Denis Arnold – författare

for SATB and keyboard

Celebrated during his lifetime, Monteverdi disappeared from the repertory for centuries until interest in him gradually revived over the last hundred years. Denis Arnold's contribution to this revival was considerable. Here he pays tribute to Monteverdi's genius and such enduring achievements as the Vespers, other choral compositions, the operas, and the sacred and secular songs. In relating Monteverdi to the musical activity of his time, and in examining his years at the Court of Mantua and in Venice, Denis Arnold reveals a fascinating musician whose works epitomize in many varied ways the musical and cultural issues of his age.The text and appendices of this edition were revised by Tim Carter, who added a new chapter taking account of recent scholarship.

This book is not meant to be a comprehensive account of Monteverdi’s life and works. What it sets out to do is to study certain aspects of his music and environment which have been insufficiently stressed in most of the existing books about him and to offer fresh views about some of his more familiar works. In “The Man as seen through his Letters,” Denis Arnold and Nigel Fortune provide translations of some forty letters, linked by interpretive commentary, in which the composer’s ideas, methods, and approach to composition and other musical matters are clearly revealed. Two chapters on “The Musical Environment” discuss Monteverdi in relation to his teachers, colleagues, and pupils. Monteverdi as thinker and musician is discussed in chapters on the Artusi-Monteverdi controversy, the prima prattica and the seconda prattica, and the madrigal guerrieri, et amorosi. Two further chapters treat Monteverdi as operatic composer, dealing with his first opera and the opera orchestra of his time. The book has a comprehensive bibliography, including a guide to the available editions of the music.