This was Claudio Monteverde, then in his thirty-ninth year,
and chapel master to the Duke of Mantua. He was the first composer to
use unprepared chords of the seventh, dominant and diminished, and to
emphasize passionate situations with dissonances. He invented the
tremolo and the pizzicato, and originated the vocal duet. His keen
dramatic sense enabled him to arouse interest through contrasts,
conspicuously characteristic passages, and independent orchestral
preludes, interludes and bits of descriptive tone-painting.
His opera, "Orfeo," 1608, had an orchestra of two harpsichords, two bass
viols, two violas di gamba, ten tenor viols, two little French violins,
one harp, two large guitars, three small organs, four trombones, two
cornets, one piccolo, one clarion and three trumpets. In "Tancredi e
Clorinda," produced in Venice, in 1624, a string quartet indicated the
galloping of horses, a prototype of the "Ride of the Valkyries." Like
Abbe Liszt, he took holy orders late in life, without ceasing to
compose.
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