May 15 - Claudio Monteverdi (The Musical Birthday Series)

As is sometimes the case with earlier composers we do not know Claudio Monteverdi's (bapt. 15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) actual birth date.  However he was baptized on May 15th and that will have to do.  He was, by any measure, one of the greatest composers of all time.  The three verses below cover (loosely) three phases of his long career. 

Tre scherzi biografici per Monteverdi

I.

In his youth he composed for a while

In traditional madrigal style,

But when he was beckoned

By practice the second

Artusi declared it was vile.

II.

When he worked at the Mantuan court

He was irked and was heard to retort,

“They’ll pay me what they owe

Or my new Orfeo

Will be nasty, and brutish, and short.”

III.

There is no lament or a dirge in

The Vespers he wrote for the Virgin,

And no one would quarrel

With things polychoral,

And the grandeur the forces converge in.