At the end of the 16th century, at the end of the Renaissance movement, a real revolution took place in the field of Italian music and art. This is a revolution in the center of music and art, and this great ideological movement in the field of music is the result of a long-term evolution. At that time, there was a music-loving aristocrat and writer Count Giovanni Bardi (1534-1612) in Florence. He organized a Florentine literary and art society (Camerata fiorentina) composed of some artists, which made Florence and the whole of Tus. Cana (located in central Italy, the standard Italian-speaking area) became the center of innovation in music and art. The main members of the literary and artistic society include musicians Vincenzo Galilei (1520-1591); Emilio de Cavalieri (1550-1602); Giulio Cacci Giulio Caccini (1550-1618); Jacopo Corsi (1561-1604); Jacopo Peri (1561-1633), poet Ottavio Rinuccini (1562-1562) —1621), etc., from 1576 to 1582, this literary and artistic society often held discussions and discussions at Bardi's home. Their purpose was to conduct discussions on language history and aesthetics, to explore new ways for the development of music, and to restore the simplicity of ancient Greece. style. They believe that ancient Greek tragedies and Plato's aesthetic views provide artists with the best models and theoretical basis, thereby creating a new music genre that closely connects music and drama, lyrics and singing, and integrates various arts. Make it produce a work with great artistic effect like Greek tragedy.
Galilei, a member of the literary and art society, was committed to expressing his musical arguments through theory and wrote and published "Ancient Music and Theoretical Music". His theory was opposed to counterpoint and advocated Abandon the complicated techniques of counterpoint. In order to make his first attempt at a new style, in 1582 he composed the "Count Ugolino" section from Dante's "Inferno" into a solo piece, and later composed the "Lamentations of Jeremiah" from the Bible " was also composed as a solo piece. Although this musical form was not yet considered musical theater, it achieved great success among Florentine literary and artistic societies.
When Cavalieri wrote two pastoral plays, "The Satirist" and "The Disappointment of Felino" in 1590, he tried to use an "innovative" music, one that was different from the usual ones. His singing method - "recitative style", this "recitative" singing method was written into his musical works. Unfortunately, these works of his and the solo songs written by Galilei have not been handed down to this day.
As we all know, the birth of a new thing always goes through a long-term brewing process. There are causes and consequences. When the melon is ripe, it will eventually fall off. The present and the past, today and tomorrow are always closely connected. , the new musical genre of opera is just like a mature fruit, emerging from the various old genres that raised it around 1600. From then on, a new genre, opera, took on its life and became very popular. It soon gained a very important position. Jacob Perry was the first to realize his desire to combine music and drama. With the assistance of the erudite and wealthy Jacob Galcy, he wrote an opera "Daphne" (Daphne) from 1594 to 1597. Dafne), and was staged in 1597 at the palace of the Florentine nobleman Galsi, with great success. This is what people consider to be the first opera in history. It was called Melo dramma (musical drama) at the time. Only four sections of the score have been preserved, and most of the rest have been lost. The script of "Daphne" was written by Rinuccini. It describes a touching mythical story, consisting of only more than 400 lines of poetry. The main plot of the story is: "Daphne" is a fairy who lives in the mountains, forests and swamps. It is dedicated to Diana, the goddess of the moon and hunting. The beautiful man Apollo fell in love with her, but Daphne rejected Apollo's love. For this reason, Apollo was extremely dissatisfied and often followed her and used various tricks to control her. Finally, he finally managed to turn her into a laurel tree. The script was followed by several musicians who composed music for it. For example, Italian composer Marco da Gagliano (1582-1643) composed music for the script in 1608 (the score has been handed down to this day). ). German composer Schutz Heinrich (1585-1672) composed the music for the libretto and performed it in 1627. Although the score has been lost, it is considered by musicians to be the first German opera in history.
In 1600, Jacob Perry composed and performed the opera "Euridice" written by Rinuccini for the wedding of Maria de' Medici of France and Henry IV. "(Euridice), the literary script of this opera is composed of 800 verses and is not divided into acts and scenes. The ending of the plot is changed from a sad ending to a happy ending.
In the creation of the opera "Eurydice", Perry adopted the recitative style. As he said in a preface: "This is a more elegant tone than usual speaking, but not like singing. A form of music that is as neat as a pure melody, somewhere in between." During the same period, Caccini subsequently created "Euridice"; after Cavalielli left Florence, he also staged "La rappresentazione di anima e di corpo" in Rome in 1600. With the birth of opera in Florence, works of the same type were also born one after another, spreading from Florence to all over Italy.