The Melancholicus in Instrumental Music

Abstract

The new feature of Carissimi's piece was the humorous juxtaposition of the two ancient philosophers. But Benigni's poem as poesia musicale had its antecedents. On July 8th, 1483, Niccol6 di Correggio sent Isabella of Mantua a chapter in dialogue : " il capitulo 6 una egloga pastorale, dove Mopso et Dafni pastori parlano insieme. Mopso si duole di la fortuna, Dafni se ne gloria. El senso alegoricho lo dir6 a bocha alla Ex.V. como li parlo" (Stef. Davari, La musica a Mantova, Riv. stor. mantovana, Vol. I, 1885, p. 53 ss.). This is a theme very similar to Carissimi's, the chief difference being that music written about 1500 was not yet able to express these contrasts, even though the poem was undoubtedly meant to be put to music by one of the two favourite composers of the Mantuan circle : Tromboncino or Cara. It is interesting that Niccol6 should explicitly point to the allegorical meaning of his eclogue. Perhaps the so-called secret of Giorgione, of his Venetian contemporaries and pupils, may also be found in the eclogues of this period.1 To express the contrast of passions remains a pre-eminent aim of musicians throughout the sixteenth century. It would lead too far to define the extent to which they employed the strange conventional symbolism of the mediaeval church modes; an allusion to the gay or gloomy mood can, for the time being, only be expressed by illustrating single words by means of " lines " or " chords," or high or low notes, or by the timbre of the voice. Vincenzo Galilei, in his " Dialogo . . . della musica antica e della moderna " (1581), had ridiculed the alleged incapacity of polyphonic music to express unambiguously a sad or happy emotion (p. 77). A person who laments, he says, never leaves the high pitch (p. 84), one who is sad seldom deviates from the low one; modern musicians, however, confuse everything. Galilei rejects not only polyphonic composition but also the whole aesthetics of imitation propounded by the musicians of his time. He refers them to the example of the Ancients (p. 90) : "Nel cantare I'antico Musico qual si voglia Poema, essaminava prima diligentissimamente la qualith della persona che parlava, 1'etA, il sesso, con chi, & quello che per tal mezzo cercava operare ; i quali concetti vestiti prima dal poeta di scelte parole A bisogno tale opportune, gli esprimeva poscia il Musico in quel Tuono, con quelli accenti, & gesti, con quella quantith, & qualiti di suono, & con quel rithmo che conveniva in quell' attione A tal personaggio . . . tutte le volte, che il Musico . . . non ha faculth di piegare gli animi degli uditori dove ben li viene, nulla & vana e da reputare la sua scienza & sapere.