Florentine Camerata
Encyclopedia
The Florentine Camerata was a group of humanist
s, musician
s, poet
s and intellectual
s in late Renaissance
Florence
who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi
to discuss and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama. They met at the house of Giovanni de' Bardi
, and their gatherings had the reputation of having all the most famous men of Florence as frequent guests. The apex of influence for the Camerata was between 1577 and 1582, gaining influence before this time, and dying off afterward.
's score for L'Euridice, wherein he dedicates the work to Count Bardi, remembering the “Camerata”'s good years. The earliest recorded meeting was 14 January 1573 at Count Giovanni Bardi's house. Known members of the group besides Bardi included Giulio Caccini
, Pietro Strozzi
, and Vincenzo Galilei
(the father of the astronomer Galileo Galilei
). Girolamo Mei
also participated, and at a young age, Ottavio Rinuccini
, born in 1562 may have also participated. Less prominent members of the Camerata may have included the musicians Emilio de' Cavalieri, Francesco Cini, Cristoforo Malvezzi, and Alessandro Striggio. The literary lights of the Bardian Camerata included Ottavio Rinuccini, Giovanni Battista Guarini, Gabriello Chiabrera, and Giovanni Battista Strozzi the younger. The social circle of Jacopo Corsi should not be confused with the Camerata of Bardi. Though they included many of the same luminaries, the rivalry between Corsi and Bardi was fierce and constant.
Unifying the Camerata members was the belief that music had become corrupt, and by returning to the forms and style of the ancient Greeks
, the art of music could be improved, and thereby society could be improved as well. Though they did not originate many of their conclusions about music, the Camerata of Bardi solidified the ideas gleaned from outside thinkers like Girolamo Mei.
, the foremost scholar of ancient Greece at the time, who held—among other things—that ancient Greek drama was predominantly sung rather than spoken. Foundational for this belief was the writing of the Greek thinker Aristoxenus, who proposed that speech should set the pattern for song.
Largely concerned with a revival of the Greek dramatic style, the Camerata's musical experiments led to the development of the stile recitativo Cavalieri was the first to employ the new recitative style, trying his creative hand at a few pastoral scenes. The style later became primarily linked with the development of opera
.
The criticism of contemporary music by the Camerata centered on the overuse of polyphony
at the expense of the sung text's intelligibility. Excessive counterpoint offended so the ears of the Camerata because it muddled the affetto (the “affection”) of the important visceral reaction in poetry. It is the job of the composer to communicate the affetto into an audible, comprehensible sound. Intrigued by ancient descriptions of the emotional and moral effect of ancient Greek tragedy
and comedy
, which they presumed to be sung as a single line to a simple instrumental accompaniment, the Camerata proposed creating a new kind of music. Instead of trying to make the clearest polyphony they could, the Camerata voiced an opinion recorded by a contemporary Florentine, “means must be found in the attempt to bring music closer to that of classical times.”
. In 1582 Vincenzo Galilei performed a setting, that he composed himself, of Ugolino's
lament from Dante
's Inferno
. Caccini also is known to have performed several of his own songs which were more or less chanted melodically over a simple chordal accompaniment. The Camerata composers sought to recreate the style of Greek music, even though actual transcribed Greek music had been lost for centuries.
The musical style which developed from these early experiments was called monody
. In the 1590s, monody developed into a vehicle capable of extended dramatic expression through the work of composers such as Jacopo Peri
, working in conjunction with poet Ottavio Rinuccini
. In 1598, Peri and Rinuccini produced Dafne, an entire drama sung in monodic style: this was the first creation of a new form called "opera
." Though Peri's Dafne was the first performed opera, its music has been lost to the centuries. Instead, L'Euridice, his second opera is most-often heralded as the history-making work. The new form of opera also borrowed, especially for the libretto
s, from an existing pastoral poetic form called the intermedio
; it was mainly the musical style that was new. The instrumentation for an opera from the Camerata composers (Caccini and Peri) was written for a handful of gambas, lutes, and harpsichord or organ for continuo.
Other composers quickly began to incorporate the ideas of the Camerata into their music, and by the first decade of the seventeenth century the new "music drama" was being widely composed, performed and disseminated. Instead of an immediate decline in contrapuntal vocal music, there was a time of coexistence and than an eventual synthesis of monody
and polyphony
. Florence, Rome, and Venice became the Italian capitals of innovation and synthesis.
The Camerata's view on counterpoint and monody did not rise to prominence without opposition. Galilei's famed theory teacher Zarlino countered, “What has the musician to do with those who recite tragedies and comedies?”
In the compositions of the Camerata members, the theory preceded the practice; the men decided how the music should sound before they set to compose it. The composers of the Camerata became so faithfully committed to the exploration of their declamatory style that often their pieces became rife with monotone sonorities.
Eventually the influence of the Bardi circle waned as Giovanni Bardi fell out of favor. Bardi publicly endorsed the marriage of Francesco I de' Medici and his mistress Bianca Capello. This endorsement was in stark contrast to the feelings of Francesco's brother Ferdinando I de' Medici, who was a cardinal in Rome at that time.
The members of Bardi's circle may not have distinguished the importance of their labors, as no one named the group until Caccini's label in 1600. Galilei once marked that Bardi aided noblemen in the study of music. Yet, through the critical efforts of men like Galilei, the Camerata gained an indirect influence on the flow of music history, as Galilei challenged artists to rethink the palette of sound they had been utilizing for decades. The greatest innovation to emerge from the Camerata was not a piece of music or aesthetic ideal, but rather a door opened for further composition of dramatic music.
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
s, musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
s, poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
s and intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
s in late Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi
Giovanni de' Bardi
Giovanni de' Bardi , Count of Vernio, was an Italian literary critic, writer, composer and soldier.- Biography :Giovanni de' Bardi was born in Florence....
to discuss and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama. They met at the house of Giovanni de' Bardi
Giovanni de' Bardi
Giovanni de' Bardi , Count of Vernio, was an Italian literary critic, writer, composer and soldier.- Biography :Giovanni de' Bardi was born in Florence....
, and their gatherings had the reputation of having all the most famous men of Florence as frequent guests. The apex of influence for the Camerata was between 1577 and 1582, gaining influence before this time, and dying off afterward.
Membership
The term “camerata” is entirely a new construct coined by the members of Bardi's circle, although apparently based on the Italian word for "chamber", camera, a term used for a room where important meetings were held. The name for Bardi's group comes from Giulio CacciniGiulio Caccini
Giulio Caccini , also known as Giulio Romano, was an Italian composer, teacher, singer, instrumentalist and writer of the very late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He was one of the founders of the genre of opera, and one of the single most influential creators of the new Baroque style...
's score for L'Euridice, wherein he dedicates the work to Count Bardi, remembering the “Camerata”'s good years. The earliest recorded meeting was 14 January 1573 at Count Giovanni Bardi's house. Known members of the group besides Bardi included Giulio Caccini
Giulio Caccini
Giulio Caccini , also known as Giulio Romano, was an Italian composer, teacher, singer, instrumentalist and writer of the very late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He was one of the founders of the genre of opera, and one of the single most influential creators of the new Baroque style...
, Pietro Strozzi
Piero Strozzi (composer)
Piero Strozzi was an Italian nobleman and amateur composer.Strozzi was born and died in Florence, where he played an important intellectual role in fostering the "new music" during the late 16th century. He was a member of the Camerata of Count Giovanni de' Bardi and a member of the Camerata of...
, and Vincenzo Galilei
Vincenzo Galilei
Vincenzo Galilei was an Italian lutenist, composer, and music theorist, and the father of the famous astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei and of the lute virtuoso and composer Michelagnolo Galilei...
(the father of the astronomer Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei , was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism...
). Girolamo Mei
Girolamo Mei
Girolamo Mei was an Italian historian and humanist, famous in music history for providing the intellectual impetus to the Florentine Camerata, which attempted to revive ancient Greek music drama. He was born Florence, and died in Rome.Mei was the first European after Boethius to do a detailed...
also participated, and at a young age, Ottavio Rinuccini
Ottavio Rinuccini
Ottavio Rinuccini was an Italian poet, courtier, and opera librettist at the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras...
, born in 1562 may have also participated. Less prominent members of the Camerata may have included the musicians Emilio de' Cavalieri, Francesco Cini, Cristoforo Malvezzi, and Alessandro Striggio. The literary lights of the Bardian Camerata included Ottavio Rinuccini, Giovanni Battista Guarini, Gabriello Chiabrera, and Giovanni Battista Strozzi the younger. The social circle of Jacopo Corsi should not be confused with the Camerata of Bardi. Though they included many of the same luminaries, the rivalry between Corsi and Bardi was fierce and constant.
Unifying the Camerata members was the belief that music had become corrupt, and by returning to the forms and style of the ancient Greeks
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
, the art of music could be improved, and thereby society could be improved as well. Though they did not originate many of their conclusions about music, the Camerata of Bardi solidified the ideas gleaned from outside thinkers like Girolamo Mei.
Foundation
Prior to the Camerata's inception, there existed a popular sentiment among the Camerata's Renaissance contemporaries that music should mimic the ancient roots of the Greeks. The current day's thought held that the Greeks used a style between speech and song, and this belief guided the Camerata's discourse. They were influenced by Girolamo MeiGirolamo Mei
Girolamo Mei was an Italian historian and humanist, famous in music history for providing the intellectual impetus to the Florentine Camerata, which attempted to revive ancient Greek music drama. He was born Florence, and died in Rome.Mei was the first European after Boethius to do a detailed...
, the foremost scholar of ancient Greece at the time, who held—among other things—that ancient Greek drama was predominantly sung rather than spoken. Foundational for this belief was the writing of the Greek thinker Aristoxenus, who proposed that speech should set the pattern for song.
Largely concerned with a revival of the Greek dramatic style, the Camerata's musical experiments led to the development of the stile recitativo Cavalieri was the first to employ the new recitative style, trying his creative hand at a few pastoral scenes. The style later became primarily linked with the development of opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
.
The criticism of contemporary music by the Camerata centered on the overuse of polyphony
Polyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....
at the expense of the sung text's intelligibility. Excessive counterpoint offended so the ears of the Camerata because it muddled the affetto (the “affection”) of the important visceral reaction in poetry. It is the job of the composer to communicate the affetto into an audible, comprehensible sound. Intrigued by ancient descriptions of the emotional and moral effect of ancient Greek tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
and comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
, which they presumed to be sung as a single line to a simple instrumental accompaniment, the Camerata proposed creating a new kind of music. Instead of trying to make the clearest polyphony they could, the Camerata voiced an opinion recorded by a contemporary Florentine, “means must be found in the attempt to bring music closer to that of classical times.”
Composition
In his formative days, Vincenzo Galilei was trained in music theory by the famed Gioseffo ZarlinoGioseffo Zarlino
Gioseffo Zarlino was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance. He was possibly the most famous music theorist between Aristoxenus and Rameau, and made a large contribution to the theory of counterpoint as well as to musical tuning.-Life:Zarlino was born in Chioggia, near Venice...
. In 1582 Vincenzo Galilei performed a setting, that he composed himself, of Ugolino's
Ugolino della Gherardesca
Count Ugolino della Gherardesca , count of Donoratico, was an Italian nobleman, politician and naval commander. He was frequently accused of treason and features prominently in Dante's Divine Comedy.-Biography:...
lament from Dante
Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...
's Inferno
Inferno (Dante)
Inferno is the first part of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. It is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through what is largely the medieval concept of Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as...
. Caccini also is known to have performed several of his own songs which were more or less chanted melodically over a simple chordal accompaniment. The Camerata composers sought to recreate the style of Greek music, even though actual transcribed Greek music had been lost for centuries.
The musical style which developed from these early experiments was called monody
Monody
In poetry, the term monody has become specialized to refer to a poem in which one person laments another's death....
. In the 1590s, monody developed into a vehicle capable of extended dramatic expression through the work of composers such as Jacopo Peri
Jacopo Peri
Jacopo Peri was an Italian composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance and Baroque styles, and is often called the inventor of opera...
, working in conjunction with poet Ottavio Rinuccini
Ottavio Rinuccini
Ottavio Rinuccini was an Italian poet, courtier, and opera librettist at the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras...
. In 1598, Peri and Rinuccini produced Dafne, an entire drama sung in monodic style: this was the first creation of a new form called "opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
." Though Peri's Dafne was the first performed opera, its music has been lost to the centuries. Instead, L'Euridice, his second opera is most-often heralded as the history-making work. The new form of opera also borrowed, especially for the libretto
Libretto
A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
s, from an existing pastoral poetic form called the intermedio
Intermedio
The intermedio, or intermezzo, in the Italian Renaissance, was a theatrical performance or spectacle with music and often dance which was performed between the acts of a play to celebrate special occasions in Italian courts. It was one of the important predecessors to opera, and an influence on...
; it was mainly the musical style that was new. The instrumentation for an opera from the Camerata composers (Caccini and Peri) was written for a handful of gambas, lutes, and harpsichord or organ for continuo.
Other composers quickly began to incorporate the ideas of the Camerata into their music, and by the first decade of the seventeenth century the new "music drama" was being widely composed, performed and disseminated. Instead of an immediate decline in contrapuntal vocal music, there was a time of coexistence and than an eventual synthesis of monody
Monody
In poetry, the term monody has become specialized to refer to a poem in which one person laments another's death....
and polyphony
Polyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....
. Florence, Rome, and Venice became the Italian capitals of innovation and synthesis.
The Camerata's view on counterpoint and monody did not rise to prominence without opposition. Galilei's famed theory teacher Zarlino countered, “What has the musician to do with those who recite tragedies and comedies?”
In the compositions of the Camerata members, the theory preceded the practice; the men decided how the music should sound before they set to compose it. The composers of the Camerata became so faithfully committed to the exploration of their declamatory style that often their pieces became rife with monotone sonorities.
Eventually the influence of the Bardi circle waned as Giovanni Bardi fell out of favor. Bardi publicly endorsed the marriage of Francesco I de' Medici and his mistress Bianca Capello. This endorsement was in stark contrast to the feelings of Francesco's brother Ferdinando I de' Medici, who was a cardinal in Rome at that time.
Legacy
Bardi, Galilei, and Caccini left writings expounding their ideas. Bardi wrote the Discorso (1578), a long letter to Giulio Caccini, and Galilei published the Dialogo della musica antica et della moderna (1581–1582). In 1602, long after the group had disbanded, Caccini wrote "Le nuove musiche".The members of Bardi's circle may not have distinguished the importance of their labors, as no one named the group until Caccini's label in 1600. Galilei once marked that Bardi aided noblemen in the study of music. Yet, through the critical efforts of men like Galilei, the Camerata gained an indirect influence on the flow of music history, as Galilei challenged artists to rethink the palette of sound they had been utilizing for decades. The greatest innovation to emerge from the Camerata was not a piece of music or aesthetic ideal, but rather a door opened for further composition of dramatic music.
Sources
- Donington, Robert. The Rise of Opera. New York: Scribner, 1981.
- Ewen, David. The New Encyclopedia of the Opera. New York: Hill And Wang, 1971.
- Grout, Donald Jay. A Short History of Opera: One-Volume Edition. Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1947.
- Palisca, Claude V.. The Florentine Camerata: Documentary Studies and Translations (Music Theory Translation Series). New Haven, CT: Yale Univ Pr, 1989.
- Randel, Don. The New Harvard Dictionary of Music. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1986.
- Schrade, Leo. Monteverdi: Creator of Modern Music. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1950.