equally necessary to an artful performance of what on the page is crude. The explosion of expressive
virtuosity on the final word, ardente (ardent, burning), meanwhile, is an ideal illustration of what gorgia
was all about (Ex. 19-5b). By iconically representing—and of course exaggerating—what happens to the
speaking voice when the soul is aflame, the soul’s flame is itself by extension “imitated.”
FIG. 19-7 Claudio Saracini, Da te parto (Seconde musiche de madrigali & arie ... auna voce sola, 1620).
The strophic aria Caccini used in the Nuove musiche to demonstrate the application of gorgia is
based on the old Romanesca “tenor” (as they had called it in the sixteenth century), now of course a
“basso.” Going over an old “ground” like this further demonstrates the continuity that links the monodic
“revolution” with earlier unwritten traditions, and provides a link with later written compositions as
well, for the Romanesca remained remarkably popular and durable, especially in Florence. In Ex. 19-6
the old tenor is given alongside two composed variants: first Caccini’s (compare Fig. 19-8), in which—
again, evidently in accord with long-established extemporizing habits—each successive note of the
original controls a measure in the fully realized composition; and second, the variant employed by
Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583–1643), the greatest organist of the seventeenth century, in one of his Arie
musicale, published in Florence in 1630. Ex. 19-7 shows the beginnings of its four strophes.
EX. 19-5A Claudio Saracini, Da te parto, mm. 1–4