Jacopo Peri (20 August 1561 – 12 August 1633) was an Italian composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance and Baroque styles, and is often called the inventor of opera. He wrote the first work to be called an opera today, Dafne (around 1597), and also the first opera to have survived to the present day, Euridice (1600).
Peri was born in Rome, but studied in Florence with Cristofano Malvezzi, and went on to work in a number of churches there, both as an organist and as a singer. He subsequently began to work in the Medici court, first as a tenor singer and keyboard player, and later as a composer. His earliest works were incidental music for plays, intermedi and madrigals.
In the 1590s, Peri became associated with Jacopo Corsi, the leading patron of music in Florence. They felt contemporary art was inferior to classical Greek and Roman works, and decided to attempt to recreate Greek tragedy, as they understood it. Their work added to that of the Florentine Camerata of the previous decade, which produced the first experiments in monody, the solo song style over continuo bass which eventually developed into recitative and aria. Peri and Corsi brought in the poet Ottavio Rinuccini to write a text, and the result, Dafne, though nowadays thought to be a long way from anything the Greeks would have recognised, is seen as the first work in a new form, opera.
Rinuccini and Peri next collaborated on Euridice. This was first performed on 6 October 1600, and, unlike Dafne, has survived to the present day (though it is hardly ever staged, and then only as an historical curio). The work made use of recitatives, a new development which went between the arias and choruses and served to move the action along.
Peri produced a number of other operas, often in collaboration with other composers, and also wrote a number of other pieces for various court entertainments. Few of his pieces are still performed today, and even by the time of his death his operatic style was looking rather old-fashioned when compared to the work of relatively younger reformist composers such as Claudio Monteverdi. Peri's influence on those later composers, however, was large.
JACOPO PERI (1561-16 ?), Italian musical composer,. was born at Florence on the 10th of August 1561, of a noble family. After studying under Cristoforo Malvezzi of Lucca, he became maestro di cappella, first to Ferdinand, duke of Tuscany, and later to Cosmo II. He was an important member of the literary and artistic circle which frequented the house of Giovanni Bardi, conte de Vernio, where the revival of Greek tragedy with its appropriate musical declamation was a favourite subject of discussion. With this end in view the poet Ottavio Rinuccini supplied a drama with the title of Dafne, to which Peri composed music, and this first attempt at opera was performed privately in 1597 in the Palazzo Corsi at Florence. This. work was so much admired that in 1600 Rinuccini and Peri were commissioned to produce an opera on the occasion of the marriage of Henry IV. of France with Maria di' Medici. This work (L'Euridice) attracted a great deal of attention, and the type once publicly established, the musical drama was set on. the road to success by the efforts of other composers and the patronage of other courts. Peri himself seems never to have followed up his success with other operas; he became maestro, di cappella to the duke of Ferrara in 1601, but after the publication of his Varie musiche a una, due e ire voci at Florence in 1609, nothing more is known of him.
Peri's Dafne (which has entirely disappeared) and Euridice (printed at Florence 1600; reprinted Venice 1608 and Florence 1863) are of the greatest importance not only as being the earliest attempts at opera, but as representing the new monodic and declamatory style which is the basis of modern music as opposed to the contrapuntal methods of Palestrina and his contemporaries. Peri's work is of course primitive in the extreme, but it is by no means without beauty, and there are many scenes in Euridice which show a considerable dramatic power.
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Categories: PEO-PET | Italian composers
Jacopo Peri (born Rome, 20 August 1561; died Florence, 12 August 1633) was an Italian composer and singer. He composed the first opera ever written.
Peri was born in Rome, but studied in Florence. He had several church jobs, playing the organ and singing. He also worked at the court of the Medici family, playing instruments and composing incidental music for plays and madrigals.
In the 1590s, Peri worked for Jacopo Corsi, the most important patron of music in Florence. They felt that art at that time (music, drama, painting etc) was not as good as the classical art that had been produced 2000 years ago in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. They wanted to write drama like the old Greek tragedies. In music they started to write "monody", which meant a solo song with a continuo bass accompaniment. They soon started to realize that just monody on its own could become boring, so they developed it into recitative (where the story could be told) and aria (where the singers could express their feelings in song). Peri and Corsi asked the poet Ottavio Rinuccini to write some words for them and together they produced the opera Dafne. It was probably nothing like what the Ancient Greeks would have done, but it was the first opera in modern times.
In 1600 Rinuccini and Peri wrote another opera together: Euridice. We still have the music Euridice, although unfortunately the music to Dafne has been lost.
Peri wrote several other operas, although they are not great works. However, a very great composer was around at the time. His name was Claudio Monteverdi. In 1607 he started writing operas and his operas are often performed today.
1600 is the date usually thought of as the beginning of the Baroque music period. It is a convenient date because it is when opera started.
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