Claudio Monteverdi’s work strict resemblance in its structures to a vision of the world
Monteverdi’s music spredsin many bways, horizontally with the melody, vertically in the harmonic sense, then in circles, wavs, and vibrations througout the world.
The way th resemblance and drama of the inner circles of the planets reflect the structure of the music world in his time is stricltly expressed in Kepler’s Harmices mundi. The planets each have a distinct sound and rhytm, as they are closer to the Sun and have a shorter and faster orbit.
The way the perfect solids of platonic tradition were inserted by Kepler in the orbits, resembling teh universe to a perfected and proportionated ensemble is also true in music.
The temperament, teh scales, as reflected also in Zarlino’s book of a hundred years earlier and in Gaffurio’s theory, reflect in the codification of the new modes the structure of the universe.
That is mirrored in the effect the planets have on personality.
Monteverdi plays once again and designs the reality of this view in his portrayal of the cities he lives. Mithological and at the same time musical. Vibrating stories also tell of early mornings, fogs, distant horizons, on which the melodies and influences of an organizeed ckosmos can find their place.
The dirt has stripes and trenches that become lines of a musical score, seeds are the notes, fertilized by sudden deaths, lifes, smiles, breaths in the early mornings.
Monteverdi transforms the pianura padana cities in myth and brings the stars on earth to create a journey.
That is in this book. Monteverdi: the Landscapes of sound.
Premier on the 29th of september in Cremona, Museo della civiltà contadina, viale Cambonino 22 at 16,30!
B4Baroque 