Claudio Monteverdi

In 1599, Monteverdi married Claudia de Cattaneo, a singer at the Court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga of Mantua. They had three children; two sons named Francesco and Massimiliano and a daughter, Leonora, who died soon after her birth. Claudia also died in September 1607, leaving him devastated.

Claudia Monteverdi died on 29 November 1643, at the age of 76, in Venice. He was buried at Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, also in Venice.

His unpublished religious works were posthumously published in 1650. In the following year, unpublished lighter pieces such as canzonettas, which he seemed to have written throughout his life, were published as ‘Ninth Book of Madrigals’.

Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi was born in 1567 in Cremona, Lombardy, Italy. Although his exact date of his birth is not known, the records at the church of SS Nazaro e Celso, Cremona states that he was baptized on 15 May 1567 as Claudio Zuan Antonio.

At the time of his birth, Cremona was under the administration of Milan. But because Milan was assigned to Spain under the 1513 Treaty of Noyon he was technically born a Spanish citizen. However, he always considered himself an Italian.

His father, Baldassare Monteverdi, was a barber surgeon and an apothecary while his mother, Maddalena Monteverdi née Zignani, was the daughter of a goldsmith. Claudio was the eldest of his parents’ six children, having three brothers and two sisters. His next brother, Giulio Cesare, also became a renowned musician.

Claudio lost his mother when he was eight or nine years old. By then, Baldassare Monteverdi had made a modest move up the social ladder. In 1576 or 1577, he took a second wife, Giovanna Gadio, fathering three more children with her. But she too died early.

His father next married Francesca Como; but this marriage was childless. In spite of having to adjust to two step mothers, Claudio remained emotionally close to his father, feeling empathy for his father’s repeated losses. It would one day have effect on many of his compositions.

Claudio Monteverdi began his career in music early in his life. At the time of publication of ‘Sacrae cantiunculae’, he was barely 15 years old. Thereafter, he continued writing and by the time he was 20, he had number of works, both religious and secular, in print.

In 1587, in order to secure the patronage of Marco Verita, the Count of Verona, Monteverdi dedicated his ‘First Book of Madrigals’ to him; but it failed to achieve its objective. In the same year, he played ‘viola da braccio’ for Giacomo Ricardi, the President of the Senate of Milan.

In 1589, he left Cremona to become a string player in the Court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga of Mantua. At that time, the Duke was trying to establish his court as a center for music, appointing noted musicians from across Europe as his court musicians.

It was an ideal place to learn and young Monteverdi greatly benefitted from such association, observing and later participating in the theatrical activities in the court. He was especially influenced by the Flemish musician Giaches de Wert, the maestro di capella at the court.

In 1590, he had his ‘Second Book of Madrigals’ published from Venice. He dedicated the work to Giacomo Ricardi of Milan, perhaps indicating he was still looking for permanent position. But soon after that, the situation became more stable.

In 1601, Benedetto Pallavicino, who had succeeded Giaches de Wert in 1596 as the maestro di capella, thus embittering Monteverdi, died. In 1602, 35 year old Monteverdi was appointed in his place. On finally achieving his goal, he once more started publishing his works

In 1603 and 1605, he published two more madrigals, both of which contained masterpieces. Although he still followed the meaning of the verse he often used intense and prolonged dissonance, which invited criticism from the more conservative musicians, chiefly Giovanni Maria Artusi, who attacked him in a series of pamphlets.

Although initially Monteverdi was reluctant to reply he later made an important statement on the nature of his work. In it, he said that he was merely following a tradition that had been developing over a period of fifty years, which sought to create a union between words and music.

The debate had a positive effect on his popularity, establishing him as a composer even outside northern Italy. Very soon, he became famous for his exquisite miniature works.

In 1606, Francesco, who would succeed Duke Vincenzo in 1612, commissioned him to write an opera to a libretto by Alessandro Striggio, for the Carnival season of 1607. Entitled, 'La favola d'Orfeo', the opera was performed in February and March 1607, establishing him as a composer of large-scale music.