- Pirrotta, Nino. Music and Culture in Italy from the Middle Ages to the
Baroque: A Collection of Essays.Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P., 1984. xv,
485p. ISBN 0-674-59108-9. ML290.1 .P57.
A valuable gathering of scholarly essays originally published between 1954
and 1975, of which nine are on the 17th century. Topics include the orchestra,
the Camerata, Monteverdi, the libretti of Francesco Melosio. Names of the
essays are in Baron,24. Pirrotta finds no central theory that animated the
opera pioneers; Caccini was interested in refined singing, and Cavalieri in ele-
gant staging, while Peri and Rinuccini were concerned with dramatic expres-
sion. - Sternfeld, Frederick W. The Birth of Opera.New York: Oxford U.P., 1993. x,
266p. ISBN 0-19-8161-30–1. ML1733.2 .S73.
An important overview of the new art, considering precursors, definitions, and
topics such as the lament, finale, and aria. Sternfeld expanded on the aria study
in “Con che soavità” (#2461). He died before finalizing and documenting this
text. Bibliography of about 600 items, expansive index. - Tomlinson, Gary. “Pastoral and Musical Magic in the Birth of Opera.” In
Opera and the Enlightenment(#91), 7–20.
Relates 16th-century pastoral drama to the early operas through “undercur-
rents of Neo-Platonism and its persistent magic.” The nonverisimilitude of the
singing actors was a mimesis of an invisible reality (Platonic idea). This applied
both to pastorals (which were partly sung; but all their music is lost) and
opera. Early opera was “a product of the same vision of reality, broader than
ours, that gave rise to pastoral drama. It was a late outgrowth of the esoteri-
cism that burgeoned in Renaissance thought in the wake of the 15th-century
revival of Neo-Platonism and related forms of ancient mysticism.” Later in the
17th century, operatic magic was “rationalized, concealed behind a willing
suspension of skepticism.” - Goldschmidt, Hugo. Studien zur Geschichte der italienishcen Oper im 17.
Jahrhundert. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1901–1904. 2v. Reprints,
Hildesheim: Olms, 1967; Wiesbaden: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1967. ML1733.2
.G62.
A scholarly study of baroque opera, stressing Monteverdi, opera in Rome, the
orchestra, and comic opera. The entire score of L’incoronazione di Poppeais
among the musical examples. Poetic and musical structure in typical works is
analyzed, along with characterization. Bibliography, index. - Torchi, Luigi. “L’accompagnamento degl’instrumenti nei melodrammi italiani
della prima metà del seicento.” RMI1 (1894): 7–38.
A study of the opera orchestra, following Agazzari (see #343) in distinguishing
between foundation and ornamental instruments. Although sources are few
and ambiguous, they suggest that players exhibited great skill in improvising
while keeping a balanced sound in the ensemble. Still, Torchi wonders whether
the result could typically have been other than a “charivari.” Finally he decides
456 Opera