ABSTRACT
Monteverdi and his librettist Alessandro Striggio wrote the Favola d'Orfeo in emulation of the Euridice of Jacopo Peri and Ottavio Rinuccini. Extensive similarities such as the reveal Monteverdi's dependence on L'Euridice in composing the recitatives of Orfeo. Numerous scholars, perhaps most eloquent among them Nino Pirrotta, have argued that Monteverdi's use of the basso continuo did not imply a radical break with the expressive means of the polyphonic madrigal. Monteverdi constructs the first of these examples out of the third-related chords so often used for expressive purposes in Peri's score as well as the polyphonic madrigal of the late Cinquecento. To depict Ariadne's rage, however, Monteverdi had employed a quickening declamation and rising tessitura. Monteverdi achieves this intimate imitazione delle parole in part through a new melodic style. In more obvious terms, also, the structure of Monteverdi's music mirrors the structure of the text.
