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Donald Macleod considers Monteverdi’s financial struggles and the unreliability of his income with his numerous employers.

Claudio Monteverdi’s compositions range from the secular to the sacred. He is a composer whose work spans the Renaissance and Baroque periods of musical history, and is known as a pioneer of the development of opera in Italy throughout the early 17th century. Throughout the week, Donald looks at five themes in Monteverdi’s life through the letters he wrote. Using Denis Stevens’ translations from the 1970s, we look at the excuses given by Monteverdi – a perpetually busy man – for not finishing compositions on time, the politics and hierarchy of life in the Italian Courts and Church, the financial struggles faced by Monteverdi, the illnesses that plagued his life and the lives of his close family and the importance of his family throughout his life.

Finally feeling as though he was earning good money, Monteverdi was robbed on a journey from Mantua to Este, where he lost almost everything he owned. This is just the first of many stories of Monteverdi’s financial struggles that we hear through his letters; from needing to pay a ransom to release his son from prison to, even in his 60s, worrying about how much money he was earning and whether he could then support his two sons financially.

‘Batto’, qui pianse Ergasto
Chiaroscuro
London Baroque
Nigel Rogers, director

L’incoronazione di Poppea: Prologue and Act I: Extracts
City of London Baroque Sinfonia
Richard Hickox, conductor
Catherine Pierard, mezzo-soprano (Fortuna)
Juliet Booth, soprano (Virtù)
Samuel Linay, treble (Amore)
James Bowman, countertenor (Ottone)

Lamento d’Arianna a 5
The Consort of Musicke
Anthony Rooley, leader
Evelyn Tubb, soprano
Mary Nichols, alto
Joseph Cornwell, tenor
Andrew King, tenor
Richard Wistreich, bass

Adoramus te
The Monteverdi Choir
Andrew Davis, organ
Christopher van Kempen, cello
Simon Carrington, double bass
John Eliot Gardiner, conductor

Zefiro torna
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Nuria Rial, soprano
Philippe Jaroussky, countertenor
Christina Pluhar, director

Quel sguardo sdegnosetto
Danielle de Niese, soprano
The English Concert
Harry Bickett, conductor

Producer: Eleri Llian Rees