Monteverdi - Ohime, se tanto amate

Background information and performance circumstances

• Claudio Monteverdi
  • born in 1567 in Cremona, Italy
  • died in 1643 in Venice
  • most important Italian composer of his generation
  • key part of transition from Renaissance to Baroque music
  • was based in Mantua 1590-1613, working for the aristocratic Gonzaga family
• Ohime, se tanto amate was...
  • published in Venice in 1603 - in 'the Fourth Book of Madrigals' and probs performed at the Mantuan court by professional singers
  • based on a poem by Giovanni Battista Guarini (1538-1612) - Monteverdi set a number of texts by Guarini, who had close ties with Mantua
• Monteverdi
  • chose his text in the knowledge that Benedetto Pallavicino (c.1551-1601), a now little-known rival, had published a setting in 1600
• Performance
  • the work's earliest performances would have sung from separate part-books rather than a score
  • the 1615 edition typically has no bar-lines, some are notated using C-clefs
• emotional intensity of this piece must have made it seem very 'modern', even shocking, to those accustomed to the late Renaissance - arising use of daring dissonance

Performing forces and their handling

• wrote in five parts, meaning five soloists rather than a choir
• sung by a mixture of men and women (unlike church music which would have been all men and choir boys)
• there is:
  • canto (Italian for 'song') - soprano range/middle C to G a 12th above
  • quinto (Italian for 'fifth') - more second soprano than alto or contralto, crosees above the canto when given an idea sun previously by that part (bars 10 and 14)
  • alto - almost certainly high tenor (or low male alto or countertenor) not contralto/range is F# below middle C to A, a 10th above
  • tenor - more like a baritone which crosses above alto occasionally/range: D below middle C to F a 10th above
  • bass - range: low F to Bb an 11th above
• top notes of canto, alto and tenor are reserved for the first syllable of ohime in bars 6 and 9

Texture

• Number of parts:
  • often all 5 voices sing together, there are passages for 3-voice groupings - antiphony early in the final section (canto, quinto, bass; then alto, tenor, bass)
• four-part writing is little used
  • because not differentiated sharply enough from five-part or three-part writing
• relationship of parts:
  • all voices share the same rhythm (ie. chordal/homorhythmic texture)
  • sometimes parts have different rhythms simultaneoulsly (commonly just employing a freer homophonic style/occsasionally in counterpoint with little imitation)

Structure

• composer uses the same music for each stanza of the poem - strophic setting
• Monteverdi does not repeat entire passages of music note-for-note, meaning that this piece was through-composed
• madrigal could have three sections - textural change plays a large part with the structure
• Section 1:ohime...morire (bars 1-19) - texture builds up:3 part (with antiphony), briefly 4-part, full 5-part
• Section 2: s'io moro...sentire (bars 20-38) - two equal sub-sections, each with the same text; the second is a varied and…