Pur ti miro

About a century before Lotti created sacred music for the vast spaces of St. Mark’s, his position was filled by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643). Born in Cremona, Monteverdi soon became one of the most active and influential composers of vocal music, ranging from sacred music to the latest, innovative madrigals. He took a post with the Gonzaga family in Mantua, but by 1613 he was settled in Venice, where he would remain for the rest of his life. Sadly, only three of his roughly twenty operas have survived. These include his final masterpiece, L’incoro-nazione di Poppea (1642), based on the life of Nero’s mistress and eventual empress. This opera reverses the conventional morals of the theater: goodness fails, while greed and licentiousness triumph. Monteverdi’s decision to close the entire work with a tender duet between Nero and Poppea, “Pur ti miro,” is brilliant. Scored for two soprano-range voices, the parts weave in and out of each other, entangling, embracing, and seeming to finish each other’s thoughts. The main sections are based on a chaconne bass and short, dovetailing motifs in the voices.
Its features have much in common with the madrigal Zefiro torna, which appeared in Monteverdi’s ninth and last book of madrigals (published posthumously in 1651). Zefiro is structured in two main sections, both of which use a repeated bass pattern above which the voices engage in tight imitation. The give-and-take between two tenors contributes excitement and visual enjoyment to the piece. At the final stanza, Monteverdi shifts chromatically from G major to E major for the poem’s darker, inward turn. As the end nears, the writing grows increasingly florid, culminating in very fast scales as the text mentions “now [I] sing” in amorous celebration of the beloved’s eyes.

(c) Jason Stell