Jacopo Peri

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Jacopo Peri
Jacopo Peri
Born	20 August 1561 Rome or Florence
Died	12 August 1633(1633-08-12) (aged 71) Florence, Grand Duchy of Tuscany
Occupations	Composer singer instrumentalist

Jacopo Peri (20 August 1561 – 12 August 1633) was an Italian composer, singer and instrumentalist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods.^[1] He wrote what is considered the first opera, the mostly lost Dafne (c. 1597), and also the earliest extant opera, Euridice (1600).

He is sometimes known by the

In the 1590s, Peri became associated with Jacopo Corsi, the leading patron of music in Florence.^[1] They believed contemporary art was inferior to classical Greek and Roman works, and decided to attempt to recreate Greek tragedy, as they understood it. Their work added to that of the Florentine Camerata of the previous decade, which produced the first experiments in monody, the solo song style over continuo bass which eventually developed into recitative and aria. Peri and Corsi brought in the poet Ottavio Rinuccini to write a text, and the result, Dafne, is seen as the first work in a new form, opera.

Rinuccini and Peri next collaborated on Euridice. This was first performed on 6 October 1600 at the Palazzo Pitti for the wedding of Princess Marie de' Medici and Henry IV.^[5] Unlike Dafne, it has survived to the present day (though it is hardly ever staged, and then only as a historical curio). The work made use of recitatives, a new development which went between the arias and choruses and served to move the action along.

Peri produced a number of other operas, often in collaboration with other composers (such as La Flora with Marco da Gagliano), and also wrote a number of other pieces for various court entertainments. Few of his pieces are still performed today, and even by the time of his death, his operatic style was looking rather old-fashioned when compared to the work of relatively younger reformist composers such as Claudio Monteverdi. Peri's influence on those later composers, however, was large.

Works

• Jacopo Peri: Ai Lettori. Introduzione a 'Le Musiche sopra l'Euridice', revisione e note di Valter Carignano
• Jacopo Peri: Le Musiche sopra l'Euridice. Revisione e Note di Valter Carignano, L'Opera Rinata, Torino

References

Citations

Sources

• Porter, William V.;
  ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membership
  required)
• JSTOR 733337
  .

• Kirkendale, Warren (1993). The Court Musicians in Florence During the Principate of the Medici: With a Reconstruction of the Artistic Establishment. Florence:
  ISBN 978-88-222-4108-5
  .

• Free scores by Jacopo Peri at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
• Free scores by Jacopo Peri in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)