Le temps de Monteverdi

Description

After L'Europe musicale de la Renaissance, this second volume of a History of Ancient Music is devoted to Italian music of the “early” Baroque, taking us from the Florentine Camerata and the invention of opera to the generation of Monteverdi’s heirs, where the formal freedom of the early 17th century begins to give way to the first traces of formalism. This journey spans almost a century, from La Pellegrina performed in Florence in 1589 to the last operas of Francesco Cavalli in the early 1670s. Throughout this period, which saw the birth of accompanied monody, opera and oratorio, virtuosity and the sonata, sacred and secular mingle, as is also apparent in artistic representations such as this Nativity by Caravaggio, which illustrates the cover. In his text, Jérôme Lejeune also evokes this music’s belonging to the Baroque aesthetic.