Approaches to Monteverdi

This volume gathers together twelve essays on the composer's music, reflecting the author's interests in aesthetic and psychological issues, the sacred works, methods of structural analysis, and the problems of making critical editions. The opera Orfeo and two madrigals from Monteverdi's Book Eight are the subject of aesthetic and psychological investigation, especially from the perspective of Michel Foucault's The Order of Things and the psychology of C.J. Jung, all supported by musical analysis. Two essays analyze in detail the structural principles of the psalms Laetatus sum from the 1610 Vespers and the first Dixit Dominus from the Sevla Morale e spirituale of 1641. Two others re-examine the story of Monteverdi's Mass of Thanksgiving and consider the question of what sacred music Monteverdi actually or likely wrote but is now lost. The final essay critiques and compares the methodology and problems of the Malipiero and Cremona editions of Monteverdi's Opera Omnia. All but one of these essays were originally published over a time span of twenty years in journals, conference reports, Festschriften, and as book chapters. The majority of them were not widely distributed or readily available until now. The essay on the Malipiero and Cremona editions appears here for the first time.