My mind is in a contemplative and wandering-about mode and today it has been dipping into the nooks and crannies of an assortment of thoughts and memories of love songs. This is not surprising, as I have been listening to and watching a lot of padams lately. Padams are songs of the infinite and universal emotions of love. They were a vital part of the repertoire of the Devadasis, the brilliant and deeply knowledgeable dancers and musicians of the temples and courts of South India. Their beauty is in the mood they create with their haunting melodies and beautiful poetry, rendered at a slow, unhurried pace. They are earthy and real, and sublime and ethereal. They touch a chord deep inside you because the stories they tell are your story too. They are not flashy, there is no exciting footwork, no rhythmic thrills. Only the best musicians and dancers can do them justice and portray their charm, and only a discerning audience can appreciate them. But when it all comes together, the quiet magic that suffuses the air stays with you for a long time. These moments are precious, and rare.
Yesterday I watched a lovely and profoundly moving and satisfying Bharata Natyam performance by Justin McCarthy, an American who has lived in India for over three decades, learning and teaching this dance form. He is also deeply knowledgeable about the world of the Devadasis and the padams that were such a vital part of their repertoire. (Do read on till the very end. You will be rewarded with a video made by Justin McCarthy and Sandhya Kumar that takes you into the Devadasi's realm by way of the words and melodies of padams). My neighbor at the concert was a person who is also a wonderful artist, the kind I admire very much because of the depth and breadth of her insight and learning. We got to talking, and she mentioned that she had had long conversations with Justin about Bach - Justin is also trained in classical western music - and on how to incorporate the concepts of counterpoint and fugue - weaving multiple voices together - in dance. And I remembered something I had written many years back after listening to two madrigals by Claudio Monteverdi, an Italian composer of the 16th and 17th centuries. Madrigals are songs written for several voices, and love is often a theme. Monteverdi's madrigals are an explosion of drama and emotion, much like padams for their intensity and passion.
So here they are, my thoughts on Monteverdi and his madrigals out in the public on this blog, as much out of a desire to keep it alive, as to share my thoughts with the rare reader who might drop by.
Introduction and Background
The madrigal of the 16th and 17th centuries was a short poem or verse, set to music for several voices, in the polyphonic style of the day. Counterpoint, where several melodies are performed together to form a harmonious whole, as well as homophony, where one voice dominates the melody, are both used in madrigal singing. Madrigal themes were always secular, and could reflect sentimental, erotic or pastoral themes. As the form developed, Italian madrigal composers used verses by some of the best poets of the time, including Petrarch and Ariosto. During the 16th and 17th centuries, there was a veritable deluge of madrigals that were published.
Claudio Monteverdi, who was born in Italy in 1567, was one of the most important musicians of that period. His music straddled both the Renaissance and Baroque eras, represented a transition from the 16th century to the 17th century, and paved the way for the development of opera with its very different style of singing. He composed eight books of madrigals with a clear development from a more “traditional” (for his day) style in the earlier works to what was then considered ground-breaking and daring in his later books. The songs from the earlier books observed more rigidly the “norms” of the madrigal, which included strict adherence to counterpoint, the polyphonic ideal in the equality of voices and the perfection of harmony. In other words, the music dominated, and the words, meaning and emotions were secondary. In the songs from his later books, the music was more of a tool to convey the expressions and passions of the words, and as a result, more liberties were taken to achieve this end. Dissonance was used more frequently to enhance the expressiveness of the words and to portray conflict. The emphasis was on how best to communicate the meaning of the text, rather than rigorously following musical theory and rules. This is not to say that the rules were completely abandoned – far from it. Monteverdi still worked largely within the framework of 16th century counterpoint.
Monteverdi himself declared that his first four books of madrigals were in the “prima prattica” mode, while the second four were of the “seconda prattica” with the “music the servant, not the mistress, of the text” (the last were his brother, Giulio Cesare’s, words).
Ah Dolente Partita
Monteverdi’s Ah Dolente Partita is the first madrigal from his Fourth Book of Madrigals which was published in 1603. In this madrigal, a lover, Mirtillo, expresses his agony over the separation from his beloved Amarilli. The words express extreme pain, anguish and suffering, bleakness and despair. Monteverdi has set this poem, written by the well-known Italian poet of that era, Giovanni Battista Guarini, to be sung by five voices (two sopranos, one alto, one tenor and one bass). There are no instruments to accompany the voices.
Armed with all this background information, I listened to this song many times. The very first time I listened, it was obvious that very sad and powerful emotions were being poured into the music. This would be evident to anyone hearing the song even without knowing anything about the meaning of the song. The music produced an atmosphere of intense pathos and drama. The minor key, slow pace, lack of a strong rhythmic emphasis and the dissonances between the voices, all contributed to the melancholic air of the song.
I then listened more closely, many, many more times. The first couple of times, I found it extremely difficult to separate out the different lines, as they are sung simultaneously. There is no strong melodic line, and all voices are of equal importance. It was like listening to five people talking all at once, and trying to distinguish each person’s voice and words. This is particularly so in the first three lines of the song, where each voice takes on each line, but at different times; new voices swoop into the song midway through another voice singing another line. The song starts on a high, pure note, sung in unison by the two sopranos. The voices soon break apart, and after that and go their own way. Each voice seems to have its own meter.
To me, there are three parts to the song, based on how it was rendered. The singing of the first three lines
Ah dolente partita!
ah, fin de la mia vita!
da de parto e non moro?
make up the first part of the song. This is performed with a lot of counterpoint, the voices and lines stacked one atop another like an uneven pile of blocks. Following these lines, there is a moment of clarity when, after many repetitions of the first three lines by all the five voices, the words “E pur I’ provo la pena de la morte” are sung, making up what appears to me to be the second part of the song. All voices sing the same lines in beautiful harmony. Relative to the first part, this one is short, and moves on to the third part, starting with the lines “E sento nel partire”. Initially, these lines are sung in the same manner as “E pur I’ provo…) – all voices sing the lines together, but soon enough, the densely contrapuntal style of the first three lines is taken up again. The music has moved lower, and most of the high, shrieking despair of the earlier part has given way (for the most part, although the sopranos do sweep in with their shrill lament) to a quieter, resigned despondency.
The pace is slow, and the meter is four beats to a bar. The first (and sometimes third) notes have the stronger beat. Being a slow, sad song, there is no strong rhythmic beat. There was no rhythmic variation.
I think that Monteverdi has done a brilliant job of depicting the mental state of Mirtillo through his music. Mirtillo’s mind is a whirl of emotions, all experienced simultaneously. By making the five voices circle around one another, each expressing a different aspect of Mirtillo’s inner turmoil and torment, Monteverdi’s music has achieved what the written word, which is linear and horizontal, cannot. Therefore, the fugal style of singing the first three lines, many times over, is a beautiful way of depicting many conflicting thoughts and emotions contemporarily. Spoken aloud, this would merely result in a cacophony of sound, but sung like this, it is a lovely way of articulating conflicting sentiments.
This muddle of passions sung in the first three lines then gives way to a clearer, calmer moment. All those dissonant voices blend together to sing “E pur I’ provo la pena de la morte” together. The upper voices make their way down, while the bass climbs up, and all voices sing the same lines together. This might be a symbolic way of representing a brief moment of clarity, a moment when Mirtillo realizes that his suffering is proof that he is very much alive and that that his life, sorrow and pain are condemned to continue on. This part is short-lived, as soon, the contrapuntal singing of the next lines, “E sento nel partire un vivace morire”, mirrors his confusion and turmoil once again.
Cruda Amarilli
I was curious to see how this song differed from Ah Dolente Partita. Cruda Amarilli is the first song from Monteverdi’s Fifth Book of Madrigals, which was published in 1606. This book was the first of his “seconda prattica” mode of madrigal composition. Monteverdi was moving towards what would be called the Baroque style of music, where the ideal of equal voices in singing gave way to emphasizing one voice over the others, with a harmonically supporting bass. As with many things new and innovative, this style was criticized for a variety of reasons, including the allegations that contrapuntal theory was relegated to the backburner and that there was an increased and unnecessary use of dissonance. Giovanni Maria Artusi, a music theorist and contemporary of Monteverdi’s, was one of his fiercest critics. In an essay called “L’Artusi overo delle imperfettioni della moderna musica” (The Artusi, or Imperfections of Modern Music) he singled out Monteverdi’s Cruda Amarilli, criticizing its contrapuntal licenses.
Cruda Amarilli is written for five voices, one soprano, one alto, two tenors and one bass. There is no instrumental accompaniment.
In this song, Mirtillo is still pining for Amarilli, who has so cruelly left him to his agony. Listening to this song, the first thing that struck me was that there was a much stronger melody in this piece, with more dissonance from the other voices against the melody, perhaps to express the emotions in the text. The melodic line is taken up by different voices. There is a much stronger bass in this song. There is far less of contrapuntal singing than in Ah Dolente Partita. I found the text far easier to follow because of this. There was an abrupt change in the rhythm (where it speeded up) for the line “e piu fugace”, to express the “fleeting” nature of Amarilli.
I really cannot make any sweeping generalizations about Monteverdi and his “prima prattica” and “seconda prattica” from listening to only two songs. Ah Dolente Partita clearly employs much more of the contrapuntal technique, while Cruda Amarilli has a much stronger melodic component, and maybe they are illustrative of his progress from one style to another. I loved both songs, and am sufficiently intrigued, to want to listen to more of his madrigals and put more of what I have learned to use.