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"I see my life in terms of music." - Albert Einstein

Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Monteverdi was an Italian composer and conductor, whose work marked the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque. Moreover, he composed the earliest operas that are still regularly performed today.
Monteverdi worked as maestro di capella at the court of the duke of Mantua and at the San Marco in Venice. He was a famous musician during his lifetime, but his compositions also provoked opposition. The conservative theorist Giovanni Maria Artusi criticized the technical flaws in some of Monteverdis madrigals. The composer defended himself by making a distinction between two styles of composition, the prima prattica, in which the harmony is dominant, and the seconda prattica , in which the music is subordinate to the text. Monteverdi championed the seconda prattica, and eventually broke with traditional Renaissance polyphony and began to employ the basso continuo and recitative to do better justice to the text.
Monteverdi wrote amongst others eight books of madrigals, two collections of liturgical music and various operas. The opera L'incoronazione di Poppea is considered a culminating point of Monteverdi's work. It contains tragic, romantic, and comic scenes and warmer melodies than previously heard.

Featured on

Various composers
Danzas - From Taboo to Triumph
Ensemble La Ninfea
Claudio Monteverdi
Harmonies of Devotion
Contrapunctus
Various composers
Infinite Refrain – Music of Love's Refuge
Randall Scotting
Various composers
Lamento
Oslo Circles
John Dowland, Claudio Monteverdi, Johann Kapsberger
Arda il mio core
Pedro Pérez
Various composers
Altri canti d'amor
L'Estro d'Orfeo
Various composers
Formosa Mea
Tone Wik
Claudio Monteverdi
L'orfeo - Favola In Musica
Music From Aston Magna/kelley
Claudio Monteverdi
Vespers of the Blessed Virgin, 1610
Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment / Choir of the Age of the Enlightenment
Vespro della Beata Vergine
La Petite Bande
Claudio Monteverdi
Vespro della Beata Vergine
La Petite Bande
Claudio Monteverdi
Vespers of 1610
The Rodolfus Choir / Southern Sinfonia
Various composers
Orpheus with his Lute
Rachel Ann Morgan / Edward Witsenburg
Che soave armonia
Tirami Su
De Thuiskomst Van Odysseus
Frank Groothof