Singing Dante: The Literary Origins of Cinquecento Monody by Elena Abramov-van Rijk (review)

In Singing Dante: The Literary Origins of Cinquecento Monody Elena Abramov-van Rijk returns to a topic that was the concern of her first book (Parlar Cantando: The Practice of Reciting Verse in Italy from 1300 to 1600 (Bern, 2009)), this time with a focus on ‘the earliest pre-operatic phases of the crystallization of the stile recitativo’ (p.10). Singing Dante explores a specific episode, Vincenzo Galilei’s declamation of an excerpt from Dante’s Commedia (the so-called ‘lamento del Conte Ugolino’, Inferno, XXXIII, lines 4–75) before Giovanni de’ Bardi and members of the Camerata Fiorentina in 1581 or 1582. This episode, although often mentioned in literature and textbooks as one of the earliest attempts to revive ancient Greek monophonic singing, has never been explored by musicologists to such an extent. The music of Galilei’s setting has not survived, and the only record of this musical experiment is in a letter written in 1634 by Pietro de’ Bardi (son of Giovanni) to Giovan Battista Doni, which the latter included in the revised version of his Trattato della musica scenica. Crucially, Galilei is here said to have been ‘il primo a comporre melodie a una voce sola’. Abramov-van Rijk analyses the episode involving Galilei’s performance in the light of sixteenth-century literary theories of poetics that have a bearing on practices of singing poetry.

The book is in three parts, each articulated into three chapters. The first part deals with sixteenth-century ideas of declamation of poetry, and introduces the question of the neglect of Dante’s verses among composers of the time. Chapter 1 surveys various theoretical writings touching upon the practice of singing Italian poetry in relation to ancient theory (Aristotle’s Poetics above all, but also Horace’s Ars poetica). The focus of chapter 2 is on intellectuals’ views concerning epic poetry, generally understood as not suitable for musical performance—contemporary oral practice notwithstanding. Chapter 3 considers the ongoing debate on the genre of the Commedia, mainly within Florentine intellectual circles such as the Accademia degli Alterati. There are a few interesting observations in this chapter. Jacopo Mazzoni’s Discorso in difesa della Commedia del divino poeta Dante is of some significance both for the earliest use of the term ‘monodia’ in literature (that is, outside musical contexts) and the elaboration of the idea of ‘monodic comedy’—narrated or sung by one person only. Of particular relevance is Abramov-van Rijk’s suggestion that Mazzoni’s idea of ‘monodia’ (as particularly suitable for laments or lugubrious subjects) may have had some influence on Galilei’s choice of text. In this context, however, the author’s discussion would have benefited from a look at the wider cultural perspective; one important figure that should be added to the picture of the heated debate around Dante’s poetry in the second half of the sixteenth century is the Modenese intellectual and philologist Ludovico Castelvetro. As recently suggested by Anthony Newcomb (‘Luzzaschi’s settings of Dante’s Quivi sospiri, pianti ed alti guai’, Early Music History, 28 (2009), 97–138), Castelvetro may have been influential to Luzzasco Luzzaschi’s setting of Dante’s verses from the Commedia (Inferno, III, lines 22–7)—albeit in polyphonic style—included in Luzzaschi’s second book of madrigals of 1576. These musical experiments should be considered against the background of the struggle for cultural prominence between the Este and Medici courts, and, importantly, of Pietro de’ Bardi’s connections with the Ferrarese court and its music around 1580. Luzzaschi’s settings of Dante are in fact mentioned in chapter 1 of Singing Dante; however, the broader question whether resonances of the intellectual debates within Ferrarese circles in the late 1570s may have had an influence on Galilei’s choice is not explored.

The second part of Singing Dante considers how literary theorists approached the question of the sonic...