Claudio monteverdi famous works

Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi (–) was one of the most important composers of the turn of the 17th century. He was the first opera composer whose works, which include Orfeo and L’incoronazione di Poppea, are regularly performed today. His music marks the end of the Renaissance style and the beginning of the Baroque. 

Born in the north Italian city of Cremona, the young Monteverdi was publishing vocal works by the age of He moved to nearby Mantua, where he established himself as an important voice in the compositional style that became known as the seconda pratica, exemplified by his Fifth Book of Madrigals (). This musical style differed greatly from the stricter, contrapuntal style of earlier Renaissance composition, making greater use of unprepared dissonance and responding sensitively and dramatically to the text. Orfeo, commissioned by Prince Francesco Gonzaga for the Carnival of –07, was his first opera. His second opera, Arianna, is now lost, save for the title character’s ‘Lamento’, which was so popular it was published separately several times. Later works include the Vespers, published in in Venice; he moved to that city in , becoming maestro di cappella at St Mark’s Basilica. 

Monteverdi was in his seventies by the time he wrote his two final operas, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria and L’incoronazione di Poppea. They are as innovative as his earlier works, demonstrating his extraordinary adaptability and unique dramatic powers. 

Claudio Monteverdi lived in a time of great change, as the vocal polyphony of the Renaissance gave way to the textures of the early Baroque. He harnessed both styles with great skill, sometimes contrasting them in the same work, and wrote successfully in every vocal genre. His liturgical works can be heard as a culmination of the choral traditions of previous centuries. But his operas embody the lyrical and dramatic innovations that were shortly to sweep across Europe. As a court musician, Monteverdi would have composed many dances and ceremonial pieces, yet almost all of his surviving works are for voices. His training with the music director of Cremona Cathedral, Marc’Antonio Ingegneri, included learning several instruments as well as composing and singing. In or he was appointed as a viol player at the court of the Duke of Mantua, Vincenzo I of Gonzaga. Monteverdi had already published several sets of vocal music, both sacred and secular. The first, Sacrae cantiunculae, appeared in when he was just 15 years old. The Mantuan court was small but culturally active, and he came into contact with many leading musicians. He met Giovanni Gastoldi, one of the few late Renaissance composers now known as a composer of dance music. The court’s music director was Giaches de Wert, a famous composer of madrigals who would have a profound influence on Monteverdi’s early work in that genre. Monteverdi soon left any historical models far behind. So much so that, in around , he was targeted in a series of articles by Giovanni Maria Artusi. The conservative music theorist criticised Monteverdi’s unregulated use of dissonance and other perceived faults. Monteverdi defended his work, describing it was an example of a new style, the so-called ‘second practice’ (seconda prattica). Compositional license was permitted, he argued, in order to better reflect the meaning of the text. In Monteverdi was appointed master of music to the Duke of Mantua. By then his name was known

Claudio Monteverdi (born May 9, ; died November 29, ) can be justly considered one of the most powerful figures in the history of music. Among his most notable works are the operas Orfeo and L’incoronazione di Poppea, and one of the greatest of all sacred pieces, the  Vespers. 

Quick Links

1. Mastering Monteverdi’s Orfeo

2. Gramophone Collection: Monteverdi's Combattimento

3. Gramophone Collection: Monteverdi's Vespers

4. Monteverdi today

Monteverdi studied with Ingegneri, maestro di cappella at Cremona Cathedral, and published several books of motets and madrigals before going to Mantua in about to serve as a string player at the court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga.

There he came under the influence of Giaches de Wert, whom he failed to succeed as maestro di cappella in In he married Claudia de Cattaneis, a court singer, who bore him three children, and two years later he was appointed maestro di cappella on Pallavicino’s death.

Largely as the result of a prolonged controversy with the theorist GM Artusi, Monteverdi became known as a leading exponent of the modern approach to harmony and text expression. In his first opera, Orfeo, was produced in Mantua, followed in by Arianna. The dedication to Pope Paul V of a grand collection of church music known as the Vespers () indicated an outward-looking ambition, and in Monteverdi was appointed maestro di cappella at St Mark’s, Venice.

See also: Top 10 opera composers

There Monteverdi was active in reorganising and improving the cappella as well as writing music for it, but he was also able to accept commissions from elsewhere, including some from Mantua, for example the ballet Tirsi e Clori () and an opera, La finta pazza Licori (, not performed, now lost).

He seems to have been less active after c but he was again in demand as an opera composer on the opening of

• Lapidabant Stephanum, SV
• Veni sponsa Christi, SV
• Ego sum pastor bonus, SV
• Surge propera amica mea, SV
• Ubi duo vel tres congregati fuerint, SV
• Quam pulchra es et quam decora amica mea, SV
• Ave Maria gratia plena, SV
• Domine pater et deus, SV
• Tu es pastor ovium, SV
• O magnum pietatis, SV
• O crux benedicta, SV
• Hodie Christus natus est, SV
• O domine Jesu Christe adoro te, SV
• Pater venit hora clarifica filium tuum, SV
• In tua patientia possedisti animam tuam, SV
• Angelus ad pastores ait, SV
• Salve crux pretiosa, SV
• Quia vidisti me Thoma credidisti, SV
• Lauda Syon salvatorem, SV
• O bone Iesu illumina oculos meos, SV
• Surgens Iesus dominus noster, SV
• Qui vult venire post me abneget se, SV
• Iusti tulerunt spolia impiorum, SV

• Sacrosancta di Dio veraci imago, SV
• L'aura del ciel sempre fecond spiri, SV
• Aventurosa notte, in cui risplende, SV
• D'empi martiri e un mar d'orrori varca, SV
• Mentre la stell'appar nell'oriente, SV
• La rose lascia, gli amaranti e gigli, SV
• L'empio vestia di porpora e di bisso, SV
• L'uman discorso, quanto poc'importe, SV
• Dal sacro petto esce veloce dardo, SV
• Afflito e scalz'ove la sacra sponda, SV
• De' miei giovenil anni era l'amore, SV

• Qual si può dir maggiore, SV 1
• Canzonette d'amore che m'uscite del cuore, SV 2
• La fiera vista e'l velenoso sguardo, SV 3
• Raggi dovè il mio bene non mi date più pene, SV 4
• Vita de l'alma mia, SV 5
• Il mio martir tengo celat al cuore, SV 6
• Son questi i crespi crini e questo il viso, SV 7
• Io mi vivea com' Aquila mirando, SV 8
• Su ch'el giorno è fore, SV 9
• Quando sperai del mio servir mercede, SV 10
• Come farò cuor mio quando mi parto, SV 11
• Corse a la morte il povero Narciso, SV 12
• Tu ridi sempre mai per darmi pene, SV 13
• Chi vuol veder d'inverno un dolc' aprile, SV 14
• Già mi credev' un sol esser in cielo, SV 15
• Godi pur del bel sen felice pulce, SV 16
• Giulia quel petto giace un bel giardino, SV 17