Winter 1604-1605: at the French court, Marie de Médicis invites an ensemble of Italian singers to perform. They are called Il Concerto Caccini, or with only the women performing, Le Donne di Giulio Romano.
Their success is immense. At their head, of course, Giulio Caccini. Born in 1551, he was an exceptional tenor, and accompanied himself on a variety of instruments.
Marie de Médicis had already profited from his talents, at the time of her marriage to King Henry in 1600: Caccini had presented Il Rapimento di Cefalo, and collaborated with Peri in the famous Euridice shortly before his own work of that title.
A singer, Caccini was also a composer, things that went hand in hand at the time. When he was residing in Florence he was one of the most active members of the Camerata of Count Bardi, and it was there that, along with others, he perfected the new style of the accompanied monody, the stile recitativo.
Giulio Caccini was finally, and this was not the least of his activities, a teacher, his pedagogy exacting and efficient: to cite the list of his illustrious students would be tedious, but in unifying theory and practice, and experimenting with the principles of declamation and ornamentation which he expounds precisely and at length in the preface to the Nuove Musiche of 1602, Caccini became, no less than, the herald of the new baroque vocal style. |
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