Another example, and further information, will be found in the article on Monodia.
Caccini also prepared the way for the Cantata, which subsequently reached its highest perfection under Carissimi, Stradella, Scarlatti, and others. [See Cantata.] The composers of the transition period, which witnessed the growth of the Cantata, were Radesca da Foggia, who published five books of ' Monodie' in 1616; Brunelli, who published in the same year two books of 'Scherzi, Arie, Canzonette e Madrigali'; F. Capello, whose most remarkable work was a set of 'Madrigali a voce sola'; Fornacci, celebrated for his 'Amorosi respiri musicali' which appeared in 1617; Luigi Rossi,[1] and Salvator Rosa.[2]
If Corteccio's madrigal be compared with the following example from Capello's 'Madrigali a voce sola,' it will be seen how great a change and advance had been made in solo-singing during less than a century. And a striking resemblance may be observed between Capello and his successor Stradella.
Madrigale a voce sola.
The popular taste in music at any period can best be ascertained from the class of compositions which publishers then found to be most in demand. Thus Petrucci, at the beginning of the 16th century, was issuing Frottole, Villanelle, etc., but a hundred years later the Venetian publisher Vincento supplied the public with little pieces like those above-mentioned by Foggia, Capello, etc. The Madrigal and the Cantata were both important, at least as regards chamber-music, during the 16th and 17th centuries; but they were soon doomed to insignificance by the rise of a great and overshadowing rival, namely the Opera. For an account of the origin of the Opera and its marvellous popularity the reader must turn to the article on Opera. It need only be said here, that all other kinds of secular vocal music had to yield precedence in Italy to it and its offshoots, the Scena, the Cavatina, the Aria, etc. Ambros says that the Arie of early Operas were simply monodic Villanelle, Villotte, or Canzoni alla Napoletana; but he also tells us that favourite 'couplets' from Operas, which at first had nothing in common with Canti popolari beyond being melodies easily caught by the ear, acquired by degrees a place similar to that held by the Volkslied in Germany. Nevertheless, it is clear that Italian musicians held the popular songs of other countries in higher estimation than their own. The best songs in Petrucci's 'Canti Cento-cinquanta,' published in 1503, belong to France, Germany, and the Netherlands. And Italian masters preferred French or Gallo-Belgian themes for their masses.[3] Traces, no doubt, of Canti popolari may be found in Italian compositions of the 15th and 16th centuries—as, for instance, in Adrian Willaert's 'Canzon di Ruzante'—but very few of them have come down to us in their complete or native form. Canzoni alla Francese[4] (as they
- ↑ For the existing collections of Rossi's 'Monodie' see the article on Rossi.
- ↑ Salvator Rosa certainly was Carissimi's contemporary, but the examples Burney gives in his History show that he wrote much like the abovementioned composers.
- ↑ 'L'Homme arme' is a well-known example.
- ↑ The Canzoni alla Francese were mostly written in four parts; many of them were canons.
