He did not succeed,
however, in satisfying the Academicians with his attempt to grasp the
medium between speech and song, and his choruses were thought tedious
because of their employment of the intricate polyphonic style. Further
reform was desired.
This came through Jacopo Peri, maestro at the Medician court, and after
1601 at the court of Ferrara. In studying Greek dramas, as he states in
one of his writings, he became convinced that their musical expression
was that of highly colored emotional speech. Closely observing diverse
modes of utterance in daily life, he endeavored to reproduce soft,
gentle words by half-spoken, half-sung tones, sustained by an
instrumental bass, and to express excitement by extended intervals,
lively tempo and suitable distribution of dissonances in the
accompaniment. To him may be attributed the first dramatic recitative.
It appeared in his "Daphne," a "Dramma per la Musica," written to text
by the poet Rinuccini and privately performed at the Palazzo Corsi, in
1597.
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