The period around the year 1600 is generally conceived of as the turning point of an era in the history of music. Closer investigation has frequently indicated that this change was long in coming and gradual in occurring, suggesting that the idea of a sudden switch is in many ways a misconception. Nevertheless, when essential aspects of the everyday world of music are taken into account, there are good reasons for seeing the emergence of a new epoch around at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Unquestionably, however, the foundations of change had been laid much earlier in some of the focal points of musical experimentation and development B Venice being one major example, Florence another B while its realisation and propagation did not occur until shortly after 1600.

What first catches our eye is the fact that the general European culture of Franco-Flemish music had dissolved, providing more scope for regional tendencies. For nearly two centuries, composers from Franco-Flemish areas had influenced the development of formal music in Christian Europe to the borders of the Russian empire, due in part to the fact that during this time the Burgundian state in the west of Europe reached its heyday B a short but historically all the more significant one. Even at the close of the sixteenth century, central positions in the musical life of central Europe were occupied by musicians from the Netherlands: the excellent training they had received in the maîtrises provided them with the skills for artistic leadership.

Beginning in 1563, Orlando di Lasso (circa 1532-94), born in Mons in the Hainaut province, was the conductor at the court of Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria (1550-79) and his successor Duke William V (1579-98). [1] His musical oeuvre attained stupendous dimensions, including some seven hundred motets, seventy masses, one hundred magnificats, ninety German Lieder, 150 chansons, 110 madrigals, etc., and an international standard which satisfied all desires and expectations. Thanks to the highly developed note-printing techniques used in Venice and Antwerp, Di Lasso's works found their way into the most remote corners of musical activity in both the liturgical and secular areas.

From 1568 until his death, Philippe de Monte (1521-1603) of Mechlin worked at the Imperial court of the Habsburgs in Vienna and B during the reign of Rudolf II (1576-1612) B in Prague. Also with the aid of Venetian note-printing, his works circulated throughout Europe. Franco-Flemish composers were also active at numerous Italian courts until the end of the century, for example Giaches de Weert (1535-96) of Antwerp at the court of the Gonzaga in Mantua. And finally, in a document listing the residents of Frankfurt am Main in the year 1587, two of the ten professional musicians mentioned were from the Netherlands: the organist Watinus (De Wattines) of Tournai and the harpist Franz de Quibber of Brussels. [2] Thus, at this point in time, the musicians of the Netherlands are still omnipresent in musical practice, and even in the relatively unspectacular music cultivation of Frankfurt they left their mark in the form of the internationalism they represented.

The Franco-Flemish composers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had developed and perfected a musical style in which the horizontal conducting of voices imbued the musical movement with dense web of intricately woven musical lines of extreme beauty and purity. The basic concept called for the vocal expression of these lines, while in practice instruments were employed for the accompaniment or even the solo performance of individual parts. From the early sixteenth century on, the composers intervening in the existing musical culture emerged increasingly from places other than the Franco-Flemish maîtrises. The previously established models of style nevertheless remained in use.

Within the category of the generally accessible and obligatory Franco-Flemish-influenced musical culture, however, the sixteenth century saw the development of a great number of special forms B both in modes of practice and in stylistic genres B which would later contribute significantly to the advent of a new musical epoch. Particularly noteworthy in this respect are the emergence of the Italian madrigal genre in northern Italy (Mantua, Verona, Ferrara), the establishment of a permanent instrumental ensemble in the state church of San Marco in Venice, and finally the multi-choral performance style practised at the same church.

The literary and musical genre of the Ars nova madrigal had disappeared from Italian culture rather suddenly at the start of the fifteenth century B apparently yielding to the pressure and influence of the more erudite Franco-Flemish music. Yet the patronage and aesthetic sensibility of the Marchioness Isabella Gonzaga (1474-1539) in Mantua, a princess Este by birth, inspired the emanation of a new literary-musical taste nourished by the rediscovery of Francesco Petrarca and his followers. The extensive freedom permitted by the literary madrigal B the author choosing between seven and eleven-syllable verses and rhyming them as desired B is mirrored by an equivalent freedom in terms of its musical setting and provides a foundation for the emergence of a specifically madrigalesque musical culture and composition style in traditionally four, five or six-part movements. A prominent characteristic is the intense concentration on individual words of the text, by means of which the content or import is interpreted musically.

The perfection of the madrigal genre was the work of both Italian and Franco-Flemish composers (e.g. Costanzo Festa, Jacques Arcadelt). By 1600, the style had developed to the point of being the most modern of its time B and the one within which innovation could most be expected. The application of so-called madrigalisms was already common practice in the composition of masses and motets and formed the basis for expressiveness in music. The madrigal genre quickly came to dominate European music culture as a whole. Madrigals were composed in Italian as well as in German (Leonhard Lechner), English (Thomas Morley) and Spanish (Francisco Guerrero).

The Italian madrigal was the first style from which innovative approaches emerged. Two phenomena are symptomatic: the freedom of form and the emphasis on expressiveness which provided a basis for using the madrigal as a theatrical means. Due to its wealth of literary-musical imagery, every madrigal was a dramatic work in nuce. The genre lent itself particularly well to the construction of entire comedies by combining many character-centred and narrative madrigals B as practised by Orazio Vecchi (1550-1605) and Adriano Banchieri (1568-1634) with great diligence. It is certainly no coincidence that madrigals composed by the most famous representative of the genre, Luca Marenzio (1553/54-99) were incorporated into the overall concept of the Florentine Intermedia of 1589 on the occasion of Ferdinando I de Medici's (1587-1609) marriage to Christina of Lothringen. These works by Marenzio are generally regarded as early experiments in the genre of opera, introduced shortly before the beginning of the seventeenth century.

As a genre, the madrigal was an essential factor in the emergence of yet another new style B and thus of a whole new era. Between 1587 and 1603, Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) B one of the most outstanding innovators of the early seventeenth century B published four books of madrigals written in the traditional style for five a cappella voices. In 1605, in his fifth madrigal book, he made use of a new performance technique, the figured bass exposition ("col basso continuo per il clavicembalo, chittarone od altro simile istomento").

From the practical point of view, the incorporation of the figured bass B founded on the combination of a polyphonic instrument (organ, harpsichord or lute) with bass instruments (bass, cello, bassoon, etc.) B made the performance of any work of music possible. The presence of individual voices was no longer essential because each part was integrated into the texture of notes played by the figured-bass group. The thorough bass exposition guaranteed the harmonically complete rendering of every score, and this musical technique was thus adopted by small and large ensembles alike, serving to complete the one and strengthen the foundation of the other.

The practice of including a thorough bass was decisive for the development of soloist music, for the basso continuo players took over the part of the work which the soloist B whether a singer or an instrumentalist B did not perform, but which according to the rules of the existing system was still an essential element of the music. Even if there is evidence of this practice being employed as early as 1587, the publication of the Cento concerti ecclesiasti by Lodovico da Viadana (circa 1560-1627) in 1602 represents the decisive epochal step. The multiple reprinting of this work in Venice and, from 1609 on, in Frankfurt am Main, encouraged the swift reception of the thorough-bass practice while at the same time serving to propagate the new genre of spiritual concertos arranged for solo performance.

In Italy and, later, in other places, the madrigal was originally associated with a highly educated, societal culture of increasing prevalence both at the courts and in the patrician circles of the towns. For the first time, it offered women the opportunity to participate in a framework characterised by high literary and musical standards. The Madrigale... per cantare, et sonare a uno, e doi, e tre soprani by Luzzasco Luzzaschi (circa 1545-1607), published in 1601, may very possibly have been written as early as 1570 for the famous female trio at the court of Ferrara, and marks a major turning-point in the music of high society. In the duchy of Burgundy, such music had been primarily in the hands of the clerics; Duchess Isabella d'Este B later Marchioness of Mantua B was trained for example by a Franco-Flemish cleric (Johannes Martini). As it passed into the hands of the nobility and the bourgeois patriciate, male falsettos were gradually replaced by female voices.

Towards the end of the fifteenth century, instrumental music began to gain in significance, and in the course of the sixteenth century it became established as an independent form in court society and urban bourgeois culture, not only in Italy, but throughout Europe. It was a time when vocal and instrumental music were undergoing a process of separation. Early instrumental music was still largely influenced by the compositional structures of the Franco-Flemish vocal culture, but in the course of the sixteenth century it created its own musical idiom B often specifically instrumental B as well as its own forms and genres. By 1600, the separation was basically complete and compositions for specific instruments and instrument combinations were common.

The multi-choral style was inseparably linked with the city of Venice, due in great part to the favourable spatial conditions of the church of San Marco, and rapidly became the quintessence of festive music. Although it had been introduced by the Franco-Flemish composer Adriaen Willaert (circa 1490-1562) in his Salmi spezzati of 1550, it was further developed by Italian composers such as Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli (circa 1510-86 and 1557-1612 respectively). Outside the city of lagoons, its reception was initially hesitant; after 1600, however, it swiftly became popular elsewhere in Italy as well as north of the Alps. Hans Leo Haßler (1564-1612) in Nuremberg, Michael Prätorius (1571/72-1621) in Wolfenbüttel and Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) in Dresden avidly adopted the convention and contributed greatly to its becoming an established element of seventeenth-century compositional practice.

The experience with multi-chorality and the widespread interest it inspired were not without consequence B for example in the newly constructed Salzburg Cathedral, completed in 1628. This edifice, conceived as a representative work in the age of the Counter-Reformation, stood at the border between north and south and would radiate its influence far into southern Germany. Four choir galleries were incorporated into its crossing B two of them equipped with organs B allowing for previously unheard of musical splendour. The most renowned work performed there, the Missa Salisburgensis probably composed in 1682 by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644-1704) B but formerly attributed to Orazio Benevoli (1605-72) B was written for fifty-three voices in five choirs.

In the second half of the sixteenth century, three decisive and inextricably connected processes led to major changes in musical life as well as in genres and forms of music. First of all, separation from the international Franco-Flemish musical culture came about more or less at this time. As long as the Franco-Flemish tradition was still able to absorb the impulses coming from the many regions and in the many languages of Europe, the process of separation was temporarily postponed: in addition to an impressive secular Latin oeuvre, Orlando di Lasso composed Italian madrigals alongside French chansons and German (as well as Dutch) Lieder. No sooner had the new genres of the Italian madrigal and the new Parisian chanson emerged, than the Franco-Flemish composer Jacobus Arcadelt (circa 1500-58) assimilated them and became one of the leading representatives of the unwritten norms of the genre.

By the close of the century, however, this compositional potential was exhausted. The sole remaining protagonist of the Franco-Flemish culture was Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621), often apostrophised as the "last Netherlander" (the older designation for Franco-Flemish composers). His vocal oeuvre B psalm settings and Cantiones sacrae B once again represent high art in all its glory, although it must be added that his influence was primarily felt in terms of his compositions for B and the playing of B the organ. It is perhaps no coincidence that his most important followers were north and central German masters such as Heinrich Scheidemann (circa 1596-1663) in Hamburg and Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) of Halle an der Saale. Finally, the ban on church music accompanying the introduction of Calvinism, certainly contributed in great part to the decline of Franco-Flemish music.

The erosion of the Franco-Flemish composers' leading position led to a phenomenon unique in cultural history and still not explainable in all its complexity: the dominance of Italy, which remained unbroken until the end of the eighteenth century. In the area of opera, it actually lasted into the second half of the nineteenth century, finally coming to an end in the antagonism between Richard Wagner's works and the opera oeuvre of Giuseppe Verdi. By 1600 at the latest, Italian had become the international language of music B as it still is today. Even as early as the mid-sixteenth century, significant theoretical treatises were no longer written in Latin but in Italian, one particularly noteworthy example being Gioseffo Zarlino's (1517-90) book Le istitutioni harmoniche of 1558, one of the major guideposts for the humanist Renaissance.

Symptomatic of the new leadership role assumed by Italy in the area of musical convention, was the fact that budding young musicians -even barely half-trained students of music B went or were sent to Italy in order to perfect themselves. This orientation was based in part on the then newly developed theory that music was not a science B as it had been during the time of the Franco-Flemish composers, generally recruited from the clergy B with an established place in the trivium of university education, but a practice, comparable to the mechanical arts and learnable in keeping with the principles of artisanary.

The musical world of 1600 fed on the artisan-oriented notion that young talents should be sent abroad for training. Two quite different geographical centres of attraction crystallised. When the tonal art was to be experienced and learned in its entirety, the candidate was sent to Italy; Venice B with its elaborately developed vocal and instrumental music as well as its splendid multi-choral practices B was a particularly popular destination. Heinrich Schütz's period of study with Giovanni Gabrieli of Venice B thanks to a scholarship granted by the house of the Saxon prince electorate B is as well-known as it was rich in consequences. But Schütz is by no means the only young musician to have visited Italy: others worthy of mention here are Hans Leo Haßler of Nuremberg, who travelled to Italy in 1584, and Johann Grabbe (1585-1655) of Lemgo, sent to Giovanni Gabrieli of Venice by Count Simon VI zur Lippe (1563-1613) in 1607 for further musical training.

In other cases, when the aim was not to learn composition as such, but rather to master the actual playing of the organ in all of its many possibilities, the student was sent to Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck in Amsterdam. Holland was not only a widely influential centre of organ building; the art of organ-playing had also flourished there to reach a standard of rare perfection, holding a particular attraction for northern and central Germany. It was not unusual for the young musician's home town to bear the expense of apprenticeship abroad: the town council of Leipzig, for example, sent Andreas Düben (circa 1590-1662) "to the artist Johan Pedersen Sweelinck" for six years from 1614 to 1620, "so that he might better learn his art and master the foundations of composition and fugue-writing". [3] The recipient of this support could hardly be described as grateful, for in 1620 or 1621, Düben went to Stockholm where he became the court organist and organist of the German church, later (1640) becoming court orchestra director.

Alongside these two developments B the decline of the international standard of Franco-Flemish culture and Italy's attainment of musical hegemony B a third process began to evolve in the second half of the sixteenth century: the gradual shift of Europe's centre from the Mediterranean region to central, northern and central-eastern Europe. The social historian Fernand Braudel has investigated this development in terms of the economy and with regard to production; yet it also played a role in the sphere of cultural life.

In the course of the sixteenth century, a remarkable turnaround and transition of political, economic and cultural priorities took place in Europe. The Renaissance had represented the concentration of all energies and interests in Italy, the centre of the Mediterranean region, which had emerged from a proto-capitalist form of economy as well as from the corresponding long-term political vision. After 1500, other regions pushed their way to the fore B regions in which the conditions for economic innovation were closer at hand than in an Italy which had become politically impotent, falling first into French and later, after 1550, into Spanish dependency.

This reorientation took place against a background of relative prosperity, both in northern Italy and north of the Alps. It was accompanied by precipitate innovation in the areas of technology, artistry, fashion and lifestyles. The expansion and internationality of the horizon of experience created a previously unknown wealth of impressions. The "backlog demand" north of the Alps with regard to the refined civilisation of Italy and the rest of the Mediterranean area was doubtless great. Thus, in a manner reminiscent of the nouveau riche, the northern regions abandoned themselves to this lifestyle without restraint, fuelled by pent-up and mutually competitive energies. The abundance of invention and the new developments stemming from within these energies are no less impressive than the adaptations and imports from distant, foreign lands.

The adoption of Italian music throughout sixteenth-century Germany should therefore not be regarded as an isolated phenomenon but understood as the acquisition of cultural forms in connection with the other arts. The fine arts as they had developed in Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries B particularly painting but sculpture and architecture as well B came to function as models for emulation. This was apparently the case to such an extent that artists of these branches regularly worked north of the Alps, quite successfully repressing or even smothering local developments B for example in painting.

The festive customs of the court B differing quite considerably from those of the late Middle Ages B played a central role, as they served to join the different branches of art. It was not until one was willing to step outside the narrow confinements of fortresses or fortified castles B and could afford to do so from the point of view of safety B and enter spacious building complexes incorporating open spaces and gardens, that a festival culture B capable of combining painting, sculpture, architecture, music, horsemanship and a great deal more in an often grandiose concept B was able to develop. Towards the end of the century, the festivals taking place at the court of the Medici were described in printed reports available to the public, thus developing a high degree of effectiveness. The internal court accounts of the magnificent ritual observances at the Burgundian court of Philip the Good (1419-67), written by a certain Jean Molinet (1435-1507) and others pale in comparison.

The imitation and adoption of Italian styles and traditions were felt particularly strongly in Dresden. After 1555, the young Saxon electorate provided the best imaginable conditions for the pursuit and acquisition of culture, without many of the usual hindrances. The struggles connected with the new religion had been won and the rival Brandenburg-Kulmbach defeated in 1553. North Brandenburg had its own problems and the territory of its most powerful ally, Landgrave Philip of Hesse (1509-67), disintegrated after his death due to unnecessary divisions of inheritance. Saxony was thus the most highly esteemed secular electorate with the status of Imperial principality B which from 1566 on also comprised the additional office of arch marshal, signifying a major representative responsibility.

Lutheranism B a state religion supportive of individual bourgeois capitalist initiative, a technologically modern economy and a great store of natural resources B formed a healthy basis for expansive territorial policy and creative, flexible patronage of culture. Through the relocation of the residence of Wittenberg and Torgau to Dresden, the cultural ornament was able to be used as a symbol of the state's newly obtained self-awareness in a manner already anticipating the absolutist sentiment of the Baroque period. This is reflected not only in the employment of famous foreign artists, but also in the openness towards both regional and particularly foreign cultural production.

The orchestra regulations of 1 January 1555, enacted by August of Saxony right at the beginning of his reign (1553-86), [4] contains a novelty: not only was the personnel considerably increased in order to adapt it to larger representative duties, but in addition to the nineteen orchestra singers and thirteen choirboys, an entirely new troop of seven "welschen Instrumentisten" (Italian instrumentalists) was employed. [5] The higher average salaries of the Italians caused them to be regarded virtually as uomini virtuosi B and did not, incidentally, contribute to a harmonious atmosphere in the German-Dutch-Italian orchestra. In keeping with the Italian model of organisation at San Marco in Venice, the choir and instrumental group formed two separate bodies. The instrumentalists' section was continually expanded, both in terms of personnel and the acquisition of new instruments. [6] The Italians were first led by Antonio Scandello (1517-80) of Bergamo, who converted to Protestantism according to prevailing political-religious rules. In 1568, Scandello was appointed to take the place of the Franco-Flemish musician Mattheus Le Maistre (circa 1505-77) as master conductor, receiving for this position the astonishingly high annual salary of 400 gulden.

Succeeding Scandello in 1580 as court conductor of Dresden was another Italian, Giovanni Battista Pinello de Ghirardi (circa 1544-87), a self-described Genovese nobleman who had been engaged in Dresden upon recommendation by Rudolf II of Prague. The leading musical position at court was now filled not by an instrumentalist but a singer (tenorista). The changing of the guard from Franco-Flemish to Italian predominance thus appears paradigmatically complete. The fact that Pinello only managed to hold the position in Dresden for four years before ceding to a German (Georg Foster) B regardless of whether this was due to intrigues or the Italian's lack of leadership capability B is of no consequence to the general tendency.

Although the humanist movement of fifteenth and sixteenth-century Europe was by no means monolithic, two central aspects can be determined with regard to all European regions: it formulated a clearly accentuated awareness of national singularity, originating in the typically Italian conception of commune, and it brought into being a non-ecclesiastical intelligentsia, active in civil and public life, to a degree previously unknown. Both of these aspects were of far-reaching significance for the musical development of Europe. The Protestant religions had already freed the profession of composer/musician from the clutches of the priesthood and now, at the end of the sixteenth century, leading musical positions in the Catholic countries were frequently occupied by married civilian musicians: both Orlando di Lasso, court conductor of Munich, and Claudio Monteverdi, court conductor of Mantua and later master conductor at San Marco in Venice are worthy of mention in this context. Fifty years earlier, their having such careers as well as children would still have been largely unthinkable.

Particularly in France, England and Germany, the humanist impulse from Italy gave rise to an independent national and native-tongue-oriented musical culture. It should be added that at the end of the sixteenth century, Spain also possessed a culture of music characterised by individuality in its idiom, forms and genres B but which had arisen more from the preservation and further development of old traditions than through the fertile assimilation of Italy's humanist approach.

In 1570, under the patronage of King Charles IX (1550-74), the Académie de Poésie et de Musique was founded in Paris by the poet Jean-Antoine de Baïf (1532-89) and the musician Joachim Thibault de Courville (circa 1535-81). The underlying concept called for re-orientation back towards classical antiquity, resulting in the creation of metrical verse and correspondingly rhythmic music B a style which did not meet with universal approval. Nevertheless, a decisive step had been taken and a national institution established to bear authority in matters of literature and music. The fact that the Huguenot Psalter B a versification of the Psalms by Clément Marot (1496-1544) and Théodore de Bèze (1519-1605) B represented a greater degree of cultural identification for both Protestants and Catholics detracts in no way from the long-term impact of the Académie as a centre of literary and musical cultivation.

The development of independent musical genres and forms in France was further encouraged by the court's aspirations towards centralisation. The French king was preoccupied with gathering everything there that could enhance the glory of his kingdom. The position of Surintendant de la musique de la Chambre, established by King Henri IV (1589-1610) in 1592 became a focal institution bringing forth a new form of official court musical culture. Under Louis XIV (1643-1715), this monarchic centralisation took on the character of an artistic dictatorship whose effect was felt throughout Europe by the second half of the seventeenth century.

The chanson was one of the earliest forms of music to receive a particularly French character in the so-called "city of Paris chanson", circulated in innumerable printed collections of Paris and Lyon from the 1630s on. In contrast to the older courtly chanson, the new genre was concerned above all with giving broad scope to the word, the intellect and the esprit as a means of stimulating the bourgeois citizen's sense of realism. With regard to popularity, the "city of Paris chanson" was replaced by the air, an instrumentally accompanied, primarily one-part song or dance melody encountered in a variety forms: air à danser, air à boire, air de ballet and air spirituel. It was a genre which exercised considerable influence on French culture from 1600 until the end of the century. Several of these forms, such as the air à boire, owed much of their character to folk art.

Among the styles initiated by the Académie de Poésie et de Musique was the Ballet de cour in which dance, music and poetry were combined. Appearing in the second half of the sixteenth century, it was conceived exclusively for performance by the court society B members of the court nobility and the royal family B backed by a few professional musicians. In addition to the dances, a Ballet de cour consisted of vocal compositions in the form of airs de cour and declamations known as récits. Accompanying printed texts enabled the audience to follow the plot and the verses. This genre, which underwent many changes in the course of its development at the French court, proved extremely influential: appealing to eye, ear, mind and body, the Ballet de cour B because it involved all present B attained a not-to-be-underestimated value as a form of entertainment within court society.

For all its intended individuality, French music was characterised by a certain one-sidedness. Those interested in music continued to look to Italy; and from quite early until the end of the eighteenth century, debate waged as to the advantages, disadvantages and respective superiority of one musical trend or the other. The constant discussion was accompanied by invitations extended to Italian musicians and littérateurs, beginning during the era of Catherine of Medici (1519-89), and leading to a veritable invasion of Italian music under Cardinal Jules Mazarin (1602-61). Thus even in France the permanent dominance of Italian musical culture was recognisable B even if in some areas it served merely as a foil.

Following the departure of the English church from the papacy B brought about by Henry VIII (1509-47) in 1531 B and the consolidation of the English monarchy under Elizabeth I (1558-1603), English literature and music began to flourish. The close link between music and language was derived from the Italian humanist aesthetic and transplanted to England by means of Italian models such as the translation of Baldassare Castiglione's (1478-1529) Il libro del cortegiano. Beginning in 1562, Alfonso I Ferrabosco (1543-88) of Bologna was in the service of Queen Elizabeth, introducing the Italian madrigal to English composers, who further developed and anglicised it. The madrigal thus became a major genre of English culture although, in contrast to the figured-bass practices of the continent, it remained a multi-vocal form until well into the seventeenth century.

Also worthy of mention in this context are two other specifically English genres whose influence was also felt in the north of the continent: the ayre and the consort. The ayre B a solo song sung in English to the accompaniment of a group of instruments or a lute B began to blossom in 1597 with John Dowland's (circa 1563-1626) First Booke of Songes or Ayres and remained fashionable until 1622. The consort style enjoyed particular popularity: it was a type of music composed for a chamber ensemble of four to six members playing instruments from either the same family (whole consort) or different families (broken consort). At the basis of this manifestation was the extraordinarily rich and intensive cultivation of instrumental music, engendering quite a number of instrumental musicians and lutists who went on to occupy influential positions on the continent: John Dowland for instance at the courts of Wolfenbüttel and Kassel from 1594-95, and at the court of Christian IV of Denmark (1588-1648) from 1598 to 1606.

Of all the innovations brought forth by Italy around the year 1600, the opera certainly had the greatest impact. In the long run, no other genre had such a decisive effect on the musical culture of Europe. Not only had a new genre with various literary forms and sub-genres been initiated, but the style of musical presentation experienced a breakthrough with far-reaching consequences: from this point on, musical production branched off into music intended for listening and watching (with all the accompanying factors such as scene, image, plot, etc.) and the kind composed for playing oneself.

Born in Italy around 1600, opera was derived from three sources: the pastoral drama with musical interludes, festive events at the north Italian courts B particularly in Florence B and finally, the discussion of a possible retrieval of classical tragedy, conducted above all in the Camerata Fiorentina of Count Giovanni de' Bardi (1534-1612). Dafne, with a libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini (1562-1621) and music by Jacopo Peri (1561-1633) and Jacopo Corsi (1561-1604) B only fragments of which have been preserved B and Euridice, libretto again by Rinuccini, set to music first by Peri and then by Giulio Caccini (circa 1550-1618), represent the first three full-fledged attempts, between 1598 and 1600, to conceive an opera. In them a new form of presentation B recitativo or rappresentativo B was tested, solo song inspired by the monody of classical antiquity above an instrumental supporting bass, usually with long note values. The aim was to heighten the emotional effect of the language by means of a musical and gestural performance.

The Florentine concept of the opera rapidly expanded in the course of various phases of development. Alongside arioso forms B leaving less and less room for improvisation or deviation from the original composition B there appeared choral, instrumental and solo ensemble movements. The early centres of experimentation with and cultivation of opera were the north Italian courts (Florence, Mantua) and the households of the cardinals in Rome. By 1637 at the latest, when the first public opera house, the Teatro di San Cassiano, opened its doors in Venice, the triumphant advance of the genre was irresistible. By then, for commercial reasons of entertainment, opera was being offered to the educated tourists of Europe and the upper classes of the Republic. During the experimental phase in Mantua, Claudio Monteverdi had already participated in the development of the genre beyond the original monodic concept with his Orfeo (1607) and Arianna (1608; only the Lamento has been preserved). In Venice, he made two significant contributions to the city's commercial opera enterprise: Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (1640) and L'incoronazione di Poppea (1642).

Like everything else that occurred on the musical stage of Italy, the emergence of the opera was also perceived north of the Alps. Reports on courtly doings as well as exchanges between musicians provided for fairly exact transmission of developments B even of details. Probably the major reason for the failure of the north to immediately embrace the Italian model was the outbreak of war. The emulation of this novelty could only have taken place at the courts, where energies, however, were focused on the war effort. Interest was registered everywhere. As early as 1628, the first performances of original Italian operas were held at the Warsaw castle; new compositions by resident Italians (Marco Scacchi, Michelangelo Brunerio) soon followed.

In Dresden, where the presence of numerous Italian conductors guaranteed steady communication with the south, the new genre also developed. In any case, Rinuccini's Dafne, in the translation by Martin Opitz (1597-1639), was performed at Hartenstein castle in Torgau in 1627 on the occasion of the marriage of the prince electorate's oldest daughter. Heinrich Schütz composed the music, none of which has come down to us. It thus remains a mystery whether the text was set consistently in the monodic style which had characterised the first composition by Peri of the year 1598. The more likely explanation is that Schütz took the developments of the genre B to the extent that he was familiar with them B into account, making use of a more diversified style of setting, while simultaneously incorporating the experience garnered from the production of musical drama cultivated in many parts of Germany.

The circumstances at the court of Dresden were typical for German courts in general. With respect to musical culture they were fully abreast of the times and willing to assimilate new developments and incorporate them into their own environments, translating them if desired B as was the case at Torgau. Yet the war led to a certain stagnation which was particularly evident in the area of musical festivities and the culture of private court entertainment. After all, the upper classes were frequently away on martial expeditions. Only ceremonial events such as wedding festivities succeeded in mobilising the still-available musical energies of any given court.

The musical practice at the Württemberg court in Stuttgart provides another pertinent illustration. There, internal court structures reflected all of the above-described aspects; the prerequisites had been fulfilled for the effectuation of an impressive and representative musical court culture satisfying to mind and body. As early as 1575, the duke disposed of extravagant instrumental music, effusively described by Philipp Nicodemus Frischlin (1547-90) in these terms: "from every corner one hears instrumental music of angelic sweetnessY with four, five or six parts, with string instruments, harpsichords, crying pipes and chalumeaus B a delight to the heart". [7] Later, in 1625, the instrumental section of the court orchestra was enlarged by an Engelländische Compagnia.

From the end of the sixteenth century on, the ducal orchestra had always been excellently furnished with personnel performers. In 1611, it boasted sixty-eight members including the choir boys and a Eunuchus described as someone who "also sings a descant, plays the lute not too badly and is otherwise a gentle fellow". [8] Furthermore, an Italian bass singer was to be found in the ensemble. Once the papal orchestra had engaged a Spanish castrato B despite the ban on castration B these singers could no longer be kept out of Italy's ecclesiastical orchestras, where they were much preferred to male falsettos (female singing was prohibited in the Church). The castrati's primary sphere of activity was Italian opera, more specifically the commercial entertainment operations in Venice. Thus the court of Württemberg would have been more or less prepared for the cultivation of Italian opera. Its vocal culture even comprised the art of the coloratura; particularly for the purposes of chamber music, the descanters are said to have been "instructed to sing a fine coloratura". [9]

All of the open-mindedness and modernity of the orchestra at the Württemberg and many other princely courts does not conceal the circumstance that Franco-Flemish polyphony B especially as represented in the oeuvre of Orlando di Lasso B still formed the basis of courtly musical practice. In 1604, the duke was petitioned to approve the purchase of the recently issued Magnum opus musicum from "Orlando's heirs" in view of the fact that, with its over 500 motets, this work was not only "useful" for the princely orchestra "but for the entire Universal-Musica everywhere". [10]

What is known about the ducal orchestra of Stuttgart applies not only to other court orchestras but also to the ensembles of the towns. (See my article "Everyday Musical Life During the Thirty Years' War", also appearing in this volume.) The motet was the chief form of sacred music at the close of the sixteenth century. Whereas it had received its classical form as a four-part movement before 1550, now five and six-part movements were the rule. Yet even motet compositions for two or three choirs B in other words for eight or twelve voices respectively B were not unusual, as they corresponded to the demand for tonal splendour as discovered by many composers during their visits to Italy, particularly Venice. Not all of the parts had to be performed vokaliter; often instruments were used and the organist kept the entire movement together by means of an accompanying particell.

The pillars of motet literature were, on the one hand, the works by the Bavarian court orchestra master Orlandi di Lasso, whose printed editions were available in the libraries of even the smallest choirs B as attested to by the inventories preserved. Also of major importance was Erhard Bodenschatz's (1576-1636) Florilegium musicum Portense. While choirmaster at the élite school Schulpforta near Naumburg B if not in fact before B Bodenschatz assembled a collection of 265 Latin motets by German and Italian composers. These he had published in two parts, the Florilegium selectissimarum cantionum of 1603 and the Florilegium musicum Portense of 1621, forming a collection which remained in use in Saxon lands until the time of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).

There was good reason for the long adherence to the motet. Particularly in Protestant regions, the basis of regular sacred music was so-called figural music. Yet aside from such hubs of innovation as Leipzig, Wittenberg, Torgau or Dresden, this style had not become widely established until the second half of the sixteenth century. A source in Frankfurt am Main relates that on 22 March1573, "the preceptors and pupils of the secondary school sang figural music for the first time in the Protestant Barfüßer Church", a style "previously not in use in this place." [11] In contemplating the question as to when the new Italian style was adopted in Germany, one must take into consideration the adherence to a convention which, though scarcely older, had already proven itself, as well as the undeniable steadfastness of all of the forces involved.

Nonetheless the Italian innovations B the concertising style in connection with the new thorough bass practice and the new instrumental ensemble music B were assimilated throughout Germany, as avidly in Catholic as in Protestant regions. The title pages of the steadily growing number of printed musical editions provide clear evidence of this trend: hardly a title fails to refer to Italian ("welsche") impulses or forms B if they are not indeed written in Italian. The ground was being prepared for an epoch of reorientation, hindered in a minor way by the turmoil and fates of the war, but certainly not steered off in another direction. That would not happen until after the war, when France became the object of aspiration.

Although the musical extravagance of Bishop Ernst August I (1662-98) from the House of Braunschweig-Lüneburg B whose court flourished first at his castle in Iburg and later at the newly built castle in Osnabrück B did not match that of the court in Celle, both were clearly determined by French standards. At the instigation of Princess Sophie of the Rhine Palatinate, nearly all the court musicians were recruited from France, a task executed in good part by dancing master Jemmes. In a letter to her brother, Prince Electorate Carl Ludwig von der Pfalz (1650-80), Sophie emphasised that her dancing master had just returned from Paris, bringing with him "une très bonne bande de violons, unn qui joue de la thuorbe et du lut, et un autre qui chante la base". [12] The apparent purpose for maintaining this team of French musicians was to have cultivated music at mealtimes and to organise regular mask and song performances accompanied by music with the participation of the entire family, including the ducal children.

On the eve of the Thirty Years' War, considerable prosperity prevailed in the cities B a fact to which various studies attest. The economic power of the times provided the means for rapidly overcoming even disasters. In 1599, for example, a terrible plague befell Zittau, claiming nearly 3,000 lives. Then in 1608 almost one third of the city burnt to the ground. The city, however, recovered quickly, the population increased steadily, and the extravagance with regard to both clothing and festivities attained such extremes that the council issued decrees to control the "vainglory and excess in garments" as well as the duration of parties. [13]

This growing and in many ways exuberant prosperity was countered, however, by an escalating sense of foreboding, superstitiously interpreted signs and a corresponding flood in the publication of pamphlets. Freaks were considered to be particularly bad omens, and were made the subject of illustrations (as in Zittau) as well as of long poems set to choral melodies. [14] It began to appear inevitable that the tensions between the Catholics and the Protestants would be disputed militarily.

The modern writing of musical history has not always made the effort to document the economic circumstances of the musicians; but the few cases where such information is available indicate well-founded prosperity with regard to both town and court musicians. Taking Leipzig as an example, we are surprised to discover that at the time of Sethus Calvisius (1556-1615), cantor at the church of St. Thomas, nearly every second musician in the service of the city owned a cottage if not a handsome home. Many of them even got involved in the booming real estate trade. [15]

FOOTNOTES