CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI (1567-1643)

Italian Composer

In 1590, Monteverdi was first employed in the court of Duke Gonzaga of Mantua in a minor role as a "singer and player of the viol." He stayed more than twenty years, eventually becoming Maestro di cappella to the Duke. He then moved to a very important position as Maestro di cappella at St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice where he stayed for the remainder of his life. His official duties required him to write sacred music. However, he also received commissions from nobility to compose and perform chamber music in the Palazzi throughout the city. While Monteverdi lived in Venice, his son was arrested, but later acquitted of reading books banned by the Inquisition.

Monteverdi appeared at an exciting moment in musical history. At that time, composers such as Vincento Galilei, the famous physicist's father, championed a new style, Le nouve musiche. This new style emphasized the dramatically projected solo singing voice rather than the anonymous choral voices of the renaissance. Motivated by the humanistic spirit of the 16th century, this new musical movement provided the environment in which the first operas were written. Monteverdi took these beginnings and developed them into the first modern operas. The first public opera house, Teatro S. Cassiano, opened in Venice in 1637. His operas La favola d'Orfeo, and L'incoronazione di Poppea, very successful in his lifetime, are still performed today.

Monteverdi is also remembered for his nine books of madrigals.