Caccini, Giulio (EN)

Caccini Giulio, Giulio Romano, *8 October 1551 Tivoli or Rome, buried 10 December 1618 Florence, composer, singer, teacher. His teacher in Rome was G. Animuccia. Caccini was brought probably by Cosimo I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, to the court in Florence around 1564, where his master in singing and playing the lute and harp was the famous singer Scipione della Palla (S. de’ Vecchi). Caccini also played the chitarrone and harpsichord. There is no information regarding Caccini’s early years in Florence. The stories circulating since the beginning of the 19th century about Caccini’s involvement in the murder of Eleonora di Garzia di Toledo on 11 July 1576, wife of Pietro de’ Medici, are based on historical rumours.

Caccini actively participated in the meetings of the Florentine Camerata, conducted by G. Bardi. Caccini adopted Bardi’s Discorso mandato a Giulio Caccini… as the theoretical basis for his later work as a composer. The first documented news of Caccini’s musical activity dates from 1579, when, during the wedding celebrations of Francesco de’ Medici to Bianca Cappello, Caccini participated in the performance of the intermedio Il carro della notte. Contrary to repeated judgements, Caccini was only the performer and not the composer of the two monodic parts of this intermedio: Fuor de l’umido nido (manuscript from Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence) and Questi saggi guerrier, composed by P. Strozzi. However, it is possible that, as a singer, he improvised the ornaments in these pieces. It was the performance that brought him much acclaim. Caccini’s fame as a virtuoso singer is confirmed by A. Striggio’s letters of 1584.

In 1589, at the wedding of Ferdinand de’ Medici with Cristina Lorraine, Caccini already appeared not only as a singer but also as the composer of the monodic piece Io che dal ciel cader farei la luna, part of the intermedio to G. Bargagli’s La pellegrina. Around 1590, Caccini composed music to the text of Bardi’s IV intermedio Il combattimento d’Apollo col serpente. In 1590, Caccini’s wife Lucia took part in a ballet performance Maschere di Bergiere to a text by O. Rinuccini; the authorship of the music is ascribed to Caccini. In 1592 Caccini visited Ferrara, probably not for the first time, and demonstrated there his compositions and performance theories to L. Luzzaschi and the famous vocal trio of the d’Este court, the so-called concerto di donne. That year G. Bardi moved to Rome, together with Caccini as his secretary. In Rome, Caccini presented his work at the home of Florentine N. Neri. The 1590s were probably the period of the music for J. Sannazzar’s eclogue Itene all’ombra degli ameni faggi (lost) and 3 madrigals: Perfidissimo volto, Vedrò ‘l mio sol and Dovrò dunque morire (published in Le nuove musiche 1602). In 1593 Caccini was back in Florence. On 6 October 1600, a performance of the dramma per musica L’Euridice with music by J. Peri, took place at the Pitti Palace on the occasion of the marriage ceremony of Maria de’ Medici to King Henri IV of France. The parts sung by members of Caccini’s family and his students, performed in a version different than the one intended and provided by Caccini. This version included the parts of Euridice, Aminta, the nymphs, and the choruses: Al canto, al ballo, Sospirate and Poi che gli eterni imperi), according to his vocal theory. Caccini also wrote music for the remaining parts of the text of L’Euridice and published the score in print in late 1600, a few months before Peri’s score was published. During the same wedding celebrations on 9 October, another dramma per musica was performed in the great theatre hall of the Uffizi, staged with a gusto. It was entitled Il rapimento di Cefalo, with a text by G. Chiabrera with music by Caccini. The choruses, except for the final one, were composed by S. Venturi, L. Bati, and P. Strozzi. Reportedly, about 100 musicians took part in the performance, all conducted by Caccini. In 1602 most important work by Caccini Le nuove musiche, was published in print, with an extensive preface on the art of singing. On 5 December 1602, Caccini delivered a performance of his L’Euridice at the Florentine court. At the end of September 1604, at the request of Marie de’ Medici, Queen of France, Caccini’s family vocal ensemble “Concerto Caccini”, which included not only Caccini himself but also his second wife Margherita, daughters Francesca and Settimia, and son Pompeo, travelled to Paris and stayed there until May 1605, achieving great success. In 1607 Caccini became a member of the new Florentine Accademia degli Elevati, whose members included J. Peri, L. Bati, P. Strozzi, S. Bonini. At the same period, Caccini met S. d’India as he was passing through Florence. During this time, they sang together each other’s compositions. Between 1602–1614 performances of the “Concerto Caccini” were often mentioned in court records, for example, when the court stayed in Florence, and when it went to Pisa during Lent; the ensemble sang there in the church of S. Nicola. The last documented performance took place on 26 March 1614 in Pisa. Caccini was music adviser at the court, where he was highly regarded. On 10 December 1618, Caccini’s funeral took place in the church of Santissima Annunziata in Florence.

Caccini was first and foremost, excellently trained in both technical and musical aspects. According to V. Gustiniani in Discorso sopra la musica from 1628, he had a voice spanning the bass and tenor scales. Influenced by the theories of the Florentine Camerata, Caccini strongly opposed the contemporary practices of solo singing called gorgia. According to which, neither the role of the word nor the poetic structure was included in the vocal work. Instead, virtuosity was developed, treating it solely as a display of the singer’s technical abilities. Caccini developed a distinct way of singing, exposing the emotional content contained in the poetry. This method consisted of a very strict adherence to the prosody of the poem, the introduction of ornamental coloraturas exclusively on accented words, the limitation of the length of these coloraturas and, above all, the introduction of many new technical solutions, unknown before or used only occasionally. Caccini applied these principles both in his vocal practice and introduced them in his compositions. It is significant that he was very reluctant to have his students sing works by other composers who did not follow his theoretical approaches. Caccini taught many great singers, besides members of his family, these included, S. Bonini, F. Rasi and his sister Maria, G.M. Magli, who performed the role of Orfeo in L’Orfeo by C. Monteverdi in 1607, and others.

Caccini set out his performance and compositional principles in the prefaces to both published collections of compositions. He considered only solo singing, with the singer accompanying himself on the chitarrone, to be proper. Caccini defined strictly the embellishments that have expressive value, opposing the exaggerated ornamentation, especially in freely improvised passaggi. These form two groups: 1. achieved by means of dynamic changes; 2. reached by means of fragmentation of note values in a given melodic passage. Caccini also included spezzatura to ornamentation, which is a term that has a very broad meaning, but purely technically it means a rhythmically free performance of fragments of a piece similar in character to a recitative. Caccini placed strong emphasis on developing vocal technique in accordance with the physiology of the voice to achieve its full naturalness.

Caccini created a new type of madrigal. This is a recomposed form, usually set to a text with a rich emotional content. The melody here oscillates between singing arioso and recitative, shaped according to the declamation of the verbal text. It is decorated with coloraturas, which, however, rarely have an expressive role, but serve to achieve charm (grazia). The basso continuo moves in large values, and is livelier only in some places. In Caccini’s work, a characteristic feature is the handling of the minor third in both melodics and consonance. The use of the advantage of minor consonances is employed to express romantic and melancholic feelings. Hence, key signatures often include one flat, and the treatment of the G-sound throughout the work is central. There is also a characteristic shifting between minor and major chords depending on the emotion in the text. Madrigals are always in simple metres.

The second type in Caccini’s collections are arias, which always occur in a strophic form. In a music sense, it is either a repetition of the same music in all of the stanzas, or a succession of the stanzas with two different melodies, and sometimes a strophic variation. Melody in arias is characterised by its fluidity and lightness of flow, and the tempo is consistently very lively, often in odd metres.

Most composers of the first quarter of the 17th century, to a greater or lesser extent, imitated Caccini’s style in their lyrical solo vocal works. Caccini’s most masterly formal compositions include the cycle of works to the text written by Petrarka Tutto ‘l di piango, Romanesque to a text by Rinuccini Torna, deh torna, a four-movement aria Io che l’età solea viver nel fango, written for a vocal range spanning from bass to tenor, and also, all works from the collection Le nuove musiche form 1614, where the composer implements the principles of strophic variation in different versions. Caccini’s talent was primarily lyrical, which is why one encounters neither chromaticism nor shocking dissonances in his works. Therefore, he seems to express himself better in vocal lyricism than in the territory of dramatic music.

Caccini’s L’Euridice was written as a dramatic music solution that competed with music created by Peri, who was commissioned by the Medici court to prepare a music arrangement to the same libretto by Rinuccini. The basic musical language for Caccini is an expressive recitative, differentiated according to the dramatic situation. At many points in the action (especially in the first image), one notices a similar treatment of the melodic line to that of the madrigals from Le nuove musiche. This is evident not only in the rather extended coloraturas but also in the occasional repetition of words or in the rather lively leading of the basso continuo. Music in L’Euridice should only be considered in close connection with the verbal text and its intonation, then the absolute logic of its treatment is apparent, being a consistent realisation of the Florentine Camerata’s assumptions. The Caccini’s music text from the formal perspective did not achieve the same depth of dramatic expression as Peri’s, but nevertheless provided one of the basic models for dramma per musica.

Literature: H. Goldschmidt Die italienische Gesangsmethode, Wrocław 1890, 2nd edition 1892; A. Solerti Musica, ballo e drammatica alla corte Medicea, Florence 1905; R. Marchal Giulio Caccini, “La Revue Musicale” VI, 1925 and VII, 1926; F. Boyer Giulio Caccini à la cour d’Henri IV, “La Revue Musicale” VII, 1926; F. Ghisi Alle fonti della monodia, Rome 1940; M.G. Massera La famiglia Caccini alla corte di Maria di Medici, “La Rassegna Musicale Italiana” XIII, 1940; N. Fortune Italian Secular Monody from 1600 to 1635, “The Musical Quarterly” XXXIX, 1953; N. Pirrotta Temperaments and Tendencies in the Florentine Camerata, “The Musical Quarterly” XL, 1954; M. Feller The New Style of Giulio Caccini, in: congress book Cologne 1958, Kassel 1959; C.V. Palisca The First Performance of “Euridice”, published in Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Festschrift Quins College, edited by A. Mell, New York 1964; L. Bianconi Giulio Caccini e il manierismo musicale, “Chigiana” XXV, 1968; H.W. Hitchcock Vocal Ornamentation in Caccini’s “Nuove Musiche”, “The Musical Quarterly” LVI, 1970; H.W. Hitchcock Depriving Caccini of a Musical Pastime, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” XXV, 1972; H.W. Hitchcock A New Biographical Source for Caccini, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” XXVI, 1973; H.W. Hitchcock Caccini’s Other “Nuove Musiche”, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” XXVII, 1974; D. Galliver Giulio Caccini – per conto famoso, «Miscellanea Musicologica» X, Adelaide 1979; M.A. Bacherini Bartoli Giulio Caccini Nuove fonti biografiche e lettere inedite, “Studi Musicali” 1980 No. 1; R. Giazotto Le due patrie di Giulio Caccini musico mediceo (1551–1618). Nuovi contributi anagrafici e d’archivio sulla sua vita e la sua famiglia, Florence 1984; Z.M. Szweykowski Późny renesans w poszukiwaniu ideału muzycznego, “Muzyka” 1985 No. 1; Z.M. Szweykowski Giulio Caccini wobec teorii Cameraty Florenckiej, “Muzyka” 1986 No. 1; Z.M. Szweykowski Sprezzatura i gracja. Klucz do estetyki liryki wokalnej wczesnego baroku, “Muzyka” 1987 No. 1; Z.M. Szweykowski Giulio Caccini. Kodyfikator nowego wykonawstwa figur ozdobnych. Z problemów wokalnej praktyki wykonawczej wczesnego baroku, “Muzyka” 1988 No. 1; T. Carter Music in Late Renaissance and Early Baroque Italy, Portland (Oregon) 1992; Jak skomponować dramma per musica. Od Dafne do Ulisse errante, edited by T. Carter and Z.M. Szweykowski, translation into Polish by A. Szweykowska, «Practica Musica» II, Kraków 1994; F. Schmitz Giulio Caccini “Nuove musiche” (1602/1614). Texte und Musik, «Musikwissenschaftliche Studien» XVII, Pfaffenweiler 1994.