Claudio Monteverdi was baptised on 15 May, 1567, in the north Italian towne of Cremona. He was borne to a barber-surgeon and chemist. Monteverdi studied music, at the Cremona Cathedral, under the instruction of well-known musician who wrote madrigals in the up-to-date, however, far from revolutionary, style of the 1570s, Marcantonio Ingegneri. His precocious talent for music was very evident and best exemplified by the publication, in 1587 and 1590, of two of his books of madrigals by the most famous Venetian printers. His madrigals were exquisite and somewhat more modern than that of his instructor, Ingegneri. Perhaps this is best attributed to his study of the composition of the greatest Italian madrigalist of the time, Luca Marenzio (1553-1599). At one point in his life, he decided to leave home.

It is unknown when he precisely left home, however, he entered the service of the Duke of Mantua around 1590 as a string player. Monteverdi immediately came into contact withe many fine musicians. Nevertheless, one exercised the greatest influence over Monteverdi. A modernist and one of many in the avant-garde movement in the 1590s, the Flemish composer, Giaches de Wert, was that very composer. The basis of his music was that music must match the mood of the verse and that the natural declamation of the words must be carefully followed. Wert's influence upon Monteverdi was almost immediate. His next book of madrigals, published during his first year at Mantua, exemplified Wert's influence. The melody is angular, the harmony increasingly dissonant, the mood tense to the point of neurosis. Guarini is the favoured poet and every verse is expressed, even to the point of musical imbalance.

His newfound style greatly hindered his productivity. He hardly published any compositions for the next eleven years. In 1595, he accompanied his employer to Hungary, and four years later to Flanders. In 1599, he married the singer, Claudia Cattaneo, whom bore him three children, one of whom died in infancy. In 1596, Wert had died. This left a vacancy, for the post of maestro di cappella to the Duke was now free. Monteverdi was "overlooked" for this post. Nevertheless, at the age of thirty-five, he achieved this post in 1602. In 1603 and 1605, he published two more books of madrigal masterpieces. In these compositions, he better assimilated the avant-garde manner in his idiom. His aim remained the same; it was to follow the meaning of the verse in great detail, he solved the purely musical problems of thematic development and proportion. Although the dissonances became more severe and the melody more angular, the total effect was more varied in emotion and less neurotic. Monteverdi often gave his mature madrigals a lightness and humour.

His potential for fame outside of northern Italy was increased through a series of pamphlet attacks on Monteverdi launched by the Bolognaise theorist, Giovanni Maria Artusi. These attacks were provoked by Monteverdi's utilisation of intense and prolonged dissonance. His opera, Orfeo, established his reputation as a brilliant composer. This opera demonstrated that Monteverdi knew more about this genre of music than did his precursors. For instance, his recitative is more flexible and expressive than any of theirs; they were based on the declamatory melody of his madrigals rather than on their theories of heightened speech.

A few months had passed since the production of Orfeo. It was then that his wife passed away after finally succumbing to months of illness. This prompted Monteverdi, in a depressed state, to return to his father's home to mourn the death of his wife. He was summoned back almost immediately; he was to compose a new opera for the special occasion of the heir to the duchy, Francesco Ganzaga, to Margaret of Savoy. Unwillingly, he returned only to be overwhelmed withe work. He not only composed an opera but a ballet and intermezzo music for an opera. Upon completion of the opera, L'Arianna, during rehearsals, the prima donna, a young girl that had been living withe Monteverdi, perhaps as a pupil of his wife, had died. The role was recast, and the opera was performed in May 1608. The score has since been lost. Nevertheless, the famous "Lamento,"from L'Arianna, survives and is the first great operatic scena.

Very much exhausted, Monteverdi returned to his father's home in a long state of collapse. Soon afterward, the Gonzaga court ordered him back, in November 1608, to Montua. He refused to return. Eventually, however, he did return but withe much resent for the Ganzaga court. Furthermore, he felt that he was undermined and underpaid for his work. Although he received a slight raise and pension for his successful L'Arianna. During the next few years, he wrote several more volumes of music. One is of particular interest, though. In this one is music of the Counter-Reformation; using all means, traditional and new, secular and religious, it is designed to impress the listener withe the power of the Catholic Church, and its Maker, in the face of the challenge of te rise of Protestantism. The volume containing this music was dedicated to Pope Paul V, and Monteverdi visited Rome to personally deliver a volume of that work. One of his motives was to seek a post in Rome, for he tired of the dreadful Gonzaga court. Lamentably, nothing came of his search. Nothing is known of his life during the subsequent two years. Then, Francesco Gonzaga succeeded to the duchy after the death of his father and subsequently, without reason, dismissed Monteverdi. Once again, bothe sons in hand, he set out for his father's home, remaining there for approximately a year.

Upon the death of the maestro di cappella of St. Mark's in Venice, Monteverdi was invited to take his place. After an audition of some sort of his work had taken place in the basilica, he began work as the new appointee in the autumn of 1613. One of the primary reasons Monteverdi was chosen for this position was as such: St. Mark's suffered a decline in its quality of compositions. Therefore, they endeavoured to find an experienced director. (Take into consideration the fact that the last of the native Venetian composers of any merit, Giovanni Gabrieli, had just recently died.) Monteverdi hired new assistants (including two future composers of note, Francesco Canalli and Alessandro Grandi), wrote church music, and insisted on daily services. He also directed music, on several occasions, for the fraternity of S. Rocco, a philanthropic brotherhood, on the annual festival of its patron saint.

Monteverdi remained in contact withe the Gonzaga court, for not many commissions for an opera are offered from Venetians; on the other hand, there is a copious amount offered from the Gonzaga court. One such commission came to him withe the intention of celebrating the accession of Duke Vincenzo II of Mantua in 1627. At this time, Monteverdi suffered from much anxiety. His elder son, Massimiliano, a medical student, was imprisoned in Bologna for reading books banned by the Inquisition. It took several months to clear him of the allegations. His final commission from the northern Italian courts came in the same year as his son's imprisonment, 1628. He was to write music for the intermezzi to Tasso's L'Aminta and a tournament given in Parma in celebration of the marriage of the Duke Odoardo Farnese to Margherita de' Medici. The War of the Mantuan Succession broke his link to the Gonzagas. Which, consequently, were ruined by the war. It is supposed that Monteverdi had written an opera for Venetian performance. Nevertheless, in 1630, the plague successfully put an end to all musical performances for roughly eighteen months. He and his family emerged unscathed. Furthermore, it earned him a commission for a grand mass, from Saint Mark's, at the official end of the plague, in November of 1631.

In 1637, the first public opera houses were opened. As the only indigenous composer withe any knowledge of this genre, Monteverdi was involved from the beginning. His opera L'Arianna was revived and he composed four additional operas in roughly three years. He was held in the high esteem of his Venetian employers; this is best exemplified by their monetary gifts and their granting him leave to travel back to his native city in the last few months of his life. The Venetian people showed its esteem for the great composer at his funeral, when after his death on 29 November, 1643, following a short illness, he was buried in the Church of Frari, where a monument, which still remains, was erected in his honour.
 

Secular
 

OPERAS: Seven operas of which only three survive: La favola d'Orfeo (1607); Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria (1641); L'incoronazione di Poppea (1642). Also surviving, the "Lamento" from L'Arianna.
 

OTHER DRAMATIC

WORKS: Il ballo delle ingrate (1608), Tirsi e Clori (1616), and La vittoria d'Amore (1641, music lost), three ballets; Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624), a secular oratorio.
 

MADRIGAL

COLLECTIONS: Canzonette a tre voci, libro primo (1584); seven books of madrigals (1587-1619); Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi . . . (1638), eighth book of madrigals; Madrigali e canzonette . . . (1651), ninth book of madrigals, published posthumously; Scherzi musicali (1607, 1632).
 

Sacred
 

COLLECTIONS: Sacrae cantiunculae tribus vocibus (1582); Madrigali spirituali a quattro voci (1583); Sanctissimi Viriginis Missa senis vocibus ad ecclesiarum choros ac Vesperae . . . (1610), which includes Missa da capella a sei voci . . . and Vespro della Beata Vergine . . . ; Selva morale e spirituale (1640); Messa a quattro voci et Salmi, a una, due, tre, quattro, cinque, sei, sette, & otto voci . . . (1650, published posthumously).