In the 16th and early 17th century particularly in Italy and then in England, the madrigal was the most important musical form, music being an integral part of contemporary court life. At the same time, the extent of its popularity and its lack of restrictive link with liturgical convention made it an important vehicle for experimental composition and new ideas. Claudio Monteverdi, admiringly called by his contemporaries “oracolo della musica”, exerted a decisive influence on the whole course of musical history. A “conservative revolutionary”, like all great revolutionaries, gradually he brought about a change in European musical style during a long continual process, a process of change particularly well demonstrated in his nadrigal works. Monteverdi occupied himself with the madrigal well nigh all his life: in 1587, when he was twenty, he published his first book of madrigals, five years before his death his eighth book was published.
In his Fifth Book of Madrigals (1605) Monteverdi introduced the use of an accompanying basso continuo. In defending this innovation in his preface to the book, against the attacks of critical protagonists of pure counterpoint, he made this now famous statement: “l’oratione sia padrona del armonia e non serva" (“The text should be the master, not the servant of music”). Fully aware of its modernity he named his new way of writing Seconda prattica (“second way”), as opposed to the older Prima prattica (“first Way”) - the school of strict counterpoint. Two years later, in 1607, he composed his first dramatic work, “Orfeo”. Through the great variety of forms it contains, both structurally and musically this work surpasses anything previously written in the older declarnatory style of the Florentine Camerata, and obviously owes much to the preceding work done in his madrigals. In his Sixth Book of Madrigals (1614), Monteverdi for the first time abandoned the traditional five-part structure of the madrigal, trying out various settings, sometimes in a soloistic-virtuoso style (stile concertato).
The Madrigal Book VII and VIII are of particular value because they disclose the pattern of development of Monteverdi's dramatic style. Unfortunately, through a turn of fate, of the other numerous dramatic works written between “Orfeo” and the two late Venetian operas “Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria” (1641) and “L’Incoronazione di Poppea” (1642) little is now extant.
The Eighth Book of Madrigals appeared in 1638, during the Thirty Years’ War, under the title of “Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi / con alcuni opusculi in genere rappresentativo, che saranno per brevi Episodii fra i canti senza gesto” and dedicated to Emperor Ferdinand III. By “canti senza gesto” are meant the “non-gestic” madrigals of the collection. Of the pieces composed “in genere rappresentativo” (“in dramatic style”) should be mentioned particularly the “Combattimento di Tancredi et Clorinda”. The “Combattimento” is the setting of a piece of Torquato Tasso’s epic poem “Gerusalemme liberata” (verses from Canto XII). Its completely unschematic construction fits it into no particular musical category, though it is sometimes called a “scenic madrigal” or “scenic cantata”, and it has not etablished any new form in itself. lt is, however, one of Monteverdi's most famous works and has, through its subtle musical-pictorial setting of the words and dramatic effects, retained its ability to achieve an immediate impact even today. To his Eighth Book of Madrigals Monteverdi added a lenghty introduction in which he clearly defines his position regarding; the works published.