ABSTRACT
Monte speaks of a 'more lively and cheerful style', Marenzio of a 'sombre gravity'; however, the two collections are both organic and thematically unified, as if Count Bevilacqua had assigned both these leading composers the task of exploring cheerfulness and melancholy respectively. That Marenzio had excelled in melancholic expression was clear to the most sensitive connoisseurs of the time. If therefore the 1588 collection did not act as a stylistic watershed, it is worth wondering what other turning points may have provided the pivot for the complicated evolution of Marenzio's career as a composer. Probably Marenzio attributed to this texture a sense of noble gravitas, an ideal of sober classicism. In his monograph of 1965 Denis Arnold concluded that Marenzio was a 'developing composer', in other words, one whose style was in constant evolution. However, Arnold partially misrepresents the meaning of Marenzio's dedication.
