Claudio Giovanni Antonio
Monteverdi (May 1567 – November 1643) was an Italian composer, string player,
choirmaster, and priest. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a
pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered a crucial transitional
figure between the Renaissance and Baroque periods of music history.
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Much of Monteverdi's output,
including many stage works, has been lost. His surviving music includes nine
books of madrigals, large-scale religious works, such as his Vespro della Beata
Vergine (Vespers for the Blessed Virgin) of 1610, and three complete operas.
His opera L'Orfeo (1607) is the earliest of the genre still widely performed; towards
the end of his life he wrote works for Venice, including Il ritorno d'Ulisse in
patria and L'incoronazione di Poppea.
While he worked extensively in
the tradition of earlier Renaissance polyphony, as evidenced in his madrigals,
he undertook great developments in form and melody, and began to employ the
basso continuo technique, distinctive of the Baroque. No stranger to
controversy, he defended his sometimes novel techniques as elements of a
seconda pratica, contrasting with the more orthodox earlier style which he
termed the prima pratica. Largely forgotten during the eighteenth and much of
the nineteenth centuries, his works enjoyed a rediscovery around the beginning
of the twentieth century. He is now established both as a significant influence
in European musical history and as a composer whose works are regularly
performed and recorded.