"The end of all good music is to affect the soul."
— Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi (1567 - 1643) was an Italian composer, choirmaster, and string player of the late Renaissance Period. He is considered one of the transitional figures between the Renaissance and Baroque musical periods, and was also the most important developer of the genre of opera.
Monteverdi was the son of a barber-surgeon and chemist and studied with the director of music at the Cremona cathedral in the Lombardy region of Italy. Clearly a highly intelligent young man, Monteverdi published several books of religious and secular music in his teens that rivaled the skill of his mentor.
Around 1590, Monteverdi left his hometown and entered the employ of the duke of Mantua as a string player. This brought him into the contact of some of the finest composers and performers of the time.
Monteverdi married a singer in 1599 and had three children. At the age of 35, he became the director of music for the duke. He continued to compose and published two more books of madrigals—or, vocal chamber music—which contained many masterpieces.
While Monteverdi was well known throughout Italy, it was the performance of his first opera L’Orfeo in 1607 that finally established him as a great composer of large-scale music. He had a gift for dramatic unity, shaping whole acts into musical units, and showed mastery in matching dramatic climaxes with musical climaxes to create a sense of heightened emotion.
Monteverdi took up appointment as a director of music in Venice in 1613 and spent the rest of his life there, composing many volumes of madrigals and operas. Proven to be one of the greatest musical dramatists of all time, he died in 1643 at the age of 74.
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