Monteverdi became known as a leading advocate of the then radical approach
to harmony and text expression. In 1613, Monteverdi was appointed maestro
di cappellaat St. Mark’s, Venice. There, Monteverdi was active in reorganizing
and improving vocal music, specifically a capella, as well as writing music for
it. He was also in huge demand outside of the Church for his operas and
made a decent living from opera commissions.
Monteverdi can be justly considered one of the most influential figures in the
evolution of modern music. His opera, Orfeo,was the first to reveal the poten-
tial of the genre, while his follow-up, Arianna, may be responsible for the sur-
vival of opera into the 18th century and beyond. Monteverdi’s final opera,
L_incoronazione di Poppea, is his greatest masterpiece and arguably the finest
opera of the 17th century. Monteverdi was also one of the first composers to
utilize the techniques of tremolo and pizzicato on stringed instruments.
In his collections of sacred music, Monteverdi displayed his knowledge and
mastery of other musical genres as well. His masses are a monument to the
old style, whereas his motets, written for virtuoso singers, are the most thor-
oughgoing exhibition of the modern style and the seconda prattica. His most
important contribution to secular and vocal music, however, is that he intro-
duced a more intensely expressive and dramatic element into music than had
previously been felt. Today he is regarded less as a revolutionary than as one
of the outstanding composers of his time, who combined the old with the new
to forge a style of music with a dramatic range, emotional expression, and
sensuous lyricism that had never been heard before.
Charles Ives, 1874–1954...............................................................................
American composer Charles Ives was an experimental and boldly original
pioneer in musical expression. Without him, the brilliance of the American
experimental music scene in the 1930s would have been delayed by years,
or perhaps never even happened. Recognition of his forceful, often eccentric
genius came late in his life and much more fully after his death.
In a way, Charles Ives really lived two lives: an outward, tradition-bound public
life as a very successful executive at Mutual Life Insurance, and an inward
reflective life full of paradoxical and revolutionary musical ideas. By being
gainfully employed in insurance — and he bordered on being a millionaire
due to his brilliant ideas regarding estate planning — Ives found he didn’t
need to rely on his music to bring in any money and could therefore write
and record his music according to how hewanted, and not how any per-
ceived audience wanted.
The musical environment in late 19th-century America, when Ives began com-
posing, was conservative, cold, and retrogressive and was still attached to the
nearly exhausted European Romantic tradition. Though he sometimes wrote
traditional pieces, Ives mostly experimented with new musical procedures.
Part V: The Part of Tens ............................................
