termezzo with music by
Caccini. This carried the audience into both supernal and infernal
regions and its music, somber and imposing, called for an orchestra of
viols, lutes, lyres of all forms, double harps, trombones and organ.

The fifth intermezzo must have rivaled the glories of the ancient sacred
plays in the public squares. Rinuccini arranged it from the story of
Arion. The theater, so we are told, represented a sea dotted with rocks
and from many of these spouted springs of living water. At the foot of
the mountains in the background floated little ships. Amphitrite entered
in a car drawn by two dolphins and accompanied by fourteen tritons and
fourteen naiads. Arion arrived in a ship with a crew of forty. When he
had precipitated himself into the sea he sang a solo accompanied by a
harp, not by a lyre as in the ancient fable. When the avaricious sailors
thought him engulfed forever, they sang a chorus of rejoicing,
accompanied by oboes, bassoons, cornets and trombones. The music of this
intermezzo was by Malvezzi, who was a distinguished madrigalist. The
last intermezzo was also arranged by Rinuccini and its music was by
Cavaliere. In this the poet divided the muses into three groups, in
order to give antiphonal effect to their songs. He combined the episodes
so as to furnish the musician with the motives for a dance and in a
manner permit of the use of numerous and varied instruments, from the
organ to the Spanish guitar. Probably this ballet morceau was one of the
first of many medleys of national character dances so familiar now to
the operatic stage.[33]

[Footnote 33: This account is taken from Bastiano de' Rossi's
"Descrizione dell' apparato e degli intermedi fatti per la
commedia rappresentata in Firenze nello nozze del serenissimo
D. Ferdinando Medici," etc. Firenze, 1589. This work is not in any
of the great libraries and is here quoted from the previously
mentioned history of M. Chouquet, who had access to it in the
private library of an Italian scholar. The voice and instrumental
partbooks were edited by Malvezzi, and published at Venice in 1591
under the title "Intermedii e concerti, fatti per la commedia
rappresentata in Firenze nelle nozze del Ferdinando Medici e
Madama Cristiana di Lorena." Malvezzi's edition contains valuable
notes and an instructive preface.]

The published text of these creations shows that they contain much that
rests on the t