A brief summary of the poem in question13 may yield insight into the expressive feats Doni was describing. Preti’s heroic poem describes a Thracian conquest of Cyprus. It seems to imitate both the battles in Classical epic poetry but also create a pseudo-religious parable in the example of the eponymous martyred heroine. The verse begins with a graphic description of the invasion of Cyprus, (Stanzas 1-6) with streams and floods of blood, heaps of dismembered limbs, (Stanzas 1-2), burying survivors alive (Stanza 4), and standing on the decapitated corpse of the conquered general while impaling his head on a spike (Stanza 5). Stanzas 6-11 have an atmospheric reprieve, with the glory of the ascending Aurora (Stanza 9) and the treasures overloading the invaders ships (Stanza 11). Stanza 12-17 recounts the enslavement of the young men and women of Cyprus. Stanza 17-26 is dedicated to the beauty, wisdom and stoicism of the protagonist, Oronta, the Cyprian virgin. In Stanza 27, Oronta uses a torch to light gunpowder, creating an explosion which consumes the entire fleet of ships. The aftermath is described in exceptionally gory detail, the injured amassed in hundreds of corpses and envying the dead(Stanza 29), and halved skulls floating in a sea of blood with survivors vomiting blood on the shore (Stanza 35). The final verse (Stanza 40) exults the example of Oronta, deprecating the poet’s skill to do so in a way worthy of her.
I do not include the graphic details here for titillation but to make a point. Both as an early and modern harpist, I have been told many times that my instrument is to be used for sweet, heavenly sounds. I have seen productions, both of early and modern music, restrict the harp in the instrumentation purely to this role. For Doni to say that voice and harp alone could colour the text enough for such violence and drama, indeed that it was the ideal way to do so, raises the question: in recreating music of this time are we using the full timbral potential of these instruments?
The classical roots of harp continuo, its narrative use, and the descriptions of its effect then, would suggest that rather than pursuing a consistent, aesthetically pleasing sound, the virtuosity of the instrument lies in its colour and expression. The mastery of the arpa doppia is not in pitch but in persuasion. We must therefore seek methods to put timbre in the heart of technical development.
2.2 Classical Roots of Musical Persuasion and Accompanying Epic Poetry
If continuo is the core of arpa doppia technique, what does that mean? What, as Aurelius says, is its nature and substance, its reason for being? To understand harp continuo we must understand both the purpose of the harp and of continuo themselves.
The development of continuo was, in part, attempting to emulate Ancient Greek monody and declamation. Layers of polyphony were stripped back to serve the primacy of the text. Basso continuo mimicked the freedom and intensity of that kind of expression, of that kind of storytelling and poetry: virtuosity of colour, harmony and the persuasion of passions favoured above the melodic flourish of notes.
The harp and the lyre have a long association with Greek monody and declamation of both epic and lyric poetry. The muse of epic poetry, Calliope, was often depicted with a lyre. Homer’s Odyssey bears mention of several musicians such as Phemius and Phaeacia, who used a phorminx, the predecessor of the lyre, to enhance epic poetry of heroic histories, and the Iliad alludes to the ceremonial use of the lyre with lyric poetry, to move the passions during weddings and funerals.1 Much of the surviving lyric poetry we have of Ancient Greece was written by poet musicians and performed with lyre, including Archilocus, Bacchylides, and Sappho.2
The mastery of the harp was not reflected in technical virtuosity but in this storytelling and swaying emotion. When creating Seconda Prattica, it is this form of virtuosity that Monteverdi emulates in Orfeo’s musical feats, evoking joy in even trees and rocks, moving Proserpina to tears, and sending Caronte to sleep, with the sound of the disparate colours of the high and low register of the harp.3 This Classical influence was seen too in the development of the harp itself. Zampieri claimed to have invented the tuning of the three courses, purporting to have modeled them after the Ancient Greek diatonic, chromatic and enharmonic scale systems.4
It may have been harpists who acted as catalysts for this return to poetry and plucked strings. Newcomb and Pendle credit the development of Seconda Prattica, in part, to the Musica Secreta produced at the courts of Modena and Ferrara in the late 16th and early 17th Century, specifically by the ensembles the concerto delle donna and the Baroni sisters.5 6 These were two groups of three women, accompanying themselves on gamba, lute and harp, inspiring and collaborating with poets and composers including Lodovico Agostini,7 Giaches de Wert,8 Carlo Gesualdo9 and Luzzasco Luzzaschi.10 In particular, the harpist of concerto delle donna, Laura Peverara, inspired more than five hundred poems from Torquato Tasso, who went on to become one of the widest read poets in Europe. In Venice, 1615, Monteverdi requested this instrumentation for Tirsi e Clori (depicting a pair of Ancient Greek pastoral lovers). He specified that Clori should accompany herself on the harp, a comparison sharpened by the use of Tasso’s text.11
Later, Doni described the effectiveness of this combination specifically to vivify the heroic poem:
“As for the music, certainly this modern stile recitativo would suit it [heroic poem] excellently, as the name itself demonstrates, although it is used in scenic presentations more than in simple reciting, that is, in dramas and poetry on stage, instead of in mixed or narrative poems, with which [this style] agrees much better. To be more explicit, I have sometimes thought that a poem similar to Giulio Preti’s Oronta, sung to an appropriate melody and recited by a good reciter and expert musician, endowed above all with a sweet and sonorous voice, like that of Francesco Bianchi, would sound marvelous, especially when accompanied by the sweetest sound of the harp of Signor Orazio [Michi], so that nothing more beautiful could be desired.”12
FOOTNOTES
1. Kemp, J. A. Professional Musicians in Ancient Greece. Greece & Rome 13.2 (1966): pp. 214-215.
2. Ibid pp.216.
3. Monteverdi, Claudio. Atto Terza, L’Orfeo. First performed 1607. Published 1609.
4. Bellori, Giovanni Pietro, and Hellmut Wohl. Giovan Pietro Bellori: The Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors and Architects: a New Translation and Critical Edition. Cambridge University Press, 2005. pp. 277
5. Pendle, Karin. Women and Music: A History. Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN, 2001.pp.83
6. Newcomb, Anthony. The Madrigal at Ferrara, 1579–1597. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey. 1980.
7. Fenlon, Iain . "Agostini, Lodovico." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web. <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/00301>
8. Newcomb. pp.23
9. Bianconi, Lorenzo and Watkins, Glenn. "Gesualdo, Carlo, Prince of Venosa, Count of Conza." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web. <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/10994>
10. MacNeil, Anne. “The Nature of Commitment: Vincenzo Gonzaga's Patronage Strategies in the Wake of the Fall of Ferrara.” Renaissance Studies, vol. 16, no. 3, 2002, pp. 399, <www.jstor.org/stable/24413138>
11. Monteverdi, Claudio. The Letters of Claudio Monteverdi. Translated by Stevens, Denis. Cambridge University Press, 1980. pp.108
12. “Quanto poi alla musica, senza fallo questo moderno stile recitativo ottimamente gli converrebbe, come pure il nome stesso dimostra; sebbene s’usa in rappresentare più che nel semplice recitare, cioè nei drammi o poesie rappresentative invece d’usarsi nelle miste o narrative con le quali molto più si confà; e per discendere a qualche particolare, sono andato alcune volte pensando che un poema simile a Oronta del Sig. Giulio Preti modulato con melodia convenevole e recitato da un buon recitante e perito musico, il quale sopra tutto avesse una soave e sonora voce come quella del Sig. Francesco Bianchi, farebbe mirabile sentire, massime accompagnata dal suono dolcissimo dell’Arpa del Sig. Orazio, e tanto che non si potrebbe sentire cosa più bella.” from Doni, Giovanni Battista. “Trattato Delle Musica Scenica”, Lyra Barberina amphichordos: accedunt eiusdem opera, in two volumes. Written c. 1640, first published posthumously. Ed. Gori, Anton Francesco & Passeri, Giovanni Battista. Stamperia Imperiale, Florence. (1763). Appendice a'trattati di Musica, Trattato Della Musica Scenica Parte Prima, p22. Trattato Della Musica Scenica Parte Prima, p22. on of Performing Poetry. Min-Ad: Israel Studies in Musicology Online, Vol. 13, (2015-16) p. 41-42
13. Preti, Girolamo. "Oronta". Poesie di Girolamo Preti. Al... Alfonso d'Este Prencipe di Modana. Ottava impressione, Dall' Autor corretta, ed accresciuta. Published by Guglielmo Facciotti, 1625. Digitised in full by the Lyon Public Library 1 March, 2012. Pp. 159-179 <https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=KxVxrSwD14EC&rdid=book-KxVxrSwD14EC&rdot=1>
