(It.; Fr. intermède).
A form of musico-dramatic entertainment inserted between the acts of plays in the Renaissance and Baroque periods.
3. Intermedi and Renaissance dramatic theory.
4. Intermedi and the chorus in tragedy.
5. Intermedi in Florence: 1518–89.
6. Intermedi and opera in the 17th century.
DAVID NUTTER
Intermedi were first performed at the court in Ferrara in the late 15th century between the acts of the ancient comedies of Plautus and Terence and those of their humanist successors. Because these plays were divided into five acts four intermedi were required; later intermedi were added before and after the play to increase the number to six, but that was by no means the rule. Since the stage remained open for the entirety of the play once the curtain had been drawn, the insertion of intermedi was a means of clarifying the division of the play into acts. In some instances only instrumental music was used, played out of sight of the audience (intermedio non apparente or ‘invisible’). Far more popular, however, was the staged or ‘visible’ type (intermedio apparente), performed by costumed singers, actors and dancers who enacted a pastoral or mythological story through pantomime and rhythmic movement. During the 16th century attempts were made to unify in theme the intermedi for one performance, or to connect them with the play in some way. Learned and complex literary themes notwithstanding, the attraction of intermedi remained that of entertaining the spectators. Court intermedi, those produced for a specific occasion such as a wedding, were the most lavish and costly of all, and combined the ‘marvels’ of stage effects with mythological allegories designed to flatter the patrons in the audience. Regrettably, little of the music composed for intermedi survives. Only two complete sets of intermedio music are extant, those performed in Florence in 1539 and 1589, issued in special commemorative editions. But many accounts of performances survive in letters and diaries, and in the specially printed description booklets of contemporary writers; these often give detailed information about costuming, scenery, music, instruments and other particulars. In addition, drawings and engravings of costumes, stage perspectives, machinery and sets for intermedi are important supplementary material. The intermedio proved popular in France (under the name Intermède) and provided a certain impetus to early opera; intermedi were also precursors of the 18th-century Neapolitan intermezzo (see Intermezzo (ii)). (See also Masque.)
Music played from behind the scenes was often used to fill gaps between the acts of plays, as once the curtain that covered the stage set was removed it could not be replaced. This type of intermedio, where the stage remained empty and the performers were hidden, served to mark off the acts without unduly diverting attention from the play itself. An early example of this intermedio non apparente is mentioned in the Ferrarese court diarist Bernardino Zambotti’s account of the performance in Ferrara in 1487 of Niccolò da Correggio’s Fabula di Caephalo, which is described as having ‘the sounds of diverse instruments between the acts’ (‘intermedii a li acti’), the first known use of the term. In 1496 Baldassare Taccone’s Danae was performed in Milan (with stage machinery designed by Leonardo da Vinci); Taccone’s stage directions at the end of the acts indicate that ‘the large instruments were hidden behind the stage machines’, whereas the ‘pifferi, cornamuse, timpani e altri instromenti occulti’ were probably distributed behind the two-level stage. Ariosto’s I suppositi, given before Pope Leo X in Rome in 1519, had intermedi performed by shawms, cornamuse, cornetts, viols, lutes, a small organ with different registers, a flute and a voice, as well as a vocal consort. The last intermedio was staged: ‘a moresca that portrayed the tale of Gorgon’. The device of hidden music played from behind the scenes continued throughout the 16th century. Originally an extra-dramatic interpolation, it was soon adapted to more expressive ends, such as setting the mood of the play as the curtain rose, or accompanying onstage singers alone, or in conjunction with onstage instruments and singers in order to amplify the sound.
Among the ancestors of the staged intermedio apparente may be counted the mimed, sung and danced court entertainments inserted between the courses of banquets (intromesse, entremets), interpolations between the acts in medieval drama and the hymns sung between one ‘day’ and the next in mystery plays. Staged intermedi first occur between the acts of Latin comedies by Plautus and Terence performed in translation at Ferrara in the late 15th century. These court entertainments had no bearing on the play nor any continuity of theme among them, but rather served to amaze and amuse the spectators, providing relief from the play. They were sometimes staged on a lavish scale: during Carnival in 1499 four plays were produced at Ferrara (Eunuco, Trinummo, Penulo and a repeat of the first with different intermedi) requiring altogether 16 different intermedi. The chronicler Giano Pencharo recorded that there were 133 actors and 144 intermedio performers, the latter dressed as ‘peasants, youths, nymphs, buffoons and parasites’. The subject matter of these intermedi was varied: pastoral and hunting scenes, tales from classical mythology and stories recounting the foibles of love. Each intermedio took the form of a moresca – a mimed and choreographed dance executed by an exotic, bizarre or comic group costumed as nymphs, shepherds, hunters, rustics and so on. The action was highly stylized and subordinated to the rhythmic regularity of the music provided by onstage tambourines, drums and bells and probably also offstage instruments. The pace could be accelerated by changing to a quicker dance and those mentioned besides the moresca proper include the brando (branle), chiaranzana (chiarentana) and dordoglione (tourdion). Occasionally the action was broken by the recitation of verses explaining the pantomimed action or by the singing of stanzas with improvised accompaniment played by the performer on the lira da braccio or lute. In addition, vocal music was sometimes performed on stage by costumed musicians who enacted a story with music and gestures. The third intermedio of the 1499 performance of Eunuco at Ferrara had a scene in which ‘six happy and gay nymphs led by a musician appeared; they were followed by some youths in chains singing with sweet harmony songs of lamenting, complaining of their misfortune at being the slaves of women’. In 1502 four plays by Plautus were staged with intermedi at Ferrara during the wedding celebrations of Alfonso d’Este and Lucrezia Borgia. Isabella Gonzaga, who had come from Mantua for the wedding, described the intermedi in a letter; after the third act of Asinaria music was performed by her own court musicians ‘Tromboncino, Paula and companions’. Another observer stated that the music was performed by eight singers, including a woman from Mantua, and was accompanied by three lutes. The wedding celebrations were concluded by a performance of Casaria which included a barzelletta, sung by Tromboncino in praise of the newly married couple, and six-part viol music.
In Venice societies of young gentlemen formed fancifully named acting companies for the performance of plays (Compagnie della Calza). They were led by well-known actors such as Zuan Polo, Domenico Tajacalze and later Angelo Beolco (‘Ruzante’). Their performances of Latin comedies given in the homes of Venetian patricians and recorded in the diaries of Marin Sanudo were sometimes furnished with intermedi. For a performance of Miles gloriosus given on 19 February 1515 in Ca’ Pesaro by the company of the ‘Immortali’, Zuan Polo devised ‘a new comedy’ consisting of two intermedi: the first was an infernal scene which ended with music sung by nymphs on a triumphal float (‘carro triunfal’), and the second portrayed the judgment of Paris. Apart from staging a series of partly sung, partly spoken encomiastic rappresentazioni on mythological or religious themes performed before the doge between 1571 and 1605, Venice contributed little to the growth of the intermedio tradition because its wealth was not concentrated in the hands of one reigning family and its political organization was different; indeed comedies were banned on several occasions by the Council of Ten because they attracted the city’s courtesans.
Dramatic performances were cultivated at Urbino from the 15th century, but by far the most important historically was the première of Cardinal Bibbiena’s La calandria on 6 February 1513. Baldassare Castiglione witnessed the events and described them in a letter; there were four intermedi and an attempt had been made to unite them in theme. The first intermedio portrayed an episode from the quest of the Golden Fleece: from the ground where Jason had sown the teeth of a dragon, armed men sprang up and danced a ‘fiery moresca’ before killing themselves. The remaining three intermedi showed Venus on a float drawn by two doves, Neptune on a float drawn by seahorses, and Juno on a float in the shape of a cloud drawn by two peacocks; each tableau was accompanied by an appropriate retinue of dancers costumed as cupids, sea monsters or exotic birds. After the comedy, Cupid (‘Amorino’) appeared and recited some verses explaining the significance of the intermedi: the triumph of love over discord and war. This was followed by the ‘hidden music of four viols and then by four voices and viols who sang a stanza with a beautiful melody; almost a prayer to love’.
During the early 16th century intermedi of the moresca type were gradually supplanted by those with humanistic literary themes embodied in mythological allegory. The conceptual framework became imbued with the humanist awareness of Man as the centre of the universe, and this was represented on stage by the glorification, emblematic as well as material, of the ruling house and, by implication, the absolutist regime. As the intermedio developed in both form and significance into an ideal vehicle for courtly extravagance, music played an increasingly important role in the production, furnishing effects in sound no less ingeniously contrived and executed than the visual wonders of stage machinery.
According to humanist dramatic theory derived from Aristotle, a coherently constructed dramatic work covered between the prologue and epilogue the space of one day or one night. Each of the five acts represented a self-contained segment of time within which the dramatic action took place; the intervals between the acts, and therefore the intermedi, suspended but did not break the action, while allowing an artificial compression of time necessary to indicate the passage of hours between one act and the next. Where there was a particularly important interval of time to be shown, one intermedio of a set might draw attention to it; for example, the canzone O dolce notte, which appears between Acts 4 and 5 of Machiavelli’s Mandragola, shows the passage of time between one day and the next (Machiavelli, aware of having broken the unity of time, emphasized it, and his characters explain and apologize for his lapse). With other plays the entire set of intermedi marked the passage of time. The six intermedi for Il commodo (Florence, 1539) progress through specific times of day: dawn, early morning, mid-morning, midday, evening and night, a progression enhanced by a stage setting incorporating an artificial sun which moved across the heavens through the appropriate positions. Similarly Bernardo de’ Nerli’s intermedi for Leonardo Salviati’s Il granchio (Florence, 1566) representing the four ages of man (childhood, youth, maturity, old age) took place at the appropriate times of day (morning, noon, afternoon and night), thus reflecting the time span represented by the play. The Aristotelian unity of action was more rarely observed in any one set of intermedi, although exceptions include the intermedi celebrating the victory of love over discord and war performed with Cardinal Bibbiena’s La calandria (Urbino, 1513) (see §2 above), the adaptation of the tale of Cupid and Psyche from Apuleius’s The Golden Ass as intermedi for a performance of Francesco d’Ambra’s La cofanaria (Florence, 1565) and the four intermedi on the exploits of Apollo performed between the acts of the anonymous Occulta fiamma amorosa at Padua in 1566.
The success of intermedi was commented on by dramatists and critics who either attempted to rationalize their bearing on the play or refuted them outright, even attempting to regain control by devising and writing their own. One wag remarked that the play had come to serve as intermedi to the intermedi and A.F. Grazzini (‘il Lasca’) complained in the prologue to La strega (1556) that ‘once intermedi were made to serve the comedy, but now comedies are made to serve the intermedi’. Theorists were often critical of the disruption caused by the introduction of intermedi into the play; G.G. Trissino, who advocated singing only for the choruses of tragedy and comedy, was forced to admit that ‘instead of these choruses, music, dance and other things are introduced in the comedies played nowadays which are called intermedi; these are very different from the action of the comedy and sometimes so many buffoons and jugglers are introduced that another comedy is made, an inconvenience that does not allow one to enjoy the doctrine of the comedy’ (La 5a et la 6a divisione della poetica, Venice, 1562, p.32). The role of the chorus, where it should be used, how it was to be performed and whether it could be replaced by the intermedio, was a much discussed topic; but opinions, terminology and definitions varied considerably among theorists. Bernardino Daniello stated that ‘unlike in tragedies, choruses are no longer used in comedies; but in their place between one act and the next so that the stage will not be empty, music, songs, dances and jesters are customarily introduced and mingled’ (La poetica, Venice, 1536, p.39). G.B. Giraldi Cinthio, having noted that the chorus in ancient dramas divided the parts or acts, went on to add that ‘today we make this distinction with music at the ends of acts when the stage remains empty … either making the musicians arise from the middle of the stage by means of machines … or hearing them from behind the scenes so that no one is seen. This latter manner is easier and more in use, but the other is more pleasurable, not to say marvellous, especially if the musicians are in costume’ (Discorsi intorno al comporre de i romanzi, delle comedie, e delle tragedie, 1554, p.250). Angelo Ingegneri thought that intermedi could be useful in comedy and the pastorale, but would prevent tragedy from achieving its end; ‘for these reasons intermedi give wide berth to tragedies, whereas in pastorales and comedies they are not only acceptable, but are a most considerable adornment; and however similar or dissimilar that they may be to the play, they always enrich the spectacle and delight the spectators’. As for the chorus, Ingegneri thought it should be used in tragedy only in a verisimilar way, commenting on and rendering public the action of the protagonists and that this kind of chorus should not be used in comedy or the pastorale ‘because these two kinds of poems imitate private actions … without any other persons having knowledge or curiosity about them’. However, in circumstances ‘where the chorus takes the place of an intermedio, or where no other music is used, it should be sung in a more elaborate manner; in this regard it is not a bad idea to give the chorus instrumental support played from behind the scenes, taking care however that together they make a unified sound and do not appear to be two choruses, or the one the echo of the other’ (Della poesia rappresentativa et del modo di rappresentare le favole sceniche, Ferrara, 1598, pp.22, 25, 79).
The use of the term ‘intermedio’ for the entertainments before and after a play was occasionally considered an abuse. The Florentine academician Bernardo de’ Nerli, who wrote the intermedi for Leonardo Salviati’s Il granchio (Florence, 1566), commented that ‘because intermedi correspond to the canzoni that were sung by the chorus [in classical dramas], and these were sung not before or after the play, but only in the middle, it seems reasonable that intermedi should take place only between one act and the next’. But public demand for spectacle was so strong that Nerli felt obliged to add two madrigals sung by the Muses before and after Salviati’s comedy ‘in order not to depart from usage and to please the audience accustomed to seeing something before and after the comedy’ (PirrottaDO, 227). A change in a playwright’s attitude towards the audience was expressed somewhat later by Nicolò Rossi, who justified the addition of comic intermedi on the grounds that, since audiences were more ignorant and less erudite than formerly, the action ought to be adapted to the character of the spectators (Discorso intorno alla comedia, Vicenza, 1589, p.34).
A contemporary description of a performance of Seneca’s Hippolytus given at Ferrara in 1509 states that the chorus consisted of ten people dressed in classical costumes and that each of the four choruses was sung: the first by a soloist accompanied by a lira, the second by all the chorus divided into three groups and the third and fourth by the chorus divided in two in which the music was composed in modes ‘that tended more towards sadness than sweetness’. The description concludes ‘no other intermezi were performed’, suggesting that choruses at the end of acts were thought to function in a similar way to intermedi between the acts of comedies but distinguished from them in that the choruses form an integral part of the dramatic action. G.G. Trissino’s Sofonisba (1515), based on Livy but with dramatic theory derived from the Greeks, is considered to be the earliest example of European tragedy, but imitation of the Greeks proved difficult and dramatists turned back to Latin examples. G.B. Giraldi Cinthio’s Orbecche, performed at Ferrara in 1541 with music by Alfonso dalla Viola, took its form and division into five acts from Seneca. Giraldi Cinthio’s treatise on dramatic forms, the Discorsi intorno al comporre de i romanzi, delle comedie, e delle tragedie (1554), sets out the fundamental elements of the horror tragedy: a heroic world in which ‘great and terrible’ actions can take place, the unities, moral aims, catharsis and an elevated style and language.
Trissino, Giraldi Cinthio and many others discussed the crucial role of the chorus in tragedy in their theoretical writings without reaching any conclusions. It was generally agreed, however, that choruses at the end of acts should be sung, although exactly how they were to be sung remained problematic because of the difficulty of adapting existing musical systems to those described by ancient Greek writers. If the problems were numerous, there were nearly as many practical solutions attempted. Of particular interest were the performances of Gabriele Bombasi’s tragedy Alidoro at Reggio nell’Emilia in 1568 and Lodovico Dolce’s Le troiane in Venice in 1566. Both these tragedies were performed with intermedi, a procedure unusual enough to warrant apologies by the authors, pleading public demand for spectacle rather than lack of erudition. In Dolce’s tragedy, based on the Troades of Seneca, the chorus of Trojan women has only a speaking part, whereas music was reserved for the intermedi which ‘were made only to serve the music’. The intermedi are unusual in that they form an integral if perhaps not essential part of the action: in the first Trojan soldiers address the chorus; in the second there is a dialogue between Pluto and the shades of slain Trojans; in the third a dialogue between Neptune and sea gods celebrating the destruction of Troy; and in the fourth a gathering of the gods of Parnassus who plead with Juno for pity. The music for these intermedi, composed by Claudio Merulo, does not survive.
Bombasi’s Alidoro, recited on the occasion of a visit to Reggio nell’Emilia by the Duchess of Ferrara, Barbara of Austria, was organized on different lines. Bombasi justified the introduction of intermedi on the grounds that, if unified in theme and easily understood by the spectators, they could provide a necessary point of repose from the complexities of the plot. In order not to distract from the action and so as not to confuse the audience, the performers of the intermedi were ‘made to appear from places not used by the actors, rising from the ground, appearing in the sky and descending from the heavens’. The spoken prologue was preceded by vocal and instrumental music whose ‘gravity, terribleness and misery showed that the tale about to be represented could not be anything but tragic’. The four intermedi, unified in theme, represented the four elements: earth, water, air and fire which, by means of elaborate allegory, paid tribute to the house of Austria. (Guarini, who was among the spectators, may have been influenced by these intermedi; the four he devised for the projected Mantuan performance of Il pastor fido in 1593 took as their theme the harmony of the four elements: the music of the earth, sea, air and heavens.) It is not known who composed the music of the intermedi for Alidoro, nor is it described in much detail. The third intermedio, however, included an early example of the echo device used on stage: a rainbow and clouds appeared with Juno, Jove and the four winds and ‘while this machine was seen, the music always imitated the words and with the last accents reiterated the sound of Echo; this was a judicious invention as she is the daughter of air, and as the poets say, cannot be depicted nor simulated except with sound’. Set in England and Scotland, Alidoro had choruses made up of the ‘women of London’. When the chorus entered into dialogue with one of the principal characters on stage its lines were spoken by the chorus leader. The choruses at the end of the acts were sung by the same woman, a soprano, who was accompanied behind the scenes by ‘sweet and soft’ instruments playing the ‘bass and middle parts’ of the composition. The music followed the meaning of the words, gave ‘more the impression of discourse than song’ and was delivered with appropriate mimed gestures at ‘the pace of ordinary speech without repeating any of the words’.
The role of the chorus in tragedy is treated in Angelo Ingegneri’s Della poesia rappresentativa (1598), a work founded on his own experience of staging Edipo tiranno (Orsatto Giustiniani’s translation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex) for the opening of the Teatro Olimpico at Vicenza in 1585. According to Ingegneri the chorus should always be present on stage and play the role of the interlocutor and passive observer. But ‘when alone on stage the chorus should always sing, becoming, as it were, a pure but serious, noble and well-ordered intermedio of the tragedy’; nor does the chorus require ‘any other intermedio or even music than that provided by its own voices’. Andrea Gabrieli’s choruses for the ends of acts of Edipo tiranno adhere closely to Ingegneri’s ideal: ‘the choruses of tragedies should consist only of rare and select human voices and one should see to it that the music is composed by an accomplished musician capable of writing serene, grave, plaintive and varied music. And by “varied” I mean that by its nature it induces sadness in accord with the greatness of the calamity. The words, above all, must be clearly enunciated so that they are understood by all the spectators in the theatre without losing the least syllable’. Gabrieli’s choruses, published in Venice in 1588 (ed. in Schrade), show that his prime concern was that the words be understood. To this end he adopted a falsobordone style (one spectator commented unfavourably on their resemblance to priests chanting the Lamentations of Jeremiah), a free rhythmic declamation of the words based on natural stress (Giustiniani’s lyrical choruses are in blank verse) and chromatic progressions to add harmonic colour and expression. Each of the four choruses is cast in sections for one to six voices, with some sections marked ‘solo’ or ‘duo’. The chorus of 15, the number imitating ancient Greek tragedy, was made up of 12 singers and three speaking parts (‘interlocutors’). Trumpet fanfares were heard before the play began (compare the opening toccata of Monteverdi’s Orfeo); once the curtain had dropped four six-part pieces by Marc’ Antonio da Pordenon for voices and instruments were heard from behind the scenes to show that hymns and prayers were being offered up to the gods by the inhabitants of Thebes.
In Florence the most spectacular and lavish intermedi were reserved for state occasions, but a number of plays were performed with the addition of sung interludes between the acts. These intermedi, usually marked ‘madrigale’ or ‘canzone’ in the play text, appear to have been cultivated mainly in Florence, beginning with the canzoni written by Machiavelli for his Mandragola and La Clizia, four of which were set by Verdelot for performances in 1525 and 1526. In 1544 Francesco d’Ambra’s comedy Il furto was performed for the Accademia Fiorentina with five madrigals between the acts composed by Francesco Corteccia. These were published in the second edition of Corteccia’s Libro primo de madrigali a quatro voci (1547); they take their subject matter from an episode in the play and are written in a straightforward homophonic style. Another member of the academy, Leonardo Salviati, had his comedy Il granchio performed in 1566 with intermedi by Bernardo de’ Nerli (see §3 above). Other plays performed on a small scale at Florence with madrigals used as intermedi include d’Ambra’s I Bernardi (1547), A.F. Grazzini’s La gelosia (1550), G.M. Cecchi’s Il servigale (1555) and Luigi Alamanni’s La Flora (1556), the last with added intermedi by Andrea Lori.
The first documented performance of a play for a Florentine state occasion took place in 1518 when Lorenzo de’ Medici and Madeleine de la Tour d’Auvergne, recently married at Amboise, were fêted with Lorenzo Strozzi’s Commedia in versi. According to Strozzi’s contemporary biographer Francesco Zeffi, the music was planned by Strozzi himself and was widely imitated afterwards. Before the comedy began, the loud sounds of trumpets, cornamuse and shawms ‘aroused the emotions of the listeners’; during the second act three lutes were played by three richly dressed Moors; during the third ‘sopranos, raising their voices according to the action on stage’ sang to four viols; during the fourth ‘the highest pitched quilled keyboard instruments’ accompanied a ‘noisy tumult’ on stage, and music for the last act was played by four trombones, ‘their voices modulating artfully and sweetly’. Strictly speaking these were not intermedi, but incidental music keyed to the stage action. Nonetheless they show several features developed later in Florentine intermedi: the use of a consort of instruments of one family and the singing of one voice-part of a piece accompanied by an instrumental consort.
The earliest Medici wedding for which the music is fully documented was that of Cosimo I de’ Medici and Eleonora of Toledo at Florence in 1539. For the nuptial celebrations a comedy by Antonio Landi, Il commodo, was performed. The intermedi were written by G.B. Strozzi and the music was composed by Francesco Corteccia. The music for the intermedi and a number of other pieces written for the celebrations were published in the same year at Venice in a special commemorative edition (ed. in Minor and Mitchell). There were six intermedi, one before the prologue and one after each of the five acts of the play; the last intermedio consisted of two numbers.
Before the play began, the figure of Dawn appeared on stage and sang the top line of a five-part madrigal to the accompaniment of a ‘claviorganum’ (a harp stop on the harpsichord, and flute and nightingale stops on the organ) and a bass viol. The second and third intermedi were sung respectively by six shepherds accompanied by a cornett and five crumhorns, and three mermaids accompanied by an ensemble of three flutes and three lutes played by sea nymphs and sea monsters. In the fourth intermedio Silenus was discovered asleep in a cave by Mnasyllus, Chromis and Aegle at midday. Awakened, he sang alone a four-part madrigal ‘playing all the parts’ on a violone disguised as a tortoise shell, a lament for the lost Golden Age of the ancients that would return under Cosimo’s rule. The fifth intermedio showed eight nymphs returning from a hunt in late afternoon who sang a four-part madrigal unaccompanied. The last act closed with the figure of Night ‘dressed in a black silk veil with a blue starred headdress … singing sweetly to the accompaniment of four trombones. The singing was so sweet that, in order not to leave the spectators asleep, there suddenly came onto the stage 20 bacchantes, of whom ten were ladies and the rest satyrs. Among all these, eight played, eight sang and danced in the middle of the stage and two on each side played drunk’ (Minor and Mitchell, 342, 349). Their instruments, cornetts, crumhorns, violin, pipe and tabor, trombone, harp and tambourine, were disguised as a human shinbone, a stag’s head, a goat’s horn, a vine stalk and other objects. The rudimentary symbolism in the choice of instruments and voices and the variety in scoring show the careful planning of these intermedi. Apart from Silenus’s song and the danced triple-time finale, Corteccia’s madrigals for the other intermedi are strongly contrapuntal and make no concessions to the exigencies of the stage. A unity of theme connects the four central intermedi which all make veiled reference to Cosimo and Eleonora. Their primary theatrical function, however, was to serve as a temporal backdrop to the comedy, marking off the time of day as the action progressed.
Similar in structure were the intermedi performed with Bibbiena’s La calandria at Lyons in 1548 staged by the resident Florentine community for the visit of Henri II, King of France, and his wife, Catherine de’ Medici. All the music (now lost) was by Piero Mannucci, an otherwise unknown composer described as ‘organist to the Florentine church of Notre Dame’ at Lyons. There were six intermedi. The first, performed before the play, and the last, performed after the play, consisted of two and three scenes respectively. As in 1539 the figures of Dawn and Night circumscribed the temporal action, but in addition Apollo sang stanzas in ottava rima (accompanied by a lira da braccio) that paid homage to the spectators and introduced the subject matter of the intermedi. These were unified in theme and consisted of four tableaux portraying the ages of iron, bronze, silver and gold. The last was accompanied by figures representing peace, justice and religion, qualities informing Henri’s reign; the music was performed by five voices, two cornetts and three trombones. The number and variety of instruments exceeded that of the 1539 intermedi; in particular the addition of single or multiple foundation instruments to pure, mixed or double consorts of instruments represented a notable advance. Night, for example, was accompanied by four flutes, four trombones and two spinets, and the song of the Age of Silver was performed by a solo voice, five lutes, bass viol and spinet.
In 1565 Francesco d’Ambra’s comedy La cofanaria was performed at Florence for the wedding of Francesco de’ Medici and Johanna of Austria, with intermedi devised by G.B. Cini. These were unified in theme and loosely based on the story of Cupid and Psyche taken from The Golden Ass of Apuleius. The preparations were entrusted to a number of court artists including Giorgio Vasari and Bernardo Buontalenti and the music was by Alessandro Striggio (i) and Corteccia. A special set was built in the Salone dei Cinquecento in the Palazzo Vecchio (a huge room measuring 53 metres long, 22 wide and 18 high). According to Grazzini’s published description ‘it was necessary to make the sound of the music very full’ because of the large size of the room. The intermedi and the play were intended to be mutually reflective, the one complementing the other: according to Grazzini, the story of Cupid and Psyche was fitted ‘to the comedy with all the skill at our command, with the intention of making it appear as if that which is enacted by the gods in the fable of the intermedi is likewise enacted, as it were, under the constraint of a higher power, by the mortals of the comedy’. In the first intermedio the scene opened on a concave perspective of Olympus, from which appeared, growing ever larger, a cloud supporting Venus, the three Graces and the four Seasons. As her chariot descended it was accompanied by instrumental music played by four double harpsichords, four viols, two trombones, two recorders, transverse flute, straight cornett and two lutes. With the arrival of Venus at the front of the stage, Cupid appeared from one side attended by the four passions, Hope, Fear, Joy and Pain. Venus with her attendants then sang an eight-part madrigal, A me, che fatta, son negletta e sola, complaining of Psyche. This piece, one of only two to survive from these intermedi (RISM 15844; ed. in Osthoff, ii, 122), was accompanied off stage by two harpsichords, four viols, lute, cornett, trombone and two recorders. Cupid promised revenge on Psyche and shot arrows into the audience while singing with his attendants a five-part madrigal concerted with four flutes, trombone, bass lute and harpsichord. Added to this ensemble were a soprano viol, alto recorder and bass viol improvising their parts and playing passaggi. This stylized dialogue between Venus and Cupid, here a novelty, was increasingly used in later intermedi (see Dialogue, §3). Moreover the new resources of scenography, enabling changes to be effected invisibly before the audience, provided a sequence of ‘marvels’ of a wide variety: in the third intermedio the floor grew into seven mounds out of which 14 Deceptions (‘Inganni’) slowly arose, some holding crumhorns disguised as snares and hooks; in the fourth the mounds were replaced by smoking craters out of which arose Discord, Ire, Cruelty, Rapine, Revenge, two Laestrygonians and the Furies. While singing and playing a madrigal, these characters performed ‘in the manner of combatants a new and extravagant moresca’. In the fifth intermedio Psyche descended to Hades, hounded by Jealousy, Envy, Worry and Scorn; four viols disguised as serpents appeared in the smoke and were played by Psyche’s companions as she sang a lament; Cerberus, belching flames, appeared from an opening in the floor after which Psyche crossed the Styx on Charon’s boat. Psyche’s lament, Fuggi speme mia, sung by Giulio Caccini, then aged 14, was accompanied off stage by four trombones and lirone and was reported to have moved the spectators to tears; it survives in an intabulation for lute by Vincenzo Galilei (RISM 158415; ed. in Brown, 1972, pp.17ff). In the last scene Psyche and Cupid, reunited, sang and danced around Mount Helicon two canzonettas in praise of Hymen and his new devotees, Francesco and Johanna.
In 1568 Lotto del Mazza’s comedy I Fabii was performed with six intermedi on the occasion of the baptism of Leonora de’ Medici, the first child of Francesco de’ Medici and Johanna of Austria. All the music was by Alessandro Striggio (i), the set by Baldassare Lanci and the costumes by Buontalenti. The most striking scenographic novelty of the evening came during the fifth intermedio when the front of the stage was covered by a cloud machine, permitting a change of the hitherto constant perspective backdrop view. The intermedi included the infernal, pastoral and celestial scenes that were by that time conventional, and ended with a banquet of the gods in the heavens above Florence celebrating the birth of Aphrodite, a clear reference to the young Medici princess. The only music to survive from these intermedi, Striggio’s ten-part madrigal O giovenil ardire (RISM 15844), was sung unaccompanied on stage during the second intermedio by ten of the 12 monsters of the labours of Hercules. It is noteworthy that this piece, and one from the 1539 intermedi, are the only a cappella performances recorded for the entire series of Florentine intermedi.
Archduke Karl of Austria visited Florence in 1569 and was entertained with a performance of C.B. Cini’s comedy La vedova. The six intermedi, again all with music by Striggio, were intended to flatter and impress the visitor. Several had episodes derived from Aristophanes, Ovid and Dante, in which their creator, Cini, claimed to have ‘outdone the ancients’. In one scene the guests saw peasants converted by a witch into frogs; and in another, where a magician had traced circles on the floor with his wand, the shades of poets, painters, sculptors, musicians and alchemists appeared in an instant on stage only to vanish again at a command. The description of these intermedi contains no information about their instrumentation, but the soprano parts of several of Striggio’s compositions survive in manuscript (B-Bc 27.731). There is more use of dialogue, and in more complex forms, to extend the episodes. No more plays with intermedi were performed in Florence until 1583, when Giovanni Fedini’s Le due Persiglie was performed for the Medici princesses. Among the musicians who collaborated on writing music for the six intermedi were Striggio, Cristofano Malvezzi and Jacopo Peri.
For the wedding in 1586 of Cesare d’Este and Virginia de’ Medici, Giovanni de’ Bardi’s comedy L’amico fido (now lost) was performed at the opening of the new theatre in the Uffizi. The intermedi devised by Bardi took as their theme the various tributes of the gods who, in honour of the newly married couple, restored to earth the Golden Age. Each intermedio represented the gift of one divinity: Jove sent the Virtues, Hell opened to swallow up the Evils, Zephyrus and Flora brought eternal spring, Neptune calmed the ocean’s storms and Juno restrained the elements. The spectacle ended with a celebratory chorus of Tuscan shepherds and shepherdesses. The music, by Striggio, Malvezzi and Bardi, does not survive. The four central intermedi, representing the four elements of which the universe was thought to be constituted, allowed besides the usual infernal, pastoral and celestial scenes the addition of an aquatic scene. In this scene Thetis rose from the sea which became rough as she sang; she disappeared beneath the waves and Neptune appeared, shook his trident and calmed the sea; the rocky shore changed to green banks; two groups of nymphs arrived and, with a song, commanded the sea monsters to be still, and then the whole scene vanished.
In 1589 the most costly and spectacular intermedi ever devised were performed for the wedding of Ferdinando de’ Medici and Christine of Lorraine. The complete subservience of the comedy to the intermedi is evident from the fact that they were performed twice with Girolamo Bargagli’s comedy La pellegrina and twice more with two different comedies, performed by the acting troupe of the Comici Gelosi. The team of artists assembled for the occasion was large: Giovanni de’ Bardi, Ottavio Rinuccini and Laura Guidiccioni Lucchesini wrote the texts; most of the music was composed by Malvezzi and Luca Marenzio, with individual contributions by Peri, Antonio Archilei, Bardi, Giulio Caccini and the recently appointed ducal superintendent of music, Emilio de’ Cavalieri. Bardi was in charge of all the celebrations, including the ordering of their literary themes, Cavalieri supervised the music, and Buontalenti the costumes and staging (fig.2). Bardi chose as his theme the power of ancient music. The musical tales included the harmony of the spheres, the rivalry in song of the Muses and the Pierides (fig.3), Apollo victorious over the serpent Python (fig.4), the story of Arion and the descent of Rhythm and Harmony from heaven to earth. The unity of theme was broken only by the obligatory infernal scene in which the Age of Gold that was to follow the royal marriage was foretold to the spirits of Hell (fig.5).
The music, published by Malvezzi in Venice in 1591 (ed. in Walker, 1963), ranged in style from expressive and highly ornamented solo songs accompanied by the chitarrone to massive polychoral madrigals requiring 60 singers and at least 24 instruments. Instrumental sinfonias were used to begin an intermedio or to cover a change of scenery, and ‘novelty’ instruments included the cittern, mandora, guitar and psaltery. According to Malvezzi three chamber organs played in all the ‘concerti’ (a harpsichord is mentioned only once) and the regal was used for one intermedio. The sixth intermedio, portraying the descent of Rhythm and Harmony, had appropriately varied and complex music by Malvezzi and Cavalieri, and contained five separate compositions. The opening one by Malvezzi, Dal vago e bel sereno, was performed from the heavens by the gods, first by instruments alone and then by voices and instruments. This was answered from the stage by 20 couples carrying rustic instruments who sang a six-part madrigal by Malvezzi. The third item, Godi turba mortal, was sung as a solo accompanied by chitarrone. Next followed the largest piece in the festivities, Malvezzi’s 30-part O fortunato giorno, sung and played by all the company divided into seven choirs; according to Malvezzi, ‘in order to avoid the difficulty of wide leaps, facilitate memorization and produce better harmony’ the piece has only six real parts in the tutti sections in spite of its massive size. The ‘ballo finale’, combining dance (rhythm) and music (harmony), was choreographed and composed by Cavalieri; Laura Guidiccioni’s words were added only after the music had been written. It was performed by two alternating ensembles of three and five parts, the three-part ensemble comprising Vittoria Archilei playing the Spanish guitar, Lucia Caccini playing the Neapolitan guitar and a performer named Margherita playing the tambourine, while the rest of the performers made up the five-part ensemble. The opening tutti chorus, known variously as the Ballo del Gran Duca, Aria di Fiorenza and Ballo di Palazzo, became famous throughout Europe and served as the basis for over 100 compositions by other composers (Kirkendale, 1972).
G.M. Cecchi’s sacred drama L’esaltazione della croce, performed on the same occasion by the Florentine religious confraternity of S Giovanni Evangelista, had six intermedi on biblical stories set to music by Luca Bati (the music is lost). Unlike the earlier Florentine sacre rappresentazioni, this was not performed in a church but in a temporary theatre specially constructed for the purpose and large enough to accommodate stage machinery. The intermedi differed from their secular counterparts only in subject matter and included a sinfonia, instrumentally accompanied solo songs and concerted polychoral madrigals.
The difference between stage music and that not intended for a specific occasion was apparently more one of purpose than of kind; this is suggested by the appearance of isolated pieces from intermedi in individual prints and anthologies directed at general public consumption. Strophic dance choruses, polychoral dialogues and madrigals with the top line embellished by a soloist and the lower parts played on chordal or melody instruments are clearly adapted madrigalian forms pressed into service of the theatre rather than newly invented ones. However, in spite of similarities with other kinds, intermedio music, either composed or borrowed from the current repertory, appears to have been carefully selected to meet the requirements and conditions of theatrical performance. For example, the music written for the 1589 intermedi generally avoids textual and musical extremes of expressiveness that would have served little purpose on the stage, and much of it shows a strong rhythmic pulse coupled with clearly defined diatonic harmonies that facilitated memorization and served to project the music and words into the audience. But the fact that more intermedio music is lost than survives should be sufficient to caution against any quick generalizations of style, particularly in view of the fact that by 1589 a new generation had supplanted older and more experienced composers such as Striggio.
To what extent the music was made to serve the stage action or the action made to conform to the music is difficult to determine precisely, since modifications to the original scheme might be introduced during rehearsals (Warburg, Gesammelte Schriften, appx). Considerations of the space to be occupied by the performers on stage appear to have been important to the choice of form: polychoral madrigals with interlocking phrases and harmonies, for example, allowed groups of performers to be separated vertically or horizontally on the stage without danger of losing cohesion; and a solo singer suspended on a cloud machine could spin out an elaborately embellished melody of cosmic eloquence seemingly without earthly hindrance. The number of singers rarely exceeded the number of voice parts of a composition, but no such restriction was applied to the instrumentalists who could, or in some cases had to be, placed off stage. The composer normally specified exactly the size and variety of the instrumental forces. The detailed descriptions of instrumentation for music within a given context and intended for a specific purpose is of the utmost importance to an understanding of contemporary ideas and standards of effective sonorities. A comparison of the extant descriptions (Brown, 1973) shows that the combination of characteristic tone-colours, of both individual instruments and families of instruments, was never haphazard and to some extent could symbolize the stage action (see Performing practice, §I, 4, 5).
Intermedi did not disappear after the birth of opera but became interwoven with it. Intermedio traditions furnished many of the themes and conventions of early opera. Rinuccini’s libretto for Dafne is an expansion of the third intermedio for 1589, the battle of Apollo and Python; the same author’s libretto for Euridice, set by both Peri and Caccini, had its antecedents in the ubiquitous infernal scenes, and in particular the episode of Psyche in the underworld in Cini’s intermedi of 1565. Of all the early operas, Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607) draws most heavily on the intermedio tradition. The change in scene from pastoral to infernal, Apollo’s rescue of Orpheus from the Bacchantes and their ascent to heaven on a cloud, the large and varied groups of instruments often used for atmospheric effects, the danced choruses and the final moresca, are features already familiar from 16th-century intermedi.
As well as absorbing much from the intermedio tradition, operas, like spoken plays, were felt to need their own intermedi for contrast. Both genres continued to have intermedi written for them occasionally in the 17th century. Caccini’s opera Il rapimento di Cefalo (libretto by Chiabrera), performed in Florence in 1600 for the proxy wedding of Maria de’ Medici to Henri IV of France, had intermedi devised by Giovanni de’ Medici requiring 100 musicians and 1000 men to work the machines. In 1608, for the wedding of Cosimo II de’ Medici and Maria Maddalena of Austria, M.A. Buonarroti’s play Il giudizio di Paride was performed at Florence with intermedi representing Astraea, the garden of Calypso, Amerigo Vespucci’s ship (the first historical intermedio; fig.6), Vulcan and the temple of peace. Alfonso Fontanelli, who was among the spectators, wrote that the play was hardly noticed, either because the story was too well known or because the attraction lay in the intermedi. Another entertainment for this occasion, Francesco Cini’s La veglia dei sogni, was performed between court dances in the manner of an intermedio; dances by courtiers could also serve as intermedi, as they did for Marco da Gagliano’s opera La Flora (1628).
The intermedio apparente continued in Italy throughout the first half of the 17th century, and was probably a more common form of association of music and spectacle than opera was during that period. Several were given with the sponsorship of the Florentine court, such as Olimpia et Bireno (music by Andrea Salvadori), used between the acts of Antonio Folchi’s comedy La pertica in 1622, or the intermedi of Jacopo Cicognini’s Il martirio di S Agata (music by G.B. da Gagliano) of the same year. Even away from Florence the intermedi of L’Ilarocosmo of Ignazio Bracci were used for a Medici wedding (1621; music by Pietro Pace). Guarini’s L’Idropica, performed for the wedding of Francesco Gonzaga and Marguerite of Savoy at Mantua in 1608, had intermedi specially written for the occasion by Chiabrera (music by Monteverdi, Salamone Rossi, Marco da Gagliano and others) and followed the courtly tradition of intermedi established earlier at Florence.
The principal environment of the intermedio was in the literary academies, which in small and large towns produced a constant stream of spoken comedies and other plays with intermedi. The Accademia dei Ravvivati of Bologna performed a series of intermedi with music by Ottavio Vernizzi for Silvestro Branchi’s plays including Stratira (1617), the intermedi Ulisse e Circe for the opera L’Alteo (1619) and L’amorosa innocenza (1632). The Accademici Inviati of Vicenza maintained a similar tradition. Most of these intermedi are known only by their texts, printed with the plays for which they were devised. Those for which music survives include G.B. Boschetti’s Strali d’amore (1618), composed for an unidentified comedy at Viterbo in 1616, Girolamo Giacobbi’s L’Aurora ingannata (1608), given between the acts of Ridolfo Campeggi’s Filarmindo at Bologna in 1608 and Domenico Belli’s Orfeo dolente (1616), performed with a Florentine revival of Tasso’s Aminta in 1616. Intermedi of this kind probably diminished in frequency with the spread of opera to the provincial centres about mid-century.
Stefano Landi’s Il Sant’Alessio, first performed at Rome in 1631 or 1632 (1634), is one of the few printed scores that contains an intermedio, the scene added after the first act, that introduces dancing for the sake of diversity. Another Roman opera, Chi soffre speri (1639) by Virgilio Mazzocchi and Marco Marazzoli, has an intermedio after the second act using chorus and ballet, entitled ‘Alla fiera’ (‘At the fair’) for which Marazzoli wrote the music. Among the courts that imported Italian musicians for the purpose of performing operas was the Polish court at Warsaw, where the opera La Santa Cecilia, believed to be by Marco Scacchi, was staged in 1637. This work (an opera, not an oratorio, in spite of its sacred action) had six mythological intermedi, which differ in subject matter from the libretto proper.
In the second half of the century, most Italian intermedi were composed for the public theatres which dominated the operatic scene. A good example is furnished by the revivals of Venetian operas in Rome at the Teatro Tordinona in the 1670s where Stradella composed intermedi for operas by Cavalli, Cesti, Sartorio and others. Stradella’s insertions show the persistence of the mythological divertissement in the intermedio tradition, and perhaps also a greater fondness for pomp and splendour on the part of Roman as compared with Venetian audiences. Venetian plays continued to use intermedi in the 1650s, however, when Giacomo Castoreo, who acted as librettist for Cavalli and P.A. Ziani, produced several stage works with ‘intermedi fatti per la musica’.
Typical of the Italian genre in France were the intermèdes for Molière’s Le malade imaginaire, first performed at Paris in 1673, and in a second version in 1674. On both occasions music was provided by Charpentier, who had studied with Carissimi at Rome. The Italian background of these French intermèdes is apparent, but the influence of French taste appears in the considerable use made of the ballet; the intermedio after the first act is opened by a character called ‘Polichinelle’, and the words are in Italian, not French. Although the circumstances that had made the intermedio a splendid and extravagant court entertainment had changed during the 17th century, the tradition of offering variety and diversity by way of interludes in both spoken plays and operas had by no means died out; it provided stage music with an important point of departure for future developments.
AllacciD
EinsteinIM
FenlonMM
MGG2 (‘Intermedium’; N. Pirrotta/F. Dangel-Hofmann)
PirrottaDO
SolertiMBD
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