Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century

FIG. 19-4 Dialogue of the body (Corpo) and soul (Anima) over a figured bass (the first to be printed), in Emilio de’ Cavalieri’s
Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo (Rome, 1600).
In the late months of 1600 (or, by the calendar now in use, the early months of 1601, the first year of
the seventeenth century), two different musical settings of the same mythological play were printed. The
authors were Peri and Caccini, who had become jealous rivals. The play was an eclogue or pastoral
drama by Rinuccini called Euridice, after the story of Orpheus and Eurydice as told by the ancient Roman
poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses. Peri’s was the earlier setting: it was performed (with some
interpolations by Caccini, at the latter’s insistence) on 6 October 1600 as part of the nuptial festivities
honoring the marriage of Maria de’ Medici to the King of France, Henri IV. (Caccini’s hastily composed
setting would not be performed complete for two years following publication: doubtless he was trying to
“scoop” his competitor.) The music of both plays was similar in design to that of Cavalieri’s