d in his "Daphne," a "Dramma per la Musica," written to text
by the poet Rinuccini and privately performed at the Palazzo Corsi, in
1597. This was actually the first opera, although the term was not
applied to such compositions until half a century later. Several solos
were added by the court singer, Giulio Caccini, who composed a number of
songs for a single voice, "in imitation of Galilei," as a contemporary
stated, "but in a more beautiful and pleasing style." Invited three
years later to produce a similar work for the festivities attending the
marriage of Henry IV. of France with Maria di Medici, Peri wrote his
"Eurydice," and once more Signora Archilei interpreted the leading role,
greatly to the composer's satisfaction. It was the first opera performed
in public. The singing had a bald accompaniment of an orchestra placed
behind the scenes and consisting of a clavicembalo, or harpsichord, a
viola da gamba, a theorbo, or large lute, and a flute, the last being
used to imitate Pan-pipes in the hands of one of the characters.

Seven years afterward, for another court marriage, a musical drama was
written by a man of genius who completely broke the fetters of ancient
polyphony. 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. At seventy-four years of age, when the fire of his genius
burned brightly as ever, he wrote his last opera "L'Incoronazione di
Poppea." It may truly be said that Monteverde was the great operatic
reformer, the Wagner, of the seventeenth cent