Caccini, Le Nuove musiche, 1601, title page

Giulio Caccini (October 8, 1551 – December 10, 1618) was an Italian composer, teacher, singer, instrumentalist and writer of the very late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Events 314 - Roman Emperor Licinius is defeated by his colleague Constantine I at the Battle of Cibalae, and loses Events 1041 - Empress Zoe of Byzantium elevates her adoptive son to the throne of the Eastern Roman Empire as Michael V Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1400 - 1600 Baroque music describes an era and a set of styles of European classical music which were in widespread use between approximately 1600 and 1750. He was one of the founders of the genre of opera, and one of the single most influential creators of the new Baroque style. Opera is an art form in which Singers and Musicians perform a Dramatic work (called an opera which combines a text (called a Libretto He was also the father of the composer Francesca Caccini. Francesca Caccini (September 18 1587 &ndash c 1640 was an Italian composer singer Lutenist poet and music teacher of the early Baroque era

Life

Little is known about his early life, but he was born in Rome, the son of the carpenter Michelangelo Caccini; he was the older brother of the Florentine sculptor Giovanni Caccini. Florence ( Italian: Firenze Florentia and Fiorenza) is the Capital City of the Italian region of Tuscany Giovanni Battista Caccini (1556 — c 1612-1614 was an Italian sculptor from Florence, who worked in a classicising style in the later phase of Mannerism In Rome he studied the lute, the viol and the harp, and began to acquire a reputation as a singer. Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck (either Fretted or unfretted and a deep round back or more specifically to an instrument from The viol (also called viola da gamba) is any one of a family of bowed, Fretted stringed Musical instruments developed in the 1400s The harp is a Stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicular to the soundboard. In the 1560s, Cosimo de' Medici was so impressed with his talent that he took the young Caccini to Florence for further study. Cosimo di Giovanni de' Medici (September 27 1389 &ndash August 1 1464 was the first of the Medici political dynasty de facto rulers of Florence ( Italian: Firenze Florentia and Fiorenza) is the Capital City of the Italian region of Tuscany

By 1579, Caccini was singing at the Medici court. He was a tenor, and he was able to accompany himself on the viol; he sang at various entertainments, including weddings and affairs of state, and took part in the sumptuous intermedi of the time, the elaborate musical, dramatic, visual spectacles which were one of the precursors of opera. The tenor is the highest male voice within the Modal register, just above the Baritone voice For the film see Intermedio (film. The intermedio, or intermezzo, in the Italian Renaissance, was a theatrical performance Also during this time he took part in the movement of humanists, writers, musicians and scholars of the ancient world who formed the Florentine Camerata, the group which gathered at the home of Count Giovanni de' Bardi, and which was dedicated to recovering the supposed lost glory of ancient Greek dramatic music. The Florentine Camerata was a group of humanists Musicians Poets and Intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered Giovanni de Bardi ( February 5, 1534 – September 1612 Count of Vernio, was an Italian literary critic writer composer and soldier With Caccini's abilities as a singer, instrumentalist, and composer added to the mix of intellects and talents, the Camerata developed the concept of monody—an emotionally affective solo vocal line, accompanied by relatively simple chordal harmony on one or more instruments—which was a revolutionary departure from the polyphonic practice of the late Renaissance. In Poetry, the term monody has become specialized to refer to a poem in which one person laments another's death In Music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent Melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice ( Monophony

In the last two decades of the 16th century Caccini continued his activities as a singer, teacher and composer. His influence as a teacher has perhaps been underestimated, since he trained dozens of musicians to sing in the new style, including the castrato Giovanni Gualberto Magli, who sang the title role in Monteverdi's first opera Orfeo. L'Orfeo ( L'Orfeo favola in musica, SV 318 or La Favola d'Orfeo, or The Legend of Orpheus) is one of the earliest

Caccini made at least one further trip to Rome, in 1592, as the secretary to Count Bardi. According to his own writings, his music and singing met with an enthusiastic response. However, Rome, the home of Palestrina and the Roman School, was musically conservative, and music following Caccini's stylistic lead was relatively rare there until after 1600. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (between 3 February 1525 and 2 February 1526 - 2 February 1594 was an Italian Composer of the Renaissance. The Roman school is the education system of the Ancient Rome.

Caccini's character seems to have been less than perfectly honorable, as he was frequently motivated by envy and jealousy, not only in his professional life but for personal advancement with the Medici. On one occasion, he informed to the Grand Duke Francesco on two lovers in the Medici household—Eleonora, the wife of Pietro de' Medici, who was having an illicit affair with Bernardino Antinori—and his informing led directly to Eleonora's murder by Pietro. Francesco I de' Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany ( 25 March 1541 &ndash 17 October 1587) was the second Grand Duke of Tuscany, ruling Don Pietro de' Medici ( 3 June 1554 – 25 April 1604) was one of the sons of Cosimo I de' Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany. His rivalry with both Emilio de' Cavalieri and Jacopo Peri seems to have been intense: he may have been the one who arranged for Cavalieri to be removed from his post as director of festivities for the wedding of Henry IV of France and Maria de' Medici in 1600 (an event which caused Cavalieri to leave Florence in fury), and he also seems to have rushed his own opera Euridice into print before Peri's opera on the same subject could be published, while simultaneously ordering his group of singers to have nothing to do with Peri's production. Emilio de' Cavalieri (c 1550&ndash March 11, 1602) was an Italian Composer, producer, Organist, diplomat Choreographer Jacopo Peri ( August 20 1561 &ndash August 12 1633) was an Italian Composer and singer of the transitional period between Henry IV (Henri IV ( 13 December 1553 &ndash 14 May 1610) ruled as King of France from 1589 to 1610 and as Henry III Marie de' Medici ( April 26, 1575 &ndash July 3, 1642) was Queen consort of France. Euridice is an Opera in a prologue and one act by the Italian composer Giulio Caccini.

After 1605 Caccini was less influential, though he continued to take part in composition and performance of sacred polychoral music. This article is about the musical term See Antiphon (person the orator of ancient Greece He died in Florence, and is buried in the church of St. Annunziata.

Music and influence

The stile recitativo, as the newly created style of monody was called, proved to be popular not only in Florence, but elsewhere in Italy. Florence and Venice were the two most progressive musical centers in Europe at the end of the 16th century, and the combination of musical innovations from each place resulted in the development of what came to be known as the Baroque style. Venice ( Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venesia or Venexia) is a city in Northern Italy, the capital of the Caccini's achievement was to create a type of direct musical expression, as easily understood as speech, which later developed into the operatic recitative, and which influenced numerous other stylistic and textural elements in Baroque music.

Caccini's most influential work was a collection of monodies and songs for solo voice and basso continuo, published in 1602, called Le nuove musiche. Le nuove musiche is a collection of monodies and songs for solo voice and basso continuo by the composer Giulio Caccini, published in Florence in July 1602 The introduction to this volume is probably the most clearly written description of the purpose, intent and correct performance of monody from the time. It includes musical examples of ornaments—for example how a specific passage can be ornamented in several different ways, according to the precise emotion that the singer wishes to convey; it also includes effusive praise for the style which he himself invented, and amusing disdain for the work of more conservative composers of the period.

Works

Caccini wrote three operas—Euridice (1600), Il rapimento di Cefalo (1600), and Euridice (1602), though the first two included music by others (mainly Peri for the first Euridice). Euridice (also Erudice or Eurydice) written October 6 1600, is an Opera written in Florence Euridice is an Opera in a prologue and one act by the Italian composer Giulio Caccini. In addition he wrote the music for one intermedio (Io che dal ciel cader farei la luna) (1589); and he published two collections of songs and madrigals, both titled Le nuove musiche, in 1602 and 1614. Most of the madrigals are through-composed and contain little repetition; some of the songs, however, are strophic. In Music, strophic form (or chorus form) is a sectional and/or Additive way of structuring a piece of Music based on the No music for multiple voices survives, even though the records from Florence indicate he was involved with polychoral music around 1610; at any rate such a manner of expression would have been alien to him. He was predominantly a composer of solo song, and it is in this capacity that he acquired his immense fame.

Among the most famous of his madrigals is "Amarilli, mia bella".

Media

Aria "Amor che attendi" (help·info)

External links

• Giulio Caccini was listed in the International Music Score Library Project

References

• Article "Giulio Caccini", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. The International Music Score Library Project ( IMSLP) is a project for the creation of a virtual library of Public domain music scores, based on the Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd. , 2001. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. Gustave Reese ( November 29 1899, New York City – – September 7 1977, Berkeley California) was an American New York, W. W. Norton & Co. , 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
• Manfred Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era. Manfred Bukofzer ( March 27, 1910 &ndash December 7, 1955) was a German - American Musicologist and humanist New York, W. W. Norton & Co. , 1947. ISBN 0-393-09745-5
• Giulio Caccini, Le nuove musiche, tr. John Playford and Oliver Strunk, in Source Readings in Music History. New York, W. W. Norton & Co. , 1950.