Lettera amorosa (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781009446785)

In early modern Italy, letters were not only written and read but, in some cases, sung. Musical settings of love letters rekindled a complex kind of vocality which was rooted in the letters of antiquity and endured in the musical sub-genre of the lettera amorosa. Epistolary poetry served to transform, or, to echo Achillini's lettera set by Monteverdi (1567-1643), to 'distill' a lover's thoughts and emotions into verse, and the music that set it was equally transformative. The history of musical letters spans several centuries. It begins in the early sixteenth with a setting of Ovid's Heroides by Tromboncino; returns in the early seventeenth through the lettere amorose of Monteverdi, D'India, and Frescobaldi; and ends with epistolary cantatas by Carissimi, Melani, and Domenico Scarlatti. This Element traces the breadth and significance of the musical love letter with a focus on the provocative lettere amorose of the seventeenth century.

Author: Roseen Giles
ISBN-10: 1009446789
ISBN-13: 9781009446785
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 03/20/2025
Pages: 104
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.34lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.22d