Jacopo Peri

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Jacopo Peri

Jacopo Peri (born August 20, 1561 in Rome , † August 12, 1633 in Florence ; nickname Il Zazzerino , the long-haired / shaggy head) was an Italian composer . He is one of the pioneers of opera .

Life

Peri received his first musical lessons from Cristofano Malvezzi . He was soon known as a good singer and organist , so that he was invited to celebrations and performances by many nobles. In 1587 he was employed by the Medici princely family . In 1591 Peri became conductor there, direttore della musia e di Musiche . He was so valued here at court that he soon had to fulfill special missions.

Monody and figured bass

Peri's time was that of the newly emerging monody and the beginning figured bass music . The new form of accompaniment of the singing by a bass instrument (keyboard and lute instruments) gave the monophonic singing, which focused on the word and its meaning (in contrast to the choral polyphony, which was perceived as excessive) in a more understandable way, a firm support. In the house of Count Giovanni de 'Bardi, from the family of the Florentine Counts of Vernio, this new music was particularly cultivated. The music-loving Bardi was particularly interested in antiquity, his focus was on ancient tragedies . His house became the focus of extensive studies, especially in musical questions. Nobles, poets and musicians met here; a select group was born, called Camerata Fiorentina .

Jacopo Peri also belonged to this group. In the style of the learned societies of this time ( academies ), they held discussions on the philosophy of art, and this gave rise to decisive suggestions and attempts to revive the lost style of ancient tragedy. Efforts to renew ancient music were in the air: the reprint of ancient theorists had aroused interest as early as the end of the 16th century.

Origin of the opera

But the idea of ​​the poets and musicians of the Camerata Fiorentina was to re-enact ancient dramas - an idea that probably befitted the times of the Renaissance and humanism. They knew that Greek drama was associated with music and they knew that music was unanimous. So what could be more natural than to combine the ancient fabrics with the new monody? That was at the heart of what they did. But from this attempt, an experiment, a new art form had emerged - opera.

Jacopo Peri invented the stile recitativo or cantar recitando : the recitative that, together with the aria, became the main component of Italian baroque opera. He explains this “linguistic style of singing” in the printed score of his Euridice (1600) by referring to the (presumed) technique of the Greeks and Romans when performing their tragedies. They would have raised the “melody of ordinary speech” [the pitch] in such a way that it “assumed something in between” between singing and speaking.

Peri composed a set of 1589 for the wedding of Ferdinando I de 'Medici to Christine of Lorraine in Florence listed intermedia for La pellegrina and worked therein as a singer.

In the spring of 1598, during the Carnival in the house of Jacopo Corsi, the work that is now generally regarded as the first opera in music history was performed: La Dafne based on a text by the poet Ottavio Rinuccini . Corsi himself had composed some of the chants of the text to determine his intentions, but had given the completion of the opera to Jacopo Peri. The music for this opera has been lost. Two fragments of a copy exist in the library of the Brussels Conservatory.

On October 6, 1600, the pompous wedding of Henry IV of France to Princess Maria de 'Medici was celebrated in Florence . On this occasion, the opera L'Euridice was played in the Palazzo Pitti . The text was again by Rinuccini and the music by Peri. However, when it was first performed, parts of the music were replaced by the corresponding parts from Giulio Caccini's Euridice ; Peri's opera only appeared in full in print.

The third peri-opera is La Flora o vero Il natal de 'fiori ; it was performed on October 11, 1628 also in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence on the occasion of the wedding of Duke Odoardo Farnese of Parma with Princess Margherita of Toscana.

Nuovo style

The style nuovo , the accompanied monody, was the invention of the Italian musical renaissance at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. However, it was known for a long time and was practiced. In our opinion, the entire secular music history of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was a history of accompanied song. A large part of this literature is the accompanied verse song: the main element of the later cantata was in principle already present. Much of what was written in this new style has not been preserved. But the lyrical pieces by the two house composers of Camarata Fiorentina have survived : the Nuove Musiche by Giulio Caccini and Jacopo Peri, whose beginnings can be proven to date back to the 16th century.

The recitative

What is fundamentally new about this style nuovo is the recitative , the sung declamation of which is supported by a harmony instrument running under the voice. The singing is not interrupted by instruments. Peri's music is freer and more pathetic than the Caccinis. Whereby Peri paid attention to those expressions and tones that are available to us in pain, joy and similar states (...), according to the affects (...).

Peri left a collection of strophic poems, Le Varie Musiche , 1609, composed in the form of recitatives and solo madrigals in the new, monodic style.

What the composers from the circle of the Camerata Fiorentina had started, took over, expanded and completed another great: Claudio Monteverdi . From then on, the Florence Opera quickly spread to Italy and all of Europe, and it was to maintain its importance for over three hundred years.

Works

literature

  • Guido Adler (ed.): Handbook of the history of music . Dtv, Munich 1975 (3 vols.)
  • Tim Carter, Richard A. Goldthwaite:  Peri, Jacopo. In: Raffaele Romanelli (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 82:  Pazzi-Pia. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2015.
  • Wulf Konold : Claudio Monteverdi. With self-testimonials and picture documents ("Rowohlts Monographien; 50348). Rowohlt, Reinbek 2006, ISBN 3-499-50348-4 .
  • Gerhard Nestler: History of Music. The great periods of music from its beginnings to electronic composition . Schott, Mainz 2005, ISBN 3-254-08204-4 .
  • Peri, Jacopo . In: Carl Dahlhaus (Ed.): Riemann Musiklexikon . 12th, completely revised edition. Personal section: L – Z , supplementary volume. Schott, Mainz 1975.

Web links

Commons : Jacopo Peri  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Albert Gier: The beginnings of opera in Italy . in: The Libretto - Theory and History . Island TB, Frankfurt a. M. 2000, ISBN 3-458-34366-0 , pp. 71-72.
  2. ↑ Compare Albert Gier 2000, p. 72 (Italian original and German translation there).
  3. ↑ Albert Gier 2000, p. 72.
personal data
SURNAME Peri, Jacopo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zazzerino, Il
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian composer
DATE OF BIRTH August 20, 1561
PLACE OF BIRTH Rome
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 1633
Place of death Florence