Giulio Caccini

The early Italian Baroque composer Giulio Caccini is credited with an influence in the art of singing, leading to the development by other composers of the Operatic form. His greatest known work, Le Nuove Musiche (The New Music, 1602), introduces a collection of twelve madrigals and ten arias based in the Seconda Prattica (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seconda_prattica), a term coined by Claudio Monteverdi. In Le Nuove Musiche, Caccini uses an interchangeable term, Stile Modern, to describe the new use of solo lyrical voice over a single, submissive basso continuo part. In an article for Early Music in May of 1984, Tim Carter notes “that the claims for originality and innovation made in Caccini’s title-page… should be read in the context of both his vanity and of his antagonism towards his Florentine colleagues” indicating that with a reading of Vincenzo Giustiniani’s treatise Discorso sopra la Musica (circa 1628), Carter finds that the shift towards solo vocal monodies was a product of five Italian cities over a period from 1570 to 1620, not the single work of Caccini.
But Carter admits that Caccini does introduce a new way to score such monodies, giving very explicit instructions as to ornamentation and embellishments, which were previously at the performer’s discretion. Carter muses: “Caccini thus exhibits a tendency to insist upon his right to exercise greater control over the performance of his music than had previously been the case.” Below is an example of two published versions of Caccini’s monody Ardi, cor mio, the first from an earlier publication where the artist was given free reign to embellish, and the second from his Le Nuove Musiche. Note the very detailed embellishments given for the opening note, which creates a whole new melodic line.




In a different Early Music article, Howard Meyer Brown describes the four things that Caccini thought his Le Nuove Musiche did differently, as enummerated in the preface: firstly, Caccini claimed that he set better poetry than his contemporaries, “[by using] poems either by Ottavio Rinucci or Gabriello Chiabrera” who were contemporary poets in Italy. Secondly, Caccini claimed that his written embellishments matched the ideas of the text “much more skillfully than his contemporaries.” Thirdly, Caccini wrote melodies that were dissonant against the bass line in spots, allowing the bass line to be free from the rhythms of the melody. Lastly, he wrote that his music exemplified a new notation system. He wrote out all the passages, and published the monodies with only melody and basso-continuo – no inner parts.
As a tenor himself, who was able to accompany himself on lute and other instruments, Giulio Caccini was both a performer and a composer as was required to gain employment. His emphasis on composer control over ornamentation and future performance would be a model for compositional technique until the 20th Century, his influence extending far beyond just ornaments in singing.







On the Composition and Performance of Caccini's "Le nuove musiche" (1602)
* Guilio Caccini and Tim Carter
* Early Music, Vol. 12, No. 2 (May, 1984), pp. 208-217
* Published by: Oxford University Press

*
The Geography of Florentine Monody: Caccini at Home and Abroad
* Howard Mayer Brown
* Early Music, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Apr., 1981), pp. 147-168
* Published by: Oxford University Press