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Posted by jeff on November 26, 19102 at 07:11:25:
In Reply to: Help with Orfeo and Poppea posted by Erika on November 10, 19102 at 08:17:07:
: I'm doing a comparison of Orfeo and Poppea and need some serious help. Any ideas or info? i.e. where did the styles he used come from
Hi there.
I am not an expert but my impression is that Claudio was the giant and that the best place to look for the original styles from which he took inspiration is with Claudio himself. Infact the evolution bewteen Orfeo and Poppea was entirely due to Monteverdi. The social composition of his audience changed completely and the new constraints let Cluadio's immagination fly. In Mantua his audience was a small but sophisticated noblility that liked to tickle itself with pastoral and archaic symbolisms. In Venice 40 years later he was writing music for a completely different audience made of wealthy merchants, no-nonsense people, many without scuples.
If you want to be picky we can agree that not all was 100% innovation and he must have picked up many ideas from others, but he certainly was the main creative force amoung his contemporaries and I would say his style affected others, much less so than the other way around.
His impact was revolutionary. All revolutions take something from the past but then trasform the input irreversibly. The present and future can no longer be completely understood in terms of old notions. The past and future are incommensurable. To insist on stressing continuity, which always exists to some extent, one risks missing the point completely.
Regards Poppea some say that it was the work of the old man doing much in person but also superintending the contributions of younger istants, much like a painters did back then.