Seconda pratica
Seconda pratica (also: Seconda prattica) is a music-historical term for a form of composition at the end of the 16th century or the beginning of the 17th century, which deviated from the traditional polyphony of the Renaissance that flourished in the Netherlands and a priority of the monodic forms Wanted to achieve text intelligibility. The main development of the Seconda Pratica can be set between 1600 and 1630.
The turn towards intelligibility of the text and thus the predominance of the human voice in a speech gesture translated into music is considered in the vocal works as an essential transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque. This was achieved through phrasing that was more oriented towards the meaning of the words, through rhythmic forms and chromatics and monody oriented towards the rhythm of the text .
In contrast, the form known as Prima Pratica is characterized by strict polyphony , counterpoint and reduced chromaticism, which give priority to purely musical forms.
The main representative and namesake of the Seconda Pratica was Claudio Monteverdi . His bitterest opponent was the music theorist and writer Giovanni Artusi . The term Seconda Pratica is used by Artusi in 1603 and is strictly differentiated from Prima Pratica marked as “modern”, as Artusi understands “melody” exclusively as polyphonic. Monteverdi then took up the term in 1605 in the preface to his fifth book of madrigals. In 1607 Giulio Cesare Monteverdi defended his brother against attacks by Arthur: “The word”, he writes, is “the mistress of harmony, not her servant”.
The pioneers of the Seconda Pratica were Cyprian de Rore , who worked in Venice, and Marc'Antonio Ingenieri , conductor in Cremona and teacher of Monteverdi. They largely dispensed with the traditional a cappella style and counterpoint . Other important developers of the Seconda Pratica were Jacopo Peri (1561–1633), Vincenzo Galilei and Giulio Caccini , who formed the circle of the Florentine Camerata . In Germany, Hans Leo Hassler (1564–1612) and Melchior Frank (1580–1639) should be mentioned as representatives of the Seconda Pratica.
The emphasis of the text is fixed on the affects that are expressed in it. In 1616, for example, Monteverdi rejected a composition commission from Mantua, since the possibility of human affects was not given (Scipione Agnelli: Le nozze di Teti e Peleo). The Seconda Pratica not only led to a new style in the madrigal , but also enabled the emergence of opera in the circle of the Florentine Camerata and Monteverdi. It is closely related to the tendency of the time to want to tie in with Greco-Roman models by emphasizing the dramatically expressive moment based on the text.
In the foreword to his 5th madrigal book from 1605, Monteverdi announced his own book with the title “Seconda pratica, overo perfettione della moderna musica” (“Second practice or the perfection / completeness of modern music”). No such book has survived. The only remaining music-theoretical reflections on this can be found in the preface to his 8th book of madrigals (1638), in which he explains and claims that he himself only invented music with the invention of a previously missing “excited style” (“genere concitato”) "Completely" or "perfectly" made.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gerald Drebes: Monteverdi's “Contrast Principle”, the preface to his 8th book of madrigals and the “Genere concitato”. In: Music Theory. Vol. 6, 1991, pp. 29-42. (online) ( Memento from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
literature
- Giovanni Artusi: Overo delle imperfettioni della moderna musica ragionamenti dui . Part 2. Vincenti, Venice 1603.
- Claudio Monteverdi: Scherzi musicali . 1607 (therein: Dichiaratione della lettera stampata nel Quinto libro de suoi Madregali ).
- Claude V. Palisca: The Artusi-Monteverdi Controversy . In: Denis Arnold, Nigel Fortune (Ed.): The Monteverdi Companion . Faber and Faber, London et al. 1968, pp. 133-166.