Selva Armonica

In modern times scant attention has been given to the spiritual music of the 16th and 17th centuries, in spite of the fact that so much music was composed by some of the greatest figures of the period (they range from Palestrina to Marenzio, de Monte, Lassus and Monteverdi). Indeed until very recently it was very difficult to get ones bearings in a poetic-musical repertoire that is not only large, but also interwoven in many different ways with the cultural and spiritual life of a period that was intensely consoled and lacerated by the religious idea (G. Pozzi). Although the last few years have witnessed the publication of more and more close-up historical-analytical studies (at times of very high definition), we are now conscious of the need for a new overall picture that can make sense of the fragmentation, outline fresh lines of interpretation and restore fluidity to the processes. It was reflections of this kind that generated the centripetal itinerary proposed in this book, which moves inwards from a geographical and cultural location (Rome) first to consider one of the most influential and original spiritual and artistic environments in the post-Tridentine Catholic world (the Oratorio of St Filippo Neri), then to examine a specific poetic-musical collection: the Selva armonica (1617) of Giovanni Francesco Anerio. Taking its cue from certain general features of the cultural history and from a strong focus on the theatre of events, this work first examines the theoretical background to the relationship between music and spirituality (from Augustine to the musical mystics of the Middle Ages), then verifies its resonance in the post-Tridentine era a period that distinguished itself for the ways in which it united singing with catechesis, art with prayer, and literature with mysticism. The attention then gradually concentrates on the exemplary histories of the composer, the poet and the collection (G.F. Anerio, Agostino Manni and the Selva armonica) that form the main, though not exclusive, object of close analysis. The Selva is in fact an excellent point of observation, for it is where many of the trends of turn-of-the-century Roman musical culture intersect. Blended together, thanks also to the possibilities opened up by monodic-concertato writing, are the rhythmic and colouristic dynamism of the minor genres (the canzonetta, and naturally also the lauda), the harmonic maturity and linear elegance of the Roman late madrigal and the natural contrapuntal mastery of the post-Palestrinian maestri di cappella. At the same time this variegated forest (selva) is also founded on a perfect balance between the needs of docere, movere and delectare, while the expressive experimentation gladly allows itself to be ruled by rhetorica divina.