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Claudio Monteverd
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American Record Guide
HMA 1951250
When Claudio Monteverdi signed the dedication of Selva morale e spirituale in Venice on 1 May
1641 he was near the end of his seventy-fourth year and his third decade as maestro di cappella
at St. Mark’s. By no means averse to new enterprises, his age notwithstanding, he had only
just resuscitated an old work (the Mantuan Arianna) and composed two new ones for the Venetian
public opera theaters, the first of which had opened its doors as recently as 1637.
The Selva morale was Monteverdi’s first published collection of sacred music since the Vespers
of 1610, when he was still employed at the court of Mantua. Like the Eighth Madrigal Book
(Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi) of three years earlier, it offers a rich and retrospective view of the
master’s activity in a major sphere. Even the dedication has an eye on the past: Eleonora Gonzaga
was the wife of Emperor Ferdinand III, but also the daughter of Monteverdi’s old patron, Vincenzo
I Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua.
The promise of mixed riches tendered by the work’s title is borne out in the diversity of the
‘beasts’ that roam this ‘moral and spiritual forest’: psalms with instrumental accompaniment
in festive concerted style, others (plus a mass) in a rather more severe contrapuntal idiom
that follows the a cappella tradition, motets for small forces, strophic schemes for the singing
of metrical hymns, and even moralizing songs in Italian.
Large-scale psalm settings such as Beatus vir for six voices and violins were doubtless composed
for use at St. Mark’s Vespers. The outlines of its broad canvas are clearly intended to be perceived
at first hearing: long sections are based on obstinate repetition of the same musical substance.
That substance undergoes a process of variation at once minimal and infinitely subtle, creating
an ideal basis for dramatic contrast at the longer term. The ironic detachment evident in so much
of Monteverdi’s secular music surfaces here as well. In fact the work’s first section employs the
‘walking bass’ and melodic figur-ation of the delightfully whimsical duet Chiome d’oro, bel tesoro
from the Seventh Book of Madrigals (1619), with which it shares an image of insouciant happiness.
If the most striking musical choices occur at the level of larger formal articulation, details of
‘secular’ word painting are by no means absent: ‘in aeternum’ and ‘non com-movebitur’ are set to
long repeated notes, ‘irascetur’ is subjected to brusque and hasty diction, ‘fremet’ receives a
flourish and ‘perebit’ follows a falling line into silence.
Monteverdi’s three complete Mass Ordinaries were all composed with an eye on the venerable
tradition of Renaissance polyphony (that published in the Vespers of 1610 is based on motifs
from Gombert’s motet In illo tempore, already over half a century old at the time). The isolated
seven-voice Gloria from the 1641 print is, in this regard, unusual in its grand concertato style,
and in the extremes of contrast between its various parts as a reflection of their textual content.
The transition between the opening words ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo’ and ‘Et in terra pax’ has a
dramatic power that brings to mind the corresponding moment in Bach’s B minor Mass, and a
case could be made for further points of spiritual contact. The composer often found a way to
create a measure of formal coherence not strictly demanded by the texts he set, and the present
work is no exception. Monteverdi seizes on a verbal coincidence in the phrase ‘in gloria Dei patris’
to justify rounding off the movement with a repetition of the opening section. Here and in its
other more agitated moments, the work requires a high standard of collective virtuosity from its
performers.
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The Confitebor tibi, Domine for five voices ‘alla francese’ is in a somewhat simpler and more
declamatory vein than the abovementioned works. Our intuitive sense of how close this composition
is to the world of the madrigal is confirmed by its history: part of the musical fabric is reworked
from Monteverdi’s setting of Guarini’s Chi vole haver felice e lieto il core, published in the Eighth
Book. That piece, too, carries the much-debated indication ‘alla francese’, and like the motet
contains an abundance of characteristic melodic turns of two notes per syllabe. Still more compact
is the six-voice Adoramus te, Christe, one of four pieces by Monteverdi published in his former
student Giulio Cesare Bianchi’s collection Libro primo de motetti in lode d’Iddio nostro signore of
1620. The text of this brief and solemn utterance, properly speaking a responsory for Good Friday,
was widely used in the seventeenth century for motets to be sung at the Elevation.
In 1583 Monteverdi, a mere sixteen years old, produced a collection of sacred Italian polyphonic
songs entitled Madrigali spirituali. Those with which the Selva morale opens are far more varied
in inspiration, and doubtless stem from different years and circumstances. Of the three included
here, O ciechi, il tanto affaticar che giova is a serious concerted madrigal for five voices, extremely
sensitive to rhetorical detail. The composer gives a position of privilege to the first image of the
text, and ends by somewhat altering the structure and effect of these ‘capitali’ from Petrarch’s
Trionfo della Morte. E’ questa vita un lampo, too, is a five-voice madrigal, if of considerably lighter
character. The poetry is by the Benedictine monk Angelo Grillo, who crossed paths with Monteverdi
a number of times. An exchange of letters between them, dating from 1614, may conceal a
reference to this piece. Chi vol che m’innamori is a work of an altogether more modern type: a
lively strophic song with string ritornellos and hints of dramatization. The text itself is reminiscent
of certain moralizing passages in Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo of 1600, but
the music is from another world. Its imagery leads Monteverdi to adopt a device which he also
employed in the duet Zefiro torna e di soavi accenti from the Scherzi musicali (1632): a ciaccona
ostinato bass for the laughter that we are permitted today, brutally interrupted by the tears that
will be our lot tomorrow. Fortunately the words of all three strophes are closely enough parallel
for the same music to work throughout. At the end we are given time, in the form of a meditative
sinfonia, to reflect upon our unpleasant fate.
The remaining compositions, both ‘a voce sola’, come from other sources. Laudate Dominum,
for bass voice with continuo, was printed twice within a year, both times after the composer’s
death. Here performed in the version offered by Gaspare Casati’s collection of 1651, the brief
psalm settings exhibit a kind of virtuosity whose roots are to be found at the beginning of the
century. Confitebor tibi, Domine, of which Monteverdi composed no fewer than six other settings
(one of which is also included here), survives only in manuscripts copied by Gustav Düben in
1664 and now at Uppsala, Sweden. There it is emphatically attributed to the master of St. Mark’s
and was recently rediscovered by Adolf Watty. Its accompaniment of five viols is an oddly oldfashioned feature, but it is otherwise a piece in the ‘modern’ style, dominated by two ritornellos
and a partly strophic vocal structure. Also typical of Venetian practice are the musical separ-ation
of the ‘Gloria Patri’ and the ‘warlike’ setting of the word ‘terribile’. Assuming that this attractive
motet is really by Monteverdi, it might have been brought back to Dresden by Heinrich Schütz
when he returned from Venice in 1629 (a plausible date for the work as far as style goes), and
transcribed by Düben during a visit to Germany. It is in any case an exciting discovery, and a
reminder of just how far reaching interest in Venetian church music still could be in the age of
Monteverdi.
THOMAS WALKER
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1 | GLORIA
Gloria in excelsis Deo
Et in terra pax hominibus
bonae voluntatis.
Laudamus te
Benedicimus te.
Adoramus te.
Glorificamus te.
Gratias agimus tibi
propter magnam gloriam tuam.
Domine Deus, Rex caelestis,
Deus Pater omnipotens.
Domine, Fili unigenite,
Jesu Christe.
Domine Deus, Agnus Dei,
Filius Patris.
Qui tollis peccata mundi,
miserere nobis,
Qui tollis peccata mundi,
suspice deprecationem nostram.
Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris,
miserere nobis.
Quoniam tu solus Sanctus,
Tu solus Dominus,
Tu solus Altissimus,
Jesu Christe,
Cum Sancto Spiritu
in gloria Dei Patris.
Amen.
2 | CHI VOL CHE M’INNAMORI
Chi vol che m’innamori
Mi dica almen di che!
Se d’animati fiori,
Un fior e che cosa è?
Se de bell’occhi ardenti
Ah! Che sian tosto spenti!
La morte, ohimè, m’uccide!
Il tempo tutto frange:
Hoggi, hoggi si ride
E poi diman si piange.
3 | O CIECHI CIECHI!
O ciechi! Il tanto affaticar che giova?
Tutti tornate alla gran Madre antica,
E’l nome vostro appena si ritrova!
Pur de mille va utile fatica
Che non sian tutte vanita palesi
Ch’intende i vostri studi, si me’l dica!
Che vale a soggiogar tanti paesi,
E tributarie far le genti strane
Con gli animi al suo danno sempre accesi?
Che val l’imprese perigliose e vane,
E col angue acquistar terre e tesori?
Vi più dolce si trova l’acqua e il pane,
E’l vetro e’l legno che le gemme e gli ori!
U’son hor le richezze, u’son gli honori?
E le gemme i gli scettri e le corone?
E mitre con purpurei colori?
Miser chi speme in cosa mortal pone!
4 | ADORAMUS
Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi
quia per sanguinem tuum pretiosum
redimisti mundum.
Misere nobis.
5-6| CONFITEBOR TERZO ALLA FRANCESE
Confitebor tibi, Domine, in toto corde meo: in consilio justorum, et congregatione.
Magna opera Domini: exquisita in omnes voluntates ejus.
Confessio et magnificentia opus ejus: et justitia ejus manet in saeculum saeculi.
Memoriam fecit mirabilium suorum – misericors et miserator Dominus: escam dedit timentibus se.
Memor erit in saeculum testamenti sui: virtutem operum suorum annuntiabit populo suo.
Ut det illis hereditatem gentium: opera manuum ejus veritas et judicium.
Fidelia omnia mandata ejus: confirmata in saeculum saeculi, facta in veritate et aequitate.
Redemptionem misit populo suo: mandavit in aeternum testamentum suum.
Sanctum, et terribile nomen ejus: initium sapientiae timor Domini.
Intellectus bonus omnibus facientibus eum: laudatio ejus manet in saeculum saeculi.
Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto, sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper in saecula saeculorum.
Amen.
7 | LAUDATE DOMINUM
Se vol ch’un aureo crine
Mi leghi, e che sarà
Se di gelate brine
Quel or si spargerà?
Le neve d’un bel seno
Ah vien qual neve meno!
La morte, ohimè, produce
Terror ch’el cor m’ingombra.
Hoggi, hoggi siam luce
E poi dimani ombra.
Dovro pressar thesori
Se nudo io moriro?
E ricercar gli honori
Che presto io lascero?
In che fondar mia speme
Se giongon l’ore estreme?
Che male, ohimè, si pasce
Di vanitade il core!
Hoggi, hoggi si nasce
E poi diman si muore.
Laudate Dominum, omnes gentes,
laudate eum omnes populi.
Quoniam confirmata est super nos
misericordia ejus et veritas Domini
manet in aeternum.
Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto
sicut erat in principio
et nunc et semper in saecula saeculorum.
Amen.
8 | E QUESTA VITA UN LAMPO
E questa vita un lampo
Ch’all’apparir dispare
In questo mortal campo.
Che se miro il passato,
E già morto il futuro ancor non nato,
Il presente sparito
Non ben anco apparito.
Ahi lampo fuggitivo e si m’alletta!
E doppo il lampo pur vien la saetta!
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9 | BEATUS VIR
Beatus vir, qui timet Dominum: in mandatis ejus volet nimis.
Potens in terra erit semen ejus: generatio rectorum benedicetur.
Gloria, et divitiae in domo ejus: et justitia ejus manet in saeculum saeculi.
Exortum est in tenebris lumen rectis: misericors et miserator, et justus.
Jucundus homo qui miseretur et commodat, disponet sermones suos in judicio: quia in aeternum non commove­bitur.
In memoria aeterna erit justus: ab auditione mala non timebit.
Paratum cor ejus sperare in Domino, confirmatum est cor ejus: non commovebitur donec despiciat inimicos suos.
Dispersit, dedit pauperibus – justitia ejus manet in saeculum saeculi, cornu ejus exaltabitur in gloria.
Peccator videbit et irascetur – dentibus suis fremet et tabescet: desiderium peccatorum peribit.
Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto, sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper in saecula saeculorum.
Amen.
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