FROM ALBUM NOTES by Lucio Ivaldi:
A quick look at Claudio Monteverdi, who lived between ‘500 and ‘600 serving the Gonzagas in Mantua and then Master of the Chapel of San Marco in Venice. In the last years of the sixteenth century, he theorised a style called “seconda prattica”, as opposed to “prima prattica”, represented by the liturgical music style and by the secular music–especially that of the first half of the century–based on formal rules and forms related to the content of the text.
Seconda prattica can be set in the context of a dispute between “the ancient” and “the modern”, which was taking place in those ardent years especially in Florence that wanted to revive the Declamation of the ancient Greek theatre in a modern affections theory with the aim of harmonizing music and text. In fact, starting from these premises, the century saw the vertiginous development of musical theatre. […]