October 1, 2018

James Murrell
MUS 6470-01
Fall 2018
Dr. Dennis Loranger, Ph. D.

Listen to this excerpt from Francesco Cavalli's opera, Giasone. This recitative and aria, "Infelice,
ch'ascolto," are included in our anthology on p. 78.
Read through Heller's notes on the excerpt and answer the following questions:

What is the story of Giasone? What is happening in this particular excerpt?

Francesco Cavalli's opera, “Giasone” is based on the Greek mythology of the hero Jason leader
of the Argonauts who was in a quest to find the Golden Fleece which was a symbol of authority.
In the opera “Giasone” librettist Giacinto Cicognini combines two stories about Jason. In the first
story Jason obtains the Golden Fleece with the help of a sorceress named Medea who he impreg-
nates and has twin offspring with. The second story is about a time earlier in Jason’s life where
he impregnated and abandoned Queen Hypsipyle on the island of Lemnos. Queen Hypsipyle also
bore Jason twin offspring. In the opera “Giasone”, Jason is torn between these two women and
the libretto deals with this throughout.
During this excerpt from the anthology it is the last scene from “Giasone”. During the scene
Queen Hypsipyle, with her children by her side, confronts Jason and Medea because she has just
found out that Jason has tried to have her murdered. During the 1st part, the recitative, Queen
Hypsipyle shows her anger and agitation. During the 2nd part, the aria, Queen Hypsipyle laments
about her situation of being abandoned by her husband Jason.

Look up the term stile concitato. What does this term mean?

The term stile concitato means "agitated style". Stile concitato is a style developed originally by
Monteverdi in which notes are repeated rapidly with extended trills to give a sense of anger and
excitement. You can hear stile concitato used throughout the first part, the recitative, from this
excerpt from Francesco Cavalli's “Giasone”.

Listen to the aria section. What qualities, both musical and lyrical, does this aria share with other
selections we've looked at so far?

The first thing from the aria section “Infelice, ch'ascolto” from this excerpt of Francesco Cav-
alli's opera, “Giasone” that I see as having similar quality to previous pieces that we have looked
at is in the instrumental effects used. Two violins and two violas are added to fill in as a sort of
way to give the feeling of a larger group of people present. This reminds me of the way Heinrich
Schütz used the four trombones in “Fili mi, Absalon” in the passages where the voice and trom-
bones sound together.
Melodically I heard a similar quality in this aria to several other pieces that we have covered.
The first place that I hear a similar quality is in Monteverdi’s “O Mirtillo” starting in measure 23
through 29 on the word Amarilli the descending melody gives the listener a feeling of lament in
the same way as “Infelice, ch'ascolto” in measures 116 through 123 starting on the word Pre-
gatelo.
I also hear similar melodic quality in the lament section Monteverdi’s “Lamento Della Ninfa”. It
is mostly in the way the melody to “Lamento Della Ninfa” is stagnant in some phrases such as
measures 20 and 22 and then more flowing like measures 8 through 12. Similarly in this aria,
"Infelice, ch'ascolto”, the melody is stagnant in measures 123 through 137 and then more flow-
ing throughout the rest of the piece. The contrast between the stagnant and flowing sections are
much more exact in this aria than Monteverdi’s “Lamento Della Ninfa”. This really shows the
development that took from “Lamento Della Ninfa” to “Infelice, ch'ascolto”.

Note any performance decisions made by the musicians.

The main thing that I notice about the performance of the chords on the recording by the harpsi-
chord and bass instrument of this excerpt of Francesco Cavalli's opera, “Giasone”, is a stopping
and starting between phrases in the recitative first part of the excerpt. This is of course so that the
stile concitato expressed by character Queen Hypsipyle is accompanied with the instruments.
The instruments must follow the melody even though the singer will stop and start the phrases as
they interpret the text in the libretto. The singer will also often speed up or slow down as the in-
tensity of the feelings from text increases or decreases. The background instruments must follow
the singer no matter what happens or the performance will fall apart. This gives the piece a feel-
ing of what we might call rubato which in modern music means disregarding strict tempo but
that is not the purpose of what is going on in this music. The purpose here is so that the singer
expresses the text with as much emotion is they can like that of an actor reciting lines in a play
thus freely reciting without regards to rhythmic exactness.