Editing Claudio Monteverdi (section)

==Historical perspective==
In his lifetime Monteverdi enjoyed considerable status among musicians and the public. This is evidenced by the scale of his funeral rites: "[W]ith truly royal pomp a [[catafalque]] was erected in the Chiesa de Padrini Minori de Frari, decorated all in mourning, but surrounded with so many candles that the church resembled a night sky luminous with stars".<ref>Ringer (2006), p. 308</ref> This glorification was transitory; Carter writes that in Monteverdi's day, music rarely survived beyond the circumstances of its initial performance and was quickly forgotten along with its creator.<ref name= C4>Carter (2002), p. 4</ref> In this regard Monteverdi fared better than most. His operatic works were revived in several cities in the decade following his death;<ref name= R145>Redlich (1952), pp. 145–148</ref> according to [[Severo Bonini]], writing in 1651, every musical household in Italy possessed a copy of the ''Lamento d'Arianna''.<ref>Pryer (2007), p. 15</ref>

The German composer [[Heinrich Schütz]], who had studied in Venice under [[Giovanni Gabrieli]] shortly before Monteverdi's arrival there, possessed a copy of ''Il combattimento'' and himself took up elements of the ''stile concitato''. On his second visit to Venice in 1628–1629, Arnold believes, Schütz absorbed the concepts of ''basso continuo'' and expressiveness of word-setting, but he opines that Schütz was more directly influenced by the style of the younger generation of Venetian composers, including Grandi and [[Giovanni Rovetta]] (the eventual successor to Monteverdi at San Marco).<ref>Arnold (1985), pp. 359, 362–365, 367–374</ref> Schütz published a first book of ''[[Symphoniae sacrae I|Symphoniae sacrae]]'', settings of biblical texts in the style of ''seconda pratica'', in Venice in 1629. ''Es steh Gott auf'', from his ''Symphoniae sacrae II'', published in Dresden in 1647, contains specific quotations from Monteverdi.<ref>Drebes (1992), p. 54</ref>

After the 1650s, Monteverdi's name quickly disappears from contemporary accounts, his music generally forgotten except for the ''Lamento'', the prototype of a genre that would endure well into the 18th century.<ref name= R145/>

[[File:D.annunzio c. 1904.jpg|thumb|left|upright|The writer [[Gabriele D'Annunzio]], an early 20th-century admirer of Monteverdi]]

Interest in Monteverdi revived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries among music scholars in Germany and Italy, although he was still regarded as essentially a historical curiosity.<ref name= C4/> Wider interest in the music itself began in 1881, when [[Robert Eitner]] published a shortened version of the ''Orfeo'' score.<ref>Fortune (1986), pp. 80–81</ref> Around this time [[Kurt Vogel (musicologist)|Kurt Vogel]] scored the madrigals from the original manuscripts, but more critical interest was shown in the operas, following the discovery of the ''L'incoronazione'' manuscript in 1888 and that of ''Il ritorno'' in 1904.<ref>Redlich (1952), p. 146</ref> Largely through the efforts of [[Vincent d'Indy]], all three operas were staged in one form or another, during the first quarter of the 20th century: ''L'Orfeo'' in May 1911,<ref>Fortune and Whenham (1986), pp. 173–181</ref> ''L'incoronazione'' in February 1913 and ''Il ritorno'' in May 1925.<ref>Carter (2002), p. 6</ref>

The [[Italian nationalism#Post-Risorgimento, World War I and aftermath (1870 to 1922)|Italian nationalist]] poet [[Gabriele D'Annunzio]] lauded Monteverdi and in his novel ''Il fuoco'' (1900) wrote of "''il divino Claudio''&nbsp;... what a heroic soul, purely Italian in its essence!" His vision of Monteverdi as the true founder of Italian musical lyricism was adopted by musicians who worked with the regime of [[Benito Mussolini]] (1922–1945), including [[Gian Francesco Malipiero]], [[Luigi Dallapiccola]], and {{ill|Mario Labroca|it}}, who contrasted Monteverdi with the decadence of the music of [[Richard Strauss]], [[Claude Debussy]] and [[Igor Stravinsky]].<ref>dell'Antonio (1996), pp. 272, 274–275, 278–280</ref>

In the years after the Second World War the operas began to be performed in the major opera houses, and eventually were established in the general repertory.<ref>Abbate and Parker (2012), p. 54</ref> The resuscitation of Monteverdi's sacred music took longer; he did not benefit from the Catholic Church's 19th-century revival of Renaissance music in the way that Palestrina did, perhaps, as Carter suggests, because Monteverdi was viewed chiefly as a secular composer.<ref name= C4/> It was not until 1932 that the 1610 ''Vespers'' were published in a modern edition, followed by Redlich's revision two years later. Modern editions of the ''Selva morale'' and ''Missa e Salmi'' volumes were published respectively in 1940 and 1942.<ref>Redlich (1952), pp. 147–148</ref>

[[File:1979-spoleto-incoronazione-(5).jpg|thumb|right|From the 1979 production of ''L'incoronazione di Poppea'' in [[Spoleto]]]]

The revival of public interest in Monteverdi's music gathered pace in the second half of the 20th century, reaching full spate in the general early-music revival of the 1970s, during which time the emphasis turned increasingly towards "authentic" performance using historical instruments.<ref>Wistreich (2007), pp. 278–279</ref> The magazine ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]'' notes over 30 recordings of the ''Vespers'' between 1976 and 2011, and 27 of ''Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda'' between 1971 and 2013.<ref>Kemp, Lindsay, [https://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/monteverdi-vespers-which-recording-is-best "Monteverdi's Vespers – which recording is best?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170731170546/https://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/monteverdi-vespers-which-recording-is-best |date=31 July 2017 }}, ''[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]'', 9 February 2015; Kemp, Lindsay, [https://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/monteverdis-combattimento-which-recording-should-you-buy "Monteverdi's Combattimento – which recording is best?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170731170635/https://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/monteverdis-combattimento-which-recording-should-you-buy |date=31 July 2017 }}, ''Gramophone'', 8 April 2016; accessed 25 July 2017.</ref> Monteverdi's surviving operas are today regularly performed; the website [[Operabase]] notes 555 performances of the operas in 149 productions worldwide in the seasons 2011–2016, ranking Monteverdi at 30th position for all composers, and at 8th ranking for Italian opera composers.<ref>[http://www.operabase.com/top.cgi?lang=en&splash=t "Opera statistics: Composers] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170723063652/http://operabase.com/top.cgi?lang=en&splash=t |date=23 July 2017 }} in Operabase website, accessed 25 July 2017.</ref> In 1985, Manfred H. Stattkus published an index to Monteverdi's works, the [[Stattkus-Verzeichnis]], (revised in 2006) giving each composition an "SV" number, to be used for cataloguing and references.<ref>Manfred H. Stattkus, [http://www.dieter-ewerth.de/Stattkus-Musik/Basic-1.pdf "Claudio Monteverdi: Verzeichnis der erhaltenen Werke (SV)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140423005002/http://www.dieter-ewerth.de/Stattkus-Musik/Basic-1.pdf |date=23 April 2014 }}, accessed 18 August 2017.</ref>

Monteverdi is lauded by modern critics as "the most significant composer in late Renaissance and early Baroque Italy";<ref>Carter (2002), p. vi</ref> "one of the principal composers in the history of Western music";<ref>Grout and Palisca (1981), p. 239</ref> and, routinely, as the first great opera composer.<ref>Ringer (2006), p. ix</ref> These assessments reflect a contemporary perspective, since his music was largely unknown to the composers who followed him during an extensive period, spanning more than two centuries after his death. It is, as Redlich and others have pointed out, the composers of the 20th and 21st century who have rediscovered Monteverdi and sought to make his music a basis for their own.<ref>Redlich (1952), p. 149</ref><ref name= ChewHist>Carter and Chew (n.d.), §10 "Historical position"</ref> Possibly, as Chew suggests, they are attracted by Monteverdi's reputation as "a Modern, a breaker of rules, against the Ancients, those who deferred to ancient authority"<ref name= ChewHist/> – although the composer was, essentially, a pragmatist, "showing what can only be described as an opportunistic and eclectic willingness to use whatever lay to hand for the purpose".<ref name= ChewHist/> In a letter dated 16 October 1633, Monteverdi appears to endorse the view of himself as a "modern": "I would rather be moderately praised for the new style than greatly praised for the ordinary".<ref>Pryer (2007), p. 18</ref> However, Chew, in his final summation, sees the composer historically as facing both ways, willing to use modern techniques but while at the same time protective of his status as a competent composer in the ''stile antico''. Thus, says Chew, "his achievement was both retrospective and progressive". Monteverdi represents the late Renaissance era while simultaneously summing up much of the early Baroque. "And in one respect in particular, his achievement was enduring: the effective projection of human emotions in music, in a way adequate for theatre as well as for chamber music."<ref name= ChewHist/>