What do you think?
Rate this book
Monteverdi's Voices: A Poetics of the Madrigal
"Ah, alas!" The "faithful shepherd" Mirtillo's woeful sigh of unrequited love, delivered with outrageous musical dissonances, has rung through the ages since the first publication of Claudio Monteverdi's madrigal "Cruda Amarilli" in 1605. But there is far more to the composer's nine books of madrigals than dissonant progressions--they are an integral part of the intellectual, artistic, and practical worlds of creation and performance in Italian musical and literary culture of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
While Monteverdi is also recognized for his operas and sacred works, it is no surprise that the madrigal dominated his output through his long career in Cremona, Mantua, and Venice. Author Tim Carter illustrates how the composer's wonderfully witty settings of Italian verse ran the gamut from compositions in the traditional polyphonic style for five unaccompanied voices to those in more modern idioms for one or more singers and instruments. Their poets included the major figures of the day--Torquato Tasso, Battista Guarini, and Giambattista Marino--as well as the classics, not least of all Petrarch, with texts that embraced all the current literary genres from lyric through epic to dramatic. Monteverdi also repeatedly asked and answered the fundamental question of any musical setting of poetry concerning the relationship between poetic and musical voice(s).
Carter offers a more holistic perspective than has been adopted in the partial studies of Monteverdi's madrigals to date and moves far beyond conventional views of the composer and his work. He considers how Monteverdi engaged with poetry, with sound, and with the performers for whom he was writing. As Carter shows, Monteverdi was irascible, exasperating, and prone to error. Yet his astonishing musical mind was also inventive, playful, and capable of the most extraordinary wit--producing madrigals that continue to invite new approaches both to their study and to their performance.
While Monteverdi is also recognized for his operas and sacred works, it is no surprise that the madrigal dominated his output through his long career in Cremona, Mantua, and Venice. Author Tim Carter illustrates how the composer's wonderfully witty settings of Italian verse ran the gamut from compositions in the traditional polyphonic style for five unaccompanied voices to those in more modern idioms for one or more singers and instruments. Their poets included the major figures of the day--Torquato Tasso, Battista Guarini, and Giambattista Marino--as well as the classics, not least of all Petrarch, with texts that embraced all the current literary genres from lyric through epic to dramatic. Monteverdi also repeatedly asked and answered the fundamental question of any musical setting of poetry concerning the relationship between poetic and musical voice(s).
Carter offers a more holistic perspective than has been adopted in the partial studies of Monteverdi's madrigals to date and moves far beyond conventional views of the composer and his work. He considers how Monteverdi engaged with poetry, with sound, and with the performers for whom he was writing. As Carter shows, Monteverdi was irascible, exasperating, and prone to error. Yet his astonishing musical mind was also inventive, playful, and capable of the most extraordinary wit--producing madrigals that continue to invite new approaches both to their study and to their performance.
264 pages, Hardcover
Published June 7, 2024
6 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 16, 2025
Tim Carter demonstrates that Monteverdi's approach to the text of the madrigal genre was generally conflicting, sometimes careless, and yet done in such a way that accentuated the emotive aspects of the text in such a way that only Monteverdi could have conceived. Rather than giving a play by play of Monteverdi's madrigals through each of the eight-or-so books, Carter examines the performers and performance practice (which influences word-painting of texts due to aspects such as speed, range, and diminution/ornamentation), cliches (such as the songbird and the poetic narrator), and the transition to the Baroque recitative and aria (covered especially in the last two chapters).
Overall, I found Carter's approach to the book and his argument very convincing. He shows how Monteverdi broke poetic and (according to some) musical conventions consistently; changing words, cutting lines, adding dissonance. Some of these poetic fluctuations were arbitrary or even pure error, yet others seem to prove some type of point, whether musically or in terms of Monteverdi's own beliefs (see the discussion of the spiritual madrigal in the final chapter).
The one drawback to this book is the lack of a satisfactory conclusion. At the very end, Carter mentions the idea of Monteverdi's poetic derelictions as serving his goal of "pure" music, or "music as music." What exactly pure music is in Monteverdi's eyes isn't quite established, and I think that would have been a perfect ending. We see in his madrigals that the combination of text and pitch seems to be the premiere example of what music was in Monteverdi's eyes. He did not go as chromatically as far as Gesualdo, but I don't think he needed to. Maybe Carter's point is the idea that pure music in Monteverdi's eyes is one that serves the text, but not to the extent of the text ruling over the music (see the discussion of text fragmentation and contrafactum on pp. 204-205).
Barring that, Tim Carter shows that Monteverdi, like all composers, was human-- and I think that's the main point that stood out to me.
Overall, I found Carter's approach to the book and his argument very convincing. He shows how Monteverdi broke poetic and (according to some) musical conventions consistently; changing words, cutting lines, adding dissonance. Some of these poetic fluctuations were arbitrary or even pure error, yet others seem to prove some type of point, whether musically or in terms of Monteverdi's own beliefs (see the discussion of the spiritual madrigal in the final chapter).
The one drawback to this book is the lack of a satisfactory conclusion. At the very end, Carter mentions the idea of Monteverdi's poetic derelictions as serving his goal of "pure" music, or "music as music." What exactly pure music is in Monteverdi's eyes isn't quite established, and I think that would have been a perfect ending. We see in his madrigals that the combination of text and pitch seems to be the premiere example of what music was in Monteverdi's eyes. He did not go as chromatically as far as Gesualdo, but I don't think he needed to. Maybe Carter's point is the idea that pure music in Monteverdi's eyes is one that serves the text, but not to the extent of the text ruling over the music (see the discussion of text fragmentation and contrafactum on pp. 204-205).
Barring that, Tim Carter shows that Monteverdi, like all composers, was human-- and I think that's the main point that stood out to me.
Displaying 1 of 1 review