FREE ESSAY ON CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI: HIS LIFE AND CONTRIBUTIONS

CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI: HIS LIFE AND CONTRIBUTIONS

A comparison of two major Baroque composers: Claudio Monteverdi and Domenico Scarlatti
The purpose of this paper is to analyze two psalms by Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi
(1567-1643) and Giovanni Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) and compare and contrast the two
pieces to find out how music changed throughout the Baroque period. While historians
grouped music of the Baroque period together based on certain characteristics, the music
did not remain the same throughout the period, as it would not for any other musical time
period. Composers from different points in the Baroque period were chosen, but the things
the two composers had in common were the country of residence and their nationality.
Special care was taken to chose composers from the same country so that differences could
not be accounted as being because of different nationalistic styles. 
The piece by Monteverdi, Confitebor tibi, Domine (Psalm 110), was a psalm that was used
as part of the vespers on Sundays. This particular psalm is found in varied forms in the
publication Selva morale et spirituale, published around 1640. This setting is set for
four voices and solo soprano voice, and is accompianed by continuo. The piece begins and
ends in C major, with use of very few accidentals. The accidentals in this piece were
used to create a leading tone to the fifth or tonic. The piece is mostly homorhythmic and
has a combination of polyphony and homophony. Occasionally there is a duet with the
soprano and solo soprano lines. The piece is written in Latin, which was common practice
for the time. There are no indicated dynamics, and there is use of musica ficta. In the
transcription used in this paper, bar lines were added since almost none existed in the
actual manuscript, and some corrections were made in the number of rests in some places
in the score. 
The psalm composed by Scarlatti, called Laetatus sum (Psalm 121), is set for four voices
(SATB), continuo, and solo soprano and alto lines. This piece is also a part of the
vesper psalms used in church. There is use of imitative polyphony within the chorus parts
and within the solo lines, but the chorus lines and solo lines did not imitate eachother
so in essence, the piece is a duet and a chorus piece put together. There is figured bass
present throughout the psalm setting. The text is actually the text to psalm 122. There
is octave doubling in the bass, and the fifth occurs often since it was considered to be
perfect or somehow godly. What makes this psalm different from Scarlatti's other psalms
is that it is the only psalm that exhibits an organized concerto style. This psalm is
also written in Latin, and has no indicated dynamics. It begins in D major, and switches
to A and E major, and b and a minor throughout the setting, and ends back on D major. The
piece does have some ornamentation, consisting of argued trills. The argument comes from
odd markings on the original manuscript. Some people feel that the markings were just
hastily drawn trills, while others feel they may actually be mordants. In the
transcription listed here, they are all listed as trills. There probably was not a lot of
ornamentation put into the music because there was an idea that if the music became too
frilly it took away from the sacred message it was supposed to send.
While both pieces are a part of each composer's library of sacred music, they are in some
respects not very much alike and in others they are very similar. There are the obvious
things they have in common such as the fact that they are written in Latin. That is not
too suprising considering some churches still used Latin as the primary language in their
services, even though in the Baroque period many churches began using the vernacular so
the patrons would understand the services. Aside from that, Monteverdi, being more
influenced by the Renaissance due to his time of birth, demonstrates music practices that
are more indicative of the early Baroque with his use of homophony throughout his setting
of Psalm 110. It is obvious that Monteverdi used a blend of "old" and "new" styles of
writing music, which makes him one of the great pioneers in defining the Baroque period.
Monteverdi also had musica ficta present in his music, which was not in practice by the
end of the Baroque period and was really a "leftover" from the Renaissance. Domenico
Scarlatti demonstrates the advances made throughout the Baroque period in his piece. He
is able to use leading tones and dissonance as a result of Monteverdi's somewhat
controversial composition style. It is hard to decide how really different the pieces
really are because the Psalm was not each composer's best known work, since both
composers are best remembered for their secular pieces, although each spent time as the
head of the music at some sort of church. Monteverdi is best known for his books of
madrigals. Scarlatti is best known for his binary-form sets of sonatas he composed while
living in Portugal. 
There is no earth-shattering conclusion to be drawn from the comparison of these two
pieces. The progression of the Baroque is duly noted, and each composer has his definite
style. The nature of each piece is such that it is difficult to do anything besides note
the differences, since the pieces are so similar. But perhaps that is what is most
striking about the pieces. It is concluded that the pieces are similar because of the
location of the composers in their formative years. It seems that indirectly Scarlatti
may have learned a lot from Monteverdi, since Monteverdi's ideas did become popular, so
it may have been a bad idea to try to compare the two composers. Originally, the thought
was that the composers would not be so much alike, since they belong to opposite ends of
the Baroque period. It seems that just being from the same country influences how they
write, even though both Monteverdi and Scarlatti had influences from other countries, and
they were not even the same countries. It may be possible to track the progression of the
Baroque by comparing any two pieces by two composers. 
Bibliography
Fabbri,Paolo. Monteverdi. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1994.
Kirkpatrick, Ralph. Domenico Scarlatti. Princeton: 
Princeton University Press, 1953.
Leopold, Silke. Monteverdi: Music in Transition.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.
Monteverdi, Claudio. Rudolf Ewerhart, ed. Confitebor 
tibi, Domine. Weisbaden: Breitkopf & Hartel, 1998.
Sadie, Stanley, ed. The New Grove Italian Baroque 
Masters. London: W.W. Norton & Co., 1984.
Scarlatti, Domenico. Laetatus sum. Stuttgart: Carus
-Verlag, 1988.
Sitwell, Sacheverell. A Background for Domenico 
Scarlatti. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1970.