Monteverdi and his contemporaries

Following the death of Gabrieli, from kidney stones, in July 1613, the post of Maestro di Cappella at St Mark’s fell vacant again. The Procurators of St Mark’s, instead of just advertising the post in Venice, decided to make a wider search for a suitably distinguished musician, and wrote letters to the civic authorities in Milan, Florence, Rome, Mantua, Padua, Verona and Bologna. The letter to Mantua reveals that they already had Monteverdi in mind, as he was in the service of the Duke of Mantua, Vincenzo I.

On the death of the Most Reverend Maestro di Cappella of our church of St Mark there have been several people proposed, one of whom is Signor Claudio Monteverdi, Court Musician to His Royal Highness. We should therefore be very happy to have a report informing us of his worth and efficiency…

This letter was sent from Venice on July 16th 1613. The Procurators must have had a favourable response, because, by 19th August, Monteverdi had taken up the post and was rehearsing the singers and instrumentalists on the cathedral’s books. The Procurators had made the appointment with some haste and must, therefore, have been fairly certain both that Monteverdi’s reputation was deserved, and that his abilities were commensurate with the demands of the job. Many in Venice must have thought this an unusual appointment. Born in Cremona, Monteverdi had received his early musical education as a boy chorister in Cremona Cathedral. His reputation to date, however, was built not on his accomplishments with church music, but on his achievements as a virtuoso instrumentalist and his publication of books of secular madrigals and stage works.

Monteverdi’s task was an onerous one. By now the musical tradition at St Mark’s was famous throughout Europe, and the establishment was the largest in Europe. There were thirty adult singers on the payroll (including some castrati) and ten instrumentalists, as well as two organists, the boys from the choir school to teach, and a deputy Maestro di Cappella. The accounts show that it was common practice on high days and holy days also to employ as many as twenty further instrumentalists to augment the regulars. Auditions for new singers were held frequently, and a constant stream of new music was required for services and festivals, the parts necessarily being copied by hand. There were about forty major religious and state festivals in the Venetian calendar, all celebrated with pomp, ceremony and music. One of the consequences of having a different liturgy from Rome was that music by non-Venetian composers was not usually conceived on a grand enough scale and therefore was rarely used at these festivals. Music had therefore to be written “in house”. With the exception of his overseeing of the publication of an already-written sixth book of madrigals in 1614, it was to be some years before Monteverdi found the time to return to the secular genres on which he had founded his reputation. We know from his correspondence that he turned down numerous commissions from Mantua and other prestigious courts for stage works and secular works, citing pressure of work in Venice.

Monteverdi threw himself into his new position with tremendous energy. He increased the size and the standard of the choir, and the frequency with which it rehearsed and performed, insisting on sung masses and vespers even on ferial (non-feast) days. There is no doubt that the Procurators appreciated this effort. The following is an extract from the minutes of a Procurators meeting held in July 1616, three years into Monteverdi’s appointment.

The Procurators, knowing the worth and efficiency of D. Claudio Monteverdi, and wishing to confirm his appointment and give him incentive to attend the service of the church to the honour of God with a whole heart, and in the desire that he will live and die in this service, have, by ballot, determined that he shall be confirmed in this post for life with a salary of 400 ducats per year.

This represented a doubling of the existing salary. This must have been particularly welcome as, with Monteverdi no longer accepting commissions, or publishing popular books of madrigals, external income had all but dried up. Furthermore, the church music that he was writing was of a style and scale which made it virtually unusable outside of Venice; and therefore unsaleable. Monteverdi was clearly also given complete authority in the running of the musical establishment.