A friend of Rubens was Diego Velazquez (1599-1660) court painter to the king of Spain. He painted in 1634-5 ‘The Surrender of Breda’ which is considered to be one of the best paintings of the period and depicts the Spanish capture of the Dutch city of Breda during the 30 years war in 1625.

Architecture

After Maderna died the three leading architects of the next generation in Rome were Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) Francesco Borromini (1599-1667) and Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669). Bernini and Borromini continued with Maderna’s Palazzo Barberini. It is may be just a coincidence or maybe something that worked subconsciously on the minds of the architects but around the time of Kepler’s discovery that planets move in ellipses and not circles, circles are seen less in architecture and ovals become more popular with the baroque designs. The oval is suggestive of movement within a space, while the circle is more static and central. Thanks largely to Galileo, people knew the earth was moving and not fixed in the centre of the universe.  The oval theme is best seen in Borromini’s S Carlo Alle Quattro Fontane (below) begun in 1633 which is considered a masterpiece of the baroque period. The façade was not completed until 1667, the year he died.

  

In France there was an influx of Italian classical design which developed into a distinctly French classical style. This is best seen in the Orleans wing at the Chateau Blois (below) by top French architect, Francois Mansart (1598-1664) begun in 1635. The curved corners of the colonnades are very French and the curved semi-circular pediment at the top was new for the time and had not been seen in Italy.

Literature

English literature was becoming ever more rich and complex with a new freedom of expression in the first part of this century. John Donne (1572-1631) a contemporary of Shakespeare and leading poet died in 1631. His complete works were published in 1633. He is known for his unusual and often extensive metaphors. He came up with the familiar phrase ‘no man is an island’.

In France Cardinal Richelieu, the first prime minister in the world, was making Paris the literary, political and academic centre of France and it has remained that way ever since. Richelieu founded the Acadamie Francais in 1635 basically to try to improve the use of the French language. Pierre Corneille was the leading French literary figure of the time and is said to be the founder of French tragedy. Richelieu would present ideas to Corneille which he wanted dramatised. Corneille obliged but eventually found this too restrictive. His play ‘Le Cid’ was a big success but controversial because it did not follow the classical rules of time and place that Richelieu wanted (that is a play should be set in the same place and within a 24 hour time period).

In Germany the greatest poet was Martin Opitz von Boberfield(1597-1639) who had been trying through his career to set out rules for how the German language should be used in literature. Most representative of this aim was his ‘Vesuvius’ published in 1633. Schutz had composed the first German opera ‘Dafne’ in the last decade with words supplied by Opitz.

1620s Opera reaches Germany

Opera had begun in Florence and spread to Mantua, Venice and by the start of this decade had reached Rome. In 1627 it would reach Germany with a composer second only in importance to Monteverdi and his name was Heinrich Schutz (1585-1672).

Schutz, ‘the father of German music’ was the most influential of the three main German composers of the time, the other two being Schutz’s friend Schein who I have mentioned and Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654).  Shutz had been to Italy, met the great Monteverdi and was very much taken by the new form of opera. Through Schutz, the Italian expressive vocal style and the quick changes in tempo and loudness came to influence German music.

Schutz had quite a tragic time losing his wife, two daughters, parents and brother and all in the middle of the time during which Germany was a complete bloodbath due to the 30 years war, so his music naturally is a bit on the solemn side. To me he sounds a bit like he still has one foot in the renaissance.  Generally Schutz is all a bit sombre but I managed to find something called ‘Oh Suber Jesu Christ’ SWV 405 op 12 which is good if you want to listen to something a bit melancholic.

On the lighter side, the early composer of violin music, Monteverdi’s violinist and maybe the first violin virtuoso Biagio Marini, continues with a good piece called Sonata Sopra ‘La Monica’ from 1626. It is an improvement on his Affeti Musici collection from the last decade. From Samuel Scheidt in 1621 there is Galliard Battaglia. With this piece and those from Marini and Schein there is definitely a distinctly straight forward and jaunty style to this early instrumental music. My favourite choices from this decade are:-

Marini - The collected recordings of Il Giardino Armonico - Sonata Sopra La Monica

Scheidt - Ludi Musici - Galliard Battaglia

http://open.spotify.com/user/historyomtssg/playlist/4ScOA61pnLIMRvfoNfrInh

General History

Well the 20^th Century had World Wars I and II - this 17^th Century had the Thirty Years War which by now is well and truly underway. In terms of politics and power, it is the defining event of the century for Europe.

Other than that the pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts on the Mayflower on 1620. Cardinal Richelieu becomes Chief Minister in France (for Louis XIII) from 1624-42 and made the country extremely powerful.

Philosophy

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) had worked for the government of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I eventually becoming Lord Chancellor but all through his political career his writings had a great influence on the direction taken by Western philosophy and Science. In 1620, at the height of his power he published Novum Organum (and one year before he was sacked for accepting bribes). Francis ‘knowledge is power’ Bacon promoted the idea that science should be used for practical purposes to give humans power over nature, rather than just to acquire knowledge. He believed that science colleges and societies (which he unsuccessfully tried to persuade King James to set up) should collect as much data as they can, then patterns and regularities will reveal themselves through observation, then leading to the discovery of scientific laws by experimentation. He also believed that thinkers were all too keen to find the pattern and too quick to draw conclusions from it. For example pulling nine red marbles out of a bag did not necessarily mean the tenth would also be red.

Galileo who had been banned from promoting the Copernican theory was less disturbed by authority in this decade with a new pope in Rome who was more sympathetic to his ideas. This freedom would eventually lead to a new publication in the next decade that would get him into big trouble.

Technology

To add to his cv Galileo developed the microscope in 1624. In 1628 William Harvey published De Motu Cordis (on the circulation of blood). He was the first to realise and announce that the heart pumped blood around the body. 

Art

 

The most high profile painter of the day, Rubens painted Minerva protects Pax from Mars (above)in 1629-30,  one of his most well known works. This was a painting to promote peace as the war raged through Germany. Frans Hals (1580-1666) painted The Laughing Cavalier in 1624. Hals was a portrait painter who is known as being very good at capturing a fleeting expression which he does with this portrait. 

 

Architecture

Maderna, the leading architect of his generation began the Palazzo Barberini in 1628 and created the ground plan. It is lighter, more open and approachable and in the style of the palaces and villas in Northern Italy by Palladio and this was new to Rome. Maderna died in 1629.

Literature

No really major works published in this decade other than by Francis Bacon and William Harvey (mentioned above).

http://open.spotify.com/user/historyomtssg/playlist/4ScOA61pnLIMRvfoNfrInh

1610s Dance Music - Old Style

From the 1600s onwards music starts to find it's melody. In the centuries before the best music consists of voices merging together, evolving from the medieval fashion of open fourths and fifths to some nicer harmonies during the renaissance. Now, with opera, the completely different idea of a single vocal part singing over instrumental backing becomes more popular. 

Monteverdi is still top composer of the day but I don't think he does anything in this decade as  good as those selections I chose from L'Orfeo. Opera continues to gain popularity with Monteverdi but so does instrumental music and this is my preference. Instrumental music began to be played less by amateurs and gradually more by virtuoso musicians.

John Dowland continued to compose lute music and a really nice tune published by him in this decade is Sir John Smith's Almain.

Probably the best creatively and also successful commercially for the composer was some early 17th century dance music composed by Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) in  a collection of 312 dances called Terpsichore published in 1612. I like all of the following Ballet Du Roy, Ballet, Bransle Double 3, Spagnoletta, La Canarie, Courante but my favorite is Volte.

We hear the beginnings of music for the violin which was a relatively new instrument at this time and thankfully would eventually come to take the place of the viol. This early composer of violin music was perhaps the leading violinist in Monteverdi's orchestra. His name was Biagio Marini (1587-1663) and his first collection was Affetti Musicali which came out in 1617 and from which I have chosen 'La Cornera'. Don't expect too much from the violin yet, but it's a start.

Also in 1617 a leading German composer called Johan Hermann Schein (1586-1630) published an instrumental collection called Il Banchetto Musicale (the Musical Banquet). It's not as good as Terpsichore from Praetorius but Suite 5 in D Allemande (attaca) -Tripla is probably worth a listen.

Solo keyboard music which first emerged towards the end of the last century becomes more and more popular too with composers like Girolamo Frescobaldi. A slightly older composer though is Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621) and he is probably the first major keyboard composer in Europe. Solo church organ music is really not something that appeals to me at all but I skimmed through a bit of Sweelinck and came across quite  a nice organ piece by him called Ballo Del Granduca (it may have been from a previous decade but I am squeezing it in here) if you happen to be in the mood for it!! Maybe something to listen to more for interest than for pleasure.

Ok I am going to keep my posting short - so here are my selections:-

Dowland:  Lute Music of John  Dowland - Sir John Smith's Almain
Praetorius: - Dances from Terpsichore - Ballet Du Roy, Ballet, Bransle Double 3, Spagnoletta, La Canarie, Courante, Volte
Schein: - Il Banchetto Musicale - Suite 5 in D Allemande (attaca) -Tripla 
Marini: - Affetti Musicali -Marini Und Seine Zeitgenossen - La Cornera 


http://open.spotify.com/user/historyomtssg/playlist/4ScOA61pnLIMRvfoNfrInh

General history

The main thing that happens in Europe is that tea was introduced. Oh yea, and there was the outbreak of the thirty years war in 1618 which lasted until, let's see...er 1648. This caused the population of Europe to decline from 21 million in 1618 to 13 million in 1648 - pretty devastating and it was fought mostly in Germany (then the part of the Holy Roman Empire). For this decade it was about religious unrest but it then evolved into a conflict and power struggle between France and the Habsburg family who ruled Spain, the Netherlands and Austria. France, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Spain would all participate. 

Philosophy


Galileo continued to be a superstar. Now he was focusing his attentions on the skys and more actively promoted the Copernican view of the universe (that's the earth not being the centre of the universe but instead orbiting the sun) that he had always held. He also wrote in 1615 'Concerning the Use of Biblical Quotations in Matters of Science' in which he said  that the bible should not be taken too literally where it is contradicted by science, but instead a different interpretation should be found.  This basically remains the position of the catholic church today though at the time it outraged some in the church and the Inquisition opened a file on him. Galileo's message to the church was that it should not interfere with science. His view was that just as a despot who was not a qualified would not personally attempt to perform the duties of a doctor, so the church should not say whether scientific reasoning was correct or not. 




Literature


Not a great deal to note here other than that Shakespeare completes his last play 'the Tempest' which is performed in 1611. He then died in 1616, as did Cervantes who had published the second part of Don Quixote in 1613.


Art

Caravegio died in 1610 and Peter Paul Rubens 1577-1640 is now looked upon as the leading painter of the day. He had been in Italy studying the great Italian paintings but had returned to Antwerp in 1608. His paintings were often on a large scale and were full of colour and life.  The visual equivalent of opera maybe. The elevation of the cross above was an early one from 1610 that helped him create a name for himself.


Architecture

Inigo Jones, Britains first modern architect of significance, having returned from Italy where he studied the buildings of Palladio, brings the classical forms  to England and designs the Queen's House in Greenwich (above) in 1616  and Banqueting Hall in Whitehall 1619-22 (below). Later, in 1635,  Rubens painted the ceiling.

A New Presentation of History and a little interlude

I was thinking why, before I started getting interested in all of this and blogging away, did my knowledge of what happened in the 1500s throughout the entire world consist basically of some names of Tudor monarchs and events like Henry VIII breaking with the church and the Spanish Armada coming to invade England and a few other nuggets of information that for some reason got lodged in my memory. Why is it that in history lessons at school you really only learn about the history of leaders, what they did and changes in power?

Leaders are a key element but not the only element of history. Elizabeth I may have supported the arts and this would have helped create the climate for Shakespeare to write his plays. She may have helped greatly to give England its identity and confidence later to expand but of what significance or good is that other than one people having some sort of control over another people. Is it really that significant?

Leaders and governments seem more usually to be unpopular than popular but deserve credit and often huge credit and gratitude from the people who in some way, big or small, take benefit from their decisions insofar as that outweighs any negative consequence. Leaders and creative thinkers in government and commerce have the power to improve people’s standard of living (to the extent that the recipient of the perceived benefit see it as an improvement) and the more people they can do that for the better. Then they might be considered great, especially by those people they benefit and yes, events like Henry’s VIII’s break with the church and various decisions taken by leaders throughout history have played some part in shaping the world today. There is some significance in these things.

However, Shakespeare is much more relevant today than Elizabeth. He has left plays that have been enjoyed by many people over and over again for centuries. Elizabeth might have helped create the environment for Shakespeare and had a big influence on the way one country has evolved, but Shakespeare’s legacy is tangible. Likewise, Galileo improved the telescope and started looking at the skies. This is much more important. Monteverdi began writing operas - much more important. These are things people still use and enjoy today.

I suppose the answer to my first question, to take it quite literally, is simply that you would learn about Shakespeare in an English lesson, you might come across Monteverdi in a music class and you would probably hear a mention of Galileo in Science.

That’s not quite enough for me though. I reckon history should be taught in a way that gives these creators primary importance over or at least equal importance to the leaders who allowed them the space to create. An event like the gunpowder plot of 1605 is much less significant to mankind than Galileo improving the telescope and using it to look at the stars in 1609. I knew about the gunpowder plot but nothing of Galileo.