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Presentation1 UCT

The document discusses the role of instrumental music in early seventeenth-century drama, focusing on Monteverdi's L'Orfeo and its innovative orchestration techniques. It highlights the various roles of musicians and the construction of instruments in different regions, emphasizing the significance of guilds in the instrument-making industry. The text illustrates how these developments influenced the emotional expression in music and set the stage for future Baroque opera.

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Themba Mdlalose
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8 views

Presentation1 UCT

The document discusses the role of instrumental music in early seventeenth-century drama, focusing on Monteverdi's L'Orfeo and its innovative orchestration techniques. It highlights the various roles of musicians and the construction of instruments in different regions, emphasizing the significance of guilds in the instrument-making industry. The text illustrates how these developments influenced the emotional expression in music and set the stage for future Baroque opera.

Uploaded by

Themba Mdlalose
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Art and Craft of

Instrumental Music in the


Early Seventeenth Century
Drama
Monteverdi L’Orfeo
• Monteverdi’s Innovative Use of Instrumentation
• Contrast & Colour: Different instruments are assigned to distinct
emotional or narrative roles (e.g., strings for lyricism, brass for solemnity).
• Echo Effects: Instruments mirror Orpheus’s voice in “Possente spirto,”
enhancing the magic and rhetorical persuasion.
• Expressive Continuo: The continuo group is flexible, adapting to the
dramatic needs of each scene.
• Symbolic Instrumentation: Bright instruments (harps, cornetti) for the
divine; dark instruments (trombones) for the underworld.
• Monteverdi’s orchestration in L’Orfeo set a precedent for later Baroque
opera, demonstrating how instrumentation could shape drama and
express deep emotions. Would you like a more detailed breakdown of a
specific scene?
Role of musicians:
• Court musicians kept on staff – same status as blacksmiths, fencing instructors, stable boys, and coachmen.

• In towns:

• Winds - serving as night watchmen, human alarm clocks, and even weathermen; they could also perform for
town festivals and supplement their income with engagements in taverns and private homes.

• Brass - instruments had long been used for communications on the battlefield, but were also heard in church
or at special feasts and victory celebrations. They were ideal for the grand processions that were integral to
civic and religious life in much of Europe

• Strings - such as lutes, viols, members of the violin family, and keyboard instruments (harpsichords, chamber
organs, virginals) were favoured indoors, and were suitable for the “private music” that entertained nobles.
They were also used frequently and to great effect in church, accompanying solo voices or choirs, or
enhancing an important moment in the service or liturgy.

• Dancing - Musicians were a necessity for another important activity: dancing. We have already considered the
centrality of dance in court entertainments, in which both professionals and courtiers participated.
BUILDING INSTRUMENTS FOR SIGHT AND
SOUND
• increased interest in and knowledge about instruments and
instrument construction in the seventeenth century
• Theatrum instrumentorum - Michael Praetorius (1571–1621)
• Players and builders were in close contact
• Instruments developed to allow more skillful playing
• In turn allowed musicians and composers to experiment with
execution and creation
• Instrument building was both a family business and a
regional phenomenon, driven in many instances by the
availability of natural resources.
Northern Italy
• violin family— violins, violas, cellos, and basses
• because of the excellent wood available in the area.
• From the late sixteenth through the eighteenth
centuries, members of the Amati, Guarneri, and
Stradivari families established Cremona, the birthplace
of Monteverdi, as the foremost center for violin making.
France
• Philidor and Hotteterre families became particularly well
known for the construction and refinement of woodwind
instruments
• recorders (known then as flutes) which ranged from the
tiny sopranino to the bass recorder, transverse flutes
(played sideways like modern flutes, but made of wood)
• reed instruments such as the oboe and bassoon.
• By the second quarter of the seventeenth century
France was also an important center for lute making.
Germany
• The availability of metals facilitated the construction of
both brass instruments and organs in Germany.
• In Nuremberg, where nearby copper and silver deposits
had transformed the prosperous city into a major center
for the manufacture of weapons, armor, stoves, and
other objects, Johann Wilhelm Haas and his descendants
crafted trumpets, horns, and trombones.

• Many famous organs by Arp Schnitger


Guilds
• Instrument builders banded together in guilds, or associations of
craftsmen, many of which traced their roots to the early Middle
Ages.
• When the Guild of Trumpet Makers in Nuremberg broke away from
the Guild of Coppersmiths in the sixteenth century, it became one
of the first professional guilds specifically intended for instrument
makers.
• These groups often had long lists of rules and restrictions
concerning sales, apprenticeship, and construction materials and
techniques, all intended to protect the members of the guild and
further their interests.
• The Nuremberg guild even prohibited its members from marrying
outsiders, lest they give their secrets away to other families.

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