Divining the Oracle: Monteverdi's Seconda Prattica (review)

After Claude V. Palisca's thorough account (1968), the Artusi-Monteverdi controversy has been the subject of further investigation, particularly in the 1990s, when the development of the so-called New Musicology warranted a reading of the musical past through its connection with extra-musical discourses. Thus, Tim Carter's work resituates the aesthetic controversy within the world of the competitive print market that helped to fuel it ('Artusi, Monteverdi, and the Poetics of Modern Music', Musical Humanism and its Legacy: Essays in Honor of Claude V. Palisca (Stuyvesant, NY, 1992), 171-94). Suzanne G. Cusick interrogates the gendered politics of the argument ('Gendering Modern Music: Thoughts on the Monteverdi-Artusi Controversy', Journal of the American Musicological Society, 46 (1993), 1-25). Ulrich Siegele traces elements of the ecclesiastical rivalry between Venice and Rome ('Cruda Amarilli, oder: Wie ist Monteverdi's "seconda pratica" satztechnisch zu verstehen?', Musik- Konzepte, 83-4 (1994), 31-102).

In this context Massimo Ossi's book seems a return to a more traditional musicology; and one might initially wonder whether there is really anything more to be said about the Artusi- Monteverdi controversy and the seconda prattica. Yet Ossi succeeds, through numerous detailed music analyses, linguistic analyses, and close readings of primary sources, in presenting a compelling interpretation and understanding of Claudio Monteverdi's seconda prattica. In particular he expands the discussion to include the exchange of letters between Monteverdi and Giovanni Battista Doni in 1633-4, and the 1638 prefaces to the eighth book of madrigals and the Combattimento di Tancredi et Clorinda. This, he argues, 'allows us to see the continuity and growth of Monteverdi's theoretical ideas, which viewed through the more relaxed lens of private correspondence emerge as remarkably coherent, unified by consistent interests and method' (p. 29).

According to Ossi, the question 'What is the seconda prattica?' still needs an answer. It is of course about contrapuntal infractions and the expressive demands of the text, but beyond these points its nature remains a matter of speculation. To what sorts of textual cues should the composer react? How broad is the range of expressive liberty? What is the difference between normal madrigalism and the new style? Which theoretical writings influenced Monteverdi's thought?

On the one hand, the texts of the Artusi polemic, in conjunction with Monteverdi's compositions, suggest an interpretation beyond issues of dissonance treatment. On the other, the correspondence and the texts of the 1630s reveal that Monteverdi was still thinking about the seconda prattica long after the debate. For him, the seconda prattica is part of a long process of experimentation and discovery, in which his earliest operatic endeavours, especially Arianna and its famous lament, played a defining role. 'Monteverdi's claim that the real work of the seconda prattica did not really begin until he was deep into the composition of Arianna points to the essential connection between musical drama and the new language that had come under attack from Artusi' (pp. 7-8). Indeed, the nexus between the seconda prattica and opera provides a framework for interpreting Monteverdi's aims during the crucial years around the turn of the seventeenth century.

Also important to Ossi's argument is the fact that Monteverdi's brother Giulio Cesare's Dichiaratione was written during the preparation of Orfeo and in association with the Scherzi musicali, that is, with compositions whose contrapuntal and polyphonic elements do not raise the issues of dissonance treatment and modality seen in the opening pieces of the fifth book of madrigals. Furthermore, the Lettera introduces the fifth and not the fourth book of madrigals 'because the contents of the volume are so radically different from those of earlier publications' (p. 10). However, Artusi and the issues of contrapuntal and dissonance practice dominated the debate, to the extent that other aspects of the seconda prattica have been neglected. From the dramatic contrasts, the psychological insight and tension, developed over the course of the fifth book (1605), through the...